Corpus Christi: Present to the Presence

In honor of this Sunday's Solemnity of Corpus Christi, I thought I would share with you a few stories:

I'll start with a personal experience from a mission trip in the Virgin Islands back in 1987, when a young Sean O'Malley was the local bishop. Two of us were staying in a lovely home on the island of Frederickstead. It was a convent, with a large, split-level living room as the chapel. There was an altar, but no kneelers, just chairs and, oddly, no Tabernacle (maybe because the two sisters were not home for long periods of time?). My companion and I attempted to focus our attention on the altar, but the little lizards made that challenging. Plus, we had been traveling, packing and unpacking books, using borrowed cars and driving on the other side of the road under generally stressful conditions, and I just missed Jesus. That's when I felt, well... you know what it's like when you can tell someone is in the room even though you can't see anyone else around? I followed that feeling, which was coming from off of my right shoulder. First, just a glance. No one else had come in. (We had the convent to ourselves that day.) But Someone was there. I knew it. And I had a strange sense that I knew where to find Him. Getting up, I walked over to a small table, on which rested a ceramic planter. It was shaped like a castle, with thriving ivy spilling from the turret. Taking a chance, I lifted the whole planter off the table. There beneath it was a small golden vessel: a ciborium containing the Eucharist. 

This next one comes from a terrific book I read thirty years ago and never forgot. A Memory for Wonders is the spiritual autobiography of a Poor Clare nun with an extraordinary background. Raised by irreligious French parents who were so determined that their child not be "infected" with Catholicism that they raised her in Morocco, she (who had been baptized as an infant, I think just to please the grandparents) was nevertheless led to the faith in unexplainable ways. Even as a preschooler, she realized that her relationship with her mysterious interior Master was something she had to preserve from her parents' awareness. When she saw a golden crucifix in a jewelry catalog, she recognized him, and carefully tore the picture out and preserved it with her childish treasures. But she had no way of knowing the Gospels, or the Church. Until she was hiking in Northern Africa and came upon a Catholic chapel. And entered it. And knew. "He is here." And more: "He is here as food." Well, you see where it led!

Finally, a bookstore story. This happened a couple of years ago in Chicago when a couple of tourists (a devout Christian couple) came in from somewhere in the Midwest. The wife was the one who wanted to browse a bit, and the husband exchanged a few words with one of the sisters. As often happens, the husband needed a place to sit and wait for his wife (!), so sister invited him to the chapel, and he was happy to have some time for peaceful prayer in the middle of a busy shopping day. Truthfully, sister kind of forgot about him even being there, he spent such a long time in the chapel, and when he came to the desk, he had strange expression on his face. "Sister," he said, "There's something in there!" "Yes," she said, "that is Jesus."
Now it's your turn. Got a Blessed Sacrament story to share?

Perhaps after this spring's long and unanticipated Eucharistic fast, this year's Solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) will be a turning point for many Catholics who had long taken the Eucharist, the Real Presence, and the fact of frequent Communion for granted.


Here in community we are learning a new Eucharistic hymn, using the melody by my favorite contemporary liturgical musician (Rome's inimitable Marco Frisina!) but with lyrics that I wrote, since I couldn't quite translate Frisina's text in a way that worked musically and grammatically. (Tell me what you think.) I have yet to get the permission of the publisher, but since it happens to be our Pauline music office in Rome, I hope for some indulgence in the matter. Especially since this will be for private use only. Anyway, here are my lyrics:

Jesus, Word of the Father,
You have promised to remain with us,
By your Spirit's gentle voice within,
We can recognize your presence.

Son of God and of Mary,
Show us what it means to follow you,
To become the one whom we receive,
Fruitful branches of the True Vine.

    Chorus:
       Living Bread from Heaven,
       Chalice of Salvation!
       Led by God's own hand we learn to pray:
       Nourish your people on their journey.

Manna in the desert,
Loaves and fishes on the mountainside:
Needs are met with overflowing grace,
Love surpassing every measure.

Earthly food can't sustain us.
All our hunger is for you, O Lord.
You invite us to the wedding feast,
To the joy of full communion.

    Chorus

At the end of our days, Lord,
When we fin'lly see you face to face,
We'll discover how you've always been
Waiting for us to receive you.

    Chorus

Theology of the Body Lessons for Racial (and other kinds of human) Justice

When he closed the book-length series of Wednesday talks that he had started early on in his papal ministry, Pope John Paul made sure to say, “...the term 'theology of the body' goes far beyond the content of the reflections presented here [technically, “the Redemption of the Body and the Sacramentality of Marriage”]...” [TOB 133:1]. In fact, Pope John Paul's Theology of the Body offers a biblical foundation for a theological vision of the human person as the image of God. As such, it can be applied to every aspect of human life.

Since my entire adult life has been enriched by the insights of the Theology of the Body (TOB), I found it natural to go to this source-text for help in processing the racial crises in which we are immersed. It was not hard to find basic principles that I can use to critique media messages, slogans, even feelings and gut reactions to the flood of images and stories I am encountering as we continue to process and attempt to address a situation that can no longer continue as before.

In TOB, Pope John Paul makes much of the Bible's insistence on the creation of human beings “in the image of God, male and female” (Gen 1:27). Unique in material creation, in the human being, the body expresses a person. In one of the most beautiful sections, the Pope presents the revelation of Eve: woman, whose presence is a revelation that humankind, created in the image of God, is a partnership of equals. Adam finds that Eve is, like himself, a body-person: a person who is a body—but a body that is not precisely like his own. That first, fundamental human difference is sexual. As a species, we can only be represented by male and female (not either/or).

The otherness of the equal human companion reflects that first Other who is God, the one who created us to be enriched by our communion with himself, and created us a human family so that we could enrich one another by imaging God together and to each other. There is no subordination here. Neither expression of human nature, male or female, is better or more divine than the other. All other differences are simply variations on a theme. But the differences themselves are a communication. They speak of mutual enrichment; that each person will have something of value to give and to receive.

