Franz Joseph Haydn, Te Deum

   The ancient song of praise Te Deum Laudamus (“We Praise You, God”) is among the oldest Christian Hymns.  It has sometimes been attributed to Saints Ambrose and Augustine, although scholars now posit their contemporary Nicetas of Remesiana as its author.  For many centuries the Church has celebrated joyful occasions with the Te Deum, and it has traditionally been sung as part of the Divine Office on Holy Days and Sundays outside of Lent.  In the current Liturgy of the Hours it appears in the Office of Readings on such occasions.

    A very large number of musical settings have been composed for the Te Deum over the centuries, from simple chants to extravagant treatments involving a full orchestra.  The clip below is of a performance of the irrepressible Joseph Haydn’s composition.  

    Have a Blessed Easter - The Lord is risen, alleluiah!  

Te Deum laudamus: te Dominum confitemur. Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur.Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi caeli et universae Potestates; Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt caeli et terra majestatis gloriae tuae. Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus, Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus, Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus. Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur Ecclesia, Patrem immensae majestatis: Venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium; Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum. Tu Rex gloriae, Christe. Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius. Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum. Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum. Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris. Judex crederis esse venturus.	You O God, we praise: You, Lord, we acknowledge to be. You are the eternal Father. All the earth venerates you.To you all Angels; to you the heavens and all the Powers. To you Cherubim and Seraphim with unending voice proclaim: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. Full are heaven and earth with the majesty of your glory. You the glorious chorus of Apostles (praise), You the praiseworthy number of the Prophets (praise), You the white-clothed army of Martyrs praise. You throughout all the world are acknowledged by the holy Church, Father of immense Majesty: Who is to be worshiped, your true and only Son; Also the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. You are the King of Glory, O Christ. You are the everlasting Son of the Father. When you took upon yourself to deliver man, you did not abhor the Virgin’s womb. You, by overcoming the sting of death, opened to all believers the Kingdom of Heaven. You sit at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father. Our Judge we believe that you will come to be.
Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni: quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.	To you therefore we ask you, help your servants: whom you have redeemed with your precious blood.
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari. [added later, adapted from Psalm verses] Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae. Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum. Per singulos dies benedicimus te; Et laudamus Nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi. Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire. Miserere nostri Domine, miserere nostri. Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.	In eternity with your saints make them in glory to be numbered. [added later, adapted from Psalm verses] Save your people, Lord, and bless your heritage. And rule them, and lift them up for ever. Every day we bless you; And we worship your Name forever, and forever for all ages. Vouchsafe, O Lord, this day without sin to keep us. Have mercy upon us, our Lord, have mercy upon us. Let your mercy be upon us, O Lord,  since we have trusted in you.
In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.	In you, O Lord, I have trusted: may I not be confounded forever

Feed Your Mind And Soul: The Office of Readings (LOH 5)

The Worth Revisiting post below (first published two years ago on the blog Principium et Finis) is the fifth in a series on the Liturgy of the Hours as a devotion for lay people (click for parts one, two, three, and four). To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com. 

St. Cyril of Alexandria

      In today’s post on the Liturgy of the Hours we are taking a look at The Office of Readings.  This office was traditionally called Matins, and took place in the middle of the night, where it was considered to be the first office of the day.  In the reformed Liturgy the Church has untethered it, so to speak, from any fixed time so that it can be said at any time of day.

     We should take this independence from an appointed time as a sign of how important the Church considers this office to be: she wants us to have every opportunity to pray it, regardless of the hour.  It is different from the other offices in that it contains fewer prayers and much longer scripture readings; not only that, it includes non-scriptural readings from the Saints and from magisterial Church documents. The result is an office whose rewards are not only spiritual but educational, and the whole of which is greater than the sum of the parts.

     Let’s first take a look at the structure of the Office of Readings. When it is not preceded by the Invitatory [link], it begins as do the other offices:

            God, come to my assistance.

`           Lord, make haste to help me.

            Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,

            And to the Holy Spirit:

            As it was in the beginning, is now,

            And will be forever.  Amen.

