April 15, 2008

The first miracle fo the Papal visit is that it moved me to get back on my blog. The things I do for the Pope! I actually am taking this trip very seriously. The Holy Father speaks very deliberately and carefully and I think we need to listen to him in the same way. he has chosen as his theme: Christ our Hope! This signals that he intends to inspire this country and the world with the hope that is found in Jesus Christ.

Interestingly, even before he got off the plane, he began the work of this journey by taking head on the sexual abuse crisis in the United States. Here are his own words:

It is a great suffering for the Church in the United States and for the Church in general, for me personally, that this could happen. If I read the history of these events, it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible for priests to fail in this way the mission to give healing, to give God’s love to these children.

I am ashamed and we will do everything possible to ensure that this does not happen in future.

I think we have to act on three levels: the first is at the level of justice and the political level.

I will not speak at this moment about homosexuality: this is another thing.

We will absolutely exclude paedophiles from the sacred ministry; it is absolutely incompatible and who is really guilty of being a paedophile cannot be a priest.

So at this first level we can do justice and help the victims, because they are deeply affected; these are the two sides of  justice: one, that paedophiles cannot be priests and the other, to help in any possible way the victims.

Then, there’s a pastoral level. The victims will need healing and help and assistance and reconciliation: this is a big pastoral engagement and I know that the bishops and the priests and all Catholic people in the United States will do whatever possible to help, to assist, to heal.

We have made a visitation of the seminaries and we will do all that is  possible in the education of seminarians for a deep spiritual, human and intellectual formation for the students. Only sound persons can be admitted to the priesthood and only persons with a deep personal life in Christ and who have a deep sacramental life. So, I know that the bishops and directors of seminarians will do all possible to have a strong, strong discernment because it is more important to have good priests than to have many priests.

This is also our third level, and we hope that we can do and we have done and we will do in the future all that is possible to heal these wounds

+ Pope Benedict XVI

March 11, 2008

I thirst for you. Yes, that is the only way to even begin to describe my love for you: I thirst for you. I thirst to love and be loved by you - that is how precious you are to me. I thirst for you. Come to me and fill your hearts and heal your wounds.

If you feel unimportant in the eyes of the world, that matters not at all. For me, there is no one any more important in the entire world than you. I thirst for you. Open to me, come to me, thirst for me, give me your life - and I will prove to you how important you are to my heart,

No matter how far you may wander, no matter how often you may forget me, no matter how many crosses you may bear in this life, there is one thing I want you to remember always, one thing that will never change; I thirst for you - just as you are. You don't need to change to believe in my llove, for it will be your belief in my love that will change you. You forget me, and yet I am seeking you every moment of the day - standing at the door and knocking.

Do you find this hard to believe? Then look at my cross.

+Mother Teresa of Calcutta

March 5, 2008

"What then is the difference between an admirer and a follower? A follower is or strives to be what he admires. An admirer, however, keeps himself personally detatched. He fails to see that what is admired involves a claim on him, and thus he fails to be or strives to be what he admires...The admirer is infatuated with the false security of greatness; but if there is any inconvenience or trouble, he pulls back. Admiring the truth, instead of following it, is just as dubious a fire as the fire of erotic love, which at the turn of the hand can be changed into exactly the opposite, to hate, jealousy and revenge. Judas was preceidely such an admirer and thus later became a traitor. It is not hard to imagine that those who only admire the truth will, when danger appears, become traitors.

The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Tough in word he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, will not reconstruct his life, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires. Not so for the follower. No, no. The follower aspires with all his strength to be what he admires. And then, remarkeably enough, even though he is living amongst a "Christian people" he incurs the same peril as he did when it was dangerous to openly profess Christ. And because of the follower's life, it will become evident who the admirers are, for the admirers will be agitated with him."

Soren Kierkegaard

February 19, 2008

Friends,

Since I was last on line, Christmas and the New Year has come and gone.

My mother fell ill, and in God's grace, died.

To be honest, I have been overhwhelmed in all of this. And as so much else, this page included, has suffered. "Pain has an element of blank" Emily Dickinson wrote, and blank is how I have been.

"Lent comes on its own" one of my friends recently told me, and so it has, for me anyway.

All those of you who have offered your prayer and support, thank you, those prayers have upheld me.

I am going to start posting again, let me begin with these words from Tomas A Kempis:

"There is no escaping the cross. Eirther you experience physical hardship or tribulation of spirit in your soul. At times you will be forgotten by God, at times, troubled by those about you and, what is worse, you will often grow weary of yourself. You cannot escape, you cannot be relieved by any rememdy or comfort but must bear with it as long as God wills. For he wishes you to learn to bear trial without consolation, to submit yourself wholly to him that you may become more humble through suffering. No one understands the passion of Christ so thoroughly and heartily as the one who has suffered similiarly.

The cross, therefore, in unavoidable. It waits for you everywhere. No matter where you go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself along. Turn where you will - above, below, without, within - you will find the cross.

If you willingly carry the cross it will carry you. It will take you to where suffering comes to an end, a place other than here. If you carry it unwillingly, you create a burden for yourself and increase the load though you still have to bear it. If you try to do away with one cross, you will find another and perhaps heavier one. How do you expect to escape what no one can avoid? Which saint was exempt? Not even Jesus Christ was spared. "

December 13, 2007

From now till Christmas I will share with you a daily thought on the Advent and Christmas season from Pope Benedict XVI. I hope his thoughts add to your reflections on the Christmas season.

What Christians mean in general by this word "Advent" then, is: God is there. He has not withdrawn from the world. He has not left us alone. Even though we cannot see him or touch him as we can the things that surround us, he is still there and, what is more, he comes to us in many different ways. + Benedict XVI

December 14, 2007

In practice, even for one for whom the existance of God, the world of faith has grown dim, should live today as if God really exists. He should live subject to the reality of truth, which is not our creation. but our mistress. He should live under a standard of justice, whcih is not a product of our own minds, but the norm by which we ourselves are measured. He should live subject to the love that awaits us and loves even us. He should live under the challenge of eternity. + Benedict XVI

December 15, 2007

One aspect of Advent is waiting. Man is always waiting in this life. Mankind has never been able to cease to hope for better times. It becomes especially clear during a time of illness that man is always waiting. Evereyday we are waiting for sign of improvement and in the end, for a complete cure...When time itself is not fiulled witha present that is meaningful, waiting becomes unbearable. If we have to look forward to something that is not there now - if, in other words, we have nthing here and now and the present is completely empty, every second of our life seems too long. Waiting itself becomes too heavy a burden to bear, when we cannot be sure whether we really have anything at all to wait for.

