The Holy Family Institute

“Bye, Happy Nuns!”

2012-02-01T19:04:00.000-05:00

Sister Emily Beata Marsh pronounces
her first vows, Jan. 28, 2012.

What do you say when the firstborn in your brood of twelve tells you she wants to be a sister? John and Ruth Marsh of Bemus Point, NY, near Buffalo, were not at all surprised when 20-year-old Emily announced just that. She wanted to be a Daughter of St. Paul. Nine years before, she had confided to her mother, “I don’t think the married life is for me.” Apparently she wasn’t deterred by the rough and tumble that comes with a houseful of kids. Emily dated, but felt drawn to something different. Last week she told me simply, “I wanted to give my life to God, and in this place, in this congregation, I found the way to give my life totally.”

There aren’t any sisters living or serving near Bemus Point—population 364—so the kids’ exposure to religious life comes from reading lives of the saints. Emily’s first contact with a real live sister was FSP vocation director Sr. Margaret Michael Gillis, whom she met at a youth conference in 2000. Three years later she was introduced to our community when she visited our mother house in Boston for the weeklong St. Paul Summer Program. When you ask her what it was about this introduction that convinced her to keep walking with us along the road of her discernment, she smiles. “I saw the sisters praying with joy,” she recalls. “They had a relationship with Jesus. At table and at recreation they were very joyful and normal. That visit helped me to know Jesus and myself, what I wanted. I asked myself, Who is Jesus? What type of relationship do I have with Jesus? And after that I wanted more.”

Like life in a large family—“all boys except nine,” as John describes it—the religious life option was in the air Emily breathed. “When we talked about what they might do when they grew up,” Ruth says of her brood, “I listed things: doctor, janitor, religious. All of these were of equal worth.” John adds, “We had a priest who was good about suggesting to young people that they at least think about it. We just wanted them to work hard to reach their potential. It was important that we let her know it was OK.”

While John was raised Catholic, Ruth’s religious upbringing was more checkered. Her mother died when Ruth was on the threshold of adolescence, and the more her father told her she didn’t have to go to Mass, the more she went, “more out of rebellion than anything.” When she met her future husband at college, they both knew that a vibrant faith-life would mark whatever future they would make together.

Youthful looking Ruth smiles at far left, and John proudly stands behind Sr. Emily.

As if housing and feeding a large family weren’t challenge enough, John and Ruth decided to tackle the demands of educating them at home. Ruth wryly confesses, “I guess I have an overconfidence problem.” Despite Ruth’s degree in education, they knew they would still have to work hard to build a close knit family. “We wanted to raise our children, says Ruth. “I had read that children spend 80 % of their time with their peers and 20% with their family, and I wanted that switched.” John points out that Blessed John Paul II reminded parents that they are “the primary educators of their children.” On his part, his small grocery store also factors into that project. Every one of his kids learns to work the register, scoop ice cream (I didn’t ask him which was the more coveted position), and clean up. John said that he was rifling through a pile of old clutter recently when he chanced upon a note that young Emily had penned: “Dear Daddy, I wonder if you could tell me ways to be a better employee.”

Ruth exclaims, “Emily was such an easy baby, she tricked us into thinking we wanted more!” Obviously they haven’t been disappointed by subsequent arrivals; in our conversation I didn’t hear either of them say, “Enough already!” They admit that everyday, anywhere they go, they get comments about the number of their offspring… “not always negative,” says Ruth. John claims it’s “a conversation starter,” and Ruth adds, “Yes, and in deciding to go out or not, I have to ask myself, Am I ready for the conversation today?”

Younger sister Molly cantors at the
Sr. Emily's profession liturgy.
Molly married last year.

Prayer is a vital part of her family’s life and of the contact the kids have with groups of other homeschoolers. You can imagine how hard it is to fit in even the most routine of prayer times in a household like this. John admits that sometimes they’re constrained to limit night prayer to the “power pack of an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, especially during the summer.” This is when you know God takes the lead in the dialogue and keeps an ear cocked for the next time any of them checks in. He’s making their family a “school of prayer,” one that plants the seeds of whatever vocations spring up among them.

Being homeschooled prepared Emily to evangelize when at 16, she and a boy her age team-taught—and wowed—a religious education class in her parish. Today she’s able to articulate what she picked up from that experience and relate it to her current mission. Her two favorite aspects of this mission are direct contact with people and working now as co-children’s editor at Pauline Books & Media. “I really like it, because I think of the children reading our books and of this influence on their lives. I have eight sisters and three brothers, so this apostolate is very close to my heart!” Still, she’s not tied to any one ministry within the mission. “The apostolate is to communicate Jesus. I offer Jesus to this person [in what I do]. It doesn’t matter what work I do, because I can be in communication with Jesus.”

You would think that growing up with your own baseball team, it would be an easy slide into community. As inspiring as community living is to Emily, it’s also the most difficult aspect of religious life. Novitiate, the period of formation that culminates in the first profession of vows, “is a time to learn how to be myself and give myself, but this process is not comfortable!” What helped her rise to the challenge was “the belief that this is my place and also the belief that all the sisters are trying their best.” But will that be enough for her going forward? “We read a lot of beautiful things about this life. It is beautiful and can be. Then life happens, and what I read comes to mind. I had a hard time [initially] putting that together. But what helped me was the conviction that I belong in community and that I want to be in community even when it’s difficult.”

Mom and Dad had their own version of the Community Challenge. While Ruth didn’t feel it was “any more difficult than her going to school or getting married, when we took her to St. Louis,* that was the hardest part. I felt the need to communicate in some way: an e-mail or a letter. Then she told us we could call. I was glad, but I knew we shouldn’t be holding her back.”

Emily felt the separation too. “The youngest was four months old when I entered. It was hard to leave, because I wouldn’t see them growing up. But I find myself involved in their lives in ways I wouldn’t have been otherwise. For example, my brother James just got accepted into the seminary, so he shared that journey with me. Discernment has made us close, even though I don’t share his everyday life. It’s been a consolation that the relationship has still developed.”

Co-novice Sylwia Skonieczna
returned to Poland where she will
profess her vows on Feb. 5.
Novice director Sr. Carmen Christi
Pompei rejoices in both of them.

I asked John and Ruth how they might explain such a decision and encourage such a life to parents who may be Christian, but who espouse a very different set of values and would never consider offering their flesh and blood to God in this way. They reflected a few moments and then tripped over each other to answer: “As parents, your goal is to raise a child to be an independent adult. You hope, too, that they’re happy and at peace with the life they choose. It’s hard to explain this kind of decision to someone who holds different values, because ultimately you have to give them back to God. The vow of poverty is a stumbling block for people without faith. They don’t realize that God takes care of you. Look around here. It’s warm, safe, and comfortable. And you have freedom from the worry that comes from excess.”

“Excess” is the operative word here. Worry about making ends meet is something we share with most of our contemporaries. The sister who pays the bills is just as bound by the vow and spirit of poverty as newly professed Sr. Emily Beata. But it’s the trust factor that’s important. Trust keeps us attentive to finances and things at our disposal, but it also keeps us from worrying ourselves sick. It comes from the faith-conviction that sees beyond the value of visible creation and its tangible goods and knows that the best is yet to come.

Maybe that’s what four-year-old Kenny intuited when he looked up at his sister on her profession day and beamed, “You’re a happy nun!” And then, just as he was leaving, he called out the sentiments of his family to the few who chanced being near, “Bye, happy nuns!”

______________
* For postulancy, or the first two years of formation

Pope's Prayer Intentions Holy Father’s Prayer Intentions for February 2012

2012-02-01T07:41:00.000-05:00

GENERAL INTENTION: Access to Water. That all peoples may have access to water and other resources needed for daily life.

MISSION INTENTION: Health Workers. That the Lord may sustain the efforts of health workers assisting the sick and elderly in the world’s poorest regions.

Conscience "Claws"

2012-01-25T17:19:00.000-05:00

From Sr. Margaret

Conscience "Claws":

Photo: Courtesy of Ann Nicolosi-Foose

It’s official: Last Friday, Kathleen Sibelius, secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced the administration’s decision to require almost all religious institutions that provide employee health insurance to now include coverage for contraception, sterilization, and abortion, regardless of that institution’s objection on the basis of conscience. Coming as it does two days shy of the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, which legalized abortion on demand, we would be forgiven if we felt a deliberate slap in the face, especially given Sibelius’s public history of contempt for Catholic and religious sensibilities on the issue.

What this means is that Catholic hospitals, universities, diocesan services, and other institutions that have not performed these procedures or paid for them to be done must now see to it that their employees—those who carry out the mission of organizations—have access to the procedures, even though compliance to this requirement flies in the face of everything that institution stands for. This also means that anyone paying premiums to such insurers would be supporting these “services,” whether they ever use them or not.

The U.S. bishops are protesting and urging us to join them. “US bishops rally Catholics to fight Obama abortifacient birth control mandate,” an article on LifeSiteNews.com, reports that “the mandate’s current conscience clause, according to U.S. bishops, amounts to little more than a fig leaf: the clause would only allow an opt-out for religious employers who employ and serve solely members of their own religion.

“Health and Human Services must think Catholics and other religious groups are fools,” USCCB Communications Director Sr. Mary Ann Walsh wrote….“HHS’s reg[ulation] conveniently ignores the underlying principle of Catholic charitable actions: we help people because we are Catholic, not because our clients are.”

In a slightly different take in his latest column in The Tidings, L.A.’s Archbishop José Gómez reports “solely” as “primarily” and adds that the organization must exist to teach religious values. No doubt this will be clarified for us in the next several months, since organizations have a year to comply. Says Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York, and President of the USCCB, “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences” (Reported in LifeSite News.com, Friday, Jan. 20, 2012). In the video below he highlights the watershed character of this decision: “Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience.”

(For this and related information, go to Web site of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.)

Pregnancy is not a disease. Even if it were, prevention would be optional and its cure would constitute elective surgery; coverage for any of this is not mandatory. The insured and their employers are not to be forced to choose between foregoing insurance or abandoning conscience to pay for this. As with all other social ills, it will be our nation’s 46.2 million poor who will suffer most.

Think this is a Catholic question? The LifeSiteNews.com article cites the National Association of Evangelicals warning against the “dangerous precedent,” set by this ruling. If upheld, it would not be surprising to see it applied to other issues: euthanasia, genetic manipulation, embryonic experimentation, redefinition of marriage, military draft for wars of aggression, and all the social evils that derive from them, including educating youth in the “party line” in our schools. Sectarian schools would not be exempt.

In his address last week to several U.S. bishops making their “ad limina” visit in Rome, Benedict XVI noted this disregard for conscience when Catholic “cooperation in intrinsically evil practices” is mandated by our government. It is symptomatic of what he described as “a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.”

Coincidentally, last night, while many Americans listened to the president’s State of the Union address, I was watching, for the umpteenth time, A Man for All Seasons. What Thomas More said about statesmen applies to us all: When citizens “forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.” For this reason, Pope Benedict told the bishops that their primary task in the current climate is the preparation of “an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism” that tries to exclude Catholic participation “in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society.”

So what can you and I do?
1. Besides sharing this blog article, share reputable sources of information: Web sites, blogs, news channels of every medium. (See Additional Resources below.)
2. A bill to implement adequate conscience protections, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act has stagnated in Congress for the past year. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, is urging passage of the bill, and the USCCB is asking Catholics to contact their representatives in Congress in support of it. Click here.
3. Pray. Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, a unique commemoration in the Church Year, an indication of its influence and impact over the ages...and of its relevance today. We can entrust the change of our culture to his powerful prayers to God.

Additional Resources
“ObamaCare and Religious Freedom,” by Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan in the Wall Street Journal
“A Time for Catholic Action and Catholic Voices,” by Archbishop José Gómez, in The Tidings Online Catholics for the Common Good www.ccgaction.org, a lay apostolate for the evangelization of culture
Chiaroscuro Foundation www.chiaroscurofnd.org, providing alternatives to abortion and promoting religious liberty
Association of Pauline Cooperators, http://daughtersofstpaul.com/PaulineCooperators witnessing to Jesus Christ, Way, Truth and Life, through the use of the media of social communication.

Light from Heaven

2012-01-25T15:50:00.000-05:00

From Sr. Anne

Light from Heaven:

We usually conclude our evening prayer with a reading from our "Pauline calendar" for the following day: a thought from the Founder, a listing of any foundation anniversaries on that day, and a prayer for the deceased members of the Pauline Family (we actually have the names of each person listed on their anniversary of death). The feasts of St. Paul are almost always marked by an enormous list of foundations. Even here in Chicago, the first Mass celebrated in our community chapel was held on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul in 1980. (I was here for the occasion! A few of us drove over from St. Louis to help get things in order.)

The Feast of the Conversion is always a good reminder of how God can surprise us with a greater truth than we had been cherishing, and call us back to the right path when we thought we were already on it. Paul's conversion was that kind. Not a change-of-religion conversion, but a the-religion-you-believe-in-is-bigger-than-you-think conversion; even though at first there was the intellectual component to it, the information that "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," the real point of that meeting on the road to Damascus was to win Paul's heart. As zealous as he was for "the Law," his ardor became love for a person, Jesus, and for every other person whom he now would see as a "brother for whom Christ died."

That conversion is probably the most urgent grace to ask for every member of the Church in these very challenging times.

Jesus without Religion?

2012-01-20T15:27:00.000-05:00

From Sr. Anne

Jesus without Religion?: The social media phenomena of the week has been a YouTube by an ardent, but poorly instructed (and biblically illiterate) young adult fundamentalist. His rap video, which is technically superb, hit such a nerve that it has been viewed almost 20,000,000 times, hitting the top of even YouTube's charts. But his belief that an individual can have a complete relationship with Jesus while avoiding the limitations and commitment of a "religion" (especially since many of his negative references to "religion" are clearly directed to the Catholic Church) led to a proliferation of rebuttals, usually in rap form, some of them also very well done.
Here's an example, put out by Spirit Juice Studios, the Chicago team that is working on our documentary project:

Naturally, it would be great if you could "like" or "+1" this video to give it higher relief, and help the fuller picture of Jesus and religion get some attention!

Appeal to authorities for Chinese New Year: release of three bishops and of six priests who have disappeared

2012-01-16T15:06:00.001-05:00

From Father Z's blogWe should all pray the faithful in China.

Appeal to authorities for Chinese New Year: release of three bishops and of six priests who have disappeared:

I hope other bloggers will pick this up and share it with their own readers.

Perhaps after reading this you could stop for a moment and say a Memorare for the missing priests and bishops as well as for the softening of the hearts of the authorities who have them (hopefully alive) in custody.

From AsiaNews:

Appeal: Bishops and priests disappeared or in prison, home for the Chinese New Year

by Bernardo Cervellera

During the Year of the Dragon, AsiaNews asks President Hu Jintao and ambassador Ding Wei for the release of three bishops and six Chinese priests who have disappeared in police custody or are in forced labour camps.

Rome (AsiaNews) – In a letter to President Hu Jintao and the Chinese ambassador in Italy, AsiaNews has decided to ask for the release of three bishops and of six priests who have disappeared in police custody or are detained in prison without trial. Their release could be a gesture of friendship and hope for Catholics and human rights activists, as well as a sign of true hope for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

In just a few days, on January 23, the world of the Far East celebrates the Lunar New Year: we will enter the Year of the Dragon, a very positive year that promises many fruits. In China, hundreds of millions of people will travel to join their families: the dawn of the New Year is always celebrated by strengthening the bonds of family and friendships which help to face the future with an even more positive outlook.

For this reason, we ask that for these three bishops and six priests to be restored to their families and their communities.

They were never charged with any crime; given the opportunity of a trial or convicted by a court. And yet they have been interred in forced labour camps or were seized by the police of a country that is a member of the UN Security Council and that has signed the Charter of Human Rights.

[...]

Read the rest there.

Technorati Tags: China, PRC

The Marriage of Christ Revealed

2012-01-11T20:41:00.000-05:00

from Sr. Margaret

The Marriage of Christ Revealed:

The Church Year began with a big bang: a liturgical Haley’s Comet in the form of the most significant changes in the Mass we’ve had in decades. We also passed through the longest Advent we could possibly have and the shortest Christmas. That has given us one of the rare alignments of liturgical stars: the “Epiphany convergence” of the wedding at Cana, the visit of the Magi, and the Baptism of Jesus.

The what?

One of the perks of daily Mass attendance is the chance to hear and consider in rapid succession Gospel texts that don’t pop up more than once every three years on Sundays. Of course, we can read them on our own. If left to our own devices, though, most of us probably wouldn’t make the connections we get in the liturgy. We just passed one such sequence: the wedding at Cana (Saturday), the adoration of the Magi (Sunday), and the Baptism of the Lord (Monday).

Reflecting on the arc of Christ’s life, the early Church noticed a number of manifestations—epiphanies—of God’s glory. In fact, the Last Supper in John’s Gospel opens the “Book of Glory” of Christ’s passion and death, a title that would have resonated with Mark, who saw the zenith of that glory in the cross and placed the Gentile act of faith, not on the adoration of wise men from the East as Matthew did, but on the lips of the crucifying centurion (cf. Mk. 15:39). The Church also noticed that some of these epiphanies marked a beginning in Christ’s life, and others pertained to its completion. The three beginners were—you guessed it—the visit of the Magi, Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan, and the wedding at Cana. It wasn’t until the end of the fourth century that these three epiphanies were celebrated separately.

In a sense, John Paul II wove them together again, at least in popular piety, when he added the Luminous Mysteries to the Rosary. Acknowledging that “certainly the whole mystery of Christ is a mystery of light. He is the “light of the world” (Jn 8:12),” John Paul added Cana and the Baptism to the Rosary chain of meditations, presupposing that the adoration of the Magi would be considered within the Joyful Mysteries. “Each of these mysteries,” he wrote, “is a revelation (epiphany) of the Kingdom now present in the very person of Jesus” (Apostolic Letter on the Most Holy Rosary, 21).

This mystery is profoundly a part of our own life and charismatic history as a Pauline Family. Our founder, Blessed James Alberione attached these words from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians 3:12 to the seal of the Pauline Family, as a summary statement about our purpose: “That the manifold wisdom of God may be made known.”

This manifestation of the Good News in Jesus Christ—this evangelization—is meant to be seen first of all in the members of the Pauline Family. The last of the ten branches to be founded is suggested both by Nazareth and by the Cana aspect of Epiphany—the Holy Family Institute. This secular institute exists to help couples grow in holiness together and so, manifest the glory of God in Christ, in his relationship with the Church. Of course, that’s one of the purposes of Christian marriage anyway. The vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience that HFI couples make, however, carry out that purpose in a specifically Pauline way. Obviously, members don’t live those vows the way we celibate Paulines in community live them. Still, the vows connect them with the religious members in a perpetual relationship as family, and through this, with God, “so that the manifold wisdom of God may be made known.”

Over and over again, throughout the history of Israel, God went to great lengths to demonstrate how close he was to his people. He chose an array of words and images that told them that not only was he God, and the one God at that, but the living God who made and chose them, a personal God, who wanted a joyful, saving relationship with them. “The most amazing image,” writes Fernando M. Cornet in The Epiphany of Jesus Christ,* “was that of Bridegroom and bride, because it manifested God’s ineffable love for the people and his burning desire to be intimately united to Israel….The New Testament explicitly applies this image to Christ, whose bride is the Church, as well as to each individual person. Even more, bride and Groom are to have one single voice.

“This is one of the most evocative images for the Fathers of the Church and clearly shows the purpose of the Incarnation…. Following the Jewish wedding ritual, the Fathers characteristically distinguish a dual moment in the marriage of Christ: The first corresponds to the Incarnation, and the second to the Passion. In the first moment…Christ marries flesh or human nature; in the second, instead, he marries the Church. They are not two different marriages, but two moments in a single marriage. From his flesh, in fact, the Church emerges, is born, and becomes the Mystical Body of Christ. Thus he and she—his Humanity and the Church—‘are no longer two, but one flesh’ (Mt, 19:5-6).”

In other words, if any of us think that John’s account of the wedding at Cana is about the couple getting married, we need to think again.

I recently had a chance to talk with Larry and Kim Todd. Larry has been an HFI member for twelve years. Kim has been discerning God’s call in her life, too. Like an underground stream, Larry’s Pauline connection has been a major part of their life, especially in their personal and family relationship with God. Married for 36 years, they have two daughters, Christine (28) Lauren (22), who have been raised in their parents’ faith and share their values. Larry and Kim recently moved back to Lexington, KY, from Oregon, to be closer to their girls, who—Kim laughingly says—are taking full advantage of Mom and Dad’s unwanted absence and are now making up for lost time! They even occasionally hang around to listen in as Larry prepares for his ministry as parish lector and practices the reading.

They don’t see themselves “as especially religious or holy. We’re just happy to be with each other. Of course, we’re not seeing how other people see us, but nothing makes us stand out. We kind of blend into the parish.” Larry works as an engineer, testing electrical products for safety and conducting webinars on the company’s evaluation methods. He travels often for workshops and consultation assignments, so he and Kim don’t get to pray together very often, but they sometimes manage to fit in the Divine Office in the evening. It seems to have an effect beyond hearth and home. Larry noted, for example, that even though he has never expressed his distaste for profanity at work, his colleagues sense he doesn’t like it and they don’t use it around him. Even the VP watches his language.

Kim claims she doesn’t pray “nearly as much as Larry does,” but here and there fits in her favorite formula, the Guardian Angel prayer. “If I’m sitting somewhere, I test my memory to see if I can remember other prayers I learned in grade school, and it’s hard! Larry is more structured. I’m more spontaneous.” At the same time, she admits that in her spontaneity, she turns much of what she hears, good or bad, into brief, unformulated prayer for others.

This compatibility with ordinary life is what Larry appreciates in his Pauline commitment. He says, “I pray a lot more in five-second increments during the day. I see something going on, and I’ll throw out a short prayer for somebody. I have a little crucifix on my desk at work, and every time I see it I can interrupt what I’m doing for four or five seconds to thank Him for my job, or say, ‘What would you do in this case?’ It’s just a way to keep in touch with Jesus all day long.” When he has more time, especially on trips, he tracks down a church, prays the Divine Office or with the Pauline prayer book. “I never thought I would have the time. But when something becomes important, the time is there. I now spend a little more time thinking about God when I might have been doing something else before.” He believes that this is the blessing for younger couples: “the Holy Family Institute gives them a focus.”

Christine and Lauren Todd

Kim supports him in this wholeheartedly. On his part, Larry relies on her “very valuable” support. She has seen him grow into “a more patient person. And I know he’s really driven and focused, to be true to it.” Larry adds that because of his Pauline vowed life, he has made “decisions in my career and my family to improve my family life,” like moving back to Kentucky. The short monthly letter that he writes to director Fr. Tom Fogarty, SSP, helps him to articulate his priorities, bringing “me closer to my family.” The specific nature of Pauline spirituality didn’t give him anything particularly new, but provided him with a measuring rod for whatever crosses his path. “When we test something at work, we ask, ‘What does the standard say?’ Other ways may be good, but they’re not for me.” Kim adds, “[Larry’s consecration] makes me more interested in my faith, and I know his prayers go far. He thinks enough about me and our marriage to pray for me, and I think it makes our marriage stronger.”

