Dcn. Randy Pozos | blog.theologika.net

Home » Posts by Dcn. Randy Pozos

Posted by Dcn. Randy Pozos on Oct 6, 2008

Saint of the Day – Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher – October 6

Eulalie Durocher was born on October 6, 1811, in San Antoine sur Richelieu near Montreal. Her life can be summarized very briefly. She was the tenth of eleven children and one of her older brothers was a priest. When she was 18, her mother passed away and Eulalie and her father went to live with her brother, Theophile, at his parish in Boleil. The young Eulalie took charge of the priest’s home as housekeeper, hostess, and parish assistant. Although she was reputed to be lively and something of a tomboy, her health was never really robust.

At the request of Bishop Ignace Bourget, Eulalie, at 32, in 1842 became the reluctant co-founder, with the bishop, of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. (Bishop Bourget also founded 3 other religious orders to help meet the needs of his diocese, which was the vastness of Canada.) At her profession of vows, she took the name Sr. Marie-Rose. Two of her friends joined her in this new work, focusing on the religious education of children, especially girls. Blessed Marie Rose led her group for 6 difficult years until she died on her birthday October 6, 1849.

We know that her spiritual formation under Fr. Telmon was strict and that she set a very high standard for the members of her community. However, her service to the poor and her efforts to deal with the social ills of her time set the order on a trajectory of education, nursing, social work, and spiritual direction.

The Sisters of the Holy Names have been leaders in the education of women and pastoral care and service of the most disadvantaged. Kathy and I are both indebted to the Sisters of the Holy Names. Kathy was educated by Holy Names Sisters for 10 years, first in her parish grammar school and later at Holy Names Academy in Spokane, WA. My first full time teaching position was in the Education Department of Holy Names University in Oakland, CA some 30 years ago. We send our greetings, thanks and prayers to the Sisters of the Holy Names on this the feast of their foundress.

Posted by Dcn. Randy Pozos on Sep 30, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Jerome: September 30

St. Jerome (340 – 420) is one of the most interesting personalities among the fathers of the early Church. We generally envision saints as fairly moderate and gentle persons. It is safe to say that St. Jerome never believed in moderation. He was one of the most brilliant and well educated men of his time, a man who lived and wrote with incredible energy and passion. St. Jerome’s Latin translation of the scriptures, which is a literary and scholarly tour de force even by today’s standards, would become the intellectual standard for western civilization.

In many respects, St. Jerome embodies very basic conflicts and contradictions among Christian scholars and educated clergy. St. Jerome’s knowledge and love of secular – in his case – pagan literature gives him a great appreciation of literature and skill in communication. However, the moral conflict of this literature with the Christian ideal and the values portrayed in scripture create a real tension. As one of the founders of western literary criticism and biblical archaeology, St. Jerome establishes a secular “scientific” standard for deciding which texts are inspired and whether to consider the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, the Septuagint, as less authoritative than the Hebrew original.

In addition, virginity and celibacy were very important to St. Jerome. He and other fathers of the Church would establish sexual abstinence as the ideal Christian lifestyle, in keeping with the pre-eminence celibacy enjoyed in certain non-Christian religions of the day. Temptations of the “flesh” became the work of the devil. Such impulses, which we today consider in a more measured and moderate way as the product of genetics, socialization, and choice, were for St. Jerome forces to be conquered through prayer, fasting, and physical punishment of the body. Today we would call it “aversion” therapy.

This tradition of seeing the natural as the lesser part of our being is not in keeping with our being made in the image and likeness of God. The fear of our erotic and sexually creative dimension, as part of our fallen and corrupted nature, appears to challenge the appropriateness of the Word becoming flesh and the redemption of humanity in the death and resurrection of Christ.

Clearly, when we look at the excesses and exploitation of people in the Graeco-Roman world, the corrective action of St. Jerome in a lifestyle that witnessed to a coming of the kingdom of justice, peace, and dignity – the sober controlled Christian life – is an understandable ideal.

Perhaps, a great deal of our problem as citizens of the era of psychology and human potential is grappling with such an outsized cauldron of talent and passion. In many respects, although he did his best to stay within certain boundaries, the combination of the terms “Saint” and “Jerome” in reference to the same person should encourage the outlandish and the fire of divine genius in us all.

