PRAYER OF PENITENTS
"Most High, Glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my mind, give me right faith, a firm hope and perfect charity, so that I may always and in all things act according to Your Holy Will. Amen." (Saint Francis's prayer before the San Damiano Crucifix)

PRAYER, PENANCE, EUCHARIST

CFP RETREAT/REUNION/CONFERENCE 2005 HIGHLIGHTS

We thank God for His many blessings to us all who attended CFP Retreat/Reunion/Conference 2005.  The bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood with one another were forged more strongly during this event, as we all rejoiced in the life of penance to which God called us.  May He be praised for granting us a grace filled gathering. 

MAIN PRESENTER: FATHER MARTIN MARY FONTE, FI

Photos on this link.

To order tapes of talks, see this link.

Following are excerpts from retreat and conference talks for 2005

EXCERPT FROM TALK 1:  Christ's Presence: Scars in the Body by Father Martin Mary Fonte, FI

. . . It is always a great privilege to be here with you among you especially since all of you share with the very charism that is so very dear to the Franciscan Order. The Franciscans were originally called the Order of Penitents and that is why we actually share this wonderful charism as a witness in the Church and this wonderful vocation. . . . . Michelangelo Caravaggio put into canvas this wonderful episode of Jesus' apparition to His disciples, especially Thomas. Caravaggio is known for his themes of bright and darkness and light, to actually put into some form of antithesis the difference between good and evil, grace and sin. Incidentally he was actually portraying St. Thomas here, touching the side of Our Lord, the scar on His own Body. But there are other apostles at his back, so he portrayed this in such a way that you do not know which finger is touching His Body, whether it is Thomas or some other apostle . . . we know it was Thomas but Caravaggio is actually relaying a message that there are many Thomases in our own time today . . . I want to draw an analogy here, which will be the work throughout this weekend, to draw a comparison between the mystery of the Eucharist on one hand and the life of penance and the experience of the cross and sufferings on the other. What kind of comparison can we draw from these two realities? The whole reality of the Lord's presence always begins with the conversion of the species of the bread and wine into His Body and Blood. And penance is, of course, some form of a kind of conversion, the transformation of our life into a life of Christ. . . .
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EXCERPT FROM TALK 2:  Sacrament of Peace: Effects of Penance by Father Martin Mary Fonte, FI

I'd like to start with a prayer that our holy father St. Francis prayed when he was discerning his vocation before the crucifix of San Damiano. "Oh great and glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart, and give me, Lord, a correct faith, a sure hope, a perfect charity, a profound humility, a will and intelligence to know and to fulfill Your Holy Will. Amen." . . . When I joined the Franciscan Order, I always wondered, "Why is Saint Francis and not Saint Dominic considered the patron of peace?" . . . Saint Francis became the patron of peace because of two important realities in his life. First he is a man of the Eucharist and then he is a man of penance. That is why he ended up a man of peace . . .

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EXCERPT FROM TALK 3:  Adoration: Penance and Contemplation by Father Martin Mary Fonte, FI

. . . Our Lady, Mother of the Blessed Sacrament, pray for us. . . . .(The Gospel of the Transfiguration of Christ) expresses the same sentiments of an Adorer (of the Most Blessed Sacrament.) Peter said, "It is good for us to be here and I wish it would be forever." Saint Alphonsus wrote about his visit to the Blessed Sacrament, "why, O Lord, is the quarter of the hour is for me like an eternity, staying before the Blessed Sacrament?" . . . St. Alphonsus said, "Precisely because I lack that love. I lack that love and that is why I cannot stay in Eucharistic Adoration before You even longer than a quarter of an hour." . . . after the sacrifice of the Mass, the Presence of the Lord remains on the altar . . . this, of course, is grounded in the Presence of Our Lord and faith that He remains with us even after the sacrifice to be with us. What is basically this whole attitude of piety of Eucharistic Adoration? There are many things that we do during Eucharistic Adoration. First and foremost are the four As a matter of fact, one of the wonderful ways to do thanksgiving is to spend some time in adoration of Him, not only that He is present in our hearts for about fifteen minutes after communion but one that is also present in the tabernacle. We also ask Him for graces--the act of petition--adoration, the Blessed Sacrament, means that man has a necessity from God, namely that, of course, of continuing his perseverance in a life of grace, the supernatural goods and the goods that are temporal. We also intercede for others in Eucharistic Adoration . . . .