Kim drives a shuttle for a car dealership and covers about 125 miles of Lexington’s roads a day. She connects with the people she serves and even finds some to pray for. While Larry points to people like Fr. Tom as “guiding stars” on his faith journey, Kim sees many of these stars in the regular people and clergy she meets along the way. She know, too, that as Larry launches into his formation for the permanent diaconate, that constellation of hers will grow, since his journey will be made together. The world will never be the same.

To learn more about the Holy Family Institute:
Fr. Tom Fogarty, SSP, frtfogarty@juno.com
http://holyfamilyinstitute.net/
____________
* Epifania di Gesù Cristo, Fernando Maria Cornet, Editrice UNI Service, http://www.uni-service.it/epifania-di-gesu-cristo.html, pp. 41f.

Photo credits: Margaret J. Obrovac, FSP, Gerry Rauch, Larry Todd

Prayer for the New Year

2012-01-03T07:54:00.000-05:00

from Sr. Anne

Prayer for the New Year: (From the new Missal, optional Mass "at the Beginning of the Civil Year")

O God, who are without beginning or end,
the source of all creation,
grant us so to live this new year,
whose beginning we dedicate to you,
that we may abound in good things
and be resplendent with works of holiness.

Daily Quote from the Blessed Virgin Mary

2012-01-01T09:48:00.000-05:00

Daily Quote from the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mary, Mother of God

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him. He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” (Blessed Virgin Mary, Luke 1:46-55)

WHO ARE THE DAUGHTERS OF ST. PAUL?

2012-01-01T09:35:00.000-05:00

from Sr. Helena

You can see Sr. Anne in this video and also Jim and Lousie Hunt who are professed members of the Holy Family Institute.

WHO ARE THE DAUGHTERS OF ST. PAUL?:

Holy Father's Prayer Intentions for January

2012-01-01T07:35:00.001-05:00

General Intention: Victims of Natural Disasters.
That the victims of natural disasters may receive the spiritual and material comfort they need to rebuild their lives.

Missionary Intention: Dedication to Peace.
That the dedication of Christians to peace may bear witness to the name of Christ before all men and women of good will.

Holy Family Institute Intention for January

2012-01-01T07:29:00.000-05:00

That in this special time of preparation for our anniversary in 2014, we may become more aware of the life and work of the Founder and its development.

Christmas Present

2011-12-21T16:35:00.000-05:00

by Sr. Margaret

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Present: I’ve been doing some unusual holiday shopping. I’ve been on the lookout for a few exceptionally insightful or beautiful expressions in word, song, and image about this season of heaven and earth. Something to give us pause. Something to give us hope. Something above the banal. Something that dodges both the polemical and the saccharin. The post this week contains some of what I found.

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert in the arts. No doubt there’s a lot out there I missed to at least equal what’s in here. My criterion was simple: If I came across something out of the ordinary and it spoke to me, I thought it just might strike a chord in you, too. You can bookmark any of them, so that they can whisper their message again during the year. That’s what makes the message perdure past the momentary “Awww” and brings about the difference in us that it did in the artists who gave it “flesh.”

If you’ve noticed my Facebook wall at any point this Advent, you might have seen the week-by-week “lighting” of this “wreath” that showed up outside PBM’s human resources office when the season began. Like one of Santa’s elves, somebody kept adding a flame and a quote undetected, despite my best efforts to ferret him or her out. Friends on Facebook commented on how beautiful it was. A “Keep It Simple Advent Wreath,” one called it; “a great idea for dorms,” suggested another.

When I ever discovered that Sr. Diane L. Kraus was our artist, I was dumbfounded. One of our co-workers had mentioned her name as a possibility. “Naw,” I declared, “it’s not her style.” As her co-novice (a sister I went through the novitiate with) I figured I knew that much. Oh my. Jesus’ neighbors in Nazareth were just as rash. It’s a good thing for the world that Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the Magi believed that God lives outside the box. Sr. Diane and I laughed about it, but I wonder how many miracles I miss when I don’t allow myself to discover something new in someone I know or allow another person to unearth hidden talent…or holiness. Do you ever wonder about that too?

I have a Facebook friend in Belfast, poet and photographer Ann Murray. She has graciously allowed me to use her poetry in the past. Now she’s published a collection in a book entitled Travelling Light: A Book of Days, which is expected at Amazon in early January. (No, PBM didn’t publish it!) All proceeds from sales will go to charity: missions at home and abroad, the Legion of Mary, and others.

As if intoning a psalm, Ann’s “Advent Poem” gradates and blends the shades of Advent waiting and Christmas coming, much as they do in history, liturgy, and the human spirit:

Bless my soul, Lord,
At this time of waiting
And anticipation.

May your word be as benediction
As I prepare the way for
The sovereign child
The Prince of Peace
Whose throne is clay
Whose realm is
The tabernacle of
The human heart
That bids him stay.

Bless my soul, Lord,
At this time of waiting
For the promised one.

Let my creation be
A dwelling place fit for a king -
The Son of God most high
Who comes as light, as joy,
As flame-setter within…

Then, like the shepherds of long ago
I, too, will worship him.

“Someone just broke into God’s iPod.” The comments on YouTube following this moving music score of O Magnum Mysterium are as heartfelt as the work itself. Resist, oh, resist the temptation to slide through it. Let it sing to you.

O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord,
lying in a manger!
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear
Christ the Lord.
Alleluia!

I pass over a lot of those well-intentioned essays about the real meaning of Christmas. Many of those I have perused are way too preachy for my tastes. “’Tis the Season To Be Jolly” on Dave Cooke’s blog, 100 Pedals, struck me differently. Dave can talk the talk, because clearly he’s walking the walk...or pedaling it. The Christmas season is not a joyful time for many people, but this is one person who has hopped off the bus and has gained his balance enough to beckon us to join him on his journey. Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany are all about journeys, too, that beckon us to a relationship in faith that can change our lives and the life of our world.

Finally, you really can’t toast the beauty of the season without its flavors and aromas. Apparently Sister Anne Flanagan, FSP, agrees with me, for on her Facebook wall she just posted…cookies! They’re not just any cookies, you know. They’re my sister’s, and nobody had better have a problem with this blog’s nepotism. I can smell Chicago’s convent kitchen all the way back East here in Boston! When he saw the photo, one of Sister Frances’s friends commented, “Is this a bakery or what? This is what children dream of :-)”

May we enter into Christmas with the senses and sense of children.

The season’s blessings on you and yours!

Photo credits: Anne Flanagan, FSP; Conor Murray: cupola, Holy Sepulcher; Margaret J. Obrovac, FSP

Baby talk

2011-12-21T13:26:00.000-05:00

by Sr. Anne

Baby talk: Today's Gospel is the story of Mary's visit to Elizabeth, and the encounter of the unborn Jesus and his precursor. It's an amazing story; even more amazing when you pair it with other Scripture texts. The liturgy pairs the Gospel with a lovely passage from the Song of Songs. That reading ends with the words "Let me see you, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and you are lovely."
It is the sound of that sweet voice that triggers all the excitement in the Gospel. "When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb and Elizabeth [was] filled with the Holy Spirit..." As holy as the Virgin Mary is, no human voice alone has the power to fill another person with the Holy Spirit. We might go so far as to say that the unborn Savior was speaking through his mother's voice. The grown-up John seems to say, in fact, that what he heard and responded to that day was not so much Mary's voice as the "voice of the Bridegroom" she carried: "The friend of the Bridegroom stands and listens for him, and rejoices greatly at the Bridegroom's voice. That is my joy, and it is full" (Jn. 3).
In turn, the unborn prophet seemed to be speaking through his mother's voice when she said, "Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled."
Ultimately, today's Advent liturgy is about being able to listen. Because only if we listen, will we be able to respond, in the words of the Responsorial Psalm, "Our soul waits for the Lord...for in him our hearts rejoice."

Our Christmas Hope

2011-12-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

from Sr. Margaret

I wish the Sisters could come here to Winchester!

Our Christmas Hope: My cousin Sarah teaches music history in St. Paul, MN, at the University of St. Thomas, which held its Christmas concert last week at a packed Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. Since she also plays the French horn, she lent her talent to the event—no small achievement for a breast cancer survivor. Afterward, she e-mailed me: “When the men from all [five] choirs sang Ave Maria, and when the large choir sang Martin Lauridsen's arrangement of O Magnum Mysterium, I was moved to tears at witnessing the beauty of God's gift of MUSIC being shared—students singing with full hearts, open to ignite the hearts and minds and ears of listeners. I saw an old man listening with mouth open, eyes shut, tears streaming down his face. I was trying to keep it together, then saw my horn students in our section doing the same thing! We all took a ‘group eye-dabbing’ before putting horns up for the next piece. The birth of HOPE for the world is upon us!”

That’s exactly what the Daughters of St. Paul Choir experienced when the sisters sang and danced in eight different venues over the past two weeks. Echoing our tagline, Discover Hope, the theme of our Christmas cards, calendars, and concerts is “Our Christmas Hope,” a sentiment that shows no signs of wear, despite months of planning and promotion. My office is along the main walkway through our publishing house, and I just heard someone pass by still humming one of the final numbers of Sunday’s Boston show. Nor are the songs the only thing people walked away with. Person after person said how year after year, it marks the spirit of the season for them, inviting them into our own joyful celebration of the Good News.

Everywhere, those who’ve attended concerts through several years commented that this year’s performance was “the best ever.” A man in Alexandria, VA, thought that, because the singing and choreography were right on and so together, it was lip-synched. A woman wondered how we could top it next year. In Piscataway, NJ, a girl—maybe ten-years-old—shyly approached Sr. Tracey, who remembered her from last year. “I like this one the best of all,” she ventured, then walked away. She came back and added, “I have one more thing: you all sang the best I’ve ever heard you sing.” Sr. Tracey was touched, especially as she recognized what an effort it was for her to say it.

A New Jersey man in his early 80’s is very involved in the life of his parish, but feels he has to come to the concert every year to start off his Christmas season. In Cleveland, the sound engineers, who’ve worked the concert there for the past three years claim that it’s now part of their Christmas. They confided, “While you’re singing, we pick out two voices and harmonize them. Wow! Beautiful sounds come out of these ladies. It’s pure joy.” J. D. Goddard, a music reviewer for music zine Cleveland Classical, was more moderate, but considering it was not a classical event, he was just as positive about their “exceptional” and “‘upbeat’ performance” that reflected “their strong religious convictions and faith.”

Romeo Marquis, the husband of Claudette, another cousin of mine, (He wrote the Pauline Faithways post of Sept. 7) gave me his evaluation of the Boston performance: “This is a great event, not only because of the music, but because of your attitude toward each other.” A woman said to one sister, “I want to tell you I was expecting nothing. What I got was a huge shot of joy. It’s the way you poke fun at each other, and I kept feeling the joy filling my heart.” As a first-time guest, the aunt of one of our co-workers fretted over the prospect of being bored by a prim recital, followed by some tweedy reception: “I hope we don’t pray too long. My knees are hurting!”

If anyone expressed the mood, it was the kids. In Alexandria, where the concert was held in a church, the turning point for them was at “the costume change,” when the sisters put the gloves and scarves on for Silver Bells, Jingle Bells, and Winter Wonderland. “Twenty-five or thirty kids started crawling out of their pews, three or four of them at a time,” Sr. Tracey told me. “Their eyes were twinkling as they got closer and imitated our hand motions. One little girl positioned herself in the middle aisle, chin in hand, probably to have a balanced view of the whole thing.”

At the reception following each of the Boston gigs, I donned a Santa hat. Armed with a matching red stocking, a sign that read, “Stuff Santa’s Stocking!” and a bag of brochures, forms, and business cards, I mingled with guests, available for their questions about our life and mission. Several signed up for a notification about the annual concerts, or an e-mail about the weekly Pauline Faithways posting. Some dropped in a twenty or more; others dropped in a prayer intention or two. A little boy, maybe six years old, rushed up to me and announced, “I want a train like this!” and he pointed to the two boxcars he held in his hands.
Uh-oh, I thought, he thinks I’m the real deal. I guess the lack of beard and girth didn’t make a whole lot of difference.
“OK,” I played along, “Do you want to show me the details? We gotta make sure it’s the right one.”
“It has to have these kind of wheels,” and he carefully indicated the blue ones on either side of each.
“I’ll be sure to pass that on!” I smiled at mom, who smiled back apologetically and gently herded her boys toward the cookie table.

Click here to listen.

One of our Sunday chaplains in Boston named Sr. Anne “Sister O-Holy-Night.” That song was the best number of the whole performance, according to two young Boston women. The Saturday evening audience gave her a standing ovation, and Sr. Nancy, who carried the performance into the next selection almost sent everybody home, commenting, “You can’t beat that.” At the Staten Island Hilton dinner concert, Sara Boccieri the four-year-old granddaughter of our friends, Gene and JoAnn Boccieri, toggled between her parents’ table and her grandparents’, where I was sitting. After the first few lively songs, the tone of the concert became a little softer. Sara was perched on her grandfather’s knee when Sr. Anne began to sing O Holy Night. Sara froze, her eyes riveted on Sr. Anne. When she got to the words, “This is the night of the dear Savior’s birth,” Sara, without taking her eyes off the stage, made the Sign of the Cross and folded her little hands. Given Sr. Anne’s blue veil, she probably thought she was seeing the Virgin Mary! Whether she understood the words or not, it was obvious she was having a sacred moment. Of course, it lasted all of about ten seconds before she slid from her grandfather’s knee and scooted off toward her parents.

Was the possibility of a religious vocation awakened in any of them? In the banter and commentary between numbers, various sisters highlighted for the audience one or another aspect of our life. Sr. Tracey, for instance, is from Loreauville, LA, near Lafayette. She told how, as a seventeen-year-old “fashionista,” her highest aspirations had been “to get a really good job at the mall,” so she “could get a really good discount at Gap.” When she visited our Boston community for the first time and heard the sisters singing during Mass, she wondered if she could be part of that harmony for the rest of her life, not leaving behind who she was, but bringing it into the song of religious life. Maybe the answer of her life sparked that question in someone else.

A man in his 40’s was visiting a friend from out-of-state. He had heard for a few years about our music ministry from another friend and decided to take a cab to the concert from the airport on his way to his friend’s home. During our rendition of Angels Among Us tears rolled down his cheeks. After the concert he whispered that it was the song that had most clearly spoken to him. When we carry out our mission, there are times we can only guess at people’s stories, but the comforting thing for them and for us is that God knows and loves every detail and heals everything in his time.

He wasn’t the only one who followed Jesus’ call on impulse like Matthew, Andrew, James, and John. A woman in Boston was talking with her daughter in Kansas City. While she was wondering aloud when the Daughters’ concert might be, her daughter looked it up online. “Mom! It’s today at 3!” Still another woman said that—for reasons we’ll never know—she hadn’t been out of the house for months and felt that she was supposed to go to this. She was glad she did.

Not only did we pray for people who attend, but many others joined in those prayers. Just look at the Daughters of St. Paul Choir Facebook fanpage to get a sampling of what God heard on audiences’ behalf. As a representative of the development office, I participated in the Staten Island dinner concert at the Hilton. Since our own convent was filled with choir members, another visiting FSP and I stayed with the very hospitable Schoenstadt Sisters. They made a point of telling us that they were praying for the people we ministered to that night. “American Idol” may invite votes; we go for the prayers!

I think this is one reason God puts people in our path. At a rest stop between Philadelphia and Hartford, the sisters got something to drink. As they stood in line to pay, a woman turned to one of them and said hesitantly, “I want to let you know, my father passed away. I’ve started to doubt. What should I read? What should I do? What prayer should I say?” Realizing she didn’t know this woman’s story enough to pontificate with her even if she had wanted to, Sister still felt prompted to suggest Psalm 23. “Hear God saying to you, ‘I’m the Good Shepherd.’ Picture yourself in God’s arms. He’s carrying you. He wants to hold you and he’s also holding your father.” The woman began to cry. Then Sister added, “I promise you, we’ll pray for you.”

The morning after one concert, a friend called ahead to a restaurant to pay for both the sisters’ breakfast and lunch for the road, his customary gift each year. He has heavy crosses to carry and seems to appreciate the hope that the music ministry offers him. “People give when they’re touched by our mission,” Sr. Margaret Timothy said. “He never wants thanks. He says, ‘This is my thank-you to you.’”

Click here to listen and order

If you would like to be notified about next year’s concerts, or you know someone who wants to financially sponsor a concert near you, e-mail me at margaretjo@paulinemedia.com. As you sing the carols and songs of the season, make it a prayer for those who need the hope of Good News in their world.

Click here to hear and order
Angels Among Us and
O Holy Night.

Photo credits: Ann R. Heady, FSP, Phivan Ngoc Nguyen

Retreat Reflection for the Day

2011-12-15T07:51:00.000-05:00

From Sr. Kathryn

Retreat Reflection for the Day:

I’ve been on retreat for about five days so today was a day of sorrow and repentance and experiencing the power of the resurrection, that all of us in all of our sinfulness and weakness are being taken up in Christ to the Father, held in his loving embrace. St. Joseph teaches us how to live with our weakness and sinfulness. He was not the Immaculate Conception or the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. He was just like you and me. Yet I imagine he learned to live quite transparently and trustingly in the presence of Jesus and Mary. So may we.

Quote from Blessed James Alberione

2011-12-13T19:54:00.002-05:00

If you have become a saint in whatever years the Lord gives you, you have lived long enough. And you life has been too short if you have failed in this central task.

Quote from Blessed James Alberione

2011-12-02T14:50:00.001-05:00

In heaven one will be as high as one has been humble, docile and obedient on earth. - Blessed James Alberione

Advent Light

2011-11-17T13:24:00.000-05:00

from Sr. Margaret

Advent Light:

Each year, with all the Christmas hype in stores and in the media, Advent, quiet and unobtrusive, seems to just sneak in the back door. For the most part, only the liturgically attuned notice its presence. Of course, the back door is often where friends come in, and Advent, the coming, never arrives empty-handed.

This year, its gift is sure to shine. For those of us who attend Mass regularly, the changes we’ve revved up for are finally taking off, precisely on the First Sunday of Advent, Nov. 27. Included are the Order of the Mass—the parts that don’t change—as well as all the prayers that do from Sunday to Sunday. In community we've been learning the chant to match. I have neither the desire nor the competence to expound in this blog on the pros or cons of the changes (aren’t you blessed!) but I will say that, in spite of my only average enthusiasm for yet another change, I like a lot of what I’m seeing and hearing. More importantly, I’m seizing this opportunity to renew my insight into, and love for, the Eucharist celebrated, received and adored.

I’m finding some great helps along the way. Even before the changes were announced over a year ago, Sister Anne Flanagan,* one of our sisters in Chicago, was making an in-depth, personal study of the Liturgy. So it was natural that she would then layer on a detailed study of the texts, once it became clear what exactly was coming down the pike. Sister Leonora Wilson, our provincial superior, welcomed her to Boston to give us an overview of her findings. Much of what she shared with us is now available on our Web site at Liturgy Essentials/Explain It to Me at www.pauline.org. This free content explores the changes, including the history behind them, and connects us all with resources for adults and children, especially the new St. Paul Missals.

There, I also discovered From the Pews, a blog by Jamie Stuart Wolfe, assistant children’s editor at Pauline Books & Media. It features “Mass Minutes,” one-minute forays into the liturgy, like “Chant Anxiety,” “Translating ‘And with your spirit,’” and more. In addition, Pews offers suggestions on how to make the Mass parts intelligible for kids.

Lastly, It’s a Part of Life summarizes each prayer and part of the Eucharistic Celebration in a few sentences each, often connecting it with daily life. Memorized, they make good sound bite answers to spontaneous questions that don’t require intricate theological reasoning.

The jewel, though, is the iMassExplained app for the iPhone or iPad, just released on Monday. It’s much more than a workshop on the changes. Besides putting the new words at our fingertips, with a click, it offers explanations of those highlighted words. Additional information deepens understanding of what we do at Mass and why. Finally, we hear from the Popes as they reflect on the importance of the Mass and what it can mean for everyday life.

At the princely sum of 99¢, I would download it—if I had an iPhone. Some people already have done just that. Maggie Palmer from Marble Falls, TX, writes, “It is so easy to follow. The explanations that are available when you click on the highlighted text are very helpful.” How many places can you get so much for so little?

Besides the St. Paul Missals, the runaway title has been The Mass Explained for Kids. It was published just six weeks ago and with 20,000 copies sold, it’s already in its fourth printing. A fax blast advertising the book to parishes will go out soon. I helped out at a parish PBM book and media exhibit last weekend at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Quincy, MA—home of John and Abigail Adams. Interest was lively, to say the least, as it has been in the other venues where we’ve held similar displays over the past few weeks. Juan Villegas, sales associate at our Chicago PBM Center, reports that, especially after a review of the title appeared in the Catholic New World, response also from schools has been phenomenal. His comment—“It’s for kids, but it’s really good for adults, too”—is echoed across the country.

And we’re not done. We’re privileged to offer another Web series, that will have a longer shelf life than those made for the moment, invaluable as they are. And this is where we’re going to need a little help from you. Msgr. Steven Lopes, an American teaching at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and working at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has prepared with us five webinars of five minutes each on the Trinitarian dimension of the Eucharist in several parts of the revised liturgy. As esoteric as that sounds, his pastoral approach is made both for the non-theologians among us and the more seasoned. He wants to reach people in the pews who come to Mass on Sunday and want a good reason to come back next week.

His presentations will be interwoven with liturgical footage and photos, then followed by a three- or four-minute PowerPoint meditation, to make the experience both instructive and prayerful. As you can imagine, this will take extensive editing, so we foresee being able to release one per month until March 2012. Freely accessible at www.pauline.org, it will be able to continue being used indefinitely by RCIA leaders, pastors, catechists, and anyone who wants to grow.

Since it will be free content on our site, there will be no source of income for us to recoup expenses. So if you would like to contribute securely online toward the $1,789.00 production cost, click on the red Donate Now button at top right, and in the comment section on the donation page, type “webinar.”

As we gather around the “table of the Word and of Christ’s body” in these weeks and months of transition, you will be very much a part of our community. We know you take us there, too, and we’re grateful.
____________
*Sr. Anne is the techie behind FSP-Chicago’s Theology of the Body online study group, a guest blogger for the Chicago Tribune and a member of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council for the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Photo credits: Phivan Ngoc Nguyen, Margaret J. Obrovac, FSP

Quote from Blessed James Alberione

2011-11-13T09:51:00.001-05:00

No soul pleases the Lord as the one that does the will of God. - Blessed James Alberione

The Poetry of Purgatory

2011-11-03T07:52:00.000-04:00

By Sr. Margaret

The Poetry of Purgatory:

Sisters and friends process to our burial chapel in Boston
at Sr. Cecilia Livingston's funeral last spring.

