Visitation

Today's Feast of the Visitation was a favorite of Bl. James Alberione. He saw it as the "defining" feastday of Mary, showcasing her essential mission throughout time: to bring Jesus to a waiting world.
The feastday itself is not limited to Mary's "arrival" at the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth: it is the feast of her entire stay with them, a time when blessings radiated from the unborn Christ and the Holy Spirit caused somersaults of joy in his precursor, leading his mother to prophesy and Mary to "proclaim the greatness of the Lord" for all generations.
Some fruits we could gather from today's celebration might be:

• to recognize and confess the hidden presence of the Lord in our life
• to give ourselves, like Mary, to God's praise
• to renew our commitment to evangelization, according to the possibilities offered in our daily life.

TOB

Just in time for next week's Theology of the Body online study group session, the Pontifical Council for the Laity has launched a new website with resources on the role of women, with the goal of fostering an intelligent and informed international conversation.
So read up! And mark your calendars for next Wednesday's live video TOB session, 7:30 Eastern Time. If you're in Chicago, come join us in person at 6:30!

World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests

Here's the prayer proposed by the Vatican for the day:

Lord Jesus, present in the Most Blessed Sacrament,
and living perpetually among us through Your Priests,
grant that the words of Your Priests may be only Your words,
that their gestures be only Your gestures,
and that their lives be a true reflection of Your life.

Grant that they may be men who speak to God on behalf of His people,
and speak to His people of God.
Grant that they be courageous in service,
serving the Church as she asks to be served.

Grant that they may be men who witness to eternity in our time,
travelling on the paths of history in Your steps,
and doing good for all.

Grant that they may be faithful to their commitments,
zealous in their vocation and mission,
clear mirrors of their own identity,
and living the joy of the gift they have received.

We pray that Your Holy Mother, Mary,
present throughout Your life,
may be ever present in the life of Your Priests. Amen

But now I see

You really have to love Bartimaeus, the irrepressible blind beggar in today's Gospel story. Nobody could shush him up. "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!" Over and over and over, until Jesus himself took notice. But Jesus didn't call Bartimaeus over: he gave the order to others, "Call him." And when Bartimaeus did come, the cloak of his old life cast aside like something he would no longer need, Jesus asked him, "What do you want me to do for you?"
Wasn't it obvious?
It must have been important to Jesus that Bartimaeus be allowed to speak for himself (something the man clearly had no problem with!).
I love that even though Jesus used the language of a servant with the beggar ("What do you want me to do for you?"), Bartimaeus did not give Jesus a command like "Give me my eyesight" or "Fix my eyes." He just said, "I want to see."
"By their fruits you shall know them." Bartimaeus got his sight--and how! He "began to follow Jesus on the way." Blessed are the eyes that see what you see, Bartimaeus!

This is GOOD news?

Today's readings pretty much sum up the paradox that we call the "good news." In the Gospel, Jesus is saying (among other things), "the Son of Man [Jesus himself] ... will be condemned to death, handed over, mocked, spit on, scourged and killed." And "whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant...and the slave of all."
It's not only in the Gospel of Mark that we find this sort of language: John saves it for the Last Supper, when Jesus acts the part of a slave, washing the disciples' feet while explicitly emphasizing that he is doing this as their "Master and Lord." And St. Paul, too, consistently referred to himself with terms like "servant" and "slave."
I strongly suspect that the disciples (whether of Jesus, John or Paul) did not especially like where all this talk was going. It's the opposite of our expectations--as today's Gospel also makes clear: "Rulers among the Gentiles lord it over them and make their position felt." That's exactly what James and John were looking for when they asked for places at Jesus' right and left in the kingdom. They got what they were asking, even though they didn't know what they were really asking for.
All that Jesus was doing was to undo the primordial sin and every sin since then, all originating in the will to a misbegotten form of greatness.