When, on the other hand, time itself is meaningful and every moment contains something especially valieable, our jouyful anticipation of the greater experience that is still to come makes what we have in the present even more precious and we are carried by an invisible power beyond the present moment. Advent helps us to wait with precisely this kingd of waiting.

December 16, 2007

The human being does not trust God. Tempted by the serpent, he harbours the suspicion that in the end, God takes something away from his life, that God is a rival who curtails his freedom and that we will only be fully human when we have cast him aside...The human being lives in the suspicion that God's love creates a dependence and he must be rid of this dependency if he is to be fully himself. + Benedict XVI

December 17, 2007

Love is not a dependency but a gift that makes us live....We live in the right way if we live in accordance with the truth of our being, and that is, in accordance with God's will. For God's will is not a law for the human being imposed from the outside and that constrains him, but the intrinsic measure of his nature, a measure that is engraved within him and makes him the image of God, hence, a free creature. + Benedict XVI

December 18, 2007

Let us gaze on John the Baptist.

First of all he preaches repentence. Those who would be Christians must be transformed ever again. Our natural disposition, indeed finds us always ready to assert ourselves, to pay like with like, to put ourselves at the center. Those who want to find God need,again and again, that inner conversion, that new direction. +Benedict XVI

December 19, 2007

The incarnation of God does not result from an ascent on the part of the human race but from the descent of God. The ascent of man, the attempt to bring God forth by his own efforts and to attain the attaus of superman - this attempt fails wretchedly. The person who tries to become God by his own efforts, who highhandedly reaches for the stars, always ends up destroying himself. It is not through arrogance and self exaltation that human beings are delivered, but through humility, self surrender, and service. + Benedict XVI

December 20, 2007

God has become man. He has become a child...he is no longer unreachable for anybody. God is Emmanuel (God with us). By becoming a child he offers us the possiility of being on familiar terms with him. +Benedict XVI

December 21, 2007

To celebrate Advent means to bring to life within ourselves the hidden Presence of God. It takes place to the extent that we travel the path of conversion and change our cast of mind by turning from the visible to the invisible. As we travel this path, we learn to see the miracle of grace; we learn that there can be no more luminous source of joy for human beings and the world than the grace that has appeared in Christ. The world is not a futile confusion of drudgery and pain, for all the distress the world contains is supported in the arms of merciful love; it is caught up in the forgiving and saving graciousness of our God. + Benedict XVI

December 22, 2007

The powerlessness of a child has become the proper expression of God's all subduing power, for the only force he employs is the silent force of truth and love.. It was, then, in the defenseless weakness of a child that God wanted us to have our first encounter with saving mercy. +Benedict XVI

December 23, 2007

The Incarnation of the Word means .... that God comes to men through men. God has approached men in such a way that through him, and on account of him, they can find their way to oneanother...The ultimate goal for all of us is to be happy. Yet happiness exists only in company with each other, and we can keep company only in the infinity of love. There is happiness only in the removal of the barriers of self in moving into divinity, in becoming divine. +Benedict XVI

December 24, 2007

Christmas says to us, amid all our doubts and bewilderment: God exists. Not as an infinitely distant power that can at best terrify us; not as being's ultimate ground that is not conscious of itself. Rather he exists as One who can be concered about us; he is such that everything we are and do lies open to his gaze. but that gaze is the gaze of Love. + Benedict XVI

December 25, 2007

"God is in the flesh" - this indissoluable association of God with his creature, in particular, is what constitutes the heart of the Christian faith. + Benedict XVI

December 7, 2007

I found this great electronic Advent Calender at the BBC site on Religion and Ethics. Just click here and enjoy!

December 6, 2007

This is St. Nicholas Day in Poland, this day, in much of Europe, is one of the prime days for the giving of presents. They begin the Advent season by celebrating all those good girls and boys who have opened their hearts to the coming of the Lord. Perhaps this is an ancient form of positive reinforcement in which the bishop is the bringer of gifts.

Although our St. Nicholas tranditions are different (Santa Claus) it might be good for us to recall this ancient mission of the Saint, as a reminder to open our hearts to the presence of Christ in our lives.

December 5, 2007

This is a picture of Jewish boy in Hungary attending the celebration of the festival of lights, Hanukkah. If you click on that word, you will be taken to a website that will send you to Jewish website that describes the history and customs of the feast.

As we Christians are making busy preparing for Christmas, we might take this opportunity to pause and ask God to bless our Jewish brothers and sisters on their high holydays.

November 29, 2007

I found this reflection on annoying people.

However, Fr. Karl Rahner has a much more challenging approach:

"Often we are not of one mind simply because we are so different from each other. How can we achieve unity of spirit? Only in God, who is the one goal of the most diverse things and the most diverse human beings; only in God whom we live and move and have our being is that unity possible. And we are in God only when we are praying. Could we not sometimes try taking our neighbor with us to God - the person who gets on our nerves so, who annoys us with everything he or she is and does, who seems so unfair to us, so unsympathetic, so heartless? Could we not say to God: here is someone with whom I cannot get on. She belongs to you. You made her. if you did not will her tobe be the way she is, at least you allow her to be that way. Dear God, I want to put up with her the way you put up with me. Would we not find our heart a little lighter, more at ease, more patient?"

November 11, Veterans Day

Veterans Day Proclamation

“Whereas it has long been our customs to commemorate November 11, the anniversary of the ending of World War I, by paying tribute to the heroes of that tragic struggle and by rededicating ourselves to the cause of peace; and Whereas in the intervening years the United States has been involved in two other great military conflicts, which have added millions of veterans living and dead to the honor rolls of this Nation; and

Whereas, in order to expand the significance of that commemoration and in order that a grateful Nation might pay appropriate homage to the veterans of all its wars who have contributed so much to the preservation of this Nation, the Congress, by an act approved June 1, 1954 (68 Stat. 168), changed the name of the holiday to Veterans Day:

Now, Therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America , do hereby call upon all of our citizens to observe Thursday, November 11, 1954 , as Veterans Day. On that day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”

“Oh God protect our men and women now at war. May those who return wounded be given the care their sacrifice deserves. Amen.

September 2, 2007 Labor Day

These posters date back to the Depression Era and are the result of the WPA art project. In those days, when work was so scarce, the attitude towards work was somewhat more upbeat perhaps than it is today. Interesting how times change. In Paul's letter to the Thessalonians (1Th 4:9-12) I found these words:

"As regards fraternal love, there is no need for me to write you, God himself has taught you to love oneanother...Make it a point of honor to remain at peace and attend to your own affairs. Work with your hands as we directed you to do, so that you give good example to outsiders and want for nothing."