Given the firestorms that the doctrine on purgatory has sparked, it’s a good thing that today’s liturgical solemnity commemorating All Souls is not an optional memorial. Yet ritually remembering our ancestors, whether in family or faith, and praying them through their journey answers such a universally felt need, that it has come spontaneously to us humans as long as history has recorded it.

The Christian practice of praying for those who’ve gone before us dates back to antiquity. The earliest evidence of private prayer for the dead appears in the middle of the second century in Asia Minor, or what is western Turkey today. A generation later, a liturgy celebrated in north Africa in remembrance of the deceased is mentioned in the writings first of Tertullian and then of St. Cyprian in the early third century.

In the centuries that followed, this communal prayer was coupled with distribution of food among the poor. This seems to be a throwback to the pagan Roman practice of the refrigerium—a kind of ritual picnic that family members held at the graves of their loved ones. As perennial geniuses in “baptizing” cultural expressions, Christians offered the Eucharist on the graves of the martyrs, praying also by association, for the deceased buried nearby. Instead of pouring out libations to honor and supplicate the gods on behalf of the deceased, they shared the body and blood of the Lord and then extended that love to the poor in their memory. That kind of almsgiving has always been one of the suffrages we’ve been encouraged to offer for the deceased. The outreach that springs from the social dimension of our faith is one of the most important crossroads where belief and life intersect.*

First Martyrs of the
Church of Rome

I’ve been to Rome a few times now, most often to study or work. Depressing as it may sound, what draws me each time, probably more than the churches, are the catacombs. Sixty-three of these underground burial networks circle the city, nine of them Jewish and the others either Christian, or pagan and Christian. Relatively few are open to us, the public, but those that are, are treasure houses of Christian identity and history. I feel so connected with those who were, or still are, buried there, my ancestors in faith. Even as I thank them, I can’t help praying for them as I visit. If they can’t use my prayers, somebody can.

What kind of understanding fuels this current of devotion? Despite the likelihood that the vast majority of us human beings make a pit stop in purgatory on the speedway to the kingdom, the Church’s teaching on the topic that’s outlined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is surprisingly sparing. I remember my father’s disappointment that the section consisted of just three paragraphs and two quotes (nn. 1030-1032). That alone told him exactly what the Church intended to say—that the mystery, which is hardly central to her teaching and can easily spin out of control, is best expressed plainly. What’s clearly intended, too, is that to avoid reducing it to a caricature, it’s supposed to be understood in connection with a host of other teachings that are central, like redemption, resurrection, love, sin, faith, and human destiny. But for a man like my dad, who referred to the people there as his “friends,” such a dearth of devotion called for strenuous objection. It was personal.

If brevity is the soul of wit, there’s a deliberate pedagogy in that short text. After you reread it a few times, certain words jump out. A key concept is purification. Not once is it described as punishment, even though it’s implied when it states that this “purification of the elect” is “entirely different from the punishment of the damned” (n. 1031). Words like “cleansing” and “deliverance” highlight the healing, restorative nature of this purging experience.

In the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri’s poetic imagination hunts for words to express this purifying process of the discovery and growth in love. Discussions about the work’s political scope aside, the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso are awash with an array of images that acclaim love vindicated, love purified, and love celebrated. Both in hell and in purgatory, the action of the Comedy is driven by Dante’s contrapasso, the type of suffering that the characters undergo according to the type of their sin or vice. The monumental difference between the two conditions is that the suffering in hell punishes, while that in purgatory refines and redirects.

R to L: Aurelia, Sr. Frances, my
sister, and Sr. Bernardine (a friend
of our parents--and ours, too!)

It was hard for my sister, my father, and me to watch my mother live with Alzheimer’s Disease for over ten years. If we hadn’t known her, we wouldn’t have understood anything of how hard it was for her, too, since the disease gradually robbed her of her ability to speak. We struggled with the seeming senselessness of it all. Just as we shared the sorrow, though, we also shared our faith in Christ. One day, my dad said, “You know, I think Mama is doing her purgatory here on earth.” Dante must have been in the room. “Yes,” I agreed, “if her love is being purified, she is ‘doing her purgatory’ here.” And she was being refined like that. A sweet person to the end, with expressive eyes and a ready giggle, she was also independent and very firm in her convictions and preferences. She expended every effort she could, even in her condition, to make life better for us and to peacefully rest in God and in our love for her. A parishioner told us that she was “no longer afraid of Alzheimer’s Disease, because I’ve known your mother.” God made Aurelia bigger than her disease.

I think that the more we trust this God, the more surely we will be awakened to hope in the face of whatever comes our way. A life like that, a day like this, draws us back to the way in which we live. There is certainty in that hope, not just wishful thinking. Regardless of the circumstances of our last days, we are in the hand of God, as the optional reading from the book of Wisdom in today’s liturgy reminds us, a hand that is always ready to receive us.

This was brought home to me by a book that Pauline Books & Media recently published—Wisdom for Living the Final Season, by Kathy Kalina, a hospice nurse from Fort Worth, Texas. She’s already known to PBM readers as the author of one of our constant best sellers, Midwife for Souls. Refreshingly readable, Final Season’s short chapters are dotted with stories from her twenty-two years of experience. The spiritual dimension we’ve been talking about is woven in convincingly and sensitively. Although the last few pages treat the topic of purgatory, it’s the introduction that expresses it best for me:

“Courage is not the absence of fear. Rather, it’s the ability to put one foot in front of the other and to do whatever needs to be done with our eyes fixed on the goal. Somewhere on that journey toward the goal, each of us will die, but only on one day. All the rest is living.”

* Production on the film about Blessed James Alberione “the first apostle of the new evangelization” (John Paul II) is still in the works (See the video bar at right.). So is its fundraising. If you would like to make a contribution in memory of a loved one, contact me, Sr. Margaret J. Obrovac, FSP, either by e-mail at margaretjo@paulinemedia.com, or by phone at 617-676-4423.

Holy Family Institute for Intention fotr November

2011-10-31T19:14:00.003-04:00

For an increase of Catholic initiatives in the field of social communications so as to promote human and Christian values effectively.

Master of the New Evangelization

2011-10-26T19:14:00.000-04:00

from Sr. Margaret

Master of the New Evangelization:

Divine Master window, FSP general
motherhouse, Rome

Partway through my flight from Rome last week, “Sara” asked if she might occupy the empty seat next to me. A few seats up, her friend had a visitor who was sitting in Sara’s place for a couple of hours, and she was hoping to take a snooze. What made her think she’d be able to sleep, with me next to her?

Actually, she started it. Somewhat hesitantly at first, she told me her story. She had been working in Europe for the past six months, and on her way back, decided to spend four days in Rome. It changed her life. More precisely, St. Peter’s changed her life. She spent two days there crying her heart out, as she realized how much she had missed while “away” from her faith. When her boyfriend called her, he realized how profoundly she had been touched by grace, though he didn’t call it that. A little mystified at how she had sleepwalked through the past several years, she admitted to me that she hadn’t had a quarrel with the Church; it just hadn’t mattered to her. Not like this. She had just stopped giving God, faith, the Church, a meaningful place in her life.

I’m halfway through the lineamenta (workbook) in preparation for next year’s synod, or convocation, of bishops in Rome, entitled, The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith. Back in 1979 John Paul II had called for this “new evangelization” so that all of us in the Church would reach out to people like Sara and invite them to share in the relationship of faith that has put some sense into our lives, our world, our future, and our eternity.

Why “new”? Wasn’t it done right in the first place? Is it just a matter of repeating the past?

A quick glance at our tradition, with our Catholic penchant for reinventing ourselves and adopting new paradigms for proclaiming the Gospel, offers some insight. In the early Church Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist were primarily adult sacraments, and the process toward the Easter celebration of these mysteries was a journey for converts. The whole Christian community accompanied them. As Christianity took root in various cultures of Asia, Africa and Europe, people were, so to speak, born into communities that were already Christian and both those sacraments and the catechesis leading up to them had to be inculturated accordingly. Lent took on a new configuration.

The same with “reading” the Gospel. The newness of the message, that is, salvation as faith in God through relationship with Jesus, took on a moral emphasis for the benefit of people who had left behind the initial teaching of Christ and were moving on to maturity (cf. Heb. 6:1): “Yes, yes, we know Jesus, but what does that mean for us today in our milieu?” These approaches were carried also to the lands newly explored by Europeans and were more or less successfully inculturated there.

Today, we have been cast back to the pre-Christian challenge. We live in a post-modern and, some would say, post-Christian era. That key message of the Gospel has once again taken center stage: Who is Jesus? Why is he important?

If we couch the Gospel solely or even primarily in moralistic or ascetical terms, we have no answer for those who counter: “I’m a good person. Why should I become a Christian?” It’s useless to tell them that they won’t be able to maintain that goodness without the moral prescriptions of the Gospel. Their circle of relatives, friends, and acquaintances belies that. It has to be framed in terms of relationship with Jesus, who fulfills the Torah as the path or Way of salvation, of becoming holy like God. Only Jesus Christ is the source of this “sanctifying” grace. Certainly this relationship has profound moral, and therefore, social, implications. But their reference point is Jesus Christ, not the acquisition of virtue, or even the right ordering of society. Jesus Christ.

In the late-90’s I was assigned to our community in Toronto, where we hosted a flourishing young adult prayer group that met every Saturday evening. A continuous reading and discussion of a Church document or of the Catechism of the Catholic Church was, believe it or not, a lively part of the evening. One Saturday, we talked about how we are called to be truly human. Finally the question came up: “How do we know what it is to be human?” The answer: Jesus Christ. It hit the group like a thunderbolt. Suddenly the Gospel made personal sense. One young Muslim, a friend of one of the regulars, commented afterward, “Now I understand what Christianity is about.”

This is what profound people grasp when they sift through the Gospel data. This is what either makes or breaks their acceptance of Christianity: relationship with Jesus, who says, if you want to be perfect, follow me. This is the crux of the new evangelization. In the lineamenta that I’m reading, this relationship, personal encounter, or communion with the Lord is mentioned 31 times. Faith is not primarily something to believe, but Someone to believe in, to entrust one’s life to.

This is why Pauline theology and spirituality is of fundamental importance today. It actually articulates the essence of the Gospel, being “clothed with Christ,” being incorporated into Christ, so that all together we become one body with him. This is why Alberione is, as John Paul II stated at our founder’s beatification, “the first apostle of the new evangelization.” Not only because he used modern media to proclaim the Gospel, but because, like Paul, he emphasized configuration with Christ the Master. Naturally, because he spoke to members who were raised in an Italian, a Christian, culture, he placed emphasis on moral and spiritual terms. But his reference was always the Gospel and he insisted that everyone read it and live it—a novelty at the turn of the last century. His lodestar was the primacy of Christ.

In the first volume of his book, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict comments that in no way was the Person of Christ ever overshadowed, much less replaced, by a moral code. In fact, he himself became the locus of salvation, its “efficient cause” (cf. p. 105). That is, the power to live in virtue is the consequence of our union with Christ. In his encyclical, God Is Love, (also available in book form here at www.pauline.org) the Pope writes, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction….Since God has first loved us (cf. 1Jn. 4:10), love is now no longer a mere ‘command’; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us” (n. 1).

Religious life, too, is not a means of sanctification by the “practice of virtue,” as if practicing a sport, clambering up the ladder, and envious of each other, as von Balthasar says in Heart of the World (p. 177), but because it empowers us through vowed life, to deeply live our Christian life, a path to becoming configured with Christ, which is the goal of every life.

Through technology people today seem geographically closer to each other, but are often paradoxically isolated from each other—sometimes through the same technology. Yet, like every human being in generations past, we all long for intimacy, a relationship with someone who knows to our depths and loves us in spite of ourselves. Christianity offered as this kind of relationship constitutes the key to the “new evangelization,” not only with Jesus Christ, but with his body, the Church. Not that this hasn’t been done in the past. But with each succeeding generation humanity renews itself on the face of the earth. It faces new situations that present challenges to faith and faith-life that were unknown in the past. It cannot be assumed anywhere by anyone that any culturally Christian population will remain that way without a new assessment of its situation and new creativity in forging the bonds of faith. For this reason the lineamenta urges us to a commitment “not of re-evangelization, but rather of a new evangelization; new in ardour, methods and expression” (n. 5).

For tagline explanation, see
blog post of 8/24/2011.

Whether it takes the form of the new Pauline Books & Media “Discover hope” tagline, or the upcoming Christmas concerts with the Daughters of St. Paul Choir, or the eleven-and-counting Pauline Books & Media apps in the iTunes catalogue, we’re committed to this new evangelization. For people like my friend Sara, faith has to be tangible. In fact, that’s what spoke to her at St. Peter’s. She touched faith made visible. In fact, one of her questions, which will have profound implications for her in the months ahead, was: Is such a testament to faith a thing of the past, or will it take shape again? My own conviction is that we will again see the incarnational character of Catholicism that shaped the past because it exists even now—in the sacraments, in our service to each other, and in the seeming banality of the media culture we’re immersed in: treasure in the field. When I described cinema divina as a faith-based way of movie viewing (see the blog post of 6/1/2011), she exclaimed, “I want that! How can I get it?” Facebook, I said; just type in cinema divina. Only a lived faith can feed the world.

This coming Sunday the Pauline Family celebrates the solemnity of Jesus, the Divine Master, Way, Truth, and Life. The whole person in relationship with the whole Christ, head and body of the Church, is the center of our life and Pauline mission, as it was for Paul the Apostle. We will share that day with our friends, Pauline Cooperators, and donors. As we do, we will pray that the Good News we believe, live, and honor in the person of Christ the Teacher may fill our world—your world—with light, peace, and its gentle, yet persistent, power.

Praying with the Liturgy

2011-10-22T15:21:00.000-04:00

by Sr. Anne

Praying with the Liturgy: Just a quick post today in honor of the two Blesseds whose feast day it is: Bl. John Paul (well known to all) and Bl. Timothy Giaccardo (known and loved within the Pauline Family). And here are the official opening prayers for the votive Masses for these two heroes of God:

For Bl. John Paul II:
O God, who are rich in mercy and who willed that the blessed John Paul the Second should preside as Pope over your universal Church, grant, we pray, that instructed by his teaching, we may open our hearts to the saving grace of Christ, the sole Redeemer of mankind. Who lives and reigns...

For Bl. Timothy Giaccardo:
O God, you have guided Blessed Timothy Giaccardo, priest, in life and in apostolate, with the light of your Word and the power of the Eucharist. Grant through his intercession that in the Church and in the world, the instruments of social communication may be rightly employed to lead people to goodness and that they may contribute to the spreading of the Gospel message in every place. Through our Lord Jesus Christ...

Quote from Blessed Timothy Giaccardo

2011-10-22T06:52:00.002-04:00

Our spirituality creates giants in sanctity, in virtue, but it requires that the one embracing it be extremely small, an infant, very humble.

St. Joseph Patron of the Dying

2011-10-15T11:36:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Kathryn

St. Joseph Patron of the Dying:

Dear Friends,

Jesus and Mary came ever so quietly and gently to our home in the first hours of the morning of Wednesday, September 14th, the Feast of the Exaltation of Cross, to embrace the soul of our dear Sister Mary Nazarene Prestofillipo. She was 92 years old and a Daughter of St. Paul for 85 years. Serene and peaceful she was conscious up to the last. She was so yearning and eager to have Jesus come and take her home to the Father. We feel St. Joseph had a big part to play in her holy death; it was a Wednesday. Wednesdays have been the day of the week the Church traditionally dedicates to St. Joseph the patron of a good death. But the most significant grace was Jesus came to take Sr. Nazarene on the Feast we celebrate Jesus’ Triumph over sin and death by his death on a cross. We thank God for his love for her. We laid her to rest this morning (Friday September 16th), and we look with joyful hope to be reunited with her in heaven.

Sr. Sharon Anne, fsp

Holy Family Insitute Intention for October

2011-10-01T06:42:00.001-04:00

That writers, technicians and marketing people may be wise, animated by the spirit of the Gospel and witnesses to Christian life in the field of social communications.

Quote from Blessed James Alberione

2011-09-28T07:40:00.004-04:00

Why was I created? To know, love and serve God. Why am I consecrated? To know, love and serve God better. and then? To enjoy God forever in Paradise. - Blessed James Alberione

Heart of the Spirituality of Communication

2011-09-25T15:47:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Marie Paul Curley

Heart of the Spirituality of Communication:

One could easily argue that Saint Paul the Apostle is one of the most effective communicators ever. He used all the means of his time to tell the world about the transforming power of God’s love for us in Christ. I believe that the reading for today, from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, lies at the core of Paul’s ability to communicate.

Communio et progressio – the Church’s document on communication following Vatican II–offers Christ as the Perfect Communicator. As Communio et progressio #11 tells us, to communicate is to give one’s self in love. In terms of communication, how can we give ourselves? I think it first means we give ourselves away, we empty ourselves of ourselves (our opinions, our need to be right, our need to dominate, our ego, our securities, etc.), so that we have the space within to listen–to the person we are communicating with, and to the Spirit who gives us whatever words or gestures we might need to respond in love.

If we think of the self-emptying of Christ as a model for our communication, it is mind-boggling! Yet, I believe that this powerful reading about Christ letting go and emptying himself lies at the heart of Pauline spirituality. Father Robert Barron unpacks this reading from Philippians in his homily for today. He doesn’t take the approach of communication, but everything he says can be applied to our call as communicators, writers, and artists. Indeed, I believe that Philippians 2:1-11 lies at the heart of our call as artists.

MOVIE TRAILER: "THE WAY"

2011-09-16T15:18:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Helena

I can't wait to see this movie!

MOVIE TRAILER: "THE WAY": GREAT trailer for a GREAT movie! Go. See. It. (But not alone.)

The Way: Smart and Funny

2011-09-16T15:17:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Anne

The Way: Smart and Funny:
Sr Helena and I attended last night's screening of the new Emilio Estevez/Martin Sheen movie, "The Way." The father and son duo are making a road trip across the country in a special bus (Sheen joked that they don't have a typical Hollywood marketing budget for the film, but they do have a $40,000 bus); this is a project that depends on word of mouth (or pen of blogger) for its promotion.
I didn't know what to expect, but (as I wrote earlier this week) I was interested in it just because of the topic. I didn't expect the movie to be as intelligent, inspiring and truly entertaining as it turned out to be. This is a rare bird of a Hollywood film, with enough meat on its bones to bear watching two or three times, and no scenes that would require a nun to avert her eyes. There's a lot to talk about, making it ideal for groups. There's no getting away from its Catholic ethos. And it really does have its laugh-out-loud moments, proving that you can be smart and funny at the same time in a "spiritual" movie.
Go see it. (It should appear in theaters in October.) Recommend it to your friends. Heck, take out an ad in your parish bulletin and promote it (or at least ask your parish secretary to put a little something in the bulletin).
Sr Helena introduced Estevez and Sheen for the Q&A session after the movie, but then didn't actually get any time to meet them! I taped the Q&A, but it will need a bit of work before I post it here (check back tomorrow).

Planting the Tree of the Cross

2011-09-15T08:06:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Margaret

Planting the Tree of the Cross:

Pilot Printing. Used
with permission.

In the array of religious symbols, few are as ambivalent as the cross. Within a few centuries after Christ, a horrifying method of Roman capital punishment became the universal symbol of Christianity and permeates Western society. Although a growing respect for religious pluralism in our nation allows us to make room for other expressions of faith, American cultural instinct still assigns to the cross its most poignant memorial.

So when did the greatest hope of the human race once again come to mean primarily suffering and shame? We’ve all heard it and have probably said it: “What a cross…he carries (…she is…that would be)!” This aspect of it can’t be denied. In fact, Jesus made carrying the cross daily a requirement of discipleship (cf. Mt. 16:24). But why? Is it because of the suffering it entails, or the salvation?

Today’s feast of the Exaltation of the Cross comes down on the side of salvation. Jesus’ self-emptying in the Incarnation and later on the cross is his supreme act of love for the Father, who sent him to save the world. St. Alphonsus de Liguori declared that “love, not nails, fastened Jesus to the cross.” Jesus himself said, “I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (Jn. 10:18). While the cross is no picnic, the message of the Gospel and of this day is that Jesus’ love for the Father and for us, which led him to the cross, released the stranglehold of sin and death, triumphed in the resurrection, and so, by the Holy Spirit, guaranteed undying life for everyone and everything human. No wonder the author of the book of Revelation could cry out in Christ’s name to a hunted, martyred Church, “Do not fear what you are about to suffer….Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (2:10).

Using a vivid image, contemporary theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar says that Jesus “exploded” sin from within. When I read that recently I couldn’t help thinking of…Harry Potter. Pursued by Valdemort, his nemesis, Harry made it his mission to find and destroy every “horcrux” that contained a piece of Valdemort’s soul (OK, so the theology skips a beat here) to put an end to the death and grief caused by Valdemort’s ambition. Although he didn’t realize it, Harry himself was the last “horcrux.” Valdemort mistakenly believed that if he could overcome Harry, he would be invested with unconquerable life. A matured Harry gave himself into Valdemort’s power in order to save his friends and in dying, became the evil lord’s undoing.

Whether we talk about wars or the petty rivalries in the workplace and the home, human struggles aim for a winner-take-all conquest. This may come as a surprise, but the sacrifice of Jesus did, too. The only difference is that God in Jesus triumphed not over human beings, but over what makes us less human—sin and death. He “made captivity itself a captive” (Eph. 4:8).

The way that that comes to us? Forgiveness. The cross is not only the sign that God reconciled us with himself. It is the act of reconciliation; it brought about that reunification with God and made unity with one another possible. Ever since then, the two aspects of suffering and salvation have always worked in tandem. Jesus planted the tree of the cross on Calvary, watered by the Holy Spirit and his own blood and tended by the Church in the sacrament of Reconciliation. Not surprisingly, the process doesn’t stop there, but out the confessional door, making us ambassadors of reconciliation (cf. 2Cor. 5:16-21).

Oh if ever there was an intersection of suffering and salvation in our relationships it’s in forgiveness! The cross attests that evil inflicts a gaping wound in our hearts that only forgiveness can heal. “Anything but that!” we protest, and so we cast about looking for something or someone else to do the job. Instead, forgiveness is a gift we give to ourselves. It doesn’t necessarily change the one we resent, but allows something life-giving to take its place in us, so that we’re no longer burdened by the other person we can’t change.

Indignation and a desire for revenge would not have been enough to fuel the compassion of millions of people we saw, read about, or heard about on 9/11 and in its aftermath. Only a need to give senselessness some meaning, a meaning springing from love. One reader of this blog e-mailed me after the post of May 4, 2011, that commented on the assassination of Osama bin Laden. He wrote:

“Even though the event of 911 was horrific, we should not forget the outpouring of charity, altruism and love for neighbor that overshadowed the evil in the days and months after 911. It’s hard to stay angry, unless you really want to - and love (NOT time) heals all wounds, if we let it” (Kurtis D. Welton).

St. Paul would say: “Where sin increased, grace increased even more, so that just as sin reigned in death, so too would grace reign in reconciliation leading to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:20-21).

