In this episode of Word to Life, Fr. Gabriel Gillen, O.P. and Fr. Bruno Shah discuss the readings for the Seventh Sunday of Easter. They are joined for the first part of the show by the Honorable Gregory Slayton who served as the United States Consul General/Chief of Mission to Bermuda under both the Bush and Obama administrations. Prior to his diplomatic assignment, Gregory Slayton worked as a CEO and Venture Capitalist in Silicon Valley. He also served on the Board of Advisors of a number of well known companies including Google and Salesforce.com. A distinguished graduate of both Dartmouth and Harvard, Gregory entered into the Church while he was a student Dartmouth at the Aquinas House. Gregory is a recognized expert in creating and extending micro-credit for Third World development. He’s founded and directs charities aimed squarely against worldwide poverty. Gregory is today the Managing Director of Slayton Capital and an Adjunct Professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Gregory and his wife Marina have been married for over 20 years and have four children, of whom they are deeply proud. The family lives primarily in Hanover, NH. and he is an author of a new book, “Be A Better Dad Today.”

On Friday, five brothers begin their week-long silent retreat in anticipation of their ordination to the Sacred Priesthood of Jesus Christ.  The ordinandi (those brothers to be ordained) are Rev. Bro. Jerome Augustine Zeiler, O.P., Rev. Bro. Jordan Joseph Schmidt, O.P., Rev. Bro. Augustine Marie Reisenauer, O.P., Rev. Bro. Michael Dominic O’Connor, O.P. and Rev. Bro. Justin Marie Brophy, O.P.

His Excellency, Most Reverend J. Augustine DiNoia,O.P., Secretary for the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and a friar of the Province of Saint Joseph, will ordain the candidates through the Imposition of Hands and the Invocation of the Holy Spirit. The Mass of Ordination will be held in Washington, DC, at the historic Saint Dominic’s Church. Saint Dominic’s is the longstanding host for the Province’s priestly ordinations.

During this time of retreat, please remember our brothers in your prayers.

O Lord Jesus Christ, great High Priest, we thank you for calling our Brothers, Jerome, Jordan, Augustine, Michael and Justin to Your holy priesthood.  Lead them in Your unerring footsteps; so that they may become priests who are models of purity, possessors of wisdom and heroes of sacrifice.  May they be steeped in humility and aflame with love for God and man.  Make our brothers apostles of Your glory and great preachers of Truth for the salvation of souls.

 

  Rev. Bro. Jerome Augustine Zeiler, O.P.

The son of Ken and Martha Zeiler of Pagosa Springs, CO, Bro. Jerome Zeiler, O.P., was raised at Christ the King Parish in Dallas, TX. He attended The Highlands School in Irving, TX and pursued his undergraduate studies at Thomas Aquinas College, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree. After graduating from Thomas Aquinas, he pursued graduate studies at the University of Dallas. He entered the Dominican Order in August, 2005 at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati, OH.

Bro. Jerome was assigned to the Dominican House of Studies in 2006 where he earned his Master of Divinity and his Bachelor of Sacred Theology degrees. Additionally, this spring, he completed his Licentiate in Philosophy at the Catholic University of America. During his years at the Dominican House of Studies, he was assigned to various ministries including teaching RCIA at Blessed Sacrament Parish and serving at a local L’Arche community. Bro. Jerome professed his solemn vows in the Dominican Order on November 13, 2010. As a deacon, he served at St. Pius V in Providence, RI and St. Jane Frances de Chantal Parish in Bethesda, MD.  Following his ordination, he will serve as parochial vicar at St. Gertrude parish in Cincinnati, OH.

Rev. Bro. Jordan Joseph Schmidt, O.P.

The son of Randal and Susan Schmidt of Bismarck, ND, Bro. Jordan (Andrew) Schmidt, O.P., grew up in the parish of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit. He attended Saint Mary’s Central High School and is an alumnus of Saint John’s University, Collegeville, MN, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree. Before entering the Dominican Order, he studied at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, served in the Peace Corps in China, and worked for Habitat for Humanity International.  Andrew entered the Dominican Order in August 2006 at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati, OH, taking the religious name Jordan Joseph.

Bro. Jordan was assigned to the Dominican House of Studies in 2007 where he earned his both his Bachelor’s  and his Licentiate degrees in Sacred Theology. During his years at the Dominican House of Studies he was assigned to various ministries including the American University Catholic Campus Ministry and giving conferences to the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. Bro. Jordan professed his solemn vows in the Dominican Order on November 13, 2010.  As a deacon he served at Saint Thomas Aquinas in Charlottesville, VA and Saint Mary’s in Landover Hills, MD.  Following his ordination, he will serve as parochial vicar at St. Mary’s parish in New Haven, CT.

Rev. Bro. Augustine Marie Reisenauer, O.P.

