A Little Friday Nachtmusik

To celebrate the 200^th anniversary of Felix Mendelssohn’s birth, a trio of the Chicago area’s most distinguished organists: Jay Peterson, David Jonies and Stephen Alltop, will perform all six of his organ sonatas.

The church's magnificent E. M. Skinner (1929) and Visser-Rowland (1987) pipe organs will sound their voices along with those of the esteemed Choir of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church*, who will sing choral works of Mendelssohn.

(Free will offering)

Friday October 2^nd at 7:30 pm

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church

708 W. Belmont Ave, Chicago

*That's where you'll find me!

The tyranny of "to do"

I have so many to do lists, I don't know what to do! And today's Gospel hints that this can be a real spiritual problem. The passage for today consists of three "episodes" of people encountering Jesus on his way to Jerusalem. The first and last volunteer to follow Jesus, and all he does is warn them about how demanding and unsatisfying it will be. We never do find out if they actually follow the Lord or not, but I get the impression that they said the Hebrew equivalent of "Oh, well, yeah. See you around, then."
The middle person, on the other hand, got a very clear invitation from Jesus, the same as each of the Twelve: "Follow me." (Were there supposed to be 13 apostles??) But this one had one last item on his "to do" list. "Let me go and bury my father." Actually, the request was "Let me go away..." Jesus did not respond with gentleness. You can almost see him turn his face back toward Jerusalem as he picks up his pace and says, "Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go away and proclaim the Kingdom..." He took the same verb (apelthon) and transformed it from a homecoming to a mission.
So today I have to take a second look at my to do lists. Are some of those items taking me "away" from the real mission Jesus has given me?

American Cammino

Last week, an article in the Wall Street Journal focused on the increased number of hikers along the Appalachian Trail. Evidently, it is a kind of "marker" for the economy: people are out of work, have nothing to lose, so they "take a hike" on the ultimate American pilgrimage. Hikers find a variety of places to stay, and many farms and small businesses along the route will exchange a place to stay for a day's labor. It reminds me a bit of the ultimate European pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago, from the Basque country of France to the tip of Spain. Not that I've done either (I'm not the outdoorsy type), but I have a sneaking suspicion that the American hike may be somewhat easier than the Spanish one, even though the Appalachian Trail is 2158 miles compared with the Camino's 486. (I've seen a good bit of the Camino!)
Has anyone done both?

Happy Birthday

They don't make birthday cakes like they used to...
This is for my great-niece's first b'day (today).
Pray for little Leah Clare: may the holy angels always guide her path through life!

Zechariah's vision

Sometimes (too many times) when I read the Bible I have "Bible glasses" on that keep my reading too fixed on the immediate context of the passage. Like today's first reading from Zechariah. It's a promise of a restored Jerusalem with old people chatting in the squares and children running around playing in the streets. I always imagine people in flowing robes, and dusty streets (with the occasional camel or donkey) and yet there are people in this city of Chicago who would immediately recognize the beauty of Zechariah's promise, and who long for it. Their old people don't feel safe sitting and talking on their front stoops; they don't let their children out of their sight (never mind running freely and playing outside), for fear of stray bullets--or of their precious sons and daughters getting caught up, as one geeky teen was this week, in someone else's battle, collateral damage in a gang feud.
I need the Lord's help in taking off the "Bible glasses" so that I can read his Word as spoken to us, here and now.

Crucified with Christ: in 2009

Today is the feast of St. Wenceslaus (yes, that King Wenceslaus), martyr, and St. Lorenzo Ruiz and companions, martyrs.
And in the Sudan, new Christian martyrs are being put to death by crucifixion.
I wonder if this will make it to the TV news and the front pages of our newspapers.

St. Vincent de Paul

If ever there were a name synonymous with charity toward the poor, it is that of today's saint. I became acquainted with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (founded, of course, not by the saint, but Bl. Frederic Ozanam) through my dad, who got the society started in our parish long years ago. Dad was very devoted to the society which really does keep St. Vincent's love for the poor front and center and acts.
Meanwhile, the Vincentian community itself has made a treasure trove of books about St. Vincent available online. You can get the classic biographies as well as collections of his writings and scholarly research into the Vincentian charism.