Thoughts to help us in the process, from Forgiveness: A Catholic Approach, (which, this week, ranks #16 in Amazon.com’s top 100 Christian best sellers). Go to Embrace Forgiveness on Facebook to read stories, post a question, and interact with the author, Fr. Scott Hurd:

“‘Forgive and forget’ may sound noble. Unfortunately, it’s just not realistic….Our minds don’t come equipped with a delete button…. Forgiveness may not require forgetting, but it does require letting go.”

“‘I would often tell people that the only thing worse than a bullet in my spine would have been to nurture revenge in my heart’” (Steven McDonald, NYPD, after forgiving the teen who shot and paralyzed him).

“Guilt does not have to paralyze us. Instead, it can provide the energy that spurs us into action, leading us to seek forgiveness….Simply put, people who know they’re forgiven are much more likely to be people who forgive.”

“God wants to forgive us more than we could ever want to sin….He’s dying to forgive us—which is exactly what he has already done!”

To order copies with prayer below,
click PilotPrinting.net/911bookmarks

Motherhouse moments: Sister Death

2011-09-14T14:59:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Anne

Motherhouse moments: Sister Death: Shortly before I left Boston, the provincial shared with us the news that one of our senior sisters, the feisty Sr Mary Nazarene (a.k.a. Snaz, Snazzy), was no longer able to tolerate the dialysis treatments she had been receiving for so many years that all the staff had fallen in love with her. It was time for all of us to begin saying "Good bye."

Sr Fay and Snazzy.

I'm grateful I was able to share a meal with Sr Nazarene the evening before my departure, and to say "Arrivederci" on behalf of all the sisters in Chicago. "Get ready," I told her. "We're going to keep you very busy once you get to heaven." "Good!" she said, "Keep me busy!" Just over a week later, on this feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross, the Lord called her home. One of our first American vocations (entering just five years after the Daughters of St. Paul came to the US), she was 91.
Snazzy was kind of a roly-poly fixture in the motherhouse, serving as a math teacher for the high school aspirants, then (when I entered) in various services, such as cassette duplication (she didn't just copy cassette tapes, she made them, using enormous spools of magnetic tape) and parlor duty, where she kept track of phone calls, door bells and packages. Occasionally she was called on to wield her official seal as a Notary Public. In her later years (I mean in her late 60's and 70's) she was stationed in New York, and was sent hither and yon to help out in our smaller communities for a couple of weeks at a stretch, but she was always glad to come home to Boston.
The past week seems to have passed very slowly for Sr Nazarene. She kept asking when Jesus was going to come. I had been praying that the Lord would allow her direct passage to heaven, with no transit stops along the way, if you catch my drift. And it seems to me that this week of longing corresponds beautifully to the role of Purgatory, where we are simultaneously purified and perfected: our full gaze turned toward the Lord, finally recognized as the one and supreme "Good" of our lives. What better day to achieve that Good than the day which honors the Cross which claimed it for us?
Rest in peace, Snazzy dear. And get ready: we're going to keep you very busy.

9/11

2011-09-11T09:52:00.001-04:00

From Sr. Anne

9/11:

May peace reign in your walls; peace in your buildings. (Ps. 122)

Let us never forget

Holy Family Insitute Intention for September

2011-09-01T05:53:00.000-04:00

That there be in the Church an increase in the number of priests, religious and laity who, consecrated as apostles of social communication, will make resound throughout the world the message of salvation. (Pauline Offertory)

Quote from Blessed James Alberione

2011-08-28T14:27:00.001-04:00

Know how to be bearers of joy everywhere – a ray of that joy that the blessed have in heaven. - Blessed James Alberione

Discover Hope

2011-08-25T11:22:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Margaret

Discover Hope: Even if you’ve never come up with one, you know what a tagline is. Recognize these? “Just Do It.” “That Was Easy.” “It’s All Inside.” Taglines synthesize values, express company commitment, and ensure brand recognition. Memorable ones resonate on a level deeper than commerce or sentiment and drive markets into their companies’ corner. For this reason corporations pour millions into clinching the mother of all catchphrases.

In crafting its new tagline, Pauline Books & Media meditated instead. As individuals and as small groups of sisters and co-workers, Pauline Cooperators and friends, we began a year ago to ask ourselves what makes us who we are: What are people looking for when they turn to us? What do we value and how do we communicate that? What message do we want to convey that says “Gospel” to the people of today?

Thus was born “Discover Hope.” We believe that Jesus Christ is the ultimate reason for our hope, and our mission exists to bring people into conversation and relationship with him by entering into conversation with them, building community with them. It may be through one of our media products or services or through our own witness as his disciples. No small task, but that gives us reason to live in hope too! In fact, one of the first steps in deciding upon this tagline was the realization that “we are meant to be the first encounter with Christ that each person experiences when coming into contact with us; we are meant to be the communication of Christ. We may stammer or blur the image in the process, as everyone does, but we can’t stop communicating. “When they see our logo, they will feel like they’ve just pulled up in the driveway of their best friend” (Sr. Leonora Wilson, superior of the US/ESC province).

Whom are we trying to reach in this way? Sr. Margaret Timothy, the provincial superior at the time of the internal launch, named them clearly: “a much wider audience than we presently reach—the broader, and for the most part, unchurched audience that is the vast majority of our population.”

How does the tagline do this? What are we saying by the process? Again Sr. Timothy points out: “we are revitalizing ‘Pauline’ as a name that identifies all of who we are and what we do in mission…. In reflecting on ‘Discover Hope,’ four key attributes emerged that articulate this well, elements that we have long recognized as characteristic of our mission, and therefore of Pauline.” They are elements that “describe our values [and] express how people have benefitted from us over the years. The four attributes of our branding statement—PASSIONATE, TRUSTED, JOYFUL, and SANCTUARY—are promises we can make to the people we are called to minister to…. what we are known for. These qualities are found in our community’s Constitutions and they express what we strive to be for the people we serve.

Sr. Margaret Timothy plays and
directs at the Jubilee Mass last
Saturday.

“We are PASSIONATE – “We invest our whole lives to bring the Gospel of hope to people yearning for God’s love.” This is the gift and privilege of our total belonging to Christ! ‘We will use any form of technology to proclaim God’s message in the best way possible.’”

The second key element is that for generations we have been TRUSTED by others in the area of life they most wonder about or that is most precious to them—their faith. Fidelity to our mission, like fidelity to our consecration, means we can communicate to the people of our society, “You can trust us to be your authentic resource for books and media solidly rooted in our Catholic identity.”

Sr. Fay and Sr. Nazarene

A third element which describes us as Paulines, “We are JOYFUL—In whatever venue you find us, we will welcome you with joyful hearts.” Both our founder and co-foundress point out to us the joy that should characterize our lives, a joy that was often captured in photos of them. It was the joy of the sisters that drew many of us to our community and that still invites young women today.

Sr. Tracey and Sr. Anne Joan
cantor the responsorial psalm.

Sr. Margaret Timothy concluded, “The fourth element descriptive of our Pauline mission is that wherever we meet people, and in whatever context, we know that the encounter is sacred. We are a SANCTUARY. The communication—of our words, actions, gestures, and silences—because we are sincerely striving to live Christ, provides a sanctuary for others. We communicate to the people we meet, ‘in encountering me, you can ‘encounter God.’ And it is God ‘who gives [to all of] us wholeness and meaning.’”

At first glance, it would seem we’re still addressing those we have addressed for years. To some extent we are; we don’t want to abandon them either! But if these, if you, can capture some of what we’re promising, if you can be “passionate, trusted, joyful and a sanctuary” for many we may not reach directly, Jesus Christ can be proclaimed to those many, as well. We are inviting you to be ambassadors of Christ like Paul. It can sound strange, but in a very real sense, together with you we need to “be” the brand—because by our Christian vocation we are all meant to be Christ who is our hope. So whether you access our new Web site, walk into a PBM Center, share your story of hope on the Discover Hope Facebook page, give a PBM media gift to someone, donate to a Pauline project (see the “Donate” button on the right sidebar), or pray for this mission, you can be a Pauline ambassador of hope!

But even directly, the unchurched can discover hope through Pauline media. These four characteristics are primarily our commitment to proclaim “peace to those far off [from faith] and peace to those nearby” (Eph. 2:17). “Today’s digital media give us the best opportunity we have ever had to give the Gospel to every person. As the number of cell phones in our nation approaches the number of teenagers & adults in our nation, we genuinely have the possibility of reaching our GOAL—to place the Gospel in everyone’s hands, and even more importantly, in their hearts” (Sr. Margaret Timothy).

We had our own internal tagline launch in the spring and planned the public launch to coincide with the anniversary date of our founding as a Pauline Family—August 20. It just so happens that the launch also coincides with the start of the triennium—or three years of preparation—leading up to the centenary of our founding in 2014. In addition it coincided with seven other anniversaries—those of four sister silver jubilarians, one golden, and two diamond. Sisters Marie James Hunt, Marie Bernard Tran, Jane Raphael Livingston, Sean Marie David, Mary Mark Wickenhiser, Mary Paula Kolar, and Mary Louise Oddi celebrated and reaffirmed their commitment to incarnate Christian hope and to be hope for the culture of communication.

It was a wonderful day! Of course families and friends joined the community in pulling out all the stops: Liturgy, flower arrangements, music, preaching, food, décor, and more tell something of our love for these sisters and of the sign they are for us all.

Decades of fidelity are impressive. So I asked some of them to share the “secret” of their fidelity. “I know,” I said, “the grace of God. So now that we’ve established that, what is it—an attitude, a practice, whatever—that is yours personally, that has made the grace of God fruitful in your perseverance?”

Sr. Jane responds, “God is full of surprises. Expect the unexpected. When the reality that ‘Nothing is impossible for God’ meets with our willingness to trust, the recipe for miracles is present, and the rest is history.”

Then I ask Sr. Mary Mark. Her laugh tells much…and has you guessing at the rest! Sincerely, though, she answers with a memory that stretches back to her earliest years of formation. “Since I was a postulant, I have prayed the Pact* every day of my life. You know, when you’re young, you’re not sure about [your vocation], and you go day by day trusting those who tell you what God’s will is. I reached a certain point, though, when I had a heartfelt conviction that this Pauline life—its consecration and apostolate—is God’s will for me.”

Sisters Louise, Mary Paula, and Mary Mark

Sr. Louise understands that. She says, “I used to ask: Is it really God’s will [that I stay]? Yes. I had signs that it was. When I was a postulant, I went to Confession to the Founder, and he didn’t say I wasn’t meant for this life. So I took it as God’s will. Everything wasn’t very easy for me, but when things crossed me, I kept thinking, ‘Let go of it, don’t dwell on it. Five years from now it won’t matter. I won’t even remember what it was.’ So much of our life is like that.”

Each in her own way singled out peace, humor, and trust. They’ve been at it for years and show every indication of staying at it for as long as God gives them breath. None of them says that now they can coast along or stop altogether. Fidelity in love is ongoing and calls for a commitment renewed every day.

In her comments about the tagline, Sr. Leonora says the same: “St. Paul posed the question, ‘How are they to hear if no one preaches?’ We…need to insure that the Word is heard. If nobody calls the 800 line or goes to the website, if no one walks into our Pauline Book & Media Centers, if no one turns to the PCMS for media literacy, if nobody wants our evangelization teams to touch their parishioners …what then? Thus the importance of launching out again and again.” This ongoing fidelity becomes “a hallmark of our one, apostolic vocation of giving Jesus to the world.”

_______________
* The “Pact,” or “Secret of Success” is a prayer—a prescription for a way of life, really—given by the founder, Fr. Alberione, to the Pauline Family only a few years after it began. It will be the topic of next week’s blog. See you then!

The Creed of the Pauline Family

2011-08-21T15:05:00.000-04:00

1. We believe in God, our Creator and Father and in His loving plan of salvation which is accomplished through His Word Incarnate, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit.
2. We believe that the work of Jesus Christ continues in his Church, of which we are a part and in which we recognize that we have a specific role as Paulines.
3. We believe in the common spirituality and mission to be made a reality in the Church through our Pauline Family as we live and give to the world Jesus Christ, Way, Truth and Life with all the means, according to the charism proper to each Institute and with particular attention to the means of social communication.
4. We believe that belonging to the Pauline Family is "an absolutely essential charismatic element" for each if the Institutions that make it up and so we commit ourselves to growing in a "family" awareness in the conviction that only if we are fraternally united will we make a reality of the project God shows us through our Founder.
5. We believe that Blessed Alberione was the faithful instrument of this particular project of God and that following apostolic values are a part of the Pauline Family's spiritual heritage: the ability to involve everyone, without distinction, in the announcement of the Gospel; fidelity to the Church Magisterium and activity, openness to the signs of the times, diligence in responding to the expectations and the needs of people today with the strength of the Gospel massage.
6. We believe that our personal Pauline vocation is not just a free choice on our part but is first of all a response to God's mysterious design for us and for which he chose us, consecrated us and sent us out to collaborate in His Kingdom according to our specific apostolate.
7. We believe in the special protection of Mary, Queen of Apostles and in the spiritual paternity of St. Paul whose zeal for Christ and for souls we must imitate so as to become "Paul alive today."
8. We believe in God's assistance for the Pauline Family, guaranteed by the very words of the Divine Master: Do not be afraid, I am with you.
9. We believe that from Sacred Scripture and from the Tabernacle we can receive every grace and blessing, for our own personal needs, and for the works of the apostolate. the Divine Master has said: From here I wish to enlighten.
10. We believe in the obligation to "watch and pray" so as to purify ourselves and keep ourselves and keep ourselves far from every fault. We believe in our duty to offer acts of reparation for the sins of the world and in particular for those committed by the evil use of the means of social communication. The Divine Master has said: Be sorry for your sins

We believe all this and in this we find our strength, for this we wish to spend all out energies, committing ourselves with joy and trust. Amen.

Fr. Juan Manuel Galzviz, ssp

Perpetual Profession

2011-08-21T15:03:00.000-04:00

Making my perpetual profession in the Holy Family Institute on July 24, 2011.

Quote from Blessed James Alberione

2011-08-11T19:23:00.002-04:00

Think of grafting yourself to Christ the Master. Graft to Christ your head, your heart, your mind, your activities, all your day.

In It Together

2011-08-03T17:20:00.000-04:00

By Sr. Margaret
In It Together: "

The weekend before last, I had the exciting task of attending the “triduum” or three-day retreat and conference of the Holy Family Institute in Canfield, Ohio and giving a presentation to this marvelous crowd. This organization is one of the foundations of Blessed James Alberione, SSP, founder of the Pauline Family. It consists of married people, often couples, who sense the Pauline charism within themselves and aspire to live the Christ-life as Paul the Apostle understood and lived it, while modeling their family life on that of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. They make vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience according to their married state and raise their children in Gospel values, yeast in the dough of this media generated culture.

It’s always a treat to connect with “Family,” especially this bunch, with their enthusiasm, love, humor, and prayerful spirit. We had the added bonus of Fr. Mike Harrington’s leadership. He’s the first U.S. member of the Institute of Jesus the Priest (another institute of the Pauline Family—this one for diocesan clergy). It just so happens he’s also one of the chaplains to our FSP community in Boston. A young man exploring the Gabrielites—you guessed it, yet another institute, this one for single men—dropped in for a visit. Of course, the presence of our brothers in the Society of St. Paul, especially the intrepid Fr. Tom Fogarty, who has accompanied the HFIs for years, was an indispensable gift. All these Family connections give a multi-faceted meaning to the word “mission.”

Fr. Fogarty, and
Fr. Ed Riley of Boston

We Daughters of St. Paul often refer to “our mission.” That’s what it is, but just as often we remind ourselves that it’s not ultimately “ours.” It’s really the Church’s mission of evangelization in which we participate, doing our part to sow seeds of the Gospel within the culture of communications, usually with the media themselves.

Actually, though, even the Church can’t claim this mission as her own. It’s been entrusted to her by her Lord; in fact, it’s his. Blessed Timothy Giaccardo, SSP, first vicar general of the Society of St. Paul, wrote this very thing decades ago, saying that it’s Jesus who preaches, Jesus who teaches, Jesus who carries out the mission in and through us. Yet even Jesus pointed to Another as the source of his mission: “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me” (Jn. 7:16). Anointed by the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ is the ambassador, “the Apostle,” of the Father, the “one sent” (Heb. 3:1). Who we are and what we do go way beyond ourselves, and we are amazingly privileged to be part of it. It’s “an apostolate that the angels envy,” Alberione would say.

Teen sons and daughters of HFI members gather
around that all-important text message.

This is why none of us has a corner on mission and why we are meant to work together, regardless of what aspect of evangelization we individually or communally happen to be engaged in. One of the hardest challenges to overcome is self-sufficiency. It leads even communities to isolationism, the “Lone Ranger” syndrome. I’m not sure it ever worked, but in our social media generated world, such an approach to mission definitely gets us nowhere today. Instead, collaboration is boon to everyone, in spite of the challenges and difficulties it presents.

This was the principal message in the presentation I gave on the second day of the triduum. It was part two of a series on the “Apostolate of the Cinema in the History of the Pauline Family.” What a fascinating story! Do you want to know what Mussolini’s favorite Pauline film was? Do you know which SSP movie was the first color film in Italy? What textbook was made into not one, but fifty films? More amazing even than that were the miracles that God accomplished among and through the faith of such pioneers when they worked together to evangelize with this modern medium of communication. Click here for last year’s presentation. Click here for this year’s.

Sr. Helena Burns gave a one-hour PowerPoint presentation to help the parents and grandparents in the Holy Family Institute to harness media and the media culture to grow themselves and to share their values with their families. She made a great analogy between media literacy education and driver’s ed. Just as no parent there would ever toss the car keys to their teen and wish him or her well without preparation, so no parent should expose young people to the world of media without teaching them to navigate it. Nor would they try to prevent their teens from driving at all, knowing that someday they probably would get behind the wheel. Just so, parents and grandparents could do much better than throwing out the TV or shutting out the media world, aware that outside their home, those same young people are faced with a huge number of media messages that require considerable discernment skills. “Control is for the moment; communication is for a lifetime.” If you’d like a copy of Sr. Helena’s PowerPoint presentation, e-mail her at helraphaelfsp@aol.com.

Sr. Mary Peter Martin teamed up with Sr. Marie James Hunt (whose parents professed their vows perpetually that Sunday) to lead the Eucharistic visit on Friday and Saturday. Both were beautiful experiences. Fr. Mike was definitely in his element and seemed to be everywhere: preaching, presiding at Liturgy, celebrating the sacrament of Reconciliation, receiving vows, and even joining Fr. Ed Riley, his classmate, in playing soccer with the kids and teens—in nearly 100 degree weather! Heroic.

You can see Fr. Jeff’s slide show of photos here. If you’d like more information about the Institute you can scroll down to my blog post of September 23, 2010. One of the members is beginning a blog for the Institute. Keep an eye on Pauline Faithways; once his blog is ready, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Photo credits: Fr. Jeffrey Mickler, SSP

Holy Family Institute Intention for August

2011-08-01T06:52:00.000-04:00

To know and make known that only Jesus the incarnate Word, is the perfect Master, the sure Way that leads to knowing the Father and to participating in his life.

Quote from Blessed James Alberione

2011-07-30T16:18:00.001-04:00

Let all those suffering put their sufferings at the service of God and offer them in union with the sacrifice of the altar: Our little sufferings in union with Jesus the victim. - Blessed James Alberione

Holy Family Institute Video

2011-07-26T10:31:00.000-04:00

Check out the Holy Family Institute web site for a new video produced by Zsolt one of our members.

Holy Family Institute Web Site

Daughters of St. Paul in Charleston, SC

2011-07-20T20:31:00.002-04:00

From Sr. Margaret

(title unknown): "Bishop John England (1786-1842) must be glad we’re in his diocese. As the founder of the first Catholic newspaper in the U.S., as well as the parish-based Book Society, and as editor of a catechism plus a missal in English, the Irish-born bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, (how did he come by the name of England?) would appreciate the presence of sisters committed to bringing people to encounter Christ within the culture of modern communication. His diocese is still a mission Church, one that serves the entire state. In fact, Catholics comprise a little less than four percent of the South Carolina’s population.

Jerusalem, you’ve got some competition. As signs of liturgical life, past and present, churches dominate the skyline of Charleston and so have earned it the name “The Holy City.” During the colonial period tolerance for every religion except Catholicism made it a spiritual hot spot, allowing even one of the oldest Jewish congregations in the country to thrive here.

Before

I imagine the city’s founders have made peace with Bishop England over the vibrancy of his Church here, though in our regard, not without a little wicked glee: In 1984 they must have prayed the Daughters into the charming historical building on King St.—a Class 5, the highest rating—headaches and all. The Siegling Family of German piano builders had opened one of America’s first music stores in 1838, and their edifice became ours. We think, though, that we have one up on them all: Neither they nor the founding fathers could have known that few shops would have been more appropriate for a community that would be known in various parts of the world for evangelizing through its music!

During

Following our arrival we adapted the space to our community and apostolic needs. In recent years, though, it became clear that a major restoration would be needed. Although our health and safety, as well as that of our customers and guests, was the immediate motivation for the change, the community also envisioned providing a way to ensure enough for both future maintenance and mission development. Meanwhile, another factor emerged. Nationwide, our health coverage became cost prohibitive, which drove us to drop it altogether. So the sisters visualize that fund helping to provide coverage for us in Charleston, besides something for basic living expenses. This way all income from the mission would go back into it. Normally, our evangelizing work provides for our personal and communal needs, but even with the ecumenical outreach that the sisters do, income in the mission territory of South Carolina is insufficient for their support.

After

So in 2006, after praying and asking others to pray, the four Paulines here set to work. By June last year they, their advisory board, their friends, and the Pauline Cooperators had raised $180,000 to restore and renew the exterior. Meanwhile they began exploring ways to raise funds for the next phase, which entails first, solidifying the floor in the book and media center and the several adjoining offices and rooms and replacing the carpet with wood laminate, more practical for a humid climate. The second goal links directly to the media nature of the mission. From its early configuration as a Catholic book store, the PBM (Pauline Books & Media) center has metamorphosed into a center of spirituality and Catholic media resources in the heart of the city, the only one of its kind for hundreds of miles around, hosting several gatherings on a weekly basis, especially for young people. Thus, that second goal is to change one of those spaces into a state-of-the-art conference room that would be utilized for hosting Pauline ministry events, including some that could generate income. Price tag for both the floor and conference room: $125,000. There are still the living quarters to think of.

As the restoration and renovation work of one phase is being done, the next is being planned and budgeted so that funds can be raised. The most gratifying aspect of it all is the spirited involvement of everyone who has invested in it and built community with the sisters. They hold golf tournaments on the Isle of Palms or Daniel Island, that draw people from all over, or designate the community as the benefitting charity at the Nationwide Tour Championship. Volunteers staff Lydia’s Corner, an upscale consignment boutique in a section of the PBM Center. “Don’t even call it a second-hand store,” chided Sister Jane R. Livingston, the superior, aghast at my unforgiveable gaffe. “This is Charleston!”

With the Charleston community and its circle of friends,
Sr. Jane cared for her 57-year-old sister, Sr. Cecilia
Paula, until she died of cancer earlier this year. Sr. Cecilia
offered her prayer and suffering for every aspect of
her community's life.

Donors and collaborators feel that they’re the ones benefitting. “You don’t understand what we get from giving to you,” they say again and again. Sr. Jane comments, “They feel a part of the mission that will carry on into the future.” That mission includes the PBM Center’s weekly Bible classes for young adults, a young women’s faith sharing group called “Spirituali-Tea,” a women’s book club, and a weekly children’s story hour during the academic year, as well as offsite initiatives in parishes and schools. Sisters Clare S. Kralovic and Deborah Marie Dunevant will continue our Pauline presence here, while Sister Marie James Hunt joins them. A few months from now, Sister Jane concludes her second term as superior and will assist her parents in southern California. She considers as foundational her role in establishing with the Charleston team an infrastructure to stabilize our presence here: “I’m setting the chessboard. Whoever comes after me just has to play the game.”
Regardless of the camaraderie and collaboration, finding enough funds for such a project among just over four million South Carolinians is daunting. They can roll up their sleeves only so far. If you feel inspired to support their efforts, you can send your donation to:
The Daughters of St. Paul Building Fund
243 King St.
Charleston, SC 29401

Questions? Call 843-577-0175.

Pray for them and with them for those they serve, especially for other young women to carry their legacy into another generation.

Irrepressible Life

2011-07-14T13:02:00.000-04:00

by Sr. Margaret J. Obrovac, FSP

Irrepressible Life: "One question that we often get is, “So how are vocations?” Donors, no less than anyone else, look to the youth among us to gauge our community’s viability. While there are several reasons for a slump in any community’s numbers, understandably people want to support what they perceive as new life and a promising future.

Theresa and Laura after dinner dishes are done.

Life we’ve got. Our two novices here in Boston were joined last week by our four enthusiastic postulants from St. Louis, who are on summer break from their formal studies. These four young women had already become acquainted with us here as they began to discern their call from God before entering the congregation last year. Their postulancy is now introducing them more deeply to religious life and to our “version” of it, our charism, or our “color,” as the founder, Blessed James Alberione, sometimes described it. This two-year period assists each of them in the next step of their discernment and prepares them for their two years as novices, if that’s where their these years of formation take them.

Allow me to introduce you to:
Cheryl Galema, originally from the Philippines then from Toronto, Ontario
Jackie Gitonga originally from Nyeri, Kenya
Theresa Noble from Tulsa, Oklahoma
Laura Nolin from Newport, Vermont.

You can read up on each of them at their blog: Let Christ Be Formed in Me. Before you do, read on. I’ve got an exclusive for you! Just like the four evangelists—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—these four spoke about what God in Jesus is doing in their world and, as they told me about their lives, they inadvertently revealed something about themselves….

When Pad Thai isn't enough.

What do you like best about being a postulant? Theresa: “The sense of adventure and never knowing what God has in store for you….” (Theresa says she would be up to “hiking through the Amazon” someday, but even more, “traveling by myself for a long time in India.” Adventure, all right.)
Jackie: “The combined experience of our apostolate, prayer and community life…has provided me with some pretty grace-filled moments to grow in love of God and neighbor.”
Laura: “I like the variety of people we meet and the many different ways we meet them through our apostolate. We go out to some, and some come to us.”
Cheryl: “All the new things that I am able to do and discover about myself, like cooking. I wasn’t very comfortable in the kitchen because I was always afraid of burning myself or the house. Since I entered, I’ve helped cook a few meals and have recently learned to make Pad Thai. It was a hit!”

What’s one of the most challenging things for you?
Laura: “Living in community is probably the most challenging. I really enjoy it most times, but sometimes it can be very difficult too.”
Cheryl: “Waking up early in the morning (and sleeping earlier than what I’ve been used to). Also, doing homework for our classes. It’s been a while since I was in school, so reading and writing papers have been challenging.”
Theresa: “There are a lot of interior struggles for me as I make these first steps of discernment in religious life. The inner wrestling with myself and with God is the most challenging.”
Jackie: “Community life, growing in love, stretching my heart to love all my sisters as well as people of God in ministry, just as Jesus does even with and through our differences.”

Our Boston community, centered as it is on the Pauline Books & Media publishing house, is dedicated primarily to the creative and technical phases of our mission. Some of us do carry out various forms of person-to-person outreach—book and media center, exhibits, and presentations—but the majority work behind the scenes. However, our branch communities, like St. Louis, serve people primarily one-on-one. A few years ago, it became possible to situate the postulancy there. Now it offers the young women in this early stage of formation a unique opportunity to share in the diffusion, or outreach, aspect of our mission. It gives them a chance to better understand what they’ll probably live for a good part of their lives, if they go on to profess chastity, poverty, and obedience among us. Maintenance, grocery shopping, scheduling, liturgy in common both with us and with the parish and archdiocese, and the countless details of life in a small community offer a more diverse experience of our Pauline religious life. Together with prayer and study, this is indispensable to them as they discern their vocations.

By the way, the novices also go for a similar stint several months during their formation. See Pauline Faithways of October 20, 2010 for Sylwia’s and Emily’s “apostolic experience.”

As Cheryl pointed out, study is a major component of the postulants’ days. In addition to theology courses at the accredited archdiocesan Paul VI Institute, they participate in other seminars and, when offered, semester-long courses from the seminary. They receive their Pauline religious formation in house. At times, other Daughters of St. Paul are available to teach special intensive sessions, for instance, last year’s ten-day course on media literacy and the Church’s documents on media.

Most of these lively young women never imagined that they would be “on a journey to becoming a nun!” as Jackie put it, a journey that flies them to Boston each summer. The purpose for their month here is multi-faceted. They’re spending time in the motherhouse, reconnecting with our largest community in the US/ESC* province, which is home to a significant number of us. They get to spend time interacting with our elderly, senior sisters. Lastly, they’re introduced to the creative and technical phases of the mission.

Already in St. Louis, the postulants have had opportunities to sharpen their skills and acquire new ones. Instead of nursing, Laura, finds herself living “half-way across the country from the rest of my family,…occasionally doing public speaking” on vocation talks and J-Club school book fairs.

A former Web programmer and development team manager, Cheryl is amazed that she would pack “a van full of books and drive about 13 hours to Texas with a group of women who want to give their life to Jesus and talk to college students about…responding to God’s call to religious life.” (I don’t know why that should surprise someone who pictures herself climbing mountains or flying a hang glider!) Click here for the full story.

Now in Boston, Cheryl relates, “I’m working at digital [publishing]. Sister Kathryn and I are learning how to build an iPhone/Android app using a free online tool. There’s a lot of trial and error in the process, but it’s really fun. I’m also helping with getting the Web site redesign moved along. I used to build Web sites, but a lot has changed, and the tools we’re using are different. I also don’t have very much experience in layout and design, so I’m learning from the rest of the team.”

Previously a systems analyst in San Francisco, Theresa seconds that and adds:

“Before I came to the postulancy I was working for a corporation with tons of resources. It is very different here; we have really limited resources. It becomes an exercise in creativity to work on the cutting edge. But the challenge is exciting, and knowing that God is right behind us inspiring our work and our ideas makes it really rewarding.”

Laura doubles as an assistant to Sr. Patricia in the Web store, and a sales associate in the PBM center in Dedham, a town just outside Boston. She confides:

With a picking ticket in one hand
and books in the other, Laura fills
a Web store order.

“The book center is good in that it’s helping me with my people skills (I tend to be shy), but it’s also helping me be even more confident in the things I already know about the book center. The Web store will stretch me a lot. I only know the basics when it comes to computers, so it will take a lot more brain energy. The learning curve will be steep, but I’m looking forward to learning something new.”

With Sr. Rebecca behind her, Jackie
prays for the people she met at the
PBM Center that day.

Having earned her doctorate in human resource education right before joining the congregation (You’d never know that her secret dream is to drive an 18-wheeler), Jackie also appreciates working in both the Web store and PBM center:

“Both require people skills in different ways—face-to-face in the book center and behind the scenes [with] good customer service in the Web store. In these apostolates, I am constantly being drawn to find ways that I can bring people to Jesus by reaching out to them with utmost charity. I am also growing in my technical skills of running the Web store. In the book center, I am learning about the design and ambiance—creating an even better place where people can encounter the Lord through the media we provide.”

In case you couldn’t tell, they’ve got high hopes for the future:

Jackie: “There is such depth, breadth and height to the calling we have received as Daughters of St. Paul—to bring Jesus to all peoples using the most modern means—that I think its only going to get better and I would certainly want to be a part of it!”
Laura: “The Daughters of St. Paul are always willing to change to meet the needs of the people according to the times when it comes to evangelization and at the same time they hold fast to the teachings and traditions of the Church, that are timeless and never changing.”
Theresa: “I visited a lot of different congregations and the thing I was impressed the most about the Daughters was their reliance on God amidst a busy apostolate. It is so tempting to begin to rely on your own abilities and intelligence and to forget God’s part in it all. I do not see this playing out in the Daughters. I think this is partly because their mission is so immense, not many people would make the mistake of thinking they could tackle it on their own!”
Cheryl: “Our founder, Blessed James Alberione, had one love—Jesus Christ, and one mission—to give him to souls. I can see the sisters live this with joy and passion, even with the difficulties that they have faced through the years. It is obvious that the Lord has blessed our community tremendously and continues to do so.”

Sister Rebecca Marie Hoffart, originally from Houston, has been the postulant director for the past three years. She has a full plate, not because the postulants are all that tough to work with, but because she’s continuing her own education at the same time. She recently earned a certificate in spiritual direction, and now her Master’s degree in Christian Spirituality from Creighton University is actually within reach; she hopes to finish her thesis within the next year. So the hope the postulants expressed is not only theirs. “It’s incredible to see the Pauline charism blossoming in them,” Sr. Rebecca shared, “to see them growing closer to God, getting to know the founder and his writings, resonating with the spirituality and mission. They have a lot of hope in our mission, because they see how necessary and how vast it is, how it reaches people and how important it is.” She speaks for us all.

You’ll see on the postulants’ blog the photo of a fifth young woman, Erin Nolan, who had been a postulant this past year. The discernment process is doing what it’s designed to do also for those who do not stay: Over the past few months, Erin and the formation team realized that God is calling her elsewhere. She left with deep affection for the community—and the community’s lasting affection for her.

Laura and Jackie will enter the novitiate this August, as Emily and Sylwia become second-year novices. We’re delighted to welcome three new postulants in September, young women whom we’ve known for a few years. Two of them were frequent participants in our summer discernment programs. So that means four novices and five postulants will bring their irrepressible life among us. If you would like to donate to their formation program this coming year, click here. Sr. Rebecca is hoping to raise $6,000 for projects and specialized courses for them, so that they might continue to be a sign of the life that has nurtured them here.
___________
* United States/English-Speaking Canada

BOOKS: "THE CHURCH AND NEW MEDIA"

2011-07-07T08:07:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Helena

BOOKS: "THE CHURCH AND NEW MEDIA": "

FATHER ALBERIONE'S SPIRITUAL PLAN FOR FILM

2011-07-07T08:05:00.000-04:00

From St. Helena

FATHER ALBERIONE'S SPIRITUAL PLAN FOR FILM: "

In 1947, Fr. Alberione wrote to Don Cordero (the SSP's first director-priest): 'This morning the Lord answered me that the mission of the film is serious….and those who want to heal the cinema are still so poor in virtue, faith, and grace!…Success depends on three points:

a) great purity of heart, intentions, and works (single-heartedness);

b) to live the “without me you can do nothing” from real sacrifice and a crusade of prayer;

c) to set out with small steps, humbly, constantly toward the great goal…God wills it.”

“For your apostolate, so broad and urgent, no human restrictions or insurmountable bounds. The means, the instruments, the commitment are to be in proportion to the needs of humanity. Difficult and complex duties await you, that require boldness and specialized skills, in a society undergoing rapid progress, as is the press, the image, sound, and electronics. God wills it! It is necessary to begin!”

As early as 1939, the Founder had already prepared the Daughters of St. Paul for the film apostolate by asking them to place the intention for the film apostolate in their hour of adoration. Meanwhile, Mother Thecla Merlo absorbed the Founder’s personal spiritual formation for the project—discipline, sacrifice and the apostolic spirit—and guided the FSP in that same way according to three fundamental values:

¨ clear principles (broad vision),

¨ ardent desires (God’s glory and peace to humankind),

¨ and intense commitment to the interior life (humility and trust).

Mother Thecla herself worked IN the film apostolate. (No wonder she's helping us with film now!) One of the Daughters who spent most of her life working in the film apostolate, Sr. Luigina Borrano, fsp, called it a 'martyrdom.'

Holy Family Institute Intention for July

2011-07-01T07:04:00.002-04:00

For the General Chapter of the Sisters of Jesus Good Shepherd -that they may be humble cooperators of pastoral zeal and bearers of the Pauline spirit in their direct contact with souls.

POPE TWEETS ON VIGIL OF FEAST OF STS. PETER & PAUL

2011-06-28T21:18:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Helena

POPE TWEETS ON VIGIL OF FEAST OF STS. PETER & PAUL: "

For Catholics who worry about whether or not to use new media:

Cyberpriests already complaining that mobile version of new Vatican news site is needed. :]

Peter & Paul

2011-06-28T15:01:00.000-04:00

From the July Concord

What sort of word did St. Peter find when he set out to tell all he met about Jesus Christ?

IT WAS A JEWISH WORLD in which divorce was not just allowed but taken for granted as a fact of life.

IT WAS A ROMAN WORLD, a pagan world, in which secuality was ruled by no law except the law of the jungle.

IT WAS A PAGAN WORLD, in which abortion was pretty much taken for granted and in which the sick and the old were expendable.

IT WAS A WORLD, which did not understand the word "sin."

IN OTHER WORDS . . . it was a world which looked suspiciously like the world we are living in today!

IT IS INCREDIBLE that we should be slipping back so far and so rapidly morally, at the same time we are advancing technologically. And yet not so incredible. Is the growth of technology and the steady elimination of human labor, not to talk of the threat to human intelligence, not linked to the widespread lack of respect between human beings?

IF MACHINES are better, faster and more efficient than people . . . why be surprised if people treat one another as machines . . . i.e. as a source of amusement and pleasure rather than as images and likenesses of God?

IF PEOPLE of whatever age behave in a way which is more and more immature, is this not because the media is gradually depriving us of our power to reason things out and leading us instead to opt for the instant solution, the emotional solution, the quick fix . . . which in the end fixes nothing.

ONCE AGAIN we come to the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul. Peter, the first Pope and Bishop of Rome, the humble fisherman who became the representative of Christ on earth, Peter the impulsive, Peter the warmhearted, Peter the passionate . . . truly a human being with whom any of us could identify.

ST. PAUL, the greatest convert. Paul the reformed Rabbi, the learned theologian, the man swept off his feet by the love of Jesus, the tireless missionary . . . perhaps we can identify less with him because of his greatness but we Gentiles owe him the unspeakable privilege of membership in Christ's Church.

THE NAME "PAUL", has figured in the Papacy twice in recent decades, as if the possessors of that name desired to underline their role in today's Church: successors of Peter but intellectually closer to Paul.

OURS IS A WORLD emerging from adolescence into a period of calm . . . but the calm of the battlefield after the fight is over, the ground is strewn with corpses and a few miserable survivors crawl around trying to understand what went wrong.

WHAT HAPPENED? In the fifties, the threat of imminent death from atomic war sparked a revival of piety and the hey-day of pre-Vatican 2 Catholicism. This was the era of great religious figures: Billy Graham, Bishop Sheen, Fr. Peyton, among others. It was the era of devotion, novenas, pride in the Church. It was an era when people knew right from wrong and took care to distinguish these things in their daily lives, The Pope was Pius XII, under whom Catholicism reached a prestige that is now just a memory.

THEN CAME THE SIXTIES, and Kennedy's assassination - not just the death of a President but the breakup of an era. In a few years the US was deep in the quagmire of Vietnam and the fabric of society began to tear itself apart. Then came the misinterpretations of the Vatican Council and the slow but sure breakdown of the great pre-Vatican Church. Is was, in a way inevitable because the Church may not be of the world but she is very much in it.

INTO THIS SCENE stepped the first Paul to face undeard-of challenges: conflicts on all side increased and multiplied by a new and powerful element: TV. To his credit this great Pope held the Church together and continuted to teach sound doctrine in spite of the temptation to compromise.

THEN CAME A NEW and dynamic leader for the confused Church: the Blessed Pope John Paul II. He face the same situation but from the beginning made the right choice: if you can't beat them, join them. Rather than let the media tell people about him, he himself told the media what to say and with his warm and joyful personality he charmed everyone else as well. It was an inspired choice and encouraged Cahtolics to think again about their Church in positive terms.

HIS SUCCESSOR, like every Pope, faces a situation which looks new on the surface but which Jesus of Nazareth experienced two thousand years ago: emergence from obscurity to fame, the enthusiasm of the crowds, the opposition which is never lacking in some sense, then the slackening in enthusiasm and, in Jesus' case, a shameful death. But all Popes remain faithful to their calling continuing to repeat in one way or another the story of Jesus.

AT THE LAST SUPPER Jesus sat with his followers while outside the supper-room his emenies plotted his doom. And he had already warned Peter: "Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to sift you like wheat but I have prayed that your faith may not fail."

AND SO THE POPE in every age is someone who has been asked the question: "Who do you say I am?" and answers loudly and clearly: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!"

AND SO THE HOLY FATHER is always standing in Caesarea Philipi as the first Pope did on that faraway day. Always he testifies by his word and action that he represents Someone behind and beyond human affairs. And always, everywhere, he can hear repeated in his mind and heart: "You are human, you are defective but . . . you are Peter and you will not fail because you are one with Christ."

AND CHRIST CAN'T FAIL!

Corpus Christi

2011-06-26T16:24:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Anne

Corpus Christi: "

Christ's body has newly been mingled with our bodies,

his blood, too, has been poured out into our veins;

his voice is in our ears,

his brightness is in our eyes.

In his compassion, the whole of Him

has been mingled with the

whole of us.

St Ephrem the Syrian

The Tree of Life: an incredibly rewarding experience

2011-06-24T14:34:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Marie Paul Curley

The Tree of Life: an incredibly rewarding experience: "

I’m haunted by a film I saw this week. By haunted, I don’t mean the usual sense of the term–as in scared by a ghost. Rather, I mean it in the sense that Flannery O’Connor used the word: a surprising and (usually) deeply moving moment, scene, or event in a story that gives me such deep insight that I will remember it for a long time. (For a definition closer to Flannery’s, and some wonderful examples of what she meant, check out Kris Rasmussen’s 2009 list of Top 10 ‘Haunting’ Movie Scenes.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXRYA1dxP_0

Snapshot

The Tree of Life is a soul-haunting experience. As our media-saturated world becomes ever more experiential, writer and director Terrence Malick has created a film that is much more than powerful story: it’s a cinematic experience that is deeply satisfying and probing at the same time.

There is no way to describe in one sentence what this film is about. The trailers show that it is the story of one family’s journey–father, mother, and three sons–but it’s more than that because their story is placed within the context of the human experience, with plentiful “commentary” in the form of cinematic, visual poetry–I really don’t have words to describe it, but it was an amazing experience. Here’s a completely inadequate one-sentence description:

The Tree of Life seeks to explore the scope of the human experience by dramatically contrasting the intimate life of one family in 1950s Texas, with the creation of life on earth.

The fact that I cannot “capture” what this film is about in one sentence means that Malick has done what the greatest film directors do. As Flannery O’Connor used to say when people asked her what her stories meant, “If I could tell you, I wouldn’t have had to write the story.”

This film has instantly rocketed to my list of top ten films of all time.

Strengths

Visually, auditorily, and narratively, this film is a delight. The scope of the film is simultaneously vast and tiny–we ponder both the evolution of life on earth, the depth of grief and loss, and the specific characteristics of a particular family living in the 1950s. The cinematography makes this journey very personal for the audience, bringing us in close and deep–to each character, to each subject, with a creative eye for details. (When the boys play “kick the can”, we watch it almost from the perspective of the can itself before it is kicked away. The close-up of the newborn son–so close it distorts–is striking.)

One of my favorite things about the film is that it demands that the audience actively engage in the narrative. Nothing is given away. There is no easy to follow, contrived storyline. The scenes from the family’s life are not in chronological order, so we must puzzle out the clues we are given, imagining what is left out. The cinematically poetic imagery and music which provides commentary on the narrative not only give us more clues, but encourages us to reflect on our own experiences: of love, of acceptance, of sibling rivalry, of the first betrayal, of the power that parents wield over their children, of the startling first consciousness of moral choices.

While we are not given a complete picture of the details of the story, we are given a well-rounded, deep perspective of the characters of the family: the parents and the two older boys. As I was watching, I didn’t even think about the actors because they were so fully the characters they represent onscreen. The film was particularly profound for me simply because the characters were so real: I have known these people in my own life; at times, I have been one of these people. Incredible directing and acting.

In places, the film is filled with one-liners that could become a power idea for your entire life, such as the mother’s line in the trailer: “Unless you love, your life will flash by.”

Yet, The Tree of Life is much more than a narrative: director Terrence Malick plays with the cinematic form to create an experience for the viewer that includes both narrative and commentary. The “commentary” contains very few words. Instead, through powerful music and gripping imagery, it evokes the audience’s emotions, encouraging us to engage even more deeply, contrasting the details of our tiny lives with the immensity of the creation of the universe.

Malick, a truly masterful writer and director, shows his mastery in using all the power of the cinematic medium to evoke not just a powerful story of the human experience, but the audience’s emotions about their own experience. I left the theater wrung out, moved, inspired, and extremely grateful for the giftedness of life.

Limitations

The meditative, sometimes-impressionistic style of the film may discourage some casual viewers. It’s not an easy film to watch. (At its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, it was both applauded and booed by the audience. It then went on to win the Palme d’Or–the top prize of the festival.) The engagement required by the film isn’t instantly gratifying, and this may prevent some viewers from staying with the film to experience the deep satisfaction of the journey.

The only other limitation is that The Tree of Life should be seen on the big screen. I think it might lose a lot of its power on the small screen, such as the contrast of the vast scope and the tiny details, the raw energy of some of the visuals, and the immersive experience of going so close on the details.

Window to the Soul?

The Tree of Life is absolutely a radiant window to the soul that achieves what few films do: a sense of the transcendence of God. This film is a profound exploration of the human experience: what it means to be human, to “be” family, to make a moral choice, to experience grace.

The film is framed by a quotation from Job 38: 4, 7: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding; when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?” It encourages a profound reflection on the nature of the human person, on how we can discover God in the world and in our lives.

For those who are interested, themes included in the film are:

Giftedness of life

Family

Fatherhood

Motherhood

Presence of God

Loss

Life and death

The Question of Suffering/Evil in a World Created by a Loving God

Prayer

Morality

Other helpful reviews: Sr. Rose Pacatte, fsp; Sr. Helena Burns, fsp; Roger Ebert.