Of course, the first humans didn't have much time to enjoy that gift before someone introduced the poison of doubt. In the case of the original sin, it was a suspicion against God's fatherhood [TOB 26:4]. And once that was breached, humans began to steel their hearts further. Did you ever notice how, after the original sin, the man and the woman hurried to protect themselves from each other instead of from their real (and mutual) enemy? In our generalized experience, don't we all experience a kind of built-in suspicion against human brotherhood and communion? A fear of not having all that we need for our flourishing? A doubt that we can all flourish together? This is not natural; it was introduced by an enemy. It is a lingering poison in the human mind.

The person who is encountered in a body that is like, and yet also unlike, one's own, is to be loved for his or her own sake, never looked upon, thought of, spoken about, dominated or exploited as a means to an end [TOB 31:3]. How many times in history has this principle been violated! Isn't that why the current national crisis is exploding? Isn't this also behind a great deal of the historical injustice in our nation's immigration laws, which were first formulated in the early 20^th century with explicitly racial motivations?

The person is unique and unrepeatable, irreducible to any collective adjective or generalizations. He or she is “master of his/her own mystery” [TOB 110:9], with freedom and potential to surpass all expectations, limitations, and pessimistic prognostications that would doom him or her to a predetermined outcome based on demographic projections. Perhaps we suffer a kind of “social acedia,” an apathy of will and imagination that hesitates to propose greatness as a real goal, including the greatness of self-mastery (without which nothing worthwhile can be accomplished) [TOB 49]... Maybe the root of this social acedia is a personal acedia that is satisfied with the superficial, or with the entertainment I can enjoy right now on my phone.

This person before me is “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23): We are members of the same family, available to one another to build each other up on this side of eternity.

This person before me, equal to me but different from me (whether in sex or age or ethnic background or number of chromosomes...), is a concrete invitation from God for me to enter into a truly human and humanizing relationship; to really become, with him or her, a sign of the “communion of Persons” in Whose Image we were made and in whom we will, if we live our vocations fully, live forever [TOB 9:3].

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Because nothing is more real than a story, here's Father Josh Johnson, telling his: https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/entertainment_life/faith/article_f132ca58-a9f0-11ea-91b7-b7ca56544615.html.

• Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/frjoshjohnson or on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frjoshjohnson.
• Listen to his podcast, Ask Father Josh https://media.ascensionpress.com/category/ascension-podcasts/askfrjosh/ (here's a special episode “Healing the Racial Divide".
• And here you can listen to a homily he preached on Trinity Sunday:

Made in the Image: The Trinity is not just a Factoid

This Sunday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. God is a Communion of Persons, and we are made in the image of this Communion. So whatever divides human society is contrary to God, and contrary to the human vocation to be God's living image in creation. Whenever words like “those people” or dehumanizing epithets like “swarm” or “pigs” are used to attribute a quality or behavior to an entire group without distinction, that is, quite literally, the work of the devil, “ὁ διάβολος”: the accuser. How conveniently this language puts the speaker on the side of humanity, reasonableness, justice, and all things right, without any hint of the need for conversion or change. It is all on "them" to change, or to go away, or to be forced out of sight.

But does it even make sense to think or speak of an “us” that is not the immediate group in which I currently find myself—literally the people I am with here and now? When “we” (“us”) remains undefined, amorphous: Isn't that when the probability of divisiveness rises? Who are “we” when the criteria of belonging are left to the imagination or to inference? The language itself contributes to division into ever-smaller units. Eventually, there is no more “we” but only individuals, fearful of one another.

I am concerned about the timing of the current social crisis, because Catholics have been (of necessity) away from the sacraments, and many have descended into quarrels and bickering over the forms of reception of the Eucharist. Weakened by this unaccustomed fasting, we have become all the more vulnerable to the suggestions to turn the stones of social media into bread. Anything that divides us serves the enemy of all humanity. As Bl. Joseph Toniolo urged at the beginning of the 20^th century: “Unite! If the enemy finds us divided, he will pick up off one by one.”

This coming Sunday the Church marks the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. The Eucharist is the “Sacrament of Unity and the bond of Charity,” as Augustine wrote. It is the antidote to division. There is only one Body of Christ, and Paul reminded us 2,000 years ago that we are all baptized into it, whatever our race or social status. (Here's a witness story from a Black Catholic dad who wants to teach his bi-racial children precisely that.)

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The Friday after next will be the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (who so loved mankind and spared himself nothing for our sakes). A great theme of devotion to the Sacred Heart is making reparation for outrages and negligence against the Real Presence. Perhaps we have been denied the Eucharistic Real Presence in order to sharpen our senses to recognize the Real Presence of Jesus in our neighbor.

UPDATED: Pauline Bookstore Chicago looting update and how you can help

Oops. I went to correct a tiny detail and almost lost the whole post. We continue to keep in our prayers all those whose losses are incalculable. Black lives matter.

Last week, the sisters were getting our Michigan Avenue bookstore ready for a grand re-opening after over two months of lockdown. The First Communion and Confirmation displays were set up, they had a plan for one-way traffic and social distancing...the works. Then, with just a few days to go,  well-organized forces of destruction (supported by some bored and directionless young adults?) overwhelmed the peaceful protest marches and the vital message that Black Lives Matter.

Naturally, those organizers fixed their sights on downtown Chicago.

At 3:00 AM on Pentecost morning the sisters heard the glass break.

Both of the automatic doors were shattered, and the front plate-glass display window. Because the bookstore had been closed for so many weeks, the cash drawers were closed. Ordinarily they are left open so that opportunistic thieves can help themselves without causing further damage. This time they broke through the counter.

And then the looters left.
Worst of all, though we assumed they would have stolen at least a few items (Bibles are the most-stolen book there is!), a quick inventory shows that they seem to have left without taking a single saving Word. What a let down!

An early morning call brought some friends in to help begin the clean-up, and by mid-afternoon the sisters had found a safer place to spend the night.

We don't yet know if our insurance will cover damaged caused by insurrectionist movements (this is really new for us), but considering what so many others have suffered across the country, we are getting off lightly. My heart is breaking for the small business owners who watched their livelihoods go up in smoke, their losses incalculable, their pleas unheard by callous ideologues bent only on making a statement without regard for the cost that others (not they) would have to bear. If I had money, I would track down some of those business owners (maybe through the news reporters who told their stories) and send them what I could to help them rebuild or at least get through the next few weeks. But God is trying to convince me that my greater contribution will be to pray for the conversion of all those who have used media in this tragedy to provoke more tragedy; who have co-opted a man's death and people's justified sense of despair and outrage in order to gain ground in a political battle with no winners.

