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Mar 13 2023

The Value of Suffering

We Must Teach Young People the Value of Suffering: Q&A with Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P.

By Vladimir Mauricio-Perez for the Denver Catholic. Reprinted with permission and edited for brevity.

Fr. Peter Cameron, O.P., former editor- in-chief of Magnificat, serves as the Director of Formation for Hard as Nails Ministries, a nation-wide apostolate for young people. Fr. Cameron recently gave a talk titled “Evangelizing Youth Today” as part of the St. John Paul II Lecture Series in Denver.

Based on your experience, what would you say are some of the greatest needs of young people in the Church in the United States?

I would say one of the greatest needs facing young people in the United States is loneliness. Loneliness isn’t simply the result of being without people in our lives or being solitary. It’s possible to succumb to loneliness when we have people around us, when we have family. Part of the problem comes from the fact that young people don’t have someone to give them that gaze of love and appreciation, and similarly, they have no one that maybe listens to them.

Sometimes young people can be carrying very hefty burdens and even their best friends don’t know what they’re going through. These issues are never talked about and these young people feel completely isolated with this burden that they’re forced to carry along. I think that’s really the principal issue. In reading the document of the Synod on Young People, I noticed that that was one of the principal concerns listed, as well.

What aspect from the Synod on Young People do you think can be especially useful in evangelization?

One of the points is that nobody can evangelize a young person like another young person. As the document points out, when young people speak about their experience, it is something that can’t be discounted or debated. So, if evangelization starts with presenting arguments or theological judgments, it’s possible that people will not pay attention. But when someone speaks about their own sufferings, how they overcame them, how that led them to Jesus Christ, etc., this is something that nobody can gainsay.

And secondly, that it is important to implement new methods for listening to young people. It means being willing to suffer with them and not be intimidated by their problems.

I think there’s a tendency to give up too easily on young people because of their struggles. But I think the job of the modern-day evangelist is primarily to walk with the person and love them, bring them to the awareness that they’re amazing, that they’re valuable, not because of what they have or what they have accomplished, but simply because God has loved them into existence, that the person is a child of God and there’s nothing anyone can do to ever change that.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I give a lot of talks to priests and they are very often fatalistic about the possibility of evangelizing young people. And I think that they consider the lure of the world to be greater than anything that we or the Gospel can propose to them, and it’s simply not so. Once a young person is paid attention to and their dignity is shown to them and they’re cared for, something breaks open and you just see them radiate. It’s not difficult to do that with a young person. So, I hope that the talk will be an encouragement to anyone who listens to it to be certain that they can be that message of grace for youth, especially those who are suffering — that the love of Jesus Christ that we have is exactly what they’re waiting for, and that we’re courageous, authentic, and obedient enough to offer it to young people.

Mar 06 2023

To Scripture, Through the Rosary

You have likely heard that famous line from Saint Jerome’s commentary on Isaiah: “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ” (CCC 133).

It’s a bold claim and can be especially startling when we first hear it, but St. Jerome is hitting something right on the head: the truths we learn from Scripture really put us into contact with Christ, with the real and living God. That contact should not be fleeting. Once we cease to read Scripture, we are not forced to forget God—like the way someone is only in contact with the ocean as long as he is swimming in it. Christ ought to linger in our hearts. Our Lady is the model for this: hearing the mysterious words of the angel Gabriel, “Mary kept all these words, reflecting on them in her heart” (Lk 2:19). We could even say she “treasured” the angel’s words.

How can you follow St. Jerome in cherishing Christ in the Scriptures and imitate our Lady in lingering over the words of God? Pick up a rosary!

To begin with, the words themselves that we pray during the Rosary are drawn from Scripture (Mt 6:9-13; Lk 1:28, 42-43; Rom 11:36). But the other part of the Rosary—and sometimes the more difficult part—is the meditation on the “mysteries” of Christ. We are to ponder in our hearts the life of Christ and, frankly, there is no better way to do this than to have the words of Scripture inscribed upon our hearts.

I will give but one little example, and you will see that every mystery of the rosary can cast our minds “into the depths” (Lk 5:4). Let’s take the second Joyful Mystery, the Visitation, consisting of some 17 verses (Lk 1:39-56).

Consider the words St. Elizabeth spoke to our Lady: “And why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Is not this indeed a supreme gift, that the sweet Mother of Jesus should wish to visit me? To be graced with the presence of the woman chosen by God to give human flesh to the Eternal Son: who am I to have merited such a prize? How deep is God’s love that he would send his mother to visit me—a prideful sinner—in this valley of tears!

Now, that is but one verse of the 17, and these are just a few thoughts that arise in my heart when I pray the rosary.

Each verse, phrase, image, and detail in the Gospels can take us right to the heart of Christ. If, while we pray the rosary, we are also aware of the very words of Scripture—which are like “honey from the rock” (Ps 81:17)—then our meditation will tend to be sweet, not dry. But we must have the words of Scripture inscribed upon our hearts, or at the very least, close at hand. Don’t be afraid to pass to and fro, from reading a passage of the Gospels to praying a decade of the rosary. The one will illumine the other.

