Work in Progress

Work in Progress

At Lakeside Mall with Mom, I was struck by the ripped-up ceilings above the expensive shops. Most of this mall's stores are open (even if for shortened hours), but several were too badly damaged or lost too many workers to renpen. There are jobs galore, but no places to live.

Evangelizers invited

National Pauline Cooperator Conference

March 10, 11, 12, 2006
Pallotine Renewal  Center
Old Halls Ferry Road
Florissant, MO                                              
Theme "Gateways to the Gospel”

Celebrating the Call to Holiness and Mission

The Pauline Cooperators associated to the Daughters of St. Paul as a lay association in the Church and the Pauline Family, will hold their annual National Conference in St Louis. This year’s theme is Gateways to the Gospel.

 

The Pauline Cooperators were founded in 1918 by the founder of the Pauline Family, Blessed James Alberione who said that “our mission begins and ends in Jesus Christ who ‘went to all the cities and towns preaching the gospel of the kingdom.’ We give the same message, that of salvation; we are moved by the same motive, love; we present and adapt the message according to each person’s needs; we are sustained by Jesus Master’s example and grace.”

Pauline Cooperators join Pauline Priests, Brothers, Sisters and Lay Consecrated Paulines throughout the world in answering the call to be new Apostles renewing today’s society and culture with, in and through Jesus Christ.

The Conference will be attended by Pauline Cooperators throughout the United States and Canada coming together for a weekend of prayer through the Liturgy of the Eucharist, Eucharistic Adoration and Liturgy of the Hours.

Presentations will be: Gospel Theology for Creative Artists (Sr Anne Joan Flanagan, Chicago) Media as Gateway for the Gospel (Fr. Jeffrey Mickler, S.S.P., S.T.D., Canfield, OH) Mary Gateway for the Gospel. (Sr Marianne Lorraine Trouve, Boston) A movie night on Saturday at 7 PM, presented by co-author of the Movie Lectionary, Sr. Rose Pacatte (Los Angeles), will be followed by a sharing (Lectio Divina) on the Sunday scripture readings.

Society of St Paul priest Fr. Jeffrey Mickler will serve as chaplain for the weekend.

The weekend is open to all who are interested in evangelization with the means of communication and deepening their relationship with God. For more information send an e-mail to Sr. Margaret Kerry mkerry@paulinemedia.com or call the Pauline Books & Media center on Watson Road 314-965-3521; you can also visit the Pauline Cooperators web site.

Legion

The gospel about the healing of the possessed man in the Gerasene territory has such an edge to it. And today I find myself reading it under many different lenses. The "legion" of demons that held the poor man in bondage and pain could be understood in an individual sense as our own disordered attachments or false goals, preventing us from living fully in the present moment. Sometimes it "costs too much" to change. I'm thinking of my city, which was possessed by demons of all sorts, and lacerated by Hurricane Katrina. The federal government thinks it "costs too much" to liberate this city, and would like the problem to stay, like the possessed man, in the ruins and the tombs, nursing its own wounds. There is a legion of places on earth where the atrocities of war and inhuman violence dominate daily life--but peace is not in the economic interest of the powerful.

When Jesus met the man possessed by Legion, he had pity on him and healed him. But that healing had an economic impact on the region, and Jesus himself was sent away.

This is the Jesus who wants to live in us. Truly a sign of contradiction.

Encyclical

Today I finished my (first) prayerful reading of "Deus Caritas Est," Benedict XVI's (first) encyclical. It is a masterpiece. I want to go through it a second time right away, this time with my pen in hand, to underline, to take notes, to jot down applications and connections. I also got the idea to (this is a bit beyond my reach, but it pays to try) create some kind of basic user's guide to the encyclical and its key themes. It would help me to learn the content well, and would perhaps give others a key to understanding how to read the document. One thing I did especially notice is that this is a social encyclical, right along the lines of Rerum Novarum and the commemorative encyclicals issued every 20 years since. But more about that later!