People have been asking how they can help. Well, we never refuse a donation (!), and if you are inclined to give toward replacing our doors, window, counter and equipment, please go to donate.daughtersofstpaul.com and indicate "Chicago" in the notes. Or call in a phone order for that First Communion, Confirmation or Ordination gift. (We also have gift cards; can I recommend that for a newly ordained priest or deacon? That way you are encouraging him to actually come to our store once it is open again, starting a wonderful collaboration!) Of course, we also (always) depend on your prayers in a very special way, particularly for the intention of vocations. How about a special prayer to Mary, Mother of the Church, for Chicago vocations to the Daughters of St Paul????

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My followers on Twitter may have seen my post from Sunday morning, when we only had the most basic news. We assumed that books had been taken (at least Bibles, which, as I said, are almost invariably stolen from bookstore shelves, including our own), and I posted accordingly. It's going to be hard correcting the notion, given that the tweet went totally viral, but I'll try!

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Corrections June 2: The Blessed Sacrament was NOT removed from the Book Center chapel. The sisters did not realize on time what was happening. Instead, the Eucharistic Master must have been blessing the oblivious looters, prompting them to focus only on finding cash and leaving without doing further damage. I also deleted some unhelpfully snarky remarks.

God's Plan for Politics

All this fussing about masks and rights and policies and the jabs of politicians on either side trying to score points with their most radical believers. It makes me want to self-isolate.

A friend of mine wrote about the suffering she feels keeping her children "socially distanced" while neighbors spurn further calls for caution as politically suspect. In her diocese, the Mass is once again being offered in public and she is worried about the elderly priests who may be putting themselves in harm's way by their closeness to their (maskless) people for such extended periods of time. And those priests, in turn, can become vectors of illness themselves (as happened in Houston where an entire community of priests had to quarantine themselves after learning that three members who had been presiding at liturgies tested positive for the coronavirus).

Meanwhile on Twitter, intellectual types get lost in political theory, analyzing things under every sort of optic but one. I say this, because that "one" optic is the one Jesus has been trying to get across to me during these long weeks of cloistered life. Because I tend to think that things generally work best if we just go with logic. For me, logic implies order, predictability, reasonableness. (Small wonder that my TV hero in grade school was Spock!) But Jesus reminded me this week that there is already order in the universe. It is built in. The universe works just fine.
God is looking for more.

That is why humans are here. God's priority is for human life to reflect Trinitarian life. All our social structures are meant for this — but only the family is the real deal. (This is why, in Catholic social thought, civil society should serve the family constituted by a man and woman and their children.)

This is the missing optic on much of Catholic Twitter's political discourse. We get "right" and "left" but not "Trinitarian life." Every single policy and whole systems could ideally be seen under this lens: Does this system help human life to more readily engage in the Trinitarian style of self-giving love, or does it promote discord, isolation, competition (which is as anti-Trinitarian as you can get)?

Raising the question to the Trinitarian plane (our eternal destiny and our infinite model) would take certain Catholic conversations out of political discourse associated with a saint —who became a saint not because of intellectual achievements in speculating about divine topics, but by living the Trinitarian life in a human way.

As we were created to do.

This, by the way, is basic Theology of the Body applied to politics.

Thank you for listening to my TED talk!

The Women's Retreat Your Worst Enemy Doesn't Want You to Know About Is This Saturday

So this Saturday our dynamic Sister Helena Burns is scheduled to give a day-long live, online Theology of the Body retreat for women. It was supposed to be a regular "in the body" retreat, but a pandemic intervened. And now that the retreat will be held online, opening it up to a potentially limitless audience, it seems that the infernal enemy has taken an interest in it. It must be destined to do an enormous amount of good.

At least, that's what we say in the Pauline world when a project meets unexpected and massive difficulties. Like a complete website crash during the registration period right before the retreat, throwing into question the very possibility of there even being a day long opportunity to interact with Sister Helena in real time about Theology of the Body and its meaning for women, women's issues and women's questions. (Oh, by the way, men can participate, too; just know that the content will be focused on women's questions, concerns and needs.)

At any rate, if despite my many years here of cheer-leading for the insights that have meant so much to me for the past 40 years, you have not yet really delved into Pope John Paul's Theology of the Body (the real stuff and not things marketed with that label), this is your golden opportunity. Sister Helena eats, breathes and sleeps TOB. She is constantly reworking her material, always engaging with the issues that come up in people's lives and in the media (remember, she's also a movie critic), and she's downright fun to listen to.

Plus, somebody who does not like you very much is trying super hard to keep you away from this stuff.

The retreat will be held Saturday, May 23 at the Palisades Retreat Center (in Seattle? Spokane? Out West, anyway, so times are all in the Pacific Time Zone.) 

To find out more (heck, go all the way and register), call 206-274-3130.
Pray to St Michael for the tech crew.
And keep checking the website. Eventually it will get back online:
palisadesretreatcenter.org/retreat-details/?retreat=1579

In case you were wondering if this was a joke (about things going wrong...), when I went to post this, the entire Pauline internet went down.

Quarantine Question Box

These days of imposed isolation have gotten a lot of people thinking about their faith, and that has led to many interesting questions coming our way. I thought I would share some of those questions and the more or less impromptu reflections they prompted.

The first of these comes from "Z" via Twitter.

A question has been bothering me for a bit now and I was wondering if you had any answers. The Church changed the Sabbath to Sunday as a day of rest. But isn't this contrary to the laws God gave Moses on Mt Sinai in the old covenant? I recognize Jesus as the New Covenant but don’t see anywhere in the Bible where Jesus states to change the sabbath. Was this change man's doing?

St John on Patmos (circa 1415!)