Hopefully, our new postulant, Jackie, will be coming through O'Hare today on her way to entering the postulancy in St. Louis. Pray for her and for her family!

Free Time

Just picked up a free "SoyJoy" bar on my way to the doctor. Marketers with matching T-shirts and messenger bags were giving them out on Michigan Avenue. Two days ago, I came home with free organic Greek yogurt (and spoons!). Chicago is quite the place to be for people who love free samples. (When I was a kid, I had a book "1001 Free Samples" with addresses of companies you could write to for miniature packages of their products. I obtained such things as tiny bottles of "Wright's Bar-B-Que Smoke" and little boxes of Calgon Bath Oil Beads. I hardly ever used any of these freebies (that wasn't the point; besides, what on earth was "Bar-B-Que Smoke"?).
If I had to categorize the free stuff I've gotten in Chicago over the years, my favorites would have to be:

• a whole case of Diet Coke with Lemon (when it was introduced)
• multiple cans of Starbucks' Espresso Shots
• this week's Greek yogurt.

Perhaps the most necessary freebies have been:

• the Starbucks' Espresso Shots
• Nescafe's instant coffee (in those "stick" envelopes; perfect for travel!)

The least appreciated free sample?
SoyJoy. But one of the sisters likes them, so I bring them home. All together, I must have gotten around 20 of these fruit-flavored cardboard bars.

So how can we give people "free samples" of the Gospel?

Good Question

Between yesterday's homily and today's Gospel, I am alert to the questions in the Gospels. They all started popping into my mind, from Herod's curious "Who is Jesus?" to Peter's rhetorical "Lord, to whom shall we go?"
I'm starting to notice that, apostles aside, those who asked Jesus questions didn't really seem to want the answers. Think of Pilate: "What is truth?" It was a dismissal, not a question. And when certain leaders of the people came to Jesus and asked, "Who gave you the authority to do these things?" that was more veiled threat than sincere inquiry. (Jesus called their bluff with a question of his own: "Where did John's baptism come from?") Even Nicodemus, who came to Jesus as a sincere, if fearful, inquirer, laughed off the Lord's declaration about being "born again": "Can a man enter his mother's womb a second time and be born again?" (Why didn't he just ask, "What do you mean?") The only exception seems to be the rich young man, who asked, "Good Teacher, what must I do to gain eternal life?" But he was young, too young to have protected himself from the answer to his earnest question. Next time, he would know better than to ask Jesus a real question.
Jesus' questions have a whole different flavor. They are the questions of a teacher, starting from his very first question at age 12: "Why were you looking for me?" or today's "Who do people say the Son of Man is? Who do you say the Son of Man is?"
What question in the Gospels seems the most pertinent to you?

Fruits of Righteousness?

Today is our community day: Juan and our volunteers handle the bookstore so we can have time to pray together, have lunch together and in general have some community time. I also took advantage of the opportunity to go grocery shopping (things were getting pretty interesting in the fridge!). How providential it was! As we were checking out in the big-box club store, one of the employees asked us if we could use some bagels and dinner rolls that had hit their expiration date. I never say "no" to Divine Providence--and it turned out that we were so near the Franciscan Outreach center that we could just zip over and share the wealth of bread with the poor they serve and still be near my favorite produce store (Stanley's, for you Chicagoans) and get some veggies there, too.
I didn't pick any peppers at Stanley's because I had gotten some lovely ones at the farmer's market on Tuesday, thinking that I would just cut them into chunks or strips and freeze them. Coming back from shopping, I put a dozen eggs in a pot with a few onion skins (the eggs get a kind of yellow-brown dye job from the onions, so we can they are hard boiled); cooked some of the mixed greens to keep ready for wraps, and then picked up the most beautiful of the peppers I had gotten at the farmer's market (firm, brightly colored, symetrical), and sliced into it, only to find moldy seeds and strips of black slime. That's where I got the Scripture lesson. You know, the one about "whitened sepulchres" that are nice on the outside, but inside full of corruption? Come to think about it, even in the egg carton (which seemed perfectly intact, though it was sealed in plastic), one of the eggs was broken.
Hmm. Is there a lesson for me in this?