     The Psalmody comes next, consisting of three psalm readings, each either a complete psalm or several verses from a longer one, preceded and followed by brief antiphons.  After the psalmody and a very brief verse and response we find the first reading, a scriptural reading normally in the range of 500-600 words long; these are normally arranged so that very large portions of the various books of the Bible are covered over a period of a week or two.   After a short responsory there is a non-Biblical reading, often from the Fathers of the Church, sometimes written by the Saint whose feast falls on that day.  After another short responsory there is a closing prayer; on important feast days and Sundays the closing prayer is preceded by the ancient hymn of praise Te Deum (see below).

     These long readings are one of the treasures of the reformed office.  If I were not praying the Office, I doubt I would have found the time or occasion to read so much of books such as Esther or Revelation.  But there’s more to it than that.  This isn’t simply reading: it’s very much like the practice of Lectio Divina in which we are not only taking in the words of Holy Scripture, but also offering up them up to God in prayer.  One effect of the liturgical prayers and the psalms in the first part of the office, in addition to being themselves an offering of prayer, is that they put us into a sort of “prayer state” in which we are receptive to the words of scripture in a way that just doesn't happen when we are reading in an ordinary way.

St. Catherine of Siena

   The non-Scriptural readings also deserve a special mention.  There is an impressive variety of authors to teach and inspire us. To take a random sample, on the ten days from April 25th through May 2nd  of this year there are readings from: St. Irenaeus, St. Cyril of Alexandria, The Letter to Diognetus, St. Gaudentius of Brescia, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, and Tertullian   It is unlikely that I would have assembled this list of writers on my own, very unlikely indeed that I could have chosen such consistent quality of selections.  Although they are not inspired in the sense that Holy Scripture is, they all have the approval of the Church to which Christ granted authority to act in His Name on Earth.  While none of the authors above is infallible (and Tertullian, for one, actually ended his life a heretic), we know that the passages we find in the Office of Readings are free from doctrinal error; more than that, they are not only endorsed by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, they are offered to us as part of her daily liturgy as nourishment for both our mind and spirit.

     I have found the Office of Readings to be an unexpected source of enrichment over the dozen or so years I have been praying the Liturgy of the Hours.  With the internet resources that are available today (listed at the end of this post)  it is easier than ever to do.   

TE DEUM

You are God: we praise you;

You are the Lord: we acclaim you;

You are the eternal Father:

All creation worships you.

To you all angels, all the powers of heaven,

Cherubim and Seraphim, sing in endless praise:

Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might,

heaven and earth are full of your glory.

The glorious company of apostles praise you.

The noble fellowship of prophets praise you.

The white-robed army of martyrs praise you.

Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you:

Father, of majesty unbounded,

your true and only Son, worthy of all worship,

and the Holy Spirit, advocate and guide.

You, Christ, are the King of glory,

the eternal Son of the Father.

When you became man to set us free

you did not spurn the Virgin’s womb.

You overcame the sting of death,

and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

You are seated at God’s right hand in glory.

We believe that you will come, and be our judge.

Come then, Lord, and help your people,

bought with the price of your own blood,

and bring us with your saints

to glory everlasting.

Amen

Called To Relationship With God: The Invitatory Psalm (LOH 4)

The Worth Revisiting post below (first published two years ago on the blog Principium et Finis) is the fourth in a series on the Liturgy of the Hours as a devotion for lay people. To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com. 

The Psalmist: "King David" by
Nicholas Cordier

    This is the fourth in a series of posts on the Liturgy of the Hours as a devotion for lay people (click for parts one, two, and three)  In this and my next few posts I reflect on particular prayers and Hours and my experiences with them.  I do not intend these as systematic exploration and explication; I am providing a basic explanation of what each prayer is about, while sharing some of my personal experiences.

       we start, appropriately enough, with the Invitatory Psalm.  This is not a separate Hour, but an introductory prayer that is usually said before Matins (Office of Readings) or Lauds (Morning Prayer), whichever of the two you pray first (if you start with another Hour later in the day, you omit the Invitatory). This prayer is intended as the start of the entire cycle of prayer for a given day. The General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours says: “This invitatory verse and psalm daily invite the faithful to sing the praises of God, hear his voice and look forward to the ‘Rest of the Lord’”.  The Psalm we usually use for the Invitatory is Psalm 95 (Psalms 100, 67 or 23 may be used in its place), sung or said as a responsorial. The optional Psalms are all interesting in their own right, but today I’ll focus on Psalm 95, which is the “default” prayer, if I may use that term.  It is said with an introductory verse and antiphon as follows: 

Introductory Verse: while tracing the Sign of the Cross on your lips, say: Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will proclaim your praise. 

