The Screwtape Play

We had a real treat last night, courtesy of a friend here in Chicago: a live performance of "The Screwtape Letters." The play was a wonderful adaptation of C. S. Lewis' clever work
--with only two actors: Screwtape, the senior devil and mentor-in-temptation, and his assistant, a  kind of gremlin, Toadpipe. Basically,  it was a monologue, since Toadpipe had no actual lines (just a variety of chattering sounds and screeches). The play opened earlier this month, and has been extended through January 3--very good news for Chicago. If you're in the Windy City, do try to attend.

Our experience did have a bit of the hellish on the side, I have to admit. First of all, we had a great deal of trouble buying tickets. Sr. Helena called weeks ago, and was told that tickets could not be purchased by phone. Since the ubiquitous Ticketmaster was not actually selling the tickets, either, we were resigned to purchasing them, as we had been told on the phone, at the box office, about an hour before the show. Then on Sunday I noticed that, as subscribers to the Chicago Tribune, we were qualified for a special buy-one-get-one-half-off discount. From Ticketmaster. So Sr. Helena tried again. An hour later, she was speaking once more with the same operator who had insisted that tickets could not be purchased by phone. Not only was our chosen date (tonight, Thursday being our "community day") sold out, there were only four tickets left for Wednesday! (And, according to our knowledge at the time, the show was to close on Nov. 1!) We took what we could get, and (yes) purchased the tickets by phone.

Last night, then, we boarded the Brown Line L train and headed north. We found the Mercury theater,  a throng crowded in its tiny foyer. Sr. Helena scooted into the box office-cum-bar and came back with four tickets. Oddly, they were marked "FL OBS." We were in Row 1. As we walked to the front of the theater, the temperature kept dropping.  (We would keep our coats and scarves on throughout the performance.) When we got to our row, we found out what FL OBS meant: "floor obstructed." The stage had been built out over our laps. (I don't know how Sr Irene, who is six feet tall, managed to fit her long legs in the bit of space she was allowed) Then the play opened, with a thick fog pouring out from the corner of the stage nearest us. This theatrical fog had a certain scent to it--I suppose to evoke the sense of burning? At any rate, I kept my scarf over my nose and mouth all night! Then I set my neck at an awkward angle to watch the play.

Despite all the discomfort, I really enjoyed the performance. It was a great way for Lewis' insights to provoke reflection: in fact, as we left the theater, a tall man walked alongside us saying (with that typically Protestant expression that we Catholics ought to take hold of), "I feel convicted!" Lewis' message had struck home for him.

As if it hadn't struck home for me, too, I found today's first reading from Ephesians 6 only renewing my reflections. As Election Day draws closer, I keep envisioning our country approaching a crossroads. Both paths before us lead to darkness; one is a slow descent, the other precipitous. And I'm scared. St. Paul tells me, "Draw your strength from the Lord... Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the ruler of the age..." All we have to do is "put on the armor of God" (St. Paul tells us this twice) and stand firm. Despite all the clever deceptions the enemy of humankind has devised, Jesus has already won the victory.

Front and Back

Front, back; first, last. Jesus in today's Gospel is telling us to expect God to turn things upside down. And in the first reading, that is kind of what Paul is doing. The passage from Ephesians is one of the so-called "household codes" common in the Roman Empire. But since Paul is saying what a Christian household looks like, he has some definite alterations to make. If yesterday had not been a feast day, we would have heard the first part of this passage, the infamous (in our day), "wives, be submissive to your husbands." Few people in our day go beyond those few words. If they did, they would begin to realize that Paul is actually introducing something quite new:  he is telling everyone in the Christian community to cede place mutually. He spends a lot more words telling husbands how they are to respect their wives in this new Christian economy: not as "lords" over them (the norm in that day), but as Christ the Lord, in the way that he loved the Church. 

Today, Paul moves into other family relations. He starts with the children: what their "duties in the Lord" are. It is interesting that he again starts with the "lesser" party in the equation: earlier, he spoke of wives before husbands; now he speaks to children before addressing the parental units, and next he will address slaves, putting them ahead of the masters.  In each case, those who come "first" in the Roman order of things are put last, and those who are last, dependent and vulnerable, are first.

One Week and counting

It's exactly one week until Election Day, and there are numerous prayer initiatives underway: the novena proposed by the U.S. Catholic Bishops; a rosary novena on Facebook, and today I learned of a couple of churches that will have all-day adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on Nov. 4.
What is going on in your area to support the many critical needs of our nation through prayer?

Here is a prayer to St. Paul that can be offered for the same intention:

St. Paul, teacher of the nations, lovingly watch over this nation and its people. Your heart expanded so as to welcome and enfold all peoples in the loving embrace of peace.
Now, from heaven, may the charity of Christ urge you to enlighten everyone with the light of the Gospel, and to establish the kingdom of love.
Inspire vocations, sustain those working for the Gospel, render all hearts docile to the Divine Master.
May this nation ever more find in Christ the Way and the Truth and the Life. May its light shine before the world and may its people always seek the kingdom of God and his justice.
Holy Apostle Paul, enlighten, comfort and bless us all. Amen.

Who you looking at?

Yesterday I experienced two different, but similar, encounters on my way to and from Mass. Walking toward the rehearsal room for choir practice, I noticed an old man sitting on the slight curb along the sidewalk and the rectory fence. He was "new" to that spot; usually there is a grizzled middle-aged man there, sometimes a weary black man. Either way, there is generally a man there with an outstretched hand. The very fact primed me to expect a request for money, and in anticipation, I found myself feeling very much like a deer in the headlights: unable to respond to the actual request by the person who was actually before me. Granted, his words were a common enough prelude to a request for immediate financial assistance, but I was unable to hear anything but that. Not that I can do much of anything financial, but people deserve a hearing.
After Mass, I would have taken "a different way" if I could have, but the old man was no longer there. Instead, I had hardly passed the spot, when I crossed paths with a tottering and filthy younger man with a desperate face. He stumbled down the sidewalk, but seeing me, called out loudly, "Ma'am! Ma'am!" I knew which "Ma'am" he meant, of course. "I'm HUNGRY!" And he gestured toward his open mouth. Back came the sensation of being caught in more than one set of headlights. I forgot all about the granola bar I had tucked into the pocket of my backpack. I just wanted to get away from the danger of being assailed by so many needs.
Today's Gospel brings me right back to those experiences, because here I see Jesus being confronted by a needy person. The woman in today's Gospel wasn't asking Jesus for anything. Perhaps she had been reduced to T.S. Eliot's "quiet desperation." Instead, Jesus looked and saw her, not her need. And he didn't see her as the others there saw her--a cripple, a demon-possessed unfortunate. He saw a "daughter of Abraham." And he called to her, "Woman, you are set free of your infirmity." The very next sentence says that he then "laid hands upon her." Surely, that means that Jesus practically bounded to her side, because if he had had to "call to her" she must have been far enough away that she couldn't have heard Jesus in his "inside voice." And she was probably too crippled to hobble over to him very quickly. No, I see Jesus recognizing this woman as she was, and restoring her external dignity as fast as he could. Carryl Houselander came to mind. The British police used to call this chain-smoking daily communicant to the station house when they had a particularly violent and criminally insane prisoner. She was able to speak to them, calm them, restore their dignity.
That's the kind of vision I need Jesus to share with me. To be able to see people with his own eyes, as persons, as the dwelling-place of God and not as categories or problems.

Fan Mail

The archdiocesan paper has been running a series of articles I'm writing on St. Paul. And recently I got my first "fan mail" for the series:
"Just a note to say thank you for the very fine article you wrote about St. Paul. The icon of St. Paul preaching is most expressive. I love it. I am going to save the article and picture. Sincerely..."
Imagine, this was all written by hand, and came in an envelope with a stamp on it! Real mail! God bless the lady who took the time to express her appreciation. The icon she referred to is by a Daughter of St. Paul, I believe. It was only reproduced in black and white in the paper; you get to see it in living color.

If you have to go to the doctor...

... Choose one with a scenic view.

Inner life

The first reading is a wonderful prayer St. Paul offers for us--and invites us to pray. It helped me recognize, with its reference to the "inner self," that I have been mighty superficial in that regard. I was also helped to this recognition by the fact that I am currently reading a wonderful book on Ignatian spirituality, sent to me by my friend at Loyola Press(eternally grateful, you know; keep 'em coming!). The book is a collection of essays, for the most part: extraordinarily well written pieces that I had not come across before. I'm grateful to the editor for putting them together in one volume!
Reading through, a few pages at a time, I was reminded that the essence of Ignatian spirituality--finding God in all things--is a fruit of mindfulness, and one of the things Ignatius invites us to be "mindful" of are the inner "movements" that flit through our heart as the day goes on. I had gotten to be much more focused on outward things--so distracted in looking for these that I lost the awareness that God, who lives in the "interior castle" of my being, is communicating from that throne all the time. His comuniques take a form that would seem to be just a mood or a reaction; it takes discernment to recognize which really are moods and which are messages! So that book is really coming to me at a good moment.
Ignatius' message and insight could do so much for us today--it is so easy to be drawn, led, "directed" by our immediate feelings, our untested values. Ignatius gives us a way to "test all things" and make the choice for the good.