Real Presence

A question came up in our larger community about blogs and how they fit in the Canon Law about publishing and so on. Here is my input on the matter:

 

I think we need to recognize that while the language of publishing is used across the board for blogs and web sites, the nature of personal blogs and personal web sites is more that of a "presence." On the Internet, people can meet me 24/7. It is my own presence, but in a mediated form. I think this is very important. The Internet has given us not just new means of transmission of ideas (publishing), but a new way of being personally encounterable, apart from the limits of time and space. It is almost a kind of sacramental presence, since it is mediated in sign, and it is very much a "real presence." When people read my blog, they are really coming to know me. In my blog, I am going out to meet them, wherever they are.

My own choir director is a frequent visitor to my blog, and once he commented that he feels almost apologetic that he seems to know me so well, because he knows my thought, he knows my spirituality to a degree through some of the Gospel reflections I have posted, he even knows things about what my family has been through with Katrina, and he felt bad that it was not really reciprocal, since he hardly ever posts comments. And it is true: through my blog, he has come to "meet" me--even more than through the weekly choir sessions. And hopefully what he has really come to encounter is not only me, myself and I, but the particular manifestation the Pauline charism has taken in my life. Hopefully, it is Christ who lives in me who is manifesting himself in some way.

This is not what happens in publishing, unless you are an autobiographical author with a rather significant following. Publishing is a more "detached" form of communication. When I read a book, I do encounter the author in a somewhat distant way (if I am perceptive, that is), but the real point of a book is its content. The author is offering information or a perspective that I am interested in; the author has something to teach me--and this is what I am looking for in the book. Naturally, a book that purports to communicate some aspect of the Catholic faith has to qualify for that--and so there are the various canons that apply.

But in the case of a personal blog or website, I do not think the canons concerning theologians and religious life apply as strictly as they might in the area of publishing properly so called, because what the Internet has done is create a new form of presence. I cannot stress this enough. I think we are offered an opportunity to help the Church and our own congregation understand that the media have truly, as JPII said, become a new areopagus: not just a new place to communicate detached ideas (this is a male model of communication anyway), but a new place to be, to be the witnesses of Jesus that we are supposed to be in ordinary time and space, only now in a hyperspace form. It is almost a technology-assisted form of human evolution, if you think about it. We can bilocate!

Now, there may be members of the community whose capacity for bilocation needs to be restricted for the good of the institute and of souls. We will eventually need to create a kind of gatekeeping system for personal blogs and websites, but it would have to be moderated with great delicacy. (I think the tendency would be for the gatekeeper to become the Great Community Censor, dominated by fear and anxiety and "what ifs" that would effectively smother the sisters' "real presence" and make their blogs ineffectual.) We are not really at that point yet.

 

These are reflections I have been pondering for years, so I am glad of the opportunity to express them. I am looking forward to responses to these thoughts.

David's Sin

Today's first reading is the notorious sin of King David. One thing that has always struck me about the way this story is told in the Bible, but which I was only able to really put my finger on today, is that the narration emphasizes what a faithful servant of the King poor Uriah was. And he was a Hittite, not even an Israelite! The story twice describes Uriah's behavior in terms of "his lord," the King, so that we see how despotic David's behavior was. Somewhere I read that the first line of the story is already ominous: it was the time of year "when kings went on campaign," but David stayed in Jerusalem and sent his men out. He did not lead his own army, but remained in the safety and comfort of the palace, tending to his own wants. Then there is the adultery with Bathsheba, and the whole matter of Uriah. David was on a slippery slope. Tomorrow we will see the courage of his "seer" who will confront him with his sin. But David is not a total despot yet. If the prophet had failed to speak, history well could have taken a different turn. But the prophet did take his life in his hands to speak truth to power--as John the Baptist would centuries later. And we pray David's psalm "Miserere" every Friday in morning prayer.

