St. Michael's Abbey

Just a short note to remind you that this Sunday, January 20, 2013, the parish will be celebrating the close of its 125^th Anniversary Year.  To commemorate this and the Feast of our dear Patroness, Fr. Moriarty has invited the Right Reverend Abbot Eugene J. Hayes, O.Praem., of St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, CA, to deliver a lecture on the building of a Catholic Culture.  St. Michael’s is a community of Norbertine monks whose primary apostolate is educational and liturgical.  Their engagement of the whole person intellectually, physically, and spiritually has produced many a fine student and has nourished a very solid Catholic community in California.   Indeed, very similar to that of Saint Agnes.   Here is a short video of the Abbey (very inspiring!):

Living out the "Regula" of St. Benedict...

http://youtu.be/ZSZQceNbZLA

The Medal of St. Benedict

Here's some information I mined from the Benedictines in Collegeville on the medal of St. Benedict, a medallion with some very interesting iconography.

Origin of the Medal of Saint Benedict

For the early Christians, the cross was a favorite symbol and badge of their faith in Christ. From the writings of St. Gregory the Great (540-604), we know that St. Benedict had a deep faith in the Cross and worked miracles with the sign of the cross. This faith in, and special devotion to, the Cross was passed on to succeeding generations of Benedictines.

Devotion to the Cross of Christ also gave rise to the striking of medals that bore the image of St. Benedict holding a cross aloft in his right hand and his Rule for Monasteries in the other hand. Thus, the Cross has always been closely associated with the Medal of St. Benedict, which is often referred to as the Medal-Cross of St. Benedict.

In the course of time, other additions were made, such as the Latin petition on the margin of the medal, asking that by St. Benedict's presence we may be strengthened in the hour of death, as will be explained later.

We do not know just when the first medal of St. Benedict was struck. At some point in history a series of capital letters was placed around the large figure of the cross on the reverse side of the medal. For a long time the meaning of these letters was unknown, but in 1647 a manuscript dating back to 1415 was found at the Abbey of Metten in Bavaria, giving an explanation of the letters. They are the initial letters of a Latin prayer of exorcism against Satan, as will be explained below.

The Jubilee Medal of Montecassino

The above features were finally incorporated in a newly designed medal struck in 1880 under the supervision of the monks of Montecassino, Italy, to mark the 1400th anniversary of the birth of St. Benedict. The design of this medal was produced at St. Martin's Archabbey, Beuron, Germany, at the request of the prior of Montecassino, Very Rev. Boniface Krug OSB (1838-1909). Prior Boniface was a native of Baltimore and originally a monk of St. Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, until he was chosen to become prior and latter archabbot of Montecassino.

Since that time, the Jubilee Medal of 1880 has proven to be more popular throughout the Christian world than any other medal ever struck to honor St. Benedict.

Description of the Jubilee Medal

Because the Jubilee Medal of 1880 has all the important features ever associated with the Medal of St. Benedict, the following description of this medal can serve to make clear the nature and intent of any medal of St. Benedict, no matter what shape or design it may legitimately have.

The Cross of Eternal Salvation

On the face of the medal is the image of Saint Benedict. In his right hand he holds the cross, the Christian's symbol of salvation. The cross reminds us of the zealous work of evangelizing and civilizing England and Europe carried out mainly by the Benedictine monks and nuns, especially for the sixth to the ninth/tenth centuries.

Rule and Raven

In St. Benedict's left hand is his Rule for Monasteries that could well be summed up in the words of the Prolog exhorting us to "walk in God's ways, with the Gospel as our guide."

On a pedestal to the right of St. Benedict is the poisoned cup, shattered when he made the sign of the cross over it. On a pedestal to the left is a raven about to carry away a loaf of poisoned bread that a jealous enemy had sent to St. Benedict.

C. S. P. B.

Above the cup and the raven are the Latin words: Crux s. patris Benedicti (The Cross of our holy father Benedict). On the margin of the medal, encircling the figure of Benedict, are the Latin words: Eius in obitu nostro praesentia muniamur! (May we be strengthened by his presence in the hour of our death!). Benedictines have always regarded St. Benedict as a special patron of a happy death. He himself died in the chapel at Montecassino while standing with his arms raised up to heaven, supported by the brothers of the monastery, shortly after St. Benedict had received Holy Communion.

Monte Cassino

Below Benedict we read: ex SM Casino MDCCCLXXX (from holy Monte Cassino, 1880). This is the medal struck to commemorate the 1400th anniversary of the birth of Saint Benedict.