Blessed Feast Day

Today is the feast of Blessed Timothy Giaccardo (for our Pauline Family--it's not on the Universal calendar). Born Giuseppe Giaccardo, he met our Founder during the brief time (less than a year!) that Alberione, newly ordained, was assigned to a parish. It was the little parish of Narzole, Italy, where "Joseph" was a fervent little altar boy. (The image of Giaccardo in priestly vestments is from a new side altar in that same parish Church.) The Giaccardo family could never afford to educate their son beyond the village school, so Alberione sponsored his tuition in the minor seminary--and the bishop assigned Alberione himself to be the spiritual director for the candidates and seminarians. Giaccardo was the first priest of the Pauline Family, even before the Founder himself. The Founder was already ordained, but was technically a diocesan priest; Giaccardo was ordained as a member of the Society of St. Paul--even though, technically speaking, the Society of St. Paul did not even exist as a recognized religious congregation! (The saintly bishop Re managed to overlook more than one canonical issue with regard to our Founder, whom he knew to be led by the Holy Spirit.)
There's a wonderful "coincidence" between today's feast and the first Mass reading assigned to this day in Ordinary Time. The emblem of the Pauline Family, in use since Giaccardo's day, features this Latin motto: "Ut innotescant per ecclesiam sapientia Dei. " It's from St. Paul to the Ephesians. And you'll hear it at Mass today: "That through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God might be made known." The very mission of the Pauline Family!

A Day with Dante

Expectant longing. Vigilant waiting.
Is this Advent or Dante’s “Purgatorio”?

Discover a place that is nothing less than a rendezvous of heaven and earth—just like Advent…and life itself.

Advent Women's Retreat
Pauline Books, Chicago
Saturday, December 6
9:00-3:00

Director: Sr. Margaret Joseph Obrovac, fsp

Pre-registration required; $25 fee includes lunch. Info and registration: 312 346 4228

About the director:
A Daughter of St. Paul for over thirty years, Sr. Margaret Joseph did her undergraduate studies in philosophy and theology at St. John’s University, NYC, and is completing studies in eschatology and millenarianism. Studies in Rome and at the Universita per Stranieri, Perugia, Italy, earned her a diploma in Italian language and culture. Sr. Margaret currently does translation and editorial work for Pauline Books & Media

You can tell that we're coming toward the end of the liturgical year when you start hearing those Gospel passages about servants awaiting the Master's return. Today, Jesus specifies that the Master is returning from a wedding. And what awaits the vigilant servants who are awake and alert enough to open the door? A wedding feast!
As I read this passage, an antiphon came to mind; it is from our Christmas novena, which is based on a really old Benedictine tradition, so it is liturgical in origin. The antiphon goes "Behold, the King will come, the Lord of all the earth, and he will remove from us the yoke of our captivity." The servants only have to wait a while, holding out for the "one thing necessary."

From time to time I highlight the newsletter written for the Franciscans by Fr. Bob Sprott. Here it goes again! This time, with so many people asking questions or raising challenges about Catholics in political office, the article is on excommunication.

I just noticed something about Luke's Gospel. It features a woman and a man who both try to get Jesus to intervene in a matter involving a sibling. In both cases, Jesus begs off. Athough he is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, he is not into triangling. More significantly, of course, he uses the occasion to teach the petitioners what is amiss in their own presuppositions.
The woman was Martha (yes, I am still meditating on Luke 10!). She was "burdened with much serving," but Jesus told her that "only one thing is needed," and Mary was already focused on it. In today's Gospel, we hear a man complaining (whining?) to Jesus that his brother won't share the inheritance. And Jesus gives them both a lesson about greed. In effect, he is repeating his message to Martha: "one thing only is needed"--"a man may be rich, but his possessions do not guarantee him life." It's exactly this Gospel lesson that many of the financial movers and shakers in our country need to hear. Some of those people have dedicated their lives to amassing wealth, making money an end in itself. In effect, they are subordinating their own lives, their whole being, to money; sacrificing themselves (and all the millions who lost so much in the stock market collapse) to Mammon!
So how can we make this Gospel heard?

Lectionary Laughs

Every once in a while, the day's readings provide abundant opportunities for misreading. I've written about some of those gaffes before; today the lector gave me one more to add to my list. Based on the reading from the 2nd letter of Paul to Timothy, St. Paul must have hungry there in prison, because he asked Timothy to pick up a few things for him. In addition to the cloak he left in Troas, he wanted parchments and papaya rolls.
The reading was chosen for today's feast of St. Luke because Paul mentions, poignantly, "only Luke is with me." (Maybe Luke ate all the good papaya rolls.)

The Other St. Ignatius

Readers of this blog have, through the years, found many a reference to St. Ignatius Loyola, for whom I have a rather unbounded admiration. Equally unbounded is my admiration for today's St. Ignatius, the early (I mean early!) martyr and bishop of Antioch--at the time, the third largest city in the Roman Empire. The ink was barely dry on the pages of the New Testament when Ignatius was condemned to death as a leader of the illegal religious group known as Christians. It wasn't enough for Rome to dispatch him in Antioch: this "pestilential sect" was known to have spread across the Empire. Ignatius, a revered overseer (the literal meaning of the word for bishop) would be made an example and a warning. So he was led in chains across half the Roman world, knowing that at the end of his journey he would be thrown to ravenous beasts in an arena filled with screaming and bloodthirsty spectators.
Following the example of the often-imprisoned St. Paul, Ignatius wrote letters all the way to Rome. Fabulous letters. Seven of them have come down to us: to the Philippians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans...even the Philadelphians! These letters show us the caliber of the man about to face death for Christ. He was more than a brave and wise "overseer" of the Church of Antioch: he was a mystic whose whole focus was on being made one with Christ--even if it was "the teeth of wild beasts" that would "grind [him], the wheat of Christ, into pure bread." He begged the Romans not to show him "untimely charity" by attempting to have him released: he could practically hear the Spirit within him like murmuring water, saying "Come to the Father."

Good Read

In preparing for my talk on the Liturgy of the Hours, I picked up a book that had somehow come my way, and boy, am I glad! It's a rather scholarly treatment of Augustine's approach to the interpretation of the psalms, something that has been the subject of mocking insinuation more than of serious scholarly research. I am running out of those nice little Post-It tabs that I am so devoted to in marking lines I want to copy down or incorporate in one or another presentations. While contemporary scripture scholars focus on the historical-critical approach, seeking the "literal" meaning of the books of the Bible, Augustine makes use of allegory, imagination and above all, beauty, to move the hearts of his hearers. The ancient bishop was not writing for peer review: he was preparing homilies!
I recommend this book especially to priests and deacons, and any who pray the Liturgy of the Hours on a consistent basis. In some pages, it will be a hard slog (as Augustine himself can be), but I am confident you will find it well worth the effort!

You will see that I am adding an Amazon link for this title; this book isn't in our database (yet), so until our online bookstore is ready, I'll try to provide links (and the Daughters will get a tiny "rebound" from Amazon on any purchases!).

Martha, Martha

Would you believe that Jesus is still finding ways to send me back to Luke 10?!

Hurricane Follow-up

Hurricane Ike's impact didn't end when the winds died down. Sr. Margaret Joseph and Sr. Kathleen Thomas in San Antonio (where our book center is in "suspended animation") wrote in our community newsletter what they were doing for the evacuees from the affected areas. I asked them if I could share the stories with you...
From Sr. Margaret's pen:

Ten thousand people temporarily relocated to San Antonio because of Ike. Everyone on staff acknowledged how well organized FEMA and other services were this time around and how much more calm people were on the whole. The archdiocese of Galveston-Houston reported that although half of its 160 parish facilities sustained some damage, it was manageable.

When we realized on Sunday, Sept. 14, that thousands from the Texas Coast were pouring into San Antonio following the devastation from Hurricane Ike, we knew they would have not only material and physical needs, but spiritual and emotional ones as well. Inspired by the FSPs who had ministered to those who had fled Katrina and Rita three years ago, we decided to follow suit. I signed up with the volunteer corps first, since Sr. Kathleen had an exhibit the next weekend to prepare for.