This whole narration highlights the providential role sin can play in our lives, oddly enough. If David had not fallen to such depths, he may have simply been a benignly ineffective leader, seeking himself in all things, clueless about the effect his self-serving might have on the nation. Instead, where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more.

rebuilding New Orleans

I am really afraid that the imbalance of federal aid for rebuilding--with Mississippi (30,000 homes lost) given 5 billion dollars and Louisiana (215,000 homes lost) given 6 billion--is a sign that the White House really doesn't want New Orleans to rise from the dead, because if New Orleans is restored, it will probably still be a Democratic city, whereas Mississippi has a well-connected Republican governor.

I don't like Louisiana politics either, but safeguards can be put in place--if that is the only problem.

A serious issue is that the Army Corps of Engineers built the levees that failed. The city did not fail as seriously as the federal government did in providing inadequate protection from storm surges. My dentist lived 4 blocks from the levee break in Lakeview; she still doesn't know if she will rebuild, because of the government's reluctance to do anything more than restore the levees to their former condition. (Levee funds and the funds provided for lost homes are two different allocations, both grossly inadequate and out of all proportion to the purported goals.)

St Angela Merici

Even though the priest didn't use the propers for Mass, today is the feast of St. Angela Merici, founder of the Ursulines. I have an Ursuline pedigree almost as good as my Jesuit one: My mom went to Ursuline College in New Orleans, and two of my sisters and I attended the Ursuline Academy for three years. (New Orleans itself, of course, has an Ursuline pedigree, since the sisters arrived in the city during its rough and tumble first decades to provide a residence for young French women who came to the city to find husbands among the workers and entrepreneurs!) (Imagine those men coming, hat in hand, to court the young ladies under the vigilant eyes of the Ursuline sisters!) Anyway, my best friend also went to Ursuline, not for three years, but for twelve, so I was always going to school events with her. Then, when I was living in Italy, I had the chance to spend ten days in Brescia, where St. Angela lived and where the Ursulines were founded. (I also took a little day-trip on the Lago di Garda to Descenzano, where the saint was born--this at the special request of my friend, Sr. Sheila Anne, OSU.) What amazes me about St. Angela--and I haven't even read any full-length biographies of her, although Sr. Sheila may read this and act to rectify the situation--is that she was a woman of the late 15th, early 16th centuries who founded a religious community for the education of women. What a bold and forward thinking person she must have been! And while Brescia was a pretty important town (it had been an important Stone-Age community, a key city for the Roman government and the seat of government for Charlemagne's father-in-law), it couldn't have been all that central in terms of politics and education in the 15th century. (Maybe I'm wrong about this, of course, but it is not far from Verona, which seems to have much more cultural influence.) Anyway, a woman worth admiring, a Renaissance woman who was not confined by the limits her age imposed on women, but who had God's eye and a mind for the future.

Which way is up?

Which way is up?

Encyclical

Here's a quick link to the first encyclical letter of Benedict XVI.
Anyone who was afraid that this pontificate would be sterile and solely intellectual need only look at the title...

 

Abandon

That line in today's first reading is so impressive, with David "dancing with abandon before the Lord." The Liturgy may not seem to be replete with moments of abandon, but the responses do hint at it: "Thanks be to God!" "It is right to give him thanks and praise!" "Holy, Holy, Holy!" David's attitude is one of self-forgetting. That's what "abandon" is. He is fully taken with the presence of God, and loses himself in God. If you read this passage in the Bible, you see that shortly afterwards, his wife reproached him for losing his dignity, but David brushed her remarks off, reminding her that it was for the Lord. I thought it interesting that even in the Bronze Age, kings were expected to act with a certain gravitas, and David instinctively knew that the Lord's presence made all these human distinctions null and void.

Then we have Jesus, surrounded by a crowd of people who were doing the will of God, and he tells his own family that the will of God made even the human distinctions of blood ties irrelevant, surpassed by the Lord's presence with those who are united to him in his will.

Book Recommendation

While putting away books for the sisters here, I came across an extremely slim book with a stark black and red cover. The title was "Temptation and Discernment." Curious, I flipped through a few pages, and what I read there (in chapters that are barely a page and half long) convinced me not only to get this book myself, but to recommend it to everyone I meet who is interested in spirituality and ministry. The book is by Segundo Galilea. The introduction to the two sections (one on ministry, one on prayer) offer a synthesis of the insights of Ignatius and John of the Cross on discernment of spirits, and the chapters go into specific areas of temptation in ministry and prayer: things like messianism, activism, pseudo-trust in God... I  haven't finished it yet (I'm trying to read it prayerfully!), but I am really, really impressed with what I have read so far.