Quote from Blessed James Alberione

2011-06-16T19:42:00.003-04:00

Be happy in the holy Will of God, no matter what happens.

RIP: FR. ANTONIO SPECIALE, SSP

2011-06-12T09:32:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Helena

RIP: FR. ANTONIO SPECIALE, SSP: "Fr. Antonio Speciale, SSP, 89, whom we interviewed for the documentary, was Fr. Alberione's personal secretary for 20 years and kept a 'Diary' of Alberione's daily activities.

RIP, dear Fr. Speciale (he really was 'special'). When he came to be interviewed, he had two holycards each for us. He didn't want makeup or to take his glasses off: 'It doesn't matter what the outside looks like! It matters what's inside! If you love Jesus more than me, you will go higher in heaven!'

FEAST OF MARY, QUEEN OF APOSTLES--SATURDAY BEFORE PENTECOST

2011-06-11T10:23:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Helena

FEAST OF MARY, QUEEN OF APOSTLES--SATURDAY BEFORE PENTECOST: "

Mary, Queen of Apostles is the Madonna of the Pauline Family.

Basilica of Queen of Apostles in Rome, built by Blessed James Alberione

Prayer for Inner Healing

2011-06-09T12:38:00.002-04:00

from Sr. Anne

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, 'Abba, Father!'The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:14-17).

Prayer for Inner Healing (Bl. James Alberione)

Holy Spirit, through the intercession of the Queen of Pentecost:

Heal my mind of lack of reflection, ignorance, forgetfulness, stubbornness, prejudice and error, and form Wisdom, Jesus Christ-Truth in everything.
Heal my heart of indifference, negativity, sinful inclinations, untrammeled emotionalism, unhealthy attachments, and form in me the feelings and inclinations of Jesus Christ-Life in all things.
Heal my will of lack of will power, arbitrariness, sloth and bad habits, and form Jesus Chrsit-Way in me, with a new love for whatever Jesus Christ loves, and for Jesus Christ himself.

Uplift in a godlike way
intelligence with the gift of understanding,
wisdom with the gift of wisdom,
knowledge with the gift of knowledge,
prudence with the gift of counsel,
justice with the gift of piety,
strength with the gift of fortitude,
temperance with the gift of fear of the Lord.
Amen.

Paul—“Example to Those Who Would Come” (1Tm. 1:16)

2011-06-07T14:55:00.000-04:00

from Sr. Margaret

Paul—“Example to Those Who Would Come” (1Tm. 1:16): "

In the Pauline Family, we take our cue from the rest of the Church in honoring St. Paul at the end of June. But—no surprise here—we’re not satisfied with just a day or two; we give Paul the whole month! Brother Aloysius Milella, SSP—“Br. Al” to us Paulines—is my guest blogger twice this month. In this article, first he remembers what Paul meant to our founder, Blessed James Alberione, whom John Paul II has called “the first apostle of the new evangelization.” (Br. Al would remember: He spent eighteen years in Rome as a general councilor, passing a portion of that time during Fr. Alberione’s last years, privileged to assist at his death.) Second, he cocks his ear to catch some of what Paul might be saying to all of us today.

St. Paul constantly strove to make Jesus known and to evangelize people. He seems to have mirrored the Gospel story of Emmaus: offering the most convincing insights about the Christ and then discovering him in the same way as the disciples (in listening to his word, in the “breaking of bread”). He evangelized street people, the great mass of common folk open and disposed to the touch of grace.

Our community apostolates in the media and the marketplace are geared to do the same.

In St. Paul, Father Alberione, found the hero his yearning and gifts begged for. For one thing, Paul’s love for, and extraordinary understanding of, Jesus struck a deep chord within him. For another, Paul’s creative and energetic commitment to making the Way, Truth, and Life of Jesus known by all stirred every fiber of his being.

Father Alberione wrote: “Without an apostle, there is no apostolate.” The founder expanded on this: “The whole secret of St. Paul’s greatness lies in his interior life. In vain do we ask God for the grace to become heroes before people. Our first need is to ask for the grace that will make us dear to God and only then for the grace to become apostles in the midst of the world.”

Under the tutelage of the Divine Master, Paul grew and made himself all things to all people. He accommodated himself to every culture, convey that whatever its particular history or ethos the Gospel “belonged.” Nor did he ever nest in one place, in one approach, in one technique. The goal was to reach as many and as far as possible, wherever and however in the then known world. For him, a heart for the Gospel was synonymous with learning, determination, availability, and adaptability. Always, in whatever circumstances, he knew in whom he trusted (See 2Tm. 1:12).

St. Paul spent more time in forming, building up, and deepening faith communities than in any other apostolic concern. Because our Pauline media outreach was to grow out of vowed faith communities, the Founder matched him in bedrocking them in the temper of faith that carried Paul.

Now, as disciples of Jesus and fashioning our lives to his with all of its palpable concern for the good of humanity, so often we find ourselves naturally drawn to shield and protect others from whatever might bring harm, disfigurement, or outright evil to their lives. We find this preoccupation prominent in all of the saints, but especially in St. Paul. He was more than a father and educator in faith to so many. But once, through the Lord’s grace, he birthed anyone in the Gospel, he was more than determined that the precious gift of faith, however new, fragile, or immature, be utterly upheld, safeguarded, deepened…at whatever cost to himself.

And so we have his letters and the unparalleled witness of selfless outreach and a prayerful, devoted keeping of watch and ward over Jesus’ flock, however threateningly frightful the opposition.

How much Father Alberione patterned himself—and his sons and daughters—on this Paul. How much the infrastructure of the members’ apostolic life and apostolate reflected this vibrant and effective Paul in serving the Church, the Body of Christ.

Serving the media in opportune missionary outreach, our charism (the gift of the Holy Spirit that makes us Paulines) has found these media to be blessed tools in effectively communicating all that Jesus taught. It has also found itself challenged and mightily overrun in recent times by those who use the same media instruments in wide and hostile disaccord with elementary Christian faith and morals.

For this, our venerated Founder had foreseen the need for unsparing prayer in support of the media as positive apostolate, while at the same time beseeching the mercy of God for those who would use these powerful means in harm, divisiveness, and outright evil. For this he inspired this Pauline Offertory prayer:

O God, in union with all those who today celebrate the Eucharistic sacrificial banquet as a memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection, I offer my own poor self with our Lord:
—To make amends for the error, deception, and allurement to sin spread by the media of communication;
—To beg your mercy for the people who often allow themselves to be led astray by indiscriminate use of the communications media, and who thus turn away from the love of your fatherly heart;
—For those who knowingly reject your Son, the divine Teacher, and use the media of communication with malice to obscure his will for their neighbors and impair his life within them;
—That all may hear and follow him alone whom, you, heavenly Father, in your boundless love gave to the world saying: “This is my beloved Son, hear him”;
—That our use of the media of social communication may help others learn and believe that Jesus alone is the perfect Teacher—the truth which gives light to the mind, the way to be followed, the pre-eminent example of holy living—and that only through him the supernatural life of God is communicated to each person;
—That there be a great increase in the number of priests, religious and laypersons who, by prayer, example, and professional work, are devoted to the Christian apostolate of communications, helping Christ’s teaching become more widely known, understood and acted upon;
—That all those who work with the media of communication may strive to become holy, knowledgeable, and proficient in their efforts, full of wisdom and zeal, for the glory of God and the ultimate good of others;
—To fervently ask you that the specifically Catholic endeavors in communications may fulfill their role in society, realizing all dimensions of their rights and responsibilities, thriving with artistic and professional quality, yet obvious to all that they are but means which God uses to develop his relationships with people;
—That we come to know our strengths and weaknesses, and your love which alone makes us worthy to call upon you as our Father, urging us to kneel humbly before you, imploring your light, compassion and mercy.”

Brother Aloysius Milella has been a Pauline for 65 years. He has had various editorial assignments in Pauline publishing and media sectors, as well as directive responsibilities in vocation promotion and community offices. He is currently the administrator of the Dearborn, Michigan Pauline Community.

Praying With the Media

2011-06-02T14:47:00.000-04:00

By Sr. Margaret

Praying With the Media: "One of our sisters tells of a survey she once conducted for a media literacy project not too long ago. Among other questions, she asked people if they ever thought of God while they watched movies. One woman’s answer was more than honest: “Never! What kind of a question is that?”

I wonder if she thought of God in any other settings in her life outside of church. Paul VI commented that the divorce between culture and faith is one of the great tragedies of our time. That applies not only to haute couture, but to pop culture as well. On the upside, a growing number of people are searching for a reconciliation of the two, with the hope that faith-life will become more credible and culture will maintain its soul.

Two initiatives that have grown in response to this yearning in various parts of our U.S./Toronto province are the Movie Bible Nights and a related initiative we call “Cinema divina.” They follow similar formats. A Movie Bible Night pairs a Hollywood flick with the Gospel reading for the nearest Sunday, suggesting one or two points for conversation after the viewing of the film. Cinema divina, a spin-off of Lectio divina, the time-honored monastic practice of contemplating the Word, also focuses on a Scripture text through the lens of a parallel film, but aims at the heart: It allows people to prayerfully hear God’s personal message to them, then share aloud how they think God is calling them to live that message. In a Movie Bible Night, people can expound on how various characters or techniques highlight this or that concept in the Word of God. Or they can keep it simple, commenting on how the film gave them a new insight into the Word. Cinema divina makes space for quiet, individual reflection and spiritual conversation. Two approaches, two very powerful encounters with culture and the Word of God.

I first experienced the Movie Bible Night in Hollywood’s backyard—at our PBM (Pauline Books & Media) Center in Culver City. Depending on the film, the event typically draws 20 to 30 participants monthly. Many, though not all, are employed in the movie industry—reflecting 30% of L.A.’s population—or in the Church as faith formation leaders. Guidance for the reflection and conversation comes from Sr. Rose Pacatte’s three books, Lights, Camera…Faith! that cover every Sunday of the Lectionary’s three-year cycle. The year before last, Sr. Hosea started a similar initiative for intermediate-age children, Meeting Jesus at the Movies for Kids, which gathers a small group of about ten each month on the same day as the adults' meeting. Happily, their parents stick around for the film and the dialogue afterward. Sr. Hosea was able to test ideas for her new book on them, How To Watch Movies With Kids, with promising results. It might work at home, too, this summer: “Mom! There’s nothing to do!”

From September to June this year a Cinema divina evening was set aside each month at our place in Boston. Attendance really varied, from five to twenty-six. Word spread, though, and we received an invitation to conduct it at Boston College one evening this spring. Eighty students signed up to attend, and they still kept coming. People were turned away, because the rooms couldn’t legally hold any more. Since then, the Paulist Center downtown and the religious education director in Providence, R.I., have expressed interest in replicating the experience on their turf.

Usually four hours are set aside for the entire experience: dinner, introduction and a brief explanation of how we proceed, the reading of the Gospel text, the viewing of the film, a break with simple refreshments, and about 20-30 minutes of shared prayerful reflection. A simple leaflet that recaps the film connects it with the Gospel and adds a prayer or a commentary to assist viewers in applying both of these to life. The last one before summer will take place June 10. The movie: The Blind Side. If you're in the Boston area, sign up on Facebook.

In small ways both initiatives attempt to explore new possibilities for promoting a vibrant faith via communication. Clearly these go beyond simply moralizing about films and nudge us toward the deeper places in our lives where God can be found.

Yet one more approach to media is just as God-oriented, and I bet most of us do it at least once in awhile: praying with the news. How often we read an item or catch some striking broadcast—often tragic—and invoke God’s mercy on those involved. For those who go to Mass, this is often included in the General Intercesssions. Unlike the Movie Bible Night or Cinema divina, with their shared reflection or shared prayer, this kind of prayer is individual and private, yet paradoxically it opens us outward onto a broader reality. The classic example is found in the life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. At the age of 14 she sneaked a peak at the newspaper, which she was forbidden by her father to read, and was appalled at the condemnation of the criminal Pranzini, who was apparently unrepentant. She became his prayer partner, and at the last moment before his execution, he asked for a crucifix and kissed it.

Staff at KENS5 news station,
San Antonio, TX

Our Pauline version of praying with the news also prays for those who “make” news at any phase. Like all media messages, 'the news' is constructed reality, and carries a message even in the way it’s packaged. So we pray for producers, writers, artists, technicians, and disseminators, as well as for those who consume the news, and at times continue its stories. This is a prayer of the will and heart, that unites us in solidarity even with those who seem least deserving of our companionship in faith and love. Placing ourselves in God’s presence, reading, watching, or listening with God puts both massive world events and smaller local notices in the hands of Love itself.

It shakes its head at the incredulity behind a question from this woman who watched Into Great Silence, the startling cinema verité portrayal about Carthusian hermits in Europe: “How could such a rigid, controlled, isolated life have anything to do with the life of grace?” Immerse yourself in the poet's answer: “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson).

The Holy Family Institute Intention for June

2011-06-01T05:59:00.001-04:00

So that all may follow only him whom you, Father, in the immensity of your love, have sent into the world proclaiming: "This is my beloved son, listen to him."

Tree of Life

2011-05-27T10:47:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Anne

Tree of Life: "Sr Helena can't stop talking about Malick's 'Tree of Life' (awarded the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival). She kept saying 'It's a God movie; it's a Theology of the Body movie...' (Here's her review, and all the tweets she sent while the review was embargoed!) Fr. Robert Barron agrees that it's a God movie, big time.

Tree of Life opens in limited release today.

A Habit for Sharing the Gospel

2011-05-26T15:11:00.000-04:00

from Sr. Margaret

A Habit for Sharing the Gospel: "

About ten years ago, my sister and I, both Daughters of St. Paul, had gone to visit our parents, who lived in the Sacramento area. One weekday morning they took us to a church other than their usual and ushered us into the Eucharistic chapel for Mass. A mere two seconds before Father appeared at the altar, an elderly woman tapped one of us on the shoulder and in a stage whisper gushed, “It’s so nice to see the nuns with their clothes on!”

The habit. One of the most tempestuous issues that swirled around the changes in religious life a few decades ago wasn’t even a fundamental one. But because of its visibility and what it represented for many, including religious themselves, it dominated news articles and broadcasts, family table conversations, and community meetings everywhere. It found its way into every major Church document on consecrated life and plenty of congregational Chapter documents. It sparked lightning bolts of ire in its day, and even now you can hear distant rumbles of a storm that is moving on. The online chats fer or agin, or the occasional remark born of either nostalgia or bitterness resuscitates more than just memories. In addition, a growing number of newer religious communities opt for religious dress, and recent national vocation reports point to its importance for young people in discernment, indicating that the phenomenon, though less intense, won’t die soon.

Clearly Hollywood hasn’t gotten its fill of icons “of the cloth”—women and men. Without words, fabric speaks volumes, symbol of either the sacred or perverted. The Sound of Music, Trouble With Angels, Sister Act, The Da Vinci Code, Doubt—here, robes are front and center. Keep your eyes open, though. Even on the periphery, in film or on TV, you’ll see garb and its accompanying attitudes and lifestyle more or less authentically portrayed. Those of us who’ve been “in” for a few years readily spot the directors who’ve done their homework.

So a few weeks ago in Boston, when we were asked for an interview for an online fashion magazine, we grinned and groaned. As you can see from the video and the accompanying article on StylelikeU.com, these fashionistas, a journalist and photographers from New York, wanted us to share the meaning of our “uniform” and what it says about our life. The Sisters of St. John the Baptist in Staten Island, the first community they interviewed, suggested that we might have a fashion statement to make too, since the heart of our mission is, of all things, media. The team joined us for Mass and lunch to learn more about us.

One of our sisters in Chicago was in the library last Thursday when a man in his thirties approached her to ask a question. “What’s this about the world coming to an end in a couple of days?”

“It’s a good thing I read the Internet,” she told me afterward, tongue-in-cheek. “I saw that morning that the world was going to end on Saturday. So I had my digital prompting.”

“First of all,” she answered him, “I feel sorry for all those people who sold everything in view of the end of the world, something that’s not even going to happen this weekend.”

“I know what you mean,” he agreed. “But what do you think about that?”

“Well, it’s not a new concept; it’s been around for 2,000 years. Even St. Paul had to deal with it. You remember his letter to the Thessalonians, the people who stopped working because they thought the end of the world was coming? And St. Paul told them to get back to work. That was 2,000 years ago, and this world is still around. Actually even if we knew the world was going to end in two days, I feel God would want us to continue living as human beings since that’s how God is glorified—by living as the human beings God wants us to be.”

That seemed to satisfy him. It was her clothing that told him that here was someone who just might be able to untangle a thorny question…and even go beyond what he had expected, happy to oblige.

The emblem worn by every
Daughter of St. Paul: the Word of
God we share, along with the
means we use--book, radio tower,
and film reel, symbols of all media.

So, besides its ability to simplify our lives, the Daughters of St. Paul have a unique motive for wearing an identifiable sign of our consecration. In an image-oriented culture, it seems to us entirely appropriate for women who are consecrated for a media-related mission to evangelize even by the way we dress. When they see us, people think of God, whether they love him or not, whether they’re Catholic or not. Especially in recent years, I’ve been mistaken for a Muslim wearing a hijab. In the Atlanta Airport, a beautiful woman from the Middle East fingered my veil with admiration, saying that her friend had been looking for something similar and could I tell her where I got mine. Such encounters can jumpstart a sharing of faith.
One of the sisters in the video above mentioned “respect.” How often I’ve heard people invoke that as a reason for us to wear a habit! While no doubt, Sister wasn’t thinking quite along that line, it does recall that far too many have missed the whole servant aspect of religious life, whether we’re in direct ministry or not. The habit should remind people that we have dedicated ourselves, not to privilege, (though God knows we’re grateful for every seemingly small kindness!) but to witness.

Sr. Godlieve, FSP
Congo

Besides, the kind of “respect” that Sister referred to is not characteristic of all North America. In huge swaths of it, indifference and even occasional verbal abuse, pertaining to our life-choice or to the Church, are not unknown, even in so-called “liberal,” tolerant regions. Secularism exacts a toll in unfamiliarity with, and certainly ambivalence toward, the meaning or value of any religious symbol. Relentlessly, though, the habit or uniform of religious reminds people who are inured to the divine—yet who long for their own personal relationship with it—that such a relationship is possible. Indeed, it is the goal of every human life.

An Indian Daughter
of St. Paul

In habit or out of it, a life of vowed poverty, chastity, and obedience is a sign of the transcendent, of what begins here for us all and continues without end. The garb is a startling symbol of such a sign.Why so many different kinds of habits? Some short, some long, some trim, some full…not to mention the colors and styles. The habit of monastic and cloistered religious lingered long past the emergence of apostolic, or active, religious communities. Since these latter had no other model on which to base their lives until Canon Law changed to accommodate the evolution in consecrated life, they often followed the rules, practices, and styles that preceded them, and in matters of clothing, integrated elements of lay dress common at the time of their founding. We have only to think of Mother Seton with her widow’s cap.

Then Vatican II called for religious to modify their garb, to continue being for our times the signs of distinction they were meant to be, rather than of the separation they had often turned out to be. So religious discarded outmoded styles, and picking up on the lay motifs of their founding years, often donned secular dress—not exactly what the Council seemed to intend. One of the marvels of life in the Church is the multiform way in which the Spirit of God graces the Body of Christ, bringing life to the world through it. Time will tell where wisdom lies.

One of Jehovah’s Witnesses once plucked at my sleeve, chiding me for wearing something that would not save me. Obviously she assumed that I had placed my trust in a piece of cloth, but she was a good reminder to me of the One I do believe in. How often this “simple, modest, and poor” attire does just that, not only for others, but also for us. There’s a kind of cyclic flow to it. What I wear expresses who I am and what I value, then returns to reinforce the dynamic within me that dares to express itself.

Not a bad fashion statement, after all.

Podcast cameos

2011-05-26T12:06:00.000-04:00

from Sr. Anne

Podcast cameos: "Our latest album has been featured on several Catholic podcasts. I already linked to Pat Gohn's 'About Women' podcast, but here it is again. Pat joined us in the studio last summer as we learned the music--she even recorded the process, which you can listen in on in her podcast.

This week, the original 'iPadre,' Father Jay Finelli posted the interview we recorded on Skype a few weeks ago. That's about 20 minutes into the program. And back home in Louisiana, 'the Catholic Foodie,' Jeff Young included our music in his podcast, too!

Want to listen to some music clips from the album? You'll find them here. And meanwhile, a trailer prepared by our marketing department, with a free song (Sr Fay is the soloist):

A breath of Pentecost

2011-05-24T08:23:00.000-04:00

By Sr. Anne

A breath of Pentecost: "Just last week, as we passed the Easter season's halfway point, the Gospels shifted in time--taking us again to the Last Supper, when Jesus was preparing the apostles for his departure. Last time we read from that part of John's Gospel, it was natural to interpret that 'departure' in terms of his death. Now, we can't help but hear it as referring to the Ascension (next week!). We've also started to hear intimations of Pentecost, the fruit of Jesus' dying and rising.
Don't you just love how Easter gently carries us toward Pentecost?

Healing the Wound

2011-05-11T20:26:00.000-04:00

by Sr. Margaret J. Obrovac

Healing the Wound: "

For untold billions around the globe, the death of Osama bin Laden last week conjured up images of 9/11. Probably very few, if any, relived that day more vividly than New Yorker Patricia Reilly, whose 37-year-old sister, Lorraine Lee, died in Tower 2 of the World Trade Center, where she had worked.
Since May 2, Patricia has been interviewed by networks, blogs, and print media probing her reactions, memories, and feelings, as if to put a frame around her emotional profile. A mixture of grief and relief characterize her remarks; she struggles to find words to reassure her daughter, Lori, who was named for her aunt. How do you explain such a turn of events to an eight-year-old?

In talking with Patricia this week though, I heard a deeper story flow like an underground stream that has coursed through these past ten years and given life to her and others in unpredictable ways. Osama’s death “didn’t bring Lorraine back. There is no such thing as closure,” she says. But in the years following 9/11 “the blessing is that you do have happiness.” Her star gifts: Lori’s birth in 2003 and the family foundation named for Lorraine.

“Lori is named after her. So she feels so connected with her aunt, even though she didn’t know her. Lorraine sent her to us. Lori was new life in our family; every person in our family has a deep connection with her. She gave new joy to my mother; she made her laugh and want to get up the morning.

“She always wants me to tell her the story of her Aunt Lorraine. Sometimes I don’t want to tell the story. I just love her and hug her and help her see that the world is a good place and that Lorraine is with God. And we’re going to see her again some day. Like her grandfather and uncle: They want to be with us, but they want to be with God more than they want to be with us. We will too.”

Kimberly Schuler, author of I Will Remember You, published in March by Pauline Books & Media, would applaud how Patricia is walking with Lori in this experience. The book assists children, ages 7-12, through the grieving process while helping them to honor the memory of their loved one. It reassures them in their feelings of loss and provides a safe space where their hopes can be expressed and their memories can be treasured. Patricia adds, “Literature is important for families when everyone suffers.”

