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Letters of Fr. General |
Advent 2008 |
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The Vocationist Parish and the Eucharist |
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Beloved Brother, May God the Holy Spirit unite us always more with the Son to the Father. Introduction As Vocationists, you and I have been grown and formed in the shadow of the Eucharist (Const. 86). There, we have recognised and married our charism. There, we have formed our identity. As we cannot think of a parish without the Eucharist, so we cannot think of a Vocationist without the Eucharist. For us, Vocationists, the Eucharist is not the seed of life, but the fullness of life. We understand very well that we cannot be good religious, good ministers of God without being totally and completely lovers of the Eucharist. The intensity of our love and devotion towards the Eucharist is the yardstick of our spiritual life and the efficacy of our apostolate. What we consider good and sanctifying for ourselves, we want not only to desire but also to procure for the souls entrusted to our care, to all our relatives, friends and benefactors so that the whole world may be Eucharist. More than synthesizing here the theology of the Eucharist, I want to limit myself to reporting and synthesizing the thought and practical suggestions of Fr. Justin on how to build our Eucharistic life. ‘The Eucharist is the divine, personal food that feeds and increases in us grace, which is essentially life of divine union. It feeds and increases this union with the Spirit which at his time unites us with the Son to the Father, with Father to the Son. All this is received in the ontological order and is operated in us in the psychological order in the sense that all our activity is only in the order of the will and therefore of charity and of liberty. In perpetual growing, as normality of life” (Works of Fr. Justin, vol. 12, p.150)
The Eucharist: our treasure To have an idea of the immense treasure that we have in the Eucharist, we start by considering what the Lord told Fr. Justin on March 30, 1938: “You are now asking that you and all your confreres may be an immense capacity and fullness of grace and receiving the host, you become it. Deo gratias! You ask, for yourself and for all, to be a living and growing heroism of all the theological and cardinal virtues and especially of holy humility, purity and charity and in receiving Jesus, you receive much more than you ask and desire. Deo gratias! You have been thinking a lot about gifts, charisms, privileges granted by the Lord to his saints, but, see that all are contained in the consecrated host; you receive much more in the host that you offer and receive every day!” For us, the Eucharist is the synthesis of all the acts and states, atoms and instants of public and private life, of the sorrowful and glorious life of the Lord. We are not speaking of the presence of the living and true Jesus in the Eucharist, we are speaking of Jesus-Eucharist, Jesus-Host. ‘The Eucharist is the sum of all the gifts, of all the supernatural realities and every day we need to actualize ourselves in the understanding and enjoyment of one of all the mysteries, one of all the states, one of all the mystical facts of the Eucharist. Which? That which he wants”(Works of Fr. Justin Vol.11, p.79). Not understanding all the mystery, the greatness, the gift of the Eucharist in its totality, we must satisfy ourselves with meditating on a particular aspect of it every day. We follow the process from the part to the all’ ‘Every day from the infinity of the gift of the Eucharist we will draw a particular gift, lived with more feeling and more personal actuality. So similarly, in that compendium of divine wonders, we honour every day a special mystery, a special perfection, a state, a particular act of the Incarnate Word’(Op.cit. p.80). The Jesus who calls us and whom we follow, we meet him, we follow and love him in the divine Eucharist. The relation of intimate, exclusive and personal love that we are called to live with the three divine persons lives and actualizes itself in the Eucharist. ‘There is no superimposition but only the identification between the Eucharistic love and the Trinitarian love, to the exclusive advantage of the vocation of man to holiness and to divine union with God-Trinity’(Works. Vol.7, p.139). The Son is essentially for the Father and gives himself to the Father in humanity with the incarnation. He gives himself to the Father in every soul though the Eucharist’. O Trinity in me! The participation of the divine nature is the participation of the divine persons since it consists in these and not abstractly in itself. Such participation grows with every absolution, with every Eucharist’(Works vol. 10, p38). The holy Eucharist does not subtract, but enriches and increases our circuminsession ad extra with the divine persons. Apparently, there is nothing more inert and passive than a host!....Nevertheless, there is nothing more vehement and