Holy Family Passionist Retreat Blog

Please Wait for Me by Leo F. Flangan, Jr. Ph. D.

2012-01-31T07:01:00.000-08:00

It’s more than 10 years since 9/11. Looking back I can see the journey that I and many others have taken. For each of us it is a unique journey – yet we share many paths. One thing we have in common is the difficulty of crossing the chasm created by our experience between ourselves and our loved ones. Another is letting go – not of what we have been through – but of the many habits and routines that just don’t feel right any more. We also face the challenge of letting our loved one’s know where we are on the journey.I can’t recommend how you should communicate to those you care for. I can tell you finding a way is essential.

I wrote the following entry, when the depression of PTSD was so heavy I couldn’t leave my easy chair. It asks my wife to wait for me and have confidence in my return.

Please Wait for Me

I know you love me. I know you worry for me. You feel the pain that springs from me.

I saw horrors and soaked them up like a sponge. I now know that fear is not something that you feel in the pit of your stomach – it is something that occupies your whole being.

You want to come back with me to the place where it happened. You want to understand for yourself. You want to see and feel what I feel. Please don’t. Please don’t try.

I seem distant and to myself. I don’t talk and laughter is a sound I can’t often find.

But you touch me in a way that heals. You are my connection to what we had and what we will have. You are my anchor in what was normal. Let me come to you. Give me time and I will.

I will do things and go places that seem to increase my pain. Sometimes you think I am risking my sanity and my soul. I am finding my way to healing. It will take time. Let me come to you. Be there for me.

Please don’t ever try to really share the horror and pain of this experience. If you join me, I fear we will both lose our strength. We will both be adrift. I need you to be where you are for me. Wait for me. Be patient with me. I will come back to you.

You have the hardest job. The most desperate. To stay where you are for me and let me complete my journey. Trust me that I am not lost – I am coming home.

And when I return, I will be different. I will be stronger than I was. I will have faith in myself. I will love you more…and we will go forward together.

Leo is one of presenter's for our Firefighter's Retreat February 24-26. Click here for more information or to register.

The End of the World ... as We Know it

2011-11-14T08:05:00.000-08:00

Fr. Meninger has been a Centering Prayer teacher for 30 years. Click here for more information about Holy Family’s Advent Centering Prayer retreat.

It's that time of year again when we are given the ominous prophetic words concerning the end of the world. One line especially from the second reading from First Thessalonians has been given an over literal prominence; "We who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with those Christians already dead, in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." This verse has been recognized for centuries by theologians as fanciful, apocalyptic language certainly not to be taken literally.

About 200 years ago a sincere but misguided preacher insisted it be taken literally and has acquired some considerable following. Many of them are sincere, many are paranoid, and some use it to exploit gullible Christians for their own financial profit.

Please note that the first reading from the Book of Wisdom contains a beautiful promise. Wisdom is available to those who seek it. Wisdom is knowing the will of God and how it is carried out in our personal lives and in the world. Many early Christians who read First Thessalonians lacked true wisdom. If Jesus was coming soon then there wasn't much point in going to work, growing food or getting an education. So they spend their time waiting to be caught up into the skies. The apostles did this on Ascension Thursday when Jesus ascended into heaven. An angel appeared and said in effect, “Why do you stand here idle, gazing up into the heavens, Jesus will come again in the clouds and glory…meanwhile, get back to work.” This necessitated the writing of Second Thessalonians in which they were told, once again, to go back to work.

Wisdom is also prominent in the parable of the wise virgins. Their wisdom was simply common sense, something we all need. Julian of Norwich is a veritable font of wisdom, that is, of common sense. She understood that God is a God of love. There is no such thing as the wrath of God. This is a human construct. God is not a judge, or avenger. He does not condemn , punish or criticize. Again, these are all human constructions. God is a God of compassion and forgiveness and he offers us not blame but pity.

In Heaven, Julian tells us, even our sins will be to our honor because God will reward us for our repentance. The greater our sins, the greater is God's compassion. This is why Jesus tells us that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 who have no need of repentance.

Wisdom, common sense, will tell us that if the Triune God is all-powerful, all wise and all loving, then this world which he created in his wisdom out of his love will come to the end for which he created it, namely himself.

The English Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, expressed this well in a poem called God's Grandeur.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil crushed.

Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell:

the soil is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness, deep down things.

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink, Eastward springs –

Because the Holy Ghost, over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with, ah! bright wings.

So, even though we have spoiled it, the world is always on the brink of a new dawn. The theological virtue of hope is one of the three ways by which God communicates himself to us. This is not something he is going to do, he is always doing it. He is the promise and the fulfillment of the promise. He is the not -- yet and the already -- here. The victory has been won for us we have only to reach out and claim it. May God grant us the wisdom to do so. May you be happy, May you be free, May you be loving, May you be loved.

Father William Meninger

St. Benedicts’ Monastery

Snowmass, Colorado

For more information about Centering prayer and Fr. Meninger visit: http://www.contemplativeprayer.net/

A Plethora of Vocations by Fr. John Baptist Pesce

2011-10-28T08:45:00.000-07:00

Most of us weekly pray for “an increase of vocations to the priesthood and religious life,” or something along those lines at the Sunday parish Eucharist. We are also encouraged to pray “for an increase of vocations”. The expression usually has it that “there is a shortage of vocations,” meaning a shortage of priests and religious, both male and female. And, if we pray for these the Lord will send laborers into the vineyard. Who can be “against” that?

All are equally called to holiness (relationship to God). There are no second class citizens here. There are different venues to answer that destiny. The share of God’s work to which we are called has something to do (however amorphous) with the reign of God working itself out in history. Granted this requires a more nuanced understanding of holiness than commonly accepted. But, by now, we should appreciate that this call to holiness doesn’t mean that some are called to be really holy and other, well, just about make it. There is no place for mediocrity in this call to holiness. Would you believe it, we are called to be saints! What we need among all the baptized is a willingness to answer this call to holiness whatever form this response takes in the concrete, nitty-gritty of life.

My suggestion is that what may possibly help in the present situation relative to the matter of vocations, narrowly understood, is to promote on all sides and for everyone a sense of vocation, comprehensively appreciated, namely, the realization that each of us has a call from God to do a share of God’s work in the service of God’s people. A heart specialist who is skilled in heart transplants as well as a park employee who picks up butts and other trash in a public park to remove some of the ugliness from the face of the earth. That goes for butcher, baker, nuclear scientist, nurse’s aide, sanitation worker. Think of the problem we’d have if we didn’t have garbage collectors! Whatever serves to humanize human life, whatever makes it easier to be good, whatever makes more for the type of society that all, deep down, are hungering and thirsting for.

To promote this mentality and the living of it because it is the truth, it seems to me would be an immense contribution towards the awareness that God may be calling some to a way of life that is that of the priest or of a sister or brother. With this collective awareness that we all have this call from God to do a share of God’s work in the service of God’s people, there is the possibility that the Spirit may awaken in some the realization, hey, it may be that God is calling me to do the life and work of a priest or sister or brother! In my judgment, it’s worth the try and there’s nothing to lose and plenty to gain even if, only by the individuals, who have this perspective on their answer to the call for holiness! Ordinary work, decent, upright, up building doesn’t have to be sanctified. It is sanctifying.

A discussion with Zen Master Dae Kwang & Father Kevin Hunt

2011-10-12T17:29:00.000-07:00

Last summer, the Institute for World Spirituality in Chicago hosted a weekend Christian – Buddhist retreat led by Father Kevin Hunt OCSO and Zen Master Dae Kwang. Two days of silent meditation, with both Christian and Zen chanting. These are excerpts from the Saturday evening question-and-answer period.

Question: In Christianity, what is important for many people is devotional type experience-thoughts, hymns, psalms all directed to a personal God. This brings much warmth and comfort to many Christians. Now this is a dimension which is not apparent in Buddhism. I am wondering how to understand that. Is this devotional spirituality, which involves thinking and images and relating to a personal God, extraneous in Buddhism – say, something Christians do because they do not have a correct understanding of the Still Point or Buddha Nature?

Father Kevin: In Christianity, you have to consider what is the meaning of “God.” Speaking about God is not the same as knowing God. If you ask me, “What is God?” I’ll answer, “God is a three-letter word.” When it comes down to what these words and images really mean, you run up against a blank wall of Unknowing. There’s an old Christian saying that any affirmation of God is a denial of God. So the question of theistic devotion in Christianity is not a simple one.

Also, the whole question of God in Buddhism is not simple either. When Buddhists talk about God are they talking about the same God that Christians do? No. In Buddhism, the gods are still in the wheel of samsara (karma, rebirth). If Christianity had a wheel of samsara, we would never be able to place God on that wheel.

In the West, most Christians would not be comfortable with a term like Shunyata — the void or infinite emptiness. But these words may be closer to God than many of the concepts and images we use!

Question: In Christianity, the deepest level of experience is described as an I – Thou relation between you and God. Can you explain why there is no I – Thou relation in Buddhism?

Dae Kwang Sunim: In Buddhism, we say that everything is one, so there is ultimately no I – Thou. If you take away the idea of “I” and take away the idea of “Thou,” then what is there?

Question: So there is no ultimate relationship in Buddhism as there is in Christianity?

Dae Kwang Sunim: Everything is relationship. Everything is direct connectedness; you just think that it isn’t. Our job is simply to become one with everything. That’s being relationship. So if you take away the idea of “I” and take away the idea of “Thou,” what do you get? Quick! Tell me! [No answer.] I’m sitting here answering your question. That’s better than any idea concerning “I – Thou” relationships.

Question: Would you describe how you became interested in Zen practice?

Father Kevin: I didn’t get interested in Buddhism and Zen as something I wanted to study. I basically got into it because the traditional Christian explanations of what my practice was didn’t quite satisfy me. Like a drum, to get the right tone, you have to tighten the skin on the drum head. So, too, in order to firm up my practice, I learned some of their ways of doing things.

Dae Kwang Sunim: I was raised Christian. The reason I went to Buddhism is much like what Father Kevin said. The Christian tradition I was raised in didn’t have any contemplative practice. I became interested in Zen Buddhism because it contained a very strong tradition of practice. I saw it not so much as an alternative to Christianity but as offering something I had never encountered before.

Question: Were you dissatisfied then with Christianity?

Dae Kwang Sunim: I wasn’t dissatisfied. I wanted something different. Actually, many people use Zen meditation to realize what Christianity is all about. Zen, you may have noticed, is very generic. It’s like drinking pure, cool water when you’re thirsty. Zen points to something before thinking, before all your ideas. Actually God is before your idea of God, and so is Buddha. And what is that? What are you? That’s the question! And how do you attain that?

Buddha likened the human situation to a man who has just been shot in the chest by an arrow. Before he gets treated for the wound, he wants to know who shot the arrow. He also wonders which tribe made the arrow. How strong was the bow and what trajectory did the arrow take to pierce his chest in such a manner? While he is asking these questions, he dies. The most important thing in this situation is getting treatment.

The Buddha was only concerned with one thing: human suffering and taking away human suffering. He refused to talk about anything else because it was not helpful to people. He went instead right to the heart of the matter, the matter of life and death. Christ, too, was not a scholar; he was not a theologian. He pointed directly to the human condition and how to relieve it. If you look at it that way, everything else pales.

A Journey Encountering the International, Universal Christ at World Youth Day

2011-09-30T05:47:00.000-07:00

“The Important Words Sound the Same: A Journey Encountering the International, Universal Christ at WYD”

By Catherine Matta

Blisters on my feet, sweat down my back, sunburn on my nose, bruises on my legs, cross around my neck, and a song in my heart: this is how I returned to JFK International Airport after spending 11 days (Aug. 12 – 23) in Madrid, Spain for 2011 World Youth Day.

The trip consisted of three days at Madrid’s Colegio Santa Francisca Javier Cabrini with people representing the various provinces and regions of the worldwide institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; six days exploring Spanish culture and my faith; and two days at airports. Throughout the trip, I thought in Spanish, communicated in “Spanglish,” sang in Latin, and shared in Christ.

Ultimately, World Youth Day was a journey to prove to myself the strength of our Church in the youth, and the ability to shatter language and cultural boundaries in the name of our Lord.

The theme of this year’s World Youth Day event, Aug. 16-21, came from Colossians 2:7: “Rooted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith.” And while I could spend days recounting the many simple ways I saw the Holy Spirit working during my time in Madrid, I’ll just share a couple of anecdotes and the lessons taken from them.

