From time to time, people sit around and try to think of all the expressions taken from one of our literary classics that are still in common use. Shakespeare is good for this, and it is often surprising how many turns of phrase come from those immortal plays of his. Things like “into thin air” or “in broad daylight” are all due to Shakespeare’s novel ways of expressing an idea. This is also true of Sacred Scripture, and on this Wednesday we have a classic example of it. We have all heard the expression “we saw the handwriting on the wall,” meaning that we were able to foretell the future by the present in terms of finances, politics, health, the weather, and so forth.

On this Wednesday, because it is the last Wednesday of our church year, we have that ominous incident from the book of the prophet Daniel in the Old Testament. The pagan king Belshazzar of Babylon had enslaved the Hebrew people and brought many of them into captivity in his country where they could not enjoy political freedom or religious liberty. One night, the irreverent king ordered his servants to bring out the sacred vessels taken from the Temple in Jerusalem to be used at a banquet. This was totally sacrilegious—to put these objects destined for divine worship to completely secular use. While the king and his court were thus engaged, a hand appeared writing on the wall of the dining hall—writing words that the king and his court could not understand. The young Jewish prophet Daniel was sent for; he had a reputation of being able to interpret this kind of thing. He read the three words on the wall: MENE, TEKEL, PERES. And he went on to interpret them: because of the wickedness of the king and his irreverent behavior, his kingdom would be put to an end, the king himself had been weighed on the scales of justice and found wanting, and his kingdom would be divided between his enemies, the Medes and the Persians. To this day, we speak of “the handwriting on the wall” foretelling fearful consequences because of human sinfulness.

On Thanksgiving Day this year, as we sit down to our special meals, let us not do so irreverently or without being aware of what Thanksgiving is about. Let us be deeply grateful to God for all that we should be thankful for, and bear in mind the words of Our Divine Lord: if you love me, keep my commandments. We can paraphrase this saying: if you are grateful for my gifts, use them according to my will. Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

All sorts of things come into our thoughts and prayers as we begin this new week, the week in which the great national holiday of Thanksgiving occurs.

Yesterday, November 22nd, was the anniversary of the assassination of President John Kennedy in Dallas on that infamous Friday afternoon in 1963. My classmates and I had been ordained just seven months before that and were still in the seminary during our last year of theology. Many years later, I was able to visit the building from which the shots were fired and to look out the window and get the same view that the killer got when he stood there and changed the course of our history.

Yesterday was also the date on which Saint Cecilia, the Roman martyr who is the patroness of musicians, is ordinarily commemorated. And today, we may commemorate any of two saints and one blessed. The saints: Clement, the fourth pope; Columban, an Irish monk who spread the faith on the continent of Europe during the so-called “dark ages”; and then Blessed Miguel Pro, the young Jesuit priest who faced a firing squad in Mexico City during the vicious persecution of the Church in that country in the 1920s. He died just a few years before I was born, and when I was a schoolboy, the Sisters in our classes often spoke of “Father Pro.” When I first went to Mexico in 1948, I was aware that he often sat on the public benches on the beautiful avenue called the Paseo de la Reforma, hearing confessions in secret, and celebrated Mass in secret to bring Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament to the Catholics of those times. However, he was eventually captured and condemned to death. He stood before the firing squad, holding out his arms in the form of a cross, and just before the command “Fire!” was given, he shouted in triumph, “Long live Christ the King!” That was on November 23, 1927, just two years before I was born.

And now, we are all preparing for Thanksgiving, and I hope that our nation will prepare to celebrate it as its name and purpose intend: to thank a generous and gracious God for his endless benefits to us, especially in this country of ours. Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

 

A few days ago, I received a wonderfully heart-warming postcard that I’d like to share with you. Given all the bad news in the press these days, we can all use some GOOD news now and then which assure us that the Good News of the gospel is still operative in our world.

The postcard I received is from Spiritus Sanctus Academy (the name means “Holy Spirit”) in the city of Plymouth, Michigan, which is a western subjurb of Detroit. It is a picture postcard, bearing a wonderful photograph of seventeen smiling sixth graders and their teacher, a Dominican sister. The printing around the photograph says, “Spiritus Sanctus Academy celebrates the year of the priest.” Then below it, “The Priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus.”

The handwritten message on the other side of the postcard says, “Dear Father Victor, In honor of the year of the Priest our class remembered you in our prayers on 10-22. We just wanted to let you know that we are very thankful for your priesthood and for the gift that you are to the Church. May you be a great saint!” Then it’s signed, “In Christ, SSA Sixth Grade.”