Good advice this, that we should make it a point of personal honor to:: (a) be peaceful (b) mind your own business (c) do your own work (d) be a good example

As we celebrate this labor day, may we take these simple admonitions to heart in our own lives, and pray that all people find work that contributes to their human dignity.

August 30, 2007

Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower-

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people cruel and bitter. -William Somerset Maugham-

The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time. -Alexander Pope -

A sarcastic person has a superiority complex that can be cured only by the honesty of humility. - Lawrence G. Lovasik-

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation. -Saint Augustine -

August 29, 2007

"I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men." -Lao-Tzu-

Humility is not my forte, and whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters. - Margaret Halsey-

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.-Gandhi-

Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.- Emerson-

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself. –Pascal-

August 28, 2007

Humility is the theme for next Sunday's scriptures, so naturally I am preparing to write the best ever homily on humility. In doing my research I discovered to my chagrin that others have written on this topic before me. So I will share some of their thoughts over the next few days. You can tell me which ones strike you as most meaningful.

What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.  Abraham Lincoln

Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple. -Barry Switzer

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more. - MarkTwain

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels. -Saint Augustine

He who sacrifices a whole offering shall be rewarded for a whole offering; he who offers a burnt-offering shall have the reward of a burnt-offering; but he who offers humility to God and man shall be rewarded with a reward as if he had offered all the sacrifices in the world.  -The Talmud

August 24, 2007

I am back from my summer vacation at the Paulist Retreat at Lake George New York, where Paulist have been gathering since 1870! This is the view from our porch:

And this is the porch on which Isaac Hecker (and me) would sit on summer afternoons and evenings:

Here is a small view of the rest of the compound:

http://www.paulist.org/spirit/lakegeorge.htm has more information and pictures from Lake George, if you are interested. Anyway, I came back refreshed and renewed and eager to enjoy the last few weeks of summer before plunging into exciting fall season at the CIC.

July 22, 2007

Want a cool book on prayer? Try this one: The Essence of Prayer by Ruth Burrows, O.C.D. Paulist Press, 2007 (of course!).

July 17, 2007

Over the past week there has been so much misinformation about what the Vatican said about the relationship of Catholics to Protestants that it makes my brain boil! Even the famous NYTimes got it wrong. I am going to take some time to explain it now. But first let's look at the context.

1. The statements released are part of an ongoing professional theological dialogue between the Vatican and other Churches. As we read what the Vatican said, we are jumping into the middle of an ongoing conversation, the first part of which we did not hear. For example, In Germany, a gathering of the reformed churches released a document in which they said that according to their understanding, the Roman Catholic Church is not faithful to the Church that Jesus Christ founded. hence the need for the Reformation Churches who do preserve the Church as Jesus intended. The Vatican's statement fits into that context.

2. Like any professional language (like law, medicine or computerese) they do not use words in the common sense in which we all use words. So, some translation is necessary. Otherwise the document is misinterpreted just as many news organizations did when they reported that the Catholics do not think that the Protestants are churches or that they are not saved. As we shall see when we look at the document, they said no such thing.

3. High level theological ecumenical dialogues are not like political campaigns. The statements they make are not attack adds. Rather they are looking for the sharp edges of the discussion so that they understand completely and respectfully the perspectives of the other position. This is actually where this sort of dialogue begins, it is not where it ends.

Now to the content. The actual text of the Vatican statement can be found here.

You can read the document for yourself, it is not that long, but let me point out some parts of the document that were not quoted in the press:

It is possible, according to Catholic doctrine, to affirm correctly that the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial Communities not yet fully in communion with the Catholic Church, on account of the elements of sanctification and truth that are present in them.

In reference to Protestant Churches as instruments of salvation they said:

In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church.

On July 11, 2007, Cardinal Kasper, who is the head of the Vatican Office for Ecumenical Dialogue, responded to the firestorm of reaction that came following the Vatican's statement. I am going to print in full the Cardinal's statement cause it is hard to find, and nobody has reported about it. I found it very helpful.

A first and quick reaction among Protestant Christians to the declaration of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith “Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church” has been one of irritation. But a second, quiet reading will show that the document does not say anything new. It explains and, in a brief summary, clarifies positions that the Catholic Church has held for a long time. Therefore, no new situation has developed. Nor is there any objective reason for outrage, or the feeling of being offended. Every dialogue presupposes clarity about the different positions. Our Protestant partners are the ones who have recently spoken about an ecumenism of profiles. If this declaration now explains the Catholic profile and expresses what, in a Catholic view, unfortunately still divides us, this does not hinder dialogue, but promotes it.

A thorough reading of the text makes clear that the document does not say that the Protestant churches are not churches, but that they are not churches in the proper sense, i.e. they are not churches in the sense in which the Catholic Church understands itself as church. For anyone even partly informed, this is purely self-evident. The Protestant churches do not want to be a church at all in the sense of the Catholic Church; they speak strongly of having another understanding of church and ministry in the church which, on the other hand, Catholics frankly do not consider to be the original one. Has not the recent Protestant document in Germany about ministry and ordination, done something similar, claiming that the Catholic understandings of the Church and the ministry of the Church are not the original one?

When, following the declaration “Dominus Iesus”, I said that the Protestant churches are churches of another type, this was not - as some reactions on the Protestant side seemed to assume - in contrast to the formulation of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but it was the attempt to interpret it objectively. And I want to do exactly the same thing now, since Catholics speak, now as always, of Protestant regional Churches (Landeskirchen), of the Protestant Church of Germany (Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands, EKD), of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (Vereinigte Evangelisch Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands, VELKD), of the Church of England etc. The declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith does nothing else than to show that we do not use the one and same word Church completely in the same sense.  Such a statement helps to clarify and to promote the dialogue.

The foundation of the dialogue is that there is more that unites us than divides us. Therefore we should not miss reading the positive statements of the declaration about the Protestant churches, namely, that Jesus Christ is effectively present within them for the salvation of their members. In the past this would by no means be an obvious statement; but now it includes - even though significant differences remain - the recognition of baptism, following Vatican II, and a series of positive statements about the Protestant eucharist (Decree on Ecumenism 22).

Therefore, the declaration is not taking back anything of the ecumenical progress already reached, but drawing attention to the ecumenical task that still lies ahead. We should be offended by these differences, and not by those who point them out. The declaration is rather an urgent invitation to an objective dialogue that will help us move ahead."