Posted by Dcn. Randy Pozos on Aug 15, 2008

Marian Theology: The Feast of the Assumption – August 15

The Assumption by Murillo

August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption, dates to the 6th and 7th centuries. The official proclamation of the Assumption by Pope Pius XII in Munificentisimus Deus as an article of faith for Catholics occurred recently, on November 1, 1950. Objections to this teaching cite the absence of support for it in Scripture and in the Fathers of the Church. These same arguments are also made against the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which states that Mary received the benefit of the redemption in advance from the moment of her conception. However, since the theological significance of Mary is intertwined with that of Christ, as mother and son, much of what we say about Mary (Mariology) derives from what we say about the identity and meaning of Christ (Christology).

For most Catholics, Orthodox, Coptics, and Anglicans, images and veneration of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, are part of the very fabric of their faith. This emotional and doctrinal emphasis on Miriam of Nazareth gives many in the Anabaptist and Calvinist traditions emotional and doctrinal heartburn. Some evangelicals are strident in their belief that Marian devotion – at best – detracts from the key act of salvation, which they formulate as “accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.”

The notion of salvation in the apostolic churches is centered on the church community. Christ’s death and resurrection has saved all and we enter into this paschal mystery embodied in the church. Our salvation is entering the faith community, the Body of Christ. From the earliest days, the Fathers of the Church identified Mary as the model of the Church. The following excerpt, taken from Wikipedia’s article on Roman Catholic Mariology, summarizes the position and importance of the Blessed Mother. Please note that the words in parentheses are my own.

Pope Benedict XVI addresses the issue, why Mariology is related to ecclesiology (the theology of the Church). On first sight, he argues, it may seem accidental, that the (Second Vatican) Council moved Mariology into ecclesiology. This relation helps to understand what “Church” really is. The theologian Hugo Rahner showed that Mariology was originally ecclesiology. The Church is like Mary.^[96]

The Church is virgin and mother, she is immaculate and carries the burdens of history. She suffers and she is assumed into heaven. Slowly she learns, that Mary is her mirror, that she is a person in Mary. Mary on the other hand is not an isolated individual, who rests in herself. She is carrying the mystery of the Church.^[97]

Pope Benedict XVI lamented that this unity of Church and Mary was overshadowed in later centuries, which overburdened Mary with privileges and removed her into a far away distance. Both Mariology and ecclesiology suffered under this. A Marian view of the Church and an ecclesiological view of Mary in salvation history lead directly to Christ. It brings to light what is meant by holiness and by God being human.^[98]

It is interesting to note that Pope Benedict XVI laments the removal of Mary “overburdened … with privileges.” This is also the image of Mary lamented by the reformation. However, the close identification of Mary with the Church, in the sense that “Mary is carrying the mystery of the Church,” represents a notion of church that many of the reformers rejected. Consequently, they rejected the image and role of Mary, and with it, the redemptive grace and power of the feminine.

Posted by Dcn. Randy Pozos on Aug 14, 2008

Saint of the Day: St. Maximilian Kolbe – August 14

St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Conventual Franciscan, is widely known as the saint of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz, where he voluntered to take the place of a young husband and father who was one of ten innocent men condemned to death by starvation as a reprisal. As courageous as this was, he is also considered a martyr because of the abuse and torture he endured when he affirmed his faith in Christ.

Born Rajmund Kolbe (1894 – 1941), to a working class family in what is now Poland, he took the name of Maximilian when he entered the Conventual Franciscans. He had doctorates in philosophy and theology and founded a thriving monastery at Niepokalanow near Warsaw. St. Maximilian Kolbe was also a missionary to Japan and is remembered for his respect for Japanese culture and tradition as he created a thriving center near Nagasaki.

He lived a life of true Franciscan poverty, often living in very difficult circumstances, but always depending on God for the resources he needed for his apostolate. St. Maximilian Kolbe used publishing and radio to promote the Gospel and to defend the Church. He landed in Japan with a couple of companions and no money. They began their work sleeping on the ground in an improvised hut. Within a month he had a press and was publishing a weekly newspaper. He ventured into India where he wanted to create another foundation, but his superiors recalled him to Poland because of his ill health.