I was delighted to receive this postcard, and so I wrote back to them thanking them for their good wishes and prayers for me, and told them that I hope that some of them will become priests and sisters, especially within our Dominican family.

More good news: yesterday in a weekly magazine called “The Week,” I came upon this item: “The director of a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic has joined a pro-life organization, saying she underwent a ‘change of heart’ while watching the termination of a pregnancy (that means an abortion). Abby Johnson, who has been with Planned Parenthood for nine years, quit her job after she saw an ultrasound image of a fetus “crumple” during an abortion, she said. She is now a member of Coalition for Life, which prays outside the clinic. “I thought: Never again,” she said. Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Diane Quest says that it is not unusual to have ‘complex thoughts and emotions about abortion. That’s why Planned Parenthood respects it as a personal, emotional issue.’

I can well understand how a moral person would have ‘complex thoughts and emotions’ upon seeing a living child crumple within its mother’s womb while he or she is being killed. It’s a great pity that Planned Parenthood doesn’t have more respect for those human lives which they are willing to destroy upon payment of the required amount of money. Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

Two favorite concepts of mine enter into our religious thoughts on this 18th day of November in the year of grace, 2009. One is that we can, if we wish, celebrate the liturgical memorial of Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne who came so close to our own lives in this part of the world and in the story of her experiences; the other is that earlier today, Pope Benedict spoke of the beauty of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe which stand so splendidly as witnesses to the faith and the devotion of those who built them 900 years ago.

Let’s consider Saint Philippine Duchesne first. She was a very strong-minded French woman who lived in the tumultuous history of her nation during the French Revolution and the era of Napoleon. She had wanted to become a Visitandine nun, founded by Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jane Frances de Chantal. But the political situation in France during those unhappy days when the guillotine blades cut short many vocations to religious and priestly life made it impossible for her to become a Visitandine Nun. However, she came to know of the work of another foundress, Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, whose spiritual and educational ambitions were similar to Philippine’s. She joined the new group, called the Society of the Sacred Heart. She had great energy, zeal, desire to extend the kingdom of her dear Savior. She wanted to got to America, where other French missionaries were going to preach the gospel. But Mother Barat realized that for a successful foreign mission there must be a great deal of organization, preparation, and provisions, and had her hands full with the work in their native France and Europe. The idea of venturing into the forests of the unknown New World where savage natives had been killing missionaries for two hundred years didn’t strike Mother Barat as practical or wise. Finally, in 1818, Philippine Duchesne was allowed to lead a group of her sisters across the very rough Atlantic. After a brief rest with the Ursuline Nuns in New Orleans, they sailed up the Mississippi to the town of St. Charles, Missouri, where the two great streams: the Missouri and the Mississippi, converged. Here the Sisters established themselves, eager to work among the native peoples and the rough and tumble white population who were leading a typical frontier life, often containing little of the gospel principles.

Years later, one of the Religious of the Sacred Heart wrote the biography of Saint Philippine Duchesne. She entitled it, “The Glorious Failure,” because both objectively and in her own estimation, most of what Mother Duchesne attempted did not succeed. What frustration! What sorrow she must have felt. She loved Jesus with all her heart; she had turned heaven and earth to get to American and spend herself for the evangelization of those people. But to begin with, she could not learn their languages, and they had no interest in learning hers beyond the price of tobacco, the sale of horses, mules, rifles, ammunition and gunpowder, and the building of flatboats to transport merchandise up and down the great rivers of this America that she was learning about.

Finally, one of the aristocratic nuns from Europe came to make a tour of inspection of the Sacred Heart missions fields. She decided that Mother Duchesne was simply not cut out
for that kind of work and sent her back to Saint Charles to remain in the convent, take care of the housework, and pray for the success of her more active sisters. What a blow to this woman whose heart was bursting with energy, plans, dreams, and apostolic zeal! But God had spoken through her superiors, and she obeyed unquestioningly. She spent whole nights in prayer, and the Indians came to call her, “The Woman Who Always Prays.” Resigned to be relegated to the background of the missionary endeavor in America, she did what she could for the nuns, the students, and the native hangers-on. And after a very difficult life of frustration, failure, disappointment, and fear of having badly served her Lord, she died at the age of 83 on November 18, 1852. She has been canonized and her shrine in St. Charles is one of the garden spots from which spiritual energy radiates out into this land which she and many others fertilized by their prayers and labors that it might produce good fruit for Christ, our Lord. Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

It is interesting how coincidences occur in life. Today, for example, we retired priests celebrated Mass in our house chapel in honor of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, a noblewoman who was particularly concerned with the poor. The thought was expressed as we meditated on her life that good health is a great wealth, and bad health is one of the many forms of poverty.