Monday, after several phone calls to various offices of the APC, I learned that no archdiocesan plan was afoot, and that was “getting mixed signals” from Church leadership about committing its resources for the evacuees’ spiritual care.
I asked for a Wednesday meeting with Steve Saldaño, president of Catholic Charities, and the archdiocesan director of evangelization to discuss what we hoped to accomplish and I offered to go to Kelly AFB to get the lay of the land in preparation for that meeting. Protestant chaplains had repeatedly begged me to ask for a priest to “provide sacramental care,” so this became a priority and a key to the chaplains’ collaboration with us. At the meeting we compared notes and with the directors of formation, evangelization, and social concerns, we formulated a simple action plan.

The shelter was a massive warehouse, about 300 yards long, and was divided into four sections. “A” consisted of a processing station, dining area, Red Cross office, drug dispensary, prayer room, and communications center where people could call anywhere in the world for free; “B” and “C” were filled with FEMA cots, where as many as 5,000 evacuees bunked; in “D” the city’s VA set up a makeshift hospital and treated 190 acute and non-acute patients at its peak. A retired priest came each Sunday to celebrate Mass first at the hospital, then in the prayer room.

It was soon clear that most of the people were poor, marginally educated, and in many cases, tough. Most were not Catholic, but were open to our presence and our willingness to serve them. Countless people wanted to tell their stories, confide their worries and anxieties, and be hugged or prayed with. We moved about freely among them, talking with them and letting them pick out something to read.

Since our Pauline Book Center is still closed and we had very few titles we could use for this purpose, we needed sources for materials. We began by raiding our own community library for easy-to-read spirituality books, biographies and novels. People couldn’t get enough. Not only did they accept what we had, but as the days passed, they began to search us out. Thanks to PBM’s order fulfillment department (thank you, Sr. Patricia!) and the few remaining dollars in the Books of Comfort Fund, we were able to give out several copies of Prayers for Surviving Depression, Tender Mercies, Letters of St. Paul, his novena, some Spanish titles (we actually had more than we needed) and coloring books…with crayons, too.

The greatest demand was for Bibles and rosaries. Yes, rosaries. Sure, many wanted to just wear one. But we did what we could to lead them beyond that. We distributed at least 125 sets that included a plastic rosary, PBM’s How To Pray the Rosary and, in many cases, Basic Prayers. Cash donations to cover all this are trickling in. In addition, Catholic Book Publishing donated 40 medium Bibles, and OSV sent hundreds of prayer books for adults and children. People were no more put off by the word “Catholic” on the covers than they were by us. In our hands even the city paper looked Catholic!

The “Chaplain’s Table” in Section A, as well as the one in the hospital, stocked whatever we wanted to leave there: back issues of Time magazine, copies of the archdiocesan newspaper, “tracts” from OSV donated by the archdiocese, and the bulletin from the nearest parish, with a note we attached to each with the pastor’s approval, inviting people to join the Sunday celebration. Some did go, also to get canned goods and gas money when it was available.

The challenge was occupying the children. Our connections with the Salesian Sisters and volunteers of the Missionary Catechists of Divine Providence provided the kids with evenings of soccer, relay races, games, coloring, and songs—some with a religious twist. Prizes came compliments of Pauline Books. Not only the parents, but the police and fire fighters too, couldn’t have been more collaborative and grateful.
The final week, it was only Galveston residents who were left—about 400 or 500 people. The evening before their departure by bus, we held a send-off prayer for anyone who wanted to attend, centered around the Rosary, “the Gospel prayer.” Originally intended as a simple presentation two days later, we quickly had to re-bill it when we heard that Kelly would be emptied out in the morning. Eight adults and four teens came for the 20-minute reflection and group sharing, then stayed to learn how to pray the first Joyful Mystery.

Only one participant was Catholic: Nancy, an ex-con, who had done time in federal prison for drug-dealing. With the help of Sr. Maureen, a former police officer, she had enrolled in a re-entry program and worked to get her own apartment, where she lived for three days before Ike struck. Despondently she told our little gathering, that she “lost everything.” An older woman in the group was firm: “But you still have your ambitions, and that’s what’ll carry you through. God will see to that. Look at Job—lost everything. But God gave him more than he ever had.” Nancy replied, “See, I needed to hear someone tell me that. I have my faith, I know God is with me, but I need people too. I’ll hang onto that.”

Oct. 1, the first Wednesday of the month, they left. Our own evening prayer consisted of entrusting to St. Joseph all the people we could remember by name or story, as well as all those who would continue to be touched by what they received through us. We introduce some of them to you:

· David, who went to Confession and Mass for the first time in 40 years.

· Lita and Randy, who don’t want to live together anymore, but have two pre-school daughters to care for;

· Rita, who instructed me to “sit there and don’t say anything” while she prayed for my ministry among the evacuees;

· Mary, already severely traumatized by early abuse and disoriented because of the evacuation, but comforted by the hospital staff and our visit; she recognized us on our next visit and reached out to give us another smile and hug, assuring us that she was reading the pamphlet we left her;

· Marie and William, married 25 years and members of the Holiness of God Church in Galveston, who were eager to learn the Rosary and have us pray a decade with them;

· Orlando, Starr, and Sienna, their baby brother and two supportive parents, who attended every play session we held;

· Kenneth, surprised by God’s care for him: we offered him a book on dealing with difficult people just after his altercation with another evacuee;

· Jeff, a former Air Force pilot, who was amazed and amused that he was back at the base from which he had been deployed to Viet Nam 35 years ago;

· Agnes, a volunteer nurse from India (now living in Naperville, IL), who used to frequent our center in Mumbai close to her home and who knows several Indian Paulines by name;

· Those who committed either capital or petty crimes or who suffered because of them, including a man who lost his life there at Kelly;

· The literally hundreds of military, medical and Red Cross personnel, police officers, and fire fighters, who came from San Antonio and from all over the country— North Carolina, Michigan, California, Alabama, Alaska, and Illinois, for starters—to assist evacuees with compassion, humor, respect, and persevering dedication. They earned the respect and thanks of everyone there.

Wedding invitation

I'm still thinking about yesterday's Gospel--you remember it, right? The king who sent out wedding invitations, only to have 100% no-shows on the great day? Why people thought their farm or business had a higher priority than a royal wedding banquet is beyond me (I always give food-related invitations a very high priority!), but then... it is so much easier to give practical priority to the things had hand rather than something outside of my area of control. Maybe that is what was going on.
I find that I need to focus more, though, on the invitation itself. Because we have all received that wedding invitation. It is the invitation to let God's love and praise be the dominant note in our daily life. (Imagine how effective our evangelizing efforts would be if believers typically looked and acted like people who were about to go to a wedding feast!)
Probably this is catching my attention in a particular way because I am preparing my Oct. 25 talk on how to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. The Church understands this as the prayer of the Bride, the Church, to her Head and Bridegroom, Christ. So every day as we open this book, we are unsealing a wedding invitation.
R.S.V.P.

Radicchio Rights

Listen to your lettuce. Cry with your corn. Sympathize with soybeans. In Switzerland, it's the law.
I'm all for showing respect for creation: it's a duty the Catechism of the Catholic Church makes very clear. We are creation's stewards, not its Lord. And the goods of earth are meant for all of us, and for generations to come, so respect for creation also falls under the seventh commandment.
But some over-eager ethicists in Switzerland are making this a matter of rights, not of simple respect.
The new rules especially target experiments in genetic modification, and some of the effects are good: plants cannot be rendered sterile. That means that farmers would be able to reserve seeds for the next harvest, instead of paying out year after year for freshly modified seeds.
But there's more to the law than that: scientists seeking permission for plant studies have to prove that the goal of their proposal is consistent with the plant's "dignity." That includes (ahem) "their...reproductive ability and adaptive ability."
Can we take some of that respect and apply it to our own species?

Science and the Human Person

Here's a great response to Bill Maher's mockumentary, "Religulous": a day-long seminar Dr. Richard Sternberg [evolutionary biologist with doctorates in biology (molecular genetics) and systems science (theoretical biology); former Staff Scientist with the National Institutes of Health, now Research Fellow with the Biologic Institute in Seattle] on "how the philosophy behind Darwinian evolution relates to John Paul II's vision of the human person and the spousal relationship. Dr. Sternberg will explain its influence on abortion, euthanasia and other current issues in bioethics. He will be joined by Dr. Paul A. Nelson [philosopher of biology] and Fr. Thomas Loya."
Oct. 25, 8 am to 4 pm
Annunciation of the Mother of God Byzantine Catholic Church
14610 Will Cook Road
Homer Glen, IL 60491
815-828-5094 tobia [at] theologyofthebody [dot] net
Limited seating; register now! $60 registration fee ($35 for students) includes lunch.

