O Sant' Antonio, Prega per Noi!

 

For six happy years, at the end of the last century, I served as parochial vicar at our parish in Toronto, where one of the annual highlights was the outdoor procession with the statue of Saint Anthony, accompanied by the venerable Italian hymn, O Sant' Antonio, prega per noi! (O Saint Anthony, pray for us!) Over the years, I have also had the privilege of visiting the shrines of Saint Anthony in Lisbon and Padua, celebrating Mass both where he was born and where he is buried.

Saint Anthony was born Ferdinand de Bouillon in August 15, 1195. As a teenager, he joined the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine and grew in both holiness and learning. When the remains of the first five Franciscan Martyrs of Morocco were brought home to Coimbra for burial, Ferdinand embraced a call to similar martyrdom and was received into the new Franciscan Order in 1220, with the name Anthony. He never made it to Morocco, however, and spent the rest of his life preaching zealously in Italy and southern France, for which. he came to be called the "Hammer of Heretics," while Pope Gregory IX, who canonized him less than one year after his death,  would call him the "Living Ark of the Testament," thanks to his great learning and knowledge of Sacred Scripture. Anthony spent his last years in Padua and died there on June 13, 1231. When his tomb was opened in 1263, his tongue was found uncorrupted, which caused Saint Bonaventure, the Franciscans' seventh Minister General, to exclaim, O blessed tongue that never ceased to praise God and always taught others to bless him, now we plainly see how glorious you are in his sight!

A year ago, an accidental fear significantly damaged our New York church's precious statue of Saint Anthony. Thanks to exquisite and careful restoration efforts taking some 520 hours (see photo above), Saint Anthony's statue has been fully and successfully restored to be once again a vehicle for stirring up devotion and ardor among God's people - as Anthony himself did so powerfully during his lifetime so many centuries ago. This afternoon, Saint Anthony's restored statue will be unveiled and blessed in its new and more prominent location in the church. O Sant' Antonio, prega per noi!

From one of the Sermons of Saint Anthony:

Three things are required to prepare a meal: fire, oil, and food in the oil. The fire does not touch the food directly, and yet it warms, sterilizes, and cooks it. The fire is the Holy Spirit. The body is like the oil. And the soul is like the food. Just as the food is cooked by means of the oil from the heat of the fire, so the baptismal water, ignited by the Holy Spirit, when it touches the body externally, internally purges the soul from all sins. The Holy Spirit descended on Christ at his baptism in the River Jordan. He also descends on the baptismal font on each Christian, and by his power we become children of God's grace. So it was that Christ, both for himself and those baptized into him, heard the words, "This is my beloved Son."

Tower of Light

 

Yesterday, Pope Leo XIV blessed the tallest of the towers of the basilica of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. It marked the mid-point of the Pope's historic visit to Spain, a country culturally steeped in Catholicism but which in the 20th and 21st centuries has experienced repeated and powerful assaults on that historic religious identity.

The Pope's visit began in the capital Madrid, where (after the usual formalities of reception at the Palacio Real) the Pope celebrated the feast of Corpus Christi with an outdoor Mass and traditional Eucharistic procession, attended by the King and Queen and some 1.2 million others. On Monday, he addressed the Cortes, the Spanish Parliament. Although the third Pope to visit Spain, he was the first ever to address its Parliament. At present, Spain has a socialist Prime Minister and is widely perceived as the most left-wing government in Europe, which inevitably recalls a long legacy of conflict between some 20th and 21st-century secular Spanish governments with the Church. In that challenging and problematic environment, Pope Leo spoke eloquently invoking Spain's rich Catholic history and heritage, citing Cervantes, Saint Teresa, the university of Salamanca, Francisco de Vitoria, and Miguel Unamuno, among others. To that body, he posed the basic question of any parliamentary politics: "beyond the legitimate diversity of positions, every legislative task ultimately confronts a decisive question: what conception of the human person inspires laws, and what kind of society do those laws build?" He stressed how "the moral greatness of a nation is manifested, above all, in its capacity to accompany, protect and love those lives that are most fragile."

In Barcelona yesterday, the Pope and the Spanish and Catalan peoples celebrated the centenary of the Venerable Antoni Gaudi, the architect of the basilica of la Sagrada Familia. That basilica was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI during the last papal visit to Spain. During the Mass inside the basilica, which preceded the blessing of the newly completed central Tower of Jesus Christ, the Pope highlighted the basilica's theme of light, the light of Jesus Christ penetrating the world's darkness. And he highlighted the traditional imagery of every church building, which is itself an image of the Church itself:

This church is a single building made of many stones. A house that grows steadily over the years following a single plan. We are all the living stones of this edifice, which has Christ as its foundation and crowning glory, its beginning and end. Much more than a monument, the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia remains a work in progress today, reminding us that the Christian life is always a journey, because it is a project that God is carrying out.

We do not, therefore, dwell in an unfinished work, but in a temple still under construction. The fact that it is incomplete is not a flaw, for it bears witness to a desire; it does not signify a shortcoming, but rather expresses a promise that we wish to honor with consistency. Our gratitude thus becomes a commitment as we cooperate in God’s plan — that is, in the edification to which he himself calls us. Since we are the temple of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 6:19), this work consists in our very lives, which God conceives as a masterpiece that we are to create together, and he calls us to collaborate with him (cf. 1 Cor 3:9).

The outdoor ceremony which followed the Mass, for the formal blessing of the tower, was one of the most beautiful rituals that could have been devised to mark this occasion and truly exemplified the power of art and the appeal of beauty in human life and in the Church's evangelizing mission. Not just the tower itself, but the entire basilica and the multitude inside and out were transformed in vehicles  VI and Queenof illumination and a true tower of light in a modern expression of Spain's historic evangelizing role in the world.

Today, beginning the final segment of his journey, the Pope travels to the Canary Islands. Throughout this apostolic journey, Pope Leo has emphasized human dignity and the necessity of national and international commitment to that human dignity. That concern receives a very pointed instantiation in Leo's history, first-ever, papal trip to the Canary Islands, which centers on the very real and very current European migration crisis. Visiting some of the focal points of migration from Africa to Europe, the Pope is vividly highlighting the plight of refugees and migrants making these excessively perilous journeys. “Human dignity," the Pope insisted today, "has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border.”

Photo: Pope Leo XIV, with Spain's King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, outside the Basilica of La Sagrada Familia.

Corpus Christi

 

Thursday was the 71st anniversary of my First Holy Communion.  While I can’t claim to remember everything about that day, I do remember some of the highlights. First of all, I remember all the rehearsals we had beforehand. The Dominican Sisters were perfectionists when it came to such things, and everything was going to go just so!

Finally, the big day dawned. Dressed up in the prescribed outfit, I was up and out early - to the safety of the school (where there was no danger of anyone inadvertently drinking some water and thus breaking the fast). Finally, we all lined up, and all those rehearsals paid off as we walked in absolutely perfect formation into the church at exactly 8:00 a.m. It was a solemn Mass, with deacon and subdeacon. When the big moment came, we walked two by two up the marble sanctuary to kneel before the main altar, before returning to my pew by the Epistle side, as rehearsed.

Of course, what most of us remember best about our First Communion Day, is all the frills: the outfits, the photos, the presents. As for the actual act of Communion itself, it may perhaps stand out less because it merges in memory with so many other subsequent trips to the altar.

And that may be as it should be! When I was a pastor, I used to tell First Communicants on their big day that the key word to remember was first – it was the first time they would do what (hopefully) they were going to do many more times, over and over again, all the rest of their lives.

Today the Church celebrates the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the feast commonly called Corpus Christi. The meaning and spirit of this festival is succinctly summarized in the familiar collect, composed for the occasion by the great 13th-century Dominican Doctor of the Church Saint Thomas Aquinas.: O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament have left us a memorial of your Passion, grant us, we pray, so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood that we always experience in ourselves the fruits of your redemption.

The prayer reminds us that the sacrament of the Eucharist is intimately connected with Jesus’ Passion, Death, and Resurrection. and calls on us to remember, revere, and venerate the sacred mysteries of Christ’s Body and Blood. Hence, the special traditions of Eucharistic veneration associated with today – the traditional outdoor procession, for example, which elaborately marks this occasion in many places, such as the procession led by Pope Leo in Madrid, Spain, this weekend. One particular tradition in some countries is for the procession to stop at four altars erected along the way, at each of which is read the beginning of one of the four gospels before Benediction is given. It is a symbolic way of suggesting that the entire story can be summed up in some sense in the sacrament of the Eucharist.

This annual festival and our devotion to the Eucharist invite us to a fuller, more conscious, and more active participation in the body of Christ, the Church, by believing firmly, celebrating devoutly, and living intensely Christ’s Eucharistic Presence given us for the life of the world.

In the famous words of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which the Church recites this evening at Vespers: How holy this feast, in which Christ is our food; his Passion is recalled; grace fills our hearts, and we receive a pledge of the glory to come.

 

Homily for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, June 7, 2026.

Our Approaching Semiquincentennial

A month from now, on July 4, the United States will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, “when our country claimed its place among the family of nations,” an occasion for giving thanks “for what has been achieved” and asking divine help “for the work that still remains.” [Collect for Independence Day, U.S. Roman Missal].

As Americans, we share in the benefits bequeathed to us by the founders of this country, whose legacy we receive with respect and celebrate with gratitude. We are ourselves or are the heirs of immigrants who came to this country in response to its promises of economic opportunity, political freedom, and religious liberty. For generations, Catholic immigrants have brought our faith to this land and enriched this society with a strong network of Catholic institutions, which have served Americans of all backgrounds, contributing a distinctly Catholic sensibility to the American experiment.