The first event to really speak to me was Adoration. My prayers that evening were very intense, and made me think more about my vocation in life and what God has done for me throughout the past few years. Sitting next to me in the Church was a young man who also seemed overwhelmed with the Spirit.

As a sign of solidarity, I wanted to give him my white wristband that has “iPray” embossed on it, hoping it might be of as much comfort to him as it has been to me. However, when I looked over to say a few words of support, he was gone. Just as my disappointment began to sink in, I looked down at the pew and saw waiting for me the bracelet he had been wearing, placed so specifically by my water bottle and hand-fan that I am sure he didn’t leave it by mistake. In a place so far from home, God sent me consolation in a nameless follower of Christ. Even if he had spoken a different language, his actions spoke words so universally Christian that conversation would have seemed superfluous.

God sent me something else during my trip to Madrid: a challenge. In the gospel of Matthew, we read an account of Jesus walking on water, urging Peter to take courage and walk to Him: “... Peter got down out of the boat … But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Immediately Jesus reached out His hand …” (14:29).

After receiving special access to sit just 18 rows from the Holy Father during the Saturday night vigil, I found myself roaming a field of two million people, looking for my group. Unfortunately, it was pitch black at midnight, and my search was in vain. I spent hours straining my eyes, desperately trying to pick out the purple shirts of my group. I prayed: “Lord, help me not to despair; help me trust that you will part this sea of sleeping bags and find me my group.” Hours later, my prayer became more desperate: “Lord, I have nowhere to sleep; no one around me speaks my language. Help me!”

At that point, I’d never felt more alone. But then, a group of people from England, who were also staying at Santa Francisca Javier Cabrini Collegio, offered me a spot on their tarp, a towel to use as a pillow, and foil to keep me dry and warm. Even as my faith was tested, Jesus came to me in the form of a British woman telling me not to fret, giving me the strength to get through the night.

Our last catechesis session was directed by Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York. Befitting a send-off session, his talk focused on our Catholic call to be “light to the world” and “salt to the earth” when we return from Spain. He said, “The love for Jesus and the Church must be the passion of our lives.” This sentiment resembles the Cabrinian motto: “All for the greater glory of the sacred heart of Jesus.”

If I learned one thing from World Youth Day, it was to be a proud and visible sign of the Church. The flag I wave doesn’t matter – what matters is that I have the ability to practice my faith in that country. The food on my plate doesn’t matter – what matters is the God I thank for providing me with something to eat. The language I speak doesn’t matter – what matters is that I’m spreading the Word of God in my native tongue.

You feel something, looking around a field of people praying the rosary. You may not understand their language, but you understand the prayer in their hearts. Trying to communicate with Russians, Argentineans, and South Americans could have been overwhelming. Instead, it was an opportunity to get to the root of what we believed.

I thank those with me at World Youth Day, those praying for us at home, and those who have supported me and my companions on a journey of a lifetime. May you find peace in knowing that we have come home alive in our faith, ready to make disciples of nations.

"Cancer and Other C Words" by Marilynn Cruz-Aponte

2011-09-16T06:20:00.000-07:00

My 46th birthday was marked with the dreadful discovery of a lump. My family had no history of cancer, yet I was diagnosed with the dreaded “C” word--Cancer.

Cancer brought a cascade of changes. It altered me physically. My body was pummeled by the impacts of surgery, reconstruction and chemotherapy. Once a beauty queen, the alterations to my body left me feeling as if I were looking at another woman—one not as pretty, not as feminine as the one I had previously known. There were emotional changes, tears, rage and confusion, “why me?”

Cancer gave way to monumental family concerns. It walloped my teen children with anxiety, crazed by thoughts of losing their primary parent. How would they live without mom? Cancer threatened our family structure. It worried and saddened my parents who could not fathom losing their adult child or imagine assuming a parental role once again. It instilled fear and led to painful projections about the future.

Shortly after I started chemotherapy treatments and my hair had fallen out, I was standing hairless in front of my mirror when one of my children said, “you have a baby head, soft and fragile.” I took in the kindhearted comment knowing it was a tender recognition of my weak state, my helplessness and vulnerability.

At that moment it became clear that cancer offered more than just changes and concerns. There were many more soothing “C” words that came from battling breast cancer—there was care. I came to graciously accept the care of others. Gifted doctors treated me. At home, loved ones nursed me. Loving family and friends sent cards filled with uplifting messages, written prayers and biblical scripture. Others prepared meals and school parents absorbed the carpool and after-school activity routines. Reliance on others was new but necessary. I grew in humility.

Cancer taught me to count, to count my blessings. Thanksgiving was no longer just a holiday but a part of daily prayer. I was grateful for living in a time of advanced medicine, grateful for the resources to secure medical care, to provide for my family. I was blessed to live in a community rich with loving relationships. I grew in gratitude.

Enduring the pains and sorrows of cancer cultivated my compassion. While I had always been a sensitive person, I now shared in the sufferings of others. I had come to know the challenges associated with cancer, the fear of death and my own mortality. I grew in my humanity.

Without courage cancer would have been the victor. Cancer could have destroyed the quality of my relationships and my life. However, with profound faith, I was able to summon courage to squarely face the villain. I grew in confidence.

Throughout the battle to survive breast cancer there were deep valleys but there were also many moments of joy. It was possible to rejoice and find gladness in each day. Celebrating life, despite the sorrows, was possible because I knew with certainty that the ultimate “C” word, Christ, was in the midst of my journey. He consoled me through my changes and concerns. His love was reflected in the care offered by family and friends. Through my relationship with Christ I was assured of his character; he did not abandon his children. He was devoted, compassionate and encouraging. I could celebrate because I believed in Christ’s promise and plans for me…..”plans for peace, not disaster, reserving a future full of hope for me.” I believe in everlasting life.

Join us at Holy Family as we celebrate Cancer Survivors along with their friends and families on Sunday, October 30. Click here for more information.

Dealing with Anger

2011-08-18T05:59:00.000-07:00

We humans are born with a remarkable ability to feel and a concomitant ability to respond to and express these feelings. How our feelings are perceived, accepted and responded to depends on many factors.

Anger, as the other emotions: love, sadness, joy, fear, is a normal human feeling. Feelings reside very much in our body selves. Anger is an emotion that propels the person to move out in physical or verbal response to protect self others or things from harm. Fear, on the contrary, is an emotion that evokes a pulling back in self protection. Love is a feeling that energizes us forward to loving action and embrace.

All of these emotions are fueled, inspired, by our mind’s perception of the object or person before us as positive or negative, life threatening or enhancing.

Of all human emotions, the one that seems most prone to be problematic is anger. Anger, according to its strength and our capacity to see clearly and deeply into its nature, can be an enormous source of suffering for us and others. Anger destroys family relationships, friendships, business partnerships...it may lead to bullying, road rage and all too easily sow the seeds of war.

Many of us grew up with the idea that anger was a “bad” emotion. Yes, “Jesus did get angry,” (at least once) says the Gospel. But - he was God. In their loving attempts to raise good children, parents sometimes squelch the early self protective energy (that’s what anger often is) that impels children to speak out their feelings when they perceive something as negative or harmful. Adults usually do this because they believe it is in the child’s best interests and in an effort to teach good and appropriate conduct. Sadly, if this happens too often the child grows into either a rebellious adult or an overly docile adult with little sense of how to make wholesome use of the energy of anger in personal or public situations.

Our hope in these hours of retreat is to invite all to look deeply at the God-given emotion of anger. We hope to offer insights into how this emotion can be used to strengthen us in our convictions and allow us wisely to caretake ourselves, those we love and our world. We believe that this will only happen if we understand deeply the roots of our anger and if we know how to tame its strength rather than fuel its sometimes inordinate desires.

Honest, fearless self-reflection can do a great deal to help us understand the roots of and negatives ways we deal with our anger. We can learn how to gently soothe ourselves and assure ourselves of our own goodness and value. We can find tools to help us to speak our truth mindfully and without blame or shame.

We need, each of us, to appreciate not only our own pain but the pain of others/ the pain of our world, so as to live and act with COMPASSION that is truly HEALING.

Pat and Tim will present a weekend retreat October 21 to 23, 2011 at Holy Family entitled, Dealing with Anger: Creating a Culture of Compassion. Click here for more information.

White on Rice by Susan Nappi

2011-06-22T12:58:00.000-07:00

I am not much company today. My head aches a new, pressured ache, the kind the comes from sticking out a cold that actually requires medical intervention. Clearly infection has set in and fortunately for me I have unearthed a long forgotten, but not past the expiration date, stash of antibiotics for just such an occasion (a rare filled-but-ended-up-not-needing prescription). I just started them and I am bone tired, my stomach already protesting their presence. Our bodies are all tired, housing guests that require more attention than we have wanted to give. The first of these was the 'fever/runny nose/cough' that came and went without much fanfare for weeks on end but not without harvesting the last vestiges of precious sleep. Then there was the bout of constipation (my eldest daughter, not mine) that consumed our house for a couple of days (she's not the silent suffering type) and ended up requiring, er, serious intervention that shall not be discussed here. Finally, the dreaded stomach bug that has been marauding around town showed up and decided to pick on Ellie. Every 40-60 minutes or so she would writhe in her sleep and then deposit what little she had in her stomach on the towels we lined up around her, which was enough to trip my hyper vigilant tendency throughout the night to ensure that she wasn't aspirating or throwing up on both of us.

B has been working throughout most of this as he maintains his position as 'head of the household' (although we both work 40 hours?). He does his best to replenish saltines, take the less sick child out so I can rest, and continue to tell me how great I am. I don't feel great in my fuzzy socks and matted hair but it's nice to be told so. Regardless, he will always be considered second choice when illness strikes and even if I were Secretary of State I believe I would still be cleaning up barf (this statement was confirmed by the fact that my daughter waited an hour for me on the throne as I commuted home from work).

The days drag on and offer little relief. I am lonely. There is the constant whir of the washing machine, dryer and dishwasher to keep me company, of course, but as the light grows dim and ends another day that I've spent in "lounge wear", I can't help but feel a little sorry for myself. The easiest thing for me to do in these moments is to try to keep myself from feeling this way - read something, watch something, try to rationalize my feelings away - anything but actually feeling. Fortunately for me I am distracted by requests - television shows, videos, puzzles, play-doh and meals.

Ellie's stomach has finally stopped protesting and she has decided she is hungry. I offer her the list of safe foods I recall from the BRATY diet first encountered in Dr. Sear's baby book years ago (B- bananas, R-Rice, A-apples, T- toast, Y-Yogurt). Her eyes beam with excitement as she asks for "RICE! I just LOVE your rice!" I prepare basic white rice for her, with a dash of salt, and she savors each bite. I want to savor life like that - even the basic white rice. She isn't thinking of the dinner she lost on the sheets last night or of the things she cannot eat, but of the beautiful bowl of fluffy goodness laid out before her. I am inspired.

I do my best to get back to the basics and conserve my energy, shoving a forkful of white rice in my mouth. I seldom allow myself to eat it now that I have ingested large quantities of health literature discussing the consequences of consuming white rice (everything from increasing risk of diabetes to instigating disapproving stares from your more savvy, nutrition-conscious peers). I savor the grains and remember when my mom made me the same meal to calm my weary stomach. The kitchen is quiet and we are sitting across from each other, eating rice, recovering, and getting basic.

What Holy Family Means to Me...

2011-05-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

Holy Family is a part of who I am. Ever since my first retreat 7 years ago, the messages of the retreat experience have become beacons in my journey through life.

As I now reflect back on my retreats, I am amazed at how perfectly the themes have aligned to my life's situations at that time. From the birth of my children to the reconciliation of past pains, Holy Family has provided me with the strength, wisdom, and faith to be a better man.

God is in these walls, the retreat team, the music, the food, and most certainly all of the retreatants. By spending a weekend surrounded by God, it has become increasingly easier to connect with God amongst my everyday life throughout the year.

I pray that God continue to bless this place and each of us who gather here.

Anthony Calendrillo

What's a Dad to Do? When I Can't Answer Her Questions Anymore...

2011-04-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

Part of the joy of being a father to young children, is the ability to answer nearly any question that my children can ask. To them, I am an expert on everything. I fix bikes, clean fish tanks, and perform reconstructive surgery on Barbie dolls. To my children, I can make everything better--until recently.

Daddy, why did God make us so that we could be hurt? It was one of the first problems I couldn’t fix, a question I couldn’t answer. A few hours before, I was that hero delivering the perfectly sized Tinkerbelle band-aid to a routine bloody knee and stirring the perfect chocolate milk. Now, after having dedicated half my lifetime to studying theology, she unearths the single question that still baffles me.

