Was Jesus talking about Election Day?

Yesterday's Gospel (Luke 12:49-53) is always a bit jarring. Jesus is speaking passionately about the fire he has come to set all over the world--and then he turns to his listeners and asks, almost as an aside: "Do you think I have come to establish peace on earth?"

Considering that at his birth "peace on earth" is just what the angels were singing (see Luke 2:14), this question has got to give us pause. And yet the one born in a manger goes on to say he brings "not peace but division." (Matthew's Jesus says "not peace but a sword.")"From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three..."

Sounds like just about every household in America these days.

Yes, Jesus and his Gospel call for a decision, one that is thorough and firm: "Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me" (Mt 10:37). Nowhere, though, does Jesus call for hostility, suspicion, accusation or rash judgment. Not even the very important issues in this electoral cycle (above all the issue of life) justify those sins against charity and justice. Indeed, to fall into them is to love "fatherland and mother country more" and to fail to really respond to the heart of the needs of the present. That seems to be what today's Gospel (Luke 12:54-59) is about. And then St Paul comes in (with the first reading) to interpret just what the "present times" call for: "humility, gentleness, patience, putting up with one another" (!!): revealing an underlying and essential "unity of the spirit through the bond of peace." (More in Ephesians 4:1-6.)

Humility, gentleness, patience, bearing-with: these are virtues society desperately needs in this election year. Paul calls us to live the Gospel in a way "worthy of the call" and that corresponds to the hunger, bewilderment and confusion manifest in the "present time." He invites us to become a new factor in society, kneaded into the culture like a lively leaven.

Just for today, how can we give election talk this new (and unexpected) flavor?

Webathon Update

O me of little faith.

I didn't think we could or would reach the goal for our annual online fundraiser. At $89K it was just too high, and coming right as a hurricane blasted through Haiti it couldn't have been worse timed. I should have read the Gospel and let Jesus have his say: "Your Father knows your needs before you ask..."

So, yes, with the generosity of many, many souls the new generator has been funded and should be in place right on time for the first snowstorm.

Along with the donations for the generator, we received many heartfelt prayer intentions. I was one of the sisters who received all the prayer requests and anonymized them for reading aloud during the Novena webcast: job searches, financial struggles, addictions and broken relationships; thanksgiving, too, and prayers to be a better follower of Jesus as well as ardent prayers for loved ones who have left the sacraments. Many people listed their beloved deceased, who will also be remembered in a novena of Masses during November (traditionally the "month of the Holy Souls").

This experience has been something of a tutorial in faith. Now I need to apply the lessons to the next great challenge: voting for the President of the United States (Lord, have mercy!).

The convent marathon

The end is in sight for our convent marathon which is what some of the sisters are mistakenly (but accurately) calling our fund-raising webathon novena. This year's nine days of prayer and passing the hat is in view of the unexpected and urgent need to replace the motherhouse generator. Just over

My view of the Webathon novena.

halfway through the nine days, we are about halfway to the admittedly ambitious goal of $89,000. And I am ready to collapse. (It really is a marathon!)

Since I had done much of the preparation back in July, I thought actually doing the twice daily live video stream would be fairly easy, even though it would require a extra daily sacrifice on my part. I had no idea that a ten-to-twelve minute video stream would take so much mental energy! We have been, as our Founder recommended, learning a little something new every day and trying to implement those improvements as we go along, so I suppose that is part of the package. We are also getting prayer requests from all over the world, sometimes accompanied by a true "widow's mite" toward the generator. It is enough to keep me on my knees until the next webathon.

Noon and 8 p.m. (Eastern Time) a group of sisters (and sometimes our publishing house staff) come to the video studio in the basement here to lead the prayers, inspired by Pope Francis' special devotion to Mary, Undoer of Knots. (Truth to tell, the devotion was inspired by 2nd century bishop and martyr St Irenaeus of Lyons, who wrote that Mary's obedience to God untied the knot of Eve's disobedience.) There is a prayer handout you can download from the webathon site (http://www.pauline.org/webathon2016) as well as links to send your prayer intentions (and donations!!!). The novena itself consists of prayer, a reading and meditation on scripture (contemplated through art), intercessions and the great prayer of Pope Francis to Our Lady. The meditations have all been different, created by the sister who is leading that prayer session. In all, I think about twenty sisters will have taken part in the novena, so this is a way for you to meet the community as well.

This evening we will stream the prayers for the 7th day of the novena, so if you haven't had a chance to join us yet, you can start today and make a Triduum to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots along with us. You can also take advantage of the archived videos from the first 6 days and make the novena on your own schedule.

See you at the finish line!!!

St Therese: Virgin, Doctor and...#MediaNun?

Today's feast is a great one for us "media nuns." Therese of Lisieux, the unlikely co-patron of the missions, is also an honorary media nun despite her having died only two years after the very first motion-picture projector was debuted by the Lumiere brothers. Her runaway best-seller captivated the world, establishing new beachheads of spirituality everywhere a well-read copy of "Story of a Soul" reached, and the photographs of Therese, taken within the convent walls by her talented sister, Celine, make her one of the most recognizable faces of holiness in all of Church history.

Painting of Therese by her sister, Sr Celine
(at the Shrine of the Little Flower in Darien, IL).

But those are just the superficial reasons for calling Therese a media nun. According to Blessed James Alberione, a media apostle is someone who carries Jesus in his or her heart and radiates him to others through all available forms of communication. For Therese, the most accessible form of communication was the same one used so effectively by St. Paul: letter writing.

Therese's letters (1300 pages of them!) far outweigh the total output of Story of a Soul, those six notebooks of autobiographical reflection set in writing under obedience to her sister (and superior). In those letters, Therese applied her "little Way" to the varied situations of the receivers, communicating to them the treasure that God had so generously revealed to her.

But that is not all.

For Alberione, there are numerous ways to give Christ to souls. In his book, Mary, Queen of the Apostles, he outlines six basic "apostolates" that can be carried out by anyone, in any state in life (and that is before he even gets to the media apostolate):

• The Apostolate of the Interior Life
• The Apostolate of Desires
• The Apostolate of Prayer
• The Apostolate of Example
• The Apostolate of Suffering
• The Apostolate of Beneficence (which he describes in terms of love of neighbor)

Perhaps the reason the Story of a Soul was so powerful that it transcended and continues to transcend the bounds of culture, history and language is because in her own words, Therese carries out even today all of those apostolates. As a Doctor of the Church, she continues to teach, to encourage, to rouse the languid through her unique "little way" (accessible to anyone!), and through the ardor of her desires, the help of her prayers (that "shower of roses" she promised from heaven), the witness of her example (which anyone who takes her seriously realizes was a hard-won battle), the depths of suffering (not only her own intense agony at the end of her life, the the suffering she endured in witnessing her dear father's descent into madness), and the easily-overlooked fraternal charity she had so many opportunities to practice in the confines of Carmel.

Thanks be to God, we have this appealing witness, this extraordinary sister in Christ!

For your bookshelf:
Story of a Soul 
Letters of St Therese (vol. 1)
Letters of St Therese (vol. 2)
St. Therese of Lisiex: Her Last Conversations
 
Holy Daring: The Fearless Trust of St Therese of Lisieux
My Vocation is Love: St Therese's Way to Total Trust
Therese of Lisieux (Saints by Our Side series)

For children:
Search for the Hidden Garden: A Discovery with St Therese (story book)
St Therese of Lisieux: The Way of Love (chapter book)