Reverse Side of the Medal

Crux mihi lux

On the back of the medal, the cross is dominant. On the arms of the cross are the initial letters of a rhythmic Latin prayer: Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux! (May the holy cross be my light! May the dragon never be my guide!).

In the angles of the cross, the letters C S P B stand for Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti (The cross of our holy father Benedict).

Peace

Above the cross is the word pax (peace), that has been a Benedictine motto for centuries. Around the margin of the back of the medal, the letters V R S N S M V - S M Q L I V B are the initial letters, as mentioned above, of a Latin prayer of exorcism against Satan: Vade retro Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas! (Begone Satan! Never tempt me with your vanities! What you offer me is evil. Drink the poison yourself!)

Use of the Medal

There is no special way prescribed for carrying or wearing the Medal of St. Benedict. It can be worn on a chain around the neck, attached to one's rosary, kept in one's pocket or purse, or placed in one's car or home. The medal is often put into the foundations of houses and building, on the walls of barns and sheds, or in one's place of business.

The purpose of using the medal in any of the above ways is to call down God's blessing and protection upon us, wherever we are, and upon our homes and possessions, especially through the intercession of St. Benedict. By the conscious and devout use of the medal, it becomes, as it were, a constant silent prayer and reminder to us of our dignity as followers of Christ.

The medal is a prayer of exorcism against Satan, a prayer for strength in time of temptation, a prayer for peace among ourselves and among the nations of the world, a prayer that the Cross of Christ be our light and guide, a prayer of firm rejection of all that is evil, a prayer of petition that we may with Christian courage "walk in God's ways, with the Gospel as our guide," as St. Benedict urges us.

A profitable spiritual experience can be ours if we but take the time to study the array of inscriptions and representations found on the two sides of the medal. The lessons found there can be pondered over and over to bring true peace of mind and heart into our lives as we struggle to overcome the weaknesses of our human nature and realize that our human condition is not perfect, but that with the help of God and the intercession of the saints our condition can become better.

The Medal of St. Benedict can serve as a constant reminder of the need for us to take up our cross daily and "follow the true King, Christ our Lord," and thus learn "to share in his heavenly kingdom," as St. Benedict urges us in the Prolog of his Rule.

Two Special Uses of the Medal

By a rescript of the Sacred Congregation of Religious (4 May 1965) lay Oblates of St. Benedict are permitted to wear the Medal of St. Benedict instead of the small black cloth scapular formerly worn.

By a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (6 March 1959), the Blessing of St. Maur over the sick is permitted to be given with a Medal of St. Benedict instead of with a relic of the True Cross, since the latter is difficult to obtain.

Approved Blessing
of the Medal of St. Benedict

Medals of Saint Benedict are sacramentals that may be blessed legitimately by any priest or deacon -- not necessarily a Benedictine (Instr., 26 Sept. 1964; Can. 1168). The following English form may be used.

V. Our help is in the name of the Lord.

R. Who made heaven and earth.

In the name of God the Father + almighty, who made heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them, I exorcise these medals against the power and attacks of the evil one. May all who use these medals devoutly be blessed with health of soul and body. In the name of the Father + almighty, of the Son + Jesus Christ our Lord, and of the Holy + Spirit the Paraclete, and in the love of the same Lord Jesus Christ who will come on the last day to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire.

Amen.

Let us pray. Almighty God, the boundless source of all good things, we humbly ask that, through the intercession of Saint Benedict, you pour out your blessings + upon these medals. May those who use them devoutly and earnestly strive to perform good works be blessed by you with health of soul and body, the grace of a holy life, and remission of the temporal punishment due to sin.

May they also with the help of your merciful love, resist the temptation of the evil one and strive to exercise true charity and justice toward all, so that one day they may appear sinless and holy in your sight. This we ask though Christ our Lord.

Amen.

The medals are then sprinkled with holy water.

Permissu superiorum

Nihil obstat and Imprimatur, Saint Cloud, 24 April 1980.

Building a "culture of the word"

The pope instructs "ministers of culture"

After reading The Rule of St. Benedict, we took in the pope's "Address to Ministers of Culture" when he visited Paris, France and Lourdes.  The pope gathered all the intellectual elites, politicians and dignitaries and, gathering them at an ancient Cluniac monastery, sought to teach them to re-discover their roots: in western monasticism.

The address is quite remarkable. 

The pope points out how every Christian is called to live in and develop a "culture of the word" whereby he contemplates the Scriptures and the various other great writings of the Church - precisely what we are doing in the Capstone Seminar.  I hoped to emphasize, dear students, that we are - in our class and in our small way - developing and living in a unique "culture of the word". 