Psalm 95

Recite and repeat Antiphon 

Come, let us sing to the Lord

and shout with joy to the Rock who saves us.

Let us approach Him with praise and thanksgiving

and sing joyful songs to the Lord.

Antiphon

The Lord is God, the mighty God,

 the great King over all the gods.

He holds in His hands the depths of the earth

and the highest mountains as well

He made the sea; it belongs to Him,

the dry land, too, for it was formed by His hands.

Antiphon

Come, then, let us bow down and worship,

bending the knee before the Lord, our Maker,

For He is our God and we are His people,

the flock He shepherds.

Antiphon

Today, listen to the voice of the Lord:

Do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did in the wilderness,

when at Meribah and Massah

they challenged Me and provoked Me,

Although they had seen all of My works.

Antiphon

Forty years I endured that generation.

I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray

and they do not know My ways. So I swore in my anger,

“They shall not enter into My rest.”

Antiphon

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,

and to the Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning,

 is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Antiphon 

The introductory verse is always the same (“Lord open my lips . . .”); the antiphon changes according to the day and liturgical season.  In the season of Lent, for instance, the antiphon would be either: “Come, let us worship Christ the Lord, Who for our sake endured temptation and suffering”, or “If today you hear the Voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts.”  Since today, April 20th, is in the Season of Easter, we use antiphon: “The Lord is risen, alleluia.”

   What I find really interesting about this prayer is the way it draws us into the daily liturgy by mirroring the way we are drawn in to a love relationship, both with another person, and with God.  The first strophe starts out joyfully, like our excitement at the beginning of a relationship: “sing to the Lord and shout with joy,” etc.  But there’s also a little bit of foreshadowing in “the Rock who saves us”.  We see God described as a defensive rock, a fortress, in Samuel 22:3 and Psalm 62:2.  But there is also a rock in Exodus 17:7  and  Numbers 20:7 that St. Paul tells us (1 Corinthians 10:4) is Christ, and, yes, that rock provides water to the Hebrews in the desert, but at the same time their grumbling and lack of faith (these places are called Massah, “testing” and Meribah, “quarreling”, in the scriptural texts) anger God.

     In the second strophe we learn more about who God is: He is “great King over all the gods”, creator of all, and “it belongs to Him”.  Again, as in a relationship, true love starts to grow as our initial infatuation is informed by a real knowledge of who the other person is and what they are like.

      We bring the action of the first two strophes to a conclusion in the third: we “bow down and worship”, acknowledge Him as “the Lord, our Maker”, and that pledge that “he is our God and we are his people.”  Here we commit ourselves to a covenant relationship with God, to which the wedding in a human relationship is (roughly) analogous.  But those of us who are married know that the wedding is just the beginning . . .

      We see things take a perhaps unexpected turn in the fourth strophe.  “Listen to the voice of the Lord”: unlike a human relationship, this is not a union of equals.  But look at what the Lord has to say: “Do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did in the wilderness,/when at Meribah and Massah they challenged Me and provoked Me . . .” So, it seems that we are talking about both the Rock that protects us, and the Rock to whom we were faithless.  Relationships, especially love relationships, carry responsibilities, and here the Lord is reminding us of where our weakness lies.

      Finally, God reminds us in the fifth strophe that we have the freedom to reject His love, and that abuse of that freedom has consequences. The generation that He endured “for forty years” is, of, course, Moses’ and Aaron’s generation.  Nobody in the Old Testament enjoyed a closer relationship with God than Moses, and yet he was barred entry into the Promised Land because of his faithlessness at Meribah.

      At this point, we close the Invitatory with the Doxology and a final repetition of the antiphon.  The prayer closes, not at the end, but in the middle of the relationship; we continue to live out, or better yet, to work out that relationship throughout the day in the Divine Office.  It is a liturgical prayer, after all, and the word “liturgy” comes from the Greek leitourgia, “work of the people.”  It is not simply prayed, but done.