Dr. Sternberg's experience of being shunned by the scientific establishment after allowing the phrase "intelligent design" to be included in a journal he edited was the inspiration for the movie "Expelled."

Busy Season

Autumn is what we Paulines call "an intense apostolic season." This is when we put the most miles on the odometer mostly because of the number of diocesan religious education conferences that fall during this time of year. (I just got back from a teachers' conference in Milwaukee--going with a volunteer in a borrowed van, since three other sisters and our two vans are otherwise occupied farther afield.) And tomorrow Sr. Thecla and I will run a book display for the Ambassadors of Mary, who hold their annual Our Lady of Fatima observance every October. (I'm cantoring for that, too, but that's beside the point.) All this activity can create a kind centrifugal force, though: the more we have going on, the more we may think we can do, ought to do, must do. It can keep spiraling outward until we are living on a treadmill. It's a real grace for me that precisely in this "intense apostolic season" I am finding the words of Psalm 127 especially helpful: "If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do the builders labor."


What else are we up to besides book displays? Well... I'll admit to testing this online Pauline trivia game, a very cute idea from a parish in Mexico. Try it yourself--but make sure to make a mistake or two to activate the "swords and shipwreck" feature. If you know all the answers, it is very boring.

Wholly Spiritual

If there's anything that should come across powerfully through today's readings (aside from a sense of shock and awe at Paul's lambasting the Galatians), it is that God wants us to ask for (and receive) the Holy Spirit.
For Paul, the Galatians' earlier reception of the Holy Spirit was so remarkable that he could refer back to it rhetorically, asking why on earth they wanted to "go back" to the ritual observances of a Judaism they (former pagans) had never known, when they had already experienced the greatest gift of all.
And in the Gospel, the familiar and comforting "Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find" is related above all to the gift of the Spirit. "The Father will give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks."
It made me really perk up and take more notice at the "epicleses" of the Eucharistic Prayer at Mass, those two moments when the priest asks God "send your Holy Spirit to hallow these gifts" and "send your Holy Spirit upon us."

This week our community is invoking the Holy Spirit for all our apostolic undertakings: we are scattered to the four winds as of today, with Sr. Laura going from Minnesota to North Dakota, where she will meet Sr. Helena and Sr. Irene Regina (who were in northern Wisconsin). They will hold a book display at a Eucharistic/Marian Congress in the Fargo diocese. And I will going with a volunteer, the ever-faithful Blanca, in a borrowed van (God bless Larry and Cari), to Milwaukee, to run a book display for Catholic educators at the Midwest Airlines Center. Pray for our safety, for great diffusion of the Word of God, and above all for all the many, many people we are meeting on the way. (I'll be back Friday night.)

Here we are!

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The Better Part

It wasn't until last night when I was preparing for today's liturgy that I realized that my "mistake" yesterday (taking up today's Gospel instead of yesterday's) was really an invitation to do what Mary did that day in Bethany: really sit at the Lord's feet and let him do the talking.


Speaking of talking.... I (finally) put together a web page offering the presentations I am doing for the Year of St. Paul. If you are in the greater Chicago area (or the Midwest, generally!), please give a copy of this list to your pastor or adult faith formation director. Maybe I can come your way!

Sorry about that, Bruno

Today is the feast of St. Bruno, the Carthusian. But all during my prayer time this morning, I was convinced that it was tomorrow's feast of Our Lady of the Rosary! I prayed the Invitatory antiphon ("Come, let us worship Christ, the Son of Mary"); I reflected on the feastday Gospel ("Mary has chosen the better part"); I made a mental note to find my copy of Pope John Paul's document on the Rosary to use for my afternoon prayer... All to realize that I was skipping right over St. Bruno. Even worse, when I took pictures of the stained glass at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church (where I sing in the choir), I skipped right over St. Bruno's window, thinking that I would have very little use for an image of an 11th century hermit.
My bad.

7 days and 7 nights

There's a Bible marathon on Italian TV. It was kicked off on Sunday (fittingly enough, the day the Synod of Bishops opened their discussions on the Word of God in the life of the Church), with the goal of reading the every book, every word, from Genesis to Revelation, on live TV. Even Pope Benedict had a turn with the book of Genesis. At this writing, Sunday night, they are already well into the story of the golden calf.
Even if you can't understand Italian, it's worth spending a bit of time with. The production is very high quality--and the Word of God is living and active, even in a language you don't understand!

Synod time

The Synod of Bishops is now meeting in Rome to discuss the Word of God in the life of the Church. I attempted to spy on them by means of the Vatican webcam (sometimes it gives you the Vatican TV feed), but I forgot that it was midnight in Rome... St. Peter's Square is pretty deserted right now.
Anyway, here are some Synod links to keep you in tune with the bishops. (Our Mother General was invited to participate as well!)
About the Synod/
Documents related to the Synod of Bishops
Vatican TV (only works when they are broadcasting live)

Don't rue the rubrics!

I participated today in the Mass for the feast of St. Francis at the Franciscan Church here in Chicago (St. Peter's). It was one of those pull-out-all-the-stops celebrations (literally, the organ was booming), with candles and trumpets and with dozens of friars in their habits looking appropriately Francis-like. The Gloria (by Fr. Robert Hutmacher, OFM, who was serving at the altar) was phenomenal. But one aspect of the liturgy unsettled me, unexpectedly. At the Gospel, there was a procession to an ambo set up a few yards down the center aisle. It was a beautiful and reverent procession that highlighted the importance of the Word of God, and looked as if it were a retrieval of an ancient tradition. But after the proclamation was begun, the retinue, including the presider, began walking back up the aisle as the presider continued reading the Gospel! After the reading, I sat down to listen to the homily, only to be summoned to my feet again: we were told to reverence the Gospel with a bow. Okay. And then the Alleluia was sung again. We had to wait for the liturgist to tell us when it was safe to be seated.
At that point, I totally forgot the Gospel I had just heard. All I was aware of was that I was suddenly feeling irritated and ill at ease, unprepared for what might next be sprung on me during the remainder of the liturgy.
I'm sure the group who coordinated the celebration had no such intention, but what they ended up doing was depriving the assembly of a small part of its rightful autonomy. The responses and postures of the liturgy are ours! They are what free us interiorly to respond to the Word of God and participate genuinely in the celebration. When we have to keep looking up to a liturgist or server for hints about what to do next, a new dependence on the clerical office has been imposed on us. At this point, I can see the friars shaking their heads in grief: "Noooooooooo!" (Call it the law of unintended consequences at work.) Maybe there's more wisdom to the rubrics than we are generally aware of!

Praying the Psalms

In preparing for my upcoming talk on the Liturgy of the Hours, I'm really enjoying Joseph Jungmann's book on the history of Christian Prayer. A tidbit I read yesterday mentioned that--it being a given that monks would pray the psalms as their primary form of prayer--by the Middle Ages, some monks didn't know how to pray the psalms. They just tried to get through them. One kindly bishop offered the "helpful" suggestion that they meditate on the various aspects of the suffering of Jesus as a way of engaging their minds and hearts while they recited the words of the Psalter. (Some monasteries, especially early on, had the goal of reciting all 150 Psalms every day!)
I don't really have much trouble praying the Psalms; they seem to say just about everything. Singing the blues? Psalm 22. Singing for joy? Psalm 92. Singing of love? Psalm 18 (parts of it, at any rate!). And one of my Dad's old books provided me with an insight that I have found especially fruitful. The book was "The Soul of Jesus," and in one chapter, it offered a meditation on how Jesus himself learned to pray at home in Nazareth. I imagined Mary and Joseph praying the Psalms, and little Jesus lisping along with them, and it became like an invitation to me to witness the way the members of this Holy Family prayed the Psalms. So now, when I prepare at night for the next day's liturgy, I read the responsorial Psalm four times: once, just to open my mind to it. And then I read it again, opening myself to the way Mary would have prayed those words. Then it's Joseph's turn, and then Jesus'. It has really made a difference in how I then take up the Psalm as my own.
Try it with today's Psalm!

AOL's decision to retire its FTP service at the end of the month has me scrambling to get files hosted here and there--I've already moved the adoration "ad" in the sidebar from AOL to a free service that allows file uploads (if not FTP). I hope to move other things (my profile picture, for instance)--including the linked items from archived articles--in the days ahead. I'm disappointed, because my AOL address is part of a still-paying account. There were some real benefits to this (for example, 50 gb of online storage on xdrive.com), but it looks like these are going to be taken away, one by one. (Nothing lasts forever!)

Hurray!

