This is from Vatican Radio:
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis and the Roman Curia are in the middle of their weeklong Spiritual Exercises in Ariccia, outside Rome.
According to L’Osservatore Romano, the retreat master, Carmelite Father Bruno Secondin, has shared reflections with the Curia on the prophet Elias.
In his reflection, Fr Secondin compared the worship of the false idols in Elias’ time with a modern-day religiosity that is interested in the superficial and in measures of faith “according to statistics.” He called the participants to authentic and “audacious” worship.
?!?
You want authentic, audacious worship?
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What is the name of that painting?
What really caught my eye about this particular retreat in Ariccia is that, just before it began, media outlets were quoting Pope Francis – who was “taking his advisors along” and who was touting the retreat as an opportunity to work on “fixing the many defects we all have.”
Cool !
I think I’ll try to keep that as a personal prayer intention for the rest of this week.
Pope Gets Away from Vatican to Work on Correcting ‘Defects’
The painting is of St John Matha (founder of the Trinitarian Order) celebrating his first Mass – it’s in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
The full name of the Order is “Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Ransom of Captives”. The captives being Christians. At the elevation of the Sacred Host, St John Matha had a vision. More information on this on the Louvre website:
http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/foundation-mass-order-trinitarians
Blessed Anna-Maria Taigi and Blessed Elizabeth Canori Mora, two Mystics (and friends) from the 18th century, were both members of the Third Order of the Trinitarians.
The painting is Mass of St. John of Matha by Juan Carreno di Miranda http://www.wga.hu/html_m/c/carreno/mass_mat.html
MJ
Thank you!
Surely it’s all to the good that Fr. Secondin called the Pope and the Roman Curia to “authentic worship”. We here all know what that means, and that in today’s Church, even (or especially?) in the Vatican, one often has to be “audacious” to insist on it.
That painting is amazing. Thank you MJFarber for supplying the name. I think I’m going to make it my mission to find a nice print of that painting that I can frame.
Thanks indeed to MJFarber for so promptly telling us more and providing a link: what a picture as a whole, and what an event depicted! Fr. Z’s detail is fascinating in its own right, and I am not sure I am the wiser from seeing the whole as to the matter of the light – the Host is illuminated – is It shining from Itself like the Infant Jesus in many a Nativity scene, and illuminating the faces of St.John and the others gathered round? Or is It, and are they, Providentially illuminated by the natural light we see variously in the background on wall, floor, and further space? And what of the visionary light? In any case, inspiring in many senses! (My first thought on seeing it as Fr. Z presents it, was the end of R.H. Benson’s futuristic, edchatological novel, Lord of the World!)
You have to understand that what the Carmelite means by this is to pour 12 buckets of water over the altar before the Mass of the Faithful.
We should remember that while the admonition for authentic and audacious worship is binding on the Universal Church so long as this requirement is met, its expression can take the form of all licit liturgical forms (OF, EF or Oriental, Ambrosian, etc.) possessed by the Church.