2025 May | penitents

Confraternity of Penitents Newsletter
May 2025

THE QUALITY OF THE SACRIFICE OF JESUS WHICH ESTABLISHED THE NEW COVENANT by Fr. Bartholomew Okorie.

The value and life span of the victim of a sacrifice determine the degree and the duration of its efficacy or effectiveness.

In this world, human sacrifice is considered superior because human beings are the most valuable victims of sacrifice in nature.

Jesus's sacrifice is higher than any sacrifice ever offered because Jesus is fully human and fully divine. No other victim of sacrifice will be more qualitative.

Every sacrifice in nature fades over time because every victim of sacrifice has a life span. The duration of its effectiveness depends on the life span of that victim of the sacrifice. In the case of Jesus Christ, He lives forever, as such the effectiveness of his sacrifice lasts forever.

Spiritual Advisor’s Message:

Fr. Joseph Tuscan, OFM Cap, asked that we reprint the following article (reprinted with permission https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2025/04/25/emmaus-and-beyond/)

Emmaus and Beyond by Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap. Friday, April 25, 2025

After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to various people on a number of occasions. He appears to Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the Apostles. Paul enumerates the appearances of which he is aware:

He first appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to the apostles. Last of all, as one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Corinthians 15:5-8)

Moreover, unrecognized, Jesus also appeared to two on the road to Emmaus, one of whom is named Cleopas. (Luke 24:13-43) Traditionally, it is presumed that the two were men and portrayed as such in paintings. The two, however, could have been Cleopas and his wife. After all, it would have been more likely that a woman would invite Jesus to stay with them and then prepare a meal for him.

More importantly, Jesus transforms this meal into a Eucharistic liturgy. In the breaking of the bread and in giving of it to them, “their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” At this point, Jesus “vanished out of their sight.”

Now, in all of these Resurrection appearances, Jesus appears and disappears. He comes and goes. What Jesus wants to manifest in these appearances is that he is truly bodily alive. So much is this the case, that in Luke’s Gospel, after his appearance to the two on the road to Emmaus, he appeared to the eleven. They were amazed, and “supposed that they saw a spirit.”

Jesus responds: “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have?” In their still remaining disbelief, Jesus asked: “Have you anything here to eat?” In response, Luke states: “They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it before them.”

That Jesus was truly risen was also “doubting” Thomas’s concern. When the Apostles told the absent Thomas that they had seen the Lord, he declared: “Unless I see in his hands the print marks of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.” Thomas needed proof that Jesus was truly, bodily risen. He too wanted to be assured that Jesus was not just the ghost of a dead man.

Jesus honored Thomas’s request. On the Sunday following Easter, Jesus appeared again to the apostles. He said to Thomas: “Put your finger here and see my hands; and put out your hand and place it in my side; do not be faithless but believing.” Thomas responded: “My Lord and my God!” The bodily Jesus is truly Thomas’s risen Lord and so his saving God.

Now, why, in the above, is the ability to see and touch the risen Jesus, and Jesus’ ability, even in his risen state, to eat a piece of fish so important? Is it simply to prove that Jesus has authentically risen from the dead?

Although that is essential for our salvation, it is absolutely indispensable for the Eucharist. Only if Jesus is bodily risen from the dead is the Eucharist the risen body of Christ. What the two on the road to Emmaus ate in the breaking of the bread was Jesus’s risen humanity – his risen body and blood, soul and divinity.

I noted above that the risen Jesus appeared and disappeared. He came and he went. Ultimately, Jesus ascended into Heaven, and he will not appear again until the end of time when he will gloriously return on the clouds of Heaven. But it’s also true that Jesus has never left us! He does not appear and disappear. He is always present to us in the Eucharist.

In a sense, Jesus’ salvific death and life-giving resurrection are for the sake of the Eucharist, for in the Eucharist we come into communion with the risen Jesus. In so doing, we not only abide with him here on earth, but we anticipate our abiding with him forever in Heaven. In the Eucharist, Jesus comes down to earth upon our altars, that he might lift us up into his Heavenly kingdom. We are placed at his right hand upon his celestial throne of glory.

In his Eucharistic discourse in John’s Gospel, Jesus emphatically declares: “I am the living bread which has come down from heaven; if anyone eats this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:51)

To the Jews’ disbelieving query how this could be the case, Jesus unequivocally asserts:

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. (John 6:53-56)

Because we eat the risen body and the risen blood of the risen Jesus, we abide in Him and He in us, and so, in communion with Him, we have eternal life. Thus, Easter is not only the celebration of Jesus’s Resurrection, but also the celebration of his ever-abiding presence with us in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the greatest Easter-gift Jesus could give us – the gift of Himself.

