Today the church celebrates two early saints and martyrs, Cornelius, a pope who died in 253, and Cyprian, a bishop who was martyred in Roman Africa shortly after in 258.
At the time barbarian tribes in the west and the Persians in the east were invading Roman territory; the Roman emperors Decius and Valerian called for absolute loyalty from their people. The empire was imperiled.
To prove their loyalty, Roman citizens lined to offer sacrifice in honor of the emperor. Christians refused, and so at first church leaders were executed or imprisoned, wealthy, influential Christians lost their property, their positions and possibly their lives. Finally, all Christians could expect punishment for not performing the rites of sacrifice.
Not every Christian remained loyal to the faith at the time. Many offered sacrifice, betraying their faith, then afterwards sought to return to the church. Hard liners called for them to be banned for life for their lack of loyalty. Let God judge them when they die, they said. Others, like Cornelius and Cyprian, called to reconcile them after a time of penance, since God is all merciful.
Mercy and justice are always hard to reconcile. The gospels come down on the side of mercy. So should we.
In the persecution, Cornelius, bishop of Rome, was executed first, Cyprian, bishop of Carthage in Africa, was executed a few years later. The two men were from different social backgrounds and not always on good terms, historians say, but they found support in their common faith, as this letter of Cyprian to Cornelius, written shortly before Cornelius’ death, reveals:
Sometimes the history of a feast of our church helps us appreciate what the feast teaches us. That may be true for this feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, which we celebrate September 15th.
This feast developed from a number of older feasts that centered around one of the gospels recommended for today: John 19:25-27. “Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”
The picture of Mary at the foot of the cross of Jesus captured the imagination of medieval Christians and western Christians afterwards. After being mostly absent from the gospel stories, Mary suddenly appears as Jesus is crucified and dies. She stands beneath his cross on Calvary and shares intimately in his suffering and death.
The medieval devotion to this mystery entered the church’s liturgy in masses on the Compassion of Mary at the Cross.
In the 17th century the Servites https://servite.org/about/history/ promoted devotion to Mary’s Seven Sorrows, extending her experience of suffering beyond Calvary. The devotion recalls Mary’s first three sorrows at the birth of Jesus as Simeon tells her a sword shall pierce her heart. (Luke 2: 33-35) )She carries the Child Jesus into Egypt in fear of Herod.( Matthew 3: 13-23 ) She loses him in the temple as a little boy. (Luke 2:41-52) ) Her last four sorrows take place on Calvary: she meets Jesus carrying his cross, she stands beneath his cross, she assists as Jesus is taken down from the cross and as he is buried.
Devotion to the Seven Sorrows of Mary entered the liturgy as the Mass of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. In 1727 Benedict XIII extended the mass to the entire church. In 1913 it was moved its present place, September 15, following the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
Today’s mass in our calendar is similar to the older masses, but a number of options are offered in the latest reform of the liturgy. Luke’s account of Simeon’s prophecy is offered as an optional gospel reading. The Stabat Mater, a medieval poem honoring Mary standing at the cross has become optional. The feast is now called the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, instead of the feast of The Seven Sorrows of Mary. Slight changes, but what do they mean?
They extend reflection on Mary’s participation in the mystery of the Passion of Jesus as the Servites have done. Her experience of sorrow goes beyond Calvary. Her life changed dramatically after the angel invited her to be the mother of Jesus Christ. “How can this be?” Mary asks the angel. Years of reflection, questioning and uncertainty followed. Her faith was tested again and again. The sword Simeon promised struck her long before its final thrust on Calvary.
The gospels indicate the sorrows Mary experienced at the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem along with the joy. The years that followed in Nazareth raising her Child were not without worry and concern. She was there when her Son returned to Nazareth after his ministry had begun. She saw Jesus rejected and threatened with death. On fleeting visits and through others she knew of his rejection by the Galilean towns, his disputes with the Jewish leaders, the death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod. All dangerous signs.
On their way to Jerusalem before his death, James and John saw a kingdom ahead and asked Jesus for high places in it. Peter could not conceive of Jesus dying on a cross. What did Mary think as she joined the other women from Galilee who made their way with Jesus to Jerusalem?