In keeping with that Catholic sensibility, the U.S. Bishops will next week consecrate  the United States to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. According to Portland's Archbishop Alexander Sample: "As we reflect with gratitude on the blessings God has bestowed on our country, our devotion to the Sacred Heart demands that we consider how we might foster truth, justice, and charity in American life. We are called to bring our faith into the actions we take and the lives we lead in our communities. We celebrate the ways the Church has contributed to a more just world, and we invite all in our society to see the face of Christ reflected in each sister and brother. We welcome God’s 'kingdom of justice, fraternity and solidarity' [Pope Leo XIV, Dilexi Te, 16]. remembering that 'God has a special place in his heart for those who are discriminated against and oppressed, and he asks us, his Church, to make a decisive and radical choice in favor of the weakest [Pope Leo XIV, Dilexi Te, 16].This anniversary and consecration will be a great opportunity to promote the beautiful devotion to the Sacred Heart and to encourage the laity to offer their lives in service to God and their country."

As this special anniversary approaches, we are all well aware of the many difficult and divisive issues facing our country, along with the contentious arguments that command the news and dominate social media. In response to the pervasive political polarization of his own time, Servant of God, Isaac Hecker (1819-1888) hoped that, as he said to Blessed Pope Pius IX, Catholicism could “act like oil on troubled waters” and so “sustain our institutions and enable our young country to realize its great destiny” [Letter, December 22, 1857, The Paulist Vocation, p. 46]. Despite the difficulties that continue to cloud our country's horizons, our faith challenges us to make Hecker’s hope a reality in response to the multiple challenges of our time.

Those challenges are many and do not admit easy or one-dimensional solutions. Disagreements are to be expected. As Catholics and as citizens, we are called to address our disagreements in a morally serious way that transcends simplistic sloganeering, emotional appeals to narrowly defined secular or religious identities, and the vilification of political opponents, immigrants, and others. As our American bishops reminded us over a decade ago: “Catholics may choose different ways to respond to compelling social problems, but we cannot differ on our moral obligation to help build a more just and peaceful world through morally acceptable means, so that the weak and vulnerable are protected and human rights and dignity are defended.” [USCCB, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship (1915), 20]. 

I am old enough to remember our country's Bicentennial celebration 50 years ago, especially the flotilla of "Tall Ships" sailing through New York Harbor and up the Hudson and the same city's exuberant evocation of its history as a city of generations of immigrants. The contrast between the elegance of the "Tall Ships" and spectacle of pseudo-gladatorial combat on the White House lawn is not just a matter of aesthetics, but speaks directly to the moral and social diminishment of our political culture in these last 50 years.

Although it may seem now almost like a golden age in retrospect, in fact 1976 was not really the best of times either.  Now as then, our impending celebration of our 250th anniversary challenges us to a renewed search for solidarity and a recovery of mutual trust. 

Pressure (The Movie)

 

After 80+ years, one might imagine that the public's appetite for World War II movies (and D-Day movies in particular) might have been satiated by now. But, as with books about that war, the interest never seems to fade. As a child of a World War II European Theater veteran, neither does my interest ever fully fade in that seemingly endlessly fascinating story. (As it happened, while waiting for the film to start, one of the many movie trailers was for yet another WWII film, set apparently at the Battle of the Bulge!)

This latest D-Day movie is Pressure, directed Anthony Maras, written by him and David Haig and based on Haig's 2014 stage play. It stars Andrew Scott as the British meteorologist James Stagg, and Brendan Fraser as General Eisenhower.

The historical event behind the film is the effect of the weather on the initial plan for the D-Day invasion, which was originally scheduled for June 5, 1944. British Chief Meteorological Officer Dr. James Stagg accurately forecast a severe, catastrophic storm, which forced Eisenhower to make the decision to delay the invasion by 24 hours to June 6. Then he successfully forecast a break in the storm, which allowed the invasion to go ahead after all one day later on June 6. The film's title, Pressure, may be a play on both the enormous decision-making challenges Eisenhower faced (with the consequently intense pressure on him and everyone around him) and also the barometric indicators being tracked by competing meteorologists coming to opposite conclusions with the limited predictive capacities available to the military in 1944..

Of course, we know the story. The outcome is no surprise. so the drama lies netirely inthe interplay of the personalities involved. The film effectively captures the atmosphere at Allied Headquarters and the overwhelming tension surrounding the preparations for the biggest invasion in history. It also captures the interplay of strong personalities in ego-driven competition under those stressful circumstances - notably British General Montgomery (Damian Lewis)'s rivalry with Eisenhower and the American meteorologist Irwin Krick (Chris Messina)'s rivalry with Stagg. At any given moment anyone of them can come across as arrogant. An important calming influence in the tense environment is Kay Summersby (Kerry Condon), who seems to navigate well the powerful storm of warrior egos and manages to calm not only Eisenhower but also Stagg, whom she alone seems to see as another person.

The film portrays Eisenhower's stirring D-Day message, against the background of the landing and accompanying casualties. We also get to hear his famous second message, in the event of failure, confided to in the movie to Summersby. "My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone." It was a classic act of personal responsibility, characteristic of the man and something to be expected in his time. It is hard to imagine any public figure today expressing nay comparable degree of personal accountability for a political or other public failure. Nor is such acknowledgment of personal responsibility any longer anything that is expected today, so catastrophically changed is our political and moral landscape.

Eisenhower also gave credit where it was due. As he later said, D-Day succeeded because "we had better meteorologists than the Germans."