A few examples:

In the two-page treatment on messianism: "Those who fall into this temptation do not ignore God nor do they fail to pray and appeal to the Lord with problems. They do so, however, so that God may help them in the ministry they plan and direct." "We become incapable of delegating responsibilities or tasks. We do not really trust people, except for a few--those who are a consistently faithful copy of ourselves...." "The messianic attitude does not allow others to grow, since the apostolic endeavor's growth and maturity do not run parallel as they should with the maturation and growth of all who carry it out.... and successors are not prepared to step in."

Activism: "has many expressions. One of them is the lack of renewal in the minister's personal life. In a systematic way, prayer is inadequate and poor. There are no prolonged periods of solitude and retreat. The minister does not cultivate study and seldom reads....The increasing incapacity for renewing oneself tends to be compensated for and disguised by surrendering to uncontrollable activity."  The author connects activism with being out of sync with God's timing for the fruit of the apostolate.

Pseudo-trust in God, which always comes with an exaggerated (even if unconscious) trust in oneself and one's natural abilities. This is a real issue for people with lots of natural gifts, because it is hard to recognize that the fruits of ministry are God's work, and not the result of talent. When the results are purely based on talent, they end up not lasting.

So that's where I am in the book so far, finding so much (and so much in harmony with our Founder) that I am planning to incorporate it in the next project I do on Bl. Alberione.

 

Bam!

When I first arrived in New Orleans, I noticed a little something in the Catholic paper about a fund-raiser for St. Michael's School, a local masterpiece of education for children and young people with mental retardation. It is the "Chef's Charity for Children." Local chefs donate their time (and the food) for a cooking demonstration show, followed by, of course, a meal! I was hoping to do something special with my godmother while I was here, and this looked like just the thing. I called "Toodie," and she liked the idea, too, but we soon found out that all tickets were sold. Toodie has lots of friends (3/4 of New Orleans) and she put the word out that she was hoping to find two tickets that would not be used. Hours later, we got a call: a good friend of Toodie did indeed have two tickets for us! So I spent a good part of the day at the Hilton Riverside, learning how Emeril Lagasse makes Chicken a la King with herbed biscuits (oh, yum) and how 83-year-old Leah Chase, whose restaurant was all but destroyed by Katrina, makes a Creole specialty that is traditionally served on Holy Thursday (last chance to eat meat until Easter); it is called "gumbo aux herbes" or something like that. It is a yum and a half. Very intense flavors.
In between the recipe instructions, many of the chefs spoke about the recovery efforts in New Orleans. One of the chefs had reopened his restaurant on Friday; another opened a few months ago, but most of his staff lost everything. Leah Chase made a few little comments about "when you get to your trailer to cook..." Those trailer comments always brought a response of laughter. So many people are still waiting for trailers to live in.
Anyway, we were there with about a thousand other people, watching chef after chef do his or her magic on the stage.
Among the thousand viewers was my brother, with his wife. We just learned that my brother will be promoted to a full Colonel in the Marines (he is now in the Reserves). It is gratifying that the Marine Corps recognizes the talent, intelligence, vision, etc. that run in our family!!

self-storage

Well, last night the term "self storage" almost took on a new meaning...

Three of us were helping our sister Jane move furniture out of her house so she can get a new roof. Jane had found a new self-storage place nearby that offered free use of a large truck, and we were trying to get the job done before the truck turned into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight. But Mary was at her house, stirring a fresh pot of gumbo, expecting to feed all of us, plus Mom and Dad (who were still at home). So about quarter to seven (gumbo time) I went to pick up Mom and Dad, drop them off at Mary's and then meet the others at the storage place to help unload the truck and get Jane's possessions in place. Well, I found the address, and sure enough, there was Jane behind an electric gate. But the code she gave me didn't work to open the gate. After a few tries, she dismissed me to go have some gumbo.