The son of Daniel and Karen Reisenauer of Wenatchee, WA, growing up, Bro. Augustine (Matthew) Reisenauer, O.P., attended Saint Joseph Parish and graduated from Wenatchee High School. He is twice an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame, having earned both a Bachelor of Science and Master of Theological Studies at Notre Dame. He entered the Dominican Order in August 2006 at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati, OH, taking the religious name Augustine Marie.

Bro. Augustine was assigned to the Dominican House of Studies in 2007 where he earned his Licentiate in Sacred Theology. During his years at the Dominican House of Studies he was assigned to various ministries including the Arlington County Detention Center and the University of Maryland Catholic Campus Ministry. Bro. Augustine  professed his solemn vows in the Dominican Order on November 13, 2010. As a deacon Bro. Augustine was assigned to the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle where he prepared  engaged couples for marriage, assisted with parish catechesis, and celebrated the sacrament of baptism.  Following his ordination he will be assigned to the Priory of St. Thomas Aquinas at Providence College, and will teach theology.

Rev. Bro. Michael Dominic O’Connor, O.P. 

The son of Dan and Verene O’Connor of Peru, IL, Bro. Michael (Kevin) O’Connor, O.P., was raised in St. Joseph Parish. He attended St. Bede Academy and is an alumnus of Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota in Winona, MN, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Music and Philosophy. After graduating from Saint Mary’s, he worked as a parish music director and a grade school music teacher. He entered the Dominican Order in August 2006 at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati, OH, taking the religious name Michael Dominic.

Bro. Michael was assigned to the Dominican House of Studies in 2007 where he earned his Master of Divinity and his Bachelor of Sacred Theology degrees. During his years at the Dominican House of Studies he was assigned to various ministries including giving tours at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, working at the Northwest Pregnancy Center, and assisting at the American University Catholic Chaplaincy. Bro. Michael professed his solemn vows in the Dominican Order on November 13, 2010. As a deacon, he served at St. John the Beloved Parish in McLean, VA.  Following his ordination, he will continue to pursue his License in Sacred Theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington.

Archbishop Augustine Di Noia, O.P., Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, gave the following homily at Vespers yesterday, during commencement of Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies. 

Graduates, faculty, students and friends, brothers and sisters all in Christ. “Son though he was, Christ learned obedience from what he suffered.” Learned? Obedience? Suffering? How can such things be attributed to the Son of God? Inevitably, this passage from the Epistle to the Hebrews would be at the center of the great christological debates that occupied the attention of bishops and theologians in the early Church. Theodoret of Cyr devoted a whole book just to the interpretation of the fifth chapter of Hebrews from which this passage is drawn. Eventually, as you know, in 451 the Council of Chalcedon affirmed the distinction of Christ’s human and divine natures even as they are united in his person. This resolution came about largely because of the famous letter to the council sent by Pope St. Leo the Great — known traditionally as Leo’s Tome — in which he laid down rules for speaking about the person and natures of Christ. One could say things about the person of Christ that could not be said about the natures. Thus, Jesus is God, but human nature is not divine. Christ, not his divine nature, learned obedience through suffering. And so on. No wonder the Fathers acclaimed Pope Leo’s letter with such enthusiasm. “In Leo,” they declared, “Peter has spoken.”

But this immensely important clarification of christological language and doctrine was in service of something even greater, the message of salvation itself, here deftly summarized in our passage from Hebrews: “Son though he was, Christ learned obedience from what he suffered; and when perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, designated by God as high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.”

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Over the past several months, the Bishops of the United States have been making their ad limina visit to the Holy Father.  The law of the Church requires Bishops to visit with the Holy Father every 5 years.  The term “ad limina” literally means ‘to the threshold’.  Each diocesan bishop is required to “go to Rome to venerate the tombs of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and to present himself to the Roman Pontiff.”  (CIC Can. 400 §1)  Each diocesan Bishop comes to the threshold of the See of St. Peter.  The last group of American Bishops recently made their visit to Rome.  In his final words to the American hierarchy, he reminded them of the importance of the vocation to consecrated life and of their duty to foster it.  The Holy Father said:

I urge you to remain particularly close to the men and women in your local Churches who are committed to following Christ ever more perfectly by generously embracing the evangelical counsels. . . . The urgent need in our own time for credible and attractive witnesses to the redemptive and transformative power of the Gospel makes it essential to recapture a sense of the sublime dignity and beauty of the consecrated life, to pray for religious vocations and to promote them actively, while strengthening existing channels for communication and cooperation, especially through the work of the Vicar or Delegate for Religious in each Diocese.

To read the Holy Father’s entire address, click here.

