by Peter Kwasniewski

What the Schools Can Teach Us About the Mass

The Communion of the Apostles by Luca Signorelli

The Source and Summit of the Christian Life

ope Benedict XVI inaugurated the Year and summit of the whole Christian life, they offer the divine of Faith on October 11, 2012, the fiftieth Victim to God, and offer themselves along with it.1 The anniversary of the opening of the Second source or fount of our entire life in Christ is His Eucharistic Vatican Council and the twentieth anniverSacrifice, that is to say, the Mass; whatever share of the life sary of the publication of the Catechism of of God is ours somehow originates from that event. And the the Catholic Church. One of the reasons given by the Holy goal, the aim, the peak of our Christian life is nothing other Father for having instituted this special than the very same Sacrifice, through year of grace is the need to rediscover Our Lord in His generosity our participation in it, through our comthe authentic teaching of Vatican IIa munion with Jesus Christ, in whom we has given the Church council that continues to be misreprehave eternal life. I am the living bread sented and misapplied in broad sectors many wonderful schools of come down from heaven; whosoever of the Church. The Pope also writes bread will live forever, He spirituality nurtured within eats thisthe Gospel of John. He who in his Apostolic Letter Porta Fidei: says in the great religious orders, eats My flesh and drinks My blood We want this Year to arouse in every believer the aspiration to profess the and each of these schools abides in Me, and I in him. That is the Faith in fullness and with renewed very heart of our Christian life, as we go has, at its foundation, conviction, with confidence and hope. on pilgrimage through this world, as we It will also be a good opportunity to travel to the house of the Father, where something essential, intensify the celebration of the Faith in we shall rest in the bosom of the Father, something elemental, the Liturgy, especially in the Eucharist. even as His beloved Son. to teach us about our As we move through the Year of Faith, Our Lord in His generosity has given therefore, it behooves all of us who love the Church many wonderful schools spiritual life, and indeed the traditional Mass to consider how we of spirituality nurtured within the great about the Mass itself. might become better participants in the religious orders, and each of these Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. schools has, at its foundation, someThe Second Vatican Councils Dogmatic Constitution thing essential, something elemental, to teach us about our on the Church, Lumen Gentium, has this remarkable thing spiritual life, and indeed about the Mass itself. This article to say about all faithful Christians, clergy and laity alike: will therefore offer a running commentary on the parts Taking part in the Eucharistic sacrifice, which is the source and aims of the Mass by looking to major characteristics

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The Source and Summit of the Christian Life: What the Schools Can Teach Us About the Mass
not say Labora et ora, work first and then pray, but Ora et labora: fix your mind on the Lord, and then go about your workeven the work of the Churchs liturgy. The Benedictines In the structuring of human life there are two main The motto of the Order of Saint Benedict is ora et labora. errors to be avoided, and each involves exalting one This is a rule for the whole of life. Benedictines faithful side of the balance to the detriment of the other. There is to their Rule are well known for the beautiful balance of prayer without work: we call this quietism, the view that their lives: they know how to balance work and prayer, the one should abandon oneself to God in such a way that bodily and the spiritual, the manual and the intellectual, one needs to do nothing else and be concerned with no the exterior and the interior; they know how to balance the one else: there is, in effect, no work to be done. And then individual and the social, as well. Prayer is like breathing there is work without prayer: we could call this, for lack in, taking in Gods grace; and work is like breathing