Christian unity is very important to the Church, and in particular to this Pope. While I admit that the Vatican document is not easy to understand it was not intended to insult Protestants, to take backward steps from Ecumenical progress, or to say anything about anyone going to hell. It was an attempt to clarify our differences so our dialogue can continue, and contninue it must.

July 6, 2007

Today is the feast of Saint Maria Goretti, a twelve year old girl who was killed on this date in 1902, while resisting a rape by a next door neighbor. She is reported to have forgiven her assailant, who repented and eventually attended her canonization in 1950. For years the church has held her up as a model of chastity to teenaged girls, with the not so subtle subtext: more saintly to be dead than have premarital sex.

As important and purity and chastity are (and they are important) with the benefit of increased knowledge, we might well look at the details of her story as those of an innocent victim of a lethal sexual assault.  This feast is then a more sober reminder of the sexual abuse of girls, young women and elderly women throughout the world.

The role of the enforced prostitution of "comfort women" during World War II remains an isue of dispute in Asia. In contemporary Asia, women and children are systematically exploited by an organized system of sexual slavery and prostitution. The BBC has extensively covered contemporary sexual slavery in Europe. The women of the Sudan are afflcited not only with drought and civil war, they are also the victims of mass rape.

In the United States, one out of four women are projected to be the victime of sexual abuse throughout their life, including incest, child sexual abuse, incest and domestic violence.

St. Maria Goretti may well be remembered as the patron saint of all girls and women who are innocent victims of a sexual assault. On thie day we pray for their healing.

This feast is also a sober reminder that boys and men must learn to use their sexuality responsibly, integrating sexual activity with expressions of committed love. It does us no good to pray for those who are abused if we are not also committed to insisting on an end to sexual violence and educating men on the proper uses of sexual expression. We might also pray that we promote a culture in which not only sexual assault, but all degredation of women, has no place.

July 1, 2007

Canada Day

This is the day of National Celebration for our best ally, Canada! They have a great national anthem by the way, and you have to admire a country that can sing their national song in two languages. You can just copy and paste the address below to watch them do it (at a hockey game of course).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMfYadDLhJw&mode=related&search=

June 21, 2007

First Day of Summer

Oh My God it is here, we made it! Summer has officially arrived. It feels like quite an accomplishment. For whatever reason I am especially excited about it this year.

The BBC has an interesting feature today, people have been sending in their pictures of the dawn of the longest day. You can see them at this link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/6225186.stm

My choice for the essential summer picture comes from the paintings of Edward Hopper. To me it communicates light, motion, movement, freedom, warmth-all summer experiences. Summer is here, don't misss it!

June 17, 2007

Fathers Day

June 11, 2007

Feast of Corpus Christi
Reflections by Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J.

And so the Lord has prepared this meal: for the senses a sign, in appearance a little bread and wine, such as usually nourishes our body and cheers our minds. But when at his command, but his power and with his words the commemoration of his last meal is celebrated, and this latter is truly brought into our own present moment, then the inner truth and reality of these signs is himself in his flesh and blood.

He becomes the bread of limitless strength and the wine of inexpressible joy. He makes his body a sign for us in our time of what he wish us to be in his spirit: God giving his own life to his poor creature. He becomes for us now as receive the bread of the altars what he is in himself: the earthly reality by which God’s eternity has entered into the narrow limits of our finitude.

A person’s head bends over what looks like an ordinary piece of bread-over what in fact is merely a semblance of bread – his hand reaches for a cup, and there happens what is the inner most goal of everything that happens. God and the believing heart each from their own side break through alls sinister walls which at other times so infinitely separate them.

We hold the body of this earth which was born and sacrificed in pain; we penetrate once more into the depths of what he suffered long ago, when we hold what he took from us. And we are abidingly where we and he have remained in the center with God.

The Corpus Christi procession originated in the last part of the 13th century. At the beginning of the 15th century it has already become a universal custom. It is relic of the late middle ages and of their unity of faith, and so it is not a demonstration of faith against a non-catholic world.

The wide open spaces became their church, the sun became candles for the altar, the fresh breeze joined with the songs of the people to make one choir, the altar stood at the intersection of everyday life.

Thus the procession is both the visible expression of the human being’s movement through the space of her existence towards her goal, and the shining forth of the holy one who is himself the support of this Procession, who steadfastly stays with it, and who leads it to its proper goal, God.

The procession tells us of the abiding presence of Christ, our reconciliation on the paths of our life. He goes with us, he who is reconciliation, he who is love and mercy.  During all the time we call our life, as we trudge along the streets of the earth, he is there, right behind us, pursuing us in the obstinacy of his love.

We carry the body of the Lord in holy procession and by this action we proclaim that we are one, that we are walking the same path of God and his eternity. The same power of eternal life is already working in all of us: the one divine love binds us together more deeply and inwardly than anything could unite or even separate us in the past.

We thus give witness to the love that moves the sun and the other stars, to the love that is impelling both humanity and the entire cosmos towards that goal and into that one kingdom where God will be all in all.

We are still seeking what is to come and what is to abide forever: The supreme Goal and the everlasting rest which is, quite simply, life itself.
But we are pilgrims whose success is accompanied by the mercy of God, who already have their goal in their possession.

May 27, 2007

The Pope In Brazil

Pope Benedict XVI travelled to the largest Catholic country in the world, Brazil. In the sound bite atmosphere of the 24 hour news cycle, it is likely that you never really had a chance to hear exactly what the Holy Father actually said, so here are excerpts of his address to the young adults of Brazil. It makes for good, reflective reading.

We can never say "enough", because the love of God is infinite, and the Lord asks us—or better—requires us to open our hearts wider so that there will be room for even more love, goodness, and understanding for our brothers and sisters, and for the problems which concern not only the human community, but also the effective preservation and protection of the natural environment of which we are all a part.

The devastation of the environment in the Amazon Basin and the threats against the human dignity of peoples living within that region call for greater commitment in the different areas of activity than society tends to recognize.

Jesus assures us that God alone is good. To be open to goodness means to receive God. In this way, he invites us to see God in all things and in everything that happens, even where most people see only God’s absence. When we see the beauty of creation and recognize the goodness present there, it is impossible not to believe in God and to experience his saving and reassuring presence. If we came to see all the good that exists in the world—and moreover, experience the good that comes from God himself—we would never cease to approach him, praise him, and thank him. He continually fills us with joy and good things. His joy is our strength.