dynamic, nothing more powerfully active, for nothing is more divinely alive, than the host! It is a small leaven which the blessed Trinity has cast into the great mass of the world, and all humanity is in ferment’(Op.cit.p.145). The Eucharist : Centre of our Life. The Trinity is the beginning, centre, axis and end of our life. We come from God-Trinity, we live in God and we go to God. Jesus is the highest revelation and assimilation of the Trinity, the unique mediator between us and the Trinity. The holy Eucharist is the ‘the supreme revelation and communication of the Trinity to the soul, and the supreme elevation of the soul to the blessed Trinity’(Works, vol. 5, p.170). This concept is explained at length in Heaven of Heavens. Since Jesus is our unique mediator, it follows that ‘our life is, wants to be and must be Christocentric. For us, to say Christocentric and to say Eucharistic is the same thing. Jesus has received from the Father the mandate that all the souls may have life and may have it abundantly. This brings us to consider the Eucharist as the sacrament of life. Jesus who defined himself as life and has received the task of transmitting life abundantly is always in action transfusing life in all the fullness of which we are capable of, with all the sweetness of love (Cf. Works, vol. 7, p.156). Coming to us in communion, Jesus assimilates us to himself and gives us his life. ‘Who eats my flesh and drinks my blood will have life’, says Jesus and speaks of a life that does not die, And the life of grace, that is nurtured by sacramental communion, unfortunately can be lost with sin, with its habitual simplicity, Fr. Justin helps us to understand what truly is this life. ‘This word of the Lord must be understood in another way. What should and could it be? It is the life that is in Jesus . If I were to ask: what is the substance that is found in the orange?. Orange contains the substance of the orange. What is the life that finds itself in Jesus? It is the life of Jesus, it is his life! He gives me a share of his life. But in what sense do I receive the life of Jesus? Perhaps through natural assimilations? Certainly, no. Never! Our Lord cannot be assimilated as ordinary food. Then it is properly his life. I eat bread, but I don’t become a piece of bread. Suppose, hypothetically, that if all the bread I have eaten up to now, were not yet assimilated, and if it were still all in me, I would be a piece of bread…. Hence, not being able to assimilate Jesus, he remains in me’(Works, vol.5, p. 223). The effects of holy communion in us are not only spiritual, they not only sanctify our soul, they also have an effect on our body and spiritualize it, making it resistant to the solicitations of enemies, fortified against the attacks of another enemy and insensitive to the seductions of another (Cf. Works, vol.5, p.223). ‘ You are our centre, our goal and only way O Divine Eucharist you enable us to arrive to you. Only you, O God-Jesus!’(Works, vol.8 , p. 367).
The Eucharist as Sacrifice As sacrifice, the Eucharist is the eternal offering of Jesus to the Father for our salvation and, as such, it is also the supreme worship offered to the Father. In order that this sacrifice may not be only the sacrifice of Jesus but also ours, our active participation is necessary. The Eucharist, as sacrifice, is the holy mass that we celebrate and to which we participate every day. ‘On the altar, the infinite riches. From the altar, infinite treasures. We get to hear and to celebrate the holy mass in the more actual and intense union with Jesus Christ and with him to offer ourselves, consecrate ourselves, to ascend to the Father, and to descend to the souls, to elevate and unite them with the holy Trinity. It will help us much to this end the practice of: the morning extraordinary, the evening extraordinary and of the matter of sacrifice’(Works, vol.1, art. 221). The morning extraordinary is the very early rising every day, in every place and season, in a way to assure ourselves of the time necessary to satisfy our religious duties (morning prayer, Mass and meditation) before starting the activity of the day. The evening extraordinary is the great silence or the rigorous silence that lasts from night prayer till breakfast of the following day, to facilitate our recollection, listening to the Lord and desiring him in the communion of the morning. This silence must be active and passive, that is to say not to speak to other people and to listen only to the Lord! The matter of the sacrifice is a typically Justinian practice. It consists in choosing the greatest joy or the most painful displeasure experienced in the day and in offering it on the paten as our contribution to the sacrifice of Jesus. By putting something of ours on that paten, we render the sacrifice of Jesus, our own sacrifice too. How much bitterness, how much anger, how much fury we avoid ourselves, if at every circumstance or occasion we succeed to say: thank you, Lord for this displeasure, because I have now something to offer tomorrow morning in the holy mass! This practice is something that helps me not to easily lose control over myself and to be able to smile in front of sufferings of a certain gravity. ‘The holy mass, even when saying it private, read… must be always celebrated with such solemnity, that excludes above all every preoccupation. Solemnity of internal devotion, solemnity of external liturgy; solemnity of voices, in the parts that must be heard by those present; solemnity of silence, in the parts that must not be heard; solemnity of neatness and decorum in all the objects used for the liturgy, etc’.