And she knew it. Those bright expectant eyes that were accustomed to having all her questions answered by daddy gave way to disappointment. Soon after, she added more questions. And why is it that in the Bible God talks to people like Mary and Joseph, but God doesn’t talk to me? That’s a wonderful question, I said. She looked at me suspiciously. I think I should ask Fr. David, because you don’t seem to know very much!…… And with eyes welling up, she said, “I wish God would talk to me.”

Why does God seem to be absent in the face of suffering or in the everyday moments of life? Why doesn’t God speak to us more clearly when we struggle with life’s persistent questions? As men, we prefer clear, logical answers to our questions. We like rational analysis. Yet, to be a believer means to live with the mystery of unanswered questions that often defy the logical mind. This is difficult for all of us, but especially for us as men. Faith is less about knowing for sure, than it is about carrying a mystery.

In the end, Jesus did not come to answer the question of suffering but to fill it with his presence. So we don’t know why children are born hungry, but we will feed them. We don’t know why we were made to be hurt and to hurt others so easily, but we will ask for forgiveness and we will forgive them. We don’t know why so many are neglected, and judged, and ignored, but we will love them. In the end, the silence of God on these is the space for us to speak. I invite you to ponder how we as men of faith might respond to these great questions and mysteries at Holy Family’s Annual Men’s Spirituality Evening Retreat on May 4, 2012. Click here for more information.

An Unexpected Call...

2011-04-01T07:38:00.000-07:00

This reflection commemorates Holy Family's 60th Anniversary.
We hope you will join us for our 60th Anniversary Mass on May 22.
Click here for more details.

I attended my first retreat ever (anywhere) at Holy Family in January of 2009, at the invitation, and, as it turned out, gift of a friend who has been “my Eli” since I was confirmed as an adult years ago. She had been telling me for years that I would love it. She was, of course, right.

I arrived Friday night with such anticipation, although my first take on the retreat theme – We Are Called – was perhaps a tad skeptical. At my age and stage in life, the prospect of a “Call” seemed a bit remote.

I did, however, come away from that weekend, if not called to something, then maybe awakened, to a need, almost a hunger (to risk being somewhat dramatic) for prayer at a deeper level.

I have always prayed – usually a running commentary of thanks, help, and I’m sorry throughout my day. Since that January weekend, however, I now set aside a specific time every morning to be quiet in God’s presence and to pray by name, and with intention, for people in need of healing and for the blessing and protection of my family and friends. I pray for those who have asked for prayers and for others whose particular needs I am aware of. I pray for people and for circumstances from the headlines and those with whom I share ministries in my parish. I call each one to mind and their individual needs or circumstances and place them before God. I also pray every day for those who have been and are a part of my spiritual journey.

Maybe my call was to prayer! I’ve learned that my attentiveness to prayer has made me more attentive to others and aware, as well, of God’s comforting presence and loving care in my own life.

While I am active in and committed to my home parish, Holy Family has become my extended family in faith, a place of welcome and comfort. I come back as often as I can for the renewal, fresh insight, and continuing call that are at the heart of the Holy Family experience, and always leave uplifted and encouraged … and wanting more.

Jane Woodmansee

A New Roman Missal

2011-03-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

Catholics expect some changes to the words in the liturgy from time to time. But they will soon be using the first Mass texts since the Second Vatican Council that have been created according to a different theory of translation. The revision will have a noticeable effect on the style and sound of the texts of the Mass. Click here to read more from his America magazine article about the upcoming changes in the Mass.

The link: http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10838

Fr. Paul Turner will be coming to Holy Family on Tuesday, April 5 to reflect on new translation of the Roman Missal. Click here to register. (Same program Day or Evening)

The Miracle of Now

2011-03-03T12:58:00.000-08:00

Many of us, perhaps most, do not live in the present moment. Our busy lives, our tight schedules, keep us focused on the next event, the next project. When we have rare "free" moments, our minds frequently reflect on what was not done well enough in the past. We then engage in remorse or guilt. Free moments may also be consumed in preparing ourselves for the next thing on our "to do" list, reflecting on when and how to accomplish a new piece of our agenda.

This habitual manner of dealing with life's very precious gift - TIME - leaves us little energy or opportunity to attend to the details, or, indeed, the richness of the PRESENT MOMENT.

There is another way to live. ....FULLY - IN EACH MOMENT - in whatever way and whenever it occurs. This is a true GIFT...one that is often hard come by - especially in today's modern, fast paced world. This manner of living is referred to by many as MINDFUL LIVING, a way of life that some medical professionals credit with good health. A valuable and well documented way of becoming mindful is to engage in two practices: SILENCE, not only of speech but also of imagination and emotions and MEDITATION - "focus" on exactly what is occuring right here, right now.
Silence and Meditation are two tools well known to mystics of all traditions, tools available to each of us and tools which hold the practitioner in the SACRED PRESENCE of GOD.

A Mindfulness Retreat such as the one we will have in early April is an opportunity to let go of engagement with the past or future and live deeply for a few hours in the MIRACLE of each BREATH, each moment - the MIRACLE of NOW. We will do this with the support of teachers who have been following this path for many years and with others of like mind. This weekend will offer the opportunity to become grounded in each moment as it presents itself. Its atmosphere will be one of quiet with the opportunity to do sitting or walking meditation, gentle stretching exercises, reading or journaling. Short talks will be given by the teachers introducing participants to the use of the BREATH as a way to live in or return to the present moment. They will suggest ways to eat and drink more mindfully and to simply enjoy the sights and sounds around us in the PRESENT MOMENT. There will be time for questions as well as a brief opportunity for those who wish to share individual concerns with the teachers.

The practice of mindfulness helps us to be present to our own lives - here and now. Rabbi Abraham Heschel reminds us, "Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy." Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh tells us, "The miracle is not to walk on water but on the earth." Jesus Christ taught,
"The Kingdom of God is within you." These are all invitations to see life for what it is, to slow down and become deeply aware of the choices we are making. These are invitations to live in a more wise, more peaceful, more compassionate way...to see each moment of our life for what it is - WONDERFUL.

By Pat Plouffe St. Onge
Mindful Meditation Weekend with Pat & Tim St. Onge

Discernment: Noticing and Responding to the Promptings of the Spirit

2011-02-17T12:42:00.000-08:00

Integral to the spiritual life is the process of becoming who we are created to become and growing in awareness of God’s call to us for the benefit of the world. In discernment we seek to know our deepest, truest self. In this core place we discover God present and active. Discernment is a seeking of God’s presence and invitation, a seeking to be in harmony with the goodness and power of God.

St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, is considered the Father of Discernment. His ability to name his experiences of discernment and the movement of the Spirit as he experienced them in his own life led him to articulate patterns that have been used in discernment for hundreds of years.

The Consciousness Examen, Ignatius prayerful reflection on each day, is a simple and very helpful tool for discernment. Everyone can use this tool as it takes only a few moments each day. In the Examen Ignatius invites us to review the day with an eye to noticing when we moved with or toward God and also to notice when we moved away from or against God. Through the Examen we are invited to look for the experience of God’s presence or seeming absence in each day.

Ignatius, who also wrote the Spiritual Exercises, offers us many techniques for working with discernment in our own time. For Ignatius, all of life is revelatory, there is nowhere God is not. Ignatius teaches us that God speaks to us in all events and through all things.

Discernment then is an ongoing process in which we use all our abilities: sensing, intuition, thinking, paying attention both within and outside ourselves, and to our experiences in prayer in order to grow in awareness of God’s movement within and among us. Learning to notice is an important skill in discernment. Noticing what Ignatius calls “inner movements” as they occur in body, mind, heart and soul help us to sense and name God’s invitations.

Once God’s invitation seems clear it will be time to “try it out” or “try it on”. The invitation is God’s, the choice to respond is ours.

As we anticipate being together for this day of retreat on discernment let us pray for one another using the poetry of J. Philip Newell in the Sounds of the Eternal:

Thanks be to you, O God

Thanks be to you, O God
For the stirrings of new life in me this day,
For rising from the dreams of the night
To a fresh flowing of energy,
For the vitality that awakened my body
And the desires that stir my soul.
Let me know the power for life that is in me,
The life-force that is in my senses
And the might that is in my heart.
Let me know you as the source of such force
And be wise to its true streams and false currents.
Let me serve love with my strength this day,
Let me serve love with my strength.
In heart and mind and body this day
Let me serve love.

Wishing you all peace this day and an ongoing noticing of the movement of God within and around you,

Andree Grafstein

Spiritual Life Center

Epiphany 2011

2011-01-21T12:49:00.000-08:00

by Fr. William Meninger, O.C.S.O.

In the Western Church Epiphany is traditionally celebrated on January 6th. The time differs in other churches, for example, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Epiphany on January 19. The name of the feast also differs even among the Western Catholic churches. It is known variously as the feast of Kings or the feast of the Magi, Twelfth Night or, as we call it, Epiphany, which means an appearance or revelation. In order to facilitate the celebration of this feast, the church has changed its date from 12 days after Christmas, January 6, to the first Sunday after New Years which in 2011 falls on January 2, today.

It would probably be more correct to say that Epiphany is not 12 days after Christmas but rather that Christmas is 12 days before Epiphany. This is because Epiphany was celebrated first and it was probably several generations later that the church decided to celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ, on December 25, the first day of winter, the day when the sun once again begins to lengthen the days. The church simply did what she frequently does and baptized a pagan feast day, the feast of the Unconquerable Sun, simply because of its appropriateness. Actually the church did the same thing for Epiphany. It is a baptism of the celebration of the feast of Dionysius the god of wine as it was probably celebrated in Alexandria. It was thought that at midnight on this feast, the god, Dionysius, turned the waters of all the fountains into wine. The blessing of water so that it may become wine or, indeed, the blood of Christ, suggested to Christians two other important feast days celebrated on or close to this time. One was the feast of the baptism of Christ in the Jordan by John the Baptist. The connection is that when this happened the waters of the Jordan did not cleanse Christ but rather he cleansed all the waters of the world by his touch. The other feast is the wedding feast at Cana when Jesus changed water into wine. All three of these festivals, Epiphany, Christ's baptism and the wedding feast, celebrate beginnings. The beginnings of Christ's ministry to the world on Epiphany, the beginnings of his active ministry on his baptism in the Jordan, and the beginnings of his seven signs manifesting who he really was, at the wedding feast.

The wise man who brought gifts to the child Jesus were the first Gentiles to acknowledge him as king and who revealed him to the wider world. This was to fulfill the blessing of Simeon that "This child would be a light for revelation to the Gentiles." Jesus came for all people, of all nations, of all races, and the work of God would not be limited to only a few.

This day is now observed as a time to focus on the mission of the church in reaching out to others by showing Jesus as the savior of all people. It is also a time of focusing on Christian brotherhood and fellowship, especially in healing the divisions of prejudice and bigotry that we all too often create between God's children.

Please join with me now in this Epiphany prayer by which we may personally concretize the message and meaning of the feast we are celebrating.

Father, we thank you for revealing yourself to us in Jesus the Christ, we who once were not your people but whom you chose to adopt as your people. As ancient Israel confessed long ago, we realized that it was not because of our own righteousness, or our own superior wisdom, or strength, or power, or our numbers. It was simply because you loved us and you chose to show us that love in Jesus.

As you have accepted us when we did not deserve your love, will you help us to accept those whom we find it hard to love? Forgive us, O Lord, for any attitude that we harbor that on any level sees ourselves as better or more righteous than others. Will you help us to remove the barriers of prejudice and to tear down the walls of bigotry, religious or social? Oh Lord, help us realize that the walls that we erect for others only form our own prisons!

Will you fill us so full of your love that there is no more room for intolerance. As you have forgiven us much, will you enable us with your strength to forgive others even more? Will you enable us through your abiding presence among us, communally and individually, to live our lives in a manner worthy of the Name we bear?

May we, through your guidance, and our faithful obedience, find new avenues, in ways that we have not imagined, of holding the Light of your love so that it may be a Light of revelation for all people.

Thank you for your love, we praise you for your gift, ask for your continued presence with us, and we make these petitions in the name of your son, who has truly revealed your heart. Amen

May you be happy,
May you be free,
May you be loving,
May you be loved.

Fr. William Meninger, O.C.S.O.

Click here to join Fr. Meninger for an upcoming Centering Prayer Retreat at Holy Family on February 18-20, 2011.

Can Yoga Bring Peace On Earth?