It is not enough, however, simply to know them. Witness is even more important than knowledge; or rather, it is applied knowledge. The commandments are not imposed upon us from without; they do not diminish our freedom. On the contrary: they are strong internal incentives leading us to act in a certain way. At the heart of them we find both grace and nature, which do not allow us to stay still. We must walk.

We are motivated to do something in order fulfil our potential. To find fulfilment through action is, in reality, to become real. To a large extent, from the time of our youth, we are whatever we want to be. We are, so to speak, the work of our own hands.

But as I gaze at you young people here present—you who radiate so much joy and enthusiasm—I see you as Christ sees you: with a gaze of love and trust, in the certainty that you have found the true way. You are the youth of the Church. I send you out, therefore, on the great mission of evangelizing young men and women who have gone astray in this world like sheep without a shepherd. Be apostles of youth. Invite them to walk with you, to have the same experience of faith, hope, and love; to encounter Jesus so that they may feel truly loved, accepted, able to realize their full potential. May they too may discover the sure ways of the commandments, and, by following them, come to God.

You can be the builders of a new society if you seek to put into practice a conduct inspired by universal moral values, but also a personal commitment to a vitally important human and spiritual formation. Men and women who are ill-prepared for the real challenges presented by a correct interpretation of the Christian life in their own surroundings will easily fall prey to all the assaults of materialism and secularism, which are more and more active at all levels.

These years of your life are the years which will prepare you for your future. Your "tomorrow" depends much on how you are living the "today" of your youth. Stretching out in front of you, my dear young friends, is a life that all of us hope will be long; yet it is only one life, it is unique: do not let it pass it vain; do not squander it. Live it with enthusiasm and with joy, but most of all, with a sense of responsibility.

Be men and women who are free and responsible; make the family a centre that radiates peace and joy; be promoters of life, from its beginning to its natural end; protect the elderly, since they deserve respect and admiration for the good they have done. The Pope also expects young people to seek to sanctify their work, carrying it out with technical skill and diligence, so as to contribute to the progress of all their brothers and sisters, and to shed the light of the Word upon all human activities.

But above all, the Pope wants them to set about building a more just and fraternal society, fulfilling their duties towards the State: respecting its laws; not allowing themselves to be swept along by hatred and violence; seeking to be an example of Christian conduct in their professional and social milieu, distinguishing themselves by the integrity of their social and professional relationships. They should remember that excessive ambition for wealth and power leads to corruption of oneself and others; there are no valid motives that would justify attempting to impose one’s own worldly aspirations—economic or political—through fraud and deceit.

There comes the great moment of decision, in a twofold choice: firstly, concerning one’s state of life, and secondly concerning one’s profession. It is about providing an answer to the question: what do I do with my life?

In other words, youth appears as a form of wealth because it leads to the discovery of life as a gift and a task. The young man in the Gospel understood that his youth was itself a treasure. He went to Jesus, the good Teacher, in order to seek some direction. At the moment of the great decision, however, he lacked the courage to wager everything on Jesus Christ. In consequence, he went away sad and downcast. This is what happens whenever our decisions waver and become cowardly and self-seeking. He understood that what he lacked was generosity, and this did not allow him to realize his full potential. He withdrew to his riches, turning them to selfishness.

My appeal to you today, young people present at this gathering, is this: do not waste your youth. Do not seek to escape from it. Live it intensely. Consecrate it to the high ideals of faith and human solidarity.

You, young people, are not just the future of the Church and of humanity, as if we could somehow run away from the present. On the contrary: you are that young man now; you are that young man in the Church and in humanity today. You are his young face. The Church needs you, as young people, to manifest to the world the face of Jesus Christ, visible in the Christian community. Without this young face, the Church would appear disfigured.

My dear young people, Christ is calling you to be saints. He himself is inviting you and wants to walk with you, in order to enliven with his Spirit the steps that Brazil is taking at the beginning of this third millennium of the Christian era.

May 1, 2007: Feast of St. Joseph the Worker

The feast of St. Joseph the Worker was instituted by Pope Pius XII in reponse to the traditional May Day parades celebrated by the Soviet Union and its satellites, ostensibly to celebrate the role of the workers of the soviet. Pius XII, who understood Communism's understanding of work as a perversion of the worker, dedicated the day to St. Joseph the Worker as an opportunity to celebrate the Catholic social teaching on the dignity of the human person and their work as participating in the creative action of God. Pope John Paul II wrote an early enyclical on the nature of human labor, and this excerpt gives you a flavor of Catholic social teaching on the nature of work:

"From this spring certain specific rights of workers, corresponding to the obligation of work. They will be discussed later. But here it must be emphasized, in general terms, that the person who works desires not only due remuneration for his work; he also wishes that, within the production process, provision be made for him to be able to know that in his work, even on something that is owned in common, he is working "for himself". This awareness is extinguished within him in a system of excessive bureaucratic centralization, which makes the worker feel that he is just a cog in a huge machine moved from above, that he is for more reasons than one a mere production instrument rather than a true subject of work with an initiative of his own.

The Church's teaching has always expressed the strong and deep convinction that man's work concerns not only the economy but also, and especially, personal values. The economic system itself and the production process benefit precisely when these personal values are fully respected. In the mind of Saint Thomas Aquinas this is the principal reason in favour of private ownership of the means of production. While we accept that for certain well founded reasons exceptions can be made to the principle of private ownership-in our own time we even see that the system of "socialized ownership" has been introduced-nevertheless the personalist argument still holds good both on the level of principles and on the practical level. If it is to be rational and fruitful, any socialization of the means of production must take this argument into consideration.

Every effort must be made to ensure that in this kind of system also the human person can preserve his awareness of working "for himself". If this is not done, incalculable damage is inevitably done throughout the economic process, not only economic damage but first and foremost damage to man. "

April 5, 2007 Holy Thursday

We must be able to encounter the Lord in our lives: in his scriptural word; in our brothers and sisters; in our love for them that comes forth without couting the cost; in the everydayness of our duty, which takes us out of ourselves; in our experiences of disappointment; in the taste of death which codetermines our lives; and even in our guilt. Only when we discover Jesus and his destiny in every dimension of our experience will his eucharist we are celebrating with him and among ourselves also really be more than a mysterious rite, which we might fear we can no longer celebrate genuinely, even if, to the contrary, this sacramental event of itself can lead us to the true understanding of our life that we always and everywhere do and suffer.

