The Shrine of the Volto Santo at Capodimonte

Saturday, 10 February 2007

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Local sanctuaries and regional pilgrimages abound in Italy. At the origin of most of them is a miraculous event or special grace. The foundational event is kept alive in the collective memory of the people by means of yearly festivals, processions, and other celebrations. Given that this blog is dedicated to the Vultus Christi, the Holy Face of Christ, I want to recall today the anniversary of just such an event and the shrine that grew out it.
Flora Romano De Santis (1899–1969) and her husband Ernesto De Santis, a devout couple living at Capodimonte in Naples, subscribed to a number of Catholic periodicals. On the cover of an issue of Crociata Missionnaria (Missionary Crusade), Flora noticed a beautiful image of the Face of Christ, a reproduction of a painting by the artist Rina Maluta. It was nothing more than a magazine cover, but Flora and her husband were strangely moved by the divine beauty of the Face. Flora cut out the image, framed it, and gave it a place of honour in her bedroom. This is not the first time that a common, printed reproduction

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A Pilgrim Monk

Friday, 9 February 2007

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Cistercians celebrated today the memorial of Blessed Corrado (Conrad) of Bavaria. Born in 1105, Conrad was the son of Henry the Black, Duke of Bavaria. The young Conrad was sent to study under the doct canons of Cologne. Drawn to Saint Bernard by the latter’s magnetic holiness and personal charm, Conrad entered the abbey of Clairvaux.
Shortly thereafter he received Saint Bernard’s permission to go as a pilgrim to the Holy Land and to live there as a hermit. He remained in Palestine for several years in the service of an elder. Threatened by the incursions of Islamic forces and having learned of Saint Bernard’s declining health, Conrad decided to return to Clairvaux.
When he arrived in Bari, he learned that Bernard was already dead. Rather than return to Clairvaux, he venerated the relics of Saint Nicholas in Bari and then withdrew to Modugno where he set himself up as a hermit in a grotto dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. He reposed in 1154 or 1155 with a reputation for holiness and miracles. His body was transferred to Molfetta, becoming its principal patron saint. On

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Tacere et Adorare — Be Still and Adore

Friday, 9 February 2007

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Today’s reflection on beseeching reminded me that I wanted to present one of Rome’s loveliest churches for beseeching and for adoring: San Claudio on the Piazza San Silvestro. This is one of the many churches in Rome where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed during the day, drawing the faithful to beseech and to adore.
San Claudio is served by the Sacramentini, the Blessed Sacrament Fathers. A reliquary to the right of the sanctuary contains a likeness of the body of Saint Peter Julian Eymard which, in turn, contains the saint’s head. The body of the saint is in the Church of Corpus Christi, avenue de Friedland, in Paris.
At the entrance of the church is a niche containing an image of the Madonna del Santissimo Sacramento: the Virgin holds the Infant Christ offering the mysteries of His Body and Blood. Around the apse of the niche one reads: “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed” (Pr 9:5).

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Da nobis quaesumus

Friday, 9 February 2007

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Friday of the Fifth Week
of the Year I
Mark 7:31–37
Mediators and Intercessors
“And they brought to Him one deaf and dumb; and they besought Him that He would lay His hand upon him” (Mk 7:32). I am struck by the role of “the others” in today’s Gospel: those who brought the man who was deaf and dumb to Jesus. They are mediators and intercessors. “And they besought Him that He would lay His hand upon him.”
Beseeching
It is urgent that we recover the language of beseeching both in our liturgical and in our solitary prayer. The hapless translations of the liturgy to which we have been subjected for at least thirty–five years systematically eliminated the language of beseeching. The distinctive da nobis quaesumus of the Roman Rite disappeared from liturgical prayer not only in English but in other vernaculars as well.
To Hear and to Speak
The man in today’s Gospel has, in fact, lost the ability to hear and to speak: to hear the Word of God and to speak the praises of God. Is this

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Newman on Friendship and Love

Thursday, 8 February 2007

It seems to me that this sermon, preached on the feast of Saint John the Apostle, sheds some light on the way the Venerable Servant of God John Henry Newman understood friendship and love in his own life. The italics are my own.
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Love of Relations and Friends
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God.” 1 John iv. 7.
St. John the Apostle and Evangelist is chiefly and most familiarly known to us as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” He was one of the three or four who always attended our Blessed Lord, and had the privilege of the most intimate intercourse with Him; and, more favoured than Peter, James, and Andrew, he was His bosom friend, as we commonly express ourselves. At the solemn supper before Christ suffered, he took his place next Him, and leaned on His breast. As the other three communicated between the multitude and Christ, so St. John communicated between Christ and them. At that Last Supper, Peter dared not ask Jesus a question himself, but bade John put it to Him,—who it was that

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Support the monks of Silverstream Priory:

Situated amidst pasture land and forest in the eastern reaches of County Meath, Silverstream Priory was founded in 2012 at the invitation of the Most Reverend Michael Smith, Bishop of Meath, and canonically erected as an autonomous monastery of diocesan right on 25 February 2017. The property belonged, from the early 15th century, to the Preston family, premier Viscounts of Ireland and Lords of Gormanston. In 1843 Thomas Preston (1817-1903), son of Jenico Preston, the 12th Viscount (1775-1860), built what today is Silverstream Priory.

Silverstream Priory is a providential realisation of the cherished project of Abbot Celestino Maria Colombo, O.S.B. (1874–1935), who, following the impetus given by Catherine–Mectilde de Bar in the 17th century, sought to establish a house of Benedictine monks committed to ceaseless prayer before the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar in a spirit of reparation. The community of Silverstream Priory holding to the use of Latin and Gregorian Chant, celebrate the Divine Office in its traditional Benedictine form and Holy Mass in the “Usus Antiquior” of the Roman Rite. Praying and working in the enclosure of the monastery, the monks of Silverstream keep at heart the sanctification of priests labouring in the vineyard of the Lord. They undertake various works compatible with their monastic vocation, notably the development of the land and gardens, hospitality to the clergy in need of a spiritual respite, scholarly work, and publishing.

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