By 8:45, the truck crew had still not arrived at Mary's. Then a call came in. It was Jane. The gate wouldn't let them out any more than it had let me in. Mary ran to her computer and googled the company name, got to their website, and found a few phone numbers. She also found that the gates "no longer function after 7:00 p.m." (Great.) Mary called Jane while I called the company. "Hello, yes, my family members are trapped behind the gate of your Metairie storage building. Yes, that's right. My family members are trapped behind the gate..." Thank goodness it was a live person who answered the phone! She gave me a code that would override the time-lock, and Mary gave it to Jane. The sweet sound of victory!

But Jane, Nell, Thomas and a helpful truck-driving neighbor almost did a "self-storage" on themselves last night!

Called

I like Mark's comment in today's Gospel that Jesus called the Twelve "that they might be with him, and he might send them out." Sounds contradictory--to "be with" and to be "sent out" at the same time, but it is utterly essential for mission. In a way, it confirms the message our Founder (and so many others) received from the Lord: "I am with you."

Mardi Gras Spirit

Mardi Gras Spirit

It's not just the purple, green and gold streamers--this trailer is also strung with lights in the traditional colors.

Mardi Gras Jesus

Today's Gospel shows Jesus "withdrawing" to the sea, followed by a "large crowd." A few verses later, it shows even more crowds pressing in on Jesus to touch him, because they wanted to be healed. The scene reminded me very much of my childhood experiences of Mardi Gras parades, with the crowds pressing in on the floats (and my Mom anxiously calling out to us, "Get away from the floats! You're going to be pushed underneath the wheels!") and the outstretched arms, all reaching upwards: "Throw me something, mister!"

No wonder Jesus told the demons not to say who he was. Everyone would just keep coming to him as if he were a Mardi Gras masker with bags and boxes of trinkets to toss to the crowds. Instead, Jesus wanted us to know what his grace really consisted of. The way St. Paul put it, "the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me." And Jesus would say to us, as he did to the scribe (after the parable of the Good Samaritan), "Go and do likewise."

Just to say it

I was really offended by New Orleans Mayor Nagin's speech for yesterday's Martin Luther King Day observances. It certainly warranted the apology he made today.

 

So far, I only saw the Orleans Parish damage in the Carrollton/Claiborne area (going to my brother's house for a Sunday lunch). (Yes, we ate outside; at least I did with my Dad and my other brother's teenagers, who told me about their high school adventures in Houston.)

On the way there, I had seen houses that were ramshackle to begin with now painted with water marks seven or so inches wide, a watery thatch of debris indicating where sea level really is in that part of town. One old wooden house, nearer to St. Charles Ave, had already been cranked up to allow heavy concrete posts to be poured. The house now rests on those posts, six or seven feet above the street. It is missing quite a few boards, and will take more than a little rebuilding, but when the work is done, that one house will have the coveted "high and dry" designation.

 

A house in Metairie, near St. Ann's Church, is being built on a slab that is at least two feet off the ground.(I am assuming the former house on the lot had been bought as a tear-down.) That area is prone to floods in normal seasons. St. Ann's rectory and school were flooded (and the rectory and parish office still have blue roofs), but the church was relatively unscathed--until someone drove a car through the plate-glass wall. "Guess he was mad at God," one of the priests commented calmly.

 

I've been helping in the book center since coming here; the sisters are extremely short-handed right now. In the afternoons, I help my parents. I found that the workmen had left all their major electronics, including a massive television set, in the house while they tore down and rebuilt walls. The computer keyboard looked like it had been dipped in damp powdered sugar, and the monitor was coated with dust so fine I was afraid even to let my parents try to reuse it for fear it would start smoldering. (Thanks be to God, someone had the insight to keep the CPU in the car! I mean, I guess it's safe enough. Heat would be the only risk there.)