out, of a better term, activismas if the most important thing using the gifts He gives us to build His kingdom in the we need to be doing is working out there in the world world. Ora et labora. Or like the pulse of our circulatory to solve its problems. This attitude, of course, is far more system: the blood returns to the heart to be oxygenated common in our day and age than the opposite one. Whens and is then pumped out into the rest of the body to bring the last time you met a quietist? the oxygen where its needed. Saint Pio Saint Benedict calmly reminds us: of Pietrelcina once remarked: Prayer Oraet labora: Pray first, then work. At the end of the dayat is the oxygen of the soul. We, too, in Go to Mass, then resume your daily the end of each day, our souls, need to return to the heart, the business, whatever it may be. Do not put Sacred Heart of Jesus, to be renewed by even important matters before the unum when we examine our His grace; and when this has happened, thing necessary. consciencesthe number necessarium, the onethe monks and we are then able to be sent forth to the Notice the wisdom of one question has to be: rest of the members of His Mystical nuns. They limit whatever work they Body, to serve their needs. must do to set periods of time each day, Have I drawn close to Ora et labora. We give ourselves so that their work never interferes with the Lord today? Have to God, in the Mass, in public prayer, their prayer. They build up sacred walls in private prayer; and He gives us the around the prayer times and make sure I prayed? Have I given strength to go out and work. And we myself a chance to pray? they are inside those walls at the approfind that the more earnestly we strive priate hour. Like a fortress or a citadel, Have I received, if it was this refuge cannot be destroyed. Let to serve Him in everything we do, the more eagerly we come back to prayer, possible, the sacraments nothing take precedence over the work of to the fountain of life, because we see God, says the Rule. Saint Benedict althat He offers to me for how much we need His help to do great ways refers to the liturgy as the work of things. Even the Mass follows this my sanctification? God, opus Dei. He calls it this for two principle. We are praying in our spirit, reasons: first, because it is really more but we are also working with our senses and our limbs: we properly Gods work; we are putting ourselves in a position stand, we sit, we kneel; we make gestures; we sing, speak, to let Him work in us. As Jesus says in Saint Johns Gospel: and fall silent. Why do we do all these things? Over and My Father worketh even until now, and I work. He is the above the symbolism of particular words and actions, there potter, we are the clay. If the clay isnt on the wheel or in is a general reason: when we worship we are not altogether the potters hands, it wont get shaped. Saint Benedict also passive, we are active: we put our muscles and vocal cords means that it is our work for God: we show Him that He is into it, as a way of giving ourselves, body and soul, to the first in our lives, and we give Him our mind, our voice, our Lord. But neither are we activists who think that worship song, our silence. is all about saying and doing stuff. The very best activity Our spiritual life is by far the most important thing for us we have as human beings is our receptivity to Gods grace, to take care of, no matter where we are or what we are doand that is actually the most important thing in our particiing in our lives. If we had piercing intellects like the angels, pation at Mass: not what we do externally, but what we do we would see this very clearly; as it is, we are rather foolish, internally, or what we allow to be done to us. The external and we are constantly tempted to put second things first, and gestures and words are to initiate, guide, and strengthen put first things off. At the end of the dayat the end of each our internal reception of the graces God wants to give us. day, when we examine our consciencesthe number one Once again, see the wisdom of the Benedictines. They do question has to be: Have I drawn close to the Lord today? of Benedictine, Carmelite, Dominican, Franciscan, and Ignatian spirituality.