Then, as I came to my computer to read the daily Vatican Information Services, I found that today the Holy See and our holy father, Pope Benedict, are speaking of the conference of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care which, this year, focusses on deafness in our world. According to its statistics, there are some 278 million hearing-impaired people in the world, 59 million of whom are profoundly deaf. And because of my hearing problem, I fall into the former category. For the first 75 years of my life, I heard quite normally and took that gift totally for granted. Now, as I lose my hearing, I realize what a great gift it is and how much impaired hearing is a handicap. You lose a good deal of contact with the outside world, much of your understanding of what is being said either by people in your physical presence or on radio or television, and you realize that it is a problem for your family, friends, and associates to try to communicate with you when you have to keep asking them to repeat what they’ve said. The tendency is for them simply to say nothing, and thus the deaf or hard-of-hearing person is consigned to an increasing world of silence and non-communication. There are those who say, “Use hearing aids.” Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy, since the science of hearing aids is a very young one and for some people, they are more of a hindrance than a help.

It is common for us to say, when we see a handicapped person, “poor fellow” or “poor lady.” We recognize that there are many ways of being poor, and impaired health is one of them. We all know the tremendously moving story of Helen Keller, the child who became both blind and deaf when she was a toddler and had to overcome those tremendous handicaps with the help of her teacher, Annie Sullivan, who came to be called “The Miracle Worker” because she was so successful in opening the wall of darkness and silence and allowing Helen to learn, to know, to live a very valuable life, to become an inspiration and example for many.

Our Divine Lord says to us, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” This means, not that we don’t have a lot of money, but the awareness of our own lack of personal gifts or talents or abilities or, most of all, virtue. The child Jesus, who had to learn to read and write and eat with a spoon, despite the fact that he is God, is a marvelous example of poverty of spirit. His blessed mother must often have marveled at why she had to teach him, her Creator and Redeemer, these basic skills of human life. But that was all part of the incarnation— God becoming a human, “like us in all things but sin.” Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

On November 16 in the year 1093, the beloved Queen Margaret of Scotland died. She was an English princess whose father had fled to Scotland to escape the Norman conquest of his own country. There Margaret met and married the king, Malcolm. Their daughter Matilda married King Henry I of England, and that couple became the forebears of the present British royal family. The city of Edinburgh in Scotland is filled with historical memories of Queen Margaret who is also Saint Margaret of Scotland. She was a deeply devout lady whose special interest was the helping of the poor in her adopted country, and because of her constant concern for them, she was beloved by her people.

It is interesting to reflect that the name “Margaret” comes from the Latin word “margarita,” meaning “pearl.” Down through the years it has been one of of the most popular girl’s names, taking on numerous variations. It has given us Margot, Meg, Greta, Gretel, Gretchen, and somehow, girls whose real name is Margaret are sometimes called “Peg” or “Peggy.” I’m not sure whether girls began to bear the name Margarita or Margaret because of the natural beauty of the pearl, or in reference to Our Lord’s parable of the fisherman who found “a pearl of great price” for which he sold all his lesser jewels.

On my one and only visit to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, I was able to visit the little chapel constructed by order of Saint Margaret within the walls of Edinburgh Castle where she lived as queen. When she arrived there as the bride of the king, she was saddened to find no chapel within the castle walls, and so asked the king to build a chapel on the grounds of the castle. It stands there today, nearly a thousand years later, as a testimonial to the faith of “Good Queen Margaret” and to her love of the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament which she wanted to be part of the daily life of herself, her husband, and her children. When we attend Mass and receive Holy Communion, we are following the example of Saint Margaret and countless other saints and holy men and women down through the ages whose faith led them to believe and rejoice in the presence of our Divine Lord with us in the Sacrament. Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

I come to my computer to compose this daily message on Friday the 13th of November, the commemoration day of Saint Frances Cabrini, and the last ordinary weekend in our church year 2009, since next Sunday, November 22, with be the solemnity of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the Church year. We Dominicans ordinarily celebrate November 15 with special joy because it is the feast of our brother, Saint Albert the Great. But it is superseded by Sunday this year, so Saint Albert is deprived of his special liturgical honor in 2009.