 

Another note, and here I didn't even mean to go on like this! This is a great place, or will be, for out-of-work piano tuners. All the piano tuners in town have waiting lists. And if you can find a place to live, you can even make a decent wage at a fast food place. Wendy's is offering something like $9.00 an hour, with a weekly bonus of $150-200. Lots of job openings in retail and service. The only problem is housing. (Although... a new FEMA trailer appeared on my sister's block today.)

Dad's hat rack

Dad's hat rack

dangers on the road

Well, walking to my mom's house today to meet with her and Dad to go to Mass, I felt a sudden twinge in my right toe area. YOWCH! I said. My sister Jane, power walking a few strides ahead, turned to ask what it was. I was already pulling a nail out of the front part of my sneaker sole. Let's just say it was not a nice new nail. "Now you have to get a tetanus shot," Jane cheerily informed me. "They were giving them out for free." (Just what I always wanted, I for whom "free" is such a welcome word.) It wasn't a BIG puncture wound (the toe is small!), but it did draw blood. Dad suggested asking my sister Mary (the nurse) about the shot, but Mary has the flu. So tomorrow (Martin Luther King Day; will the public places be open?) I will have to do some research and get me a tetanus shot.

I thought mold would be the problem.

This is news?

An actual headline from the newspaper: "You might be awake, but your brain isn't."

Honest! It seems that researchers put time and money into a study of "post-sleep 'brain fog' " (also known as "sleep inertia"). Results were published in "The Journal of the American Medical Association."

Can't they study something people don't already know?

Live from New Orleans

Well, it's really Metairie right now--the western suburb that was largely "spared" (the word is relative, believe me) by Katrina, since the nearby levee broke to the east. As you will see in future posts, Metairie had a lot of damage, including some from possible tornado activity. (My sister showed me where strips of metal that lined the inside of her carport were torn away; she found them wrapped around the brick posts of the carport.) There are trailers all over the place, including the one Jane lives in, and heavy white or black sewer pipes run from across the lawns from each trailer. New trailers were delivered to the neighborhood today, but one of the homes that received a trailer was just completed, and is ready to move into, while in other parts of the city, people (including the Sisters of the Holy Family) are living in hotel rooms because their areas don't have the infrastructure to allow the trailers to be hooked up to electricity and sewer lines.

As I said, I've only seen Metairie so far. As I took a walk to Jane's house and then to St. Ann's this morning for Mass, I saw so many bloggable things that if I wrote about all of them, this would be the Worlds Longest Blog Post. I even took notes on my boarding pass from my flight here (found it in my jacket pocket; needed the jacket today--it was below 60 now and then).

When you walk down the suburban streets around the Pauline book center, many of the little signs of life are missing. Things like curtains, for instance. As you pass by a home, a glance in the window reveals the whole interior, stripped of everything but the two-by-fours. (Mom and Dad have walls now, though-and they're painted!) You may see the occasional Christmas decoration, but you're still more likely to find those delightfully flamboyant Mardi Gras decorations. (This is the season, after all.) Some houses, positioned a critical six inches or so higher than the neighbors, escaped flood damage, but have blue tarp roofs covering wind damage, or else they are already topped with a crew of six or eight workmen, their hammers joining the sounds of saws ripping through plywood or chainsaws turning enormous fallen pine trees into fragrant piles of thick disks. (Thank heavens the winter climate is so mild, averaging 70 degrees in January, so that the work can go on--and it does go on.)

The local greetings ("Where yat?" or "How's ya mom'n'em?") have been replaced "You got walls yet?" or "How much did your insurance give you?"

My brother is hosting a family gathering at his house (not far from Tulane and Loyola); I'll probably see some of the devastation of the mid-city district tomorrow.

Sunny New Orleans

Sunny New Orleans

Ah...the kind of day when the blue sky and the blue rooftops seem to blend together.
No time to write more at the moment.

Eminent Guest

I couldn't blog yesterday--too busy cooking for a special guest. Cardinal George stayed almost three hours, just for a visit. After Evening Prayer, we all enjoyed the stimulating conversation on the mission of the Church while we had supper. (The menu was Caesar salad, followed by mushroom risotto, salmon that had been marinated in white wine and soy sauce, with garlic, onion, and lemon peel, and a bag of mixed salad greens, sauteed with onion. Dessert was carrot souffle.)
Now I'm off to Nola.

Maman's Mirliton Casserole

A while ago the community went shopping together at a market in one of the predominantly Hispanic areas. The place had a phenomenal selection of produce, and equally amazing prices. Among the items we purchased were some mirlitons, which I had never seen outside of New Orleans. They got lost in the vegetable bin, and by the time they surfaced last week, one was too far gone to think about, but the others... well, made me think of Maman's casserole, a Thanksgiving staple. So I set myself to reproducing that experience. With the help of the internet, of course! (I googled "mirliton casserole" and found that there were several options!) I also learned that another name for mirliton is "chayote squash." And that if it is Mexican or old, you have to peel it. Since mine was probably one and definitely the other, that's what I did to start.

Then I boiled the mirliton. As they cooled, I browned some ground beef with bacon, drained away the grease (yuk) and put it aside. Then I chopped a small onion, very fine, and two ribs of celery (very old and flexible) and about a quarter of a red pepper--again, very, very fine. With some oil in a pot, I first browned some chopped garlic, and then added the other veggies. When these were getting soft, I added the mirliton, after having cut out its seed and chopped its pale green flesh. A little simmer, and then I added the meat, and let these all cook together. After a while, I added Italian-style bread crumbs and an egg, as if I were making a meat loaf, and I molded it into a casserole dish, to bake at 350 until it seemed done.

And you know what? It smelled exactly like Maman's! (I think she must have used the same brand of bread crumbs...)

Battle of New Orleans

In these powerful liturgical times, I can lose track of calendar dates. Only last night, as I was noting the date in my journal, did I realize that yesterday was January 8, the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, and (I believe) a state holiday in Louisiana. This was when Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the last battle of the War of 1812 (which had already been resolved by a peace treaty, but the news was still on the other side of the Atlantic). The battleground was in Chalmette, in St. Bernard's Parish, one of the areas most devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Back then, too, weather, climate and water played a huge role in routing the redcoats...

Sunday rest

I have decided to extend my Sunday day of rest to my blog. I find that once I turn the computer on, there are so many other things to do for me that I can get too wrapped up in activity (quite the opposite of the spirit of the day). So it is better for me to avoid the near occasion! So I intend this to be my last Sunday blog. If you should come later and find I was not too faithful to this intention, well.... pray for me! Perhaps I just had something I had to communicate! (With my upcoming trip to New Orleans, it is possible that I will need to use my blog just to "sfogarmi," as the Italians say--get something off my chest.)

Happy Epiphany! Go out there and manifest the Lord's presence to the next person you encounter!

Cana

Today's Gospel gives us the story of the miracle at the wedding feast. Michael Card has a nice song (he does great lyrics) with a line about this to the effect that Jesus was thinking of his own wedding--to us, his Church!

I've been thinking, after a conversation (by phone and e-mail) with Sr. Bernadette, about the jars of water. All God needs is six jars of water, and he can work a transformation. We can be those jars of water; I pray to be such a jar of water to effect the transformations I pray for in the circumstances that surround me, in the situations in society that are crying out for intervention, in the terrible lack of peace on earth that seems to be the hallmark of Satan's action.

Speaking with someone else recently, I was told that there is a branch or line of fundamentalist biblical interpretation that believes that Christians are (get this) actually to foment war, to bring about Armageddon. As if we needed to invent sources of conflict, or have first recourse to violence, in order to force God's hand and "make" Jesus come again! Has anyone else ever come across this kind of thinking? It certainly seems to be the way our government is operating--which would make me long for a genuinely secular government, directed by an authentic humanism!

So to be instruments of God's peace, even if we are only jars of water...

12th Day of Christmas

Let the King Cake parties begin! Of course, I don't know how many King Cakes they 'll be making in New Orleans this year. I may find out soon, because I will be going to New Orleans next week! My major superior gave me permission to spend a little time closer to my family, able to visit, help (help our local convent, too) and also (God willing) find some sunshine after so many weeks of winter darkness in Chicago.
The picture is one I took this evening of the Christmas tree in Daley Plaza, reflected in the courthouse. I thought it was fitting for this 12th day of Christmas.