Tomb of Bl. Hyacinth, above the high altar of the chapel at the Priory of Sts. Dominic and Sixtus (the Angelicum)

Bl. Hyacinth Marie Cormier (1832-1916, feast – May 21) served as the 76th Master of the Order (1904-1916).  Led into the Order by the examples of Bl. Agnes of Jesus and Fr. Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, he lived a holy life and taught others to do so in many ways.  You might say that he held the title “Master” very well.

Bl. Hyacinth taught the friars in two ways: creating institutions and living a holy life.  First, he was responsible for founding the Angelicum at its current location.  Secondly, and closer to home, he also authorized the construction of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC (1905).  As Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. has noted, Bl. Hyacinth desired “that the House be a place of piety, study, common observance, and ‘adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist.’”  In other words, in establishing the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, Bl. Hyacinth taught the brethren to live faithfully to what they had professed and allow their life of prayer to permeate their studies.

Bl. Hyacinth also taught the brethren by his example.  He lived a prudent and prayerful life.  He worked through the debates about interpretations of the Scriptures when Fr. Marie-Joseph Lagrange was writing at the turn to the century.  He stabilized the governance of the Order in a period right after its revival by Fr. Lacordaire and Master Vincent Jandel.  Furthermore, he lived a life of deep prayer.  He was frequently seen praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament, sometimes even levitating.

O God, who raised up blessed Hyacinth in your Church to show others the way of salvation, grant us, by his example, so to follow Christ the master, that we may come with our neighbor into your presence.  Through Christ our Lord.

Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., published  an essay entitled, “Love’s Greater Freedom: A response to David S. Yeago” in the June/July issue of First Things.  He also signed the following statement with many prominent Evangelicals and Catholics in defense of religious freedom in the same publication:

Eighteen years ago, this fellowship of Evangelical and Catholic pastors, theologians, and educators was formed to deepen the dialogue among our communities on issues of common concern, to explore theological common ground, and to offer in public life a common witness born of Christian faith. Since our founding in 1994, we have addressed, together, such important public policy questions as the defense of life, even as we have proposed to our communities patterns of theological understanding on such long-disputed questions as the gift of salvation, the authority of Scripture, and the call to holiness in the communion of saints. We hope that this collaboration has been a service to both Church and society; it has certainly drawn us closer together as brothers and sisters in Christ, and for that we are grateful to the Lord of all mercies.

At the beginning of our common work on behalf of the gospel, it did not seem likely that religious freedom would be one of our primary concerns. The communist project in Europe had collapsed; the commitment of Christian believers to defeat totalitarianism through the weapons of truth had triumphed; and throughout the world, a new era of religious freedom seemed at hand.

We are now concerned—indeed, deeply concerned—that religious freedom is under renewed assault around the world. While the threats to freedom of faith, religious practice, and religious participation in public affairs in Islamist and communist states are widely recognized, grave threats to religious freedom have also emerged in the developed democracies. In the West, certain religious beliefs are now regarded as bigoted. Pastors are under threat, both cultural and legal, for preaching biblical truth. Christian social-service and charitable agencies are forced to cease cooperation with the state because they will not bend their work to what Pope Benedict XVI has called the “dictatorship of relativism.”

Read the full statement here. Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., is an assistant professor of systematic theology and director of the Thomistic Institute at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception.  His most recent book is Wisdom in the Face of Modernity: A Study in Thomistic Natural Theology.

Father Jonathan Kalisch O.P., Director of Campus Ministry at Dartmouth College, invited Fr. James Schall, SJ, professor of Government at Georgetown University, to give the following lecture at Dartmouth College. Fr. Schall has been named among the top 10 Intellectual Catholic Americans of all-time. This lecture was part of the the 50th anniversary celebration of the dedication of St. Clement’s Chapel at Aquinas House.

Aquinas House is the Catholic Student Center at Dartmouth College, a community where students may nurture their faith and grow in holiness. By actively demonstrating the importance of religion to our daily lives, AQ students become positive role models for the wider campus community. Students not only come to understand their faith, but to articulate it for others who may not share their views. Most importantly, through worship, prayer, service, and fellowship, students draw ever closer to the person of Jesus Christ.

St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village was recently filled with guests who had been invited to join Cardinal Egan as he celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving for his 80th birthday. Cardinal Egan, the main celebrant and homilist, was joined at the altar by Cardinal Dolan; Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, Vatican nuncio to the United Nations; Bishop Timothy McDonnell of Springfield, Mass., whom Cardinal Egan had ordained as an auxiliary bishop; as well as a host of Dominican friars including Fr. John McGuire, Fr. Romanus Cessario, Fr. Dominic Izzo, and myself.

The guests in the church included all manner of family members, friends and associates, namely from his tenure as Archbishop of New York. As he looked back on his 80 years of life, he said he was happy to recall “in loving memory” those who have witnessed Jesus Christ to him.