A recently published example of what I’m talking about comes from one of the professors at the Dominican House of Studies, who just wrote a Eucharistic rosary meditation with Scriptural passages for each mystery. The chosen verses go beyond the obvious associations, and so draw our minds deeper into the Christocentric nature of Scripture (e.g., for the first Glorious Mystery, consider praying with Psalm 68: “May God arise; may his enemies be scattered…”).

St. Jerome counsels us to know Scripture in order to know Christ. With the help of our Lady’s rosary, we savor Scripture and so savor Christ himself. St. Jerome might not have prayed the rosary, but he would surely urge you to do so.

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This article was originally published in the dominicanajournal.org and was written by Brother Titus Mary Sanchez. Brother Titus Mary Sanchez is from Ft. Worth, TX. After studying business and history at Southern Methodist University, he entered the Order of Preachers in 2018.

Mar 02 2023

With the Lord Is Mercy and Plenteous Redemption

If you could choose only one psalm to pray for the rest of Lent, you wouldn’t go wrong choosing Psalm 130. It is—with great competition—one of the most beautiful psalms. It is beautiful because it encapsulates any person’s prayer to God. It especially expresses what our prayers should be like during the season of Lent, this time of repentance, return to the Lord, and renewal.

This psalm is realistic. It doesn’t hide from the truth of how each of us has the urge to cry out to the Lord, from the depths of our hearts. The Psalmist manifests this as he admits: “If you, Lord, keep account of sins, Lord, who can stand?” All of us stand in need of God’s mercy, all of us need God’s grace. Lent is especially a time for realizing our need for God, through recognizing our weaknesses and failings. But the experience of need is only the beginning of this psalm, it is not the ending.

The Psalmist goes on: “With the Lord is mercy, with him is plenteous redemption.” The recognition of one’s sinfulness and insufficiency is only ever part of the story, and indeed the smaller part. The other greater part of our story is the marvelous mercy of God. No matter how Israel sins, the Psalmist trusts and affirms that God “will redeem Israel from all its sins.” What was true of Israel is true of us. God has redeemed us from our sins, and his mercy always invites us anew.

Because he knows God is merciful, the Psalmist turns completely to the Lord. “My soul looks for the Lord more than sentinels for daybreak.” In today’s world, we do not often get to experience the delight and peace that the rising of the sun is meant to bring. Imagine the loneliness and fear that would come from standing watch on a city wall through the long hours of the night, not knowing what surrounds it. Our lives often mirror this experience of waiting in the darkness. We’ve all experienced confusion concerning the past, worry about the present, and anxiety about the future. It is in such moments that we most need God’s grace to help us trust him and his loving plan for us.

The Lord’s merciful love, when it dawns on our souls and drives away the darkness of sin and the sadness of distress, is far more marvelous than any physical light that scatters shadows and warms every chill. It heals us, sets us free, and enables us truly to love him, ourselves, and all around us. God’s light and love continue to break upon us in numerous ways—in the words of Scripture, in the charity of others, in the sacrament of Confession, and above all in the Mass. All of these point to and give us a foretaste of the glory of God’s light that awaits us in the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 22:4–5).

This Lent, commit to praying Psalm 130. Make its expressions of repentance and trust your own. Let it shape your thoughts, enlighten your eyes, and enflame your heart. And may we all become like sentinels watching for daybreak and hoping in the Lord.

Image: Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban. The Return of the Prodigal Son. 1667

This article was originally published in the dominicanajournal.org and was written by Br. John Henry Peters. Br. John Henry Peters entered the Order of Preachers in 2019. Before that, he studied philosophy and theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary as a lay student and was a Latin teacher in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Feb 19 2023

Perhaps in Ashes

What is dust? For an astronomer, the word might conjure up thoughts of a gigantic cloud in space, whirling and condensing over vast aeons until it bursts into life as a star; for Philip Pullman, the word signifies a rarified material particle that forms the basis for rationality; for John Steinbeck it represents the world of hunger and desolation from which men vainly flee; for the author of Genesis, it betokens God’s generosity, as he made man from dust (2:7), and his justice, as he condemned the serpent to eat of it as punishment (3:14); and for most of us—especially those of us who live in old houses—it means that ubiquitous floating dirt that settles on everything, requiring constant care and cleaning to drive away.

On Ash Wednesday, the Church gathers all these meanings (except perhaps Pullman’s) together in the words that are said as a person’s head is marked with ashes: Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. These words are more than a simple memento mori—remember that you die. They are a reminder of the great and terrible entropy of all earthly things: “All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again” (Eccl 3:20). The finest chef spends hours preparing a banquet that is consumed in a few moments and passes on unwanted a few hours later; a wealthy businessman flits from success to success until a market collapse reduces him to ruin; a profligate revels in his conquests until his heart is barren, and even his memories fail to keep him warm; an intellectual spends his life drinking from the wells of the world’s knowledge, only to lay his head at last in the dry dust of the grave. Decay haunts our every achievement, a daily herald of that distant enemy, death: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” Dust settles; dust remains.