"Follow Me"

They have to be the most important words in the Gospel: "Follow Me." I say this because today's Gospel reading (from John 1) has Jesus saying these words to Philip, and then the end of the Gospel of John shows Jesus giving the same invitation/command to Peter. So it is the call that frames the entire Gospel of John. And the same two words pepper the Gospel of Matthew (and again, Peter gets signaled out for special notice--the "get behind me, Satan" is really "follow me, Satan"). Anyway, what could be more important? If we "follow" Jesus, then he is "ever in my sight," "my eyes are always fixed on the Lord," and he can "guide me in the truth and teach me." He "will show me the path of life, fullness of joy in his presence, the delights at his right hand forever."

What else do we want?

And if these gifts of grace are verified in our life, then we become "instruments of peace," mediating the same invitation to others.

"Follow Me" could be the two words that can change the world!

wish

I wish my sister Mary would keep a blog. She is a terrific writer, and one of the funniest people on two feet. Her blog would be something along the order of a southern Erma Bombeck (for those of you old enough to remember that warm and witty writer). Tempted, Mary? Hmmmm? You could start with the story of the blood donor cat...

the mission of St. Andrew

Today's Gospel has that rather poignant scene of John the Baptist pointing out the Lamb of God to his own disciples, two of whom then leave and become disciples of Jesus. ("He must increase, I must decrease.") And then Andrew, in his turn, goes out to his brother, and brings him to Jesus. What a marvelous confluence of missions, all converging on Jesus!

When I first entered the Daughters of St. Paul, our chapel in Boston featured life-sized frescoes with idealized depictions of our life and mission. In the sanctuary, there was a painting of two sisters kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, and a caption (in the words of the Founder), "One love: Jesus Christ. One burning desire: to give him to souls." I think the same kind of ardor is manifest in today's Gospel story in John the Baptist and Andrew the apostle.

seeking God's will

It just sort of hit me today that I may be failing to really seek the will of God as it comes to us in the many threads of daily life. I mean, in religious life, one of the more obvious ways God's will is mediated is through our superiors, but they don't hold a monopoly on this by any means. We are all responsible for discerning the will of God, and sometimes we are responsible also for bringing things to the attention of the superiors--which we can't do very well if we're not listening properly. God's will is also mediated through the community itself, and in a particular way through the community's praying with the Word of God. That is just the point I was reflecting on: if we only reflect together in a pious way on the Bible, or the Scripture readings for the day's liturgy (a laudable thing!), we may not be able to "hear" God's direction to us for the hear and now. We may find some lovely and inspiring things, but we'd really have to work to fit them into the needs and questions of the day.

Then I remembered what Pope John Paul II wrote in one of his last books, the one about his ministry as a Bishop. He said that when they had situations that needed to be worked on, the group would ask (no doubt, it was he who raised the question), "Which Scripture passages shed light on this question?" And they would go to the Word of God for that light. The daily liturgical readings gave them the familiarity with the Bible that they needed, but it wasn't that the day's readings were assumed to have some immediate application. Instead, it was a matter of seeking the will of God in the Scriptures by going to the Scriptures with a question or predicament!

I think I could really benefit from this approach.

resolutions

For a few years now, I have shied away from making New Year's Resolutions. I have so many "things to do" anyway, so many commitments, and my concept of resolutions tended only to burden me even more. (It must be my obsessive-compulsive side.) So I made a resolution: no more resolutions! But this year, I feel the need to make one or two moves in that direction. Because by not burdening myself with resolutions to, say, be more organized... I ended up doubly burdened by the massive pile of things to do. Since I had no set discipline for my way of addressing these things, everything became a demand on my time and attention: right now! So I am formulating a resolution, after a long absence from the practice, to come up with some sort of discipline for my time that will take my "things to do" list and keep it from dominating my mind.

Do you make New Year's resolutions? What kind?