The observance of Sunday, the First Day of the week, as the "Lord's Day" is attested to in the letters of St Paul and the Acts of the Apostles (see 1 Co 16:2 and Acts 20:7). At the very beginning of the book of Revelation, John notes that he was praying in exile on Patmos "on the Lord's Day" when he had the great series of visions of the worship going on in Heaven (Rev 1:10). That was, clearly, the day the Christian communities were assembled for their worship. John was seeing that what was being done on earth “on the Lord's day” was what was being done in Heaven.

The book of Genesis connects the Sabbath rest with Creation, saying that when God completed the “work” of creation, “he rested on the Sabbath seventh] day” and so “God blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (see Gen 2:2-3). The rules and regulations of the past had all been ordered toward preparing (and preserving!) the people for the coming of the Messiah. When he came, Jesus, the Messiah (Christ means “messiah, anointed”) started a new creation by rising from the dead on the first day of the week. The Apostles were the ones who seem to have recognized that this "reset" even the venerable order of the Sabbath rest (which, remember, was "made for man" according to the words of Jesus himself in Mark 2:27).

This Christian “reset” even entered into the languages we speak today. For the ancient Romans, the first day of the week was dies Solis, the day of the Sun (yes, that's right: literally Sun-day). For Greek-speakers at the time it was the same thing: ἡμέρᾱ Ἡλίου or in our alphabet, hēmérā Hēlíou, the day of the Sun. But the Christians very very very (crazily) early (within a couple of decades of the Resurrection!) began calling the first day of the week by a new name: in Greek, Κυριακή – Kiriaki; in Latin, Dominicus: the Lord's [day]. You can find this new word used as a commonplace in Acts 20:7, but it shows up more and more in later first and second century documents, from the Didache on. This has filtered down to the present in Romance languages as domenica (Italian), domingo (Spanish), dimanche (French), etc.

So we are now living in the time of the New Creation, in a whole different relationship with time itself, and the calendar has shifted as a result. Time, the week, the year, is fixed according to the Resurrection. That is what we observe every Sunday. Sunday, every Sunday, is an Easter Day. And when the Lord comes again, it will be our Easter, our resurrection.

Recommended reading: Pope John Paul's document Dies Domini (The Lord's Day): On Keeping the Lord's Day Holy.

In Peace, Sister M Guadalupe (updated with new photo)

The strawberries were the worst.

That's what she told me that evening when I went to the massage chair in the infirmary living room in hope of some relief from a backache. Sister Mary Guadalupe was there in her wheelchair, watching Lidia Bastianich on TV.  A ripe strawberry from the dessert prep filled the screen and Sister Guadalupe sighed, remembering.

For the second time in a matter of weeks (and the third time since November), the Lord has visited our community somewhat unexpectedly to lead a sister away from this valley of tears. For Sister Guadalupe, many of those tears were shed in the strawberry fields of south Texas.

Image byjogiland24 from Pixabay.com

She had been born in the San Antonio region into a migrant worker family, and they traveled with the crops. But the strawberries were the worst. "We would finally finish the field, and it was so hot, the ones we passed over in the morning were ripe and we had to do it all over again!" she told me that evening. (With Spanish as her first language, she never lost her charming accent, though she spoke English and Italian fluently.)

I first met Sister Guadalupe when I was a new postulant, and she was the head mechanic in the publishing house bindery. With her quick, firm steps, and wearing that red plaid apron over her habit, she could fix anything (and the missing part of finger only went to prove that she wasn't afraid of trying to fix anything). She spent years in our bookstore communities, too, of course. I remember her especially as being in San Francisco—now moved to Menlo Park—and Charleston. In carrying out our media mission, it was a special joy for Sr Mary Guadalupe to bring our books to the families in migrant camps. (Truth to tell, when you listen to the sisters who did the migrant camp visits, it sounds like the most apostolically satisfying of all the forms of our mission.)

When age and health and, I'm sure, the wear and tear of migrant life in her own youth caught up with her, it was necessary for her to come to Boston where we have the nursing staff and facilities that make it possible for our sisters to carry on, as we say, "in life and in the apostolate," uniting prayer, action and suffering in one offering to the Lord.

Instead of fixing bindery equipment, Sister Guadalupe made rosaries. And when her fingers could no longer grip the pliers with enough force to close the wire securely, we got her a...machine! She was back in her element, but this time in the senior sisters' workshop rather than the book bindery.

One of my happiest recent memories of Sister Mary Guadalupe is from her 60th Jubilee. We celebrate jubilees in grand style, but for this one we went all out. As many sisters as could keep a secret were in on it: We were cutting back the flower budget and hiring a mariachi band to come in after Communion to play a traditional song.

The whole jubilee Mass went ahead as usual, with songs and preaching and the jubilarians renewing their vows in a group. And then a prayerful silence after the Communion hymn (while the musicians tip-toed up the side aisle and positioned themselves right in front of Sister Mary Guadalupe!). ...  Sister Guadalupe's reaction was priceless.

Last night she complained of feeling particularly weak, and pulled the cord on the infirmary alarm to signal for the nurse's assistance. As soon as the nurse had helped her to bed, Sister Mary Guadalupe breathed forth her soul in perfect peace. (It was a tender gift from the Heavenly Father; she would have hated to have been fussed over through a lingering debilitation.)

Please join us as we pray for our three recently departed sisters: Sister Mary Domenica, Sister Mary Bernadette, and Sister Mary Guadalupe, and also for five of our Pauline brothers in the US who have died in these same past months: Father Jeffrey, Brother Paschal, Brother Kevin, Brother Lawrence, and Brother Robert (the last three in New York, all presumably with the coronavirus). May they rest in peace, and may they join the ranks of the Pauline apostles in heaven who intercede for all users and producers of media!

A letter from our Provincial Superior

You might remember that last summer, in the time-before-time when there was yet no novel coronavirus upon the earth, a small group of American Daughters of St Paul went to Italy, heedlessly, for over a month. And in that fair land they partook of the goodly fruits of the soil and they spoke haltingly in the local tongue...and sat for many, yea, many a day in interminable meetings. And from that meeting one of their number was chosen to sit upon the Council. And she was, alas, the much-loved Provincial Superior from the United States. And so after their return, diminished now in number by one, it was necessary, as the Scriptures say, that another should take that place.