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The Source and Summit of the Christian Life: What the Schools Can Teach Us About the Mass
Have I prayed? Have I given myself a chance to pray? Have I received, if it was possible, the sacraments that He offers to me for my sanctification? Nothing else in life can substitute for the divine power of the sacraments; nothing can substitute for the unique role of the sacred liturgy and interior prayer, which are indispensable causes and conditions of spiritual growth. In a nutshell: if we want to grow spiritually, we have to make these things the axis on which our life turns. is heaven breaking into our fallen world. It is not something to worry ourselves about (am I almost there? will it happen to me? when will it happen?). It is our job, rather, to do that which falls more within our power: the road of purgation, and the seeking of illumination. God will do the rest, in His good time; He will make us rest in Him when we are fitted to do so, if not in this life, then in the life to come, provided we depart this one in the state of grace. A holy priest shared with me a beautiful insight into how this Carmelite spiritual doctrine applies to the very structure and experience of the Mass. The Carmelites Every Mass consists of three basic parts: a penitential One of the most well-known aspects of Carmelite spiritualpreparation; instruction from the Word of God; and the ity is its presentation of the spiritual life as a progression renewal of the sacrifice of Calvary, through three stages: purgation, ilwhen the divine Victim is offered lumination, and union. These stages up to God and we, His members, are often referred to as the purgative are offered to God in union with way, the illuminative way, and the Him as our Head. Mass therefore unitive way. Their names manifest deliberately begins with a purgathe predominant activity of each. tive ritual: we are bidden to recall In the first stage, we make many our sins, we confess them in the and repeated efforts to mortify our Confiteor, we beseech the Lords sinful habits so that we may develop mercy in the Kyrie eleison. We seek a way of life that is truly given over to purify ourselves of whatever may to God. In the second stage, the hinder our progress to union with cleansing of our moral imperfecChrist. As we transition to the Coltions continues, but the predominant lect, we are opening our minds and note is that of being enlightened The Last Communion of Saint Louis, King of France by hearts to be instructed by the Word by Gods grace as He takes an ever Gabriel-Francois Doyen of God: this begins the illuminative greater initiative in teaching us His phase of the Mass, when we kneel sovereign goodness. In this stage The Mass is our miniature or sit down to hear the lesson or we become more receptive; since lessons, and stand to receive the the main impediments to His action immersion in the whole of the Gospel, in which the Word of God have been purged away, God is spiritual life, if only we open Himself teaches us. If we are alert more and more free to act within us. ourselves to it! It does not, of and attentive, Gods Word will His reality becomes increasingly the point of departure of our thoughts, course, take us entirely through be able to penetrate our souls so that His Truth can give form and willings, and actions, and their the purgative, illuminative, and measure to our thoughts and our point of arrival. In the third stage, desires. God is shaping us to be God draws us into contemplative unitive waysthat would be ready for union with Himself. With union with Himself: it is entirely quite a shortcut!but it is like the Offertory, we initiate a new acHis doing, only He can elevate us these ways in its very structure, tion: a response, symbolized by the to such a tasting and seeing of His bread and wine we make and bring, goodness, and all that we can do is and it accomplishes something by which we tell the Lord that we make ourselves available for the inof their work in our souls. are ready to be offered up to Him vasion of His tenderness. It is not so as a sacrifice, to be joined to His much a union we bring ourselves to, self-oblation on the Cross, and to be surrendered to the fire as a union He brings about in us, as it pleases His Majesty. of His love. We are entering on the unitive path, where our We are assured by the great Carmelite Doctors Saint John of role is to present ourselves at the feast, ready to receive the Cross and Saint Teresa of Jesus that, in spite of the harsh the Lord Jesus, Who comes to us in the Sacrifice and gives way that leads up to this stage, and in spite of our helplessHimself to us. Although we come forward to His altar, it ness to achieve it, one taste of the sweetness of the Lord is is He who takes us up into communion with Himself. As worth every suffering, every pain, every hardship; indeed, it

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The Source and Summit of the Christian Life: What the Schools Can Teach Us About the Mass
