7 February 2010
Dear Friends,
Greetings from Rome!
After almost a year of planning, I have finally arrived in the Eternal City for four months of prayer, study, and fraternity. And now, I invite you to share in the graces of this adventure.
In the spirit of Christian pilgrimage, I invite you to send me any prayer intentions and needs you may have, which I will then gather, print out, and take with me to the holy sites in Rome and beyond. When possible, I will touch them to the tombs and relics of the saints, asking for their intercession and a speedy response in accordance with Divine Providence.
All of you – as friends, benefactors, patrons, readers, and most importantly, as brothers and sisters in Christ — have been a holy addition to my life, and so I consider it an honor and a privilege to pray for you during my time here in the heart of the Church.
You can email me your intentions at kleonor@nd.edu or send me a message on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kleonor or post them here on my blog.
I look forward to hearing from you! In your kindness, please remember me in your prayers, too.
Yours devotedly in Christ,
Karlo Leonor
29 January 2010
Against those who reduce religion to a set of negative statement, or are happy to settle for a watered-down Catholicism; against those who wish to see the Lord with his face against the wall, or to put him in a corner of their souls, we have to affirm, with our words, and with our deeds, that we aspire to make Christ the King reign indeed over all hearts, theirs included.
–St. Josemaria Escriva, Furrow, No. 608
28 January 2010
Twenty-one years ago today, on the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, I was baptized into the Catholic Faith at the Church of St. Edward in Seattle. My parents and my four godparents presented me before God and asked the Church for the gift of Faith on my behalf. As the saving waters of Baptism flowed over my head, I, up to that point merely a creature of the Creator, became a beloved son of the Father. The Catechism tells us that holy Baptism brings about a deep-seeded change, an ontological change, in the very soul of man. At my own Baptism, I became an heir to a great kingdom, which I would possess one day, if only I would persevere and live the love given to me from that day onward.
I’m still on the journey, but that day marked the starting point and put me on the path towards the End.
Today, on my Baptismal Anniversary, before the pastor of the Church of St. Vincent de Paul, my parish, and before two wonderful friends, I renewed my own promises, renouncing Satan and resolving to live the Christian life, in faithfulness both to God and His Church. I blessed my self with holy water, which, in some mysterious way, is the same water that trickled over my infant head over two decades ago. (A nice touch: the pastor gave me a small, lighted baptismal candle to hold during the short ceremony.)
Praised be Jesus Christ, eternal thanks to the priest who baptized me, and blessings upon my parents and godparents!
28 January 2010
It is so hard to admit that one is a sinner; it is so hard to climb the hill of Calvary and kneel beneath a cross and ask for pardon, for forgiveness. Certainly it is hard. But it is harder to hang there.
–Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Wartime Prayer Book
27 January 2010
You can’t make this stuff up.
From the ‘Study Helps’ section of the chapter on the sacrament of Matrimony in the Baltimore Catechism (1958):
Archibald, a baptized Anglican, and Publia, a baptized Huguenot are married by Moses, a Jewish clerk of the Marriage License Bureau in City Hall. In this instance, has the sacrament of Matrimony been administered in City Hall? State the reason for your answer.
27 January 2010
Continuing with this week’s theme, I moved on to another of the three Pieper books I own, In Tune with the World: A Theory of Festivity.
Sounds like a party. Ha.
27 January 2010
One of my pastimes (especially when I’m at Notre Dame) is wandering the stacks (especially the twelfth and thirteenth floors of Hesburgh Library). Several months ago, on one of my scholarly strolls I came upon a raggedy book in the theology section called The Raccolta. It looked like your typical devotional: palm-sized, leather bound, with red-edging. Thumbing through it, though, it became apparent to me that the book was anything but ordinary. It was a treasury; I loved it.