In 1939 the Nazis invaded Poland. St. Maximilian Kolbe and his fellow Franciscans sheltered 3,000 refugees at Niepokalanow including 2,000 Jews. On February 17, 1941 he was arrested by the Gestapo after publishing a defense of truth in the face of Nazi propaganda. In May he was transferred to Auschwitz, where he continued his ministry despite inhuman conditions and beatings. It was in late July that a prisoner from his cell block disappeared and he volunteered to take the place of one of the ten men selected to be executed as a reprisal for the missing prisoner. After three weeks of hunger and thirst, during which he encouraged the other men and led them in prayer, he was murdered by a lethal injection on August 14.

St. Maximilian Kolbe had a powerful effect on a young Polish man, Carol Wotyla, who as Pope John Paul II would declare him a saint.

St. Maximilian Kolbe has also inspired Operation Kolbe, a group in Colombia, to offer themselves in exchange for those who have been kidnapped by rebels. They can be reached at: operacionkolbe@hotmail.com.

Posted by Dcn. Randy Pozos on Aug 9, 2008

Saint of the Day: St. Edith Stein – August 9

Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a Carmelite nun, was born Edith Stein in 1891in Poland and was killed in Auschwitz on August 9, 1942. Edith and her sister Rosa, along with other Jews who had become Catholics, were arrested by the Nazis occupying the Netherlands in retaliation for the denunciation by the Dutch bishops of Nazi anti-Semitism.

There has often been criticism of the silence of the Church with regard to the Nazi extermination of the Jews. Before he became Pope Pius XII, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli had been the papal nuncio to Germany during the 1930’s and negotiated a treaty, or concordat, between the Vatican and Nazi Germany. Gerard Noel has published a new book, Pius XII: The Hound of Hitler, which focuses on the crushing conflict the Pope experienced within himself and the deep personal toll it took on him.

Pius XII’s fears for the Church were only increased by the Nazi extermination of Jewish converts to Catholicism in the Netherlands. A broader analysis of the Pope’s situation makes it seem almost impossible. Events were beyond the ability of any one person to change or control. Mary Doria Russell, in A Thread of Grace, portrays the complexity of the Italian resistance to the Holocaust. The sheer caprice of war annihilates and spares individuals and communities at random. Most Italian Jews were saved by their neighbors and complete strangers. Unfortunately, this was not the pattern in the rest of Europe.

St. Edith Stein could not justify the horrendous evil that was to be visited on her people in any theological sense but that of the cross. In her final few days at Auschwitz, Edith and her sister Rosa made an indelible impression on some of the children. As the survivors tell it, many mothers were so traumatized that they collapsed emotionally. Edith and Rosa comforted and held the children and did what they could to meet their needs. Edith Stein’s contribution to the philosophy of experience was the notion that our identity is created not through an Ego that apprehends others. Rather, the Ego arises out of our identification with the needs, desires, and feelings of others. We come to be, as self-conscious beings, through compassion.

In her final days, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross showed that her philosophy of compassion was not just an intellectual construct but the framework of her life and legacy to us.

Posted by Dcn. Randy Pozos on Aug 5, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. John Vianney: August 4

St. Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney (1786-1859) was the parish priest of the village of Ars and is known primarily by that title even in English, “The Cure d’Ars”. Canonized in 1925 St. John Vianney is the patron of parish priests. In many respects he is a thoroughly modern saint.

He was born into the midst of the French Revolution and into a devout rural family who worshiped in secret with outlaw priests who refused to become state functionaries. The upheaval of the revolution closed schools, hospitals, and other institutions. For the first time in human history, the state asserted itself without religion as it destroyed the old Catholic order – the Ancien Regime. The “Goddess of Reason” was enthroned in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Priests, nuns, and the Catholic nobility were killed, forced into hiding or exiled.

After the revolution subsided, Napoleon attempted to gain complete control of the Church in France and even took control of the Papal States, removing the Pope from Rome and bringing most of the Cardinals to Paris. In 1812 Napoleon’s fall began with the disastrous retreat from Russia in winter. The Industrial Revolution would follow, ending forever the cultural matrix of European Christianity.

St. John Vianney’s 73 years of life would span the trauma of the ending of the Divine Right of Kings to the rise of the rights of the common man. He would become emblematic of a Catholicism redefining itself, as it was torn from the 1,500 years of prerogatives and burdens of its affiliation with the state dating from the reign of the Emperor Constantine.

St. John Vianney began by re-asserting the centrality of God in his own life and supporting those in the parish who still practiced the faith. It is important to note that his vocation was in itself something of a miracle. Due to the upheaval of the times, he had no formal education until he was 20 and had great difficulty with Latin. To make matters worse, he got drafted by Napoleon and ended up as a deserter in hiding. An unlikely amnesty made it possible for him to return to his studies. If there hadn’t been such a severe shortage of priests, it is possible that he would never have been ordained.

His personal example of holiness in terms of his prayer and his charity to all made a deep impression. Sunday had become just another workday. Taverns were places of dissolution and much of the social order had broken down. “Dances” were part of a wild party scene involving promiscuity and adultery. Orphans and the disabled were exploited and left to fend for themselves. Over several decades, he led a movement to remedy these problems and to encourage religious devotion, while promoting service to others.

When the bishop attempted to assign St. John Vianney to other parishes, the community protested until the bishop relented. By our standards, his personal acts of penance and mortification, his meager diet, and short hours of sleep, appear to be excessive and even harsh. Reports that he was assaulted by the Devil at night strike us as bizarre, maybe even pathological. Yet they were witnessed by men in the parish who came when they heard the commotion.

Interestingly, he was not severe with his parishoners or penitents in the confessional. In fact, he was known for having won over a prominent woman who was a Jansenist and led her from a severe and demanding conception of God.

Not all of his fellow priests agreed with his approach or pastoral style. In fact, we might say that his special gifts in his historical circumstances may have created the ideal of the parish priest as a solitary super hero, like the desert fathers or the anchorites of the early Church. This calling is something one can respond to, but it cannot be fabricated and put on like a suit. Fr. John Cihak, in “St. John Vianney’s Pastoral Plan”, helps us understand how his example can guide parish priests today.

There is one major factor that is alluded to in the wonder of St. John Vianney’s life and ministry, but it is especially important for all of us who are parishioners today. God worked extensively in the life and ministry of St. John Vianney through his family, those who sheltered him as a deserter, and the people of Ars. Whether the pastor is single or married, the position is one of the most exposed and the most lonely. In denominations with a married clergy, and in the case of Eastern Rite Catholic priests and Latin Rite Catholic deacons, the spouses and children of clergy have a special opportunity and burden that only we can support by our prayers, understanding, and kindness toward them.

Posted by Dcn. Randy Pozos on Jul 31, 2008

St. Ignatius Loyola – In the Presence

St. Ignatius of Loyola by Peter Paul Rubens

Take Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, understanding, my entire will and
all that I possess.
You have given all to me.
To You, O Lord, I return it.
All is yours; dispose of it wholly
according to your will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
for this is enough for me.

Every year, July 31 is a special day for me. St. Ignatius continues to play a very pivotal role in my life. What most captivated me as a young man, and still amazes me today, is his vision. His personal, intense love of God and a sense of the Divine Presence that is acutely close, warm, and reassuring all came to me in my journey through the Spiritual Exercises as a Jesuit novice.

I will never forget one of my first meetings with John D. McAnulty, my Master of Novices. He simply began by saying, “Let us place ourselves in the presence of God.” I had not been a stranger to priests or to spiritual direction, but this experience was completely different. The room and the atmosphere changed in an instant. There was a looming presence, an awesome profound silence, and a great peace.

I guess, that is why I tend to chuckle when people refer to the great learning of the Jesuits. It is not what they are about. I also laugh because that is what I thought until that first invitation to enter into the Presence. It was far from intellectual. It was very intense, very real, very soothing. St. Ignatius would say that our prayer can be marked by times of consolation and desolation. What has struck me over the years is that sometimes there are joyful fireworks when entering into the Mystery and sometimes there is a great zen of nothingness – but the Presence remains.

Happy Feast Day Fr. Ignatius.

For more background on the life St. Ignatius and his spirituality see my previous entry.

Posted by Dcn. Randy Pozos on Jul 22, 2008

Saint of the Day: St. Mary of Magdala – July 22

Icon of St. Mary Magdalene with a red egg.