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EXCERPT FROM TALK 4:  Metanoia: Conversion of Body and Soul by Father Martin Mary Fonte, FI

Metanoia--the conversion of body and soul. . . .Jesus asked the blind man, "What do you want Me to do for you?" He said, "I want to see." I feel a little bit humble in discussing with you the theme today of conversion and metanoia, given that you belong to this Confraternity. Most of you must have already been experts in this especially the pledged members. What I will tell you tonight will just be a little supplement to what you have already learned, reflected on, and much more lived. . . . I believe that this call of the Eucharistic year is essentially a call to conversion . . . after the consecratory prayer, in the sacrifice of the Mass, the bread ceases to be bread, the wine ceases to be wine. Although the species, we call these the accidents, remain the same, the substance changes. Saint Thomas is a great doctor who coined the precise term for this. He called this the transubstantiation--the whole process of conversion from the substance of bread to the very divine substance of Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. . . .whether you are dozing, whether you are snoring, our Lord comes on our altar. . . .

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EXCERPT FROM TALK 5:  Liturgy and Penance: The Sacred Order by Father Martin Mary Fonte, FI

. . . the life of penance is a liturgical life . . . When we speak about liturgy, we are always thinking about the Mass. True. This is the preeminent and most sublime of all liturgies. . . . What other things are included in the liturgy? The recitation of the canonical hours. Could you imagine, this weekend, you have experienced what the Poor Clares have been doing every day of their lives? You are reciting the full canonical hours. Midday. Midmorning. Midafternoon. These are, of course, liturgical acts, liturgical functions and services. They are called by Pope Pius XII as public worship. Now there is a misunderstanding of the notion of public there. People always think of public as being with people, with a mob. If there are only two of you, is it public or not? Or if it's a priest or one of the faithful? A public worship is not so much if there is a crowd there or not, or a big crowd, an auditorium. It is a very strict term that canon law has given us. Public worship means that which is an authorized act of worship for the whole church. That is the key point of it. In other words, whenever you saying at Mass, it's the same Mass that every single priest in the whole world is reciting because they are all approved universally for the Church. And that is why in public worship, even if there are only two of you here, you are connected with the Poor Clares in other monasteries, with Carmelites. . . . .Where two are gathered together, in one prayer, there am I in the midst of them. So even though you are just praying your Night Prayer or Evening Prayer in your bed, you are doing a public act because Poor Clare nuns are praying with you the same prayer and God is there in your bedroom.   That is the whole meaning of public worship. . . .

EXCERPT FROM TALK 6--Active Participation and Mary by Father Martin Mary Fonte, FI

Active participation means the liturgical active participation . . . John's Gospel is filled with signs. It is one of the most liturgical Gospels. We have the episodes of the baptism, the Bread of Life, we have there the wedding feast of Cana, the coming of the Holy Spirit on Jesus. All of these things are very liturgical. . . .It is full of liturgy and signs, wine and woman. He repeats the same episode of a woman but no longer with wine as a drink but the wine of Christ's blood at another wedding that will be at Calvary. . . ..
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EXCERPT FROM Brothers and Sisters in Christ: CFP and Community by Madeline Pecora Nugent