And so it was. The Holy Spirit indicated that the I.T. manager, Sister Donald Maria Lynch (formerly of Milwaukee), should take the office of Provincial Superior and assist the Daughters of St Paul in continuing to listen to the voice of the Spirit, announce the Gospel, and serve the Lord as...best they can.

Sister Donald Maria has asked us to share with all our friends and family the following letter:

Dear Friend,

Happy Easter to you!

I’m thinking of you who have been our friends for so many years. We sisters have met you in our centers, online, on the phone, on social media, through our newsletters, on YouTube—in so many ways and in so many places. In these days we are isolated in our homes, but still not far apart at all. The Word of God and the hope of Easter bring us together in spiritual communion. Dark days are punctuated by the Light of Christ who has conquered darkness and the grave.

We sisters have been so inspired by all of you. Every encounter we have with you makes it abundantly clear to us that our mission of witnessing to the Gospel in our media culture is so needed during these times. Even with social distancing, you are helping us to build a community of faith that is strong.

Over the years, crucial support from you our friends has helped us to reach out as effective missionaries for over 80 years, and made it possible to position our mission now to bring light, comfort and hope in times such as these. Thousands of people have joined our live-streamed Facebook videos called Surviving Depression in a Pandemic, prayed with us in live Eucharistic adoration, joined live-streamed #SpiritualCommunion prayer and conversation videos, and thousands of families have viewed our “Storytime with the Sisters” read-alouds. Hundreds of people are connecting through our Spiritual Adoption program.

In this time of uncertainty, people are seeking God more than ever. Your continued generosity allows us to adapt to these changing times and be always more creative in offering the Gospel to a world ready to hear it now as never before.

That is why I am asking for your help.

Like many of you, we have had to put our normal methods of outreach and sources of income on hold during this time. I need your help to provide for my sisters and to keep our mission growing and dynamic so the Word of God is available to people at this urgent moment.

We humbly ask that you prayerfully consider making a gift to the Daughters of St. Paul and our mission of communicating the Gospel through our consecrated lives and through the media. No gift is too small! Every donation is a seed of hope that plants the Gospel more firmly in human hearts.

Give now at: DaughtersofStPaul.org/gift

Everyone who gives a recurring gift becomes a member of Partners in the Gospel, a passionate group of monthly donors who give what they can to partner with us in advancing the Gospel in the world today. The generous women and men who are Partners in the Gospel make it possible for the Daughters of St. Paul to awaken hearts to a lived and felt relationship with God by witnessing to the Gospel in our media culture. Members of Partners in the Gospel have the opportunity of sharing in the weekly live-streamed digital meetings on spiritual growth and holiness in our My Sisters private Facebook Group, and will receive a monthly video message from Sr. Tracey Dugas, FSP, our Director of Pauline Mission Advancement.

All of the sisters and I are praying for each one of you. As St Paul said to the Philippians, “We hold you in our heart” (Phil 1:7). The suffering, the grief enveloping our world can imbue us with a sense of powerlessness, uncertainty, or fear. But in this darkness Christ calmly and securely carries us.

May the hope that Jesus has given us all through his Resurrection open us to his grace so that we can be, all together, Christ’s light for the world.

God bless you!

Sr. Donald Maria Lynch, FSP
Superior of the Daughters of St Paul
United States and English Speaking Canada Province

PS: Don't forget to check out how we are with you during this uncertain and challenging time of the pandemic.

“One love: Jesus Christ;
one burning desire to give him to souls.”
Blessed James Alberione

Becoming a prayer partner to a medical first-responder

Image by fernando zhiminaicela from Pixabay.

One of the sisters whose family was seriously affected by the coronavirus came up with a way we in the quarantine ranks can organize ourselves to commit to praying for doctors, nurses, EMTs, lab workers, janitors, patient transport workers and patients themselves--from a safe distance, but "brought near through the Blood of Christ" as St Paul might say (see Eph 2:13). It is a form of spiritual adoption.

You can sign up to be a prayer partner, or (if you are a medical worker) sign yourself up to be prayed for on a regular basis. You can even sign someone else up for prayers, cards and (where possible or helpful) gifts, or recommend the kinds of donations that you or the person you are signing up would appreciate having made. (I signed up the two of my siblings who work in a major hospital in New Orleans.)

Once you have finished that, you will reach a page with a recommended daily prayer. (I'll post it below, too, just to encourage extra prayers on the part of those who don't want to add to their current commitments.) If you have volunteered to be a prayer partner, an e-mail will arrive the following morning with the name of your "spiritual adoptee".

Go to COVID Spiritual Adoption Sign-Up

Spiritual Adoption Daily Prayer

Lord Jesus, We praise You and thank You for being with us now. We give You all the power and Glory. You have all the Authority, Lord, and so we call upon You to send a Heavenly Host of Angels and Saints to guard and protect _____(the medical professional(s), staff, patient or name if you know it) that we have spiritually adopted. We entrust them to the care of the Holy Family.
   Mother Mary, wrap your mantle of protection around them.
   St. Joseph, accompany them in all their physical, emotional and spiritual needs.
Jesus our Divine Master, pour your healing Divine Mercy upon them to deliver them from all evil.
AMEN.

with Mary

 

He is thy property now, O Virgin Mother, once again, for He and the world have met and parted. He went out from thee to do His Father's work––and He has done and suffered it. Satan and bad men have now no longer any claim upon him––too long has He been in their arms. Satan took Him up aloft to the high mountain; evil men lifted Him up upon the cross. 

He has not been in Thy arms, O Mother of God, since He was a child––but now thou hast a claim upon Him, when the world has done its worst. For thou art the all–favored, all–blessed, all–gracious Mother of the Highest. We rejoice in this great mystery. He has been hidden in thy womb, He has lain in thy bosom, He has been suckled at thy breasts, He has been carried in thy arms––and now that He is dead, He is placed upon thy lap.  

Virgin Mother of God, pray for us.