This celebration asks of us whether we want to share the passion of Jesus in our lives, and also provides the power for such a sharing, until Jesus' life, death and resurrection are also brought to completion throughout all the spaces and times of our very own lives. We celebrate now the passion of the Lord in sacramental sign, that it may be lived in the deed and truth of our lives. -Karl Rahner, S.J.-

April 1, 2007: April Fools

One who has surrendered to it knows that the way ends on the Cross-even when it is leading through the jubliation of Genneseret or the triumphal entry into Jerusalem -Dag Hammarskjold-

March 24, 2007

"We cannot fulfill our cultural mission by just saying yes and amen to every current trend, nor can we content ourselves with an appeal to the past, for that too must be subject to judgment, to a discernment of spirits. So it is not as easy as all that for the Christian in his task, in his mission to this world, and to present day life. He must be a discerner of spirits. He must have the courage to say yes and no to both new and old alike; he must have the courage to develop by himself a Chritian culture, a culture which belongs to the present time and to God, a culture which is therefore a Christian, purified and exorcised culture. This mission can be fulfilled only with the help of courage and the light and strength from above. " -Karl Rahner, SJ.

March 22, 2007

Fr. Karl Rahner and Fr. Jozef Ratzinger (Pope Benedikt XVI)

The Christian is a person of eternity, the man or woman of God given truth, the one who hears the word of the living God from beyond this world; the Christian is not just someone who prays: "Thy kingdom come" or "Let this world pass." The Christian is not just an individual waiting for eternity and who looks at all earthly things as temporary; as a Christian she is a person sent into the world to carry out the earhly mission of her creator and Lord, the creator of heaven and earth. -Karl Rahner, SJ.

March 21, 2007

Every human being and every Christian has a cultural mission. Culture is taken here in the widest sense; everything in this earthly life that is worthy of human dignity, everything towards which a person feels him or herself drawn or fitted in her history or in her concrete situation, through her spirit or force of nature.

Whenever a person makes something richer or more meaningful of his life, whenever he creates works of intellect, of science of art, of literature, wherever he stamps the imprint of his spirit on the face of the earth and expands his own being, there we find culture; and the human being is called to this by God not only that he has powers given to him by God to be developed, but also quite clearly by virtue of the fact that he is a Christian. -Karl Rahner, SJ.

March 20, 2007

In the midst of our lives, of our freedom and our struggles, we have to make a radical, absolute decision. And we never know when lightening will strike us out of the blue. It may be when we least expect to be asked whether we have the absolute faith and trusts to say yes; when we must turn our back on many things in order to cleave to God and his word in Jesus Christ.

Let us keep praying: God, give us the inner strength and steadfastness to keep our hearts awake, ready to say yes without reserve when the time comes to say it, despite all our worldy wisdom, all our contrivances, all our compromises; so that by your grace our poor divided lives may receive that perfection which can be ours for eternity. Amen. -Karl Rahner, SJ.

March 19, 2007

There are no utter geniuses and utter dolts. Nobody is so poor that he could not be poorer, nobody so rich he would not like to be richer. Nobody loves God so much that he could not love him more. in this world nobody is totally destitute of goodness, whose heart is no longer capable of any spark of longing for God. -Karl Rahner, SJ.

March 18, 2007

Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J. was one of the pre-eminent theologians of the 20th century, and his thinking is very influiential in my own theological development. For the next few days I wish to share excerpts from some of his sermons.

Christianity does call for heroism, not because there is an ultimate point where a person must halt in God's name, but because Christianity is a categorical decision for God and his will. There comes a time when there is nothing for it but to decide whether one wants to be a Chrstian or not. -Karl Rahner, SJ.

March 14, 2007

In the 4th century, Christian hermits lived in deserts of Egypt, Palestine, Arabia and Persia to search for God. These forerunners of Western monasticism left behind journals of sayings and stories known as the wisdom of the desert fathers. Below are some of these sayings, all related to the virtue of humility. i hope you enjoy them.

Abott Pastor said: A man must breathe humility and the fear of God just as ceaselessly as he inhales and exhales the air.

Abbott Alonius said: Humility is the land where God wants us to go and offer sacrifice.

One of the monks asked what was humility, and he said: If you forgive a brother who has injured you before he himself asks pardon.

A brother asked one of the elders: What is humility? The elder asnwered him: To do good to those who do evil to you. The brother asked: supposing a man cannot go that far, what should he do? The elder replied: Let him get away from them and keep his mouth shut.

March 11, 2007

Lent plows on and I find myself wondering whether it is doing me any good? Is this prayer, fasting, almsgiving, doing me any good? Then I think to myself, why am I so hung up on measuring it? These are gifts I am supposed to be giving to God, not things that I am doing for me. So now I am just focusing on doing them and trusting that God will figure out what to do with what little I do,

March 10, 2007

The Book of Micah

"Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt
and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance;
Who does not persist in anger forever,
but delights rather in clemency,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt?
You will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins."

March 8, 2007

God of love bring us back to you. Send your Spirit to make us strong in faith and actiove in good works.

March 7, 2007

Father, teach us to live good lives, encourage us with your support and bring us eternal life.

March 3, 2007

Those who slay their selfish wills are happier to see many diferent ways than if they were to see everyone walking the same way, because they see the greatness of my goodness more fully revealed. In everything they find joy and the fragrance of the rose. this is true not only of good things; even when they see something that is clearly sinful they do not pass judgement, but rather feel a holy and genuine compassion, praying for the sinner and saying with perfect humility, "Today it is your turn; tommorrow it will be mine unless divine grace hlds me up." -St. Catherine of Sienna, 14th century

March 2, 2007

Ezekial 18:21-22

Thus says the Lord GOD:
If the wicked man turns away from all the sins he committed,
if he keeps all my statutes and does what is right and just,
he shall surely live, he shall not die.
None of the crimes he committed shall be remembered against him;
he shall live because of the virtue he has practiced.
Do I indeed derive any pleasure from the death of the wicked?
says the Lord GOD.
Do I not rather rejoice when he turns from his evil way
that he may live?

It is never too late to change.

March 1, 2007

“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, blessed are you.
Help me, who am alone and have no help but you."

This is the great prayer of Queen Esther, found in the Book of Esther in the Old Testament. I have always been attracted to it, as perhaps the most basic prayer there is: Help me, who am alone, and have no help but you. It captures our basic human aloneness, an aloneness we can share only with God, an aloneness from which only God can save us. Jesus found that aloneness on the cross, and there his only help, the only place for him to turn, was God. From Queen Esther, to Jesus to us, we each experience that alone place in our lives, and to God we turn.

