HOMILY for Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order
preached at High Mass in Our Lady of the Assumption & St Gregory
Some of the men who are here today, perhaps even some of those serving this Mass, are engaged in an ascetical program called ‘Exodus 90’. Not content with Septuagesima and its mere 70 days of preparation for Easter, ‘Exodus 90’ is a spiritual workout that lasts for 90 days, “based on three pillars: prayer, asceticism, and fraternity”. There is something novel and profoundly counter-cultural about this: groups of men come together once a week, they support one another in prayer and in a range of ascetic disciplines which include daily short cold showers, regular intense exercise, abstaining from drinks, sweets, snacks, television, and non-essential use of the computer and smartphone. However, although there are some clearly 21st-century elements to this, the three pillars of prayer, asceticism, and fraternity are not new, and indeed, not all that radical!
For in 1233, seven men, all wealthy and well-connected merchants of Florence left their homes, their comfortable lives, their financial security, and their careers, likewise in search of fraternity, and asceticism, and prayer, but they did so with a holy intensity, and for the rest of their lives, which was somewhat more than 90 days – one of these seven, St Alessio Falconieri, for example, died at the age of 110. These seven men, on Our Lady’s birthday in 1233, came together to pray, and each of them individually received a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She called them to begin a more perfect life, to renounce their possessions, their fine clothes – for their were textile merchants – and to begin to beg for their living. Because it was thus that they could learn the most important thing that a Christian disciple can learn: my life depends entirely upon God’s providence, unfolded in all the circumstances of our human life including its many hardships and sorrows. The ascetic disciplines of ‘Exodus 90’, at their best, also have this aim, I believe.
But perhaps its focus is less acute, which is not surprising, since the program wasn’t designed by Our Lady! The seven holy founders of the Servants of Mary, on the other hand, were chosen by the Mother of God, and she instructed them in virtue, and she sent her other beloved sons, the Dominicans, to help them! In 1245, St Peter of Verona, a Dominican inquisitor who would become the Order’s protomartyr, helped them to establish themselves as an Order of mendicant friars, and he inspired their habit: it looks like the Dominican habit except that it is black, the colour of penance, rather than white! More seriously, though, Our Lady led the Servite friars to a contemplative semi-eremitical life of penance, and in particular, they were called to focus on the Passion of the Lord, and especially the spiritual martyrdom of Mary. Around 1239 they began a devotion that is particular to them: standing under a Crucifix, and thus standing with Our Lady at the foot of the Cross, they would meditate on the Seven Sorrows of Mary. This is sometimes called the Servite Rosary, which is prayed with seven groups of seven beads, and this was worn with the habit from 1674. In 1668, the Servites were given permission to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows which retains to this day its distinctive Sequence hymn, the ‘Stabat Mater’, a beautiful meditation on the intense love of Mary and her sorrow as she stood beneath the Cross.
Incidentally, one of the most beautiful musical settings of this hymn was composed in 1735 by Pergolesi, and it will be performed on the 7th of March in the Rosary Shrine where I currently serve as Rector. It is situated about 30 minutes from here, in north London, between Hampstead and Camden Town, and the ‘Stabat Mater’ will be performed in the Lady Chapel where we also have our weekly Dominican rite Sung Masses at 4pm every Sunday. However, on this feast day today, I invite you especially to take the opportunity to come and pray like a Servite; come to the Rosary Shrine and meditate on the Sorrows of Mary expressed in the ‘Stabat Mater’ on the 7th of March; the number seven, it would appear, figures prominently in all things connected to the Servites!
The fruit of a worthy meditation on Our Lady’s Sorrows and on the Passion of Christ is genuine penance. Benedict XVI, when he visited Fatima in 2010, said that, in view of the crises of faith and scandals that are affecting the Church “the Church thus has a deep need to relearn penance.” Today’s feast, it seems to me, teaches us concerning true penance. This is important, to ensure that the asceticisms we undertake, and the things we give up (such as hot baths), and the fasts we undergo during this Septuagesimatide and during Lent are properly motivated by a deep love for Jesus and Mary that comes from focussing on what they suffered for our sake. True penance comes from sorrow for sin, indeed hatred for our sins which have nailed Christ to the Cross, and which have pierced the Immaculate Heart of Mary like a sword. In these days, seeing the sufferings of the Church, the Bride of Christ, on account of heresy and schism and the infidelities of priests and consecrated persons, what shall our response be?
Our Lady has always been an image of our Mother the Church. So, inspired by the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order, let us meditate on the Sorrows of Mary, and likewise meditate on the sorrows and sufferings of the Church in our time. Then, having prayed in the manner of the Servites, may we be moved, not so much to displays of bitterness and outrage on social media, but to personal acts of penance. As Benedict XVI said, the response to the sufferings of the Church in our time, including the public sins of her members and the scandals done by her clergy, “is not directed to particular devotions, but precisely to the fundamental response, that is, to ongoing conversion, penance, prayer, and the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity.”
These were the pillars of the seven saintly men we honour today. Instructed by Our Lady, and filled with the grace of God, they sought prayer, asceticism, and fraternity but only as a means to ongoing conversion, penance, and prayer, the fruits of which are faith, hope, and charity. Exodus 90, I hope, will help our good men of London relearn penance, but more importantly, I pray that this time of pre-Lent and the coming Lenten fast will school us in genuine penance, focussed by a holy meditation on the Passion of Our Lord, and on the Sorrows of Our Lady.
Then, as the Collect for this feast said, may we “so sorrow in the sorrows” of Jesus and Mary “that we may rejoice in their joys.” May St Bonfilius, St Monaldi, St John Bonagiunta, St Gerard Sostegni, St Bartholomew Amidei, St Benedict dell’Antella, St Ricoverus Uguccione, and St Alexis Falconieri pray for us! And perhaps, God willing, 'Exodus 90' will give rise to a new mendicant Order for Mother Church!