Maybe the Angels had something to do with it, but YouTube has (finally!) pulled the videos of the desecration of the Blessed Sacrament. I didn't even want to go to the videos to click the "tag for inappropriate content" button, lest the number of hits go up even by one. Today being Thursday, assigned by Catholic tradition to honoring the Eucharist (and a first Thursday of the month of the Rosary, no less), it is certainly fitting that this happen now. God be praised!

Makes the world go 'round

St. Therese, young as she was, had it spot-on. "In the heart of the Church, I will be love!" Because without love, the martyrs would not shed their blood, nor the missionaries preach: the Church itself would lose its reason for being.
It took Saul of Tarsus a while (not to mention one very hard fall!) to learn that lesson, but Therese owed the discovery of her unique vocation to Paul.
Forecast for today: a shower of roses.

Today's saint could well have been described in the words of today's first reading from Job, "a man of strife and contention." Poor Jerome! His character just didn't fit what we would consider the "saintly" model. One Pope is even said to have commented (referring to Jerome's meditation on mortality, symbolized in a skull among his books), "Oh, Jerome, if it weren't for that skull, I'd un-canonize you!"
In some ways, perhaps, Jerome was born out of his time. He was by nature an anchorite, but was called (even by the Pope!) to be a teacher, spiritual director and scholar. Amazingly, the grimy ascetic, who grumbled publicly against Augustine, had a devoted group of women disciples. They must have recognized something in the crusty priest with his tomes in Hebrew and Greek (and that skull!)... And the Church, too, recognizes something in Jerome. Sanctity isn't the same thing as sweetness. Perhaps it was the case with Jerome that, as St. Gertrude later wrote about her own "crusty" superior, the Lord allowed a person of immense virtue to retain an ugly character trait as a constant call to humility.

From generation to generation

My first great-niece was born this morning: the first of a new generation in our family. I'm still waiting for pictures, other than the teeny cell-phone pics my Mom sent, which, well, don't really let me know anything other than that little Leah Claire has seen the light of day on this feast of the Archangels. (May they be her guardians and guides all her life long!)

Not for Sissies

My Aunt Shirley has been known to sigh on occasion, "Ain't nothin' good about gettin' old." Qoheleth seems to agree with her in today's first reading. In poetic language, he details the progression of decrepitude in "the evil days" of advanced years "when the almond tree blooms" (evidently, the almond is a late blooming tree?): shaky limbs ("the guardians of the house tremble"); crippling arthritis in the legs ("the strong men are bent"); loss of teeth ("the grinders are idle because they are few"); loss of eyesight ("they who look through the windows grow blind") and of hearing ("the sound of the mill is low and one waits for the chirp of a bird"); loss of appetite ("the caper berry is without effect").
Qoheleth is addressing all this to the young by way of advice: "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth." Don't wait for old age to give praise and thanks to God; don't leave God the dregs of your existence. Let God also be glorified and praised in the very joy and beauty you experience in the fullness of your strength. And then you will find a way to give God glory and praise when he will be the one unchanging good that remains to you.

More from the mailbox

More from the YouTube mailroom:

I just wanted to drop you line... to.. say... thank you for your youtube... experience
Its bringing me closer to the church once again and I want to thank you for it...

I also have a question about books, do you have any recommendations for a person discerning religious life?

first off I would like to say I enjoy ur videos very much. I recently just bought a CD from the daughters of Saint Paul at our local Catholic store, and I rely liked what I heard, I was wondering if they hade a myspace music profile, I know it sounds weird for a nun to have a myspace, but we have developed a community on myspace. I think it would also be good advertisement for the Order.

Hello sister, I send you a video on how one lives Easter in my city. My city is called Linares and lies within Andalucia, a region in southern Spain. I hope she likes. P.D.: Excuse me, my English. If the shipment of video fails, here you have the web address:

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=rdpVEJODwIQ

Catching up

I didn't realize how far behind I was in reading the messages sent to me on YouTube... This one is from "Catholic Albanian" and was sent in July:
As you may probably be able to tell after reading my screen name I am Catholic and Albanian and was wondering whether you may be able you recommend Albania to some missionaries looking to spread the word of God. Fortunately I am Catholic and have heard the Good news but there are hundreds of thousands of people in Albania who haven't. Although there is missionary work taking place in Albania it is limited and a lot more can be done to help.

Albania is a majority atheist country despite foreigners believing that the majority of Albanians are Muslim, they are in fact atheists as they do not practice their faith and follow the rules. So if possible please help increase our Catholic population from 10% to a much larger figure by recommending Albania to your missionary friends.

God bless you and keep up the great work you are doing.

What time is it?

Today we get that lovely meditation on time from Ecclesiastes: "He has made everything beautiful in its time."
How much stress comes from the inability to accept the "sacrament of the present moment"!

Where two or more Daughters of St. Paul are gathered, there am I in the midst of them...with a video camera.
Here you see (or will see, once YouTube finishes the process) what happened when I asked sisters "What are you reading right now?" and "What's your favorite book?" (Most of them waxed eloquent about what they were reading at the moment.)

So what are YOU reading right now?

Something New Under the Sun

Today's first reading is that gloomy assessment of human life from the "gatherer of the community," Qoheleth: the one who sighed "Nothing is new under the sun." But the Gospel is a flat-out contradiction of that! Jesus brought something so new that no one could fit him into any of the usual categories. Was he Elijah? John the Baptist? Some ancient unknown prophet come again? Even Herod seemed to realize that something new was up, "and he kept trying to see him."

Mark your calendar! It's your chance to learn how to pray the Liturgy of the Hours: how to find your page; when to pray what; how to use all those ribbons!

A couple of years ago, Father Bob Sprott, ofm, wrote about his experience as a confessor: he was hearing more and more men confessing indulging in Internet porn. Other priests confirmed that this is a growing problem, and that many of the men who admit to using Internet porn seem unwilling to really break it off. Maybe a movie like this will help them. Sony is taking a risk on a movie produced by a Baptist organization, so the first weekend's income will be closely monitored. This might be a good weekend to go to the movies...

Faith in Reason

I meant to blog about it a few days ago, but the trip to Davenport didn't leave me too much time for Internet access... There was an interesting column in the WSJ the other day. About the faith of atheists. (Yes, you read that right.)
I had read something months ago about the inverse relationship between conventional religious belief and credence in superstition, astrology and the like. This was something along the same lines. ("31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in [the occult and paranormal], only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week [do].") But to me, the most interesting info was this: "Ten percent of atheists pray at least weekly and 12% believe in heaven."

The book display and St. Paul talk in Davenport went well. The parish there, St. Paul's, is celebrating its centenary this year. Sadly, the parish and school was vandalized a few weeks ago: the first-floor windows of one of the school buildings are are boarded up, and the church's exterior light fixtures and a stained glass window were also broken. One of the local religious communities, the Sisters of Humility, held a prayer service there (and a simultaneous one at their motherhouse for the sisters who were too infirm to come): it's something they do now wherever there has been an act of violence in the area. Sr. Laura and I stayed with these sisters and were really impressed with their continued engagement in mission, even when so many of the sisters are really quite elderly. There was a real spirit of ministry in their house; just this weekend they took on a new service, running a shelter that another organization was pulling away from.
My USB hub died last week and I picked up a cheap replacement at Office Depot. This replacement was so cheap it didn't even come with a power cord! I got it anyway, because I thought my old power adapter would fit (same output), but no. So now I have two non-functioning USB hubs, and lots of USB devices. (Maybe I can find the right adapter in a closet somewhere, or in the basement computer graveyard.) (Any other ideas?) I had another tech problem in Davenport--rather, in the car trip there. Before leaving, I remembered to bring some AAA batteries with me for the many gadgets I use. If only I had realized that the pack of batteries were the rechargeable kind. (No recharger among the gadgets.) Then, setting up the projector for my talk, I couldn't get the wireless mouse to communicate dependably with the computer. I strained to pull the computer as close to the lecturn as possible, but the monitor cable didn't allow it to come close enough. Then the pastor raided his technology closet and came out with a twenty-foot 7-pin cable that solved the problem. (Note to self: find twenty-foot, 7-pin cable for future talks.)

It's lovely outside; maybe I will take a Rosary walk by the lake before heading to Mass.