Saint Frances Cabrini, or “Mother Cabrini” as she is affectionately known in New Orleans and other places where she lived and worked, came to our shores from Italy with six of the Sisters of the congregation which she had founded in Italy: the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Most of her fellow immigrants asked the questions: how can I succeed in life in America? where shall I go to put down roots? shall I remain in New York City as so many immigrants did, or shall I go farther into the hinterland? All the questions concerned with one’s own progress in this new world to which they were coming. Mother Cabrini asked herself: what can I do to help these people? How can I best serve our Divine Lord and his Church in this new land? She did a great deal of good for a great number of people in the United States from coast to coast; Costa Rica, Panama, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and then back in her native Europe, in France and England. From eight original members, her little congregation grew to over a thousand.

In New Orleans, her memory is especially revered. I have met people who remembered seeing her and speaking with her when they were children and she was working among the Italian immigrants of New Orleans. After a very active and productive life, she died in a hospital which she had founded in Chicago, in December of 1917, while World War I was being waged and this country was involved in it.

This Sunday, the gospel at Mass contains Our Lord’s words concerning the end of the world. He speaks of the end of the world as we know it, and the end of the Jewish world as his own fellow-Jews knew it; actually, the two events, namely the destruction of Jerusalem, its temple, and its Jewish identity and the destruction of the world at the end of time, are intermingled in his prophecies of the future. Jerusalem would be destroyed just forty years after Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. As for the end of time, “no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Our Lord admits that in his human knowledge, he does not know when the world will end. And although he certainly knows it from his divine treasure of knowledge, it is not for us to know. So all the attempts to dabble in fortune-telling about the future by reading Nostradamus or the Mayan calendar that we spoke of yesterday, or any other omens about the world to come are doomed to failure. The attempts to use the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, as a fortune-telling device are particularly foolish, since that same Bible tells us that we will not know until it happens, and then everyone will know and we won’t need to be told by anyone else. It will be as obvious as the noonday sun. What is important is not WHEN it will happen or HOW, but that we be ready to welcome Christ’s coming to us either at the end of our lives or at the end of time, whichever comes first. We want him to find us awake, alert, and pleasing to him so that he will welcome us into his eternal kingdom. Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

My morning email brought me a chuckle today when a non-Catholic friend of mine sent me a message asking about the rumor that in 2012 the world is going to come to an end.

I’ve heard this mentioned several times; it seems to stem from a calendar produced sometime around 1000 years ago by a group of Mayan Indians in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico or Guatemala. And, of course, it depends on not only how accurate their knowledge of the future was, but how accurate is the interpretation of that calendar by those who tell us what it means. There are those who wonder about selling the house in preparation for the end of the world, although for the life of me, I don’t understand what good that would do.

I would suggest that we avoid the “Chicken Little” approach to the Mayan calendar, and not run around announcing the end of the world in three years. You remember that a few years ago, some religious sect decided that the world would end on such-and-such a date. They all went into a large house somewhere and nailed the doors shut. Again, I wonder why? However, much to their embarrassment, the world didn’t end when they thought it would. So when their supply of peanut butter and crackers ran out, they had to get the hammer, remove the nails from the doors and come outside.

So, as long as the sun rises each morning in the east and travels across the sky during the day, and no cosmic disturbances occur, I wouldn’t consider selling the house or giving up the apartment. If the sun quits following its daily course and we feel ourselves falling into the sun, then we can call our favorite realtor and ask him to put the house on the market! I doubt very much that he will find a customer!

Meantime, let us trust in God’s goodness, mercy, and care for us. Better that, than any Mayan calendar. Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

On this date in the year 397, over sixteen centuries ago, Saint Martin of Tours in the Loire valley of France, was laid to rest in that city. Since then, November 11 has been associated with him and was commonly called “Martinmas” during the Middle Ages. Saint Martin was born in Pannonia, east of the Adriatic. He joined the Roman army and was sent to Gaul, now France, for his military service. While there, he began to study our faith and began to prepare for Catholic baptism. In his catechism classes, he learned that Jesus says in the gospel: “Do to others as you would want them to do to you.” And, closely related to that, “Whatever you do to others, you do to Me.”

One freezing day in northern France, Martin was traveling on horseback near the city of Amiens where he was stationed. As he went, he encountered a freezing beggar by the roadside. The words of Jesus as taught him in his catechism class came to him. He reined in his horse, took his sword, and cut his voluminous Roman army cloak in half. With the half that he had cut off his own cloak, he wrapped the trembling beggar. That night, according to the venerable story, Our Lord appeared to him either in a dream or some other apparition, dressed in the part of the cloak that Martin had given to the beggar. That event made an enormous impression on the people of Europe; there is not a museum or church over there that doesn’t have an image of St. Martin dividing his cloak with the cold beggar.