Her faith was certainly better shaped by reality than that of his disciples. She stood by the cross of Jesus, while they “left him and fled.” Her faith was shaped by standing up to other sorrows in life, which made her stand bravely before this one. She believed in the promise God made to her. Her sorrows inspire us to be brave.
“Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.”
The Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows is a good example how devotions enter the liturgy and how the liturgy, as the center of our prayer, anchors devotions.
The Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows is celebrated the day after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14). Eight days after Mary’s birth (September 7) her sorrows are recalled, her lifelong sorrows.
The old man Simeon spoke of her lifelong sorrows when hetold Mary a sword would pierce her heart when Jesus was born. Her greatest sorrow, of course, came when she stood beneath the Cross of her Son.
What, then, were her lifelong sorrows? The gospels indicate some of them, but perhaps more important was Mary’s experience of the sorrow every human being experiences. An infant cries as it enters this world. “Our life is over like a sigh. Our span is seventy years, or eighty for those who are strong. And most of these are emptiness and pain.” (Psalm 90) Everyone experiences the human sorrow the psalms describes. Mary experienced that human sorrow.
The sword of sorrow struck Mary most deeply at the death of her Son. Some of Jesus followers stood at a distance when he was crucified. But John’s gospel describes Mary as the first of those standing close by, beneath the cross itself. “Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”
Mary stands by the Cross of Jesus, close by, not at a distance. She’s not absorbed in her own suffering, not afraid to see. Her closeness to the Cross is significant. She enters the mystery of her Son’s suffering through compassion.
She stood by him. Compassion doesn’t experience another’s suffering exactly, and it may not take another’s suffering away. Compassion enters suffering to break the isolation suffering causes. It helps someone bear their burden. The sword, the spear, the sorrow, pierces both hearts, in different ways.
Our prayer for today’s feast says that when her Son “was lifted high on the Cross” his mother stood by and shared his suffering. “Grant that your Church, participating with the Virgin Mary in the Passion of Christ, may merit a share in his Resurrection.
Pilgims enteing the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem
This ancient ecumenical feast, celebrated by Christian churches throughout the world, commemorates the dedication of a great church in Jerusalem at the place where Jesus died and rose again. Called the Anastasis ( Resurrection) or the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, it was built by the Emperor Constantine and dedicated on September 13, 325. It’s one of Christianity’s holiest places.
Liturgies celebrated in this church, especially its Holy Week liturgy, influenced churches throughout the world. Devotional practices like the Stations of the Cross grew up around this church. Christian pilgrims brought relics and memories from here to every part of the world. Christian mystics were drawn to this church and this feast.
Tomb of Jesus
Calvary
Pilgrims still visit the church and the tomb of Jesus, recently renovated after sixteen centuries of wars, earthquakes, fires and natural disasters. They venerate the rock of Calvary where Jesus died on a cross. The building today is smaller and shabbier than the resplendent church Constantine built, because the original structure was largely destroyed in the 1009 by the mad Moslem caliph al-Hakim. Half of the church was hastily rebuilt by the Crusaders; the present building still bears the scars of time.
Scars of a divided Christendom can also be seen here. Various Christian groups, representing churches of the east and the west, claim age-old rights and warily guard their separate domains. One understands here why Jesus prayed that ” All may be one.”
Egyptian Coptic Christians
Seventeenth century Enlightenment scholars expressed doubts about the authenticity of Jesus’ tomb and the place where he died, Calvary. Is this really it? Alternative spots were proposed, but scientific opinion today favors this site as the place where Jesus suffered, died and was buried.
The feasts of the Exaltation of the Cross and Our Mother of Sorrows begin this week, Monday and Tuesday. Saints Cornelius and Cyprian occur on Wednesday. Even as feasts of saints occur, it’s good to follow the gospels assigned to this week for the perspective they bring.
Readings from Luke’s 7th and 8th chapters this week sum up Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. Certain themes from Luke’s gospel appear in the readings.
Luke wants us to know that Jesus reached out to the gentiles even in his early ministry in Galilee, and so he relates the cure of the centurion’s slave -Monday’s usual reading. “I have not found faith like this in Israel,” Jesus says, praising the gentile centurion.
Luke then tells us Jesus raised the widow’s son to life-Tuesday’s usual reading. Jesus takes care of the poor.