Saint Augustine says, while ordinary food is transformed Apart from the fact that countless popes have recominto the one who eats it, this heavenly food, being more mended him for over 700 years, it seems to me that Saint real and more potent than we are, transforms us into Itself Catherines encomium goes a long way towards explaining and thus conjoins us with our Lord. why the Church grants Saint Thomas such a privileged This is well worth pondering: the Mass is our miniature place in the teaching of sacred theology. immersion in the whole of the spiritual life, if only we Saint Thomas belonged to the Order of Preachers, or open ourselves to it! It does not, of course, take us entirely Dominicans. This was the first religious order in the history through the purgative, illuminative, and unitive waysthat of the Church to treat studythat is, intellectual laboras would be quite a shortcut!but it is like these ways in its a holy and sanctifying activity in and of itself, something very structure, and it accomplishes something of their work worth pursuing not as a mere instrument for something else, in our souls. The true purifier, teacher, and lover of our but as a way of perfecting the image of God within us, as a souls, Jesus Christ, is present to us, ready to cleanse us who genuine path to God. And, as a corollary, Saint Dominic saw cry out to Him, eager to illuminate us by His Word, and that without a sustained and serious use of the human intellonging to unite us to Himself, to communicate His resurlect, guided by the Magisterium of the Church, the worlds rected life into our bodies and souls. If we enter into this rulers and rustics alike would fall prey again and again to great prayer of Christ and His Church and make it our own, charlatans, hooligans, heretics, bad poets, and an assortment the center around which the rest of our of demonic forces. In fact, you never can life revolves, we will become, as it were, quite get rid of these parasites; but Saint When one thinks about apprenticed to the Carmelites; we will Dominic fashioned an order that was the Dominican zeal for taste and see the goodness of the Lord. dedicated with steely resolve to exposing study, one thinks about the and refuting their stratagems through The Dominicans Mass of the Catechumens; holy preaching and sound teaching. It The Dominicans really are the lights of may not be too much of an exaggeration one thinks about hearing to say that Dominic and the Dominicans the Church. Think about it: Saint Albert the Great, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and are the saints who sanctified the study of Scripture proclaimed Saint Catherine of Siena, among others, the Great Books as well as the eloquence from the sanctuary and were all Dominicans. The intellectual that proceeds from such study. expounded in the homily. wattage and spiritual luminosity hardly We heard Saint Catherine say that gets brighter than that among us mortal God gave Saint Thomas special light to men. It always amazes me to hear what Jesus said to Cathunderstand Sacred Scripture. When one thinks about the erine, as reported in her Dialogue: Dominican zeal for study, one thinks about the Mass of the Catechumens; one thinks about hearing Scripture proWith this light that is given to the eye of the intellect, claimed from the sanctuary and expounded in the homily; Thomas Aquinas saw Me, wherefore he acquired the light one thinks about the illuminative way touched on earlier. As of much science; also Augustine, Jerome, and the doctors, Saint Augustine says in De Doctrina Christiana, all study is and My saints. They were illuminated by My Truth to know ordered to understanding the Word of God and communicatand understand My Truth in darkness. By My Truth I mean ing it. The dedication to study found so plentifully in the the Holy Scripture, which seemed dark because it was not Catholic tradition is ultimately in service of hearing Gods understood; not through any defect of the Scriptures, but of Word with a mind thoroughly prepared to receive it, so that them who heard them, and did not understand them. His wisdom becomes ours, and our joy becomes complete. If you turn to Augustine, and to the glorious Thomas Lets put it provocatively: the entire academic curriculum at and Jerome, and the others, you will see how much light any institution of higher learning stands or falls depending they have thrown over this spouse, [the Holy Catholic on whether it opens the ears of students to the full message Church] extirpating error, like lamps placed upon the of Divine Revelation, as delivered by the mouth of the candelabra, with true and perfect humility. . . . Churchs liturgy. Look at My glorious Thomas, who gazed with the Saint Thomas, says Saint Catherine, obtained supernatugentle eye of his intellect at My Truth, whereby he ral light more by prayer than by human study. His earliest acquired supernatural light and science infused by grace, biographers relate that he would often take a break from for he obtained it rather by means of prayer than by human his studies to go and rest his head beside the tabernacle. study. He was a brilliant light, illuminating his order and He participated in the Mass twice each morning: once as the mystical body of the Holy Church, dissipating the the celebrant with his secretary Brother Reginald servclouds of heresy. ing him, and immediately after, as the acolyte at Brother