Cardinal Egan spoke about the saints who have walked the same streets as the rest of us do each day, ticking off a familiar litany that began with St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, St. John Neumann and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and included others such as Rose Hawthorne, founder of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne; Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the great communicator; and Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement.

The reception was held after the Mass in the gleaming new Catholic Center at New York University, where the furniture had arrived only that week. Just a few blocks away from St. Joseph’s, which serves as the university’s Catholic parish, the new facility overlooks Washington Square Park.

The Catholic Center, on the ground floor of the five-story facility, includes a 181-seat chapel, a lecture hall for 200 people, a meeting room that can accommodate 180 and a common room holding another 100, plus a kitchen, a confessional room and other amenities. Father John McGuire, O.P., the pastor and director of the Catholic Center at NYU, said such a structure is quite in keeping with the university’s standing as home to the largest number of Catholic students in the nation.

Each week, a Dominican member of the Provincial Preaching Advisory board prepares this Preacher’s Sketchbook in anticipation of the upcoming Sunday Mass. The idea of the Preacher’s Sketchbook is to take quotations from the authority of the Church–the Pope, the Fathers of the Church, documents of the Councils, the saints–that can help spark ideas for the Sunday homily. Just as an artist’s sketchbook preserves ideas for later elaboration, so we hope the Preacher’s Sketchbook will provide some ideas for homiletical elaboration.

Sketchbook

Pope Benedict XVI:

“When someone has the experience of a great love in his life, this is a moment of ‘redemption’ which gives a new meaning to his life…. The human being needs unconditional love…. If this absolute love exists, with its absolute certainty, then—only then—is man ‘redeemed,’ whatever should happen to him in his particular circumstances. This is what it means to say: Jesus Christ has ‘redeemed’ us. Through him we have become certain of God…. Man’s great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God—God who has loved us and who continues to love us ‘to the end.”… If we are in relation with him who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself, then we are in life. Then we ‘live.”

Pope Benedict XVI:

“Only the great certitude of hope that my own life and history in general despite all failures are held firm by the indestructible power of Love, and that this gives them their meaning and importance, only this kind of hope can then give the courage to act and to persevere.”

Pope Benedict XVI:

“Thomas Aquinas, as is well known, defined truth as the adequation of the intellect to reality…. The perception of the truth is a process which brings man into conformity with being. It is a becoming one of the ‘I’ and the world, it is consonance, it is being gifted and purified. To the extent that men allow themselves to be guided and cleansed by the truth, they find the way not only to their true selves but also to the human ‘you.’ Truth, in fact, is the medium in which men make contact, whereas it is the absence of truth which closes them off from one another…. If the truth purifies man from egotism and from the illusion of absolute autonomy, if it makes him obedient and gives him the courage to be humble, it thereby also teaches him to see through producibility as a parody of freedom and to unmask undisciplined chatter as a parody of dialogue. It is victorious over the tendency to mistake the absence of all ties for freedom. Thus, the truth is fruitful precisely by being loved for its own sake.”

Saint Thomas Aquinas:

“Truth and goodness include one another. The truth is something good; otherwise it would not be worth desiring; and the good is true; otherwise it would not be intelligible.”

Blessed Guerric of Igny:

“Jesus laid bare the whole strength of his love for his friends before pouring himself out like water for his enemies. Handing over to them the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, he instituted the celebration of the Eucharist. It is hard to say which was the more wonderful, his power or his love, in devising the new means of remaining with them to console them for his departure. In spite of the withdrawal of his bodily presence, he would remain not only with them but in them, by virtue of this Sacrament.”

Blessed John Henry Newman:

“We have no love for Him who alone lasts. We love those things which do not last, but come to an end. Things being thus, he whom we ought to love has determined to win us back to him. With this object He has come into his own world, in the form of one of us men. And in that human form He open his arms and woos us to return to him, our Maker.”

Monsignor Luigi Giussani:

“What is truth must be repeatedly looked at in the face.”

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On May 13, 2012, Rome hosted the second annual National March for Life in the city of Rome.  Thousands turned out to show their support of the cause of life.  Despite being a Catholic nation, abortion has been legal in Italy since 1978.  Some of those attending were Dominicans from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas — the Angelicum.  Among those in attendance was American, His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke, the Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and formerly the Archbishop of St. Louis. The procession began at the Colosseum, went past the monument to Victor Emmanuel, walked down the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II to the Largo di Torre Argentina, and then continued across the bridge of the angels to finish at Castel Sant’Angelo, near St. Peter’s Basilica.

In a recent AP story appearing in the Washington Post, Fr. Dominic Holtz, OP, a priest of the Province of St. Albert the Great (Central Province) and a professor of philosophy at the Angelicum, is referenced as saying, ”the march united people from around the world against legalized abortion.”

Below is a slideshow of the March.