San Gennaro

Today is the feast of San Gennaro (or St. Januarius, as he is known outside of Naples!). This bishop and martyr is best known, I suspect, for the phenomenon of Italian festivals in his honor--um, no, I mean, for the phenomenon of the liquification of his blood.
It was a custom in the early church to preserve the spilled blood of the martyrs in a vial--St. Praxedes (see the Vermeer at left) met her death while carrying out this work of devotion. Well, from at least the 1300's, an ancient dried mass of dark brown preserved in a glass reliquary, turns rich red, bubbles and flows as the vial is tilted back and forth in a ceremony by the Archbishop of Naples. Sometimes this happens quickly; other times, it takes days. Since in the Neopolitan mind the failure of the blood to liquify hints at impending disaster (Mt. Vesuvius is visible from the city!), any delay in the annual miracle can inspire thousands of people to repentance. The confessionals of Naples suddenly become very popular...
The fact that the relic appeared only in the 14th century has, of course, raised questions in the past hundred years. The blood of San Gennaro has not been subjected to any high-tech testing (like electron spectroscopy) to verify that it actually is human blood. And researchers have managed to use local minerals, including one only found in volcanic soils, to develop a substance that has the same properties--solid when resting, liquifying after gentle motion. So, who knows what is really going on there in Naples? For centuries, though, people have had a graphic reminder that, long ago, a bishop did die for his faith, giving his life for his flock.

In today's Gospel, Simon the Pharisee may not have had any big ticket items on his debit sheet with God, but Jesus listed his omissions one by one, all adding up to a kind of contempt--or at the very least, indifference toward Jesus. (Kind of reminds me of the accusation hurled (!) in the book of Revelation toward the tepid.) And he looked with more than indifference toward the woman at Jesus' feet. Now she was someone Paul could relate to--and in a way, he does "relate" in the first reading. It's the scene of the "woman who was a sinner" washing Jesus' feet with her tears. Jesus says that this woman, because she was forgiven much, showed great love. St. Paul could, and did, say the same thing in his own regard: "I was a blasphemer and a persecutor and arrogant, but I have been treated mercifully...and the grace of God has been given me in overflowing measure...and this grace has not been fruitless in me. The love of Christ controls us with the conviction that because one died for all, all died..."

In today's Gospel, we can almost see Jesus shaking his head over the "people of this generation." They were using themselves as the standard of upright, balanced living, and according to that scale, John the Baptist failed by excess and Jesus failed by falling short of expectations! Since the crowd itself represented the norm, they could not notice that John and Jesus were both, in their own way, expressing a life that had God as the center. In a word, they were living in love. And in the first reading, Paul is showing the Corinthians what a life centered in love looks like. Love, like wisdom, is vindicated by its "children."

Welcome Wagon

Please add your comments to welcome Sr. Irene Regina to our Chicago community. Sr. Irene is from the St. Louis area, and has most recently been stationed in our New York community. We're excited to introduce her to this dynamic city and all the missionary possibilities it offers. In fact, she will have hardly set her suitcase down when she'll go on the road with Sr. Helena to attend the Holy Family Institute annual Triduum in Canfield, OH. (Sr. Laura and I will also be on the road, but in the opposite direction, for a parish book fair and St. Paul talk in Davenport.)
Sr. Irene is "famous" in our communities as being the only Daughter of St. Paul (so far) to have attended college on a basketball scholarship. (With her phys. ed. background, she might be the one to help us all keep any resolutions we might have made in the way of health and exercise...)

Mater Dolorosa

Today's feast of Our Lady of Sorrows reminds me of an episode from high school (Latin I class). My friend Liz (who took Spanish) was writing about a funeral at Mater Dolorosa Church, and she wanted me to translate that name for her. All I had to go by was the glossary in my Latin I textbook, which had such interesting terms as "Cocam-Colam" and "Picus-nicus" (no, I am not kidding), but no "dolorosa." So Liz suggested it meant "of the roses." I didn't think so, but what did I know? So I just said, "well, maybe."
When Liz got her corrected paper back, she was quite ticked off with me. "Dolorosa" has nothing to do with "roses." Instead, it is about "dolor," suffering. Mater Dolorosa is not "Our Lady of the Roses," but "Mother of Sorrows." (And still a very lovely church in New Orleans, too.)

Am I missing something?

One of my friends seems to be on the "dire warnings of doom" e-mail list. Lately, she has been expressing preoccupations with the upcoming Presidential election. Everything from "Obama is Satan" to "McCain won't last long in the White House: what kind of President would Palin be?" to "Armageddon is coming, really!" Not to dismiss the possibility of Armageddon (it seems to already be in full swing in some parts of the globe), the general thrust of my friend's response to whatever it is that has affected her is worry and fear that the end is near.
So am I missing some critical information?
Jesus himself had some pretty scary language about how bad things would be right before the end. Did he mean for us to live in terror or anxiety? Not if St. Paul is to be believed--and he thought the end was right around the corner in his day! Instead, Paul told us to "long" for the coming of the Lord and to "hasten" it with prayer and upright living. It would be silly not to think that there would be some risk, even spiritual risk, if a time of universal crisis should break over us. (If Christians were being led off to torture or death for professing their faith, I picture myself--apart from the special grace of the Holy Spirit, hesitantly raising my hand about waist-high to admit my belief while hoping the gesture wouldn't be noticed.) But Jesus told us not to imagine these things: "sufficient to the day are the troubles thereof." St. Paul expected us to "love the Lord's coming." "The Lord is near! Rejoice!"
But I'm still wondering: am I missing something?

A speck in my eye

Today's Gospel features the comical image of the concerned person "helping" a neighbor get a speck out of his eye while oblivious to the beam in his own. St. Paul, in the first reading, recognizes the risk: "I drive my body and train it, lest, having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified." He knows that "if a blind person guides another blind person, they will both fall into a pit" (Gospel). Paul wants to "be like his teacher" (Gospel) in taking "the form of a slave" (Paul) "to save at least some" (first reading). This is what it means for Paul "to have a share in the Gospel" (first reading).

And Sr. Lorraine has drawn my attention to another situation in which we (by which I mean, my community's publishing house) are being told we have a speck in our eye... How typical of St. Paul to stir up controversy even long after he has entered into the full sharing of the Gospel! (As Sr. Lorraine says, "Get your banned books here!")

9/11 and the most unlikely Gospel

There are four Gospels: four accounts of our Lord's life, teachings, death and resurrection. And in the pattern of readings for the daily Mass, these Gospels are distributed across the whole year. There had to be something, then, in Divine Providence that every so often, like today, the Gospel passage assigned to the universal calendar speaks with a clarity that tells us that this Word of the Lord is very much intended for us, in real life, here and now.
What is the Gospel for this Thursday of the Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time, which in 2008 happens to fall on the anniversary of a dreadful and deadly attack? "Love your enemies."
If we were able to vote off Gospel passages like so many contestants in a reality show, this one would probably rank right next to Jesus' teachings about divorce. It's something most of us might wish just weren't there. Especially in the face of enormous evil, of real, sworn enemies. Things as big as 9/11 can make us dismiss the whole teaching as impossible, even on a small, personal level.
That's where the first reading proves us wrong. Because in a way, St. Paul is telling the Corinthians about loving their enemies.
The situation was quite different, of course. In a culture where any meat served at meals or sold in the market had probably been part of an animal sacrifice to a pagan god, could Christians eat meat without participating in idolatry? The more sophisticated members of the Church felt free to enjoy any food whatever, but some of the brethren were scandalized. So the weak were imposing on the strong. We tend to think of an enemy as stronger in some way--at least as strong enough to do us harm. Paradoxically, in Corinth, it was the weak who had become the "enemy." And Paul said submitting to the chafing limits they imposed on one's freedom of menu was loving one's enemy. It was a way of protecting the soul of "one for whom Christ died" (Paul's new definition of "neighbor"). Paul doesn't say it, but it is clear that he expects the "weak" of Corinth to love their enemies by refusing to judge them.
"Be merciful as the Heavenly Father," for "while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son." For Paul, this is everything.

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TOB tonight!

	Going "by the book" of JP2, with Fr. Thomas Loya. 7:30 EST on Ustream.tv Tell your friends!

Peter (Claver) and Paul

Today is the feast of St. Peter Claver, the Jesuit missionary to Colombia who designated himself "slave of the slaves forever." The African slave trade was at its height, and so was the human misery that Peter encountered when he arrived in the new world from his native Spain. He devoted the rest of his life to compassionate ministry to the slaves, boarding the slave ships with food, water and medicine, and carrying out whatever services he could. Peter was the Mother Teresa of his day, because those slaves were the "poorest of the poor."
Like Paul, Father Claver could say, "Although I am free, I have made myself a slave." Not that Paul was the first one to come up with such an idea. It was really Christ, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not deem equality with God something to be exploited, but emptied himself and took the form of a slave."
It's an ugly word, but for Jesus, for Paul, and for Peter Claver, "taking the form of a slave" was the language of love.



Happy Birthday to my sister Lea Ann and her son Logan!

TOB starts up again

Our online streaming video class on the Theology of the Body resumes this Wednesday at 7:30 Eastern Time. If you missed the earlier sessions, view the archived video on the channel page.
Mystified by Church teachings on marriage and sexuality? Tune in!
Love what the Theology of the Body has done for you? Tell your friends to join us!