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The Source and Summit of the Christian Life: What the Schools Can Teach Us About the Mass
Reginalds Mass. The mystical experience that brought his lifes enormous literary labors to an abrupt end took place while he was offering Mass on the Feast of Saint Nicholas, December 6, 1273. After this Mass, he could barely speak, and, apart from a short letter he dictated to the monks of Montecassino, he wrote or dictated no more, until he died a few months later. When you read about the life of Saint Thomas, you discover that he was a man totally consumed with love for divine Truth, longing for the blessed sight of Gods Face, and he both quenched his thirst and increased it by his daily partaking of the Sacred Banquet of the Mass, the sacrum convivium, as he calls it. He is truly, in every way, a model for Catholics who pursue the lifelong task of faith seeking understanding. Like the Benedictines with whom he spent part of his youth, Saint Thomas knew the secret of ora et labora. how much our Maker loves us and longs to have us for Himself. Even natural disasters do this: natures fury is Gods abrupt and startling way of reminding us that, as the Letter to the Hebrews puts it, We have here no abiding city, but we seek one that is to come. This earth is most definitely not our home, and we need to be slapped out of that illusion now and again. When we allow ourselves to appreciate and delight in the natural world, paradoxically we come to be aware of a capacity in us that goes far beyond this world. In the very moment when this world seems the most beautiful reality there is, we have an aching sense that it is not all that there isthere must be something more. A lot more. Infinitely more. The Infinite Love, the Mysterious and Baffling and Playful and Frightening Love that stands behind it. And there we are, on the receiving end of this cosmic declaration: You are my The Franciscans In reality, far from being a new- beloved, you. I created you in love; An exact contemporary of Saint I redeemed you in love; I call you age hippie ahead of his time, Dominic, Saint Francis of Asto Myself in love. I will not rest Saint Francis was a mystic sisi is often portrayed as a sort of until you are with Me forever. nature-loving hippie who goes Does the Lord really care so in love with Christ crucified, around scattering flowers, singing much for us? Indeed He does, for absolutely faithful to Christs love songs, and doing crazy things we would not even exist without Holy Church, and almost that break the system. Well, he did His loving will, and we exist besome of that, its true, but the flowcombustible with his zeal for the cause He seeks us for eternal life in ers were his miracles and lessons, His blessed peace. The beauty He Most Holy Eucharist. the love songs were addressed to poured out into this world is meant Christ, and the system he broke to captivate our heart so that we was the bureaucracy of human corruption and mediocwill give it to Him, rejoicing in what He has made; and rity. In reality, far from being a new-age hippie ahead of the evils He allows in this world prevent us from placing his time, Saint Francis was a mystic in love with Christ our love in this world, as if it could satisfy us. It cancrucified, absolutely faithful to Christs Holy Church, not satisfy. The Lord has given us a deeper identity than and almost combustible with his zeal for the Most Holy nature can give, a deeper citizenship than the nations of Eucharist. the earth can bestow. We will travel through this world as His love of nature was not at all like that of the modernstrangers and sojourners who admire the beautiful things day nature-worshiper. Saint Francis loved the created God has made, but who long for their indescribably more universe because everything in it reminded him of God, beautiful Author. We will be among those who work for and so he was able to use it as a ladder to climb up to God. the finite and human good, but who know all along that Saint Bonaventure, in his biography of the saint, tells us: the infinite divine good is our destiny. When [Francis] bethought himself of the first beginning Saint Augustine said it best of all: Fecisti nos ad te, et of all things, he was filled with a yet more overflowing inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te. You charity, and would call the dumb animals, howsoever have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restsmall, by the names of brother and sister, forasmuch as he less until it rests in You. In his life of heroic virtue, Saint