During this Eastertide, let us continue to celebrate with the entire Church, this most wondrous of gifts. And, along with the two on the road to Emmaus, let “our hearts burn within us,” and let us proclaim with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”

HUMOR: SIMPLE TRUTHS

I hate it when I see an old person and then realize that we went to high school together.

I am responsible for what I say, not what you understand.

When I was young, I was poor. But after years of hard work, I am no longer young.

NO GREATER LOVE: GOD’S WILL AND OUR WILL

When Jesus prays at Gethsemane, He says, “My Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Mt 26:39, Mk 14:36) Here two separate wills seem to be involved, the will of Jesus and the will of “My Father”. This is something which the early Church had to struggle with. What is Jesus Christ’s relationship with the Father and our relationship to the Father especially with regard to God’s Will and our wills?

The Council of Nicaea in 325 AD asserted that Jesus was God and not just a man, “of one substance with the Father”. In 451 AD, the Council of Chalcedon taught that Jesus was one Person distinct from the Father, but had two natures, human and divine “without confusion and without separation”. What this actually meant was a subject of great controversy. For example, in Alexandria, the two natures of Jesus were denied, and instead it was asserted that Jesus had “one divinized nature” (monophysitism). Nestorianism asserted that Jesus was two distinct persons, the man Jesus and the divine Son of God. The last great Christological heresy, monotheletism, said that Jesus had only one will since He was one person. This idea was rejected by the Council of Constantinople III in 681 AD which said that Christ possessed two wills because of His two natures, human and Divine.

In Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict explains how Jesus can be truly God with a Divine nature and with a Divine will, but also truly Man with a full human nature with a human natural will. The great Byzantine theologian Maximus the Confessor (d, 662) formulated an answer to this question by struggling to understand Jesus' prayer on the Mount of Olives. Maximus is first and foremost a determined opponent of monotheletism: Jesus' human nature is not amputated through union with the Logos; it remains complete. And the will is part of human nature. This irreducible duality of human and divine willing in Jesus must not, however, be understood to imply the schizophrenia of a dual personality. Nature and person must be seen in the mode of existence proper to each.

In other words: in Jesus the "natural will" of the human nature is present, but there is only one "personal will", which draws the "natural will" into itself. And this is possible without annihilating the specifically human element, because the human will, as created by God, is ordered to the divine will. In becoming attuned to the divine will, it experiences its fulfillment, not its annihilation. Maximus says in this regard that the human will, by virtue of creation, tends toward synergy (working together) with the divine will, but that through sin, opposition takes the place of synergy: man, whose will attains fulfillment through becoming attuned to God's will, now has the sense that his freedom is compromised by God's will. He regards consenting to God's will, not as his opportunity to become fully himself but as a threat to his freedom against which he rebels.

The drama of the Mount of Olives lies in the fact that Jesus draws man's natural will away from opposition and back toward synergy, and in so doing he restores man's true greatness. In Jesus' natural human will, the sum total of human nature's resistance to God is, as it were, present within Jesus himself. The obstinacy of us all, the whole of our opposition to God is present, and in his struggle, Jesus elevates our recalcitrant nature to become its real self.

It is important to see that our wills, as part of our human nature, are oriented to God’s will. In the Garden of Eden, God tells Adam and Eve that they can eat from all the trees in the garden, but then adds, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Gen 2:17) When the serpent (Satan) asks Eve if there was any tree in the garden which God forbade them to eat, she answers that God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.” (Gen 3:3) She affirms to the serpent that God forbade them to eat from that one tree, but she also adds that they are not even to touch it. In Genesis 2:17, God only said that they may not eat of the forbidden tree, but says nothing about touching it. Perhaps Eve was regarding even touching the forbidden fruit as the “near occasion of sin” and so felt that they should not even touch it. However, she was seduced by the lies of Satan so that she and Adam did eat the forbidden fruit. Satan persuaded Adam and Eve that God’s will was a threat to their freedom rather than their fulfillment as persons. He taught them to seek fulfillment in their own freedom, independent of God, and not in God’s will.

The wills of Adam and Eve were naturally oriented to God, however, they also had God’s gift of a free will so they could spurn God’s Will. They chose to listen to the lies of Satan. As the parents of all human beings, they wounded human nature by their disobedience. We call this original sin. Our natural human orientation of our wills to God’s Will is broken by original sin. That which is contrary to God’s Will is very attractive to us. Our attraction to evil we inherited from Adam and Eve. St. Paul laments, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 8:24-25)

The Church’s doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is critically important at this point. The infancy narratives of St. Matthew and St. Luke both assert that Jesus had no human father. As a fully human being, Jesus received his human nature only from Mary. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception states that the original sin of Adam and Eve was not transmitted to Mary through her parents, Ann and Joachim. Thus, Mary did not transmit to Jesus a human nature wounded by original sin, but rather the “natural” human nature of Adam and Eve before they sinned. Jesus has been called the “new Adam” and Mary the “new Eve” for both of them did not inherit original sin, and the Church teaches that both remained sinless. Even in remaining sinless, both Jesus and Mary had a tougher road to travel than Adam and Eve since our first parents were in an unfallen world whereas Jesus and Mary were in a fallen world loaded with sin. Adam and Eve had the wily serpent to deal with, and they failed. Jesus and Mary also had the wily serpent to deal with, but now he was much more powerful since he had the world under his power. The obedience of the Lord at Gethsemane and ultimately on the Cross broke Satan’s power. “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:11-12) Of course, the “armor of God” is the Church, the sacraments, sacred scripture, and all the other graces the Lord has given us for our salvation. The ultimate source of the armor of God for us is the obedience of Jesus Christ from Gethsemane to the Cross. This is why the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is so important. How could the Lord provide us with the armor of God if He needed it Himself? The Lord had to be free of the damage to all humanity done by the disobedience of Adam and Eve so that He could repair that damage by His own obedience to the Father. God’s gift of freedom from original sin to Mary was also a gift for us since because through that gift to Mary we can also have the full armor of God.

Although we have the armor of God, the world, under the power of Satan, is continually trying to induce us to take off the armor of God. This armor helps us to restore the original orientations of our wills toward the will of God. Many of the powers of this world are in opposition to God’s Will and desire to draw us into opposition to God’s Will. Our fulfillment as human beings comes not in keeping God’s Commandments but finding our fulfillment as human beings in our feelings. What we should do comes not from objective reality but from how we feel. Do we submit our feelings to the truth, or do we regard our feelings as the truth? This has been the human struggle since the time of Adam and Eve.

The Lord’s triumph over sin was not only His victory but also our victory if we do not throw the armor of God away by yielding to the attractions of the world. We can throw this armor away when we neglect prayer, penance, and the sacraments of the Church. Ultimately, when we forget about the Cross of Jesus Christ and believe that we can do it our own way without the Church, that is when we become vulnerable to “the serpent” who will tell us to follow our feelings as our guide to our actions. Unfortunately, this can easily happen. That is why we need repentance and the sacrament of Reconciliation to bring our wills back to synergy (working together) with God’s will. That is how we can put on again the armor of God in our continuous battle against Satan. This is how the Lord’s victory at Gethsemane can also be our victory. – Jim Nugent, CfP

REFLECTION ON OUR RULE: SPIRITUAL AND CORPORAL WORKS OF MERCY --THE RICH MAN AND THE BEGGAR

Once there was a rich man who lived on a ranch in Dunnellon, Florida. He had a mansion, a fast electric car, a trophy wife, 2 grown children, cattle and horses. Outside his gate stood a homeless, disabled Vietnam veteran holding a sign “Will work for food.” Each day the rich man saw him and was convicted to give him a job because he believed that everyone had a right to earn a living. The poor man job was to shovel the horse manure.

The rich man and his wife lived very comfortably in the mansion which had many empty bedrooms. They gave the poor man shelter in in an empty horse stall. He covered himself with a horse’s blanket on cold nights and fished the pillow for his head out of the trash. The poor man was happy and thankful that he had food, shelter and a small stipend. The rich man was generous with his food. His wife was a good cook and was kind to bring him his meals on a paper plate. The rich man’s wife believed that a man could not work on an empty stomach.

One morning the wife found the ranch hand dead in his stall. His soul was carried by the Angels to heaven A few months later the rich man had a massive heart attack and died also. The rich man stood before the Lord to give an account of his life. “Lord, he said, I live a blessed life. I had a fine house, food and drink, a good wife and 2 children. My cattle were grass fed and I sold them for plenty of money. One of my horses even won the Kentucky Derby. I never gave much to charity because my money was all tied up in my 401K. I was very rich because I invested well. My money worked for me. I also accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior. The pastor who led me to Christ promised me that if I asked him into my heart I would be in heaven when I died. I even gave a job to a homeless disabled veteran who begged for food at my gate. Isn’t that enough to get me into heaven? Why is my ranch hand and not me on the other side of this pearly gate?”