February 27, 2007

I now have my first real lenten insight for this year, and it is not pretty. Right now, for me, Lent is all about time. I found myself complaining that I was not finding enough time to do my own lenten refelctions, to do the things I said that I was going to do in lent. I am just too busy to do lent, I was heard myself telling myself. The rest of the world carries on as if lent isn't happenning-in fact for me as a priest, I am even busier than I am in other times of the year, what am I supposed to do! Well in the midst of my pity party I realized that this was exactly the problem, time. Lent is above all else a time for me to examine and reorient how I spend my time, what I do with my time, and just where am I wasting my time; meaning, am I doing what is most important, or what is most convenient? Or, perhaps even worse, doing just whatever happens to be next? Have I abdicated my responsibility to prioritize my time? I stay busy, but who and what are the casualties of how I spend my time: friendships, family, community, health, interests, avocations? Maybe even God has become an unintended but nevertheless acceptable casualty for how I spend my time. Ouch!

February 23, 2007

"Lord, let me know your will, your will for me, your will here and now, at this moment in my life. I know Lord, that I am forever trying to fashion your will according to my own wishes. I know the thousand tricks of argument my sinful heart uses, bargaining and haggling with my conscience until it gives in and only dictates what I want and what I like doing. Enlighten me. Give me the courage to be prepared for the unexpected demands you may make on me, the courage to justify your confidence in me, even in the things for which I think my strength is sufficient, the courage to believe that your strength is my weakness and then to ask your will. Give me the moderation of the true and honest servant who knows that a small deed in your service counts more than a great rush of emotion and a thousand enthusiastic intentions. Give me the strength as a good and faithful servant to recognize your will and to fulfill it always." -Karl Rahner, S.J.

February 22, 2007

Today, some poetry for Lent. this is not an easy poem, it requires a fair amount of wrestling. Within the poem is the poem is the fear of failure, the fear that change is no longer possible, the fear that life and time has passed us by, the fear that hope itself has died within us. It is not however about despair, it is about embracing the discipline that leads to change, despite our fears that we cannot. As one critic wrote:

The first long poem after his conversion was "Ash Wednesday" (1930), a religious meditation in a style entirely different from that of any of the earlier poems. "Ash Wednesday" expresses the pangs and the strain involved in the acceptance of religious belief and religious discipline. This and subsequent poems were written in a more relaxed, musical, and meditative style than his earlier works, in which the dramatic element had been stronger than the lyrical. "Ash Wednesday" was not well received in an era that held that poetry, though autonomous, is strictly secular in its outlook; it was misinterpreted by some critics as an expression of personal disillusion.

Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.


II
Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to sateity
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying

Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.

Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
Under a tree in the cool of day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.

III

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.

At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jaggèd, like an old man's mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.

At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind
over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.


Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy

               but speak the word only.

IV
Who walked between the violet and the violet
Whe walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary's colour,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs

Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary's colour,
Sovegna vos

Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing

White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.

The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word

But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken

Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

And after this our exile

V
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.

O my people.

VI
Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

February 21, 2007

Ash Wednesday Message of Pope Benedict XVI

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today – Ash Wednesday – we begin our Lenten journey in a spirit of prayer and penance. From the earliest days of the Church, Lent has been a special time of preparation for Baptism. For those already baptized, Lent is a time of conversion and renewed faith. It is a time to “exercise” our desire for God by opening our hearts to the new life offered to us in Christ. Jesus exhorts us to “repent and believe in the Gospel”. Only conversion can lead to true happiness, and God’s grace is needed to inspire and sustain our efforts to direct our hearts completely to him. Conversion consists in recognizing that we depend entirely on God, who created us and redeemed us in Christ. In my Lenten message this year, I wanted to emphasize God’s immense love for us, and to invite all Christians, together with Mary and the Beloved Disciple, to draw near to the Lord, who gave his life for us on the Cross. The Cross – the definitive revelation of God’s love and mercy – is the only way to enter this mystery of saving love. This Lent, by a more fervent participation in the Eucharist, may we learn to enter more deeply into the Paschal Mystery and to “re-give” Christ’s love to others, especially the suffering and those in need.

February 14, 2007

Winter reminds us that we are not in charge, of well, anything. We make plans to do this and do that, to go here and go there, but winter rudely puts us in our place. Schedules are destroyed, school is cancelled, business drops off; even mass attendance fails in the face of blizzards. Once again we recognize that we are just creatures coping with an environment not of our own making, and not in our control. Winter reminds us that we are actually creatures, not gods. That would be a good thing for us to remember when the snow melts, and we start acting like gods once again.

February 7, 2007

I lost all of January, and with my New Year's resolution to update my homepage every few days. So if you have broken any of your resolutions I am in a compassionate and understanding mood. The one benefit of the freezing weather here in Grand Rapids is that I have been forced to say home and get on to all those things I should have been doing but have not been, like this webpage. All you need to do here to get some winter scenery is to look out of your window, but if we want to look for a cozy winter mood, consider this winter print from contemporary artist Tess Johnson.

January 7, 2007 Epiphany

"The new King to whom they now paid homage, was quite unlike what they were expecting. In this way they had to learn that God is not as we usually imagine him to be. This is where their inner journey began...They had to change their ideas about power, about God and about man, and in so doing, they also had to change themselves... They had to learn to give themselves - no lesser gift would be sufficient for this King. "

Pope Benedict XVI

January 5, 2007

We have come to believe in God's love; in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice o a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and direction.

-Pope Benedict XVI-

January 4, 2007

January 2, 2007

God's paths are the paths
that he himself has taken and that we now
are to take with him.
Dietrich Bonhoffer

November 23, 2006

 There was a big meeting today between Pope Benedict XVI, the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church, and the Archbishop Rowan Williams, who, as Archbishop of Canterbury, is the leader of the Anglican communion.

After a formal audience during which they exchanged gifts, statements, signed a common declaration of ecumenical cooperation and then broke bread at lunch.

Earlier, in a Common Declaration signed by Benedict and Williams, the two leaders expressed thanks for 40 years of cooperation and dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the churches of the Anglican Communion and renewed the historic commitment to the goal of "full visible communion in the truth of Christ." The two paid tribute to the continuing process of dialogue which had begun with the historic meeting between Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey in 1966.

"Since that meeting, the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion have entered into a process of fruitful dialogue, which has been marked by the discovery of significant elements of shared faith and a desire to give expression, through joint prayer, witness and service, to that which we hold in common," the declaration acknowledged.

As that process continues, the declaration said, difficulties and obstacles to this goal caused by new developments within the Anglican Communion would need to be faced.