(Works, vol. 1, art. 226). We should never miss one the holy mass. Besides, participating or celebrating the mass every day, we have the obligation to participate at two holy masses every Sunday and on every solemnity. It is advisable that we, the priests, when we don’t celebrate, participate equally at the holy mass, even if praying the breviary or making ourselves available to the faithful for confessions. From when I was ten years, I remember vividly this scene: a man that quarrelled with the parish priest for not having permitted him to be in charge any more of the feast of St. Cyrus. As a protest, he didn’t go anymore to mass and wanted to discourage the wife from going to mass. In my presence, the little old man instigated the wife, saying: Go to see that priest…. The wife responded: I don’t go to see Fr. Luigi, I go to Church for the Lord, and not to see how Fr. Luigi behaves himself, as you just said …., regardless of how he behaves in his life, for me, when he is on the altar, he represents Jesus Christ. And the husband: Have you ever seen Fr. Luigi go to mass or to participate at a mass? - But it is he, himself who celebrates the mass! - And when he does not celebrate, have you ever seen him attend the mass, don’t you see that he stays always there in the sacristy? - Perhaps he recites the breviary in the sacristy! - Would it hurt him if he were to recite it in the church in front of the people? And the woman mumbled: certainly, it wouldn’t hurt him! How much truth and how much pain in this sad discussion!
The Eucharist as Sacrament The Eucharist as a sacrament consists, above all, of holy communion and of adoration, of the meeting with God-Trinity in the consecrated host. The communion is not an idea, a symbol, a little desire, it is God that comes to us and remains with us. Let us together hear this catechesis of Fr. Justin to his faithful and to our confreres: ‘God has come! Behold a very bright light! I cannot understand it. The Lord gives me a gift, whatever it may be; I am lead to accept and utilise squeeze it; but if I keep thinking of what I received, I remain scared! I received the Lord! And the soul remains surprised, shocked, dismayed! Similarly, the Lord works in the soul a more profound recollection and the soul understands that it has been bettered, but after it realizes that it was God himself that came in the soul, it feels wounded. So, through the words of the priest on the altar, Jesus descends, he receives Jesus! What a wonder! So, then, we remain surprised at the idea that our life is the life of God, and somehow it is Jesus himself in person.. The Lord himself is our life! We believe, but the first times that we start to feel it in us we remain surprised, wounded by too much light, dismayed by the divine presence. Jesus Christ has said: ‘I am the life! He is our life! (Works, vol.5, p.27). ‘Each one of our ascetical practices can by itself fill our entire world and keep us well occupied in the court of glory of love to the indwelling holy Trinity. Evidently, there is nothing that may be more worthy and proper to fill up our time and life. How great is the holy Eucharistic communion, as there is no other thing more glorifying for the Lord and the soul’(Works, vol. 1, art. 668). ‘The divine union is the supreme relation with every person of the most blessed Trinity. To the supreme union, one arrives through other forms and grades of intermediate union. The supreme relation is strengthened through other forms and grades of intermediate relations. To the union with the three persons one arrives … above all, through communion with the same incarnate Word in the Gospel and in the Eucharist’ (Works, vol. 12, p. 222). For us who ascend to the divine union also through the way of progressive consecrations, it is important to see and understand that ‘in the communion occurs the perfect consecration of Jesus for us and to us, and ours for Jesus and to Jesus’ (Works, vol. 10, p.34). Since we desire that all the participants to the mass may receive holy communion, this should always take much time, so we move to the altar in procession while singing or reciting ejaculations. Fr. Justin says that he would gladly spend all his life giving Jesus to the souls and that there is no ministry more priestly than this. He really wants that the distributions of ‘holy communion may be interminable’ Works, vol. 1, 108). In promoting daily communion, there is need also to make sure that all the sick may have this opportunity. If everyone, everywhere and every time needs of the creative and regenerating power of holy communion, the sick ones have a greater reason to have need of it. According to Fr, Justin, communion to the sick should be brought every day in private form and once a month in solemn form. On 4th September 1931, Fr. Justin wrote in his Book of the Soul. ‘Yes, the solemn communion is to be taken to the sick at home and this is to be done every first Friday of the month in all our parishes, in addition to the solemn Viaticum.’ (Works. Vol. 1, p.183). In 1956, on page 35 of The Apostle of the Divine Vocations, Fr. Mario De Rossa, first biographer of Fr. Justin, wrote: ‘He was apostle of daily communion. Today Pianura could beat the record of the souls that from 30-40 years receive Jesus-Host every day …. Yes the workers communicated before leaving for their workplace, farmers before leaving for the farms, the office-workers before going to the offices. There were thousands of daily communions. Also, for the sick, a priest went around for this purpose and gave them communion, some times up to twenty people in one day. On first Fridays, they used to receive the holy Eucharist in the most solemn form. It seemed like a monthly Corpus Christi’ During the scholastic year 1953-54, many a times, I had the opportunity to accompany Fr. Salvatore Di Fusco in bringing both private and solemn communion to the people. In Pianura and elsewhere, how many are today the daily communicants? ‘The second sphere (of the Pious Solidarity of the Divine Union) is that of the faithful daily communicants that want to put themselves at the service of the most sacred heart of Jesus in those words of his: ‘I came to put fire on the earth, and how I wish if it were burning?’ Three groups of associates of the second sphere carry out the apostolate of the banquet of the host, of sacrifice and sacrament. Especially through daily communion and apostolate of the banquet of the host: ‘The third sphere wants to bring the souls outside of the quagmire of lukewarmness and mediocrity, to help them in spiritual progresses, to establish them in fervour and to tend to heroism, it, therefore, takes the name and program of divine perfection’ (Works, vol. 8, p.207-8). The communion is the source and the secret to grow always in divine fervour. The Eucharist: Essence of our life and of our future On November 3, 1937, Fr. Justin wrote in his Book of the Soul : ‘I spent the months of August, September and October internally on the theme of the individual persons in relation to the Eucharist. The occasion was given to me by the fact that I had to present three conferences on this theme at the Eucharistic Congress of Parete. Thus the Lord has willed to make me re-enter my Trinitarian world and to give me, make me feel and enjoy the relation of the soul with the individual divine persons, and to know and to practise the intimate religious acts corresponding to those three relations with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ (Works, vol.11, p.105). ‘The aim of the holy Eucharist-Epiphany is the revealing, meditating and communicating to the creature of divine union! The supreme form of divine union in the image, resemblance and irradiation of the hypostatic union. And behold the soul with the indwelling divine Trinity, and behold also the body with the divine Jesus living as in the host. As in the host while remaining save, complete the substance of the soul and of the body and the individual human personality. The very substance and human person, in the soul and in the body, becomes the Eucharistic-Epiphanic veil of Jesus. Living, feeling, intelligent veil, loving, glorifying, cooperating veil with the divine indwelling man-God-Jesus’ (Works, 11, p.116-7). ‘Jesus gives you his body so that you may live in his body, united with him, in the mysterious union of love that he alone could know and do. The Eucharist feeds the life of the soul and also offers to the soul the glorious yet immolated body in which to live together in Jesus’(Works, vol. 12,p. 46-47). In the code of sanctification, Fr. Justin suggests these two practices: ‘See the whole Jesus in the Eucharist in which we find our mutual gift and possession. Tend to the Eucharistic state as to the concreteness of every heroism of love’(Works, vol.12, p.81). How beautiful and mysterious this our fusion with Jesus-Eucharist, in the maximum respect of our individuality, of our will and of our liberty. Living in the Eucharist, adoring and conversing with Jesus under the Eucharistic veils, we learn to see, to love and to serve God-Trinity under the veils of events, men and things. We sacramentalize every thing, person or event seeing them as veils of God. As Eucharistic veils, they hide and show the real presence of Jesus, in an analogous, but non-identical way, events, men and things hide, and reveal at the same time, God present and working in them. O Jesus, with your Spirit And your mother, Mary, In your heart, the universe You transform in Eucharist (Works, vol.8, p.364).
Eucharistic Practices for the Vocationists and for the souls entrusted to them The first and maximum task of the Vocationist for himself and for the souls entrusted to him is that of receiving every day sacramental communion. We know very well that from the beginning of the 1940s, Fr Justin asked the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments to consider granting to the faithful the possibility of receiving communion more than once a day. There is something to seriously think about those affirmations of Fr. Justin in which, he says that it is more meritorious to form in a parish 100 daily communicants than 11,000 priestly ordinations or 50,000 baptisms! It is also important for us to remember that when we have to bring souls to communion, it is not enough to open the doors, or even to invite, we must insist or if necessary to compel, to pressure, to force them to enter the banquet house. A communion missed is missed forever! Therefore, every effort, every sacrifice must be made to instruct, to invite, and to make the souls become daily communicants! What percentage of your parishioners, of the souls entrusted to you, receive the communion every day? How many of these souls became daily communicants, thanks to your apostolate? It is difficult to bring the souls to receive with fervour communion every day, without frequent confession, which not only obtains pardon for sins, but enriches us by granting us always more an increase of grace and of faith. I exhort you, therefore, brother priest, make yourself more available for confessions. Why not pray the breviary, the rosary or do spiritual reading in the confessional? Your presence alone will be an eloquent invitation to the faithful to bring themselves to the sacrament of Reconciliation. How I suffer, it makes my heart cry, when I hear that some of our brothers (and there are more than one) refuse to hear confessions or discourage the faithful from confessing themselves! At the third genuflexion on entering into the Church, we pray: ‘O Jesus in the most blessed sacrament, unite me to your adoration, thanksgiving, reparation and prayer, make me with you one host of sacrifice to the Trinity and sacrament to the souls (Works, vol. 1, art. 10, art. 1058). ‘When we are alone in the church, our first thing should be to give one gaze at and around the altar, to see whether there is need of any external service to Jesus, for example, as regards the order, cleanliness, lamp, candles, flowers and to render it with every external reverence and internal love’(Works, vol.1, art. 1061) ‘What an epiphany of nuptial love…the Eucharist! What a transubstantiation and a communion’(Works, vol. 12, p.126). To help us make the Eucharistic Jesus the true centre of our life, we build the chapels of our communities at the centre our houses (or vice versa, we construct our houses around the chapel). ‘Al leads us to that so special divine presence which is the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. and we orientate ourselves towards him also in body from every place where we find ourselves’(Works, vol.5, p.240). If we have not experienced the efficacy of this orientating of ourselves always towards the nearest tabernacle, it could appear to us as a practice of spiritual infantilism! Yet, it is a most precious practice that can keep us in the spirit of adoration 24 hours a day. Who loves the Eucharist discovers, lives and perserves in his own vocation. Our priesthood, our apostolate, our pastoral efficiency and our sanctity of life is directly proportional to our love for the Eucharist. Recommended practices Dear brother, I ask and implore you to do all that is humanly possible to assure yourself of the following: 1. To devoutly celebrate the Eucharist every day, also when there are no faithful or offering; those conferees who celebrate mass only if and when there is an offering make me sick, 2. to keep the church opened all the day, or at least the longest time possible; it is much saddening to see a church always closed; 3. to make yourself available at least some hours every day for the sacrament of reconciliation; 4. to keep the church clean, well-aired, adequately illuminated and ordered; 5. to remove from the church all that tend to make it like a warehouse or storage-room; 6. to form in every parish a group who receive daily communion and keep the order and cleanliness of furnishings and premises; 7. to introduce, if it is not yet done, at least one hour of Eucharistic adoration, every week; 8. to introduce, where it is not yet done, a Eucharistic day of the month; 9. personally, or through the ministry of deacons, acolytes or extraordinary