Let us put ourselves into the Presence of Christ again and continue to do so and think of ourselves as a community in the house of God. . . . .Jesus spoke about community many times . . . If we look at our San Damiano crucifix, (we see) . . . a red border around this crucifix . . .in that border is a vine . . . and that vine is a symbol reflective of the Gospel passage about the vine and branches. Jesus is the root of this vine, the true vine, and the branches are all surrounding Him, and we are all reflected in those branches. If you have ever seen a grape vine, you know that they don't grow like trees . .. .the vines twist around each other and are all tangled up together and the grapes come from those vines. Now Jesus had told us about pruning the vine. If you have grown grapes, you know . . . that, if you let the vines just grow wild, you don't get as many grapes as if you prune them back and then they produce more grapes. Jesus told another parable about pruning the vines, telling us that . . .. in order to be a productive vine, we have to have two things going on. One is that we have to be rooted in Christ . .. and the second thing is that we have to prune out of our lives the things that are not bearing fruit, that are not fruit bearing. And the Confraternity of Penitent fulfills both of those qualifications, thanks be to God . . . and that is because of the Rule that we have. Another aspect to all of this is that the vine does not just grow up by itself but there are other vines that twist up with it . .. . If we are trying to do His Will in the Confraternity, then we are all brothers and sisters to Jesus which makes us brothers and sisters to each other and that is the intent of Jesus' commandment to "love one another."  . . .

EXCERPT FROM Eucharist and Scripture by Paul Boudreau

A mother and her young son were attending Mass one day, and the little boy sitting beside her was a typical little boy, fidgeting as they do, and she turned to quiet him down. Then it came time for the consecration so the mother turned to the little boy and said, "Look. Watch. Jesus is coming." The little boy stares at the altar as the priest lifts up the host, and the little boy says, "I don't see no Jesus." How many people do you know like that little boy? How many people "don't see no Jesus" even though this is a dogma of the Church, a teaching that has been there since the very beginning. The basic objection, so it seems, to the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence, is not that it is against Scripture, but it's against reason. It was no more accepted in Jesus ' time in His famous "Bread Discourse" in synagogue in Capernum and John 6 says, "Many of His followers heard this and said, 'This teaching is too hard. Who can listen to it?'" . . . As adults, we need to educate ourselves and become more convicted about the Eucharist. It is sad, but 70% of people in one survey, who were under the age of 45, felt that the Eucharist was nothing more than some sort of representation rather than the Real Presence as was taught in our dogma.. . . Suppose somebody came to you and said, 'Why? Why do we need the Eucharist? What difference does it make?" This is what I would tell them. . "It's a matter of life and death." I think that would get their attention. I can say this because Jesus said in John 6, "I am telling you the truth. If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will not have life in you." They would say, "What does that mean? Everybody dies. I know people who go to Mass all the time and they still die. So what's to believe?" . . ,

EXCERPT FROM Saint Francis: A Call to Penance, an Interview with Father Martin Mary Fonte, FI

There are three types of penances. The first penance is the Sacrament of Penance. Then there are the penances that we voluntarily choose for ourselves--these are voluntary penances. And the dear penance that God sends unexpectedly and lovingly from the point of view of the suffering subject--those are involuntary penances. The first one, of the Sacrament of Penance, is a form of penance in terms of paying for, doing restitution for the particular sins and offenses (we have committed). The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen used an example. When you commit a sin, you try to hammer a big nail into the wood. When you are being forgiven of sin, the nail is being removed, but it's not the same table again because there is a hole in it, so you have to do some restitution to fill it up. So the penance is required what a particular sin had caused and had damaged . . .
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EXCERPT FROM Faith

This is one of the more obscure passages when you think of faith is in the Gospel of Saint Luke (Luke 17: 3-6) Jesus said, "Be on your guard! 1 If your brother sins, correct him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day and seven times a day, he turns back to you saying, 'I am sorry,' forgive him." You may say, What in the world does that have to do with penance or with faith? Well, the very next response of the apostles to that statement is, "The apostles say to the Lord. 'Increase our faith.'" So I guess they are related. I always find it interesting that the disciples' response to forgiving someone who wrongs you again and again and again, over and over again, day after day--these are people in your family, people who you love dearly, these are your husbands, your children, your wives, your brothers in law, your mother sin law, these are people who have the opportunity to give you the most pain and anguish in your life, and Jesus is basically saying to them, "Forgive them as many times as they have wronged you day after day. Just forgive them again and again." No, "I'm not speaking to you anymore. I'm writing you out of my life. I'm walking away from you. I can't stand you any more. Get away from me." No. To His friends, He implores them, "Forgive them." And what is their response to that? "Give us more faith!" They realize how hard that really is. So immediately they ask for more faith. . ..