"...in renewing our commitment to pursue the path towards full visible communion in the truth and love of Christ, we also commit ourselves in our continuing dialogue to address the important issues involved in the emerging ecclesiological and ethical factors making that journey more difficult and arduous."

The churches share a common witness and service, the statement said, and there were issues and challenges which could be tackled jointly.

"There are many areas of witness and service in which we can stand together, and which indeed call for closer co-operation between us: the pursuit of peace in the Holy Land and in other parts of the world marred by conflict and the threat of terrorism; promoting respect for life from conception until natural death; protecting the sanctity of marriage and the wellbeing of children in the context of healthy family life; in outreach to the poor, oppressed and the most vulnerable, especially those who are persecuted for their faith; in addressing the negative effects of materialism; and in care for creation and for our environment. We also commit ourselves to inter-religious dialogue through which we can jointly reach out to our non-Christian brothers and sisters."

The Common Statement concluded with a reminder of the churches' common calling:

"Confident of the apostolic hope "that he who has begun this good work in you will bring it to completion"(cf Phil 1:6), we believe that if we can together be God's instruments in calling all Christians to a deeper obedience to our Lord, we will also draw closer to each other, finding in his will the fullness of unity and common life to which he invites us."

During the Audience, Williams praised the ecumenical commitment of Pope Benedict XVI in a formal greeting presented to the Pope:

"I have been heartened by the way in which from the very beginning of your ministry as Bishop of Rome, you have stressed the importance of ecumenism in your own ministry," he said. "If the Good News of Jesus Christ is to be fully proclaimed to a needy world, then the reconciliation of all Christians in the truth and love of God is a vital element for our witness."

He acknowledged the difficulties and obstacles to unity and said that churches were affected by each other's troubles:

"I say this, conscious that the path to unity is not an easy one, and that disputes about how we apply the Gospel to the challenges thrown up by modern society can often obscure or even threaten the achievements of dialogue, common witness and service. In the modern world, no part of the Christian family acts without profound impact on our ecumenical partners; only a firm foundation of friendship in Christ will enable us to be honest in speaking to one another about those difficulties, and discerning a way forward which seeks to be wholly faithful to the charge laid upon us as disciples of Christ."

Anglicans and Roman Catholics shared a charge, he said, to serve Christ in the preaching of the Gospel:

"However, there is a task which is laid upon us both as pastors of the Christian family: to be advocates of reconciliation, justice and compassion in this world - to be ambassadors for Christ - and I am confident that an honest exchange of our concerns will not be allowed to eclipse what we can affirm and proclaim together - the hope of salvation and healing found in the Grace and Love of God revealed in Christ."

During the Audience, Williams presented the Pope with a specially commissioned icon showing St. Gregory and St. Augustine -- forbears of Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury respectively -- in the presence of Christ the Savior, Lord of the earthly and heavenly realms. Earlier in the day, Williams and the Anglican delegation said prayers in St. Peter's Basilica at the Tomb of Pope John Paul II, whose funeral Williams attended in 2005.

November 5, 2006

Vote this coming Tuesday! I was horrified to find out that a global report that studied the percentage of voter turnout in elections from 1945-2001, the United States ranks 120th in percentage of citizens who turn out to vote. More people turn out to vote in Morocco, Malaysia and Madagascar than here in the USA. It is actually pretty embarrassing. . As a priest, it is not my place to get into who you vote for, that belongs to your conscience alone. But it is my place to encourage everyone to fulfill their responsibility participate in the work of the state. Vote!

November 1  2006: All Saints and All Souls Day

Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J, was one of the theological giants of the last century. One of my intellectual heroes,  let me share with you some of his thoughts on the feast of All Saints and All Souls.

"All Saints and All Souls day are the feasts of every saint and of every soul who has died and gone home into the eternal love of God. All of them and therefore not only those already celebrated by name in the church's feasts throughout the year but also the silent, unknown ones who have departed as if they had never existed. there are no legends about them; their lives are recorded neither in poetry nor in history, secular or ecclesiastical. Only one person knows anything about these saints, and that is God. he has inscribed their names in the book of life, which is the heart of his eternal love. 

But how are we supposed to celebrate these saints who are not known to us by name. how can we do this-really do it, with life and zest-if not by lovingly remembering our dead? they may already be forgotten by the world; perhaps their name is not even inscribed on a gravestone. yes they not only live on with God, but also with us in our hearts.

Let us then prepare our hearts for these feasts of the dead who live with God. Is there no one among All Saints and All Souls for you to celebrate? Have you ever come into contact with a love and meekness, goodness and purity and fidelity in a  person? Not even your own mother, so quiet and forgetful of herself? Nor in your patient father? Should you say no, I think you would be contradicting your heart, which has its own experiences. It is not the heart's experience to have met throughout life only darkness and no light, only selfishness and no selfless kindness.

But if you have met faith, hope and love, kindness and pardon, great courage and fidelity in persons who are now dead - a grain of virtue such as these is worth a mountain of selfishness and vice- then you have met men and women whom your heart may seek with God. Up, then, and celebrate the feast of all Saints, of All Souls- your saints, your beloved souls! Celebrate an All Saints of peace and loyalty. of yearning and faith. celebrate your dead who are still living." 

October 6, 2006

The murder of the Amish girls this past week is particularly hard for me to take.

It seems to me to a violation of a special innocence, a madness peculiarly evil, as is, the murder of any child. That children are victims of terrorism, be it in Pennsylvania, Baghdad, Beirut, Haifa or Darfur fills me not so much with disappointment as with rage. That is how I felt when I read a CNN report on the wake and funeral of these girls. In this report, the minister described a scene in which an elder of the group, the grandfather of one of the murdered girls called together a group of Amish boys to surround her casket.

Resting his hand on the casket of his granddaughter, he began to teach them: "We must not have hatred in our heart for this man." He explained that the man must have had  a "sickness of the heart" and so they must pray for his forgiveness; they must forgive him and not fill their hearts with hate

We may think of the Amish as regressive, quaint, separatist. But there is no doubt that they are people of great faith, who in this moment witness to the world the love of God. One of my friends to whom I told this story said to me of the grandfather, "He went beyond his feelings to his core beliefs." I suppose he did. What he did for me is, that in our world, a world now filled with terrorist activities of every sort, he provided a model of how a Christian responds to terrorist activities. In his loss that grandfather was careful to instruct his grandsons on how they should respond. The Amish do not wage a war on terror, they exercise forgiveness in the midst of grief, and a faith that trusts their loved ones, their assailants, and themselves to the mercy of God. 

That grandfather may be backwards, but he is a better man than I am.