St John Henry Newman

Photo by M.L. Winters, FSP

Holy Week: Facing Death with Jesus (UPDATED)

Every year on Palm Sunday we hear the entire Passion narrative from whichever of the Synoptic Gospels is our guide for the year. (This year it's Matthew.) Considering the world situation, it was quite fitting that what we did not hear yesterday was the "prequel" Gospel of the procession and the Hosannas. No. We went straight into the Last Supper, Gethsemane, and Golgotha. We went from "This is my body" to "Why have you abandoned me?" And so many today are dying physically separated from loved ones who would give anything to be at their side. It is necessary, but they must feel so abandoned. Only Jesus knows.

Here in Boston and in other coronavirus "hot spots" we don't have to wait until Good Friday to meditate on the death of Jesus—or on our own death. My community faced an unexpected funeral just last week when our Sister Mary Bernadette, who had been declining over the last several years, slipped away from us in her sleep. We are still virus-free on our hill here on the edge of the city; it was just the Lord calling his servant home to rest after over sixty years in the mission-field (including two stints in Alaska). We had a private funeral for her. Her brother, who lives quite close, had to wait at the burial chapel; he and his wife were the only ones at the actual committal, while the community stood outside, each of us about six feet from the other. (Even though we live together, we are trying to maintain some kind of social distancing.) This death had taken us by surprise: the nurses had checked on Sister at 4:00 in the morning, and when they went to assist her with the morning routine an hour and a half later, the Master had taken her "like a thief in the night."

In our hospitals, we are hearing that medical staff can barely keep up. Most people who get the virus do not need a full complement of medical interventions, but for the percentages that do, the need seems to arise all of a sudden, "like a thief in the night." And we have all heard the worries that there will not be enough life-support equipment, specifically ventilators and ECMO machines, when the peak hits New York and New England (and New Orleans?) sometime over the next two weeks.

We may not be given to wonder if we will be among those lying on a gurney, struggling to breathe, with none of our loved ones able to stay at our side. But during Holy Week, especially during this Holy Week, we are given a double opportunity: to accompany, in prayer, those who find themselves alone in their suffering (whether the suffering of illness or the suffering of isolation in social distancing) and to consider, in prayer, "the hour of our death," however it should come. This new coronavirus reaches a virulent stage in a sudden manner. Is your will up-to-date? Do you have a health care proxy to speak in your name when life-saving decisions have to be made and your are unable to communicate? Are there promises or moral obligations or even informal understandings that you have not fulfilled? At least put these in writings so that if you come through this ordeal, you do so with the firm intention of carrying out your responsibilities, and if you do not survive in this life, those who honor your wishes can see them through. Include in this document as well your wishes to have a Catholic funeral and burial, and to have Masses offered for the repose of your soul.

Above all, in an attitude of prayer and in the light of your age, your overall state of health, your family obligations and the commitments you have in society, consider the words we say in the Creed: "I look forward to the resurrection of the dead."

God "is not the God of the dead but of the living; all are alive for him" (Luke 20:38). There are people who are already specifying in their hospital admittance papers that they are willing to forego "extraordinary means" of equipment that may be hard to come by, in order that it can be used to save someone else's life. This is a form of giving your life for another: a martyrdom of charity. It would be a very good way to meet God. And it is a "far, far better thing" to make that kind of decision freely before an emergency arises, than to find yourself on the receiving end of a decision made by a standard policy, such as the kinds that are being drawn up now in some hospitals. If, before God, you find that you have the inner freedom to forego a ventilator or heart/lung machine, tell your family and put it in writing on a form for your healthcare proxy. (Here is a sample form according to Massachusetts law appointing a healthcare proxy; it specifies Catholic values for life sustaining measures, and has room for also adding personal wishes.)

I am in the least not addressing this to people who suffer from depression. That's a whole different situation which really compromises the freedom that is vital for discernment. AND, hopefully, it could be that soon medical science will recognize the underlying mechanisms by which the COVID-19 virus attacks the body's ability to deliver oxygen, and will determine focused treatments that bring this crisis to a speedier than expected resolution.


In the meantime, here are some other resources for you (just for ideas); these are adapted from material I prepared for myself. In the first part of "Pastoral Care for Me" I specified what kind of music I do (and do not) like and other practical suggestions:

• Pastoral Care for Me Texts (my favorite psalms, so if people are able to be near me, they can pray these in a gentle voice and I can follow along as I am able).
• Pastoral Care-final: This has the text for the Commendation of the Dying (Saints of God, come to her aid!) and the Apostolic Blessing (which the priest offers the dying in the name of the Church).

Mass, Media, and Lady Day

Today's Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord would be exceptional anyway. It's a Solemnity in

the middle of Lent: all austerities are called off; the Gloria is prayed at Mass; we say the Creed and genuflect at the words "by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary"...

Well, we would. Today most of the people who would have been looking forward to celebrating "Lady Day" in a properly liturgical way will instead be logging on and participating in an online Mass, whether it is that of their parish priest, the local bishop, or one of the ministries with a broader reach, such as CatholicTV, Bishop Robert Barron, or the omnipresent EWTN.

That ability to tune in to a convenient online Mass has some people wondering if the only difference between being in Church for Mass and being in your living room with your laptop is that at home you can't receive Holy Communion. In other words, as long as we can't receive the Eucharist, why bother going to Mass in person even if it were possible (for instance, if the restrictions against public gatherings were lifted enough to permit open-air Masses, though without distribution of the Eucharist)?

That's a very modern question, and not only because we have media that permit long-distance "participation." Priest and people all faced "East" (liturgically, even if not geographically), so the people could not see what the priest was doing at the altar. For centuries Catholics in the west did not speak of "participating" in Mass, but of "hearing" Mass. It was not typically assumed that people would receive Communion. (I'm not saying that is good, just pointing out the first thought was given to being present for the Mass itself). Even spiritual bouquet cards had separate areas for listing the number of "Masses" and "Communions" being offered up. Being at Mass, not receiving Communion, was the reason to be at Mass. Communion took it up more than a notch, but it was not the point of going to Mass. 

Our current approach, making Communion the "reason" to go to Mass is an aberration that probably comes from an overly individualistic understanding of the Mass, of our relationship with Jesus, and of Communion itself.