HB, BVM!

Wonderful first reading (if they go with the Pauline option): basically, my signature URL: Romans 8 v 29!
Mary's arrival on the scene was the first breath of the upcoming redemption. As one of the early writers put it, in Mary' God was setting his throne in place. Soon he himself would come to occupy it.
The image isn't exactly the Birth of Mary, but it is so stunning, I wanted to share it. Sr. Sergia in Rome just sent it to me. (She's sending me some new Angelus pictures so I can redo the Angelus video with better quality images.)

A Blessing to Romania

Sister Anna Maria Bulai will be making her first profession in Bucharest on Sunday, Sept. 7. She is the first of our Romanian sisters to make her religious vows, and comes from a family that retained their Catholic faith through that country's long dark years under Communism. In fact, Sister Anna Maria's father was a printer and did clandestine printing for the Church--so her vocation as a Daughter of St. Paul was in line with a family tradition. There will be a certain poignancy to the profession ceremony, because the faithful printer died on August 15, somewhat like the situation my family experienced when my sister was married three days after Dad's death: just as we knew that Dad was taking part in the event from heaven, the Bulais are confident that their father will be there in spirit to see his daughter profess her vows.
Please pray for Sister Anna Maria, for our little community in Romania (one of our relatively recent foundations) and for their mission in that land, and for the Bulai family, still in mourning for a fine man of God.

Measure for Measure

Today's first reading (1 Corinthians, still!) and Gospel both hint at the skewed criteria we can use in the matters of God. St. Paul knew what it was to be "weighed on the scales and found wanting." He complains of being judged "ahead of time" and by merely external criteria. Jesus, too, was judged on external criteria, and found not to measure up to the standards set by John the Baptist and the Pharisees, whose disciples were noted for their ascetical practices (whereas Jesus and his disciples could just as easily be found at a dinner party). There's nothing wrong with asceticism, of course, but Jesus tells us that it needs to come in a "new wineskin" of awareness that "the bridegroom has been taken away" for a while, and that we await the "new wine" of his definitive coming.

With Mother Teresa's death now over ten years behind us, middle-grade children will only be able to know her as they know other holy dead people: not as contemporaries, but as people in books. So here's a book about our saintly contemporary.

Everything is ours

I love today's first reading from 1 Corinthians. The community in Corinth tended to use a variety of measuring rods to establish the worth or status of its members. Disciple of Peter, rather than Paul? Bonus point! Prolific speaker in tongues? Check! Clever in logic and scholarly wisdom? Wealthy? From a noble family (or at least not born into servitude)? Good for you!
St. Paul tosses it all over his shoulder in disgust. These things count for absolutely nothing in the eyes of one who was "determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified." What did it matter if the Apostle you learned from was eloquent or rough in speech? Or if the gifts of the Spirit in you were showy (like tongues) or hidden (like works of service)? "Everything is yours!" Paul said. "Everything: Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, the present and the future." Everything is yours, so what is left to measure each other by, or as a basis for comparison between one Christian and another?
"Everything is yours, and you are Christ's and Christ is God's."

What is happening in Orissa, India?

Persecution and death for Catholics, even if they are simply offering social services. The latest event was just last week.

Cardinal George responds

Our Archbishop answers the "Catholic" politician who made a particularly outrageous misstatement about the Church's position on abortion.

What a surprise!

There was a small box with my backlog of mail. Although the label was from our motherhouse, I didn't recognize the handwriting on it. And the packaging certainly wasn't done in our shipping department. (They'd never seal a box with masking tape!) Naturally, I tore into it. At first, all I saw was bunched-up paper, but on the side of the box was a flap of letterhead.

RE: Come to Jesus
Dear Sr. Flanagan:
Editions Des Beatitudes in France has published the above referenced title. It is our custom to send copies of the published books to the authors. I hope that you are as pleased with it as we are.
Your book will now be able to touch people throughout the world, reaching people you perhaps never dreamed of touching.

Well, they certainly got that part right.
In the box were four copies of "Viens rencontrer Jesus: Petit manuel pour introduire les enfants a l'adoration eucharistique."
Yippee!

Choice Words

One thing that has struck me in the recent coverage of the Palin babies is what has become almost a stock phrase: "she chose to continue the pregnancy, despite..." (the diagnosis of Down Syndrome in the one case, and the underage mother in the other). It used to be that abortion was defended as a woman's "choice." But the language reflected in these news articles seems to say that abortion is now the "default" position.
Am I the only one who noticed that? Am I reading too much into this language?

Living like Abraham

Got a new text message from Mom. They are heading to my brother-in-law's hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. Evidently, they weren't able to cross the lake back into New Orleans. Kind of reminds me of Abraham, who "went forth, not knowing where he was going." So please continue praying for all the dispersed.

Not over yet

Just learned that the area where my Mom went to avoid Gustav is under a mandatory evacuation: the after-effect of the storm is that the two local rivers are starting to rise, and these are not rivers with levees or flood walls. I texted Mom and niece; niece responded in two words: "We're packing."

I don't like the looks of this

Mom called from across the lake; with the storm passing to the west, they lost electricity (and it is very, very hot without air conditioning), but they are okay. Meanwhile, back home in New Orleans...

Guess where my prayers are tending? Funny how small New Orleans looks, but that marker is on my Mom's house, so it's pretty big to me.
Things this big, so phenomenally out of human control, can be really good reminders that we depend on God all the time, not just when confronted with massive storms. (In a way, I was tempted to think people were better off before storm tracking and satellite images!)

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Fear of the Lord

The most puzzling of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit has got to be "fear of the Lord." Fear does not sound like a positive thing: how can it come from the Holy Spirit? But today's Responsorial Psalm gives a hint of what the "fear of the Lord" means.

The eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness.

The parallel structure of the Hebrew poetry equates "fear" with "hoping for his kindness." And if we wonder just what that means, the psalm continues by spelling out what is hoped for: deliverance from death, survival in times of famine. Concrete hopes! (Like the hopeful prayers of my family in New Orleans right now...)
The psalm also offers an interesting commentary of sorts on Mary's Magnificat. No one more than Mary was "chosen by the Lord as his own inheritance"; The Lord looked with favor" on her, and she knew that "his mercy is from age to age on those who fear him." To deliver his people from death, the Lord would "cast down the mighty from their thrones"; to "feed them in time of famine," he would "send the rich away empty."

"Our soul waits for the Lord, who is our help and our shield,
For in him our hearts rejoice."
"My soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior."

Katrina Memories

It's weird for me, on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, to hear Mom on the phone talking about her evacuation plans. Three years ago, I had just returned from my parent's Golden Anniversary celebration when they left New Orleans at midnight (the first time they had ever evacuated the city for a hurricane). This time, it's just Mom, and she is ready to go: the frozen goods are bundled into big black garbage bags, so if the electricity goes out, the freezer won't be ruined. She's got her medicines and clothes ready to go. My sister, Jane, now has a husband (courtesy of Katrina--the one bright spot in the whole history of that hurricane), and they're ready to take the dogs and head for high ground. (Hopefully high ground.) My sister Mary, soon to be a grandmother, is heading for her daughter's house. (Luckily, "Grandma" is a nurse, in case baby Leah makes any surprise moves.) My nieces's husband is a firefighter, on duty until the hurricane threat passes. Another sister, plus a brother and his family, have their destinations in northern Louisiana.
But we're still praying Gustave away. Praying really hard.

You can read my Katrina archives here.

Still keeping busy

I didn't even realize until some time after 9:00 last night that I had forgotten to post anything for St. Augustine's feast day! And here it is the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist (the most macabre feast day in the year). Leave it to the Herodians, the most dysfunctional family in the ancient world, to provide the occasion for this secondary feast of the "greatest of those born of women." Since John the Baptist is my patron saint (my profession name is Anne Joan, after John), this is my "minor" feast day. (His birthday in June is my "major" feast day, thank you.)
Anyway, what was I doing so close to 9 p.m. that I forgot to blog? I was creating a video update about our recording project! Here you go:

God's sense of humor

In our family, when things go just slightly awry, we look at each other and say, almost in unison, "Gawd's sense of humor..." We got the expression (which we repeat with the orginal intonation) from a beloved Boston Jesuit who was a spiritual director and dear friend of my parents. I had one of those moments this morning. During my meditation and even through Mass, I kept getting insights about the spiritually dangerous phenomenon of setting personal non-negotiables that are really more strategies for protecting oneself from hurt or discomfort than they are about protecting objective values. (Not to say that self-protective strategies don't have their place, but it takes discernment to recognize when self-protecting becomes an end in itself.) Then, shortly after breakfast, I ran into a sister who had said something really dismissive and hurtful to me about a manuscript I had sent in. It seems that the editors want some changes. (How many, I don't yet know.) I made an appointment and then hurried to chapel to fit my Hour of Adoration in before the day's recording session... Then it dawned on me: during my meditation, God was, in effect, warning me not to dig in my heels with unnecessary "non-negotiables" that had nothing to do with His glory and peace to humanity! Gawd's sense of humor...
I kind of dread the meeting (Friday noon), so please pray that the outcome may really work for God's glory and peace to humanity!
Now I am almost late for the studio call...