ministers, bring communion to the sick; 10. to make sure that the tabernacle may always be clearly visible and that the lamp of the tabernacle be always lit; 11. before every mass inform the faithful about the liturgy (or mass) that is to be celebrated and even announce the special intentions for which the mass is to be offered; 12. to form a good group of ministers, lectors, acolytes, ushers, musicians and singers; 13. to form a good group of persons to receive the offering. In the enormous majority of our churches the offerings of the faithful, at the offertory are not well collected as often one sees some old little men or boys who turn in confusion among the pews, in front and behind, to receive the offering until after the consecration. For every side of each aisle of the church there should be at least one collector; all collectors, after having made a good genuflection in front of the altar, may slowly start to collect moving from the front of the altar towards the door, in a way that all the faithful may see them, and all those who want to offer something can do it without prolonging the distraction; 14. to instruct the faithful periodically on the need of offering masses for the dead and for various personal and family needs; 15. in many of our parishes, I see ordinarily that the ‘messone’ (a heap or pile of intentions and offerings) is celebrated; canon 945 establishes that: a priest can receive only one offering for every mass that he celebrates; canon 948 requires that: “Separate masses are to be applied for the intentions for which an individual offering, even if small, has been made and accepted”. For collective or multi-intentions masses, we should scrupulously follow the guidelines of the decree of the Congregation of the Clergy of January 22, 1991 and published in the L’Osservatore Romano, March 23, 1991: Muilti-intentional or collective masses are permitted two times every week, subject to adequate instruction and information of the people, remaining firm that the celebrant may receive only one offering. Concluding practices. ‘If we want to reach our ultimate end, the divine union, we must do so in the Eucharist, ‘we say so because, the substance of the Eucharist is the grace of union’ (Works, vol. 12, p.233). ‘What helps us most to receive holy communion with fervour, is the practice of the morning extraordinary and evening extraordinary done in order to offer something to Jesus; of the matter of the sacrifice; to hear the mass with much unitive devotion; and the union with the angels, with Mary, with God Father and God Holy Spirit, with whom we honour Jesus in us, and to whom we offer Jesus in us’ (Works, vol. 1, art.675). ‘Every celebrant and every participant may make supplications for universal sanctification and therefore for the perfect divine union with the most holy Trinity and for the apostolate of this divine union in the world so that the world will be a deluge of saints and holy deeds, all a flame of Eucharist and of Holy Spirit, one host with the holy Trinity, in perpetual mystic ascension, Amen’ (Works, vol. 1, art. 228). “I wish that all my life may develop in the grace of holy baptism, of the holy Confirmation and of the holy Eucharist, growing in science, in the practice and in the apostolate of holy religions’ (Works, vol. 8, p.213) ‘After the institution of the Eucharist (Jesus goes) to the passion! So, also, do we. After communion, we must move ourselves towards compassion. Not only in the sense of pain for him whom we see suffer, but in the sense of union with him in his work… The true compassion is the living, fighting with Jesus in saving souls for the glory, love and divine will’ (Works, vol. 12, p.158). This means that every communion must render us more apostolic, more involved in his work, that is, the work of redemption. ‘Give us, O good God, the perfect knowledge, esteem and love, perfect use and frequency of all the means of sanctification that you have destined for us in the Church. Grant that with the divine Eucharist, we may become your perfect adorers, with life of sacrifice, of love to you, O God, and as sacrament of love for the brothers’ (Dev. P.894-5). I conclude, my brother, by asking you to examine yourself seriously on your Eucharistic life, on your zeal for the salvation of souls and on your love for the Eucharist: I see the root of our discontent, of our lukewarmness, of our pastoral negligence in our low self esteem, on our too little love and zeal for the holy Eucharist. May the Lord bless you and make you holy!
Your most obedient servant and brother Fr. Louis M. Caputo, SDV.
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