Now, think of the persons whom you don’t like but with whom you must have contact at times. How do you treat them? Do you prove yourself to be a Christian by treating them as you know Our Lord wants you to, or do you prove yourself to be unChristian by NOT treating them as you would treat Our Lord himself? It makes a very interesting question and answer and is a very worthwhile examination of conscience.

Then, in our civil society we celebrate November 11 which used to be called Armistice Day and now Veterans Day. Armistice Day, because the armistice, or surrender by Germany on November 11, 1918, brought World War I to an end. “The war that would end all wars.” How hollow that now sounds! How foolishly optimistic those who coined that phrase! Twenty-one years later, Europe again erupted in war, and our country was drawn into it in 1941. And we wonder: will the human race NEVER learn that war does not solve problems, but is itself one of our greatest and deadliest problems? That’s why we don’t call this date Armistice Day any more, but rather Veterans Day, to remember those who have served in our military forces, and especially those who died in that service, including the 13 who were gunned down just a few days ago in Fort Hood, Texas. Will our race ever renounce war as a means of accomplishing our purposes? As Peter, Paul, and Mary used to sing back in the ’60s: “The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind … the answer is blowing in the wind.”

So today, let us pray for the French nation and especially for the Church in France, of which Saint Martin was one of the great founders. Let us pray for those who have served, and are serving in our military, and especially those who gave their lives for their country. Let us think of the words inscribed on the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington National Cemetery: here lies in honored glory an American soldier, known but to God. Thank you for seeking God’s truth.  God bless you.  Father Victor Brown, O.P.

My computer is back in operation and I am happy to send you a daily message again today. Yesterday, we celebrated the feast of the consecration of the basilica of Saint John Lateran, the cathedral of the archdiocese of Rome and therefore the Pope’s own cathedral. And today, we celebrate one of the greatest of our Popes, Saint Leo the Great. Let us put these two celebrations together and consider them in our thought and our prayer.

For the first two centuries of the Church’s history, she was persecuted by the Roman Empire and had to operate in secret—in the catacombs of Rome and in hidden places elsewhere in the immense empire. It was impossible to build churches or any visible buildings that would attract the attention of the imperial police. Almost every Pope and Bishop during that time was captured and killed by the agents of the Caesars. Then, in the year 313, the emperor Constantine signed the Edict of Toleration, whereby all religions were permitted to operate freely in the empire. The church came up from underground, both literally and figuratively, and began to build impressive churches, monasteries, and other buildings to house her many works. The Laterani family gave to the Pope the property on which now stands the basilica of Saint John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome. Divine worship began there in the year 324—1685 years ago!

That’s a long time and a glorious history of prayer and liturgical sacrifice to the honor and glory of God. One of the most striking monuments in Rome is the statuary group located before Saint John Lateran. It depicts three Franciscan friars—Saint Francis of Assisi himself and two of his companions. They have come down to Rome from Assisi to ask the Pope’s blessing upon their new congregation of friars. As they catch sight of the Lateran basilica and residence where the Popes lived in those days—the church already nine hundred years old—Francis raises his hands in delight and greeting, his face suffused with the joy of seeing this heart of Christianity. The statuary group catches this happiness and reflects it beautifully. It’s a wonderful monument to faith, joy, gratitude, reverence. In our own place and time, we have similar feelings of joy and appreciation for our churches. We of New Orleans know the sorrow of losing so many of our parish churches to Hurricane Katrina, including the church where I received the first Sacraments: Our Lady of Good Counsel. Here, the people on the Bolivar peninsula are fighting to keep their church, Our Mother of Mercy, open after the destruction of Hurricane Ike. And recently in our liturgy we have read of the joy on the part of the Jews at the time of the Macchabean revolt which drove out the pagan Greeks and allowed the people of God to reconsecrate the Temple in Jerusalem. That happy occasion is still celebrated yearly in the feast of Hanukkah, near our Christmas time.

In the year 440, a Roman Pope named Leo—the Lion, named for Our Lord, the Lion of Juda—was elected. He combatted the external enemies of the Church—Huns and Vandals —and her internal enemies, those who taught false doctrines and tried to lead Christ’s flock into error. All of this shows us the great gifts of our faith, the truth of Christ, his Church, and the great institution of the Papacy. Let us be grateful for these gifts and the spiritual wealth that they bring to us and to the world. Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.