Here's what the pope says [my emphasis]:

"What motivated men [the monks] to come together to these places?  What did they want?  How did they live?

"First and foremost, it must be frankly admitted straight away that it was not their intention to create a culture nor even to preserve a culture from the past.  Their motivation was much more basic.  Their goal was: quaerere Deum.  Amid the confusion of the times, in which nothing seemed permanent, they wanted to do the essential – to make an effort to find what was perennially valid and lasting, life itself.  They were searching for God.  They wanted to go from the inessential to the essential, to the only truly important and reliable thing there is.  It is sometimes said that they were “eschatologically” oriented.  But this is not to be understood in a temporal sense, as if they were looking ahead to the end of the world or to their own death, but in an existential sense: they were seeking the definitive behind the provisional.  Quaerere Deum: because they were Christians, this was not an expedition into a trackless wilderness, a search leading them into total darkness.  God himself had provided signposts, indeed he had marked out a path which was theirs to find and to follow.  This path was his word, which had been disclosed to men in the books of the sacred Scriptures.  Thus, by inner necessity, the search for God demands a culture of the word or – as Jean Leclercq put it: eschatology and grammar are intimately connected with one another in Western monasticism (cf. L’amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu).  The longing for God, the désir de Dieu, includes amour des lettres, love of the word, exploration of all its dimensions.  Because in the biblical word God comes towards us and we towards him, we must learn to penetrate the secret of language, to understand it in its construction and in the manner of its expression.  Thus it is through the search for God that the secular sciences take on their importance, sciences which show us the path towards language.  Because the search for God required the culture of the word, it was appropriate that the monastery should have a library, pointing out pathways to the word.  It was also appropriate to have a school, in which these pathways could be opened up.  Benedict calls the monastery a dominici servitii schola.  The monastery serves eruditio, the formation and education of man – a formation whose ultimate aim is that man should learn how to serve God.  But it also includes the formation of reason – education – through which man learns to perceive, in the midst of words, the Word itself."

Read the entire address of the pope here at the Vatican's website.

Occupy Wall Street? Director of the MCC has a suggestion

The following article appeared in the Nov. 10 edition of The Catholic Spirit and was written by Jason Adkins, Director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, who is also brother of Michael Adkins, Academic Dean at Saint Agnes School, and one of the teachers of the Senior Capstone Seminar.

This piece ties nicely to our reading of The Rule of St. Benedict.  At the very heart of the monks' "action" is the Liturgy.  Many of you have commented on how St. Benedict orders everything so specifically on time.  Keener readers have seen that this is intricately linked to the Church's liturgical cycle, feasts and seasons.  Ora et Labora, yet the Father of Monasticism and Western Culture clearly underlines prayer as the heart of monastic life.

Occupy Wall Street?

"The Occupy Wall Street movement has been the big story of the last few months.  What fictional “Wall Street” movie character Gordon Gekko called the NINJA generation (No Income, No Jobs, No Assets) is gathering to­gether in major urban centers to protest growing income inequality, a lousy economy in which there are few available jobs, and the feeling that our nation is ruled by a plutocracy of bankers and financial speculators.
How should Cath­olics respond?
Like its fraternal twin, 2010’s Tea Party movement, OWS has elements of a truly populist uprising. Although neither movement has a specific set of political goals, there is definitely a sentiment across the political spectrum that something is wrong.
Many people no longer believe that democracy works for them or for the common good.
But each movement correctly identifies only half the problem.
The Tea Party recognizes that Big Government too often imposes the arbitrary rule of tax-loving bureaucrats who stifle authentic liberty and strangle entrepreneurism in a mass of red tape. Big Government also tends to usurp responsibilities that should be performed by individuals, families, businesses, churches and other institutions of civil society.
On the other side of the coin, OWS recognizes that Big Business (particularly financiers and the military-industrial complex) have enriched themselves at public expense, often conspiring with politicians to do so through tax breaks, corporate bailouts and legal regimes that funnel capital into usurious loans and other forms of financial speculation that do little else than provide massive profits for a select few.
And when the financial house of cards collapses, the average Joe gets stuck with higher taxes and fewer jobs to make sure GM and the banks don’t “fail.”
Further, poverty is on the rise, a record number of people are receiving food stamps, and homelessness is now common in the suburbs, not just the inner city.
People are, understandably, upset."

Read the entire article at The Catholic Spirit, the paper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis.