Advent 1 Prayer Service

Download this if you like. I'm posting it a few days early so you can use it to start Advent with Evening Prayer on Saturday.

Following an Advent path inspired by the Synod on the Word of God, for the First Sunday of Advent, we light the candle that signifies God's voice, and we resolve to "listen to Him."

Invitation: As Advent begins, we thank God for sending us the Word, God from God, to guide us in the truth and teach us, and we pray for the grace of a listening heart.

Reading: Mk. 9:2-7 ("This is my Beloved Son; listen to him.")

Response:
From the bright cloud comes the voice of the Father:
--This is my Beloved Son, listen to him.
My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me:
--This is my Beloved Son, listen to him.

Intercessions (Respond: Come Lord Jesus)
Look with mercy on the poor, the lonely, the depressed, the neglected, and give us your gaze of compassion for them. We pray:
Open our minds to an understanding of the Scriptures through which you continue to speak words of eternal life. We pray:
John the Baptist was filled with joy at the sound of your approach; let us know the same joy of heart on hearing your word. We pray:
Fill our minds and hearts with your Gospel so we can speak your words to those who wait for you. We pray:

Our Father...
Closing prayer:
As we light this first Advent candle, Father, enlighten us with your word in the depths of our hearts. May your word be the light that directs our words, choices and priorities in the ways of peace. We ask this through Christ our Lord.

The (almost) unveiling of Sr. Anne

I am so glad that I decided not to bring any technology on this trip. (HI from New York, by the way.) Usually, I am loaded down with electronics when I travel, because I want to take advantage of opportunities to get video footage of the nuns (or book interviews with Sr. Julia), take high-quality stills of stained glass windows in fabulous churches, and bring my work projects ahead, too. But the video camera will be needed for the Theology of the Body study group (I gave Sr. Irene and Sr. Helen a crash course in ustream), I brought Dad's old Palm device to use for word processing, and decided to forego the still pics for once.
And that's a very good thing, as it turned out.
I always get apprehensive when I unload all that technology on the TSA screening belt. Can't you just see the stuff jolted just enough, or the grey bin tumbling against another bin as someone reaches over it for a carry-on, and all that expensive stuff gets turned into a jumble of broken plastic and circuitry? And for me, it's all pretty irreplaceable. (Which is what really makes me nervous, O me of little faith.)
Anyway, today I had none of that. Just a backpack and overnight bag, with my shoes, a jacket and a quart-size, zip-closure bag of toothpaste and shampoo samples in the grey bin. So I went with confidence through the security gate, holding my boarding pass up for the agent to see. And then I was escorted into one of those roped-0ff areas, far from my stuff. Pretty soon, Sr. Helena joined me in the next roped-off spot, and the agent called for a female agent to come over.
There was only one female agent at that security station, and she was busy. My stuff went trundling down the belt as other passengers came through. We waited.
Was it the voluminous skirt again? Nope. This time it was the veil (the "headpiece"). They had to do a head-pat. Sr. Helena offered to take her veil off, if that would get things moving. (She had a laptop on the line!) Nothing doing. We had to wait for the woman to come and tap us all over our heads and shoulders. And then we were free.
As I tied my shoes, I saw another woman being led to the corral. She didn't have a veil or headpiece. Or voluminous skirt (though she really shouldn't have been wearing sweat pants).
I wonder what it will be next time. (We travel home through Philadelphia in two weeks.)

Eastward bound

Sr. Helena and I are heading to New York on Friday to begin our whirlwind concert tour; back in Chicago in very fine voice (hopefully!). Please pray for safe travels for all our sisters and all those who are on the road or in the air this holiday weekend. I hope to continue blogging while we're on tour, but it won't always be possible. (We have cell phones, yes, but no web plan!)

Feast Day!

Another feast day celebration today: our very own Founder, Bl. James Alberione. I got so wrapped up in preparing for Thanksgiving and for my departure for the concerts, that I totally forgot what I was going to say in honor of this man of God. But that's okay, because you were probably too busy preparing for Thanksgiving to notice.

Mark your Calendars!

I got an invitation to participate in an "extended novena" lasting through the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. I didn't visit the sponsoring website, so I am not vouching for everything that may be on it, but what I found on the invitation seemed worth taking on. Here it is:

54 day "Conversion of America" Novena begins December 3rd, and ends on
January 25th, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.

There are five specific intentions. You may specifically pray a specific
mystery for a specific intention, or simply pray the whole rosary for
all of the intentions. If possible, pray the rosary in front of the
Blessed Sacrament. The intentions are:

1. For the triumph of the Culture of Life in the United States of
America.

2. For President-elect Obama, and for all of the leaders of the United
States of America, that they will be led personally to Jesus Christ and
His truth, and that they will lead our country in a positive direction.

3. For the hearts, minds and SOULS of the American people, that they
will be turned back towards Jesus Christ and the "least of His
brethren".

4. For a renewal of the virtues of purity and self-control, especially
among our youth.

5. In reparation for the scourges of abortion, Embryonic Stem Cell
Research, euthanasia, cloning, artificial contraception, and all
manifestations of the Culture of Death, and especially in reparation for
the support and/or complacency that we as American Catholics have shown
to these evils.

So far 30464 Rosaries have been pledged.If you are doing the
Inauguration Novena or plan to do the Conversion for America Novena and
you would like to pledge your rosaries, here is the website.
http://www.rosariesforlife.com

I'm trying to prepare some simple Advent wreath services along the lines suggested by our Mother General (inspired by the Synod's Final Message). It's a bit of a challenge, because I also signed up to do the stuffing for Thursday, and meanwhile I'm trying (and trying!) to prepare a kind of visual program to match one of the songs for the concert. The program I'm using crashed almost a dozen times yesterday. It's a fabulous program, but the computer just isn't up to it, I guess. And it's a really good computer! I guess it's just time for a break. I'm almost 2/3 through, anyway... chopping celery and onions might be a good switch. (Our Founder used to say that changing work was a kind of recreation.)

Murphy's Church Law?

Just heard the worst-case sad-sack scenario story of the year...
62-year-old Chicago woman lost her job two months back. Got a notice that her apartment building was going into foreclosure. Hadn't been real strict with her church-going lately. Went to a dear friend to share the burden. Devout friend invited her to bring it all to the Lord at an all-night Vigil in the chapel at Catholic Charities.
Woman goes to the chapel. Kneels to pray by the window.
The huge, heavy-framed window in the hundred-year-old building.
The window that had just been repaired.
I guess the devil didn't want that woman having too much recourse to the Lord...

Window, frame and all, popped off the wall and onto the woman, knocking her to the floor.
Ambulance came.
Brought her to Big Name University Hospital, just blocks away.
Hospital wouldn't do x-rays because woman didn't have insurance.

Advent Approaching

That title is a bit redundant, like "the coming Coming," but with the Feast of Christ the King, we know that Advent is around the corner. Do you have your Advent wreath? Candles with any wick left? What about an Advent calendar? We have a new one this year, illustrated by our own sisters, and prettified with stay-on glitter (!). (No, the stay-on part is not guaranteed.) This isn't a large, poster-style calendar; it folds out in a little stand-up accordian. And it's a rather modest size, too, so it can fit anywhere.
Just thought you'd like to know.

St Cecilia's Day

No, not the poem! The actual day! I take any and all feast days that apply to me, and so this one, too. Happy Feast Day to all the Ceciles and Cecilys and Cecilias, and to all musicians!

The image is from the organ loft at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church. (I think the depiction is a bit more "Grecian Muse" than "Christian Martyr," but I'll take anything!)

Thanksgiving Grace

Sr. Irene had a great idea yesterday: she wants to stand at our door at rush hour and offer passers-by a smile and a leaflet with a Thanksgiving prayer. So today I dashed one off in case you'd like to print copies for your Thanksgiving table guests.

In view of Advent

We just got our seasonal letter from Mother General, a bit of spiritual wisdom for the days ahead. For us those "days ahead" are especially the feast of our Founder, Blessed James Alberione (Nov. 26) and the season of Advent. Since Sr. Antonieta took part in the recent Synod on the Word of God, she offered the marvelous suggestion of using four of the images from the Synod's "Final Message" as our Advent guide: God’s voice (Revelation), his face (Jesus Christ), his home (the Church), and his path (mission).

Let us live this time of grace together, in communion, emphasizing each Sunday these four icons as the four principal points of our journey–metaphors of the direction in which we want to move in time, space and cyberspace. For each symbol, we could light a candle to remind us of an aspect of our life and mission in the world today:

1^st Sunday: God’s voice: let us light the candle that signifies listening to him
2^nd Sunday: God’s face: let us light the candle that signifies meeting him
3^rd Sunday: God’s home: let us light the candle that signifies welcoming him
4^th Sunday: God’s path: let us light the candle that signifies our journey toward him.

And she offers this Advent prayer, from Pope Benedict:

“Come, Lord Jesus! Come into your world as only you know how to do. Come to every place marked by injustice and violence. Come to the refugee camps of Darfur, North Kivu and many other parts of the world. Come to the places dominated by drugs. Come to the rich who have forgotten you and who live for themselves alone. Come to all the places where you are unknown. Come in your own way and renew today’s world. Come also to our hearts and revitalize our way of living. Come to us so that we too might become the light of God, your presence. In this spirit we pray with St. Paul: ‘Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!’ (1 Co. 16:23). Let us pray that Christ will be truly present today in our world and renew it. Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!”

I think this is such a great idea, I hope to post these again, week by week, through Advent, and maybe find a way to create a little Advent flyer that you can download for your families.

Feast of the Presentation

This is a rather tricky feast day, frankly. The "Presentation of Mary in the Temple" comes from the ancient work, The Proto-Evangelium of James, a devout collection of stories that attempts to fill in the blanks left by the Gospel, giving us the human interest stories Matthew, Mark, Luke and John failed to provide. Like, who were Mary's parents? What's the story of her birth and childhood? What did Jesus do as a child? Things like that.
Unfortunately for the Feast of the Presentation, the sweet story of Mary's childhood in the Temple doesn't square with history. Little girls were not raised in a Temple boarding school, nor did the priests there act as matchmakers for them.
But that's not really the point of the feast, anyway.
Today's feast honors Mary as someone whose heart was completely consecrated to the service of God from the first moment of its awakening. And it foretells the presentation of the Lord, her Son, in that same Temple.
In a beautiful liturgical coincidence, today's weekday Gospel opens with the line, "Jesus entered the Temple." The Temple was not the place for buying and selling (Jesus "proceeded to drive out those who were selling"), but for the "complete gift of self" to God. And that's what today's feast of Mary is all about.

This is sort of what I've been thinking...

...only a lot less eruditely than this!

This awareness that Christians are different, and different in ways that make a very big difference, will, I expect sharply increase in the months and years ahead. For all of President-elect Obama’s wafting language about bringing us together, healing divisions, and so on and so on, if he seriously intends to follow through on his extremist abortion views, we are headed for the intensification of an American version of the Kulturkampf that Bismarck came to rue. The focus is on FOCA, the Freedom of Choice Act, that Obama says he wants to sign on his first day in office. This act would eliminate the very modest restraints and regulations established by states, provide government funding for abortions, and in its present form, require religiously sponsored hospitals and clinics to perpetrate abortions or go out of business.

(Richard John Neuhaus, "The Coming Kulturkampf")

Here's what you need to know about FOCA. Funny how in the name of "choice," the will of the American people (expressed in the passage of numerous laws protecting women and unborn children from gross exploitation) can be completely overruled with one touch of the pen. (The President-elect promised Planned Parenthood in 2007 that passing this Act would be one of his presidential priorities.)

When I was in Philadelphia I mentioned our wonderful Cooperators, Jack and Sophie, and their group, "Mary, Mother of Captives," a Pennsylvania support group for the families of people who are doing time. Clearly, any family is traumatized when a loved one is sentenced to prison. And not all families have the resources to visit the prison on a regular basis. Imprisonment can lead to family breakup. Imprisonment of a parent is a known factor increasing the likelihood that a child will also one day be an offender. So MMOC serves as an informal prison ministry, too. They coordinate a penpal program (no pun intended?) and even sponsor an annual inmate art sale: inmates are invited to submit their art projects, which are then displayed and offered for sale. The inmates receive the proceeds from the sale--although a few of them donate the proceeds to Mary, Mother of Captives.
Not all inmates have access to artistic media. Some do: they even specify the kind of paper, the types of pencils or pastels used, etc. But others can only use white office paper and #2 pencils.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, I was astonished at the quality of some of the works of art carried out behind the prison walls. Jack told me that one inmate, in a rather notorious prison in the Deep South, always features hummingbirds and flowers in his delicately painted submissions. Another prisoner, who worked for years "as a horseman," did the image of horse and rider you see here. Still another submitted his work with a message about his daughter, being raised by her grandparents after her mother died of an overdose.
Sophie told me of doing a presentation in a parish about their organization. The pastor gave them time after the homily to explain the group's goals and activities. And then he returned to the pulpit to add that his own brother was in prison. I remember assisting a deacon in one of our bookstores. He picked out a selection of spiritual reading and then gave us his son's address at a correctional facility. The US currently has more people in prison than any other nation on earth. In some places, Catholic prison ministries are actively obstructed; one inmate I know of converted to Catholicism in prison, and was then transferred to another prison where there is no access to the sacraments. (That doesn't stop him from giving other prospective converts instructions in the faith, using donated books.)
The submissions to the MMOC Art Show that behind those bars and walls there are thousands of souls who cannot hide from their need for redemption.

How to get a holy card from the Pope

I haven't done this for a while, and maybe Pope Benedict doesn't have the same protocol as John Paul did, but it's worth a try!
If you send the Pope a Christmas card and greeting, you will get back a letter from the Secretariat of State with a Christmas holy card. A great way to increase your collection of Christmas art for contemplation and edification.
Address it:

His Holiness
Pope Benedict XVI
Vatican City State
Europe

A letter from the past...

Funny the things that pop up, seemingly out of nowhere. A while back, Mom sent me some old mail she found in a corner of the house. Probably all the moving and shifting of stuff during the Katrina refurbishing brought it to the surface. And among the envelopes were two letters addressed to me by then pre-postulant Julie Darrenkamp. (Even then, she had the appropriately nun-like penmanship that I have never mastered.)

That was in 1975.

Postage was 10 cents. (Now my keyboard doesn't even have a key for the cent sign.)

Peter and Paul

Today is another one of those oddest of feasts, the feast of the Dedication of a Church. Only in this case, it is two churches. Two really important churches: St. Peter's Basilica and the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls. The feast has its origin in the transfer of the Apostles' remains from a temporary resting place on the Appian Way to their own shrines near their places of martyrdom.
Even though history hints that Peter died in 64 AD and Paul in 67, tradition insists on keeping the two Apostles practically joined at the hip in their last imprisonment and death. There is a whole genre of artistic depictions of Peter and Paul (side by side, or in matched sets), and another sub-genre of their last good-bye and kiss of peace as they were led off (on the same day, tradition says) to death. (The image here is on a plaque on the Ostian Way, a site which claims to be the very place the Apostles were separated.)
One interesting tidbit: look at any of these typical depictions of Peter and Paul and imagine Jesus standing between them. You'll almost always find that Peter is at Jesus' right and Paul at his left. So much for James and John's request "See to it that we are placed one at your right and one at your left in your Kingdom." Jesus said that this was "reserved to those the Father has chosen."
Peter and Paul.

Does your parish have a matched set of Peter and Paul? Where is it located? Is Peter on Jesus' right?

Nigerian style scams on FB

I've gotten a few rather strange Facebook messages recently--presumably coming from friends, but with outside links to, let us call them "unhealthy" websites. Now there is a new variety: appeals from a friend outside the country, who desperately needs you to wire money directly to a certain bank account.
Makes me suspect that some of the fun applications on FB are really very, very creative Trojan Horses that allow the third party to make use of your profile name to hoodwink your whole list of friends.
So now I am going to go and uninstall all those applications.
No more pokes, gifts, plants...
And if you get a desperate money wiring request from me, well, now you know.
But donations are always appreciated!!!

More about Screwtape

Here's the Catholic New World's review of the stage production of C.S. Lewis' brilliant "The Screwtape Letters." As I wrote a few weeks ago, we were treated to tickets and found the performance equal to Lewis' work.

St. Paul!

My articles for the Catholic New World are beginning to appear on the newspaper's website. The articles are based on my talks for the Pauline Year, which were themselves inspired by Sr. Armanda's soon-to-be-published book, "Facing the Apostle Paul," a study in Paul's thought as seen through the lens of art. In fact, in my articles I credit Sr. Armanda's insights--but I think the credit got left out of the online version. So consider this my tip of the hat (veil?) to Sr. Armanda for her great work. I'm really looking forward to her book release!

Christmas Concert Series

New blog!

I'm not ending Nunblog; I'm adding a blog for our Theology of the Body online study group to make it easier to share the TOB message with everyone. You'll find the archived classes with Fr. Loya, Sr. Helena's notes (when she is available to take them) and (when I can find them) the chat box conversations, too. There is a short list of TOB resources (more to come) and the poster you can download.
And a donation box if you're so inclined!
Let me know your book recommendations, and also any glitches that I need to fix.

Don't look back

That's the message of today's Gospel as we get toward the end of the liturgical year. It's a kind of scary Gospel (as in, "this is good news?"), but it reflects other parts of the Gospel: for example, when Jesus told his would-be followers to "let the dead bury their dead" and that "the one who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is unfit for the Kingdom of God." "Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it" is a paradox that all four Gospel accounts (even John!) repeat.
This morning, all of this came together for me in the person of (who else?) Paul. On the road to Damascus, when "the Son of Man was revealed" to him (or "in" him, as he wrote to the Galatians), all "the things I once considered gain, I have reappraised as loss in the light of the surpassing knowledge of my Lord, Jesus Christ." "I give no thought to my own life, but I am racing to grasp the prize if possible, since I have been grasped by Christ Jesus."

Home again, Home again

I'm back in Chicago, lost in catching up on all the things that have been piling up here and on line for me. It does reassure me, though: sometimes I feel that I'm just not doing very much. When I go away for a few days and find a mountain to climb, it tells me that I probably am actually doing more than I realize day by day!
I got a few more phone calls and emails from parishes and organizations hoping to line up talks for the year of St. Paul. I'm trying to accept as many of these as humanly possible. The main talks are already written, after all, so the more the merrier. And Sr. Julia in New Orleans booked me for a talk in my hometown in January (a wonderfully apostolic excuse to get out of Chicago in the middle of winter, even if for only a few days).
Oh, and I just remembered another commitment I made: to work with Sr. Irene Regina to prepare a visual program to go along with one of the songs for our Christmas Concerts... That had totally slipped my mind. As has the location of the document Jack Weber signed, giving me permission to use his photos.
Maybe I really should just call it a day!

Did you miss me? I'm still in Philadelphia. I had the full Philadelphia food experience: scrapple for breakfast yesterday and a cheesesteak sandwich for supper this evening. I was expecting something on the lines of a hot roast beef poor boy with cheese. What it turned out to be was a cross between a poor boy and a meatball sandwich with cheese (no French bread, of course): the roast beef is served with pizza sauce, cheese (American, provolone or Cheez Whiz) and cooked onions. Tomorrow, God willing, I return to Chicago, the land of the hot dog ("with all seven condiments"). Not that I expect Chicago hot dogs on the convent menu, you understand.
It has been a great week, sharing St. Paul with the Church of Philadelphia, and sharing Pauline life with our local community. We have a great team of Pauline Cooperators here, especially the dear Jack and Sophie Weber. I'll be writing soon about their prison ministry and support group for families and the art show they recently put on with inmate's remarkable art.

I guess I'm not alone in this...

In this week after the presidential election, I have heard more than one Catholic ask happened to American Catholics with regard to the one issue of this election that Catholics overwhelmingly chose to ignore (but on which the president-elect has made pretty clear he intends to act radically). Today I followed a series of links and found an October post by a Catholic Chicagoan affirming something that, to date, I haven't heard anyone else (but myself!) put in pretty much the same words:

Only by perpetuating abortion as an issue can the Republicans hold captive a block of voters who find this practice abhorrent. Certainly, some Republicans sincerely believe abortion is a crime, have done all they can to combat this evil, and do not court popularity with callous disregard to the sanctity of life. But the party as a whole has been calculating and manipulating the Pro-Life voter. By perpetuating the notion that this issue is in play, the Republicans have held Pro-Life votes captive for thirty years.

Just last week, I had made a similar comment on my friend Karen's blog:

In this year's election, besides the general disregard of Church teaching across the board (which has become the norm for over a generation now), we had high profile Catholics making a case for the wider arc of life issues--and I think there was something else at work, too, as Catholics entered the voting booths this week. Even the most active Catholics may have come to the conclusion that the Republican Party was using the issue of abortion as a kind of carrot to keep stringing pro-life groups along, year after year, election after election, as they voted for Republican candidates in the hope of seeing right-to-life laws passed and justices appointed. Perhaps this year many just came to the conclusion that the Republican Party was not going to ever permit any definitive resolution of an issue that was so good at keeping the flock. Right to life victories may have been used like the bone that gets thrown to the hound every so often to keep it content with its leash.
Perhaps (and this is pro-life heresy, of sorts) we have focused too much on laws while the culture itself ran away from us. Now we have a patchwork of laws--and they have saved lives, to be sure--but what has the impact been on culture? What makes more of a difference in people's day to day decisions: the pertinent laws or the system of assumptions, priorities and values that make up the culture? If an Obama administration wipes away every legislative protection from unborn human life, do we start from scratch to rebuild the same structure? Perhaps this has just shown us which direction not to take: not to focus so intently on the political, but to give new impetus to the personal.
And to really get the message of the Theology of the Body out there in every possible way.

I had a wonderful time at the Catholic Life Conference in Radnor, PA. I gave my "Life and Legends of Paul" talk twice this afternoon. I was assigned to the school chapel (Archbishop John Carroll High), and the screen they provided was so tiny, I ended up projecting the images onto the brick wall. Only a few details were lost. (Sorry about that, Caravaggio.) My talk was inspired by reading Sr. Armanda's Master's thesis. She studied about eight or so images of Paul to treat of the theology reflected in the art. I am happy to say that her work is heading for the presses with a tentative release date of Jan. 25. You'll see it here as soon as it's available. I highly recommend it.

Meanwhile, here in Philadelphia, we'll be making our November retreat day tomorrow. Usually it's on the first Sunday of the month, but last week we were all involved with the Cooperators' Conference. Sr. Mary Lea's talk for the Cooperators makes a nice retreat reflection, so I offer it here: you can make your own Pauline day of recollection!

Free video streaming by Ustream

Beginning to look a lot like...

...the winter holiday shopping season, of course! (The tree is going up in Daley Plaza.)

TSA, here I come!

My last encounter with the TSA (coming home from Philadelphia on Monday) presented me with a new reason for traveling by train. 

As I was approaching the first security desk, passport and boarding pass in hand, some friendly passengers behind me asked me if I had to remove my veil for the security screening. Not yet, thankfully. (I didn't know that baseball hats have to go through the X-ray machine.) I dutifully took the camcorder out of its case, placed it in the grey bin along with my jacket and shoes, put my backpack on the belt and waited my turn at the screening gate. The agent signaled and I went through, returning his nod, and then I moved toward the belt to pick up my things. 

Not so fast.

A female TSA agent was at my side, walking me toward the roped-off zone back by the X-ray gate. I had a choice: she could pat me down right there, or escort me somewhere off stage. The reason? My "voluminous skirt." This does not bode well for all the winter travel on my calendar. Winter wear tends to, you know, amplify the "volume" one is already blessed with.

Tomorrow morning I'm going back to Philly. (I left my suitcase there so I can travel light.) My only question at this point is...does this habit make me look voluminous?

The link is from the "Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute." I've never heard of the organization, but their board of directors includes a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace... 

According to C-FAM and other organizations involved in life issues, "On December 10th, radical pro-abortion groups will present petitions asking the UN General Assembly to make abortion a universally recognized human right." The Petition is an attempt to head this off at the pass by submitting an overwhelming number of signed petitions affirming the right to life of all persons from conception to natural death, and the right of parents to educate their children and choose the kind of training they wish their children to have. 

In seeking to verify the content of the C-FAM message, I also found this (from Speroforum.com): "...the Office for the High Commissioner on Human Rights, which is responsible for overseeing treaty compliance committees, released the concluding observations of the most recent sessions of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Committee and Human Rights Committee (HRC). Both committees used the July sessions to pressure countries appearing before them to liberalize abortion laws, even though no UN human rights treaty mentions abortion." (One of the nations being pressured in this regard is Ireland.) 

So please consider signing the petition, doing a little something toward promoting the culture of life.

You can also download a pdf file of the petition (presumably to distribute it widely) and mail it in.

New Concert Scheduled!

We just accepted the invitation from the La Salette Shrine in Attleboro, MA to sing on December 8 (7:00 pm). They have a marvelous Christmas lights tradition at this Marian shrine, and I suspect that for many people, Mary's feast day is just the time to visit. If you're anywhere in the area, I hope you'll make it, too!

O Happy Fault!

I spent most of yesterday afternoon struggling to put some video up on the Pauline Spirit ustream channel. Originally, I had hoped to post all of the weekend's conferences so that our sisters, cooperators, vowed laity and women in discernment could benefit from it. Well, the video posted just fine, but there was no audio. Correction: there was audio, but it was from me making noises in my office. Typing sounds, paper noises, throat clearing, maybe even (horrors!) a phone call or a shout down the hall for someone. I put up pitiful requests for help on Plurk and Twitter, and many good souls tried to come to my aid from as far away as the Netherlands (thanks, Inge!). Alas.
I downloaded a recommended program (SoundFlower) and tried that. Then, hanging my aching head in defeat, I left the stream flowing online and went off to Mass. I was not two blocks away when *bingo* I knew just what I needed to do. Not only that, the audio problems I was having with this pre-recorded video revealed the solution to the complaints our Theology of the Body study group people had been saying for the past several video sessions: that they could hear me just fine, but that Fr. Loya's voice was "far away," despite the clip-on mike.
I had the wrong "audio source" indicated. All this time, months and months now, I neglected to change the default from "built-in mic" to "DV audio" (or, in the case of pre-recorded content--admittedly a much more complicated situation--using the newly installed SoundFlower channels).
Such are the ways of Providence that our Theology of the Body online study group will now have enhanced audio because I had such migraine-inducing trouble yesterday trying to do something else.

Speaking of TOB, our monthly study group will meet here as usual on the second Wednesday of the month with Fr. Loya (yes, next Wednesday at 6:30 Chicago time, 7:30 New York time), but the online session will stream later, most likely on FRIDAY. There is no message that is more life-giving than the Theology of the Body: do your friends a favor and invite them to watch the streaming video class with you. Get a group together to listen and discuss the most unlikely good news our culture could ever here! (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/theology-of-the-body -- in the archives, you can identify the TOB classes because the clips all feature Fr. Loya; the other clips are from the Pauline Spirit channel).

As for the videos I posted yesterday, you will find them at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/pauline-spirit and click on the video clips to the upper left of the archive box. I'm posting more today, God willing! (Sr. Mary Lea's talk on St. Paul was outstanding.)

There's something about today's Gospel that I keep avoiding... My excuse is that I am distracted by the denouement of the long campaign we have been through. But I suspect that it is the meat of the Gospel that I am really avoiding. In a way, the Gospel matches the first reading quite well--something that doesn't happen too often in the weekday cycles. Jesus is saying to the "great crowds" that they must turn their backs on every precious thing, life included, to really be his followers. He calls for full surrender; otherwise, we are starting a project that is doomed to incompletion. All or nothing.
And St. Paul is giving the example of someone who did just that. Even more, Paul testifies to the joy he feels at the prospect of his life being "poured out like a libation."
In a way, Ignatius' "suscipe" prayer expresses Paul's heart: Take, Lord, receive, all..I have and possess. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me.

The scene and sounds outside

It's after midnight in Chicago. I was trying to sleep, but the roar of the crowds passing by our front door just made it impossible. So I gave up and leaned out of the window with a video camera. It was something like the 4th of July after the fireworks, a scene that never fails to remind me of our Founder's words, "Where and toward what is humanity moving?"
I also have to admit I wonder where and how those sudden waves of screaming originate. People will be walking happily by and then all of a sudden, the throng erupts in shouting, cheering, whistling, chanting. A group just passed by with drums or buckets, tapping out a rhythm for all to chant with.
See if this works to give you some idea.

Tonight's lineup

The Liturgy speaks to Election Day

Here's a great thought, right from today's Responsorial Psalm:

"Dominion is the Lord's

and he rules the nations."

Posting from Ground Zero of the Obama Campaign,

Chicago's Michigan Avenue,

Sr. Anne

What a wonderful weekend with the Pauline Cooperators in New Jersey! Fr. Antonio da Silva provided some breathtakingly deep insights into our spirituality--while attempting to keep translating, I did manage to capture a few things for myself--and Sr. Mary Lea from our Culver City (CA) community gave a deceptively insightful presentation, wrapped in her understated, humorous style. I got most of Sr. Lea's talk on video and hope to put it on ustream. I also got Fr. da Silva's talk (with my running translation from his Italian) on video--but since no one was doing any camera work (I put it on a table, hit "record" and went to my post at the mike), I have no idea if the video will be usable. Hopefully the audio will, though. (He gave some interesting information on the Pauline sainthood candidates, too. Being the postulator general, he knows something about that.)
Speaking of Pauline sainthood, the cure that Fr. da Silva was investigating got written up in the Delaware newspaper. Rae Stabosz (the healed child's grandmother) was with Fr. da Silva all week, and with us all weekend. While I was there, I got another prayer request, this time from New Orleans, for a toddler named Ashton. We prayed for his full healing through Bl. James Alberione's intercession, and I'm bringing home some medals for Ashton and his family. Please join us in prayer.
I'll be back in Chicago for just a few days, and then returning to Philadelphia, where I am at the moment, to give some talks on St. Paul. (Anybody in Philly reading this?)

Ya gotta love chicago

It's not as good as previous years, but at least they dyed the fountain. And at the airport the have agent is going around with a basket of candy (the good kind of trick or treat candy).

HB to me

I'm traveling this weekend: heading to a retreat house in Princeton NJ to do simultaneous translation for our Pauline Cooperators Conference. The principal speaker is Father Antonio da Silva, Postulator General for the Pauline Family. That means he is the one in charge of researching and presenting the "causes" for canonization for members we thought were especially remarkable for holiness of life. He's in the States right now looking into the unusual cure of a little boy in Philadelphia. Was it a miracle obtained through the intercession of Blessed James Alberione? That's a question the Vatican will ultimately answer, presuming the process makes it that far. Here's the Grandma's take on it. 

It's more than a travel day for me, though. (Start singing the Birthday song.)
Yep, that's me. I don't look like it here, but I've always loved having a birthday on such a fun day. And I share the day with two other Daughters of St. Paul: Happy Birthday, Sr. Mary Rita! Happy Birthday, Sr. Sean Marie David!

Any other Halloween babies out there to greet?

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!

Live Video streaming of Theology of the Body Online Study

TOB tonight!

	Going "by the book" of JP2, with Fr. Thomas Loya. If he gets here on time, it will start at 7:30 EST, 6:30 Central on Ustream.tv Tell your friends!

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.