Death Notices

Every year on his feast day I am reminded of the day I first heard about Padre Pio. It was, in fact, the day he died. We walked home from school that day (those were the days when kids typically walked all the way to school, with only street-crossing ladies to protect them), and Mom met us at the side door. With a profoundly mournful expression, she said, "Padre Pio died."
Who? That was my introduction to the Italian stigmatic.
His wasn't the only death notice we received at the side door on a school day. Another time it was "Papa died."
Now, you have to know that we called our maternal grandfather "Papa," so this was quite an announcement to get while standing in the carport. I repeated with horror, "Papa died?" Mom had to nuance things a bit. Not Papa, her father, but Papa, the canary Jane had gotten with her birthday money (named in honor of said grandfather, who had given her the $5 she used to buy the bird). The photo dates to about that time, with me (in the yellow dress) standing right in front of Papa (not the bird). That's "Maman" on his right. And Jane in the front, wearing blue and holding our youngest sister, Nell.

New Saints (and new books)

Tomorrow's feast of St. Pio got me thinking about the upcoming canonizations of Fr. Damien and Jeanne Jugan (and three others I had never heard of before their canonizations were announced).

Damien, of course, was world-renowned even in his own time (when newspapers were the only "mass media"). Drawn by his story (and controversies about Damien's character) Robert Louis Stevenson (he of "Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde" and "Treasure Island") even traveled to Molokai shortly after Fr. Damien's death (and predicted that he would one day be canonized).

Roughly Damien's contemporary, Jeanne Jugan was so unknown that for decades, she wasn't even recognized as the foundress of her own community, but stayed in the background, obedient to those who had become the formal superiors. The truth had been so well suppressed that after her death, an investigation had to be launched so that the community could really know who they were.
As Paul wrote about Jesus, Jugan, too, will be fully "vindicated by the Spirit" on October 11.

For kids:

Sister Julia's back!

I encountered repeated technical woes in pulling Sr. Julia's latest book videos together, but (thanks to Eric Groth at outsidedabox) here is the first part!

More on Fr. LaFleur

I've got mail! (E-mail is making snail mail more exciting than ever!)
Today I received a treasure box from Fr. LaFleur's family: leaflets, booklets and other memorabilia, all to promote awareness of this nearly forgotten chaplain. He volunteered for the Army Air Corps in 1941 (before the US entered World War II) out of concern for draftees who didn't have a choice about military service, and when he was assigned to the 19th Bombardment Group, it turned out that he was the first chaplain they had ever had. When their base (Clark Field) was hit, Col. E. L. Eubanks wrote, "he went among the wounded soldiers...never once did he take cover." When the 19th Bombardment Group was ordered away from Clark Field, their ship was hit by machine gun fire from Japanese planes. Fr. LaFleur crawled on deck, somehow dodging the bullets, to pull a wounded officer to safety. As the ship sank near a small island, Fr. LaFleur stayed on board helping the others shove off. He was the last man off, diving into the ocean and catching a ride on one of the small boats. It was on that island that he was eventually taken prisoner of war (he refused the chance to leave by plane with a small group of men).
As a parish priest, Fr. LaFleur had hocked his watch to buy sports equipment for his kids. As a P.O.W., he traded his glasses to get good and supplies for the sick and wounded. On Davao (Philippines) he built a chapel with his own hands. He called it "St. Peter in Chains." He used an eye dropper to measure out the wine for his daily Mass.
It was only in character for him to die as he did: helping men out of the hold of a burning ship.
Fr. LaFleur and others like him really "left all things" and followed Christ. They didn't look out for themselves first and then, with what was left, take care of other people: they really gave themselves wholeheartedly to their people, trusting their own lives to the care of God. The more I think about it, the more I think Fr. LaFleur's story needs to be told, and that he ought to be proposed as a model priest to the young men in our seminaries.

Hi from OHio

A few minutes til Mass here at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon and the Holy Family Institute.

Taking a Prayer Poll

Are there some "ritual" aspects in your life of prayer? A sort of "routine" you typicall follow (or just "fell into")? I'm working on a talk and would love your input. Feel free to express yourself more fully in the comments: what "time of day" do you usually pray? If you have a prayer "place," what is special about it? What pattern does your prayer tend to follow?

no satisfaction

It's not just that "you can't please all the people all the time": some people are just never satisfied! Try as you might (but why would you?), you will never meet their ever-shifting criteria for approval or success. I'm reminded of the experience St. Therese wrote about. It convinced her never to trust herself to public opinion, not even in Carmel's rarefied atmosphere. She was perhaps a novice in the community when one sister passed by and remarked with joy how hale and hearty she looked. Just a few minutes later, another sister came down the hall, took one look at the young sister and clucked mournfully, commenting that she seemed frail and sickly. (As things turned out, that second nun may have been onto something!)
If there was ever a passage of Scripture that would convince us not to try to conform to the expectations and values of the surrounding culture, it would be the Gospel for today: The crowd's opinion would attempt to control or determine the message it received from God's messengers, starting with criteria for the messengers themselves. Jesus himself couldn't measure up to people's expectations--nor could John the Baptist, whose preaching and lifestyle had such a markedly different flavor. But the conventional wisdom was far from the truth.
That's why I tend to be very suspicious of religious "prophets" whose message dovetails nicely with the acceptable criteria of the wider culture. Not that we should be contrarians, always looking for shortcomings in the values we find expressed in culture, laws, initiatives and so on. (I can't fathom, honestly, why some Catholics keep insisting that the Vatican isn't "green" no matter how many solar panels are installed in the papal buildings...) We are supposed to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit wherever that Spirit blows! But there should be a certain healthy, grace-charged critique that goes right along with our honest recognition of the goodness that the culture, law, initiative or whatever is attempting to advance. If we fail to keep that "both-and," we are still dancing to a tune the wider culture is playing without the benefit of the Gospel difference.

Year for Priests: a chaplain's story

There's no lack of inspiring stories about military chaplains, whether in our current war zones, or in history. I remember hearing about the heroic Father "Frenchy" LaFleur (nickname courtesy of his seminary classmates) from his sister, Edna.
Edna Delery lived two doors down from my grandmother with her husband and their little black poodle, Missy. The Delerys (minus Missy) came to Thanksgiving and other family occasions at Maman's house, and since Mrs. Delery was blind and somewhat frail, we visited her home (and Missy) on occasions. It must have been on one of those visits (after I had already entered the convent) that Mrs. Delery told me about her brother, a military chaplain who died in a Japanese P.O.W. ship somewhere in the Pacific. I thought the story deserved some press, and wrote it up for our publication, "The Family" magazine.
Now, after following a few links on Twitter, I have learned that his family in Lafayette is working on promoting Fr. LaFleur for sainthood. (Here's something from the memorial Mass held to mark the 65th anniversary of his heroic death.)
Amazingly, when I wrote to the parish to inquire about the Mass (on my behalf and that of my godmother), the person who answered me recognized my godmother's last name and made his own inquiry. Turns out, his very first silent retreat was at the old Jesuit novitiate in Grand Coteau, LA. It was March 1999. While on retreat, he watched a grave being dug in the Jesuit cemetery, and later, still in silent prayer, watched the burial. Now, every time he goes for a retreat, he goes to that grave and prays for that unknown Jesuit brother, my uncle.

What do you do when...?

Had a kind of unsettling experience at Mass this afternoon. Watched as a middle-aged woman came up to Communion with a little girl who seemed to be close to four years old. The child had the cutest sparkly pink skirt on, it was hard not to notice her. Grandma (I assume) was taking the side aisle, but the child kept motioning toward the center where the priest and an Extraordinary Minister were giving Communion. But when Grandma reached the Communion station on the side aisle and received the Eucharist, she turned and began walking down the center aisle holding the child's hand with one hand, and pinching the Eucharist between the thumb and index finger of the other hand. (Perhaps she had promised the child that she would give her the Eucharist herself when they got back to their pew?)
I popped out of my pew and began walking down the side aisle keeping an eye on Grandma and the Eucharist. Finally one of the "regulars" motioned to the woman that she had to consume the Host then and there. Grandma seemed to demur with a half-smile that almost looked like a smirk. By then I had slipped through a pew and met her at the central aisle, summoning all the "Sister Said" authority at my command. "Swallow it. Now. Don't play with the Eucharist." She did, and then said with truly beautiful humility and grace, "Thank you."
Maybe what looked like a smirk was something more humble; an admission of a mistake? But the "Thank you" was impressively gracious, unlike my nervously gratuitous admonition about what seemed to be her "playful" attitude.
Her behavior was totally inappropriate, but strange things happen a lot at Communion. Once when I was serving as Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, a man wanted me to give him two Hosts, so he could bring one to a person in back who was unable to walk up the aisle. (I promised to go back there myself.) I've seen priests follow people down the aisle under similar circumstances (someone back in the pew had asked them "bring One back for me"). Another time, I found a Host under a pew. And there probably have been many little children who received First Communion at the hands of some well-intentioned relative who was convinced that their child (or grandchild) was preternaturally gifted and should receive First Communion at three and a half. (By the way, should you be the parent or grandparent of a spiritual prodigy, you can present the case to your pastor--there certainly are great precedents--my sister was named after one of them: Little Nell of Holy God--but if you carry the Host down the center aisle in your hand or in your pocket--that has happened, too-- I will be sprinting down the aisle to call you on it.
You have been warned.

Saved from sorrow

Today's feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (right after the "Exaltation of the Cross") has an interesting and seemingly self-contradicting first reading. It's from the letter to the Hebrews, that enigmatic New Testament document that's not a letter at all. More of an extended exhortation--to "Hebrews"? Well, maybe even to Jewish priests or Levites: people who would be in a position to catch all the prophetic and liturgical references that make up the warp and woof of the text.
The passage for the feast day refers back to Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane: "In the days when Christ was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence."
Do you see the anomaly? He prayed "to the one who was able to save him from death and he was heard." But he still died. The author is saying that he was indeed "saved" from death-- but not "rescued" as in snatched away from harm before the blow landed. This is a grace for us, because we are not often "snatched away" from harm, either. So when the blow lands on us, we know that it has also landed, with all its weight, on Jesus. And yet Jesus was "saved from death."
It is as if Jesus, in his Resurrection, was more perfectly saved from death--the way his mother, by being preserved from Original Sin, was "more perfectly" redeemed by the grace her Son would bring (precisely in his death and Resurrection).

NunRun aims to be right on the money

You might be surprised to learn about one of the big issues in the world of vocations. It was highlighted in yesterday's Tribune, which looked especially at the case of Chicagoan Alicia Torres, who is trying to "run past" this particular obstacle. (What a surprise it was to have the name of someone we know pop up at the head of a full-page story!)One thing Alicia doesn't know (yet) is how hard it is to run in a habit.
 

Inside Joke

I sure enjoyed this video, an inside joke for anyone who ever had to study (or memorize key passages from) "The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" by Ludwig Ott...

For eight years now, every time I walk down Michigan Avenue under cloudless, incredibly blue skies, with the temperature roughly 78°, I think, "It was just like this that day."
And it was. Magnificent, glorious end-of-summer weather, a perfect day. I reveled in it as I walked home from the 8:15 Mass at St. Peter's. But when I got to the community room, the TV was on as events began to unfold. Things haven't been the same since for any of us. And now every blue-sky, perfect day reminds me of 9/11/01.
Praying today for peace: real peace. Jesus has already won the victory that matters.

'Tis the Season

(Concert info on the Facebook page; see sidebar widget.)

Eucharistic Adoration: a Backwards Step?

Yesterday's National Catholic Reporter featured an essay by Richard McBrien decrying the spread of Eucharistic Adoration. Interestingly, Fr. McBrien does not know of any positive fruits of the spread of adoration; he seems only able to see it in the light of how it was practiced in the long lost past before Vatican II, and so he declared the practice "a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward." (We can pass over the peculiar "Notwithstanding Pope Benedict XVI's personal endorsement of eucharistic adoration...it is difficult to speak favorably about the devotion today.") Not to be outdone, one Catholic blogger wrote from his experience discovering and practicing Eucharistic adoration as a step forward. As the member of a congregation that was founded "on the Eucharist" who attempts to spend what Pope John Paul called a "suitable amount of time daily" in the presence of the Eucharist, who has given presentations on adoration and written a book introducing children to adoration, I have something to contribute to the conversation. I want to still offer those presentations (book a talk!), so I won't give away my whole talk here, but just to offer a little something, this is what I have to say for now: In Thomas Aquinas' antiphon for the feast of Corpus Christi, we sing:

O Sacred Banquet in which Christ is eaten, the memory of his passion is recalled, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given us!

The antiphon is in Latin, of course, and all the verb forms are in the passive voice. The use of the passive is very telling here! It is a way of pointing to the hidden God: God is the one acting. So the antiphon is a canticle of praise to God who gives us Christ as food, brings the power of his Paschal Mystery to bear in our lives, fills our minds with grace and gives us, in the Eucharist, a promise and foretaste of the fullness of life. That means that we find the secrets of Eucharistic spirituality in the Eucharistic liturgy itself, in the Mass. (This is where McBrien is justified in claiming that the "Mass itself provides all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually.) In the antiphon, we heard the Eucharist referred to as a banquet. What are the characteristics of a banquet?

FOOD!

For one thing, there's good food. A banquet is characterized by quality: people bring out the best.

At Mass,we approach the table of the Word of God and the Body of Christ. It doesn't get any better than this. (Eucharistic adoration, according to the norms established by the Church, must be carried out in a way that makes it clear that the Eucharist we venerate comes from the Mass and leads us back to the Mass.)

LOTS OF FOOD!

You don't leave a banquet hungry.

And Jesus assures us about the Eucharist, "No one who comes to me will ever be hungry; no one who believes in me will ever thirst."

PEOPLE!

Banquets involve lots of people. It's not a banquet if you're by yourself, no matter how much food there is. At a banquet, there's a kind of communion of people over the food; it's a primal form of nourishment. We even have expressions in our culture, food-language that speaks of our longing for communion, to be "one-life" with the object of our love. (My 11-month-old great-niece, Leah, is so cute I could eat her up. And have you ever heard anyone say that something—or someone—"looks good enough to eat?") This is the deep human hunger Jesus wants to satisfy. We are made to share our life with others: that's communion. Jesus brings us together in one body in himself. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Greek word for "assembly" is used as a name for the Mass. We can't telecommute to a banquet (what would be the point?). In the same way, we can't telecommute to Mass.

A REASON TO COME TOGETHER

Banquets are given for a special reason. Back in 2003, my family gave a banquet to mark my 25^th anniversary. In the Mass, it is Jesus' Paschal Mystery that sets the table. In the Eucharist, we celebrate the same mystery into which we were baptized.

NEVER REALLY ENDS A banquet may have a formal closing, but you don't see people streaming out to the parking lot. They linger, trying to stretch the experience as long as possible. In the same way, we're invited to treasure the word of God that we have heard. And because the Eucharist does not revert to bread and wine, we can linger with the Lord in his sacramental presence.We can even return to ponder the Word we heard at Mass, to bring him again our "joys and hopes" and intercessions.

IN CONCLUSION:

Eucharistic adoration feasts on this "sacred banquet" and allows us to "linger at the table" Jesus has set for his Church. It gives us time to more deeply assimilate all we have "heard and seen" (and "touched with our hands and looked upon") of the Word of Life.

Sounds like a "step forward" to me. How about to you? Have any stories to share about how Eucharistic adoration shapes your living as a witness to Jesus? How were you introduced to adoration? How do you spend that time with the Lord?

Blessed are the poor

Today's Gospel hits precisely on what I've been reflecting about lately: what it means to be poor in spirit (even though Luke says nothing about "in spirit"). With lost jobs and homes lost or at risk, many people are suddenly having to weigh things as they never have before. How do you figure out where the non-negotiables are (even the little non-negotiables)? What if there really are no more corners to cut? You have to get really creative at times! (Did I tell you my favorite word is "free"? There's a reason for that!) But it can get to be an obsession. (Did I mention that my favorite word is "free"?)
St. Paul (first reading) advises us to "seek the things that are above, where Christ is." And we have his own example in both letters to the Corinthians, especially that wonderfully ironic declaration, "We seem to have nothing, but everything is ours!" That's what the Beatitude means: "the Kingdom of God is yours!"

Food Network to offer Grace Before Meals

The "Throwdown" is on tonight! Bobby Flay meets Fr. Leo Patalinghug at Mt. St. Mary's Seminary. On the Food Network at 9:00 (presumably Eastern Time).

And here's a nice piece about Fr. Leo and his ministry from PBS.

Oprah's on

Michigan Avenue (north of us) has been barricaded and the stage is up. People are already (so the news tells me) there, hoping to be part of the audience for the extravaganza: Oprah (I don't even need to add her last name) is filming a show and the city of Chicago is doing her bidding.
I don't have anything against Oprah. Actually, given the reputation her show has for giving out really good freebies, I'd be there myself today ("free" is my favorite word). But there is just something a little...creepy about a single celebrity being able to commandeer the principal street of a major city. The sound of helicopters overhead does nothing to mitigate that sensation.

Afternoon update:
I had an errand to run, so I admit I took the long way. And a camera. Everything was quite impressive (except, so far, for the crowds: I thought the audience area would be filled up by now; instead, it seems not to have reached the halfway point). Police are in evidence everywhere, keeping gawkers like me moving past things like...the black Cadillac SUV parked on the bridge (followed by a white camper/trailer) and the red double-decker, atop which the First Lady of Chicago was already at work. (If you look really hard at the photo, you will see a bright salmon-colored arm stretched out at the center of the bus...)
Anyway, Chicago crowds are always nice, and the weather is good. So, too, was the music. But at 5:00 I won't be there to see what the give-away is (I may yet rue that!); I'll be at Mass for the real Queen of Chicago--on her birthday. Did you notice the Responsorial Psalm? "With delight I rejoice in the Lord": wow! How very Marian: "My spirit rejoices in God my savior." In Mary, there were no impediments to that rejoicing which God has actually created us for. This is what God has "hidden from the wise and the clever [and the 'rulers of this age'] and revealed to little ones." God made us to delight in him, the way he delights in the Beloved Son and the Son in him. This is our deepest mystery and vocation!

Family Holy Hour--Chicago

Chicagoland readers, here is an event to attend and promote--and to make it easy for you, I've got a pdf file you can download, print, send out... You might go all out and have copies made to be distributed at Mass or through your local adoration chapel (due permissions sought, of course!).