recognized in them the same origin as in himself. Francis, like Christ, teaches us how to love the good things For us who believe in the Creator of heaven and earth, God has made without becoming enslaved to them; how to nature really is a book, Gods first book: it is a series of taste and see that the Lord is good by experiencing, with intelligible words brought forth from a wise and loving purity of heart, the beauty of creation as a summons to Mind and placed before us so that we could glean His return to its Maker, Who is peace and every good for us. mind and heart in the pages of this book. The cosmos is Now, what has all this to do with the liturgy or with not something impersonal and ultimately indifferent to prayer? Allow me to quote from one of my favorite man, but a love letter that tells us, in passionate terms, booksa book called, simply, The Sacred Liturgy:

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The Source and Summit of the Christian Life: What the Schools Can Teach Us About the Mass
How should we not see in this great work of creation, its reality becomes ours, since it all belongs to Him, and He harmony ever new and fresh, a kind of natural song of gives us Himself. praise, a cosmic liturgy rising up to God? The Incarnate That the objective awesomeness of Holy Communion Word is not only King of the nations of the earth; He has does not usually translate into subjective feelings of bliss sovereignty over the whole universe, and creation itself is exactly what we should expect: our religion is not about acquires a new dignity from the moment the earth is made feelings or even about true thoughts but about mysterliterally his footstool and from iesmassive, luminous realities the moment when the stream of that envelop us, far too big for our blood from the crucified Christ comprehension or feeling, and we bathes it in the river of His love. respond to them in the darkness of And so the Church, successor faith. We have to trust not our changto the first ages of mankind when ing feelings or uncertain thoughts but the pact was sealed between man Gods everlasting Word. We rely on and the created world, has not the invincible and infallible promises expelled from her heart the old of Jesus Christ, Who never abandons pagan loves. She has not lost the us, Who is the only rock on Whom savor of earth and sun, she has we can securely build, when everyonly purified them; as she has thing else is always changing. purified her alliance with Ceres This, then, is how one might and Demetergoddesses of the think about the Franciscans: they harvest and of the fruitful fields help us to see how the Mass is a The Last Communion of Saint Francis by Peter Paul Ruebens by using bread, wine, and oil in the unitive waya way that unites all confection of her sacraments, so she of myself to Jesus and Him to me; That the objective awesomeness a way that unites the members of structures her Divine Office to folof Holy Communion does not low the movements of the sun in the the Catholic Church into one Body; sky. Paganism sullied the natural usually translate into subjective a way that already unites all of order, Protestantism rejects it, the creation while we long for the new feelings of bliss is exactly what heavens and the new earth. Church consecrates it.2

The Churchs liturgy is the great The Jesuits is not about feelings or even hymn of creation: a whole cast of Our journey through the Mass has about true thoughts but about creatures is called upon to serve at brought us to the end. After comthe altar. Christian liturgy teaches munion, after the purifying of the mysteriesmassive, luminous us the right meaning and use and vessels and the clearing of the altar, realities that envelop us, far too we hear the stirring words: Ite, destiny of the natural world. Because big for our comprehension or man is the only material being that is missa est! But why does the Mass rational, he alone can see himself as feeling, and we respond to them end with these words? Ite, missa est a gift and everything else as gifts; he, doesnt really mean Go, the Mass in the darkness of faith. therefore, is the cosmic priest who is ended. It literally means: Go, it can offer himself and all of creation is sent. What is sent? The Sacrifice back to God in worship, so that he not only attains his end, of Calvary is sent up to the Most Holy Trinity; and we, His but leads every other creature to its highest goal. We can go faithful ones, are sent out on mission. Ite, missa est: Go, you further: because the entire universe has been renewed by the are sent forth to do the Lords work, in the strength of the Incarnation of the Son of God, and because we are members Sacrifice He has made for us. You are sent into the vineyard of His Mystical Body, we ourselves have the power to give by the Son Who was sent to save the world. the entire universe to the Most Holy Trinity at each and Authentic Ignatian spirituality is all about mission. The every Mass. In this way we are helping creation achieve its annals of the Jesuits are filled with models of missionary destiny, we are leading the world back to its source, we are zeal: Saint Francis Xavier and Father Matteo Ricci, who ennobling and dignifying every atom and molecule, every preached in the Orient; Saint Isaac Jogues, Saint Jean de mineral, plant, and animal, indeed, every human person, Brbeuf, Saint Charles Garnier, and companions, who especially those for whom we are praying. When we receive preached to the Indian tribes of North America; Pre de the Word made flesh in Holy Communion, the whole of Smet, who celebrated the first Mass in Wyoming territory