One of the most striking sayings of Jesus is perhaps His simplest. It is one word, “Mary.” He is not referring to His mother or Mary of Bethany or any of the several other Marys of the Gospels.

Mary of Magdala is utterly distraught. She has come with other women to anoint the body of Jesus. The stone has been rolled away. The tomb is empty. She sees a man whom she mistakes as a gardener or caretaker and wants to know where the body of Jesus has been taken. (John: 20). Jesus utters her name, and through her, the Apostles and all of us learn of the unthinkable. Christ is risen.

This is Mary of Magdala, a woman that many of us don’t recognize because of a movement set in motion by Pope St. Gregory the Great, making Mary into the repentant prostitute whom Jesus forgives. In fairness to Gregory the Great, he was probably voicing a earlier tradition confusing Mary of Magdala with the penitent who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears and dried them with her hair.

The restoration of the historical position of Mary of Magdala is recent. In 1969 the Vatican officially corrected the traditional misconception of her as a prostitute. This also coincided with the rise of the women’s movement. More recent scholarship on the gnostic Gospel of Mary shows that Mary of Magdala appeared to have played a more central role in the immediate circle of the Apostles. This is also part of a trend in historical scholarship of the early church indicating that women played a more prominent role in leadership and teaching and were supplanted by men as the church became established under the emperor Constantine.

Mary the Apostle? Mary the penitent prostitute? These questions are an uncomfortable reminder that male dominated societies place women on a pedestal while also exploiting them at the same time. This is not only a tragic double bind; it also contradicts what Jesus was about in His relations with women.

Posted by Dcn. Randy Pozos on Jul 15, 2008

Saint of the Day: St. Bonaventure – July 15

Faith and reason are often seen as opposites in today’s controversies. Some people say that faith has to be subject to reason and others say that there can be no reason if one has faith. St. Bonaventure shows not only how faith and reason are reconciled but how they are fulfilled in each other and lead us to that transcendent mystical encounter beyond words and comprehension for which we were all created.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy clearly summarizes the life and teaching of St. Bonaventure:

Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (ca. 1217 to 15 July 1274), the religious name of Giovanni di Fidanza, was a Franciscan friar, Master of Theology at the University of Paris, Minister General of the Franciscan Order, and Cardinal of the Catholic Church. During his lifetime he rose to become one of the most prominent men in Latin Christianity. His academic career as a theologian was cut short when in 1257 he was put in charge of the Order of Friars Minor (O.F.M.). He steered the Franciscans on a moderate and intellectual course that made them the most prominent order in the Catholic Church until the coming of the Jesuits. His theology was marked by an attempt completely to integrate faith and reason. He thought of Christ as the “one true master” who offers humans knowledge that begins in faith, is developed through rational understanding, and is perfected by mystical union with God.

St. Bonaventure was a man of passionate intensity. In the Prologue to his famous Itinerarium Mentis Ad Deum – The Mind’s Journey to God – Dr. Ambrosio’s translation conveys the Saint’s great feeling and vision:

To begin with, the first principle from Whom all illumination descends as from the Father of Light, by Whom are given all the best and perfect gifts [James, 1,17], the eternal Father do I call upon through His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, that by the intercession of the most holy Virgin Mary, mother of God Himself and of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and of the blessed Francis, our father and leader, He may enlighten the eyes of our mind to guide our feet into the way of that peace “which surpasses all understanding, [Eph., 1,17; Luke, 1,79; Phil., 4,7], which peace our Lord Jesus Christ has announced and given to us; which lesson our father Francis always taught, in all of whose preaching was the annunciation of peace both in the beginning and in the end, wishing for peace in every greeting, yearning for ecstatic peace in every moment of contemplation, as a citizen of that Jerusalem of which that man of peace said, with those that hated peace he was peaceable [Ps., 119,7].

Although the Itinerarium Mentis Ad Deum is a classic of Western philosophy, its brevity and poetic beauty sweeps the reader up into a vision and a search for the Divine while synthesizing major questions about the nature of God, the universe and our existence.

St. Bonaventure has always played a special role in my life, since I grew up in the parish of Mission San Buenaventura in Ventura, California. Mission San Buenaventura was the ninth and last mission founded by Blessed Junipero Serra, who taught philosophy in Majorca, Spain before coming to the new world. These are some pictures of the mission and its gardens.