Jesus is still at it in today's Gospel, taking aim at the practices of the scribes and Pharisees (but not at their teachings). The homilist this morning made a very good point about the tendency of people who are committed to holiness of life to overemphasize the external. This can lead to a scrupulosity that loses track of what today's Gospel sums up as "justice, mercy and fidelity."
This is easy enough to understand: It's much easier to focus on things that are more within reach, and external things are under our control. After all, "justice, mercy and fidelity" are attributes of GOD! It can be overwhelming to keep these things in mind as my actual vocation. But in today's first reading, it is Paul who encourages us: God wants to strengthen our hearts for this very thing.

St. Gregory, pray for us!

I know, it's really the feast of St. Louis, King of France... But the album we hope to begin recording today is based mostly in Gregorian Chant, so we are invoking St. Gregory for the project.
Today's Gospel can be frightening. Jesus comes across as scathingly harsh in revealing the emptiness that can hide behind pious practices. It seems it was really the nitpicking that sent him over the edge: "If you swear by the altar," the experts of interpretation declared, "you aren't really held to your oath. Only if you swear by the gift on the altar are you bound to your word." Jesus had a real problem with that: it made the gift more important than the altar! (Jesus had a problem with oaths anyway: "Do not swear at all! Let your 'yes' mean 'yes' and your 'no' mean 'no'," he said in the Sermon on the Mount.) I suppose that if you boiled today's Gospel down to the essence, the message would be "live in the presence of God!"

I'm back!

Back from retreat and back to the sound studio for a really exciting project. I have a few bars looping through my head (going on two hours now); appropriately enough, it is the "Ave Regina Coelorum" ("Hail Queen of Heaven," the chant for today's feast of the Queenship of Mary). This is one of the chants featured in the upcoming album, currently without a title (not even a working title!). Today we reviewed some of the music, practiced our Latin pronunciation and spent close to an hour in a photo shoot with Sr. Mary Emmanuel. She posed us this way and that, in this setting and then in another one. I was rather anxious the whole time, not just because of my sneakers (she wasn't doing feet, thankfully!), but because I was wearing the wrong color blouse (pale blue instead of beige!). I don't know how that's going to turn out. I didn't bring my beige blouse with me, thinking I could borrow one. (I didn't know that the photo shoot was today.) As the project continues, we hope to be keeping our choir blog up to date; maybe Sr. Emmanuel will provide some of those photos we smiled for today...

See you later.

Our community encounter week has been so packed, there has barely been time to wash the dishes. (Note that we did have time to eat! Priorities, after all.) Suffice it to say that I haven't done much more than micro-blogging. The encounter ends at noon tomorrow (Aug 14). We have time to wash the dishes (ahem!); the great silence of our eight-day retreat begins at 5:00. Naturally, Internet access falls under the category of "unnecessary conversations" that are not consistent with the best retreat practices. You are welcome to post your special intentions in the comments; I'll check them at about 4:00 (Eastern Time).
As a sign of the special grace I expect from this retreat, be it noted that the retreat begins on the 33rd anniversary of my entrance, and at near the hour in which I first walked through the convent door in suburban Boston. So please pray for me, too!
Blessings! See you in eight days.

Too good to miss

Here's Sr. Tracey's video rendition of our week in the recording studio...

Cookout for St. Lawrence Day

It wasn't planned that way, really. Tomorrow is our "free Sunday" when our encounter meetings are suspended for a day of rejoicing in the Lord. It just happened that one way we like to rejoice in the Lord as a community (especially when we are gathered from the four winds and are with sisters we haven't seen for quite some time) is to fire up the ol' grill. And it just happens that tomorrow will be the feast of St. Lawrence, known for all time as the deacon martyr who was grilled to death, but somehow maintained a wry sense of humor during the ideal. (He was the one who so famously said, "Turn me over now; I'm done on this side.")

From the retreat house

The last of the singers (that would include me) arrived at the retreat house last night for a week of community meetings (to be followed by our eight days of silence). As I was moving into the room I will occupy for the next two weeks, I found a peculiar object on the shelves (no real closets)in the room. It was carefully and quite neatly wrapped in a mattress cover. An old, red brick.
If that wasn't the Cure' of Ars' pillow, I can't imagine what it was doing in a retreat house room. But as long as the holy Cure' doesn't expect me to use it as a pillow, I think I'll be okay with it.

When Peter Was Satan

Today's Gospel is the famous "Get behind me, Satan" passage, where Jesus delivers a real zinger to Peter. Why? Because Peter was "thinking not as God thinks, but as human beings do." And this right after Peter had been praised for what the Father had revealed to him about Jesus! Turns out, Peter had "rebuked" Jesus for predicting his suffering and death. Peter couldn't fathom that God might actually allow the righteous to suffer. It is almost as if Peter was scolding Jesus, saying "Hey, where's your faith?!"

Transfiguration, Real Presence and Reparation

Yesterday was the first I had heard of the recent rash of Eucharistic sacrileges being promoted, as it seems, by a professor of the [University of Wisconsin (Madison)] [CORRECTION: University of Minnesota: sorry about that, U Wis]. It seems that the man is asking folks to send him consecrated hosts so he can desecrate them with aplomb, publishing the manner in which he carries this out (so as to assure himself the greatest possible attention). I understand he is an equal opportunity offender, having simultaneously desecrated the Eucharist and the Koran. Clearly, there is some sort of personality disorder at work here: a kind of exhibitionism.
Rather than dismiss this ("What a loser!"), we are called to two responses. The first of these is, clearly, reparation, not only for the professor, but for those who are collaborating with his deranged project. Our reparation can take the form of the opposite of sacrilege: praise and adoration of the Eucharist and reverence toward the members of the Body of Christ. Our second response, one that has already been taken up by many, is to pray for this person. I am praying especially to St. Paul for his healing and conversion, because if such a person as this were to be converted, he could become an Apostle of the Eucharist, much the way Paul became the most unlikely Apostle of the Gentiles.
The Lord's presence in the Eucharist is almost the opposite of what today's feast of the Transfiguration celebrates. Until that moment on the mountain, our Lord's divinity was utterly hidden: only his human nature was apparent. Then, the glory he had with the Father before the world began manifested itself in that transcendent experience. But in the Eucharist, as Thomas Aquinas sings in "Adoro Te," both divine and human natures are hidden. All we see is a passive piece of bread (or a "cracker," as the sacrilegious professor insists on saying). But perception is not reality--certainly not in this case, nor was it during our Lord's earthly life!
And now, down to the studio.

Our midday break (for lunch and prayer) is almost over. During my Hour of Adoration, I was especially struck by today's Gospel: "Every plant not planted by my Father will be uprooted." I tend to interpret this as a "divine passive," which means that God is really the one doing the action. But it could also be the sheer nature of human initiatives that makes them susceptible to destruction. I found myself flipping pages to that other passage in the Gospel about the house that can't be shaken by wind or flood: the secret is that the house is built on the rock of God's word.

False hopes

Today's first reading (from Jeremiah) confronts the problem of false prophets: people who raise false hopes. And what kind of false hopes? The expectation, in times of suffering, that things ought to just return to the familiar patterns and structures and supports; that things will go back to "normal." It's understandable, of course: we judge what is "normal" by how things have been in the past. But we risk limiting our openness to God's creativity that way. Even in the biblical situation, when the false prophet was promising that the fixtures stolen from the Temple (the Temple of the Lord himself) would be restored, and worship would again proceed like always, God was hinting otherwise: the Temple would be destroyed, leveled to the ground. God wanted the people to be very clear on this, and not to base their hopes on a building, no matter how illustrious. Once that happened, God promised through another prophet, "Greater will the future glory of this house be than what it ever was before."
God's promises outshine our hopes.


On a different note:
We're getting ready for another day of recording; I posted a video of our work so far. Check our Singing Sisters blog for updates!

Still singing!

There's barely time to blog, tweet or plurk (never mind Facebook!) while we are working in the studio, but we are trying to keep the music blog updated, so please keep checking there for my whereabouts! If I get any particularly deep insights, or have any especially interesting experiences while here (and I can get to the computer), you'll still find it here, though!