       We may be surprised at first by the tone of the final two strophes of the Invitatory.  The General Instruction tells us that it invites us to “look forward to the ‘Rest of the Lord’”, but that’s not quite right: it’s really warning us not to lose it.  It reminds me of this exchange from John’s Gospel: 

After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.  Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?"  Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life . . .”  John 6:66-68 

The message here comes from a negative, rather than a positive direction, but it serves a purpose.  It is what we call in educational jargon an “open-ended question”, one that requires some initiative on the part of the recipient; as we begin our daily work of prayer, God is asking us, as Jesus does the Apostles: “What choice will you make?  What are you going to do?” 

.

The Liturgy of the Hours And You (LOH 3)

The Worth Revisiting post below (first published two years ago on the blog Principium et Finis) is the second of a series on the Liturgy of the Hours as a devotion for lay people. To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com. 

In my previous posts (LOH 1, LOH 2) I discussed how I came to start praying the Liturgy of the Hours (LOH), and what the LOH looks like. Today I intend to discuss how to incorporate the LOH into your daily prayer life, particularly if you are a busy layperson.  Today's discussion, in fact, is primarily intended for people who are not under obligation to pray the LOH; those who are under obligation will need to consult their superiors as to what guidelines to follow in praying the Office. For the rest of us, however, there are a wide variety of approaches that we can use.

How to Begin

     Before we begin, let’s consider some of the main ways in which the Liturgy can enhance your prayer life.  For one thing, by structuring your day around a schedule of times set aside for prayer, you “consecrate time”, and remain more conscious of being close to God throughout the day.  By participating in the same liturgical celebration that is taking place around the world, you unite yourself more closely to the Universal Church. It is also a great way to become more familiar with Holy Scripture, especially if you include the Office of Readings (which also, as an added benefit, includes extensive readings from the works and lives of the saints).

     It’s a good idea to keep those ends in mind as you begin.  Also, as is the case when beginning a physical exercise program, it’s best not to attempt to do too much too soon: once you have established the routine of regular prayer, it won’t be too hard to expand it, but if it seems impossible at the outset, you are likely to abandon it before too long.  For this reason I suggest concentrating first on the practice of simply praying at set times, even if it’s just a brief prayer.  For instance, you might decide to commit yourself to praying every day in the morning, at noon, and between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m.  You may only say an Our Father, or a Hail Mary (or, if you’re really ambitious, both, followed by a “Glory Be”), but you will have already begun the sanctification of your day. 

Expanding Your Repertoire

     Once you have become used to praying at regular times, you can expand your repertoire.  You may wish to add favorite prayers; when I first started, I used to pray “The Breastplate of St. Patrick” every morning.  You may wish to try an easier variation of the Divine Office, such as Magnificat, a publication modeled on the LOH (not to be confused with the Canticle of Mary from Luke's Gospel, which is always said during Morning Prayer).  This "mini" LOH only includes modified versions of Morning and Evening Prayer, and some spiritual readings to take the place of the Office of Readings.  The prayer hours look very much like the LOH but are shorter, and since there are fewer of them, the psalms are most often not the same as the ones in that day’s LOH.  Nonetheless, when you use a substitute like Magnificat you are still praying the Divine Office along with the Church; I have even been told (although I have not verified it) that in some religious communities it can be used in the place of the regular Liturgy.  This would not be unprecedented: the Church has often made similar allowances in the past, most notably in the case of the Little Office of the Virgin Mary (which also became a popular devotion among the laity).

     You may eventually decide that you wish  to participate as directly as possible in the daily prayer of the Universal Church by praying  the official Liturgy of the Hours itself.  There are a lot of options here, as well.  Those of us who are not bound by obligation can use as little or as much of the Liturgy as we like. Morning and Evening Prayers, the “hinges” of the LOH, are the most important, and I recommend starting there.  If you can’t pray them in their entirety, you may wish to say only the Gospel Canticle from each hour (the Benedictus in the morning, the Magnificat in the evening) or the Canticle and one of the Psalms.  The Office of Readings also has a lot to offer: if you pray this office, over time you’ll discover that you can find your way around large parts of the Bible, and you’ll be much better acquainted with St. Augustine and many other great Christian Saints; since the current plan of the LOH was adopted, it can be prayed at any time of day.  There is also Night Prayer, which is fairly short, and which I have found a beautiful way to end the day.  I read somewhere years ago that you can also combine some elements of the LOH with other prayer routines, particularly family prayer.  In my family we include the Nunc Dimittis and the closing prayers from Night Prayer in our family devotions before retiring.