the works

Well, I dropped Mother General and her translator off at the airport (after a weekend that saw me working hard to revive my Italian!), and now I am working on...deadlines! But today's readings from the Mass have such an interesting connection, I couldn't resist sharing it.
In both, we hear the voice of Peter. The first reading is from the First Letter of Peter. It's advice for a beleaguered Christian community (or, more likely, a little chain of communities). Among other things, Peter encourages them "set your hopes completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
In the Gospel, Peter is asking what he can hope for after leaving "everything" to follow Jesus.
In both instances, then, there is the sense of risking everything for the sake of Jesus: putting all one's hopes on the person of Jesus himself, so that if it were possible for Jesus to fail, the person would truly have nothing, nothing, nothing. I was reminded of venerable old Simeon from the Gospel of Luke: he hoped for nothing but "the consolation of Israel," and had been promised that he would not die before seeing the Messiah. That's why he could recognize the 40-day old Jesus as "the light of revelation to the nations." I can just imagine Peter, too, at the end of his long life, saying his "Nunc dimittis": "Now, Lord, you can dismiss your servant in peace; you have fulfilled your word."

Africa Day

May 25 is Africa Day, commemorating the establishment of the Organization for African Unity. One of the General Councilors who was with us this week spent over 20 years in East Africa (mostly Kenya, but also some time in Uganda and Nigeria), and she was updating us on this travailed "Continent of Hope" (as Pope John Paul called it). Evidently, things are still quite unsettled in Kenya, not so much in Nairobi as in the villages.
All in all, a good day to pray for the people of Africa and for all those who work for them and with them.

Welcoming the Kingdom

Today's Gospel is the oft-cited "let the little children come to me." I was struck by the likewise oft-cited "whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it." Usually, homilies focus on what it means to be "like a child," but I found myself more interested in the word "accept." What does it mean to "accept" the Kingdom of God? What does it mean to "enter" the Kingdom of God? It seems that by accepting the Kingdom, receiving it, taking it in, we enter in--we are taken into the Kingdom. It is sort of like receiving the Eucharist: we receive the Eucharist, taking the Host into ourselves, but it is we who are assimilated to the Eucharistic Christ, and not the other way around. Interestingly, Jesus in the Gospel says that this is related to being "like a child," whereas Augustine portrays the Eucharistic Christ as saying, "I am the food of grown men."

I'll be back

Canon Law calls for an official visitation of religious communities on a regular basis. This is to help renew the members in spirituality and in the mission, to communicate priorities on a more personal basis, and to allow the major superiors (those on the national and international levels) to get to know the concrete situations in which the sisters are living and the people they are serving.

So that's what we're involved in this week. It doesn't leave much time for blogging, twittering, or even taking those wonderful walks in the park! 

Please keep us in prayer. I'll be back...when I can!

Taking wing

Today's Psalm expresses a deep human intuition and at the same time, a loss and frustration: "If only I had the wings of a dove, I would fly away and be at rest." It is as if deep down, we knew that we were supposed to have wings; we were supposed to fly: Where are our wings? 

It's easy enough to want wings to just "fly away and be at rest far away" as the Psalm says, but this is not mere escapism. The Psalmist isn't just flying away; this is a flying "towards": "I would wait for him who saves me."

Him-who-saves-me might as well be another name for Jesus. And today's feast of St. Bernardine of Siena is in its own way a feast of the Name of Jesus. Wherever Bernardine (15th century Franciscan, not a Jesuit, despite his devotion to the Holy Name!) would preach, people would create signs and paint frescoes with the abbreviation IHS (the Greek of J-E-S). And Bernardine would preach the "only name under heaven by which we are saved."

That custom of plastering the city with Jesus monograms also makes Bernardine the patron of advertisers...

CSI: Convent

Sr. Laura remembered that as our Saturday afternoon thief was strolling toward the exit, he suddenly jerked with surprise, made a little "huh?" sound and then shrugged. He must have seen our security cameras. They saw him, too. Here he is making his way through the book center. The whole process took less than 15 minutes.

Here at Pauline, we are praying for the conversion of the man who made his way into our convent and walked away with the proceeds of a bookfair. Talk about stress! That was Saturday, shortly after my St. Paul talk. On one level, a lot of things went wrong on Saturday: not only the theft, but also the recording of my talk--somehow the setting was changed on the recorder, and there was no pick-up from the microphone I had so carefully clipped on. Something else distressing happened, too, which I am glad not to remember. All in all it was one of those days for which today's Gospel prayer is just perfect (and I am using my rosary beads to repeat it over and over): Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!

Erin and Ronnie

Congratulations to the newlyweds! So far, all I have is this cell-phone picture from last night... I hope more are coming!

The cost of non-discipleship

You know those "helpful" little summaries you often find at the beginning of a Bible passage? "The Question of Baptism"; "Bread of Life Discourse" and so on? Well, the Gospel today usually appears in Bibles with a header inspired by Bonhoeffer: "The Cost of Discipleship." And it is that: "If you want to be my disciple, take up your cross." But the passage could just as easily be headed "The Cost of non-discipleship." After all, "the one who seeks his life will lose it.... what profit does anyone show who gains the whole world but loses his own life?" It's a good commentary on yesterday's harsh "Get behind me, Satan!" directed to Peter: Follow me! 

Yesterday's Lost Post: Knock-knock

Today's Gospel reminded me in an odd way of the typical knock-knock joke. "Knock, Knock. Who's there?" It seems to resolve with the first answer: "Tennis." But that first answer is incomplete or even misleading. "Tennis Who?" "Tennessee!"

Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do people say I am?" And then, "what about you?" 

When we hear Peter answer for the disciples that Jesus is "the Christ of God," you would think the story would end there. But Jesus, in effect, tells them that they've only gotten half-way. "The Son of Man is going to be handed over and killed..."

Today people are rather free in giving their opinions about who Jesus is. Ancient holy man. Jewish peasant who didn't mean for any of this history-changing stuff to happen. Prophet. Myth. Bohddisatva, even. It's just as challenging now as it was 2,000 years ago to accept the folly of the cross, and to accept what being "the Christ" really means, because (as Peter intuited when he tried to talk that folly out of Jesus) it means accepting our own "share in the sufferings of Christ and the glory to be revealed" (1 Peter 

Attention, migraine sufferers!

You've ingested Imitrex. You've tested Topamax. You've relied on Relpax.
These prescription medicines usually do mitigate your migraines, but they have scary side effects, and cost, on average, $20 a pop.
Have I got a cure for you.
At the first sign of a migraine, go to your nearest Chipotle restaurant. Order a steak burrito with everything on it. Eat at least half of that enormous burrito.
Placebo or no placebo, the $5.95 burrito beats the $20 pill just about every time.
And it tastes better, too.

In lieu of grateful accolades, you may send me Chipotle gift cards.

Going places

Today is the anniversary of my Confirmation. Appropriately enough, it is also the feast of St. Matthias, the fill-in apostle who was added to the "Eleven" after the Resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel for the feast day is that beautiful Last Supper passage, "You did not choose me, I chose you..." But that same Gospel passage seems to present us with mutually exclusive directions. On the one hand, the mystical, contemplative, "Remain." And on the other, "GO and bear fruit that will last."
So what do we do: stay or go?
The clue is in one tiny word: "in." "Remain in my love." If we remain/abide/dwell (all possible translations of John's Greek) IN Christ's love, we can come and go and at the same time, never leave our true home! And for the mission of evangelization, it is vital that we "remain" all the time, because "apart from me you can do nothing."
Today's Gospel tells us that if we see a contradiction between contemplation and mission, we don't really understand either one.

TOB tonight!

Our Theology of the Body study group meets tonight: in Chicago, if you're here, and streaming online if you're not. Discussion starts at 6:30 Central Time; Father Thomas Loya will give a presentation at 7:00 (again, Central Time!!!).
Read Sr. Helena's notes from last month, especially if you didn't have time to read Pope John Paul's original... (Man and Woman He Created Them, just the talks, not the intro, up to page 178.)

(Slightly) Belated Kudos

Yesterday's Tribune offered an enthusiastic review of the concert Friday night by the William Ferris Chorale at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church. As the reviewer noted, "Small musical organizations depend on a charismatic and creative guide." And in just three years (and seven years after the sudden death of the Chorale's founder), "conductor Paul French['s] ...guidance has paid off handsomely."
Hearty congratulations, Paul and Chorale (and you, too, "Gary").

New Faces on the Street

After almost seven years in Chicago, I know who the "regulars" with their paper cups held out for spare change. But lately I have seen some new people--people so new that they don't even know about the paper cup approach. One is a forty-something man, an almost burly type, pushing a little boy in a cheap stroller and almost whispering, "Can you help out a little bit?" Then there is the woman on a corner. She still has an ID badge hanging around her neck. "A little help, please?" And on another corner, a man in one of those industrial-type electric scooters. This one does have a paper cup, but it is held between two toes. He can't reach high enough to shake it in anyone's face, so he just sits there with his outstretched left leg, and the paper cup dangling from his foot.
These are only a few of the people who had been making it, just barely, until now. Even if the newspapers didn't tell me that there was something unfortunate going on in people's lives across the nation, my daily walk to St. Peter's would have made it perfectly clear.

Looking out for leaven

Today's Gospel has an interesting sort of correlation both with the feast of Our Lady of Fatima and with the message of Pope Benedict's visit here just a few weeks ago. In the Gospel, shortly after multiplying loaves to feed hungry (and immense) crowds, Jesus warned his disciples about "the yeast" of the Pharisees and of Herod. Two different kinds, evidently. Of course, the word "yeast" (or "leaven") made the hungry disciples think about the bread they did not have in the boat with them. This did not go over well with Jesus. But what was he getting at?
I remember the "friendship bread" craze years ago. You needed the "starter" in order to make a delightful coffee cake. Butyou never knew when that bubbling beige mass was going to end up bursting out of its zip-locked prison. There is a good "ferment" we need for the spread of the Gospel. It is the leaven of the Holy Spirit. Pope Benedict (speaking to the US bishops) connected the leaven that is effective Christian mission to the "state of the family in society" and activities "in harmony with the Church's teachings on today's key ethical questions."
But leaven/yeast/fermenting can also lead to a kind of infective influence. Perhaps the "leaven" of the Pharisees was religious observance turned inward, corrupted and corrupting: religious observance for its own sake. The leaven of Herod was something else again: this could be thoughtless identification with power and pleasure. In either case, a means has been turned into an end, and the true "end" has been lost from view. Pope Benedict also warned us in particular about these two leavens in society. Here in the US, we are particularly vulnerable to a religious devotion that is allowed to flourish as long as it doesn't interfere with consumer interests or impose its values on the wider world. But "imposing on the wider world" is exactly what leaven does!
The disciples with Jesus did not see or understand what Jesus was doing and what it meant, but those three children at Fatima did see and hear and understand, and they remained uncorrupted by the Pharisees' leaven of sterile religiosity and Herod's leaven of self-adoration. They brought their message to the world and declared it not just with verbal boldness, but at the cost of personal sacrifice that would be impressive in an adult. And so, almost 100 years later, their message still comes to us with the kind of power that can leaven our world.

Midnight Fright

Okay, it wasn't really midnight, but it was close enough to count. A high-pitched tone sounding across our fourth floor (our "dorm" area) meant that something or someone had tripped the burglar alarm. Yikes! I sprinted from my bed toward the alarm panel. "1st Fl Foyer GB" it informed us (three of us arrived simultaneously). "1st Fl Foyer" we understood, but GB? I called 911, and then answered the alarm company's call. The police were on their way. Who would go down with me? Sr. Laura shrunk back a little, so Sr. Helena stepped to the plate. But first she went to our Michigan Avenue window to see if there was anything going on in front of the book center. Nothing. Well, there was a crew doing a power-cleaning of the sidewalk, but other than that, people were walking by placidly...
Sure enough, it had been the powerful blast of water that shook the entranceway and set the alarm off. And no, it wouldn't count as a "false alarm" ($100 a pop for those). And yes, when Sr. Mary Thecla calls the city about dirty sidewalks, she gets action.
Maybe a little too much action!

Driven to Distraction?

Fr. Sprott's offering in this month's bulletin from St. Peter's offers some sage advice from both Merton and our local Franciscan about what steps you can take to provide for your spiritual life.

Prayer for China

Religious communities got a special request and reminder from the Holy See (Congregation for the Evangelization of the Peoples) that the Pope has made May 24 a "World Day of Prayer for the Church in China." The day was chosen because it is the special feast of Our Lady in the shrine of Sheshan in Shanghai.

This year, the first year in which the World Day is to be observed, the day of prayer falls within a week of a terrible earthquake in Central China. Maybe the government will let up on its efforts to restrict traffic to the pilgrimage site in Shanghai and prevent groups from carrying out planned pilgrimages.

Meanwhile, nothing is stopping us from setting this day apart in a particular way to bring the power of prayer to bear on all the painful situations the Chinese Church is facing.

Nothing Ordinary

Back to "Ordinary Time." The Angelus takes over from the Regina Coeli, and we have our two-year cycle of daily Mass readings instead of the day by day uniqueness of the Easter season.
I found a great thought from Pope John Paul for this day after Pentecost:
"While it is an historical fact that the Church came forth from the Upper Room on the day of Pentecost, in a certain sense one can say that she has never left it. Spiritually the event of Pentecost does not belong only to the past: the Church is always in the Upper Room that she bears in her heart" (Encyclical on the Holy Spirit, n. 66).

There's a Reason

A comment on my post about the woes of recording my St. Paul talks reminded me about my years in door-to-door book ministry. We used to leave a little prayer card (usually an array of inspirational leaflets) with every person we met. One of the favorites was a comforting little poem entitled "There's a Reason." Having looked at it hundreds (thousands) of times, I memorized at least the opening verse: "For every sorrow we must bear, for every burden, every care, there's a reason."
I don't yet know the "reason" I haven't gotten a full-length recording of a single talk yet, but we did have a little experience in community this week of things seemingly going awry and working out for good. It sure didn't look that way earlier this week when Sr. Helena's review of Ironman was lost somewhere in cyberspace and didn't make the Catholic New World deadline. So her review of another movie was published instead. The Life Before Her Eyes isn't getting much attention in the entertainment pages. But today Sr. Helena said she's glad, glad, glad that the review of the blockbuster missed the deadline, because now a movie that she really hoped people would pay attention to will get...a little more attention.
There's a reason.

I was reflecting that at Pentecost, it's easy to focus so much on the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the apostles, that we (or at least I) forget that they still had their human weaknesses to contend with. When I lose sight of that, I get a little extra discouraged over my own spiritual cluelessness... As usual, St. Peter is the one who puts things in a different light. The Holy Spirit did come upon him so strongly that the cowering man who "did not know" Jesus was breaking the door down to go into the middle of city and proclaim Jesus as the Lord. But down the road a piece, Peter waffled when some of the Jerusalem community reproached him over the way Gentiles were being admitted to the Church. And even the "Quo Vadis" legend hints that Peter was a little too ready to flee imminent martyrdom in Rome.
The Holy Spirit didn't just come and go in Peter's life: the Spirit came for a purpose, the preaching of the Gospel. Peter's human weakness was still there, underlining the fact that "the surpassing power is from God and not from us."

Is this really happening?

My second St. Paul talk went very well this morning, at least for the audience. The recording, intended to reach untold thousands of others, ended abruptly when the recorder memory maxed out.
Last week's talk, also intended for the vast public beyond the confines of Chicago, was "recorded," too. Except it turns out that the pause button was on the whole time.
So I get to try again!
There's still one more talk (next Saturday). We're going to try to (don't laugh too hard) record it!
Let's see what happens.

Birds in the Hand

Today's the day for all you New Jerseyites to take your binoculars and join the "World Series of Birding," a 24-hour, all-you-can-name extravaganza. How many species can you find and identify in one day?

Today's Gospel is that touching story of the Risen Jesus asking Peter "Do you love me?" Three times. As in Peter's "before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times." As is "I do not know the man!"
Jesus didn't ask the same question three times. Two times, he asked Peter, "Do you agape-love me?" And Peter said, "I philo-love you." So the third time, Jesus said, "Do you philo-love me?"
That hurt.
But Peter just said, "You know everything. You know how I love you." Because now Peter is "in Christ"; all his thoughts were completely open to "the one who searches hearts." As Paul would later write to the Corinthians, "We are in your hearts, to live together and to die together."
Jesus in effect said that by the end of Peter's life, that friendly affection of Peter's would be transformed into self-giving sacrificial love, and he encouraged Peter to take that road by telling him, "Follow me."
Today would be a good day to read the First Letter of Peter in your Bible. Notice how many times Peter keeps going back to the theme of the sufferings of the Messiah, Jesus. He was following that Jesus by constantly meditating on the Lord's death and resurrection. (Tradition has it that Peter never stopped weeping over his part in the Lord's suffering; the old vestment called a "maniple," a kind of hanging armband, represented the handkerchief with which Peter kept drying his eyes.)
"Follow me."

Take courage

My post this morning was incomplete (brain lapse). I wanted to also mention a side of Paul that we don't usually associate with his personality at all, but that comes out at least twice in Acts, and that you can read between the lines in some of his letters: Paul's fear. When he arrived in Corinth, the ancient world's city of sin ("What happens in Corinth, stays in Corinth"), the Lord appeared to him in a vision, telling him "Do not be afraid; keep preaching. There are many of my people in this city." And in today's reading, with Paul in Roman custody, the Lord tells him "Take courage! You are going to bear witness to me in Rome" (a city Paul had been hoping to get to). This makes the Responsorial Psalm for the day all the more fitting (it's one of my favs anyway): "Keep me safe, O God, you are my hope."

Yesterday's first reading had Paul boarding a ship for Palestine, "knowing that chains and hardship await" (and the people on shore crying their eyes out at the realization that they would never see his face again). In today's reading, Paul is already in custody. We'll see Paul deal with those chains with grace and humor: to King Agrippa he would testify, "I wish that everyone could be as I am...but without these chains."

The whole truth

Today's gospel includes a prayer of Jesus on our behalf: "Consecrate them in the truth."
What a great prayer! To be "consecrated/sanctified/set apart" in the truth, the whole truth (and nothing but the truth!)... to live from the standpoint of how things really are in the sight of God.
That's my prayer today.

the secret of life

Today's Gospel is from the "Priestly Prayer" of Jesus (John 17, the whole chapter). In it, we learn the secret of life: "to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you have sent, Jesus Christ."
But that's got to be the intimate, personal kind of "knowing," not just the abstract, intellectual kind. Our Founder recommended using a simple "method" to help make sure that prayer and meditation on the Word of God led to the right kind of "knowing God." Using the mnemonic Way, Truth, Life (from John 14:6), he suggested starting out with the TRUTH that the Word offers for our mind, but only long enough to recognize or articulate it. Then let that truth address your "WAY" of living and following Jesus. Do your choices, does your way of living, reflect the reality of that truth? Because in Jesus, "truth" is for living; it is for discipleship, not just for the mind. Choose a practical expression of that truth for the day, and then turn to Jesus who is the source of LIFE with gratitude for the light you have received, with praise for the goodness of God revealed in the word of truth you have encountered, and asking the grace and strength that your way of life will be transformed...

I'll be there...

God willing, I'll be taking part in the Atlanta Eucharistic Congress (helping Sr. Clare with a book exhibit) and in the Catholic New Media Celebration. Who else is hoping or planning to go? (Registration is free!)

Food for Thought

I took advantage of the beautiful weather to bring my work out to Millennium Park. Of course, the first challenge is finding a free table! Just as I approached, a group got up from table (the umbrella'd kind!), so I set up shop there to work on my talk for Saturday ("St. Paul and the Bible"). I now have the outline for the talk. All I need now is (more) content. I prefer to be seriously over-prepared whenever I am going to be presenting something, and right now I don't have quite enough material ready. (My usual goal is to have about 10 times more information than I need to present.) I do have a stack of books piled up. (Actually, three stacks, each in a strategic location.) Plenty of food for thought. And in between things, I also prepared several months' worth of material for the "Pauline Thought a Day" widget for the Pauline Year. It's all lined up through New Year's, so far. (Did you add the widget to your blog or homepage yet?)

This post is going to count for today's feast and tomorrow's observance (at least here in the Midwest). Today is the feast of the apostles Philip and James, witnesses of the Ascension that we celebrate tomorrow (or that you lucky people out there in other ecclesiastical provinces celebrated on Thursday). So I got to thinking about the apostles there, just before the Ascension. And their great, clueless question, "Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?"
Once again, they had it all backwards.
The Holy Spirit would help them realize that it was not that the Lord was going to restore the kingdom to Israel; the new Israel was to collaborate in restoring the kingdom to God.
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations....and know that I am with you always, until the end of the world!"

Saint of the Day

Ah, here it is: the first day of the Pentecost Novena, and the feast of St. Athanasius!
My first acquaintance with today's saint was in my postulant year: the "Athanasian creed" was in one of our community prayerbooks. I suppose it was due to its high Christology (and poetic beauty) that it was attributed to Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria. Regardless of who the author was, praying this magnificent creed today would be an appropriate way to make the first day of the Pentecost Novena while honoring a great Father and Doctor of the Church.

St. Paul for Beginners

My series of talks on St. Paul
begins this Saturday (10:30-12:00) with "The Life and Legends of Paul in Art." Some of the classic works of art depicting St. Paul portray events most people have never heard of; they certainly aren't in the Bible, but they have made a visible impact on the Church's life and devotion. (You will have never seen so many images of St. Paul in your whole life.)
The series continues for the following two Saturdays, covering "St. Paul and the Bible," and, finally the "Five Big Ideas We Owe to Paul." Come and learn a little more about Paul before the Pauline Year begins!

(There is a $10 registration fee per talk, or $25 for the series, unless you are Sr. Helena's guest...)

A Voice for Real Peace

While all the politicians are fighting over the best way to attain peace, Chicagoans have a chance to listen to someone with some real experience of peacemaking in one of the most conflicted areas on the globe.
Melkite Catholic Archbishop Elias Chacour (the Melkite Archbishop of Galilee!) will be in Wheaton on May 17. He will be speaking on "The Future for Peace: A Model for Change" at a breakfast at First Presbyterian Church. Tickets (a pitiful $10 each) are limited! Call 630-668-5147. (The talk begins at 8:30 a.m.) I'd be there, but I'm giving a talk here that morning.

Three in One

No, I don't mean the Trinity! I mean the convergence of observances today: in most parts of the world, it is Ascension Thursday (here in Chicago, alas, the feast has been moved to Sunday); it is "May Day" in Socialist-inspired contexts, but the feast of St. Joseph the Worker for us Catholics; and it is the beginning of a whole beautiful month dedicated to Mary. (For us Paulines, it is also the beginning of our novena in honor of Mary Queen of Apostles; I'll try to share something of that with you every day until her feast, if not for the whole month of May.)
Anyway, in honor of the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, here is a prayer our founder wrote some decades ago. It is especially appropriate in view of the many people who have suddenly found themselves out of work.

St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus Christ, you were the work-teacher to the Son of God, who became a humble laborer for us. Assist with your prayers all who labor in intellectual, moral and material work. For the nations, obtain legislation inspired by the Gospel, the spirit of Christian charity, and a way of governing in accord with justice and peace. St. Joseph the Worker, pray for us.

If our Ave Maria
continuously rises up to heaven,
so, too will there descend from heaven
continuous blessings
for society,
for the Church,
for families,
and for the mission.


Bl. James Alberione