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EXCERPT FROM A Retreat Reflection by Mary Louise (Lou) Samuels, Interim Vice Minister (Vice President) of the CFP

I really have very little to say, except . . . except I spoke to most of you Wednesday night, and when I talked to you Wednesday night, I said that these would be the most awesome few days that you would be involved in. And I said to you then that I hoped for you, and all of us seem to feel this way who have been here before, we are closer to God when we leave, we are closer to each other, and we are closer to the world. I hope this retreat has been as wonderful . . . . as you can expect it and we look very much forward to seeing you next year . . ..
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FOUR FACES OF MARY

EXCERPT FROM Our Lady of Mount Carmel by Saundra Hollingsworth

The early hermits on Mount Carmel in Israel considered Elijah and Mary and as the founders of their Order and their models for living. The hermits lived in caves but had a little chapel dedicated to Our Lady. The hermits became known as the Little Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. Mary was their protector. As she cared for Jesus when He was on earth, she is also the mother and protector of the body of Christ on earth, the Church. There is a tradition that says that Mary, as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, appeared to the prior general Saint Simon Stock on July 16, 1251. Our Lady was holding the brown scapular, a loose sleeveless garment reaching from the shoulders to the knees. Mary promised that anyone who remained faithful to the Carmelite vocation until death would be granted the grace of final perseverance. The Carmelites have shared this patronage and protection with those who are devoted to the Mother of God and has extended both its habit and affiliation to the larger church. . . .

EXCERPT FROM Our Lady of Knock by Elizabeth Hill

Our Lady of Knock was an apparition that occurred in Knock, Ireland, in 1879. . . .(At that time, the Irish people) were just coming out of the potato famine of the mid 1800's. Ireland was under political domination by the Irish and religious oppression by the Protestants even though the Catholic population was in the majority . . . so the Irish people were going through a very difficult time in the nineteenth century. The night that Mary appeared, she did not appear alone. She appeared with Saint Joseph and with Saint John the Evangelist. She appeared August 21, 1879. . . . When the apparition appeared, she appeared to at least 22 people and they were of all ages, from young children to the elderly. One of the ladies was named Bridget Trench who was in her seventies . . . and Bridget actually tried to embrace Our Lady . . .and there was nothing when she went to touch her feet--there was nothing in her arms. . . . .

EXCERPT FROM The Black Madonna (Our Lady of Czestochowa) by Larry Dusek

There are two icons of Our Lady . . . one is rather plain and unobtrusive and the other one is muchly glorified and endowed with much richness. The icon of the Black Madonna has a history that goes back, according to the tradition of the icon, to Saint Luke the Evangelist. Tradition has it that . . . the icon is painted on a wooden table top. I found several different woods . .. It was supposedly the table at which Our Lady took her meal, and he painted it at the request of some of the faithful after our holy Mother died. He complied with their wishes. Not much is known about the icon until sometime in the fourth century when the mother of the holy Roman emperor Constantine, Saint Helena, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and she discovered the icon. And she felt, "Well, I'm the mother of the holy Roman emperor. It's going with me." And she removed it to Constantinople in the fourth century. . . .