Finding the Prayers

     Fortunately, it is easy to find the prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours and other resources today.  Using books (none of which are really complete, except the four-volume set) can be complicated, since some parts of the Liturgy follow a four week cycle, others are tied to the liturgical season, others to particular feast days, and so on.  A website like divineoffice.org figures all that out for you. 

     In future posts I will offer my reflections on some of the particular hours and my experiences with them.  In the meanwhile, I encourage you to explore the spiritual treasures contained in the Liturgy of the Hours.

   Below are some resources for anyone interested in exploring the Liturgy of the Hours -

Websites:

Universalis.com – This was the first website I encountered with the text of the LOH.  It does have the full text of all the daily prayers, although in the free version available online many of the translations are not the approved ones.  On the plus side, you can now select parallel English and Latin texts, and the Latin, of course, is the original from which the translations come.  You can pay for a fairly inexpensive App that does use the approved translations, and a number of other extra features.

Ebreviary.com – Full texts of all the prayers, which are designed so that they can be printed as booklets to use in communal pryer – but you need to buy a subscription.

Divineoffice.org – My favorite LOH website.  It contains the full approved translations of most of the canonical hours (although there is only one hour for Daytime Prayer).  There are also audio versions of each hour which include recorded hymns and recitation of the prayers, either spoken or chanted.

Books:

There are various one-volume books entitled Christian Prayer that contain most of the Liturgy of the Hours.  

A very popular choice is this one [here], although it is not complete (particularly the Office of  Readings), and hasn’t been updated since 1976.  

I prefer this one [here] from the Daughters of St. Paul, which contains everything except the long readings from the Office of Readings (these are available on the websites listed above).  It also dates from 1976, however, and, even worse, seems to be out of print. I spoke recently with some of the Daughters of St. Paul, and they tell me that a new edition will be in the works once new translations of the LOH (along the same lines as the new translation of the Mass) are available.

The Gold Standard is the four-volume Liturgy of the Hours [here].  It’s all there, but it’s a significant financial investment.

Mother Angelica and Brother Joe

    A couple weeks ago this world lost two prominent Catholics, both Italian-Americans well-known for their involvement in broadcasting, and both with Franciscan connections. The first, of course, is EWTN founder and Franciscan nun Mother Angelica.  Few Catholics below the rank of Pope have had quite so profound a impact in the Catholic world over the past century. Her influence has spread in ever-expanding ripples since the founding of her Catholic television station in 1981.  Thanks to Mother Angelica there are people who have been brought into the Church or back to the practice of the Faith through EWTN; there are Catholics formed by watching, listening to, or working for EWTN who have gone on to people the amazing evangelization and apologetics industry that has sprouted up over the past four decades, and has become something of a movement; there are all the people, Catholic or not, affected by the witness of those whose faith has been nourished by that movement, and . . . well, it goes on and on.

Mother Angelica

         Mother’s life story is an inspiration all its own.  One can’t help but admire her determination to rise above a troubled childhood, and after that a debilitating injury as a young religious sister, to establish a convent in the deep south, and to create a vibrant Catholic media empire, sustained throughout by an unfailing love for Jesus Christ. In her last years she offered another, deeper, kind of witness when, like St. John Paul II, she was a living reflection of Christ’s Paschal suffering (interesting that Mother died on Easter Sunday, and John Paul the Great on the Second Sunday of the Octave of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday).  She suffered intensely after a pair of strokes fifteen years ago, with very limited powers of speech and a host of other related ailments.  She did not, however, let her increasing pain and discomfort discourage her.  Instead, according to EWTN chaplain Joseph Wolfe:

Mother Angelica had instructed her nuns to do everything to keep her alive, no matter how much she suffered, because every day she suffered, she suffered for God. [full article here]

I expect that there will be a cause for her canonization opened soon, and it will not be surprising if Saint Angelica of Irondale finds her way onto the Liturgical Calendar in due time.

