When you come into my presence, pour out your heart before me: all that you suffer, all that you question, all that you fear, give all to me. This you do already when you pray the psalms. It was through the psalms that I poured out my own Heart to my Father, and in the prayers of David and the holy ones of Israel my Father heard my voice and inclined to listen to the prayer of my Heart.

So does my Father now when my Bride, the Church, pours out her heart before me in the Divine Office. I receive the prayer of my Church expressed in the age–old psalmody, already so familiar and so dear to my soul, and unite the prayer of the Church to my own ceaseless pleading before the Father in the heavenly sanctuary. It is this that confers upon the psalmody of my Church such impetratory power, such vehemence, such a resonance in the sanctuary of heaven.

When you chant the psalms you are giving me all that you hold in your heart and all that makes up your life. There is no human experience, no suffering — not even the evil that is sin —that cannot be tendered to me by means of the psalmody of my Church. For this reason it is a tragic loss and an immense woe when the psalmody of my Church falls silent in a land or in a diocese. It is a silence of death, like that of the netherworld in which no one intones a song of praise, a lament of repentance, a hymn of thanksgiving, an ode of love.

My Church will be restored when the sound of her praises —the expression of my own praise of the Father in heaven —begins once again to echo from place to place, filling the nations of the earth with the sacrificium laudis, the sacrifice of praise.

I came from heaven to bring to earth the liturgy of the heavenly sanctuary, wherein I, the Word, am the Priest and Great Doxologiser of my Father, so that my Church might give voice on earth to the mystery of my life from all eternity facing the Father and glorifying Him, and offering myself to Him in a ceaseless oblation of love to His Love.

Let no one doubt of the singular efficacy of the Divine Office. When the Office ceases in a given place, there the Church has become mute; she has lost her voice; she no longer has the means by which I want her to pour out her heart in my presence. When the Church no longer intercedes, praises, thanks my Father, and weeps over sin, an icy death–like silence begins to spread, not the silence of adoring love, but the silence of a tomb filled with corruption.

The renewal of the Church among the nations is intrinsically related to the restoration of the public celebration of my praises: to the restoration of the Divine Office, however humbly and simply, in all those places where it has fallen into abeyance. My bishops have the duty of providing for the solemn public worship of the churches in their care. For this reason, my Church, united in Council, was right to teach and uphold that a church in which there is no form of contemplative monastic life remains underdeveloped, stunted in the growth that I will to give her.

I promise to bless every nation and every church in which the solemn celebration of the prayer of my Bride, the Church, is restored to honour and fostered. Therein my people, especially my people caught in the throes of suffering and in the shadow of death, will find a voice to express all that they bear within their hearts, and therein they will find a wellspring of joy: the sound on earth of the liturgy I ceaselessly celebrate in the courts of heaven.

(From In Sinu Iesu, The Journal of a Priest)

Franciscan Spirituality #15: Sources, Part 5 – Mar 17 – Homily – Fr Terrance

apostolate — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 11:04:28 +0000

Fr Terrance gives the homily at Bloomington, IN, on Mar 17, 2023, on how the Church’s liturgy was a source of strength and inspiration for the spirituality of St Francis. This is a continuation of his series of homilies on Franciscan Spirituality. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNN151zTIO4&list=PLejh_e0-LN4xgMllKrzSasL2Hljd5BHom

Notes:

0:00 Intro – Liturgy, Francis’s strength and inspiration

Liturgy is a source of Francis’s strength and inspiration, a place to find God who acts.

0:55 – What is Liturgy

Liturgia originally meant a public work of civil or religious duty

In the Christian Church, it is public worship, expressing our relationship with Christ, which is not just private CCC 1069 – http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2.htm#1069

Participating in the liturgy is participating in the priestly minister and in Christ’s works

We do it, but it is Christ working

Not just sterile remembrance of past events but makes Christ present and sanctifies and renews the Church, the body of Christ

2:46 – St Francis’s view of the liturgy

St Francis’s view of the liturgy is based on the concreteness of his spirituality, to live what he loves,

This is the basis of his Christocentric objectiveness

Worship of the trinity to continually adore Christ in the cycles of the Liturgical seasons

Admonition to continually worship Christ

In the first rule in all times and seasons, have a true and humble faith, love , adore … supreme god trinity

Friars should always take care of the abode of Christ in the tabernacles of the world.

4:55 – St Francis contributions

The Grotto in Greccio was the first nativity scene. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euGVYbwK93A

Lent – Office of the Passion – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Office_of_the_Passion

Reinvigorated eucharist by Restoring three churches and

Did not want to be a priest because he did not feel worthy

Devotion to the bible was part of his liturgical practice

Received Eucharist as often as he could with great devotion.

6:37 – Breviary, Divine office

Breviary and other liturgical books were very diverse between friaries as things were in the whole Church. He standardized on the version used in the Papal chapel and, 70 years later, the Pope took his queue and standardized this breviary throughout the Church.

Francis would recite the breviary every day, even when traveling or sick.

8:07 – St. Bonaventure 5 Reasons to recite the Breviary

1 Imitates the angels in praises for God
2 Thank God day and night, recalls the life, passion, and death of Christ
3 rekindles the heart with love for God
4 Encourage the Faithful to pray by example
5 For the beauty and decorum of the Christian world.

9:22 Conclusion – Participation in the mysteries of the Chruch

Francis’s spirit of the Liturgy was lively, and an intimate participation in the mysteries of the Chruch, especially the yearly cycle, receiving the graces offered, Making Christ present, here and now, and for the entire world.

Ave Maria!

This is a continuation of his series of homilies on Franciscan Spirituality – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNN151zTIO4&list=PLejh_e0-LN4xgMllKrzSasL2Hljd5BHom

The material for this series comes primarily from Ciccarelli, Marciano M., “I capisaldi della spiritualità francescana” in Italian, which translates as “The Cornerstones of Franciscan Spirituality”. No English translations exist at the time of this recording.

Mass: St. Patrick – Opt Mem
Readings: Friday 3rd Week of Lent – http://usccb.org/bible/readings/031723.cfm
1st: hos 14:2-10
Resp: psa 81:6-11, 14, 17
Gsp: mar 12:28-34

More on the Readings: http://dev.airmaria.com/r?m=1045&r=1669

Also on Facebook: https://fb.watch/jkt2G_fCEm/
and YouTube: https://youtu.be/u4ltAoi4SPA

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Franciscan Spirituality #15: Sources, Part 5 – Mar 17 – Homily – Fr Terrance