Saint Francis

Today we went to see where Saint Francis and Saint Bonaventure lived and prayed. Fonte Colombo is where Saint Francis recieved his rule from Jesus himself in a tiny little cave which we walked through. As Saint Francis recieved it Brother Leo wrote it down, but later lost it and the whole thing had to be done again.

It was here that Saint Francis recieved an operation for an eye problem he had, the surgeon corterising all the nerve from ear to ear, Saint Francis, after praying, didnt feel a thing. However the operation was not a success and later Francis asked to be relieved of his suffering and the Lord appeared to him again on an Oak Tree.

Greccio is about 5km away from Fonte Colombo and is where Francis started the tradition of the Crib. It is now a museum of cribs with every nationality you can think of represented. There are african, mexican, Japenese, peruvian, inca, British, and every other nationality on earth. It was here that Both Saint Francis, for a time, and later Saint Bonaventure lived. Both places are built on the side of mountains are have absolutly amazing views.

Candidacy mass

Archbiship Di Noia came to the college yesterday to take our candidacy mass. Archbishop Di Noia is a Dominiacan, orginally from New York and heads the Office of the Divine Word. The mass is celebrated for those entering Holy Orders at the end of the academic year and is a big step in that process. Like most Adult Catholic ceremonies of initiation it involves an act of conscience and a declaration of submission of the reason and will of the candidate to God's love in their lives.

We have 7 candidates going forward to the diaconate this year, from Jamaica, Ghana, Australia, Ireland, England and Scotland. Please remember then in your prayers

The Definition of a Human Person

Louis Janssens gave us a definition of a Human Person. He said that: 1. we are Historic subjects and as such are not objects that can be used for any purpose. 2. We are incorporal, we live in a body and cannot ignore its needs. 3. We live in relation to the world around us so therefore, cannot ignore the needs of the world around us, nor any other person who inhabits that world, or the creator of that world-God. 4. Human beings are unique and original beings. 5. each and every human being is fundemetally equal. This allows us to realsie that each and every person is made in the image of God-Imagio Deo- and therefore what we do to another we do to God. In turn this gives us an understand of sin-Sin comes from a Hebrew word which literals means missing the point of life. The point of life being to live expressing that image of God in everything we do. To be able to see this image we need to be able to see God- we do in Jesus Christ. So therefore every good and virtuous act points us towards God and every sin away from God. God being the point of life. This takes us away from the old image of sin being to break one of the ten commandments and helps us reasilise that in each decision we make we need to choose Good-or God as each of us have the capicitity to be saint or sinner. WE ARE WHAT WE DO after all. However our ability to see good is often clouded by our fallen nature. Evil can so easiliy be seen as good, and we live in a world where governments and the media do just that for their own purposes and ends. However we can only start exactly where we are and strengthen our reason through each and every good act, thereby making us more free. Every sin weakening our reason and restricting our reason.

When we do that we are responding to God's grace who is there helping us each and every step of the way. Surely this is our only responsibility (where the word comes from) as otherwise we are spitting in the face of God. God is the source of all blessings and how we live says everything about who we are. In this it is easy to see those who are so richly blessed in our world who use those blessings for the most selfish ends. Aren't these the people who sent Jesus to the cross? Isn't that something we are all still doing each and everytime we point our lives away from God?

The Definition of a Human Person

Palazzola

Today we go to Palazzola for a retreat, so that we can reflect on all that has happened over the last two months and maybe, to relax a little. As you can see from the photo, Palazzola is the ideal setting, in the hills outside Rome and overlooks Lake Albano. The house is run by the Venerable English collage, at one time being their summer residance in the days when seminarians were not allowed home. The prsence of the English there dates back to 1579, when seminaries were set up ffor the emglish missions, to escape the persecutions of the reformation.

The site however has been the home of Christian communities since the 8th century, when hermits began to dwell in the caves there. These hermits later became Augustinian, the Cistercians taking over the site in 1244.

During the last war the English semianarians had to flee home and the Germans occupied it. Artillery positions being set up there to defend the beaches at Anzio during the allied invasion. The Allies bomb the site causing extensive damge. When the war finished, the English college returned and it is now restored and quite beautiful. It should be a wonderful weekend.

The Ambo

The Ambo is a riased platform which is used to proclaim the word of God. Pope Innocent III quoting from Isiah "Get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Zion, lift up thy voice with strength" (xl:9). Lecturns are used to hold books. Ideally the Gospel should be carried from the altar (the East) to the people (the west), though this isnt always possibly for a variety of reasons. However the symbology of the word of God coming from the East, the direction of the rising sun remains as Jesus is the risen Son, who is the word. In many processions the Gospel is carried North, then South, then West to be read at the Ambo, in the procession never returning East as God's word once given is never broken. His covent once made, remains forever. Here we are led to the words in Matthew's Gospel found in 5: 1,2 "He went up a Mountain- and opening his mouth he taught them".

What is amazing is that all this divine symbology can go on without our being aware of it. I will never look at a Church in the same way again, but isn't that what makes gaining knowledge so exciting?

A World in need of God

Our world is out of balance at the moment, the only thing that can bring us peace is God. Many of us feel an innate need to belong. We therefore often begin to identify with groups, our country, our family, a political party, but all too often they lead us away from peace and we feel this in our hearts. We live in a society that yearns but only sees people that dont belong to our group, our country, our religion our family, so what do we do when that happens, fight to get others to conform to our opinions, our values, our dreams. Evidence of this can be seen by the rediness some people portray to die for a cause and then state that they are dying for God. How could a loving God want such a thing, but to someone from a poor country, the belief is that anything is better then what they are experiancing, how they are living. In Britain we see corruption, not just from Government, though that is bad enough, but in every human endeavour. So what do we do as a result? This is where the Cult of looking after no 1 has sprung up. However think back to when we train our children to go to the toilet, what is it we called no 1's? so those that look after no 1 are in fact doing just that, over everyone else. The truth is that becasue of our fallen natures, anything can be dressed up and, if packaged correctly, seem like the right thing to do. Such is our desire to do good. Even religion through the years has done just that, maybe even especially religion.

However we all know that all this is so far removed from how we should be living. We have an idea of utopia, Heaven on earth but again because of our human natures will never be able to fully realise that on earth. However the best thing that we can is allow God to come into our lives and allow that life to be fully illuminated and transformed by his loving presence. We dont need to save anyone else, after all we cant we are not God. However God is at the heart of everything his peaceful presence can give us the strength and courage to overcome anything. In fact it is in suffering that he is closest to us because in suffering he shares our pain. After all did he not say "Pick up your cross and follow me"? it was love that brought him to that cross. A love that he had for us when we rejected him, spurned him and pushed him away, yet he still loved us. He gave his life for us, to find our lives we must give it back to God and maybe, just maybe in doing that we begin to make the world a better place for us all to live in.

The Cenacolo community was founded by Sr Elvira Petrozzi, an Italian nun in 1983. For many years she had been concerned by the destruction she had seen among young people through drug abuse and she longed to help them. Since she had no formal training to work with addicts and the charism of her order was teaching, it was 8 years before she managed to persuade her superiors that this was a genuine call of God and to release her for the work.
She began with two companions - a fellow religious, Sr Aurelia, and a teacher Nives Grato. They were given an abandoned old house in the city of Saluzzo in Italy, which was leased to her by the city for a dollar a year, and on July 16th, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Cenacolo community officially opened. Soon young people began to arrive on her doorstep needing help and the work began. Sr Elvira has leamt as she has gone along. In the beginning the young addicts were allowed to smoke and have a glass of wine, Italian style, with their meals. She soon leamt, however, that such social niceties were not possible for people fighting with addiction. One evening she came back to find the young men in the community were all drunk, having bored a hole in the pantry wall and finished off all their supplies of wine. Now alcohol and tobacco are not allowed on the premises for anyone."A SCHOOL OF LIFE"
While secular de-tox programmes will use methodone and other drug substitutes to wean people off hard drugs, Sr Elvira has a completely different method. She believes that the problem of the young people is not so much one of chemical dependence on drugs, but that drugs are the only way that these young people have found to cope with their problems in life. She sees her job as showing them, a better and much more effective option - Christ. Thus Cenacolo is not so much a therapeutic community or drug rehab centre, as a school of life with prayer at its heart. The young people are thus put through a kind of intensive spiritual boot camp where they leam to live in a totally new way - to accept a simple lifestyle, and to rediscover the gifts of work, friendship and of faith in the Word of God, instead of relying on the crutch of drugs to escape from everything that is too painful to deal with. In their brochure the Cenacolo members explain their biggest problems are not the chemical withdrawals but re-orienting their lives.One of the keys to the healing of the drug addicts is the role of their "guardian angels". These are fellow addicts who are further along the spiritual journey, who can offer emotional and spiritual support to new boys. The guardian angels provide 24 hour support for their charges, listening to them, encouraging them, making them cups of tea if they wake up in the night troubled, or even doing their work for them, if they feel too ill to do it. This unconditional love melts the hardest of hearts and helps prepare the newcomer for the day when he will do this for someone else on the programme. Later it is hoped they will take this giving attitude out into the world and help others, instead of being stuck in the self-centred spiral that many addicts find themselves in because of their drugs habit.
"TAUGHT TO GIVE THEIR PAIN AND PROBLEMS TO CHRIST"
The programme also teaches the addict to embrace the suffering and pain in their lives and give it to Christ through prayer, particularly in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Thus they learn in a practical way that these things can be carried with the grace of God and the love of community without having to resort to chemical escape mechanisms. Those who successfully complete the programme emerge not just healed of their addiction but strong, vibrant Christians with a heart to give and serve, particularly to help others who are suffering in the way they did in the past. While some addicts go back home, marry and get jobs and generally become reintegrated back into normal society, others decide to stay on and help found other Cenacolo communities elsewhere. Some have even opted for the priesthood or the religious life, and in the last few years a new religious order has grown up within the community, as well as the opportunity for consecrated celibacy.
Not surprisingly their success has led to a huge growth in the last decade or so, particularly in Italy and Croatia. There are now 47 communities world wide, with 1500 people in them, as well as many prayer groups and supportt groups for the families of addicts. A Cenacolo community was opened in Knock in Ireland in 1999 and it is hoped that there will also be one in England too in the near future.
"THE BEAUTY OF LIVING BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE"
Currently the community can house 16 people and the hope in the future is to build a separate chapel in the grounds. "We don't have much money for that either," says Aida blithely, "but I'm not worried, that's the beauty of believing in Divine Providence. If the Lord wants it, we will get the money, and if he doesn't we won't, and then there would be no point in building it anyway." The whole of Cenacolo operates on Divine Providence and the Irish community receives no state funding at all despite the work they do. "We don't accept anything from the State because we don't agree with their policy on drugs," says Aida, "we don't believe in giving methodone, which the government funded centres do, and we want to have the freedom to do things the way we feel called to. We have had some marvellous successes over the years, and some failures too, boys for whom our way was too hard and who left after a few days. It isn't for everybody but for those that it suits it works brilliantly." Those who do follow through the whole 3 year programme, go on to live good productive lives, she says.
"CENACOLO IS RUN BY THE ADDICTS THEMSELVES"
Rather than relying on highly paid workers with academic qualifications, the beauty of the Cenacolo programme is that it is run by the addicts themselves. Their service to Cenacolo becomes part of their own healing. They help others the way they have been helped themselves, and this helps them to move on with their lives. Sr Elvira reckons that while an addict can be healed of his addiction to drugs in 6 months or so, to get to the root of why he is taking the drugs in first place and to make the personal changes in his life needed to make sure that he won't go back, it takes about 2-3 years. As the Irish house is comparatively small, addicts only stay there for six to nine months or so. After this they usually move on to one of the houses in Italy to broaden their experience.
Interviews for addicts for places in the Knock community are held twice a month in Dublin on the 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month at the Aughrim Street Parish Centre. 13 Prussia Street, Dublin 7. Here addicts and their parents can meet with members of the community and discuss whether Cenacolo is the right solution for them. For further details contact:
094 93 88286 (outside Ireland add 00 353 and omit the 0 before the 94). Currently the Irish community is the only English speaking one in Europe and addicts from England, Scotland and Wales are usually sent here.

Santa Maria Degli Angeli

Today I went to Santa Maria Deglia Angeli (Mary of the Angels), which is a church built by Michelangelo on the site of where the Emperor Diocletian martyred a number of Christians in his persecution during the 3rd century. As you can see it is truely beautiful.

The church currently houses an exhibition about Galileo Galile (1564-1642) who is widely regarded as the father of modern science. Galileo contary to popular belief was not an athiest. He believed the world to have been made by a creative hand who could be understood and known through science. He believed that God had given us two books, the book of scripture and the book of nature and believed that the two did not conflict against each other. The period he lived in though was far from enlightened. Superstitions abounded and the Church had just had the so called controversys surrounding the theorys of Copernicus, who said that the world orbited the sun. Sadly the work of Saint Augustine was used to squash both these men. Augustine had believed that nothing should contradict scripture, indeed that nothing could. He also believed that Mathematicians were in league with the Devil if their opinions ever conflicted the Bible. Augustine lived in a time when not much scientifically was known and astrology and astronomy were pretty much the same thing. The church believing that astrology was evil as it was preoccupied with trying to predict the future.

Sadly this prejuidice opinion coloured and clouded anyones view of Galileo's work for hundreds of years. It took at least 250 years for his theorys about the Sun's movements to be proved correct. Now at long last he can take his rightful place as advancing Mans knowledge of how God operates in the universe, as can Science, not as something that opposes the Church and scripture , but as avenues of knowledge complimenting and illuminating each other. Inded the world benefited from the work of both Galileo and Saint Augustine of Hippo.

St Cecilia's

Today I went to the Basilica of Saint Cecilia. Saint Cecilia was a Roman Noblewoman who lived in the 3rd Century. She became a Christian and took a vow of Virginity, but her parents married her off anyway. She married Valerian of Trastevere, who she converted to Christianity on her wedding night. They started giving alms to the poor and Cecilia was martryed in a persecution of Christian's, she refused to worship the Roman gods. She had her throat cut, only not very well as she lived on for a further three days. She is the patron saint of music. Cecilia was buried in the catacombs of San Callisto, but in 1599 she was exhumed and her body found to be incorrupt and the statue in the picture was made. In it you can see Cecilia making what was a well known Christian gesture. She holds up three fingers of one hand, depicting the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and in the other hand holds up one finger, depicting one God, though three aspects. Her remains were moved to their present location. The church having been built over the remains of her own house, and is now a Benedictine convent.

The Tomb of Pope John Paul II

Today I went to visit the Tomb of the Pope's. Most of the Pope's having been buried underneath Saint Peters Basilica. Here they lay alongside the remains of the very first Pope Saint Peter. Well at least the memorial for him his there. I cannot be sure that his remains are actually kept there, having only been found, with some excitment, in the 1960's. The grave of Saint Peter, like that of Saint Paul, when discovered, were very humble memorials. Both being simply covered by House tiles as was the custom for the poor in Roman times.

One of the Pope's whose remains are definatly in the Crypt is Pope John Paul II, who was Pope between 16th October 1978 and the 2nd April 2005. The tomb you can see in the photo above, still recieves fresh flowers everyday as a mark of respect for all the work he did during his life, and was still surrounded by those wishing to pay their respects to him even now.

Rememberance Day

Today we have our Remeberance Day Service to commerate those who have died in armed conflicts. The mass is to be celerbrated at the Basilica San Silvestro, which is the Church in Rome dedicated to English speaking peoples.

The mass is attended by all the Roman English speaking Seminarys. So will be meeting students from the Venerable English, Scots, Irish collages. Each collage takes it in turns to host the mass and this year it is the turn of the Scotch Collage

Beda V Rosminians

Today we played host to the seminarians from the Rosminian collage and played them at 5 a side football. It was a bad day for sport as the Rosminians won 6-1. With Australia winning the Rugby it was not a good day for Sport. It is on days like this when the words of Jesus strick home, "take up your cross and follow me".

It may have helped though if he had remembered which side he was on!

Jubilarians

Yesterday a coach load of Priests arrived, all of whom were celebrating some sort of major anniversary. Between them they had 1900 (nineteen Hundred) years of Priesthood. You wouldnt have thought it though. They were so full of life and fun and so encouraging of us all here. It seems to me that working for God has kept these people young. As well as giving them all a fulfiling and challenging life. Long may their work for the Lord continue. It was really a pleasure to meet them all.

Rene Descartes 1596-1650

We all know Rene Descartes famous saying "I think therefore I am" but there was alot more to it then that. Descartes had actually began by using his reason to find out if God existed. His is the father of what we know of as Rationalism. He wanted to find what he called an intellectual certainty, but all he could find was doubt. He doubted everything, but this doubt meant one thing that he must be thinking, hence "I think therefore I am". He took this further however and came to believe that anything that we could concieve was distinctly true. He took this rational argument to its natural conclusion when he discussed perfection. The idea of perfection is such a clear concept that it could not proceed from the human imperfect reason and therefore perfection existed. If perfection existed then logically God exists.

Sadly Descartes thinking has been used and misused over the centuries to justify every crackpot notion. With people believing that becasue they thought, they alone could decided what was right and wrong. This gave us the two great Evils of the last century, Nazism and Communism. Both however were a long way from Descartes orginal Philosphy and both were in turn defeated by the power of Good or God in the world

Personalism

The Catholic Church has being trying to combat the problems created by the Post Modern World since the 1800s through what is called Personalism. The post modern world, the one created by Mankind's belief that science had explained away God, has led to many of the problems which we now face and even take for granted. Now morality is completly focussed on an individual. People normally using their own gut feelings to tell them what is right and wrong, without any connection to an outside source. Life became subjective and thereby selfish. The Church however countered these problems by going back to the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, who said" Man is an Individuated substance of a Rational nature, who has been endow by the Creator with Reason." When we do not use this reason we become less then we were intended to be. The Church said that we arrive at the truth by sharing our knowledge, as each of us is not God, we need other people's ideas to get to God. We have freedom of Choice but that freedom needs to be strengthened so that we can better reflect God in our Moral lives.

The Church defined the Human being as having four defining qualities. We live in a world of time and space, a world of Imminance, the one science can explain, however we also live in a transcendant world. A world that is constanlty changing and becoming. Here we have the attributes of reason but also one that demands we look to God and the eternal.

We are individual beings, but at the same time live in a social world. We cannot be indivuals without relationships. It is those around us that make us who we are.

These qualites need to be balanced for us to be living healthy active life. The greatest possesion that we have is our life.

That healthy balance is maintained by transcendant experiances, Mass, Prayer and study, dreams and ideals, and by earthly experiances, work, charity and activity. We live in a world inhabited by others and happiness comes through love of the other. Especially if that other is poor, vunerable, and marginalised because in them we see Christ.

Beda V The Scottish Collage

Sunday afternoon saw the Scottish collage Seminarians arrive to take on the Beda at Football. A hard fought contest saw the Beda come out 6-3 winners. It seems that we are starting to get an understanding as a team. The match however started with both teams meeting in the centre circle for a prayer of thanksgiving and praise to God that we were even able to play the match. The prayer thanked God for health, fitness and our many blessings. However as I said it was a hard fought match and one of the Scottish team went off a little injured. It seems that I have now developed a reputation as a hatchet man, undeserved of course. After all it was England V Scotland and there is pride at stake. Maybe we should have ended the game with a prayer too?