A young Joe Garaglio (r.), with childhood neighbor
and life-long friend friend Yogi Berra (l.)

         We will probably never see a cause for the canonization of long-time sports announcer Joe Garagiola, however, who died four days before Mother Angelica, on the Wednesday of Holy Week.  Joe was not a Catholic broadcaster, like Mother Angelica, but a broadcaster who happened to be Catholic. In fact, although he was a lifelong, faithful Catholic, he would probably be intensely embarrassed by any discussion of his personal sanctity.   Despite his celebrity he was a humble man, always speaking very dismissively, for instance, about his tenure as a catcher in major league baseball.  The truth is that, although he wasn’t a Hall of Fame player, his career wasn’t without its highlights: he batted .257 in 676 games over eight seasons, which is quite respectable for a catcher, and in 1946, his rookie season, outhit the great Ted Williams in the World Series (the only Series for both of them).

         It wasn’t until his playing days were over that Joe Garagiola really made a name for himself, as a talker (which did get him into the Hall of Fame).  He was a five-tool player in the broadcast booth: he started with an extensive knowledge of the game, experience playing at the highest level, and a knack for telling a story; in addition to those, his personal warmth and generous spirit kept him on the air for more than half a century, mostly in sports, but also for stints on various talk programs and game shows.

         As it turns out, that warmth and generosity welled up from a deep source: Garagiola was a man of deep faith, as detailed [here] in a recent story at CatholicPhilly.com. He always carried a rosary in his pocket, had a deep devotion to the Blessed Mother and, for the last quarter century of his life, poured a veritable flood of time, money, and love into the St. Peter Mission School in the Gila River Indian Community near Phoenix, Arizona.  The Franciscan nuns who run the school are among his most fervent fans:

“He was one of the best people I have ever met. There was no limit to his generosity,” said its principal, Sister Martha Mary Carpenter, who estimates that Garagiola was responsible for bringing hundreds of thousands of dollars into the school.

     Indeed, Garagiola was a tireless fundraiser for St. Peter's, and was instrumental in financing and promoting a long list of improvements and additions to the school’s facilities. He did more for St. Peter’s than just give money, however: he gave himself.  The former Major League catcher and broadcaster was constantly promoting the school.  According to Sister Martha Mary, “Joe couldn’t talk to people for more than five minutes without talking about the mission. … He will be with us in spirit for a very long time.”  A frequent visitor to St. Peter’s, he had often been with them in more than spirit, taking an intense interest not just in the institution, but in the children it serves.  Sr. Martha Mary is proud to point out that

St. Peter’s schoolchildren still recite “Joe’s Prayer” twice each day. Garagiola himself taught them the short invocation: “Teach us O Lord, that every day, down every street, come chances to be God’s hands and feet.”

Garagiola at St. Peter Mission School in 2005 (photo: The Republic)

    Before I go any further, let me make it clear that I am not advocating a cause for the canonization of Joe Garagiola, nor putting his personal sanctity on a par with Mother Angelica’s, or anyone else’s.  The spiritual superstars who join the official canon will always be a very small and select group. At the same time, all believing Christians hope to spend their eternity in Heaven, in the Presence of God, which is precisely to become a saint.  I suspect that, celebrity notwithstanding, most of us are more like Joe Garagiola than we are like Mother Angelica. Like most of us, Garagiola spent most of his time and effort on things that had little explicit connection to the Catholic Faith.  As he was living out in The World, however, he was always open, “every day, down every street”, to the possibility of living out Christ’s love. The Great Saints show us how far we fallible creatures can rise, the little saints (a loving grandmother, a supportive coach or teacher, or a kind and generous old sportscaster) can teach us some of the first steps on the way.  I’m adding “Joe’s Prayer” to my store of devotions.
     It's fitting that we pray for the souls of these two Catholics who have come into our homes so often through television, along with the souls of others who have died.  Who knows? Some day, maybe soon, Mother Angelica and Brother Joe may be praying for us before the Throne of God.

(See also "Feed My Sheep" at Principium Et Finis)