On Wednesday we have Jesus’ short description of the reception Jesus receives from his generation. They are like children playing in the marketplace, so intent on their own games that they pay little attention to him. Does that also describe our generation today too? In the western world it seems Jesus himself, not just his church, receives scant attention. Jesus’ answer to John’s disciples, who ask if he is the one who is to come.The blind, the lame, the deaf are healed and the poor have the gospel preached to them, Jesus tells them.
On Friday, Luke offers an interesting picture of the followers of Jesus. As he journeys from one town to another some women, Mary Magdalene is most prominent among them, follow him and support him from their resources. Now only twelve men, but women are his followers. Another theme of Luke’s gospel.
Today is the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attach on the World Trade Center in New York City, September 11, 2001. Like many others I remember where I was then. I watched the towers fall from a rooftop in Union City, New Jersey, just across the river. Many from that area died that day and as the days went on their bodies were recovered and they were buried in nearby churches. A frightful time.
About a year later, I went to an exhibit about the attack called “Recovery,” at the New York Historical Society. The exhibition rooms were filled with debris from the tragedy: parts of smashed police cars and fire engines–I remember a little child’s doll, parts of one of the planes that crashed into the buildings. A black and white film of the disaster played silently in one section of the exhibit. Grim reminders of that awful day.
It was the exhibit’s opening day and media people were there. One of them came up to me with a notebook in hand. “What do you think of this?” he said. I had my clerical collar on so he knew who I was.
I told him I really couldn’t put into words what I thought. It was an overwhelming picture of evil.
He wrote what I had to say in his notebook and then put it in his pocket and said, “You know I don’t believe in evil.” That began a conversation that lasted for a hour or so.
I asked him first of all why he didn’t believe in evil, so evident here.
“Yes, this is bad,” he said, “ but we can change the way people behave. We can rinse out the evil in them by giving them a better world.” How? “Science and technology can change the world,” he said, “we can give people what they want and give them all they need.” Later I found out that he was a writer specializing in science and technology
“Do you believe in God?” “No, I don’t,” he said. “In fact, it would be better to get rid of God altogether. And that goes for religion too. Get rid of it. The fanaticism of religion was responsible for this.”
At the end of our conversation, it seemed to me his hope about creating a better world through science and technology seemed naïve and unreal. Even if everyone in the world were given a new iPhone, his kind of thinking doesn’t seem to be the answer. Evil is hard to rinse out of our world.
I suppose we could see his way of thinking as what’s called today “transhumanism”, a philosophy that suggests through scientific and technological progress we can push past our physical and biological limits and create an immortal human, free from sickness, aging and death. The world would become a human heaven on earth, a human paradise, where all would enjoy a full human life. Transhumanism, going beyond the human, seems to be naive and arrogant.
Today, the development of AI and AGI as tools of human development pose significant challenges to the philosophy of Transhumanism.
Like our ancestors, we live near water. The Genesis story describes water welling up from the earth bringing a garden to life: plants, animals, human beings. From the garden four mighty rivers bring life to other parts of the earth (Genesis 2), even reaching New York, NY.
We bless water in our prayers,: “All you waters above the heavens, bless the Lord…All you seas and rivers, bless the Lord.” (Daniel, 3, 57-58) The baptismal fount in our churches honors water. Some say it’s from the faraway Jordan River. We take it in our hand and bless ourselves with it as we go in and out of church. Water brings blessings from God.
We need “ to thank the Creator for the impressive and marvellous gift of the great waters and all that they contain (cf. Gen 1:20-21; Ps 146:6), and to praise him for covering the earth with the oceans (cf. Ps 104:6), “ Pope Francis says.
Unfortunately, we lose the blessings of water when drought dries up our lands and pollution poisons our rivers and oceans.
Now, wars and disputes over territorial waters increasingly threaten the waters uniting the peoples of the world, endangering the 90% of the world’s trade that takes place by sea– much of it food and necessities for life. We’re also seeing an increase in plunder of the seas as resources become scarce on the land.
“We cannot allow our seas and oceans to be littered by endless fields of floating plastic”, Pope Francis says. He calls for the ” development and application of international regulations on the seas in order to safeguard individuals, countries, goods, natural resources – I think, for example, of marine fauna and flora, and coral reefs or sea beds – and to guarantee an integral development in view of the common good of the entire human family and not particular interests.”
Map of Water Sources. USGS
The map above shows the intricate water system that enables life on the land where I live, the United States of America.The waters near us here in New York are part of that intricate water system. They should bring life. Do they bring about a garden of life?
In my 91 years I’ve watched the waters of New York harbor suffer from massive industrialization during World War 11, unregulated real estate development afterwards along the Newark Bay, the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers. The waters have experienced human greed and neglect. I can remember, way back as a little boy, when you could fish and swim in those waterways. No more.
“Blessed be God for Seas and Rivers.” Pope Francis asks for more than words of a prayer. “Here too, our active commitment is needed to confront this emergency. We need to pray as if everything depended on God’s providence, and work as if everything depended on us.”
Today we remember St. Peter Claver, the Jesuit priest who ministered to slaves in South America in the 17th century. A native of Spain, he came to Cartagena, Colombia in 1610 and died there in 1654.
Catholic nations like France, Spain and Portugal, early colonizers of North and South America, imported an estimated 11 million Africans from 1519-1867 to work on sugar plantations, mines and farms in the New World. Cartagena was a center of the South American slave trade. Slaves bought in West Africa were transported in ships that made the journey in appalling conditions; about one third died on the 6 or 7 week voyage.
Peter Claver, enlisting Africans familiar with the various tribal languages and culture, helped the arrivals with food, medicine and the promises of faith. “This was how we spoke to them, not with words but with our hands and our actions. And in fact, convinced as they were that they had been brought here to be eaten, any other language would have proved utterly useless.”
Many of these poor human beings accepted Baptism from their hands and became Christian.
.Peter called himself the “slave of the slaves,” He pleaded with slave owners on local plantations and mines to treat slaves humanely, but Spain needed gold and colonists appreciated the wealth brought by slavery,
Unfortunately, at the time Catholic and Protestant churches alike hoped slavery might bring happiness and cultural enlightenment to the black race. Church leaders condoned slavery and most of the church’s moralists found reasons to justify the institution.The churches were not alone in condoning slavery, most figures of the enlightenment, convinced of the inferiority of African and native Americans, condoned it too.
By the end of the 19th century the major western powers abolished the institution of slavery.
Pope Leo XIII canonized Peter Claver in 1896 and designated him patron of all Roman Catholic missions to the African peoples. In the USA Catholic liturgical calendar his feast is a memorial, not an optional memorial as it is in the Roman calendar. He reminds the American Catholic Church that racism and slavery were major problems in the New World, and they still are.
A letter of St Peter Claver
The arrival of a slave ship
Yesterday, May 30, 1627, on the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, numerous blacks, brought from the rivers of Africa, disembarked from a large ship. Carrying two baskets of oranges, lemons, sweet biscuits, and I know not what else, we hurried towards them. When we approached their quarters, we thought we were entering another Guinea. We had to force our way through the crowd until we reached the sick. Large numbers of the sick were lying on wet ground or rather in puddles of mud. To prevent excessive dampness, someone had thought of building up a mound with a mixture of tiles and broken pieces of bricks. This, then, was their couch, a very uncomfortable one not only for that reason, but especially because they were naked, without any clothing to protect them.
We laid aside our cloaks, therefore, and brought from a warehouse whatever was handy to build a platform. In that way we covered a space to which we at last transferred the sick, by forcing a passage through bands of slaves. Then we divided the sick into two groups: one group my companion approached with an interpreter, while I addressed the other group. There were two blacks, nearer death than life, already cold, whose pulse could scarcely be detected. With the help of a tile we pulled some live coals together and placed them in the middle near the dying men. Into this fire we tossed aromatics. Of these we had two wallets full, and we used them all up on this occasion. Then, using our own cloaks, for they had nothing of this sort, and to ask the owners for others would have been a waste of words, we provided for them a smoke treatment, by which they seemed to recover their warmth and the breath of life. The joy in their eyes as they looked at us was something to see.
This was how we spoke to them, not with words but with our hands and our actions. And in fact, convinced as they were that they had been brought here to be eaten, any other language would have proved utterly useless. Then we sat, or rather knelt, beside them and bathed their faces and bodies with wine. We made every effort to encourage them with friendly gestures and displayed in their presence the emotions which somehow naturally tend to hearten the sick.
After this we began an elementary instruction about baptism, that is, the wonderful effects of the sacrament on body and soul. When by their answers to our questions they showed that they had sufficiently understood this, we went on to a more extensive instruction, namely, about the one God, who rewards and punishes each one according to his merit, and the rest. We asked them to make an act of contrition and to manifest their detestation of their sins. Finally, when they appeared sufficiently prepared, we declared to them the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Passion. Showing them Christ fastened to the cross, as he is depicted on the baptismal font on which streams of blood flow down from his wounds, we led them in reciting an act of contrition in their own language.
O God, who made Saint Peter Claver a slave of slaves and strengthened him with wonderful charity and patience as he came to their help, grant, through his intercession, that, seeking the things of Jesus Christ, we may love our neighbour in deeds and in truth.Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Emperor Constantine and his successors, after consulting tradition, built churches over important biblical sites in Jerusalem and the Holy Land in the 4th century. One of the churches, built near the ancient pool of Bethesda, just north of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, was associated with Mary, the mother of Jesus.
It was built on a spot pointed out in John’s gospel: “Now there was in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate, a pool in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In these lay a large number of the blind, lame and crippled,” (John 5,2) Jesus healed a paralyzed man at this healing place, where pagan gods like Asclepius and Serapis were honored.
Traditions concerning Mary, the Mother of Jesus, were associated with the church built over the ancient healing site. They claimed that Mary’s birth and early life took place in this area. By the 5th century, Mary’s birth was celebrated here September 8. Christian pilgrims, returning home, celebrated the feast of her birth on this day.
Ruins of Bethesda and ancient church
Archeologists have uncovered the ancient healing pool with its porticoes, parts of an ancient church and ruins of a temple of Asclepius (2nd-4th century) ..
Ruins of the Temple of Serapis
The early traditions said that Mary’s mother was Anne and her father Joachim, who provided sheep for the temple sacrifices. Looked down upon as old and childless, angels came to the couple and told them they were to conceive a daughter. Like Abraham and Sarah, their faith was to be rewarded.
Stories of Mary’s birth and her childhood strongly influenced the spirituality and devotional life of the early Christian churches of east and west. The feast of her birth is still celebrated by all the ancient churches on September 8 . Her parents are honored September 9 by the Greek Church. The Roman Church celebrates their feast July 26th.
The Crusaders rebuilt the small church over the healing pool, which had fallen into ruins, and also built a new, larger church honoring St. Anne, the mother of Mary, southeast of the pool. The present Church of St. Anne is one of the most beautiful of Jerusalem’s churches today. A favorite destination for pilgrims, it stands overlooking the remains of the old church and the ancient healing pool.
Readings for today’s feast see Mary’s birth awaited by all her ancestors. The gospel, St.Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, begins with Abraham whose hopes and the hopes of generations before him were fulfilled when Mary brought Jesus Christ into the world. “We commemorate the birth of the blessed Virgin Mary, a descendant of Abraham, born of the tribe of Judah and of David’s seed,” (Antiphon, 1st Vespers, Roman rite)
“This feast of the birth of the Mother of God is the prelude, while the final act is the foreordained union of the Word with flesh. Today, the Virgin is born, tended and formed and prepared for her role as Mother of God, who is the universal King of the ages…
Today the created world is raised to the dignity of a holy place for him who made all things. The creature is newly prepared to be a divine dwelling place for the Creator.”
(St. Andrew of Crete, bishop, Office of Readings, Roman rite)
The Birth of Mary is the first great feast in the Orthodox Church calendar which begins in September. Their calendar ends with the feast of Mary’s Dormition, on August 15th.
The Orthodox liturgy sees Mary as the mysterious ladder that Jacob saw in a dream reaching from earth to heaven. (Genesis 28,10-17) She is the way the Word came down to earth’s lowest point, death itself, and returns to heaven having redeemed humanity. The Orthodox liturgy also associates Mary with the miracle of the paralyzed man at the Pool of Bethesda. She has a role in healing our paralyzed humanity.
May your Church rejoice, O Lord, for you have renewed her with these sacred mysteries, as she rejoices in the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the hope and the daybreak of salvation for all the world. Through Christ our Lord.