Mass is not just a ceremony for producing Eucharist. Through the language of gestures and bread and wine, it actually takes us into the self-offering of Jesus. Mass is a kind of window into Heaven itself. It gives us direct access to what is happening in Heaven right now, where Jesus continues to offer himself to the Father "for us and our salvation." Even Communion is an anticipation of the Heavenly Banquet, where we will feast on the exact same food. Media is a window, too, but it is a window on the window. Streamed Masses cannot give us the same direct access to the heavenly realities that flesh and blood participation does, even without the reception of Communion. 

If you had the option of being at the Last Supper or the Sermon on the Mount or the Multiplication of leaves and fish, or of avoiding the crowd and watching them on live TV, wouldn't you have chosen to be there in the flesh with Jesus? He himself is the only "media" through which salvation reaches us. And his Incarnation is extended in time through the Church, the Body of Christ now composed of many members. But media is highly individual; even if we watch it on the TV together, we are a self-selected group (during these days, a household), not a flock gathered into one by the Word of God from scattered peoples and made into one body by baptism.   

The feast we celebrate today, the Annunciaation of the Lord, matters tremendously! Through Mary's yes, Jesus took on human nature, whole and entire, and he wills to connect with each of us in our human nature as it is: flesh and blood and even relationships.  Livestreaming at least allows us to spiritually unite ourselves with the sacrifice of Jesus, and with all those who are also joining spiritually through media. It is a substitute for real, "substantial" communion with our neighbor...and it is the best we can do under the present unusual circumstances.

The prophet Amos spoke of a time when a great famine would descend upon God's people, "a famine not of bread or of thirst for water, but for hearing the Word of the Lord" (Amos 8:11). Surely, that famine is upon us now. But today is the Annunciation of the Lord: today Gabriel has come to Mary and brought her the news that, upon her acceptance, the Word would take flesh and dwell among us and become the Bread of Life for the whole world.

Where is our faith?

So the arguing with the bishops continues, as a minority of Catholics insist that it is holier to go to Mass and die of contagion than to stay away (out of obedience!) and contribute in some small part to one's own health as well as that of one's more vulnerable neighbor. This, I am hearing, is what the saints did and would do.

This how we are to imitate the saints? By looking at actions reported in hagiographies and then transporting those actions intact into our own day?

Is this faith?

What I think may be happening is that people remember certain saints who took heroic risks to their own health in serving the sick, especially during times of plague in eras when there was no health care in society at all. But these charitable actions of the saints are being transposed from the care for the sick to a new situation of personal devotion (attending Mass against the explicit provisions of the local bishop) under conditions which actually put the elderly and medically vulnerable at high risk. This is the opposite of what the saints did!


I think it seriously mistaken as well as damaging to the cause of the Gospel to imitate the external actions of the saints (especially saints from different cultures and eras) when that action of ours does not spring from the same source as the saints': an incredible faith, the kind that often also worked miracles. Merely exterior imitation seems to me a form of presumption, and in the present crisis it can also be tempting God. Remember the suggestion the enemy of mankind made to Christ himself: "Throw yourself down" from the parapet of the Temple, "for Scripture says, 'he has given his angels charge over you'..."

Yes, we are called to heroic faith, even to giving our life for our neighbor. But we are called to the heroic faith our own times need. Not to imitate the actions of the saints, which were expressions of their heroic faith (and hope and charity, all in one), but inspired by those saints and their faith, to let our own faith in God express itself in new ways that are perfectly fit for our times?

In other words, I think we are being challenged at this moment to faith and patience. To keep renewing our faith that God is in charge, no matter how crazy things get; to hold fast to our firm hope in Divine Providence that makes all things work together for the ultimate and lasting good of those who love him; to believe in the love of God that will let nothing separate us from Christ, neither death, nor life, nor angels... and to let that faith-hope-love carry us through. Not to keep looking back over our shoulder for step by step guidance from the saints about what actions to perform, but to look to them for encouragement and intercession, and to set out in faith in the new situation the Holy Spirit has willed for us to face with his grace.

Worship without Mass

What a difference a week can make.

This time last week, not even one bishop in the United States had suspended the public celebration of Sunday Mass for the sake of limiting the spread of contagion. As of this writing (9:51 AM EST, March 18), 147 have (with three or four dioceses varying on details concerning weekday Masses or the effective dates). The most suspension of all public celebrations of Mass came from Brooklyn, where the bishop issued a statement yesterday, the same day it was revealed that 6 new cases of COVID19 came from one Brooklyn parish. Another ten dioceses are maintaining the public celebration of Mass, but with the faithful dispensed by the bishop from their Sunday Mass obligation at least through March 31. (Check here for further updates as well as for the bishops' statements on this issue.) And yes, as successors of the Apostles, bishops can do that.

When Lent started, I felt drawn to Philippians 3:8-14 as a kind of Lenten guide. I read it again today, and found Paul saying something unexpected. Clearly, nothing mattered more to Paul than "Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians, but vintage Paul). Here he says that what he valued before he knew Christ was "righteousness based on the law." The greatest loss Paul faced in terms of this life was precisely that sense of security in knowing his standing according to an objective, one-size-fits-all law. He loved that law, and professed that it was "holy and just and good" (Romans, again undeniably Paul). But in Philippians he is relinquishing that "righteousness based on the law" in favor of "that which comes through faith in Christ...to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, that I may attain the resurrection from the dead."

The suspension of public Masses across the country (and the world) has caused tremendous upheaval and confusion among many Catholics, especially in the US. In some cases, the bishop suspended the public celebration of Mass in his diocese, but failed to explicitly exempt the faithful from the obligation of Sunday Mass, or did not suspend the Mass, but dispensed from the Sunday obligation "those who because of age or infirmity are at greater risk of contracting disease." This left healthy Catholics over age 60 (the age generally used as a signal for heightened risk) wondering if they were committing a serious sin by staying home, or if they were just using good judgment. Others complained against their bishops over social media, claiming that they were being needlessly deprived of the necessary aid of the sacraments, or that the bishops were foolishly choosing to value the life of the body over the life of the soul.

Paul tells me that for now, we are asked to focus entirely on Christ himself. His Eucharistic sacrifice is still being offered, but in sanctuaries we where we cannot gather without potentially putting our neighbors at risk. Doctors are now saying that the coronavirus seems to have been quietly spreading for quite some time now among populations that have been able to shake it off more easily, so that it is impossible to know who or or how many are carrying it unawares.