“My son, said the Lord, in your lifetime you had the best of everything. While you did not even give your ranch hand the discarded clothes off your back, he had to buy his garments when the clothes were 50% off at Annie Johnson’s Thrift Store. You had a fine house with many empty bedrooms yet you only gave him a stall in your stable to sleep in. You provided the Veteran food, but he was never invited to eat at your table.”

“Well,” proclaimed the rich man, “at least he had a job, food and a roof over his head!”

The Lord answered him, “In order for you to into my heaven you will pray for the world I gave my Son for.”

“What prayers?” questioned the rich man.

The Lord said “Start with an act of contrition.”

An act of what?

“Then say an Our Father and 5 Hail Marys.”

The rich man said “But I don’t pray to Mary! Never have and never will!”

“Here Our Lady is the Queen Mother of my Son and the Queen of Heaven,” said the Lord. “You must say penance and pray for lost souls on earth.”

The rich man went away sorrowful. In his lifetime he did not even say grace (only at Thanksgiving). Now he had to pray in eternity to enter into heaven. He had faith that Jesus died and paid for his sins, but not many good works to show for his faith. According to the book of James, the rich man had faith but not works. It was dead. (James 2:26).

What a bummer. –Sandi Wilde, Postulant

HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!

The above words about a person that most believed was defeated by death shocked the sensibilities of those who discovered him over 2,000 years ago as much as it does to us today. How could this be? Only by the power of the One who sent him, whom he prayed with, and whom he asked us to pray to, seeking new life through him:

Born as Son, led like a lamb,
sacrificed like a sheep, buried as a man.
he rises from the dead as God,
being by nature both God and man.
He is all things:

when he judges, he is law,
when he teaches, Word,
when he saves, grace,
when he begets, father,
when he is begotten, son,
when he suffers, lamb,
when he is buried, man.
when he rises, God.
Such is Jesus Christ!
To him be glory forever! Amen.
-- Melito, bishop of Sardis, 2nd century

What a great gift to know that this event which transcends time and space can bring us life here and now! This time of year is a constant reminder for me of the tension between death and life as the anniversary of the crime I committed 18 years ago falls during this season we celebrate the gift of new life. Yet I'm reminded by the Word made flesh: "Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:18,19).

Let us rejoice in the gift of grace and the promise of new life that is made available to us today, through the saving act of dying and rising of the Messiah, who opens up for us true freedom from what holds us in bondage. All we need to do is believe that he has risen as he said, for he tells us, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die." (John 11:25,26).

May we grasp this truth and believe, for when we do, we will truly have life within us.—Anthony LaCalamita, CfP, Alessandro Prison Ministry

ROOF AND GUTTER REPLACEMENT—GUADALUPE MEN’S VITA DEI HOUSE

Guadalupe Men’s Vita Dei House needs a new roof and gutters. The Rule of Life for the Confraternity of Penitents does not allow the acquiring of debt. Therefore, all funds must be raised before work begins.

Campaign began 18 February 2025. All donations tax-deductible

Amount needed: $19,172 plus any increase in cost of materials since original estimate. Our contractor said he will not increase his labor charge.

Collected to April 28: $6801 -- To Raise as of April 28: $12,371

The model shows that about 1/3 of the cost of a new roof and gutters has been met. The roof on the model is divided into 1000 sections, with each section representing a $20 donation.

Can you donate one “shingle” ($20) to this repair?

Send donation to Confraternity of Penitents, 1702 Lumbard Street, Fort Wayne IN 46803 USA or donate on line at GuadalupeVDH.com God bless!

CONFRATERNITY OF PENITENTS PHOTO ALBUM

Barbara Cook, CFP Postulant, and husband Jerry donated to the Confraternity of Penitents an angel carved in the Philippines and belonging to Barbara’s late mother. Shown Barbara, Jerry, and Madeline Nugent, CfP

The angel found its home in what the CFP calls "The Great Room" which is under the Portiuncula Chapel by Annunciation Women's Vita Dei House. Shown is a photo of a gathering in the Great Room. The Angel (not shown) sits over looking the beverage table.

Confraternity of Penitents Newsletter May 2025