So why this day? Why wear the dust of our downfall like a mark of honor? Why dwell on our dour denouement, when we can distract ourselves with beguiling delights? It is because dust and death are not the final word about our lives. When we wander like the Israelites, almost blinded by the dust of our own sins, weakened by our own wickedness and wounded by others’, a voice still calls out: “Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing” (Jl 2:14). Here at last is a sound utterly unlike the dry susurrations of Death’s dusty lips; here is a voice ringing with power and with life, that beckons to us with its pregnant perhaps. Perhaps dust is not our lasting abode. Perhaps death does not undo all things. Perhaps there is a way out; a greater truth; an eternal life. Perhaps we can believe, and hope—and even love.

Today’s ashes are a sign of God’s justice, certainly—we have sinned against the Lord who made us—but they are more than that. They are pre-eminently a sign of God’s mercy, that he does not abandon us to our own sinful ways once we have rejected his grace. God has imbued even dust-bound men with the freedom to return to him, to be forgiven, to love with a new heart. Throughout Lent, we pray, fast, and give alms, not to celebrate ourselves, to look gloomily backward at the half-remembered pleasures of Egypt, or to bribe the infinite God with our finite offerings, but to offer God his own mercy back to him, in loving confidence that he will change our hearts and bring us to him.

We know that dust settles on all things, and all men die. The ashes on our heads today remind us that perhaps there is more. Perhaps now is a very acceptable time. Perhaps now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:1–2).

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Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. (used with permission)

This article was originally published in the dominicanajournal.org and was written Fr. Gabriel Torretta, O.P.. Fr. Torretta was ordained to the priesthood in May 2015. He studied pre-modern Japanese literature at Columbia University.

Feb 15 2023

Join the 2023 Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage

Man is a pilgrim animal. Planted upon earth but destined for heaven, he must chart a path of peace through a perilous world. Classic Catholic devotion has long provided for man’s pilgrim needs by means of pilgrimage itself. What better way, really, to remind ourselves that we are pilgrims—to wrest ourselves free of contemporary comforts and rise to things eternal—than to do the very thing that we are: to make pilgrimage to a holy shrine, a prelude to the heavenly home prepared for us in the Father’s house.

This pilgrim practice has for its exemplar none less than God himself. Christ is the pilgrim par excellence. Son of God, he “came down from heaven.” He pilgrimed his way into and out of Egypt, then in and around Judea and Galilee and even into Samaria, and then—at last—Christ resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51) to offer his life on Calvary. Risen from the grave, he ascended to heaven so that we “might be confident of following where he, our Head and Founder, has gone before” (Preface I for the Ascension).

If pilgrimage is a work of prayer—a lifting of the mind and heart to God through the pilgrim’s arduous travels—there is indeed a prayer properly suited to our pilgrim state. It is both spiritual and material, devotional and contemplative, repetitive and diverse, flexibly long or short. It is the Rosary.

The Rosary lifts our feeble minds and stony hearts, through the medium of beads, to ponder Christ’s own pilgrimage, by which he purchased our heavenly home. Looking upon his joys and lights, sorrows and glories, we see our own in his saving mysteries. There is no situation in life unaccounted for by the Rosary because there is no situation in life unaccounted for by Christ and his grace, given in plenitude to his Blessed Mother. Through his merits and hers, that grace overflows to us, who are now made truly capable of imitating what this blessed prayer contains and so obtaining its promises.

If man is a pilgrim animal, and the Rosary is the paradigmatic pilgrim prayer, it is only right and just to unite the two. Thus, the 2023 Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage. A new initiative of the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph, the pilgrimage kicks off on January 30 with a nine-month novena to Our Lady. It culminates on September 30—the eve of Rosary Sunday—in our nation’s capital with a full-day, national event at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, located next to the campus of the Catholic University of America.

It is a thoroughly national affair to honor the Queen whose Son, the King of all nations, desires to bring all unto salvation. It is also a thoroughly Dominican affair, uniting America’s friars, numerous monasteries of cloistered nuns, thousands of apostolic sisters, and myriad parishes, apostolates, Lay Dominican chapters, and Rosary confraternities in prayer, preaching, and pilgrimage unto the praise of God and the salvation of souls. Simply, if you love Christ and his Mother—and the prayer of them both—this pilgrimage is for you.

How does one get involved? First, sign up to join in the monthly novena prayer, offered on the thirtieth day of each month from January 30 to September 30. Second, share the novena and its prayer cards with others. And third, inasmuch as you are able, make plans to join us for the main event in Washington, DC on September 30. It promises to be a day full of grace, drawing all who partake of it in any way yet closer to the One seated upon the throne of grace (Heb 4:16) and the crowned Lady (Rev 12:1) who stands at his side.

Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. (used with permission)

This article was originally published in the dominicanajournal.org and was written by Br. Charles Marie Rooney. Br. Charles entered the Order of Preachers in 2017. Raised in Darien, CT, he graduated from Duke University in 2016, where he completed a Program II major entitled “Markets, Society, and Personalism.” He then earned an M.A. in Philosophy at Maynooth University, Ireland in 2017, writing his thesis on Thomistic Personalism.