That family suffering is being transformed through the Lorraine Greene Lee Memorial Foundation, that her brother, Tommy, established also in 2003. Each year the family holds a golf outing and raises approximately $25,000. They then use the monies to fund projects that support life and faith, especially in young people. The St. Francis de Sales School for the Deaf, Trailblazers Camps, summer initiatives for inner city kids, and the Cross Road Foundation of Staten Island, that helps women in crisis bring their pregnancies to term, all flourish because Lorraine Lee, who never could have children of her own, gives them life.

Patricia learned about the film that the Daughters of St. Paul are producing on their founder, Blessed James Alberione. “We believe his story should be told,” she declared. “Media have progressed” in the ten years since the death of her sister, who “didn’t even have a cell phone.” In addition, Lorraine’s “faith and family were so important to her and guided her life, so [the film] would be something to support, so that other people can learn about him and grow in their faith, especially young people who may be struggling and looking for that connection.” This month the foundation intends to donate $1,000 toward the documentary in Lorraine’s memory. In turn, the film will list her name in the credits, along with others willing and able to contribute a similar amount on their own behalf or someone else’s. (Click here to donate.)

“Through her faith, I had a lot of faith after 9/11,” Patricia reflects. “[Lorraine] was devout. Every Tuesday she had adoration at 9:30 P.M. It would have been her turn that night. It gave me a lot of comfort knowing she was in the state of grace.” With a great sense of humor, Lorraine plunged into what she dubbed the “parades, parties, and picnics” of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Knights of Columbus—she had been a Columbiette. Her husband hadn’t professed any faith for years, but “he said it was through her example of love and faith that he became a Catholic before her death. Now he’s a Eucharistic minister at Holy Child in Staten Island and teaches CCD.”

Last week President Obama met Patricia and other surviving family members at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, NYC. “He hugged me. He was very genuine.” The next time she prays for Lorraine, he—and we—will be right there with her.

“...Nothing can fill the gap when we are away from those we love, and it would be wrong to try and find anything. We must simply hold out and win through...leaving the gap unfilled preserves the bond between us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap: God does not fill it, but keeps it empty so that our communion with one another may be kept alive, even at the cost of pain...the dearer and richer our memories, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude converts the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.”
                                   --Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison, The Macmillan Company, 1967

“How merciful the Lord is with those who repent but there will always be the chance that we may not always be happy with the Lord forgiving and sparing our own enemies. Something we need to ask the Lord to help us with, sometimes every day.”
                                                                                                                                   --Kerry McMasters

“When the President noted that the military operation to take down Bin Laden had commenced at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, that irony was not lost on me either: In many Catholic Churches, people were, at that exact hour, commemorating the Feast of Divine Mercy with the communal praying of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Voices raised in chant-song, “For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!” Repeated ten times, these faithful implore the relentless Mercy of the Divine.”
                                                                                                              --Lisa Burke*
                                                 * Originally published by Catholic Online here and reprinted with permission.

“Even though the event of 911 was horrific, we should not forget the outpouring of charity, altruism and love for neighbor that overshadowed the evil in the days and months after 911. Its hard to stay angry, unless you really want to - and love (NOT time) heals all wounds, if we let it.”
                                                                                                                                   --Kurtis D. Welton

                                                         *******

A gift from the Pope

2011-05-05T07:17:00.001-04:00

By Sr. Anne

A gift from the Pope

“…As We Forgive…”

2011-05-05T05:41:00.000-04:00

By Sr. Margaret

“…As We Forgive…”: "Unless you’re a Dominican—or you listened on Friday to a wedding homily by an Anglican bishop at Westminster Abbey—last week’s memorial in honor of St. Catherine of Siena went largely unnoticed. That’s because it fell during Easter Week, when each day, even Friday, is a solemnity, the highest ranking feast on the Church calendar. Solemnities dwarf even giants like Catherine.

Pauline Books & Media just published Paths of Holiness: Wisdom From Catherine of Siena. The book is the latest in its series, the Classic Wisdom Collection, an encounter with the spiritual masters of Catholic tradition. For its inspiration and entertainment value, the introduction by Sr. Lea Hill is worth the book. That makes the section “On Reconciliation” a real bonus. Part of Catherine’s exhortation to Charles V, King of France, is quoted in “Weekly PauLine” on the right sidebar.

In the current socio-political climate, it should gives us pause. Last year it was moving to listen to three of our sisters—Elizabeth Borobia, Raymond Marie Gerard, and Sharon Anne Legere—tell of reconciliation retreats they had led in Boston parishes over the previous months. It’s no secret that this archdiocese has had more than its share of crucifying incidents, so the healing has been all the more poignant.

Outreach was directed to those parishes that suffered either because of clergy sex abuse or parish mergers. The purpose was to bring people together around Luke’s Gospel story of the resurrection appearance on the road to Emmaus (Lk. 24:13f., as it happens, this Sunday’s selection). A multi-media experience, it led people to a personal and communal meeting with Christ in the Word and Eucharist. At one church, parishioners whom the sisters trained to give the mission with them later assumed leadership roles in the community that they hadn’t had before. At another, one woman who had considered not attending said, “Now I understand what Church is really all about—not a building but a community.”

Extending and expanding the reach of the missions was the book and media display that accompanied each one. The hunger for the Word of God awakened by the mission was fed there and facilitated other forms of inner healing. Quite a few said, “I will never read Scriptures the same way again.”

Does such healing of individuals have a cosmic counterpart? Or does the pragmatic nature of “life in the real world” preclude this? Monday’s edition of Ad Age Mediaworks studied the front page of a dozen U.S. newspapers that reported the death of Osama bin Laden. Headlines ranged from matter-of-fact announcements to vengeful, even crude, gloating. The most vitriolic appeared, not surprisingly, in New York. The display of sanctioned hatred, the dancing in the streets, stunned one Boston Globe letter writer into asking what had happened to “her” America.

No doubt most of us remember where we were on 9/11. What stayed with me was the Scripture from Mass the Thursday morning after that terrible Tuesday. Jesus’ challenge in the Gospel reading from Luke was searing: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you and pray for those who maltreat you.” I felt “slapped on one cheek,” not by al-Qaeda, but by Jesus, and I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to “give him the other”! What in the name of God does this mean two days after my country was attacked? Our chaplain, too, found it hard to wrap his mind and heart around the passage. Sr. Elizabeth told me how several of our sisters in Latin America e-mailed her that they were praying that text with us. Clearly the Word was doing its job. Like Jacob wrestling with the messenger of God, we are meant to grapple with the message of God.

Now with the death of Public Enemy Number One, we have a chance to revisit that message—if we dare. I think we can, accompanied by the now Blessed John Paul II, in his encyclical, The Mercy of God (nn. 4-6).

We often see love and mercy as the opposite of justice. Actually, says John Paul, justice is fulfilled through mercy! He defines justice, not as the act of giving people what they deserve, but as faithfulness to who we are by restoring others to who they are meant to be. In Gospel-speak, that’s summed up in one word: salvation. God isn’t satisfied to leave us in our fallen condition; because of who he is—Love—he is driven to remake us in his image again. This is what grace—God in us—does. This is salvation.

There’s more. In the prodigal son story, the father, to be true to himself, to who he was as father, felt moved, almost obliged, by love and hesed, (faithfulness) to restore his son to himself by reaffirming the young man’s sonship. Through mercy the father (God) made things right again (justice) between himself and his son.

Commenting on the story, John Paul recognizes that mercy doesn’t ignore what went wrong or refuse to hold people accountable for their actions. Individuals and societies must be protected. We see that in his own life, when he visited his assailant in prison to extend his forgiveness. After that meeting, Mehmet Ali Acga remained behind bars, but to the extent that he accepted the forgiveness given to him, he was free.

There once was a violent man who was so committed to his own idea of God that he imprisoned men and women who refused to accept it and had them executed. What must it have been like to be the son or daughter, brother or sister, husband or wife of one of these martyrs, when Saul of Tarsus—later Paul the Apostle—flipped over to The Way, gave up his jihad, and started preaching on behalf of the God of those martyrs? The process of forgiveness became their journey, not just his, even after his conversion. Human nature being what it is, my guess is that his conversion actually made it harder. Remember the prodigal’s big brother (Lk. 15:11f.).

Conversion of St. Paul,
Caravaggio

What if Osama bin Laden had returned genuinely repentant? What would my reaction have been? Would I have asked Caesar for mercy, or would I have demanded that our gladiators finish him off? What does this say, not only about our sense of mercy, but now about our sense of justice?

Justice is not done to families who lost loved ones, simply because a man has died. The world must protect itself against threats, but this is not the heart of justice. Neither is revenge. Justice will not be done until hearts are changed—“theirs” and “ours.” A reductionist view of justice—giving people what they deserve—is a dead end. Deciding what people deserve varies, depending on which side of the fence they’re on. Who gets to decide? The victor?

Joan of Arc led her army to victory, but wept at the deaths of France’s enemies, because they died unreconciled to God, “unrestored” as John Paul’s might have said. John Paul II, Antoinette Bosco, Corrie Ten Boom, the Amish community who reached out to the man who senselessly butchered its children, and Rwandans who now share the secret of inner healing with other Africans are just some of our world’s contemporary icons of forgiveness. I was awed by comments of Harry Waizer reported in Monday’s New York Times. The man had sustained third-degree burns in the World Trade Center, but when asked, he said he couldn’t bring himself to rejoice over the death of yet another person (and he used that word), even if it was bin Laden.

The Passover ritual, which celebrates God’s salvation of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, concludes with God’s exhortation to pray for the Egyptians who had drowned in the process, since “no one shall celebrate the destruction of any of His human creations.” Maybe, as pundit Jon Stewart confessed, it’s too early and we’re too close to be rational at this moment. Perhaps being rational is not where we need to be. We can start by being prayerful. That certainly is what Pope Benedict is recommending, seeing in this event a call to reflect on our responsibility to others and to God.

And this Friday, go to the movies. A new film, There Be Dragons, premieres in select cities.

From the Web site: “Roland Joffé, the director who brought us the highly acclaimed and deeply spiritual film The Mission has returned to his roots with the epic movie There Be Dragons, a powerful story of war, tragedy, love and redemption. Set during the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War [1930s], Dragons tells the story of two childhood friends who become separated during the political conflict to find themselves on opposite sides as war erupts.

“One chooses the path of peace and becomes a priest while the other chooses the life of a soldier driven by jealousy and revenge. Each will struggle to find the power of forgiveness over the forces that tore their lives and friendship apart.”

The priest happens to be Josemaria Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei. I attended the pre-screening last fall, and like several in the audience, could not have definitively told you what the movie was primarily about. I understand that some improvements have been made, but I haven’t viewed the finished product yet.

The cinematography is worthy of a Joffé film and vividly portrays the violence of the age. For that reason it is by no means a film for children. I found the fiction a little too unconvincing, yet was convicted by the message. It is less a film about Escrivá—in fact, it is no longer being billed as such—than a portrayal of the destructiveness of vengeance and the healing power of reconciliation. Definitely worth seeing and absorbing.

“I think Roland’s message is a lesson in how we can go beyond the ego, transcend the human flaws that we all live with and threaten to imprison us. I think it’s about how can we do that not just as people, but as societies” Actor Charlie Cox (Escrivá).

Prayer for World Leaders

God our Father, through the intercession of Blessed John Paul, grant the leaders of nations a clear vision of the dignity of all peoples and a commitment to seek the well-being of all. Give our world leaders the perseverance needed to work through the complex issues of governance. Bless them with integrity of thought, word, and deed so that their efforts will always flow from your plan of justice and mercy. Protect them in times of danger. Comfort them in times of discouragement.
May Blessed John Paul’s example inspire them to solidarity with the poor and working people, and to a tempering of their power and influence with true compassion. Amen.
From: Prayers to Blessed John Paul II

Dying by the sword

2011-05-02T17:37:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Anne

Dying by the sword: "Rejoicing in the streets. Gestures of triumph. Chanting and wordless cries of jubilation. Last night around the White House? Yes. And ten years ago, in the Middle East when the twin towers fell.
We decried it then as unseemly and out of place.
It still is, even though the man who died yesterday with a bullet to the head had so much innocent blood on his hands.
The Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, put it very well: 'In the face of a man's death, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibilities of each person before God and before men, and hopes and works so that every event may be the occasion for the further growth of peace and not of hatred.'
That is our mission now, if we choose to accept it.

Here's a great reflection that draws on our Catholic tradition (and 'traditions') in helping us take on a truly Christian response to the current situation.

Holy Family Institute Intention for May

2011-05-01T08:14:00.000-04:00

For the conversion of those who, in the use of the instruments of social communication, refuse to acknowledge the magisterium of Christ and of the Church, thus misleading the mind, the heart and the activities of people everywhere.

2011-04-30T11:18:00.001-04:00

from Sr. Anne

The Seeker: A gift from the Pope

HE IS RISEN!

2011-04-24T09:47:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Helena

Happy Easter!!

HE IS RISEN!: "

Christ the Victor-Giant quells the foe defiant.
Let the ransomed people sing: Glory to our Easter King!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

"Today you will be with Me in Paradise."

2011-04-22T17:35:00.000-04:00

from Sr. Anne

"Today you will be with Me in Paradise.": "

'Jesus knew he would enter directly into fellowship with the Father—that the promise of “Paradise” was something he could offer “today”. He knew he was leading mankind back to the Paradise from which it had fallen: into fellowship with God as man’s true salvation' (Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 2).

There Be Dragons

2011-04-21T11:49:00.000-04:00

by Fr Dwight Longenecker

There Be Dragons: "

There Be Dragons looks fantastic! The website for the movie is here. For those of you who are not yet in the loop, the film traces the events of the early life of St Josemaria Escriva. Caught up in the drama of the Spanish Civil War--in which priests were being murdered, convents and monasteries burned and religious slaughtered, Josemaria--a young priest at the time faces life risking decisions.

From the trailer, the production values of the film look excellent. Also, pretty impressive is the fact that Roland Joffe, who directed The Mission, is on board as writer and director. The fact that such an eminent film director, and a self professed agnostic, is making the film helps put to rest the idea that the film is merely an Opus Dei propaganda vehicle. When asked about this possibility Joffe said, "It's too expensive to be simply a response from Opus Dei to the DaVinci Code (in which the villain is not only an Opus Dei priest, but an albino assassin)

I'm afraid most movies about saints are very worthy and also very dull. Most often they lack any strong plot line, or the plot line is obviously fabricated to add action and conflict. Budgets are notoriously low, acting is often lame and the director and writer rarely solve the biggest problem for movies about saints--namely--'Motion pictures are--ummm pictures that move. So how do you show the greatest struggles and battles any saint goes through--which are inner battles and spiritual conflicts?' Consequently so many worthy religious movies show the hero kneeling before a crucifix and talking out loud to Jesus.

The trick is to embed the saints' struggles within a larger, external conflict, so that the external conflict between good and evil becomes the metaphor for the saints' inner conflict. This is why Man for All Seasons works--because St Thomas More's inner conflict in becoming a saint is reflected in the outer conflict he has with the king. Studying St Josemaria Escriva within the conflict of the Spanish Civil War is therefore a very promising idea, and I can't wait to see the film and will review it here.

The film comes out at the beginning of May. In the meantime, talk up the movie. Make sure you buy tickets and take your family. Here is a mainstream movie that features a heroic story of a Catholic saint. Let's get bums on seats and make this movie fly!

Holy Thursday

2011-04-21T11:43:00.001-04:00

by Fr Dwight Longenecker

Holy Thursday: "

In the Garden

2011-04-21T11:41:00.000-04:00

from Sr. Anne

In the Garden: "

It was here that Jesus experienced that final loneliness, the whole anguish of the human condition. Here the abyss of sin and evil penetrated deep within his soul. Here he was to quake with foreboding of his imminent death. Here he was kissed by the betrayer. Here he was abandoned by all the disciples. Here he wrestled with his destiny for my sake.
Saint John takes up all these experiences and gives a theological interpretation to the place when he says: “across the Kidron valley, where there was a garden” (18:1).

Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week

Image from St. Paul's Church, Chicago

To be alive . . . and to KNOW

2011-04-20T20:43:00.000-04:00

From the April Concord, by Cardinal O'Conner

WEEKS OF THE YEAR come and go, shortening to days as the years mount, till they move so rapidly that they become trains rushing by each other in a continuing blur, trains peopled with memories.

IT MUST HAVE BEEN so with Christ, as even his days became hours, running out to minutes during the week that began on a donkey, seemed to all the world to have ended on a cross, but started all over again in a garden.

ALL THE DAYS of his years must have kaleidoscoped through his mind: the years in the carpenter's shop with Joseph, the years of his mother's widowhood, of the water into wine, the loaves and fishes and blind men and lepers and Lazarus and the alabaster box of precious ointment.

THEN THE HOSANNAS and the palm and olive branches and only a day or two left to sort it all out and be ready for Gethsemane and a bloody sweat, for night lanterns and rough guards and a searing kiss of betrayal. Everything chaotic now, minutes tumbling over one another, time racing onwards and backwards simultaneously, splintered by shrieks and giggles and lashes and thorns and questions that don't make sense because the answers are already known, or feared, or twisted into a sentence of death.

Better that one man die for the people
Do some tricks for me, make me some miracles, what is truth, are you a king, where are your armies?

Better that one man die for the people
He makes himself out to be the Son of God.

Better that one man die for the people
Tear your garments, tear his flesh, hosanna to the Son of David, crucify him and give us Barabbas. Let me wash my hands.

Better that one man die for the people
My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?

LORD JESUS is that the way it was with you? Did you get all mixed up and ask yourself how it had all happened? Where had all the flowers gone? And the people who thought you were so wonderful? Did the pain shoot way past your head and your hands and your feet, deep, deep, deep into your soul, so that you no longer could feel the touch of Your Father's love in the numbness of it? Did the blood run into the eyes of your heart so that you could no longer see the wonder of His glory in you?

IS THAT WHY you know our pain so well, our suffering, our loneliness and desolation, and how we get mixed up about life?

IS THAT WHY we can lay on you the confusion of our adolescence, the broken dreams of our middle age and the insecurity of our dwindling years? Is that what your having become a human being is all about?

I THINK SO. I think that's a large part of it, at least. And that's what makes me feel so comfortable with you - that and the fact that you always knew, deep within, how it would all turn out, yet never used the knowing to make this life easier for yourself - only more meaningful.

YOU ALWAYS KNEW Easter would come, even when it was almost impossible to believe and totally impossible to experience. You knew, because you were not only human. You were, you are, the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

YOU KNEW, precisely that you would burst out of that tomb. that the holes in your hands and feet would become the most dazzling starts seen up close, that the gaping tear in your side would outshine the sun, that you would rise from the dead as you told everyone you would!

The Passion Then and Now

2011-04-20T14:53:00.000-04:00

by Sr. Margaret J. Obrovac

The Passion Then and Now: "Rob Kaczmark and Danny Hidalgo from Spirit Juice Studios are the cinema artists behind our upcoming documentary on Blessed James Alberione, founder of the Pauline Family. You know the one—the preview they made with screenwriter Sr. Helena Burns is a permanent fixture on the right side bar of this blog.

Well, they did it again, this time for the Paulists, in collaboration with Outside da Box. At just over five minutes, Palm Sunday is a quickie for teens, but packs such a punch that even adults are left reeling—or weeping, as safety coach and Facebook friend David Sarkus unabashedly admitted on my Wall.

From the Palm Sunday Web site: “Brothers Julio and Marvin become restless during the reading of the Passion, and begin playfully slapping one another with palms they received upon their visit to church. Unsurprisingly, their mother is not amused with their behavior. After a brief scolding, the two simmer down only for a moment before they agree to a wager with one another: who can shout ‘crucify him’ the loudest. Once arranged, the younger of the brothers gets overwhelmed by the experience.”

In just nine days, the flick on YouTube has received almost 9,000 views. What is it about his passion that, as Jesus predicted, would draw everyone to himself, when he would be “lifted up” from the earth? (cf. Jn. 12:32) It can’t just be a morbid fascination with torture or death. We can glut ourselves with such depictions anywhere. Neither is it the politics or intrigue, common enough in any thriller. It probably doesn’t even have much to do with the fact that it happened to God: even those who don’t completely share our convictions are often inexplicably attracted by something beyond simple curiosity.

The fact of the matter is, the paschal mystery is at the core of our faith and of who we are as redeemed persons. We pick up the Liturgy of the Word each day and read the texts through the prism of this, the greatest drama the world will ever know. In fact, how Mark’s Gospel has been described is true to some extent of each of the four: “a passion narrative with a long introduction.” The New Testament apostolic letters, as well as texts from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), take on their full richness of meaning in light of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ.

“All because of us. All because his Father asked him to love us to death,” says Jesuit Bob McMillan. “Not just to heal our ills—a wart, a backache, a foot problem—but to recreate us.” His obedience earned goodness for us and showed us goodness and does goodness in and through us. “We may look awkward at it. We may not make it look easy or flashy, but we can do it.” Like any little kid at a ballet recital or on the baseball diamond, we who are “imitators of God, as beloved children,” (Eph. 5:1), may stumble in the attempt, but God is busting buttons that we’re even trying.

This may surprise you, but there’s a huge chance that Christ is beckoning you to plunge with him into the passion this year as you never have. Why not ask him how? It might be to attend one of the services of Holy Thursday or Good Friday, or of the Easter Vigil, that you didn’t plan to attend. It might be to spend an extra fifteen minutes with the Word at a set time each of these next ten days during Holy Week and Easter Week and notice if there’s a recurring theme in the Word or the season’s symbols just for you—light in the darkness, the new life of spring, the empty tomb…. It might be to finally carry out that act of almsgiving you promised you’d do at the beginning of Lent, or to take the first steps toward a reconciliation with someone you know—and really do love. Whatever it is, it’s worth letting him take the lead and just attentively follow. Our community will pray in these days that you will let him surprise you with peace and joy. If you think of it, would you do the same for us?

                                                ******************
Our sisters in Sendai, Japan, are beginning the process of recovery of their home and media center which were severely damaged in last month’s earthquakes. Thanks to your generosity, we’ve been able to raise $3,694.00 for them.

We will complete this fundraising project on Mother’s Day, May 8. So, if you haven’t yet donated as you had planned, the window of opportunity is still open for another two weeks. You can donate securely online here. Or if you prefer to send a check, you can make it out to the Daughters of St. Paul and mail it to my attention (Sr. Margaret J. Obrovac, FSP) at 50 St. Paul’s Ave. Boston, MA 02130.

Questions? E-mail me at margaretjo@paulinemedia.com or call 617-676-4423.

Regardless of what you may choose to do materially, we ask you to continue praying with us for the Japanese people. Prayer suggestions have been prepared by our sisters with audio and visual accompaniment also at http://www.pauline.org/, on the right side bar. The site also includes suggestions for talking with children about this natural disaster especially.

For additional Catholic information, including the initiatives of the Holy See and the current spiritual climate in Japan, refer to the Fides News Agency.