EXCERPT FROM Our Lady of Perpetual Help by Dustin Niblock

(The icon of) Our Lady of Perpetual Help, or Our Mother of Perpetual Help . . . was stolen from a church on the island of Crete by a merchant returning to Rome in 1497. Soon after his arrival, he fell ill, and feeling contrition for his theft, he made his best friend promise to take the icon to a church for proper reverence. The merchant died and his friend took the image to his home where his wife saw its great beauty and insisted on keeping it. The Blessed Mother in turn, appeared to the man twice, in separate dreams, commanding that the icon be placed in the church. To this she added the warning that he would be punished for not heeding her wishes. Ignoring, he fell ill and died. As she often does, the Blessed Virgin then appeared to a child, the daughter of the family, repeating her request and adding, "Tell your mother and your grandfather that Holy Mary of Perpetual Help wants this." She asked that the picture be exposed in the church between the basilicas of Saint Mary Major and Saint John Lateran. The mother of the family related this story to a friend who offered to take the picture but fell deathly ill before she could. The message could not become any clearer so the mother immediately took icon to the the Augustinian friars who cared for the Church of Saint Matthew, halfway between the two basilicas. . . .

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EXCERPTS FROM Mass Homilies by Fr. Martin Mary Fonte FI

Saint Mary Magdalene

No one among you is unfamiliar with the life and the vocation and sanctity of Saint Mary Magdalene. There is one painter who actually portrayed St. Mary Magdalene with a wonderful figure from her life with an alabaster bottle--you put perfume in it--beside her and the other figure a skull. This is a summary, I believe, of Saint Mary Magdalene's life, from a life that is thrown, you might say, in a sinful way of life, sinful attractions to men, lustful sins, that have destroyed all her career in the beginning, and she found it in Christ, especially in the preaching of Christ and then in the empty tomb. . . . . The story of Mary Magdalene can be repeated again . . . This woman is full of passion, full of energy . . . she is always seeking . . . when she puts her whole love on something, she throws her very life into it. She just threw it into something wrong. There is nothing wrong with loving, there is nothing wrong with desiring. . . . This is the whole thing with Mary Magdalene. She is full of energy, full of passion, full of love, full of generosity. Whenever she puts into her hand an alabaster bottle, she puts all of her life into it, body, soul. That is what makes sin corrupting. When you absorb a wrong object, you become worse, and this is the life of Mary Magdalene in the very beginning. And I believe that alabaster bottle, which is a representation of her life, is a perfume she used for sinning--she wanted to smell nice to allure men. But when Our Blessed Lord came into the house of Simon, who came in? She went in and broke the very symbol of her sinning and devoted it and offered it as an act of worship and repentance onto the feet of Our Blessed Lord and washing His feet and throwing everything she has to Him. That is the beginning of a dedication, that is the beginning of ordering all of one's passions to what is right and good. . . .

Mass of Pledging Homily

I believe that this particular profession is more or rather an exaltation of God's divine mercy rather than the ultimate sacrifice of the people who will commit themselves. I chose to change the Mass to the Votive Mass of Our Lady today because I do believe that anyone who is called to any commitment only shadows and echoes the very first commitment that the Mother of God made at the Annunciation. Her fiat and her yes are what made possible all the yes's and commitments we can do, especially today. . .. .the whole vocation of this Confraternity of Penitents. It is a call to live and to be grafted with Christ, the vine and the branches--they are being grafted into Christ. You are already grafted in baptism and in the sacrament of Confirmation but, in a deeper way, you want to reaffirm this great commitment, and promises of baptism through a special form of life, the commitment to this Rule of the Confraternity of Penitents. But as a consequence of this deeper grafting of the vine with the branches, our Lord also tells us that there will be moments in our lives that there will be pruning, that there will be moments that crosses will come our way, the more we commit ourselves to Christ. I remember my novice master, when we were being formed in the religious life, he said, "When you are a postulant, God is inviting you to carry the cross. When you are a novice, you are carrying the cross already. When you profess, especially when you are pledging for life, you are being crucified with Jesus." That, of course, is certainly applied to, by extension, to people, even lay people, by a commitment. . . . The crosses that will come our way after this commitment are no longer seen as a punishment but, on the contrary, as an expression of love. He wants us to bear much fruit. . . .