Rather than renewing my checked-out copy from the library over and over, I eventually bought my own copy from eBay. A 1943 edition printed by Benziger Brothers — “Printers to the Holy See and the Sacred Congregation of Rites” — my copy came with its original dust jacket and the strong scent of incense. When it was in print, The Raccolta was the book containing all of the prayers and devotions to which indulgences were attached by the Holy See. There is a prayer for seemingly every occasion and intention in the book, but also some very specific and odd-sounding ones (at least to modern ears). Here are a few of my favorites:
- A Prayer to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus To Be Said by Married Folk in Their Own Behalf
- Prayer to Saint Joseph for the Sanctification of Festival Days
- Various ‘ejaculations’ and invocations
- A Prayer to Be Said at Midday on the 8th Day of May and the First Sunday of October
- A Prayer to Saint Bridget for the Conversion of Non-Catholics
- A Prayer Before Assembly to Transact Some Public Business
- A Prayer for the Printing of Good Books
- An Invocation To Be Said When People are Engaged in Making and Repairing the Ornament of Churches and Liturgical Vestments
I once asked my theology professor Father Roy whether the indulgences attached to The Raccolta prayers were still available. The answer was negative, but, he said, if I was especially devoted to, say, the Third Thorn on the Crown of Christ, I could petition the Apostolic Penitentiary for an indulgence attached to the prayers said in Its honor!
More recently, The Raccolta has been replaced by the uber-simplified, less exciting and yet equally efficacious Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, or Manual of Indulgences. I think it’s important to remember, however, that what is found in The Raccolta was and still is a reflection of the timeless Catholic Faith. The kinds of popular piety may come and go with time but helping to relieve the sufferings of the souls in Purgatory is not an option.
In any case, another interesting add to the bulging bookshelves.
26 January 2010
Saints always make other people feel uncomfortable.
–St. Josemaria Escriva, Furrow, No. 558
26 January 2010
I should really buy stock in Ignatius Press.
Today, I read philosopher Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture and his essay The Philosophical Act, printed in one book by said publisher. (Several of the books I’ve read lately were also printed by Ignatius.) During my freshman year, a theology professor wrote in the margin of my term paper: “I think you would like Pieper. Read something by him.” It took me a while, but at the Center for Ethics and Culture conference this past autumn I purchased a trinity of Pieper’s works, each with a hearty and long-winded recommendation by the bookseller.
It’s difficult to write a review of a philosophical work; I suppose it’s due to the nature of the beast. But I will say that my theology professor was right; Pieper is a man for me. The opening pages of the book caught my attention immediately, and by the end, I was thinking about how I might incorporate his account of leisure into my own busy and often sad post-modern life.
Money quotes:
What is true of celebration is true of leisure: its possibility, its ultimate justification derive from its roots in divine worship. That is not a conceptual abstraction but the simple truth as many be seen from the history of religion. What does a “day of rest” mean in the Bible, and for that matter in Greece and Rome? To rest from work means that time is served for divine worship: certain days and times are set aside and transferred to “the exclusive property of the gods.” (66)
Separated from the sphere of divine worship, of the cult of the divine, and from the power it radiates, leisure is as impossible as the celebration of a feast. Cut off from the worship of the divine, leisure becomes laziness and work inhuman. (68)
When the day comes, I will get around to writing that article I’ve been thinking about for a while: How to Honor the Sabbath as a Student, The Third Commandment in the Third Millennium, or something like that. Pieper will definitely be in the footnotes.
25 January 2010
The Holy Father celebrates mass ad orientem in the Sistine Chapel. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he advocated for a return to a common posture of priest and faithful during the Eucharistic celebration. In the usus antiquor holy Mass is always offered versus Deum. Since the motu proprio of Benedict XVI parishes and priests all over the world have been reviving this practice.
But why?
Rumor is that this book explains why and why everyone else should, too.
25 January 2010
One of you readers asked for a picture of the scapular “as big as your face” and statue of Blessed Junipero Serra which I purchased during my visit to the Carmel Mission Basilica.