Lord of the Sabbath

Wonderful Gospel for this Sabbath day. Not a day of rest, but tomorrow is our retreat day, so rest of all sorts is definitely part of the equation. Today I actually had some unexpected work--having run an errand for Sr. Lusia, I was asked also to stop by the grocery. (We have two sisters coming in from Boston for a meeting this week, so it won't do for them to forage through our leftovers.) I got to the store, made some careful choices and went through the check-out, only to learn that I did not have the proper payment method. I had to go all the way back downtown (I had gone a bit out of my way) and back again. So there went my day. As I stood in line again, I reflected on what it means to be a "servant" of that "Lord of the Sabbath." It means, among other things, that your time is not your own, and that you will not always know how or why things are "working together for the good" as they play out in your day.
Got home with all the goods, finally--but there were things in the fridge that needed to be cooked, so there went the rest of the afternoon (all the way up to five minutes ago): chopping, sauteing, peeling, stirring. But the sisters sure were happy with the bounty.
Now that my Sabbath of non-rest is coming to a close, it's time to shut down and start that retreat (part of which I hope to spend at the Gospel Tent of the Chicago Jazz Fest... Please, Lord, let there be a Gospel Tent!).

Sr Lorraine needs you!

Had your own "angel moments"? Sr. Lorraine wants to know all about it! Here's her message:

This is a BLEG.

I need helping finding angel stories for the book I'm doing. It will be similar to Sr Kathryn's book on St Joseph.
If anyone has a story of being helped by an angel, please send it to me. More details are at my blog.
(http://thomasfortoday.blogspot.com)

(For Sr Kathryn's book see http://stjosephhelps.wordpress.com .)

Leave me! Follow ME!

In view of the Vatican visitation, my community is beginning shared reflections on the various documents. There's a whole outline of themes and related passages from documents on religious life (plus the Code of Canon Law!). My all-time favorite document is "Vita Consecrata," so I picked that up last night and started at #14 (which happens to be one of the recommended passages). It dovetails amazingly with today's Gospel, which is the call of Peter and Andrew, James and John, the fishermen of Galilee:
"The evangelical basis [of consecrated life] is to be sought in the special relationship which Jesus, in his earthly life, established with some of his disciples. He called them not only to welcome the Kingdom of God into their own lives, but also to put their lives at its service, leaving everything behind..."
Jesus commandeered not only Simon's boat (and its nets), but its captain and crew! He took over; he put it all at the service of the Gospel. And then he told the trembling Simon, "You will catch people (the way I just reeled you in)." He was promising Simon a profound communion with his own divine mission.
"Set out into the deep," indeed!

After having posted last week about the "Reformed" Catholics who are already attempting to institutionalize women's ordination, and before that about the Visitation of women's communities, it seems appropriate to link to a current story that connects both issues (I found the article through a link on Twitter). You'll note that the article includes a "poll" on the issue of women's ordination (the Church's position is not exactly in the ascendency).

Just this week I have been conversing (via Facebook) with a young woman who has had quite a bit of trouble understanding the Church's position. This article by Sr Sara Butler was helpful to her in understanding that this is not something political or just an unhelpful relic of patriarchal society. The article may be a bit dense, but stick with her: Sr Sara is making some points that are usually skipped right over in our cultural haste to cut to the chase. (Sara Butler is one of my heroes!)

Pandemic?

Great. Sr. Helena just informed me that the bug I seem to have is one she has already had three rotations of. And it started with a visit by a cousin from Ireland. So we have now introduced a new strain of virus to the continent. And I get to be in the first wave of victims. (Pray for my immune system to kick in!) (Mom sent a "Whole Foods" gift card; hopefully I'll use it today for some chicken soup.)

I posted a few days ago that I had been under the weather. Still am. That's why I didn't fix my header yet (although I did manage to get my sidebar back on the right, thanks to a tip from one of Ours on the other side of the globe). What energy I do have has been going into designing some signs for our bookcenter. Not signs, exactly, but ... very large inspirational images to fit the empty spaces just out of reach in our wall units. That's what I was collecting quotes for a few weeks ago. (I can always use more quotes, by the way.) Here they are (all but one quote from Pope Benedict that was so ponderous my computer crashed and lost all that work every time I tried it), along with a note about the category of books they will probably highlight. Any graphic artists out there, your feedback is welcome (even if I may not be able to execute it properly...). Where I can get an image of the author's signature, I hope to use that to identify him or her. Except maybe for Chesterton, whose signature would... draw all attention to itself.

Spirituality:

Fiction (what else?):
Theology: