Matchbox

They used to call it Candlemas Day, or the Purification of the Blessed Virgin. It is a major feast in the Church, one on which many Jesuits have professed Final Vows.
Today Catholics celebrate it as The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. Your secular friends may grimace and grunt, "Uh ... Ah thot it wuz Grownd Hawg Daay."

Right.

February 2 is forty days after Christmas. And according to Jewish law, the first born was to be taken to the Temple. So, Mary (an observant Jew) was to "bring to the temple a lamb for a holocaust and a young pigeon or turtle dove for sin"; if she was not able to offer a lamb, she was to take two turtle doves or two pigeons; the priest prayed for her and so she was cleansed. (Leviticus 12:2-8)

Simeon was present in the Temple and recognized the baby Jesus as the "light to the Gentiles" or the salvation of all nations. And so we use candles as a symbol of the light of Christ.

Candles are blessed on this day, and then used on the next day to bless throats. All year, the Church uses candles prominently for all sorts of holy events: baptisms, funerals, and the opening of the Easter Vigil. I use a candle in my prayer sometimes, but alas that doesn't make it any more powerful or satisfying. In fact, at times I find my prayer rather dull, routine, and flat -- even when I have a candle burning.

When I was a Jesuit theology student, before my ordination, I took my concerns about weak prayer to my spiritual director, Fr. Howard Gray, S.J. Howard is a guru of sorts and listened carefully and patiently as I would complain about flat prayer and my tepid soul. I told him I'd light my candle and do my breviary, but I didn't feel very connected to God. Howard knew the Lord would grant me the light I needed for deeper prayer: a greater sense of God's presence with me each day.

A few weeks later, I returned to Howard and told him of a revelation (a light going on) that had happened in my prayer recently. I said, "Hey Howard, remember when I told you I lit a candle every day as part of my prayer. And how I felt that my prayer was going nowhere?" He remembered my complaints, and I went on. "Well, the other day, as I was filled with self-pity, I looked down at the little cup where stashed all the wooden matches that I used to light the candle each day. I noticed dozens of matches in that cup!

I then heard a voice inside say to me, "Hey look, you've really made great effort to be present to Me in prayer. I appreciate your daily desire to just show up and seek My presence."

The Lord had granted me a little light, and I had the matches to prove that He was right ... I did desire to be with him. At least I showed up, as the matches reminded me. Whether prayer was deep or flat was not my fault, but just the nature of prayer (alas, the nature of all relationships).

The first line of Psalm 27 reads,
"The Lord is my light and my salvation."
The last line reads,
"Wait for the LORD, take courage; be stouthearted, wait for the LORD!"

Don't Bother Me

January 28 is the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). The breviary states that he "subjected himself to hard discipline." In this painting by Velasquez, we can see how Thomas barely made it through an episode of temptation, concocted by his father. Here's the story:

St. Thomas wanted to be a Dominican, but his father, who was a nobleman from southern Italy, opposed his decision. He ordered his son to be imprisoned in a tower to see if isolating the youth from everyone would make him leave aside his vocation.

Instead of abandoning it, he took advantage of the solitude to pray and study. Seeing this, his father did another bad thing. He arranged for a "public woman" to visit St. Thomas and invite him to sin against purity. It was a chilly day, and a fire was burning in the fireplace of the room where St. Thomas was locked. Talk about symbolism!

When the woman approached to tempt him, he took a stick of burning wood from the fire and threatened to burn the woman should she come any closer. She fled in panic. If you click this photo and enlarge it, you can see the woman leaving in a huff.

Having thus conquered the temptation of impurity, he received the visit of angels who rewarded him with a kind of mystical girdle, that is, an invisible protection against the temptations of impurity. So the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas of Aquinas, was free of the temptations of the flesh that could disturb the progress of his mind or damage his studies and the great work he did for the Catholic Church.

These comments are taken from Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira and can be found at this web link.

From the Collect for the Feast:

God our Father, you made Thomas Aquinas known for his holiness and learning. Help us to grow in wisdom by his teaching, and in holiness by imitating his faith.

Rain

Everything I need to know, I learned from Noah's Ark...

1. Don't miss the boat.
2. Remember that we are all in the same boat.
3. Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.
4. Stay fit. When you're 60 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big.
5. Don't listen to critics; just get on with the job that needs to be done.
6. Build your future on high ground.
7. For safety's sake, travel in pairs.
8. Speed isn't always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs.
9. When you're stressed, float awhile.
10. Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.

Oh, and no matter the storm, when you are with God, there's always a rainbow waiting.

And I Love Her

November 17 has always had a special place in my heart since it was on November 17, 1987 when I first heard the call to religious life ... Jesuit life. The call itself was clear enough, but it was all the more amplified by the fact that November 17 is also my mom's feast day. My mom was named Elizabeth, likely after her own mother, so maybe we could call her Elizabeth II. I just called her "Mom."

She's not too big on feast days, unless it was my own. (She used to pin little shamrocks on all us kids before we'd head off to school on March 17). But I took it as a special honor to hear the call to the Society on November 17, the Feast of St. Elizabeth.

Sometimes the Lord will use small and seemingly insignificant events of our lives to communicate to us His will for us. Ignatius Loyola knew well that through feelings and motions of the soul, God was likely to communicate directly to the individual of His own love and grace. Through reflection and periodic review of our day-to-day experiences, we can come into closer communion with the Lord. Our desires more closely align themselves with His desire for us.

My mom was not too big on feast days, but she is a great one for reflection. She made a prayer space for herself next to her room, and she reads spiritual material when she can. In her own way, she likely does a brief Examen from time to time. Her mother was a great fan of the Jesuits, and my mom swears that it was only by her intercession that I too was led to follow the Lord along the path of Ignatius. AMDG.

The Saints

Today the Society of Jesus celebrates the Feast of All Jesuit Saints and Blessed, a day when we remember well-known and not-so-well-known Jesuits who lived out their Christian lives heroically. I would like to pass on the words of a good friend, Fr. Brian Lehane, S.J., who reflects upon these names of holy men who have gone before us in the Society of Jesus.

Acknowledging this feast day to the young men at his Jesuit high school, Fr. Lehane writes, "We may believe that the saints and blessed belong to a former age, but at the end of the millennium, Pope John Paul II commissioned a Martyrology for the 20th century, so that we might not forget the exemplary love of God and neighbor shown by so many 20th century Christian men and women. Jesuit provinces from around the world contributed the names of members who suffered and, in many cases, died for the faith during various persecutions.

"Over three hundred names were gathered, including familiar names like Blessed Miguel Pro of Mexico, Fr. Alfred Delp of Nazi Germany, and Fr. Ignacio Ellacuria of El Salvador. Thirty Jesuits died in Nazi concentration camps, and almost fifty died at the hands of various Communist governments. In 1997 former Detroit Province Jesuit Thomas Gafney was murdered in India because of his stance against drug lords, and in 2001 Canadian Jesuit Martin Royackers was murdered in Jamaica, defending his parishioners from gang violence and political corruption.

"The two Jesuits murdered in Moscow last week join a long list of Jesuits who, when they were novices, prayed to Christ this prayer from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: "I deeply desire to be with You in accepting all wrongs and all rejections and all poverty, both actual and spiritual--and I deliberately choose this, if it is for your greater service and praise" [98]. Today we remember especially all those Jesuits persecuted for the sake of righteousness, and we pray that many more men will step forward and answer Christ's call to serve Our Lord in the Company of Ignatius Loyola."

Click here for a complete list of Jesuit Saints and Martyrs.

On a lighter note, I close with this link from another good friend, Fr. James Martin, S.J. who writes for America Magazine. Fr. Jim stars in this brief video which gives a quick look at a few of his favorite saints. To read more about the saints from the experience of Fr. Jim Martin, click here to see a copy of his popular book, My Life With the Saints.

Words of Love

On this date, Jesuits mark many sorts of beginnings. For many Jesuits, August 15 was the date on which they pronounced first vows. For some, it was the day they entered the Society. For others, this date serves as the start of the work year, when matters “gear up” for another year. So it is for me. We all look to this date not only as a watershed during the year, but most importantly as a major feast for the Church and for the Society of Jesus: the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven. It is the beginning of her life eternal, a gift which foreshadows the life we will all possess. It is in the context of this life eternal that I share with you the news of my father’s passing last month. In fact, on the morning of my own birthday, July 17, my dad – Joseph P. Fairbanks, III – was received by the Lord into his loving arms, receiving his greatest reward. In faith, I know that his soul dwells in the presence of God; his body, as yet, remains in the ground in St. Stephen’s Cemetery in Hamilton, but the truth of Mary’s Assumption teaches us that the Lord will bring all things to Himself, including all bodies, all souls, all worlds. Through Him, it was all created, and so in Him he will receive and renew it forever. We await that day when we will all share eternal life – body and soul – with the Father, Son, and Spirit, a time at which I am sure my dad will lose no more hands of bridge, no more games of backgammon, and no rounds of golf to anyone, neither son nor doctor nor lawyer. The picture below shows how it might be when I arrive at the heavenly gates with my dad to show me the way. Oh, and the picture above comes from the Jesuit church in downtown Philadelphia, “Old St. Joseph.” Check out the site here: http://www.oldstjoseph.org/ I drove through Philadelphia today on my way to Connecticut. I will say more about that pilgrimage in coming blogs. Meanwhile, may we all continue on our own pilgrimages, making the best of body and soul, until we hand it right back to Him who loves us.
God bless you, Dad.
Love, Pat

Chains

Today happens to be the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul – two great Christian leaders. One served in Rome as a symbol of Church unity, the other was sent to the ends of the earth as a symbol of Church missionary activity. For me, this feast is significant mostly on the account of St. Peter in Chains, which was today’s first reading (Acts 12:1-11). Indeed I felt a connection here because I was raised a Catholic in the parish of St. Peter in Chains, and my home diocese (Cincinnati) is headed at the cathedral of St. Peter in Chains. I was also baptized on the Feast of St. Peter in Chains (Aug 1, 1954) and I selected for my Confirmation name … St. Peter.

But the reading this morning captured me (in chains) because of the telling of the angel. Lately I have been drawn in prayer to consider the role of the Lord’s angel in my life. Our faith teaches that we are committed to an angel throughout the course of our earthly life, and I believe that is true. St. Anselm, for instance, believed that “every soul is committed to an angel when it is united with the body.” St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that not only do baptized Christians receive an angel, but so does every member of the human race. These guardians never leave us, even when we sin, and will accompany us to our eternal reward. The most appealing part of the reading from Acts is that St. Peter thought the guardian who released him was a dream, and that it just couldn’t be real. In fact, Peter learned a bit more clearly what “real” means. He was really freed and really given grace from God. Created spirits, to whom we bodily humans have been assigned, really love and care for us on behalf of the One who created us. Thank God!

Nunc scio vere quia misit Dominus angelum suum (Acts 12:11)