Now is the time for all of us to learn that Holy Communion never was about "me and Jesus": it has always been about the Body of Christ: Head and members, all of them. This is what Paul had taught the Philippians earlier in the same letter: "if you have any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being united in spirit and purpose.…Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which is also yours in Christ Jesus..." (Phil 2: 1-5).

+   +   +   +   + 

Trust me: I know something about living in a closed environment! During these weeks (or longer?) of social distancing, personal structures are going to be very important. We are not talking Lenten penance here, but a healthy daily rhythm of life that includes a set pattern of prayer. You might consider praying the Angelus every morning, noon and evening as a way to create the walls of this new structure. (More solid advice is in Fr Roger Landry's book, Plan of Life.)

Here in Boston (and not only), the Cardinal has asked priests to keep churches open for adoration, with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament whenever possible so that the faithful can continue to pray (without gathering in crowds), above all as a way of keeping the Lord's Day holy. My community will be offering some live online prayers, and also some recorded material that you can download or stream, such as the Hour of Adoration (below) on the theme, "Lord the one you love is sick." (More Hours of Adoration will be made available at pauline.org/adoration.)

Keeping the Lord's Day holy is not only about prayer, but about looking out for your vulnerable neighbor. Many communities are self-organizing to keep an eye open for the needs of those who are unable (or afraid) to provide for themselves right now. Nursing homes and other group facilities are limiting guests, increasing the potential for loneliness. May the Lord inspire creative responses and raise up new apostles for our age!

Computer COVID-19

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay.

Yes, it has happened. Opportunistic hackers have created computer viruses targeting people who do web searches for information on the coronavirus. A major Catholic organization (not us!) suffered a huge infiltration last week, so it is not an idle threat. Even at breakfast today two of the sisters mentioned getting dubious text messages like, "Keep your phone save from Coronavirus! Click here." Or, "Congratulations! For keeping up to date with your phone bill, you win a new Samsung phone!" (The funny thing on this one, besides the fact that we sisters do not pay our own phone bills, is that the sister who got the message is a missionary who has only been in the country for five years.) So whether it is on your phone or on your computer network, be alert to the new wave of computer viruses.

It is hard to believe that there are people who are that selfish that they see every crisis is an opportunity to make money or cause others harm. Maybe some of them are simply slaves of organized crime. All the more reason to use extra vigilance if you  find yourself online more than usual during this time of social distancing. Be sure to help any naive or inexperienced loved ones in this regard, too. If it happened to a major nonprofit, it can happen in your neighborhood.

Here is the advice we received from our Provincial Superior (also an I.T. expert):

There is a new round of Covid-19 related malware that’s aimed at taking advantage of the situation.  Anti-malware is not yet available to deal with it, so we need to rely on each one of you to be careful. 

Only access well known and reliable sources for information and maps of Covid-19.  These include:

• https://www.cdc.gov/
• https://www.mass.gov/resource/information-on-the-outbreak-of-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19
• http://www.childrenshospital.org/
  

Do not simply google and click links for this type of information.  Hackers are using Covid-19 as a cover for placing malware on computers.  There are reported malware infected versions of the John Hopkins University Covid-19 mapping website.  Infected sites aim to steal account login information or to install ransomware (crypto-viruses).
 
Do not click on any links in emails you may receive from unknown sources with information about the coronavirus Covid-19.  Do not open attachments including pdf files.  
If an email comes unexpectedly from a government agency, health authority or some other group or organization do not click on links or open attachments.

COVID19 and...the cloister?

The fast-spreading coronavirus is no joke, and cities like Boston are right to take it seriously. Especially Boston, where a significant outbreak occurred after a meeting of a big health sciences company--in addition to the two people who contracted the virus in actual China and Italy and then came here.

Self-quarantine sounds to me a lot like making a retreat at home. You have to be prepared. It isn't easy to get through without resources. But you're basically cloistered. Only with extra amounts of soap and water involved.

Here in the convent we are hunkering down with our hand-washing instructions like everybody else. (Maybe a little bit more than everybody else, because we have an elder-care facility on the premises with a good many immuno-compromised sisters who would be at high risk if Covid19 came home with anyone.) Thankfully, we still have daily Mass, unlike our sisters in Italy who are making do with the Pope's televised morning Mass from the Santa Marta chapel. Imagine the pain of so many families whose loved ones are dying in a pandemic (168 deaths daily in Italy) and who cannot even have the consolation of a service where mourners can gather to remember and pray together.

It was when the Italian bishops agreed to exempt everyone in Italy from Sunday Mass until April 3 (to give the epidemic time to dissipate) that I came up with the idea of inviting Catholics in relatively unaffected areas to participate, if possible, in an extra Mass each week of Lent "in the name of" an Italian Catholic who is not able to attend Mass. I put the invitation out on Twitter on Monday:

In addition to getting a good number of volunteers right away (not counting retweets or likes), I started getting thank-you messages from people in Italy. And then one teacher in a Catholic school had the idea of telling the schoolchildren to offer their weekly school Mass for the people in Italy:

The children each received a paper with a crucifix superimposed on an outline of Italy, and were invited to sign their commitment to offer their participation in the Mass "for Italy." As you can see from the teacher's post, the children were shocked to learn that people could not even go to Mass.

I did get a bit of negative feedback, but it was from the Seattle area, where the virus has had a frighteningly rapid and deadly expansion. The writer seemed to think I was encouraging people to gather in large, close-knit groups that could only create more opportunities for contagion. (If that is the daily Mass situation in your parish, congratulations!!! Please ask your pastor and parish staff to share their secrets with the rest of the Catholic world.) Outside of such extraordinary circumstances, while we are still free to go to Mass, please do not contribute to anything that would amplify an epidemic. Act like a typical Catholic and stand six feet away from everybody else. Do the little three-finger wave if there is a Sign of Peace. Stay home if you or anyone around you is under the weather. You know the drill.

But if you can get to an extra Mass now and then for those who are under an enforced cloister for the first time in their lives, I think that would be a good thing.