2011-01-07T13:49:00.000-08:00

This Christmas I bought a royal blue garden flag with a wings extended white dove and the words PEACE ON EARTH. I carefully placed it on a wrought iron pole and stuck it in the lawn near my condo door. It looked great until I got up the next morning, and found the flag so twisted you could not see the bird never mind any inspirational words. I fixed it the next day, but the howling December winds continued to mangle the message. On December 26, 2010 my PEACE ON EARTH plump dove was buried under two feet of drifting blizzard snow.

Fortunately I know a metaphor when I see it. Peace on Earth has mighty forces fighting against it. For over thirty years my Somers middle school social studies students and I started September with the International Peace Day celebration. We then went week after week examining the Dark Ages of Medieval European history intermingled with US current events. “Where in the World Is the Latest Conflict” might as well be the new digital download as we worked to locate new global hotspots.

So what's a peace loving person to do? Is it possible to be hopeful in the midst of so much turmoil in this fast paced world? I'd like to offer a suggestion that I found on a card at the Holy Family Bookstore. The card reads: "PEACE. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart." I repeated this message at my Full of Grace Gentle Yoga class at St. Mary's in Windsor Locks. I could tell by the yogis smiles and head nodding that these words resonated with them. During our practice we learn to use the ancient art of yogic breath and asana positions to unite our mind, body and spirit to create a healthy, peaceful, faithfilled life. The ancient practice of yoga demonstrates peaceful practices and gives us the tools to bring light to our world. Yogis honor their bodies and develop strength for the days ahead. We know we can not stop the ocean waves from crashing against the shore, but we can learn to surf and ride the turbulent tides. Holy Family is a peaceful place to learn and practice yoga. I extend to you an invitation to my February 5^th program called Yoga with the Saints. The purpose is to enjoy yoga and learn from the inspirational contemplative saints of Ireland and India how to survive and thrive on the waves of life.

Christmas Wonder

2010-12-01T10:07:00.000-08:00

One of the greatest joys of being a father has been the chance to tip-toe into the glow of my children's faces as they turn on the Christmas lights each morning over these Advent days. Pink fingers comb back static hair and chipping toenail polish peeks out from beneath fairy nightgowns. They giggle with a combination of delight and accomplishment. “This is the true meaning of Christmas, Charlie Brown,” I think to myself. Unlike us, they seem to live with that glow not just on Christmas morning but everyday whether swinging on the swings or uncapping their favorite Sharpie or even flushing the toilet. Their secret, which we adults seem to miss, is that they look with this same Christmas wonder at a pile of fallen leaves or a shiny pair of orange-handled scissors.

We are the ones who have skillfully divided life into pleasures and chores. For adults, wonder is stingily rationed to a few greeting card moments each year when we slow our minds long enough to really appreciate the unnoticed gifts that flood our lives each day. Perhaps, children know better the sacredness of each moment, perhaps because they haven’t yet learned that there is an alternative.

They know that December 26 is as exciting and filled with possibility as the day before. It’s the day our children will toss aside Christmas presents only to play with the cardboard boxes that contained them a day before. It’s the day when they will dance the limbo with all the used ribbons tied together. It’s the day when they will plead to devour stale Christmas cookies for breakfast. It’s the day when we will all jump in bed together and have a WWF wrestling match until daddy hurts himself. It’s the day when they will go into the craft closet and find another blank page on which they will draw their lives--one rainbow and one flower at a time. It’s the day when their sleepy footsteps will stumble downstairs and stand before a tree to rival its lights with their glowing eyes.

We wish you bright eyes, wide hearts, and the wonder of ordinary things this year. May you enjoy the December 26ths of your life with the same richness and sacredness that fill your Christmas morning.

Advent Blessings,

Brandon, Susan, Sophia, and Ellie Nappi

First Empty Your Cup

2010-10-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

Will your mind ever slow down? Anxious about tomorrow, obsessed about yesterday, the mind resists living in the only moment it is ever been afforded: the NOW. We have trained our minds to engage in endless cycles of judgment, commentary, and analysis. Could there be a way to gently quiet the mental cacophony that has become the omnipresent background noise of our lives?

“Keep watch with me.” The words of Jesus from Gesthemani echoed in my head as I set my sleepy body upon the cushion in the dimly lit meditation hall. Fr. Robert Kennedy, a Jesuit priest and Zen teacher entered the room, planted a glowing stick of incense into a bowl of sand, and assumed his place at the front of the room. A copper bell rang three times to begin a 3 day meditation retreat. Its steady vibrations drew me and my breath into the most reliable place where we can meet God--in the silence. Over the next three days, he would teach us, by what he said and by what le left unsaid, about how Zen practice can be used by the faithful Christian to grow closer to Christ.

Fr. Kennedy has become the unofficial translator of Zen practice to a growing number of Christians who have integrated Zen meditation into the Christian life as a way to empty the mind and put on the mind of Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 2.16). When asked why he turned to Zen while serving as a missionary in Japan, he responded: “I wanted a faith that was deeper, that was rooted in my experience, that was not a theory that could be blown away with a change in culture. . . . Christianity is not a triumphal march to the Kingdom. It is an emptying of self. This profound teaching of Christian life is very close to Buddhism. Buddhism tries to empty ourselves of a false identity and to come to the world as naked and as crucified as Christ was.”[1][1]

Nearly 30 years later, Fr. Kennedy has received the title roshi, or “old teacher” in the Zen tradition. As a committed Christian, priest, and Zen teacher, Fr. Kennedy has helped thousands to grow closer to Christ by helping them to empty their minds so they might be filled with the mind of Christ.

Fr. Kennedy tells a famous Zen story tells of a man who went to visit a Zen master. First, the old master served tea. He filled his guest's cup to the brim and then kept on pouring. The tea spilled over the sides of the cup, until the astonished man could no longer hold his polite silence. “Stop!” he cried. “No more will go in!” The master quietly replied, “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

The Christian, inspired by this Zen insight, might likewise ask: how can we put on the mind of Christ, unless our mental space is emptied of its desires, judgments, and incessant mental chatter? A community of Christians will gather to ponder this question on November 12-14 at Holy Family where Fr. Kennedy will lead a weekend retreat entitled, Zen Spirit-Christian Spirit which explores the role of Zen practice in the Christian life. For more information, visit http://www.holyfamilyretreat.org/.

Brandon Nappi D.Min, PhD

[1][1]Robert E. Kennedy, S.J., “Interview with Fr. Robert Kennedy, S.J,” interview by Tom Fox, National Catholic Reporter website, available at ncrcafe.org/node/1057 (accessed 11 September 2008).

James Carroll at Holy Family

2010-10-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

Holy Family welcomes author James Carroll on Wednesday, November 3, 2010 for a day and evening retreat.

Click here to read what the L. A. Times says about Practicing Catholic by James Carroll.

The OUT Experience

2010-09-17T05:54:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the best therapy for any illness, whether mental or any kind of phyiscal suffering, is what I call the OUT experience, the "Oh U Too" story exhcnage with another person or with the God of your understanding and inspriation. Story-exchange and prayer remind me that I'm not alone in the recovery and discovery journey of life. Here's a true story that actually happened to me.

"How'd I ever get here, in a mental hospital?" I asked myself as I sat in a white plastic chair just outside the front door of the hospital overlooking a little pond and some meandering ducks. As I sat there in my hospital attire I mocked myself repeatedly, "You're nuts, crazy, loony, bonkers, worthless, and you'll never work again."

While my self-condemnation continued, another patient came through the hospital doors, limped toward the empty chair next to me and sat down.

"Miss Arrrgnus is what they call me," the beautifully black woman said, as she leaned on the white plastic chair.

I presumed her name was actually Agnes but enjoyed the rolling sound of the extra "r's." Miss Arrrgnus slowly began to tell me her story.

"So what you in for Honey?" she finally asked.

"Depression," I answered

"I come here every now and then to get away from my family," she said.

I shocked myself with a little laugh, the first time I'd laughed in weeks.

"First time in a streeeeeeesssss unit?" Miss Arrrgnus then asked.

" Yes," I answered.

"What kind of work you do, Honey," she asked.

"I'm a Catholic priest," I said hesitantly.

"Never met one of you before," Miss Arrrgnus said. "I'll ask the people in my fellowship church to pray for you."

After a long uncomfortable pause Miss Arrrgnus spoke up again. "Come on, Honey, stop your brain strain. Help me out of this chair and let's go to the meeting the druggies are having in the conference room. The company will be good for you. Some of the nicest people you'll ever meet are recovering addicts. No nonsense there, Honey."

As we walked through the door, Miss Arrrgnus leaned heavily on my arm as though I were a crutch. I recalled at that moment an old saying: "I'd rather limp through life on the right road than run down the wrong."

To walk, Miss Arrrgnus and I had to lean forward and risk losing our balance and falling with each step. We had to let go of our previous stability, trusting that with each step there would be a new foundation, a new stability. It was good to walk with such an honorable and honest woman. This, thankfully, would not be the last time Miss Arrrgnus gracefully interrupted my isolation. Every day during our hospital stay Miss Arrrgnus and I sat with each other for lunch and would offer a prayer, not only for the food we were about to eat, but in thanksgiving for what God was giving us - the promise of Hope that if we continued the great practice of story-exchange with friends, family, companions in recovery, therapists, psychiatrists and God, we would discover a new way of living.

Fr. John Baptist Pesce - We Are the Church!

2010-08-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

Few who have undertaken seriously to live out their baptismal commitment have found it to be a lark. That enterprise is a formidable challenge. There are weaknesses from within. There are obstacles from without. Different periods in the history of the church have made the latter loom large. Say the sixteenth century must have been a truly daunting time.

Many Catholics dedicated to gospel lives find our times as presenting uncommon pressures. What is embraced by the term the child sex abuse scandal and the remarkable irresponsibility on the part of certain church authorities in handling these matters have, as some expressed it, “tested” their faith. Not, necessarily, that they consider leaving the church (although, we are told, some have done that), but they are, as at least one has stated, “just hanging in there by their finger nails.” (Not the most promising stance, indeed.)

It seems to me that, granted all the difficulties involved and not denying them in pollyanna fashion, these are times that summon us to rise above the mediocrity, cynicism, nihilism and polarization that engulf us, to allow ourselves to be stretched out to the dimensions of Christ to show forth the beautiful and mature Christ for whom, consciously or unconsciously, people are hungering and thirsting for.

There is encouragement and inspiration to be taken from the words of Pius XI in December l937, a time when matters in state and church, though, admittedly, for far different reasons than today, could have been judged not conducive to living out one’s baptismal commitment. “This era is one of the most disturbed that mankind has ever known. It is also one of the finest, for it is an age where mediocrity is allowed to nobody, where Christian lives flower in all their beauty and triumphs are made ready for the Church, but we need holiness for that.” (Emphasis mine, but knowing how Pius XI had a capacity for irascibility, I believe he would have stressed those words).

I believe this is the faith perspective called for today. The God who call us to this task is the God who is for us and with us. The God who dwells within us. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” “In” is the superlative degree of “with,” Yes, we are weak but, as the Church prays, “God chooses the weak to make them strong” in bearing witness. We can accommodate for our purposes the words of Gandhi to those who were not considered a people in his day exhorting them to their dignity as human beings in order to energize them to deliver themselves from under the heel of the British Empire, “We are to be the change we seek in society.”

We are to be the change we seek in the Church. Yes, structures have to be changed. Definitely reforms are called for to bring about an open church which is transparent and respectful of all. A church which fulfills its function as expressed by the Second Vatican Council to “render God the Father and his incarnate Son present and as it were visible in the world.” A church which reflects the concern of the Lord for the downtrodden and marginalized, that is stripped of pomposity and that is in the forefront of advocacy for nonviolence. A Church that is not sexist where there are no second class citizens. But we are that Church! The Church is not the Pope, the Vatican, the curia, the bishops, the clergy. (Google Nicholas D. Kristof, “Who Can Mock This Church?” New York Times, May 2, 2010) We are the Church! That is one reason I have been saying for a long time now, “Be highly critical of the Church.. . . . It may lead to your own conversion.”

“But we need holiness for that.” There is no such thing as cheap discipleship or cheap grace. Are we willing to pay that price? And it is a costly one!

Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

2010-05-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. … This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. … I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. … At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak his name written in us … like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. . . . I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.

Thomas Merton

Peace at the Center

2010-02-24T09:47:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, Holy Family hosted its first annual Centering Prayer Retreat. In the coming years, we hope more of our friends will join us in this transformational prayer practice.

Centering prayer is like coming home. It helps me remember who I am. In a world that has so many claims on us and pressures us to be other than who we “truly” are, it is the place of reminder that we are a loved being of God. We realize and remember that we are literally breathed by Another and connected to all others in a web of care. All of our strivings for security and safety, affection and esteem, power and control are meaningless outside of God’s love. It is the ultimate rest stop on our journey, where we bring “nothing” and receive everything.

When I first started Centering Prayer I was at once greeted by my “monkey mind” jumping all over the place from one thought to another--each shouting for attention. My head was a roomful of noise and it was almost painful to try and sit quietly. Twenty minutes seemed like an eternity. Yet with faithfulness and the help of the sacred word bringing me back and back and back—it became a door—an icon of entry into the one true thing in my life—the presence of God.

Coming to this Presence daily I learned there is never a condition on God’s love. Every day, whether I am happy, sad, angry, afraid. I am never “not good enough”---the door is never closed. And gradually the seeds planted during this time reached out into all of my life. All I need to do is pause and remember the Presence of God in who I live and move and have my Being. Being deeply loved, I love deeply.

As Father Thomas Keating put it so succinctly in our retreat day in Bar Harbor last summer--”just sit down and shut up”--and be transformed by God’s love.

A centering prayer group meets at Holy Family on the first and third Thursdays in the Public Chapel at 7:00 p.m. Contact Joann Norr for more information at: norr31@comcast.net

For resources on Centering Prayer visit the Contemplative Outreach website at http://www.centeringprayer.com

Sue Morse

‘Tis The Season

2009-12-21T10:16:00.000-08:00

I recently watched one of the wilderness survival shows on the Discovery channel. The guide demonstrated how to extract himself from a pit of quicksand. I was immediately captivated, because from a few of the Tarzan-like movies I watched as a child, I was very unsettled by the notion that you could mysteriously sink through the ground. I was very grateful that I didn’t live in the jungle. OK, back to the show, without warning the guide just walked onto the quicksand pit. As he started to sink he did what I expect anyone would do, he started working to lift his feet out of the sand. And the harder he worked the further into the pit he sank. By the time he was waist deep he was breathing heavily and really straining, but his situation was only becoming more desperate.

This will seem like an odd turn, but his situation reminded me of the Christmas season, well, minus the life or death consequences. In anticipation of Christmas each year I voluntarily walk out onto that competitive, consumeristic pit of quicksand; fighting for a parking space at the edge of the lot, competing with the crowds for those precious Christmas presents, and scheduling my calendar with every possible event. And it seems the harder I work at it, the more I’m pulled down into the stress of it. And it’s obviously not just me. There are more radio and TV bits about stress during the Christmas season than at any other time of the year. We all talk about it as we stand out in the pit struggling and sinking.

I did, however, do something this year that I haven’t done in a while. I listened to an old Advent reflection tape by Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M. The two talks are entitled, “What are we waiting for?” And, “How do we wait?” I had listened to them years ago, and of course, forgot about them. This time of year offers the most dramatic example of how counter-cultural our Christian faith is. At the very time that our culture entices us into the frenzy of comsumerism, our Advent tradition challenges us to slow down and enter into a quiet time of reflection on our relationship with God and with all of God’s creation. Fr. Richard talked about the second line of the “Our Father”, which is, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” He said that we have to empty ourselves before we can expect to be filled. We can’t expect God’s kingdom to come until we are willing to let our kingdom to go. He described our kingdom as our over-attachment with our ideas and feelings. We tend to think our way of doing things is the right, or best, or only way. Can we let go of that, detach from it, and be truly present to another or to a different situation? The paradoxical challenge he offers us is to “care but not care.” Can we detach from the struggle? Can we find peace even when the situation is not perfect?

The funny thing is, the wilderness guide used some of Fr. Richard’s principals to get out of the quicksand pit. As he sank in above his waist he stopped and began to explain what was happening. He said that everyone’s intuitive response is to work hard to counter the feeling of sinking, but it’s actually the hard work that causes you to sink even more. What you have to do is relax, lie down and slowly raise your legs to the surface so that you are completely outstretched on top of the pit. Then with your arms extended, and bent at the elbows, you shimmy across the surface until you reach solid land. He demonstrated his instructions and successfully extracted himself from the quicksand.

My Christmas wish is that you can detach from the commercial and even the family stress of this season, and detach from your expectation of the perfect celebration. I hope that you can relax and fully extend yourself to others, to be present to them in a peaceful way. And I hope that this Christmas you find solid ground.

Bill Walsh

Why I Come to Holy Family

2009-11-21T07:05:00.000-08:00

I’m sure you do not need me to tell you why you come to Holy Family. But let me share with you reflections from my own experience. We live in a difficult and changing world, a world that makes demands; creates pressures and forces us into an endless cycle of continuous motion; of running from this thing to that. A world that often imposes cultural values that are at odds with what we believe; with our faith life.

We are engaged in the stressful effort to continue to support our families; to fulfill job commitments and demands; to nurture and support our families; our wives, our children and grandchildren. The need to participate in our church and political communities.

And then there are the personal issues; the surprises that life holds; an illness to a loved one; an unexpected death or injury; or, our own health issues; events which always seem to come at the worst time in our lives. The fragility of life seems to become more apparent as we get older. Or maybe we are just tired, worn out, exhausted and in need of refreshment, a moment of peace, a time to meditate, to pray, to rethink our goals and objectives to reevaluate the direction of our lives.

It is at times like these that Holy Family is there as an oasis in a world of chaos and stress; an island of peace and serenity. We come with all our baggage; and regardless of what we carry, we are accepted as we are into this community of peace and security. We come with our brothers and friends for a period of comradery. We can gather together or be alone as we chose. We can attend informative sessions provided by the retreat team or just rest, if that is what we need. And then there is the spiritual refreshment; the prayer sessions; the liturgy and music ministry; the opportunity for reconciliation.

We come away refreshed, rejuvenated; spiritually alive and ready to meet the challenges of our world or our personal situation with new vigor and firm purpose; encouraged, inspired and filled with hope. This is my experience of Holy Family and this is why I want to ensure that we can continue for the many years to come.

Walter Twachtman

2009-09-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

On Retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh

I recently attended a six-day retreat led by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. The sessions, which drew 800 people, were held at Stonehill, a Catholic college near Boston. It was my ninth retreat with Nhat Hanh, and each one has been a profound and memorable experience. The Stonehill retreat included talks by Nhat Hanh, small group discussions, meditation and vegan meals eaten in silence.

On the final day, I took part in an early morning ceremony in which I pledged to honor the Five Mindfulness Trainings, which are similar to the Ten Commandments. The five trainings ask us to refrain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and ingesting drugs or alcohol.

The most controversial prohibition turns out to be the one involving alcohol. People on retreat often ask why they should give up alcohol. Two primary reasons are cited. First, liquor clouds the mind and takes us away from the present moment. A central tenant of Buddhism involves the importance of being fully awake and present in each moment of our lives. The second reason involves recognition of the suffering caused by alcohol abuse, a serious addiction that destroys lives and rips apart families.

By not drinking alcohol we say, in effect, that we understand the devastation caused by drinking, and we desire to support those in recovery by not drinking. I was drawn to the Five Mindfulness Trainings, in part, because of their recognition of the damage caused by alcohol. I’m disappointed that the Catholic Church has not always shown a similar awareness about alcohol abuse.

It might surprise some to learn that many Catholics aspire to live by Buddhist principles. It helps to think of Buddhism as a way of life, rather than a religion. The Buddha, who lived 2,500 years ago, discovered principles that can lead to a happier life, with less suffering. Buddhists do not seek converts. Thich Nhat Hanh urges Christians to draw on the spiritual wisdom of their own religion, rather than think about conversion.

Buddhism can deepen one’s spiritual practice, but it never claims to be the sole path to truth and wisdom. Two of Nhat Hanh’s books, Living Buddha, Living Christ and Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, focus on the common teachings in the two faiths. Among the Buddhist principles that speak to me are these:

1.Impermanence. Buddhists point to aging, illness and death. Nothing lasts. We all return to dust. Recognition of impermanence helps us to live more joyfully in each moment.

2.Non-attachment. If everything fades, we soon realize how much pain we cause ourselves by clinging to material things, jobs, routines and relationships. We can enjoy everything in the present moment without clinging or attachment.

3.Compassion. This, of course, is no different from what Jesus taught. Buddhists talk about inter-being, the idea that we are all one, in which case war and violence make no sense. Buddhists seek to develop a finely tuned compassion for their own suffering, as well as the suffering of people around the world.

4.Forgiveness. Again, this is what Jesus taught, but it seems to be a difficult concept for many believers. Some people say they can forgive the little slights and hurts, but then draw a line beyond which they cannot forgive. One misconception is that forgiveness excuses harmful acts or crimes, but this is not true because forgiveness is about the person, not the crime. After a horrible crime, forgiveness means we let go of hatred, violence, revenge and anger directed at the perpetrator, who is still loved by God. We do not forgive the crime. That distinction is important.

5.Meditation. Buddhists stress the importance of regular meditation. During meditation, we come home to the present moment. Each time our mind wanders off, we bring it back to this moment. Meditation calms the mind, reduces stress and helps us to live joyfully in each moment. Of course, meditation is not unique to Buddhism. The Catholic priest Thomas Keating has promoted Centering Prayer, a form of meditation similar to Buddhist practice.

Thich Nhat Hanh left his native Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He now lives in France with his fellow monks and nuns at a monastic community called Plum Village, and he has opened monasteries in New York and California. He visits the United States to give retreats every other year.

Ten years ago several of us from the Hartford area attended a retreat with Nhat Hanh in New York, and afterward decided to start a meditation group, which we named the Greater Hartford Sangha. We meet for meditation and sharing in West Hartford every other Tuesday evening at 7:30.

Bill Williams

Bill Williams of St. Helena’s parish in West Hartford hosts the Greater Hartford Sangha. He can be reached at billwaw@comcast.net, or 860-561-3563.

Finding Meaning

2009-05-15T13:39:00.001-07:00

I was once invited by a religious education group to present a talk on “Finding Meaning in Everyday Life.” I thought that topic would be a piece of cake—that is, until I started working on what I’d say. To begin with, so much comes to mind when we begin thinking of our every days—getting up on time, making breakfast, getting children off to school, or yourself off to work. That’s the schedule we think of as routine. But then every day life is also about the unexpected, the car breaking down, the alarming phone call, tripping on a rug and taking a bad fall, finding out a good friend has had a stroke, and so on.

So the question in my mind became, how do we find meaning in these daily events, not just the mundane ones, but the life shattering ones? In truth, life has taught me there’s only one way to find meaning in everything we do and experience. We have to find God in all of it. As for how we get to see God in all the minutes of our life, there’s only one way for that to happen, too. We have to have faith, a trust that can be accepted even though it brings no answers for why life goes the way it does.

We have always been taught that faith is a gift, and yet I’ve long had trouble with that. I had struggled with faith and concluded this was not a gift as we ordinarily define it. Rather, it is a relationship with Christ/God. Being a relationship, it has an energy of its own sometimes positive, sometimes negative. But it became clear to me that there truly is a gift. It’s baptism, a wonderful gift, because it brings us to the community—to the place where Christ’s existence comes alive for us. Baptism and faith, then, I saw to be two sides of the same coin.

My heritage is Italian-American. My grandmother often told me that in her home town in Southern Italy, birthdays were not very important, but baptismal days were celebrated each year. For this marked the real birth of a person. I think the Italian celebration of baptism made me understand the complexity of the sacrament. It isn’t something that is done once and then is finished. For it doesn’t end with initiation—the entry of a person into the inner circle of a community, in this case, the Church. Baptism is also immersion, symbolized by the water essential to the sacrament, where a person, or in the case of an infant, the godparents, makes a decision to plunge into the life of Christ, wear his skin, share his work, bear his cross, die with him—so that Christ’s mission of making all people kin will be continued.

Receiving the initial sacrament is no guarantee that a person will choose to accept the continual baptism, the immersion in all the situations to come which demand one’s fidelity to Christ. Baptism, to remain valid has to be lived in all we do—everyday—and that’s where it becomes linked to faith. Keeping faith is a tough call. It requires that we “put on Christ” and live everyday according to Christ’s blueprint, found in every page of the Gospels. If we do, then everyday life, from the mundane to the spectacular to the cross, has meaning.

Antoinette Bosco

Maybe It's You

2009-03-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

It is almost always the case that we live in uncertain times, but the truth of that statement seems more acute today than it has been in a long while. Our economy is in tatters. After years of reckless and unscrupulous business practices seemed to continue without consequence, we appear to be caught up in a perfect storm of economic events: rising debt, skittish lenders, failing businesses, and growing unemployment lines.

In this storm, it seems that everybody is reeling, looking for shelter. As we look into the face of the uncertainty which these times seem to hold, I am reminded of a passage in Matthew’s Gospel.

You cannot serve God and wealth. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? . . . strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.

In many ways, this scripture passage and the promise that it offers should give us great comfort. But there is something about it which seems almost illusory. And not surprisingly, while we certainly understand this promise, and we understand the importance of putting our faith in this promise, it appears to be one article of our faith that many have a hard time believing. Who really trusts in God so much that they put aside their worries?

In fact, the opposite seems true. For obvious reasons, concerns about money are almost invariably the source of our greatest stress. Though God has promised to care for us and even warned us about being consumed with wealth, we seem chronically unable to heed this warning and to accept this promise on its face. Why is that? I think that the answer is two-fold. First, I think we run a basic cost-benefit analysis and make our choice accordingly. If we put our faith in God to provide for all our needs and we end up being wrong, the consequences are pretty severe. We have no food on our plates, no clothes on our backs and no roof over our heads. So, with respect to our very tangible every day needs, we need the comfort of a tangible way to fulfill those needs. Something that we can trust and rely on coming every pay day.

The other reason that we have such a hard time accepting this promise is that it just seems too good to be true. And there are plenty of examples to back this up, examples of people who seem to have been abandoned. How many have lost their homes in the current financial crisis? How many were displaced by Ike and Katrina? So, I think, it becomes very easy not to place our faith in this promise, or to at least have a reliable back up plan.

So, are those who get up every day and go to work somehow demonstrating a lack of faith in this promise? I don't think so. God gives us many gifts and, I think, expects us to put them to good use. Well, what then do we make of his promise?
Let me offer this. What if we are misunderstanding the promise? Matthew's Gospel tells us, “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” I don’t think that God promises to cut our steak when it is tough or to shovel the driveway when the snow is wet and heavy. He promises that when we strive for Him, we will have what we need. Well how is that going to happen?

Well, maybe it’s you. Maybe, when we strive for the Kingdom, we get each others’ backs, we live in communities where people know each other and make soup for each other when we are sick, pick each other up when we are down, stand up for each other when someone needs some help.

God has already told us that he has no hands and feet here on this earth. Your hands are His, your eyes and ears and mouth, His. When we strive for the kingdom, we strive for each other. When we look to find Christ in this world that we might serve Him, we find Him in each other. We see Him naked and we clothe Him, we seem him with no roof and we provide one, we see Him hungry and we prepare a meal to share. We see Him on a rooftop in the Lower Ninth Ward. We see Him looking for work on Bourbon Street.

Maybe it’s us. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s you.

So we have this glorious promise. He will care for us. Like He tends to the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, He will watch over us and provide us with what we need. Too good to be true? A pipe dream? Maybe not. Maybe, if we all choose to hear this call to live for others, if we choose to give ourselves away, if we choose to give our hands and feet and eyes and mouth to Christ, maybe then will we realize that God’s promise to us is real, it just requires us to believe in it and to play our part.

He won’t do it alone. Who will help Him? Who is going to do it?

Maybe it’s you.

Chris Haddad

On Possibility

2009-01-29T20:58:00.000-08:00

Many have heard the phrase that “nothing will be impossible with God”. These revered words spoken in Luke’s gospel by the angel Gabriel to Mary are particularly present to us at Christmas time when we reflect on the birth of Jesus. Gabriel tells Mary that her cousin Elizabeth who was thought to be past her child-bearing years is already in her sixth month. Gabriel offers this information to Mary as a kind of “proof” of God’s power and God’s plan for her. Gabriel assures Mary that there is nothing God cannot do. Many will nod in agreement that since it is written in scripture that all things are possible with God then, it must be so.

Yet, for many of us our sense of possibility has diminished in our lives. We feel our lives have been defined, our fate sealed. We rarely consider how powerful our Creator is. Our belief in the boundless creativity of our Creator has been challenged by our disappointments and set-backs. Somewhere along the way we decided how powerful God is for us. Over time, we set limits on how much God can give us or help us and we in turn decide how much we can give and how much we can help ourselves and others.

This has certainly been true in my life. I am so sure I know what I am capable of – what I can accomplish and what is beyond my grasp. Indeed, if all I had to depend on was my own petty strength my assessments on my abilities would probably be accurate. I am reminded how powerful our Creator is as I reflect on the miraculous birth of Jesus. I think about the words spoken to Mary by the angel Gabriel “nothing will be impossible with God.” I notice that Gabriel says with God not for God meaning that when we act with our Creator all things will be possible for us.

The significance of my life has not been settled. My life is not a “done deal” rather it’s more like a work in progress. Everyday I have the opportunity to care for and cherish all that I hold dear. Everyday I have the opportunity to be the person God created me to be. With God, the possibilities are infinite.
The miraculous birth of Jesus - God becoming flesh - is my “proof” that God’s creativity and love is limitless and beyond my understanding. When I pause to reflect on this truth, the possibility that God can mend my strained relationships, comfort me in times of sorrow and inspire me to help others seems, well, entirely possible!

Theresa Wiss,
Director of Youth Ministry

What I Really Believe

2009-01-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

I watch what I do to see what I really believe.

Belief and faith are not just words. It's one thing for me to say I'm a Christian, but I have to embody what it means; I have to live it. So, writing this essay and knowing I'll share it in a public way becomes an occasion for me to look deeply at what I really believe by how I act.

"Love your neighbor as yourself," Jesus said, and as a beginner nun I tried earnestly to love my neighbor — the children I taught, their parents, my fellow teachers, my fellow nuns. But for a long time, the circle of my loving care was small and, for the most part, included only white, middle-class people like me. But one day I woke up to Jesus' deeper challenge to love the outcast, the criminal, the underdog. So I packed my stuff and moved into a noisy, violent housing project in an African-American neighborhood in New Orleans.

I saw the suffering and I let myself feel it: the sound of gunshots in the night, mothers calling out for their children. I saw the injustice and was compelled to do something about it. I changed from being a nun who only prayed for the suffering world to a nun with my sleeves rolled up, living my prayer. Working in that community in New Orleans soon led me to Louisiana's death row.

So, I keep watching what I do to see what I actually believe.

Jesus' biggest challenge to us is to love our enemies. On death row, I encountered the enemy — those considered so irredeemable by our society that even our Supreme Court has made it legal to kill them. For 20 years now, I've been visiting people on death row, and I have accompanied six human beings to their deaths. As each has been killed, I have told them to look at me. I want them to see a loving face when they die. I want my face to carry the love that tells them that they and every one of us are worth more than our most terrible acts.

But I knew being with the perpetrators wasn't enough. I also had to reach out to victims' families. I visited the families who wanted to see me, and I founded a victims’ support group in New Orleans. It was a big stretch for me, loving both perpetrators and victims' families, and most of the time I fail because so often a victim's families interpret my care for perpetrators as choosing sides — the wrong side. I understand that, but I don't stop reaching out.

I've learned from victims' families just how alone many of them feel. The murder of their loved one is so horrible, their pain so great, that most people stay away. But they need people to visit, to listen, to care. It doesn't take anyone special, just someone who cares.

Writing this essay reminds me, as an ordinary person, that it's important to take stock, to see where I am. The only way I know what I really believe is by keeping watch over what I do.

Sr. Helen Prejean, C.S.J

Saved by Hope

2008-12-01T11:22:00.000-08:00

In the encyclical “Saved by Hope” which Pope Benedict issued close to a year ago, he asks some disturbing questions. “How could the idea have developed that Jesus’ message is narrowly individualistic and aimed only at each person singly?” It’s as though the Pope were saying, “Where in the world did that idea come from?” And he goes on in the same vein as though in exasperation at such a distortion of what the message of Jesus is: “How did we arrive at this interpretation of the salvation of the soul as a flight from responsibility for the whole and how did we come to conceive the Christian project as a selfish search for salvation which rejects the idea of serving others?”

In his address to the bishops of the United States in April of this year at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., Pope Benedict stated the same problem in the affirmative. He said, “Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted. Only when their faith permeates every aspect of their lives do Christians become truly open to the transforming power of the Gospel.”

This misunderstanding, this privatizing of the faith, is something all of us are vulnerable to. However, in the United States with its culture of individualism, with the way we lionize the “self-made” person with all that term suggests by way of going it alone and an unregulated autonomy make us particularly susceptible to this distortion of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

The Pope was not expressing a pet peeve or some kind of idiosyncratic beef. Ingredient to the gospel preached and lived by Jesus is the understanding that we are all interrelated and interconnected and called to serve even as Jesus came not to be served but to serve and to give.. Jesus has not been called The Man for Others because he isolated himself from his contemporaries or was indifferent to the human condition. To trace this reality even farther back, at the very beginnings of God’s dealing with humanity; God was not pleased with Cain’s response to the question, “Where is your brother?” “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain should have known better and, certainly by now, so should we.

As the followers of Jesus, we cannot hold ourselves aloof from the condition of our brothers and sisters in the family of God, nor is it permitted us to be disinterested and detached from what is happening to Earth, our home. The imperative from our baptism is to get ourselves involved.

First of all by prayer, yes. The prayer for enlightenment as to where we can best serve the human family, where we can best be those channels of the values of the reign of God. Prayer, too, for our own transformation of heart that we may be unselfseeking and involve ourselves in a self-emptying way that the Spirit flowing through us will empower those we serve.

But, then, to really get ourselves engaged, to be willing to leave our own comfort zone, to get our hands dirty, to share with others whatever we have to share, whether materially, emotionally, spiritually as the case and the demand may be. To do this with a certain spirit of abandon, not even looking for results, with the faith conviction that, if we serve in this fashion, the Spirit of God flowing through us will produce its own fruit at the proper time.

This calls not for a knee-jerk response but for reflection with other like-minded citizens of this planet, preferring always cooperation over competition. There is no telling how much good can be done if we would not concern ourselves with who will get the credit! To study or engage with others who have studied societal or ecological problems to discover what structures in our society have to be changed or done away with if we are to have the just society we all are hungry and thirsty for is a part of this involvement and living out our commitment as incorporated into the Christ who lives in the world today.

One does not have to be a philanthropist in order to enrich others (and it may be observed, be enriched ourselves in the process), we have only to draw upon the inheritance that is ours as alive with the life of the risen Lord in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, in whom dwells the fullness of divinity which we share by the life of grace! We have been given a wild tiger that we have tamed into a cuddly pussy cat. This season of Advent-Christmas season when we celebrate the birth of him who through his union with one of us has taken up his abode in all of us may be an excellent time to arouse this reality from its torpor! And truly acknowledge the presence of him who has never left us by his presence in our fellowman and woman!

Fr. John Baptist Pesce, C.P.

Namaste

2008-11-17T14:19:00.000-08:00

Namaste is an Indian term that is used by Hindus. In recent years it has gained popularity in American New Age movements. You can often hear the expression used at the beginning of a yoga class. There are many definitions of the term all centering on the same concept. Aadil Palkhivala suggests the following: “The gesture Namaste represents the belief that there is a Divine spark within each of us that is located in the heart chakra. The gesture is an acknowledgment of the soul in one by the soul in another. "Nama" means bow, "as" means I, and "te" means you. Therefore, Namaste literally means "bow me you" or "I bow to you." Other definitions include:

The God in me recognizes and honors the God in you.

I honor the place in you
in which the entire Universe dwells.

I honor the place in you
which is of Love, of Truth, of Light and of Peace.

When you are in that place in you,
and I am in that place in me,
we are one.

I do not believe that the literal translation is important, rather the idea that we are connected to each other and we are all connected and one with God, though I have had occasion to be with groups of people who will argue about the true meaning of the term Namaste. I have thought to myself that if you have to argue about the literal translation you are truly missing the meaning and purpose of the term and gesture. I am always more struck by the similarities between religious and/or spiritual traditions then the differences.

Recently I had the occasion to travel to New York City for business. I wanted to make the trip as productive as possible so I scheduled a meeting in the morning with clients and two meetings in the afternoon with different clients. My first clients then decided they wanted a second meeting with others in their company, immediately following the first meeting. Needless to say I knew that I was in store for a “Day from Hell”. Especially since my clients were all in different parts of the city. My schedule left me no time for eating and barely enough time to go to the bathroom.

My day did not start out well. The train was late, it was crowded so I had to stand the entire train ride and the air conditioner was not working. By the time I arrived at Grand Central Station I was already late, tired, sweaty, and aggravated; and my day was just beginning. The day did not improve as it wore on. Almost everything that was discussed at these meetings could have been discussed with a conference call. I thought to my self what a colossal waste of my time. I began to think, I am a very busy person how dare these people waste my time like this. Finally around 5:00 the last meting ended. I was hot, tired, hungry and frustrated. I couldn’t wait to get back home. As I left the building I noticed the people all rushing to get here or there. It felt like there must have been millions of people, the streets and sidewalks were crowded. The people were pushing and shoving trying to grab a cab or get to were ever they needed to be. I thought that it would take to long to try and hail a cab and fight rush hour traffic to get back to Grand Central Station. So I decided to take the subway. The subway platform was packed with people; you could not turn without bumping into someone. I hoped that they were all taking a different train. But when the number 4 pulled up and the doors opened the crush of people trying to get on began. I managed to squeeze into the car. I felt my personal space being invaded from every direction. Yet more people tried to squeeze into the remaining space. I wanted to scream out please just wait for the next train. As the train pulled out of the station I though I would have just enough time to grab a candy bar and hop on my train back to Connecticut. I also decided I was getting a seat on the train home. I could not stand another two hours in a hot crowded train. Woman, children, disabled and elderly be dammed I would push and shove my way through everyone to get a seat.

When the subway stopped at Grand Central Station I began moving in a focused determined pattern to get to my train. I did not notice anyone else I was totally focused on accomplishing my goal of grabbing a snack and getting a seat on the train. As I moved forward I suddenly bumped into a woman who was carrying several packages. She dropped all her packages. In that brief instant several thoughts crossed my mind. I first became angry, how dare this woman get in my way can’t she see I am on a mission. Then I thought she is fine she can pick up her own packages I need to hurry to catch my train. Finally I bent down to help her pick up her parcels and I apologized to her for bumping into her. She looked at me smiled and replied NAMASTE. She then turned and slowly walked away.

I was somewhat stunned. I stood there for a few moments watching her walk away. I had known the term. I had even used it on occasion. But it was more perfunctory like saying God blesses you when someone sneezes or hi how are you when you meet a person, a phrase without real meaning. This was different; when she smiled and said Namaste I could feel her inner peace touching me. I could see the God joy and happiness in her. I remembered my favorite passage from the Bible: John chapter 14 vs. 20 “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you’. I realized that when she replied Namaste she was saying that we are both children of God and that God is in each of us therefore we are one.

My entire perspective changed. All of a sudden rushing to catch the train did not seem near as important. I realized that I had been surrounded by thousands upon thousands of people and I was so focused on myself that I never noticed a single one of them. I found an empty table and sat down for a few minutes. I began noticing people going by. But I did not notice if they were tall or short, black or white, I didn’t see their warts or if they had a big nose. I thought each person is a son or daughter of God. I began to see that place in them where God dwells. I began to see their inner beauty and peace. I would smile at people as the rushed past. Some would keep rushing but occasionally a person would slow down and smile back. As I reflected for a moment on each person and the God within them I felt more and more at peace with myself. I was no longer hungry or tired. After a bit a man came over and asked if he could sit in the other chair at my table. I told him that I had reserved it for him, to which he chuckled and said thanks. We chit chatted for a few minutes. Talking about what we were doing in New York what kind of work we did and that sort of stuff. He then got up excused himself and said he had to catch his train home. But then he stopped turned around looked at me and said; “You must have had a really good day today” I was intrigued and asked why he thought that. He replied that he had noticed me sitting there and I looked very at peace. He continued that he had a very tough day and felt he needed a moment to calm himself before he continued his journey home. When he sat down next to me he could feel my inner peace and it helped to calm him. I got up looked at him smiled and Namaste and turned and walked toward my train.

Patrick Carolan

Moving Mysteries

2008-10-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

“Nothing fills the body more quickly or completely with divine power and joy…than spontaneously expressing gratitude in dance.”
-Andrew Harvey

In July, I was blessed and honored to attend the 50th anniversary festival, “Moving Mysteries”, of the Sacred Dance Guild. Over 200 women, and a few brave men, gathered to share their love of dance as part of their faith.

Although I went without knowing anyone, I left with a wealth of friendships and experiences of dance as prayer in forms as vast and different as we are. From the woman who danced her grief for her friend and mentor whom she recently lost to cancer, to the legends and pioneers of liturgical dance who graciously shared their knowledge, experience and history with us. Just to be in their presence felt holy.

Each day our morning began in a large grassy field where we moved our bodies to awaken and greet one another. Looking into the eyes of each person was a joyful and peaceful way to begin our day. In our world sometimes greetings are lost in the swift tide of the moment. It meant something to be still with another, look into their eyes and acknowledge their presence in the universe.

One teacher, the beautiful and graceful Stella Matsuda, led us through set movement to the music “Come Drink Deep.” The movement was graceful and interpretive of the words. We struggled in areas to get the motions “right” until we were released from this burden when Stella invited us to connect with the words and the movement as it held meaning for us, not worrying about getting it “right”. Having worked on that for a bit, she split us into small groups to allow us more space to move in. I watched as my fellow classmates became prayers themselves. I witnessed women lost in the movement, some expressing joy, some sadness, others redemption. Tears escaped my eyes as I was held captive by them. It was intensely moving to see young girls as well as women doing "the same” movement yet with their emotions and experiences added, they each told their own story. I felt incredibly honored to share in their prayer.

When we add movement to our own prayer, we find wells deep within us that have been longing to escape. When we find that in ourselves and express it with our bodies, others join in our journey… they become part of our prayer.

Dance has been a part our human story for as long as we have existed. So much of our own life’s story is told without words. Responding to rhythms in our environment, in our interactions with others, in our internal self…is instinct. My hope is that if you are ever in the presence of dance in worship, though it may seem foreign, and even a bit uncomfortable at first, you will be open to experiencing it. Sometimes it takes something old and ancient, to teach us something new and timeless.

I believe in the power of all forms of prayer--spoken, danced, sung, played on a musical instrument, painted on a canvas. It is truly a prayer to use the gifts God has given us to reflect them back to our brothers and sisters, sharing our essence with the universe. The Spirit is always moving through us...

Karen Rossignol

The Year of St. Paul

2008-09-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

When I told a friend that I had named my son after St. Paul, she had an arch reaction. "Why would you name your son after that misogynist?" she said. I was prepared for that. Whether invoking Paul's imprecation that "wives must be submissive to their husbands," (Ephesians 5: 22-23) or that Jews "killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets," (Thess 2: 15), Paul of Tarsus has been the fall guy for every iniquity from misogyny to anti-Semitism.

And yet this year, the 2,000th anniversary of his birth, the Vatican is celebrating "the year of St. Paul," by encouraging Catholics to re-examine Paul, the most influential shaper of Christianity outside of Jesus. How far this will go in reshaping the conventional wisdom about Paul will depend on how far the church is willing to go to bring new, more nuanced scholarship about this exhilarating [Dash] and exasperating [Dash] man into the pews.

From Andre Gide, to Thomas Jefferson, to George Bernard Shaw, the devout and the doubtful have taken aim at Paul, dismissing him as the wet blanket of the New Testament, a rigid, chauvinistic scold who took all the Good out of the Good News and replaced in with a dour, censorious bleakness. Jefferson called Paul the "first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus." Nietzsche said that the evangelist had "a genius for hatred."

Paul, the first and most vigorous of theologians, has been the most maligned, misunderstood and misrepresented saint in Christian history. And yet I chose to name my son after him because I believe Paul best articulates the electrifying possibilities of humankind and the ecstatic contradictions that make it so difficult to achieve them. I love the very qualities that have vexed so many: Paul's volatility, his gusto, his self-lacerating disappointment in himself and his fiery invectives against those who he believes diminish Jesus' message. If Paul is vicious in his condemnation of the wicked, he can at least be credited for lumping himself in that group.

As historian Henry Bamford Parkes wrote, "Emotional and excitable, alternating between states of ecstasy and depression, utterly convinced of his guidance by the Spirit and given to boasting of his own achievements, utterly convinced of his guidance by the Spirit...Paul revealed his whole personality with an astonishing candor and sincerity. His letters were the earliest example of that full acceptance of naked humanity not as it ought to be, but as it was...."

Part of the problem for Paul is that his letters are a response to first-century crisis about which we know next to nothing. As Gary Wills writes in "What Paul Meant," "We hear his raised voice without knowing what the other side was shouting." The second problem, as Georgetown University Professor Anthony Tambasco told me, is that "some of the text that Paul gets blamed for, he probably didn't write."

Of the 13 letters attributed by Paul, only seven are now accepted as certainly his. Letters like those to Timothy and Titus, for instance, were clearly not written by Paul. They were written at a time when the church had become more systematized [Dash] and patriarchal. Hence: "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man, she is to keep silent" (Timothy 2:11-13) was almost certainly not written by Paul."Paul had people who he called fellow apostles and they were women," said Tambasco, author of "In The Days of Paul."

The problem is while Paul writes memorably that "in Christ there is neither male nor female" (Galatians 3:28), he nevertheless believes, as Harold W. Attridge, Dean of Yale Divinity School, told me, "There's also the natural order of things that needs to be respected." And that was a first-century social order."There were some people in Paul's school and tradition who took that impulse in Paul rather strictly," Attridge said. "So the passage that talks about women not to take leadership roles or to teach in the church are probably not by Paul."

Paul's alleged anti-Semitism is a bit more subtle. As a bridge between Judaism and Christianity, Paul wrestles deeply with the necessity to keep all of Jewish ritual, including circumcision, or whether the risen Jesus is "the saving reality" and that the law, as Tambasco says "is God's second best gift." It's fine to keep it, Paul says, but don't impose it on non-Jews. Later Christians, of course, used this and other scriptural readings to bolster a raging anti-Semitism the vestiges of which are tenacious.

But the Paul I love best is the Paul who wrestles with his own failings and finds healing in God's grace. "I do not understand my own actions," he laments in Romans. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate....For I do not the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. (Rom: 7-15-16; 18-20). This is a man who admits he is clumsy at devotion "we do not know how to pray as we out, but that very Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words."

Is Paul harsh? Sure he is. But he is also gloriously poetic, recognizing that despite humanity's failings, it is trussed irrevocably to God. "For I am convinced," he writes in Roman, "that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Tracey O'Shaughnessy

Breathing through difficult times.

2008-08-27T12:52:00.000-07:00

When I was pregnant with our first child, I learned mindful breathing techniques to help with the labor and delivery. Knowing how to breathe through the pain became more important with the birth of our second baby, simply because my labor with her was significantly longer than with the first.

Six months after our second child was born, I was diagnosed with cancer and those breathing skills immediately kicked back in. When the doctor says, “Change of plans, let’s do a biopsy,” there is nothing you can do but take a deep breath. When the doctor calls and, before explaining the test results, asks “Is your husband home with you?” all you can do is breathe. Knowing how to breathe through the pain helped me get through the nasty barium drinks, the physical pain of recovering from surgery, the post-surgical prohibition on picking up my daughters, and the unexpected news that I needed to have radiation and chemotherapy after all.

After a while, I realized that mindful breathing was not just a coping mechanism but it was also a gift. Normal life is very busy and offers few opportunities for quiet reflection. When you are lying on a cold metal table trying not to move during radiation treatment, however, you have the time to be still, and to breathe, and to reach out for God’s presence.

Being hooked up to an IV for 6 or 7 long hours on the chemo days forces you to slow down. I couldn’t go anywhere, but I could sit quietly, breathe deeply, and take the time to recognize and appreciate God’s grace, which was manifested in the love and kindness shown by my family and friends and by the nurses and volunteers.

It has been almost three months since I completed my treatment. My first post-treatment test came back clean and my life is mostly back to normal. Now, my challenge is to create space in my normal life where I can capture some of the stillness that was imposed on me while I was undergoing treatment in order to, again, focus on my breathing and, in those breaths, feel the enduring presence and strength of God.

Erin Choquette

The Place Called "I Know"

2008-06-09T10:12:00.000-07:00

Patty A. shares her spiritual journey of recovery.

There is a place beyond “I Believe.” It is a place called “I Know.”

You can get to “I Believe” through the experience of others. You go to meetings, for coffee, to church basements. You listen to stories, you identify, you trust and so you believe.

But that place beyond “I Believe”, that place called “I Know”, can only come from within. It is a result of your own experience, of living on the edge, on the threshold. It is a place where you can taste your own death.

“I Know” is the “inside job” that I kept hearing about. “I know” is beyond sobriety. It is a place where you are finally attached, at the hip, at the head, at the heart, to God. It is a place of quiet, a place of peace, a place of comfort, a place of safety. But now, instead of having the covers over your head, you feel all of this in the light of day with everything whirling around you.

I know –
•That there is NOTHING that I cannot handle today, as long as I stay connected with God. I have faced my greatest fear; I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death and I am here to say that you can survive it.
•I know that there is nothing worth drinking over.
•I know that there is nothing that a drink cannot make worse.
•I know that if you hold onto this program and to your Higher Power, you can pass over the threshold into the place of peace.
•I know that what doesn’t kill you WILL make you stronger.
•I know that my priorities are, in this order: my connection with God, my sobriety, and my relationships with those around me.
•I know that people are not gods, or even demigods. They are human and they will fail you.
•I know that God will never fail you. Even in the times of greatest pain, He is holding you and loving you. What you feel is Him carefully chiseling down the walls that are keeping you from Him.
•I know that God will not “render you white as snow unless you fully cooperate with Him.”
•I know that it is unhealthy for me to judge myself by what I perceive others think of me.
•I know that if I lay my head on my pillow tonight without alcohol in my body, it’s been a pretty good day.
•I know that I know longer “need to know.” Knowledge will not save me, trust in God will.

I wonder if there is a place beyond “I Know”? Is it the place called “I Am”?

The Challenge of Pentecost

2008-05-14T14:13:00.000-07:00

by Bill Walsh

From John’s gospel on Pentecost Sunday we read that Jesus did three things when he greeted his fearful disciples in that locked room. He offered them peace. He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And then he said, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and who’s sins you retain are retained.”

Jesus could have said, “Peace be with you” and “Receive the Holy Spirit” to the crowd of disciples all at once, but scripture also says that he breathed on them. It would be comical if he tried breathing on all of them at once, like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. Instead, he must have slowly and deliberately moved through the gathering, talking with each person so intimately that his breath touched the person receiving his words. How comforting that moment must have been for each disciple. I can only imagine that Jesus confidently and gently extinguished the fear in that room person by person.

That moment in the locked room defined Pentecost for us. Jesus offered his disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit and God’s peace, and he wanted them to bring that peace to a world overwhelmed by the power of fear, a fear that leads to the evil of this world. We are all broken, we are all flawed, and we all need to be forgiven. Sometimes, though, we don’t think that we deserve to be forgiven. We think that our actions have been too hurtful for forgiveness. And sometimes, in our arrogance, we don’t think that we need to be forgiven, and we refuse to admit how we have failed.

Everyone needs to feel forgiven. Everyone needs to know the healing power of forgiveness that frees us from our fear. Everyone needs to be freed from the evil that we do when we don’t feel forgiven. What if Jesus wasn’t giving his disciples the authority to choose whose sins should be forgiven and whose sins should be retained? What if he was commanding them to forgive everyone, because anyone who did not feel forgiven would remain trapped in his fear? And it is fear that generates the evil in this world.

Does forgiveness have healing power? Do we trust in that power? If we do, then our evangelical calling should be to bring God’s healing power of forgiveness to everyone, because it is through forgiveness that we will come to know God’s peace. We are called to go out into the world confidently and gently offering God‘s peace to each person we meet. Maybe we are called to extinguish the fear and evil in this world by teaching forgiveness to one person at a time?

Only for Today

2008-03-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

Judy George

Little did I know that the day following the January 25-27 “Only for Today” women’s retreat that I would be sitting at my mother’s bedside escorting her into eternity. I want very much to communicate to you how incredibly important the retreat experience became for me during this time.

I kept a journal of sorts during those days relating the retreat to the experiences of January 28 when my mother was rushed unresponsive with virtually no pulse to the hospital to February 2 when she passed away. I’d like to share some thoughts from that time with you.

January 29 – One has to go alone (die) clearly but they do not have to be alone as they go, that’s why I’m here knitting, talking once in awhile but working really hard on being just here just now. I and we will continue this vigil throughout whatever this experience turns out to be. “Only for today, I will adapt to circumstances, without requiring all circumstances to be adapted to my own wishes.”

I’m trying to do now well whatever that means to me in this moment.

People do the best that they can. I am an optimist and know no other way to believe. So I will think about the good things. “I want to be kind, today and always, to everyone.”

My mother taught me to knit. For me knitting has become so much more than a hobby. It foundates my beliefs about spirit and life. The weaving, the texture, the color, the simplicity of two stitches with endless possibilities astounds me continually with life lessons as I work.

January 30 – “It’s not the what of now, it’s the how of now” that keeps me soft, aware of the feelings of others and working hard at inclusion of family members as we make difficult and irreversible decisions.

Consensus as to what next is still forming but in the midst of this very real time of life I am here, now. “The way through it is the way through it.”

January 31 – I wrote my mother’s obituary today. It seems so morbid to be doing this while she’s still alive but this is, no doubt, a one way street and I want to do this well. Almost an afterthought turns out to be what I really wanted to say. “Throughout her life Edna was a voracious reader and until the last few years produced a seemingly endless stream of mittens, sweaters, afghans, oil paintings, watercolors and ceramic pieces.” The meaning for me is that although Mom was unable to engage in words or actions of love and affirmation perhaps her way was to share the products of her creativity.

February 1 – A very hard day. The hospital cannot keep Mom. I broke down and sobbed. The thought of her taking an ambulance ride, the discomfort, the lurching, the cold of the day is just more than I can handle. One of us can go with her and it will be me. I will be present. “Only for today, I will firmly believe, despite appearances, that the good providence of God cares for me as no one else who exists in this world.”

February 2 – My mother died today. My brother, his wife and a priest were with her. As my brother tells it, as the priest’s prayer ended decades of age fell from my mother’s face, her skin glowed and she smiled as if seeing the very one she had waited her entire life to see and then with the final amen, she was gone.

Clearly the story does not end here but suffice it to say that when I registered for the retreat I did so simply because it sounded intriguing, when I attended the retreat I enjoyed it greatly but experienced no great movement or revelation but thanks to the retreat “all things worked together” and I was able to come from a deeply peaceful place to share my mother’s last days. Thank you and may God continue to bless the work of your ministry.

Momentum

2008-03-08T20:23:00.000-08:00

Theresa Wiss

Everyone enjoys a good roll- the times in our life when everything seems to fall into place. When the pieces of our lives fit together nicely and neatly creating a pleasant picture. When we seem to catch all the “lucky” breaks and we’re riding high on a wave. Ah, yes, life is sweet from that vantage point – full of optimism, feel-good moments and great expectations for the future.

If only these days, weeks, months, even years could last forever. Much to our dismay these “good times” are interrupted, diminished, overshadowed, disfigured or sometimes smashed. Instead, we face cancer, the death of a child, a foreclosure, a divorce, or a job loss. Suddenly, our wondrous wave comes crashing to the shore. Our perfect picture is shattered into pieces.

We find ourselves overwhelmed with grief during these times, experiencing a deep sense of loss and questioning the meaning of life. Where did all our “good times” go?

As we move through the circumstances of our loss- whatever the particulars may be – we make an effort to pick ourselves up, tend to our wounds, and look for ways to return to the “good times”. But things aren’t the way they were before – life is not unchanging.

Life is made up of good times and difficult times and lots of experiences in between. Change, loss, and death are all part of life. To imagine a life without these parts is to imagine a world other than the world we live in. To live in the fantasy of a world where only “good times” happen to get away from my immediate experience of pain, I have to question what reality I’m really living in.

Finding our way during difficult times is prickly and painstakingly slow. Lately, it has occurred to me that the hardest part is recapturing momentum – re-establishing a rhythm in my daily life. It’s a wonderful feeling to face the day with energy, clarity and purpose. Without the thrust of momentum, it feels impossible to sustain feelings of peace and a sense of hope. This would be impossible if we were truly alone. The truth is, of course, is that we are not alone. We don’t have to rely on our own petty strength. God is with us and will sustain us. God is the wind under our wings and the One who puts the spring back in our step.

Live the Challenge

2008-02-06T18:39:00.000-08:00

Fr. John Baptist Pesce, C.P.

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council is an immense help in profiting from Lent which the Church terms “this great season of grace” (Preface for Lent II) when in the chapter on the liturgical year, we are given the words:

The season of Lent has a twofold character: primarily by recalling or preparing for baptism and by penance, it disposes the faithful, who more diligently hear the word of God and devote themselves to prayer to celebrate the paschal mystery.

The emphasis is on the celebration of the central mystery of our faith, the paschal mystery, the passion unto death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus. While it is true that every Christian liturgy celebrates the paschal mystery (especially in the Eucharist), Lent memorializes this in a unique fashion and receives its culmination in the Easter Triduum.

The paschal mystery is, in the first place, the mystery of Christ but, as Blessed Abbot Columba Marmion highlighted many years ago, the mystery of Christ passes into our lives. The mystery of Christ becomes the mystery of Christians. Baptism initiates us into the paschal mystery. The responsibility of disciples of Jesus is to live out that mystery in their daily lives. By the paschal mystery, Jesus by dying destroyed our death and by rising restored our life. Now we are to continue that process and thus build up the body of Christ which is the Church.

The discipline of Lent: the more diligent hearing of the word of God (as expressed in the above quote – “diligent hearing” obviously includes, although unstated, quiet reflection on that word), the penitential elements (which, for the most part the Church leaves us to determine for ourselves), the dedication to prayer and service to others, in particular the needy and marginalized which is very much encouraged during “this great season of grace” – all have as their goal to empty us of our self-absorption and open us up more and more to being possessed by God and transformed into Christ. In this process, the Church proclaims the paschal mystery and with our grace-cooperation accomplishes it.
We die ever more completely to sin and live more fully unto God.

It is because the Church never takes our eyes off of the goal of Lent that the Church terms Lent “this joyful season of Lent” (Preface for Lent I). But how many of us associate Lent with joy? The Church sees Lent, “God’s gift to your family,” as a “joyful season” because the Church knows from experience that this grace-filled season has the power of the Spirit to transform believers more and more into the image of the Lord crucified and risen from the dead and thereby to enable the Church to fulfill the mission given by the Lord, expressed by the Church thus “to render God the Father and his incarnate Son present and as it were visible [in the world]” (CMW, 21). Lent, entered into in an active, generous and intelligent fashion, enables the Church to be what the Lord Jesus intended, a visible sign, a sacrament, of God. There is, indeed, reason to rejoice in this.

Accept the gift. Live the challenge. Experience the joy as you with the community of believers contribute to the design of God.

In Hope We are Saved

2008-01-02T08:29:00.000-08:00

Fr. David Cinquegrani, C.P.

My trip home at Christmastime found me delayed in the Detroit Metro Airport for five long hours. Just enough time to read and ponder Pope Benedict XVI's new encyclical Spes Salvi (In Hope We Are Saved). The Latin title comes fromthe words in Romans 8:24 ("For in hope we are saved") and leads the reader into the understanding that without faith in God, the human race falls into despair and so can be capable of cruelty and injustice, but with hope, can be capable of almost any good and generous act. Benedict centers on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ but asserts that we put too much emphasis on personal salvation and not enough on the communal nature of redemption and what we must do for people around us as part of our moral obligation as Christians.

To bring these points home, the Pope, in this 76 page document, reviews the lives of saints from various times in history. Unfortunately, he did not include any lay persons in his examples of heroic Christians, though we all know many in our lives. As I sat in the airport, I watched intently as a family with three children, one of whom had Downs Syndrome, tried to pass the five hours in patient waiting. The love between and among them gave me a personal example of hope and reminded me that God is alive in each one of us and can be recognized easily by those who are searching.

The Time is Now

2007-12-07T19:50:00.000-08:00

Fr. Terry Kristofak, C.P.

This week, I have been reading Eckhart Tolle’s STILLNESS SPEAKS--few books have so captured my attention. He writes about the importance of the present moment. This moment must get our best energy for it is all that we have to deal with. The past is just that and our future is yet to be. Now is the time and it deserves our best energy. In my own life I have a great sense of tradition and I do not spend much time in thinking about the future. I am very visual in my learning but today and its events and energies have great interest for me.

In the Advent Season, I experience the same call to live in the now. This is Advent 2007. The themes of the season offer such great life. Sometimes they are just what the doctor orders. Often in our culture, however, it is difficult to get away or even get a few moments of peace and quiet. This is a felt need by most of us and worthy of our attention. Time with our family or with a friend who listens is a most cherished gift. The spirit of this season is often about shopping malls and getting everything done. Often the opposite of what we really want. We long for a night at home with nothing to do. We look forward to our vacations when we can focus on what really gives us joy and peace. May this season of Advent be one of peace and joy and quiet time. It’s all good for the body and soul. The time is now.