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we should expect: our religion

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The Source and Summit of the Christian Life: What the Schools Can Teach Us About the Mass
men like that. They did nothing Savior. He will never abandon in half measures: they gave us if we do not abandon Him. everything to the very last drop The path on which He has of their blood and sweat. They called us is a path, ultimately, walked into the arms of their of joyand our joy is what enemies, preaching the Gospel brings God the greatest glory. all the while. They converted As Saint Irenaeus put it: The many; they often got martyred glory of God is man fully alive; for their pains. and mans life is the vision of The spirituality of these heGod. roes of Faith could be summed up in a famous saying attributed Conclusion to Saint Augustine: Pray as if The Eucharistic Sacrifice everything depended on God; is the source and summit of The Last Communion and Martyrdom of Saint Lucy by Sebastiano Ricci work as if everything depended the whole Christian life.3 The on you. Whatever you are doBenedictines and the Carmeling, give yourself completely to ites show us how the Mass is a The example left to us by the classic it. Im reminded of what Saint microcosm of the entire spiritual Jesuit saints is a terribly challenging life. The Dominican tradition Teresa of Jesus said to someone who observed that she had quite tells us that we should treasure onenothing less than the narrow a good appetite: When I pray, the intellectual life and see it way of self-denial that leads to eternal reaching a pinnacle in the study I pray; when I eat, I eat. Age quod agis: really do what you life. We all falter on this path, and we and preaching of divine Truth. are doing. Give yourself time to The Franciscan school urges us will keep falling, but we know that pray, and in that time, pray as to discern Gods eternal attriwhat matters is to persevere and go well as you can, and as well as butes in the temple of creation God gives it to you to do. And forward. Saint Pio says: The life of and to sanctify all creatures when you are finished with the by our wise use of them. The a Christian is nothing but a perpetual Ignatian tradition sets before us time of prayerbe it Mass, a struggle against self; there is no Holy Hour, the Rosary, or what the missionary zeal, integrity of have youthen go forth and character, and fortitude of spirit flowering of the soul to the beauty of work as if everything depended that are essential for Catholics its perfection except at the price of on you, depended on your who wish to survive and thrive enthusiasm, your dedication, pain. The point of it all, however, in the modern world. These rich your labor. schools of spirituality help us to is not suffering, but joy. The example left to us by see how the Mass is a lifelong the classic Jesuit saints is a school for all Christiansthe terribly challenging onenothing less than the narrow place where we will learn who we are and what we are way of self-denial that leads to eternal life. We all falter on called to do, the time that will bind up and heal the varied this path, and we will keep falling, but we know that what parts of our days, the center that holds the spheres in their matters is to persevere and go forward. Here is what Saint orbits. In this Year of Faith, let us seek the source, let us Pio says: The life of a Christian is nothing but a perpetual climb the summit. struggle against self; there is no flowering of the soul to Notes the beauty of its perfection except at the price of pain. 1. Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, n. 11. Padre Pio is not one who pulls any punches, and he tells it 2. A Benedictine Monk, The Sacred Liturgy (London: The Saint Austin Press, 1999), 22; 24; 25; 27-28. like it is. The point of it all, however, is not suffering, but 3. Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, n. 11. joy. As Saint Paul tells us in the Letter to the Romans: I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski is Professor of in us (Rom. 8:18). What matters now is to keep striving, Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic keep begging for the Lords help, and never lose heart, College in Lander, Wyoming. because God is our refuge, our strength, our hope, our

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