                                          ******************
From http://www.paoline.org/ (Daughters of St. Paul international site):

The Pakistani Christian Masihi Foundation has declared 20 April as a day of prayer and fasting for Asia Bibi.

On that day, every Christian in the world is invited to light a candle and say a prayer for this Pakistani woman who has been condemned to death for blasphemy and who is currently being held in the Sheikupura prison in Punjab. Informed about the initiative, Asia [said], “I am grateful to the Masihi Foundation for having organized this event, which gives me the hope that perhaps I will live. I feel loved by the Catholic Church and all the Christian communities throughout the world. I am proud to be the daughter of such a loving and merciful community. I want to send a message of peace and love to the whole world.”

Paul Bhatti, the brother of Shahbaz Bhatti, the recently-slain minister for religious minorities in Pakistan, has also lent his support to this event. Like his deceased brother, Paul Bhatti is Catholic and is a special councilor for the country’s religious minorities.
“I want to assure every-one that I am working with the [Pakistani] government and religious minorities to find a solution to this problem,” he said, “so as to prevent other innocent people from becoming victims of the current law concerning blasphemy.”

Via Crucis

2011-04-20T07:32:00.001-04:00

from Sr. Anne

Via Crucis: "

An article in today's Zenit Catholic news highlighted the display of a life-sized set of Stations of the Cross in Rome. They're not going to stay in Rome, though: this set of stations (the world's largest) is destined for South America.

Sr Helena and I saw many of the completed statues in the foundry of the Sisters of the Divine Master when we were in Rome. The various pieces were set up helter-skelter in a room where a sister was creating the clay model for a statue of Our Lady of Loretto, and another sister was designing a scale-sized pulpit (see photo). The Sisters of the Divine Master are one of our sister-communities, founded by Bl. James Alberione, so we were at the foundry ('Domus Dei') to get footage for the documentary.

Romans Growing Fond of Chile's Via Crucis
Life-Size Depictions of Christ's Suffering Line Vatican Thoroughfare

ROME, APRIL 19, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The world's largest Stations of the Cross will linger in Rome only 10 more days before heading to the Chilean
hill in the port city of Coquimbo for which they were commissioned. The bronze Via Crucis -- 49 life-size statues in 14 stations -- has been
stopping passers-by on the Via della Conciliazione since it was inaugurated March 13.

But the statues' placement on the main thoroughfare leading to St. Peter's Basilica is only temporary. The Via Crucis was commissioned for the city of Coquimbo in central Chile by the 'Fundacion Cruz del III Milenio.'

That foundation was formed after Pope John Paul II's 1987 visit to Chile and the following year, it began the project to construct a 280-foot cross above Coquimbo. The bronze Via Crucis will complement that work.

Italian artists Pasquale Nava and Giuseppe Allamprese have created the Stations, following the description of the Passion given in the Gospels.

The sculptures were cast and modeled in the vast atelier of Domus Dei, owned by the Congregation of the Pie Discepole del Divin Maestro, which produces art and liturgical objects for churches.

Local media claim the project has cost some €800,000 ($1.1 million), but a vote in Coquimbo showed popular approval of the project.

'It was ordered by the municipality of the city of Coquimbo with the collaboration of the Fundacion Cruz del III Milenio,' Mariella Valdiserri, the spokesman of Domus Dei, explained to ZENIT.

Father Ramón Bravo was a consultor for the Coquimbo municipality when the Cross of the Third Millennium was made. Now he has a direct role in coordinating the Via Crucis project.

'The sketches of the Via Crucis were approved personally by Cardinal Jorge Medina Estévez, then prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments,' the priest noted. Cardinal Medina is himself a native of Chile.

The first statues were finished in 2006, and the 15th Station* is now being completed. In total there will be 53 statues weighing 33 tons. The Risen Christ is already in Chile.

Valdiserri noted how each statue is unique since the original mold disappears in the lost-wax technique being used for the artwork.

Rosa Scannella, a spokeswoman for Domus Dei, said many people stop by the group's stand near the Via Sacra with the plea: 'Keep them here in Rome.'

*The lower picture shows St. Peter in the 15th Station.

The Pope's 3 simple rules for living a holy life:

2011-04-13T19:55:00.000-04:00

1-Never let a Sunday go by without an encounter with the risen Christ in the Eucharist... it is light for the entire week.
2-Never begin or end a day without at least a brief contact with God in prayer.
3-Follow the road signs that God has given us in the 10 Commandments, read in the light of Christ; they are explanations of what is love in specific situations.

From the National Catholic Register

Pope trumps Priest on "Blessed" feast day

2011-04-13T16:37:00.002-04:00

From Sr. Anne

Pope trumps Priest on "Blessed" feast day: "

Well, it's official. Our first Pauline 'blessed,' Father Timothy Giaccardo (feast day, October 22) has to move over to make room for a very high profile 'blessed' to share his feast day. As of May 1, Oct. 22 will also be the Memorial of Bl. John Paul II, pope. Well, it's only a Memorial in the diocese of Rome and in Poland, but I suspect it won't be long before various dioceses, bishops' conferences and religious communities will ask to have the day established on their liturgical calendars, too. Meanwhile, Bl. Timothy remains a 'community' observance (except maybe in the diocese of Alba?).
If he's canonized first, does Bl. Timothy get dibs on Oct. 22?

True Blue

2011-04-07T07:20:00.000-04:00

by Sr. Margaret J. Obrovac

True Blue: "

“Blue Bloods” might give a nod to NYPD Catholicism, but for a shout-out, you had to be in the City last Sunday. The New York Police Department Holy Name Society honored service in its ranks, past and present, at its 93rd annual Communion Breakfast. Cardinal Egan’s Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral opened the celebration, followed by awards and fellowship at the Hilton. Of course, a parade led by bagpipes and drums strutted down 5th Avenue the long way from church to hotel, to the delight of residents and tourists alike. We were blessed with early spring weather, nippy but sunny.

I say “we,” since the Pauline Family—Society of St. Paul, Daughters, Sister Disciples, and Cooperators of New York—joined in the celebration for the first time. Sgt. Brian Reilly, commanding officer of the chaplain’s unit, and HNS President Jason Maggio arranged for us to serve 1,200 officers and their families through Pauline exhibits and a ten-minute presentation on Blessed James Alberione, our founder and model/intercessor for the media. Partway through the talk, I paused long enough for the media technicians to project the preview of the upcoming film on the massive screen behind me. (Scroll down at right to watch the preview everyone watched.)

With police commissioner Raymond Kelly, HNS President
Jason Maggio, NY Daily News columnist Denis Hamill,
and MC Desmond Stokes

I’ve shown that clip several times in the past fifteen months, but only the NYPD burst into applause—sustained applause. In fact, I had to “break it up” by resuming my remarks. And Alberione isn’t even Irish! That presentation, an intro-duction to Fr. Alberione, was also an introduction to the Pauline Family, since most had never heard of us before, in spite of our 79-year history in the Big Apple. A handful of women and men religious in a city of eight million can get overlooked.

The city can be justly proud of the saints and “saintables” who walked its streets, truly New York’s Finest: Mother Seton, Mother Cabrini, St. John Neumann, Pierre Toussaint, Dorothy Day, her friend Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Isaac Hecker, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Walter Ciszek, S.J., Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II (to be beatified next month), Cardinal Terence Cooke, and now, Blessed James Alberione. In fact, he and Venerable Thecla Merlo, the Daughters’ co-foundress, who is also up for beatification, visited New York several times and prayed in St. Patrick’s Cathedral for their Pauline communities and for the people they served.

Sgt. Brian Reilly keeps stride with
retired assistant chief Thomas Sweeney.

As the preview says, Alberione has something to say to our digital age. New York media professionals, educators, parents, clergy, and all those who dedicate themselves to the protection and sanity of an information rich and media saturated society—can find in Alberione a model and patron saint. His story needs to be told. How else will our young people know that there is an intercessor and model for them, as they work to build a media culture on faith and values or to discern their own vocation in such a world? How else will people discover that someone has paved the way for them to grow as faith-filled human beings in an ever more wired—and wireless—world?

Edward Cardinal Egan greets officers
after Mass. Go to my Facebook Wall
(Margaret Obrovac FSP)
for more photos.

Br. Peter Lyne, our Pauline brother with a book display there that day, told me that the one title he sold out of (and he had brought several copies) was When You Hurt. People in any helping profession, law enforcement included, understand human pain. The Pauline Family, which carries on the work of Alberione, demonstrates what he lived for—the conviction that media can and should be used for the good of the human heart and human society. People who work for justice get that.

A Sister Disciple of the Divine Master from County Westmeath, Ireland, now serving on Staten Island, was taken with the warm fraternity of the NYPD that day and their interest in the signs and symbols of faith, especially among the young men and women. Sr. Ann Breen said that “with so many distractions they can get discouraged.” So in her mission as a Sister Disciple, she told me, she prays for the safety of the police force, for guidance and wisdom as they go out every day, and especially for perseverance in faith.

If people make good on their pledges toward the production of the film over the next two or three weeks, we'll be able to look forward to having raised $4,600 from this event. Legendary talk show host Joe Franklin offered to announce the campaign on his program on Bloomberg Radio this weekend. After fifty-five years on the air, he still has a loyal following, even though he claims he goes “way back, back to when the Dead Sea was still sick.”

With a little help from our friends, we’ll be hearing from police-related consultants and organizations as possibilities open up. With only about twelve months left in the campaign and still almost $50,000 to raise, we hope those possibilities surface soon!

Do you feel you would like to be part of this moviemaking venture? Click here to get updates and to make a contribution. A little incentive: Anyone who donates $1,000 will be listed in the credits at the end of the film. Or you can do that in memory of someone who has died, and that person’s name will be listed. Consider adding this project to your prayer intentions, so that it can be finished on schedule and it might do the good it’s meant to do. A prayer like that, guaranteed, will be reciprocated!

Beatification Countdown

2011-04-01T16:40:00.000-04:00

from Sr. Anne

Beatification Countdown: "No fooling! It's just one month to the Beatification of Pope John Paul II!

Here are some books for all ages... The links will also let you read samples of some of the books.

Holy Father’s April Prayer Intentions

2011-04-01T07:47:00.001-04:00

Evangelizing the New Generations. - That through its compelling preaching of the Gospel, the Church may give young people new reasons for life and hope. Easter will be late this year, but that will not delay our hope. Lent and Holy Week lead us to the Feast of the Resurrection, the object and reason of our hope.

The first pope, St. Peter, wrote: “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope” (1 Peter 3:15-16). Pope Benedict’s general intention for April echoes St. Peter’s exhortation. We still proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ; we still maintain all the hope that is summarized in our Apostles’ Creed.

But this month’s intention urges us to do more, to find compelling new ways to bring the hope of the Gospel to young people. Young people, who may be facing grimmer prospects than any previous generation, come with many questions. Commemorating the 25th anniversary of World Youth Day, last year Pope Benedict said: “The rich young man asks Jesus: ’What must I do?’ You are making crucial choices about how you will live. So…ask yourselves: Am I satisfied with my life? Is there something missing?” The answer Jesus gives is that wealth, fame, power, and pleasure all fall short and will ultimately fail. They are illusions of the happiness Christ gives us.

Because we are made in Love’s image, for God is Love, the true meaning of life lies in loving. Instead of grasping for things, we learn from the Gospel that to love is to give, as Jesus did at the Last Supper and on the Cross. The prayer attributed to St. Francis affirms: “It is in giving that we receive, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

That’s a message the Church must make compelling to young people today. We must present the old truth of the Gospel in new ways. We
must learn to speak to youth in their own language, context, and media. Most of all, we must ourselves be living examples of life and hope. Let us pray that we, the Church, may successfully evangelize the new generations.

Reflection

How do we offer authentic Christian spirituality to the young people in our families and communities?

Scripture

Acts 10:44-49 While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word.

Mission Intention

Missionary Expansion. – That by proclamation of the Gospel and the witness of their lives, missionaries may bring Christ to those who do not yet know him. April’s mission intention emphasizes bringing Christ to those who do not yet know of him or do not know him as he is. There are many of both, and both Christ loves. We will proclaim the Gospel in word and deed because in the end we know “The nations will walk in its light” (Revelation 21:24).

Because we are the Body of Christ, we share his desire for all people to know him and his love. As we renew our baptismal promises on Easter, we remember that each is part of Christ’s Body on earth today. St. Teresa of Avila puts it well:
“Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to
do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he
blesses all the world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

After his resurrection, Jesus told his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). Now we are the ones Jesus calls on to do his work. “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). The Holy Father makes it clear in this intention that we are to proclaim Jesus’ triumph over sin and death, not only in word but also with our witness.

During Lent we pray that all missionaries, including ourselves, may be purified of hypocrisy, that our lives may match our words. Many who misunderstand Jesus need to see him as he is. It is our missionary duty to communicate in every way the Christ who is our Lord, our Savior, and our model of life and love. Let us pray for all missionaries that our words and deeds may truly be those of a member of Christ’s
Body, united to Christ through his Church.

Reflection

As you pray for missionaries everywhere, in what way can you speak and live the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Scripture

2 Corinthians 5:17-18 Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation.

Prayer of the Month

Where can I go when the night is
dark and I stumble along the way? I will
go up to the house of the Lord, my God, to
the God who gives joy to my youth.
Where can I go when my heart is
full, overflowing with thanks and praise? I
will go up to the house of the Lord, my
God, to the God who gives joy to my
youth.
Where can I go to give myself in
return for all I’ve received? I will go up to
the house of the Lord, my God, to the God
who gives joy to my youth.

—from U.S. Conf. of Catholic Bishops

Controversy and the New Missal

2011-04-01T07:45:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Anne

Controversy and the New Missal: "I am feeling a bit unsettled this afternoon. I was in the book center just in time for a kind of debate on the new missal. The gentleman (who has clearly been reading the wrong magazines!) expressed his dissatisfaction with the upcoming translation says he has heard only negative things from priests, some of whom have even said that they would not want to celebrate Mass in public once the new Missal is in use (a sad statement, to be sure)... Obviously, it's a matter of the circles one travels in; I have mostly come across priests who are glad that the richer texts are going to be implemented soon, even though it's going to be quite a challenge for the celebrant, since most of the changes affect them directly. Our visitor's main issue is with the way the new translation will affect the words of consecration.

It's true. The consecration itself has been retranslated. And not for the first time, given that we are talking about words that Jesus originally said in Aramaic, and that have come to us in two slightly different versions. Starting this Advent, we will hear that the 'chalice' contains 'the Blood of the new and eternal Covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins...'
What gives? Didn't Jesus die for everyone? Are we being exclusive here?

Actually, in my talks on the Mass, this is one of the crucial areas that I look at, and it is the poster child for Sister Anne's Liturgical Language Postulate: 'When a word or phrase in the liturgy makes one look up and scratch one's head in puzzlement, one can take this as an indication of the biblical or otherwise ancient provenance of said word or phrase.' In other words, unexpected phrases are probably from the Bible (or at least the Fathers of the Church). That we look up in puzzlement is a sign of how little we really know the Scriptures and how they guide the way we pray.

So, 'the many.'

We know Jesus died for everyone; that's a dogma of faith, so it's certainly not being challenged in any way. Where does this 'many' come from?

Actually, Pope Benedict's new book looks at just this phrase. He notes that it comes to us most directly from the Gospel itself: Jesus, at the Last Supper, probably used the Aramaic term. But in doing so, Jesus was himself quoting the Bible! The famous Suffering Servant of Isaiah would "give his life as an offering for many and win pardon for their offenses." In the context, Pope Benedict tells us, that "many" most likely meant "all Israel," "the whole people Israel." Only as the Gospel began to be received by "all the nations" did the early Church recognize a fuller meaning to that "many."

But wait, there's more! Pope Benedict also refers in passing (but with a nod of approval) to a contemporary scholar's suggestion that there is a 'sacramental' angle to the term; that the words in the consecration most directly refer to the blood of the Covenant, which will be 'poured out' from the Chalice for the 'many' who will drink from it in Holy Communion. Clearly, here we do have a restricted meaning: Christ died for all, but "all" do not receive him in Holy Communion, though "many" truly do.

And as we are sent out from that Holy Communion to share the Gospel with the world, it is for us to do our part that more and more of that 'all' join the 'many' at the altar. That's what evangelization is.

Holy Family Institute Intention for April

2011-04-01T06:47:00.000-04:00

For a Successful 2011 Triduum on the new dates (July 22-24) and with as many participants as possible!

Quote from Blessed James Alberione, founder of the Pauline Family

2011-03-29T14:16:00.003-04:00

The secret of greatness and richness lies in modeling oneself on God, living in Christ . . . the Pauline Spirit can be summed up as to live in Christ so profoundly that one becomes Christ-like. To have a life so identified with Christ that one is aware of doing everything not just FOR Christ but WITH Christ and IN Christ!

BUY A COOKBOOK FOR THE ALBERIONE FILM!

2011-03-24T11:49:00.000-04:00

From Sr. Helena

BUY A COOKBOOK FOR THE ALBERIONE FILM!: "

You can help us make the 'Alberione Film' in an easy, fun, yummy way!
Just buy this cookbook!
'Bless Us, O Lord....'
Only $20 (includes postage)!

GREAT MOTHER'S DAY GIFT!!!

This cookbook includes 640 unique recipes from 40 countries and comes with a built-in stand!

(Compiled by the Knights of Columbus Ladies Auxiliary, Palatine, IL)

Tell your friends!

Send cash, check or money order (we also accept Visa/MC) to:

Sr. Helena Raphael Burns, fsp
Pauline Books & Media
172 N. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60601
helraphaelfsp@aol.com

Checks payable to: Daughters of St. Paul
(memo can be: Alberione Film)

Water of Life

2011-03-23T19:16:00.001-04:00

by Sr. Margaret J. Obrovac, FSP

In case you missed the United Nations’ World Water Day yesterday, you’re not alone. I did too, until Sr. Christina mentioned it at supper. It’s part of the Decade for Action—Water for Life, stretching from 2005 to 2015. Celebrated annually around a set theme, it’s meant to implement UN environmental resolutions adopted at Rio de Janeiro in 1992, raise consciousness surrounding the availability and quality of fresh water worldwide, offer resources for education and advocacy, and inform the world community about activities carried out by countries and organizations.

So what? With almost six feet of snow in Boston this winter, it’s hard to picture a water shortage anywhere. I can filter all the water I want. I have hot water for a shower. Can I be—let alone, am I—concerned about fresh water anywhere else? In the words of Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General, “We shall not finally defeat AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, or any of the other infectious diseases that plague the developing world until we have also won the battle for safe drinking-water, sanitation and basic health care.” As we have seen in recent years, viruses and epidemics are not confined to developing nations or by any geographic boundaries.

Intrinsically related to this are social justice issues, especially economic ones, the very issues that religious communities, Vatican leaders, and episcopal (bishops’) conferences have directed our attention to over the past several years. When whole populations are at risk of losing sustainable living conditions because of exploitation and consumerism, we need to step back and ask a few questions of ourselves, our media, and our society. When my brand of bottled water becomes a status symbol, it’s time for a reality check. When our kids, media-induced, demand one brand over another (as one grandmother told me last year), it’s time to share with them what we really value as believers and set a different standard.

This year’s theme for World Water Day was “Water for Cities.” It’s safe to say that when the UN Water group picked it, a tsunami in Japan was not on their minds. The resulting water shortage not only in villages, but in hard hit cities like Sendai, makes such a theme worth pondering. If nothing else, we’re less likely to take what we have for granted.

The day before yesterday we received the first direct report from our Sendai community: “Water was restored to us after four days. For the first three days we went to get water at a well, standing for three or four hours in line to get our bottles filled with drinkable water. We receive two bottles and we give away one. Our good bishop came one day to bring us 60 liters of water. How moving it all is!”

Grace before meals has always been a part of my life, but it wasn’t until I entered religious life that I watched sisters bless themselves even before having a snack. Some, in what I considered fervor to the extreme, made the Sign of the Cross even before taking a sip of water. A few still do. While that isn’t part of my devotional life, I thought again this week of how it can well express a deep spiritual sense and profound gratitude for the creature that St. Francis called “Sister Water, so useful, humble, precious and pure” (Canticle of the Creatures).

It’s significant that our Japanese Daughters of St. Paul speak of their experience in communal terms. From their testimony about how they share, their concern for each other is clearly moved by sincere love: it’s not limited to their own needs alone, but empowers them to reach out to the wider community. Here’s how they describe the source of their compassion:

“We stay very willingly together: there is mutual comfort, support and aid. Each sister is doing whatever she can. Living this experience of sisterly love is so precious, and a gift we give each other throughout the enormous difficulties we are facing.

“Every new morning we repeat, ‘Lord, today too, you have given us life! Thank you!’

“We are in the month of March, and it is still cold like winter – for two days we have had a pretty heavy snowfall. It almost feels like we are being tormented. But we still have our house and our sisters, and above all the Lord is with us.

“In the city more than 7,000 people have perished. The refugees already number 350,000. They have lost their loved ones and their homes, and now in addition to these great catastrophes, atomic radiation is threatening. It will take a long time to recover from this. We live in the hope that the reading from St. Paul spoke of in this morning’s Liturgy [2Tm. 1:8b-10].

“Once again we thank you with all our hearts for keeping near to us with your concern.”

This is the water of life.

********************

As I mentioned in last week’s blog post, if you would like to financially support the ministry of the Daughters of St. Paul that will evolve over the months ahead, assist with their material needs, or help them plan for recovery, you can donate securely online at www.pauline.org, or send a check, made out to the Daughters of St. Paul, to my attention (Sr. Margaret J. Obrovac, FSP) at 50 St. Paul’s Ave. Boston, MA 02130. Questions? E-mail me at margaretjo@paulinemedia.com or call me at 617-676-4423.

Regardless of what you may choose to do materially, we ask you to continue praying with us for the Japanese people. Prayer suggestions have been prepared by our sisters with audio and visual accompaniment, also at www.pauline.org.

Catholic Media Promotion

2011-03-22T07:49:00.004-04:00

Catholic Media Promotion day was a week ago, but I have finally figured how to post links in Blogger!

Here are my 3 favorite Blogs:

Nunblog

What Does The Prayer Really Say

Standing on my Head

I really don't like podcasts so I have no favorites.

My 3 favorite random thing online are:

Catholic Exchange

New Advent

Savior.org

From the Holy Family Institute March Concord

2011-03-20T14:51:00.003-04:00

Asking this question?

Who am I . . ?

ABOUT THIRTY YEARS AGO, there was a lot of interest in “identity” – all sorts of people who should have known better, asking themselves anxiously: Who and I?”

THE DEEP REASON for all this interrogation was a loss of perspective: the mistake of attaching value only to our time on earth.

BUT OUR TIME ON EARTH is never completely satisfying nor can it every supply all the answers. We feel an endless yearning for “something else.” for a “breakthrough,” for “success” or “peace” – yearning partially calmed from time to time as something finally goes as we want it . . . but never totally calmed. We begin to yearn again . . .

SURELY this should tell us something?

SURELY It should tell us that our life and work are not limited to our years of earth and so we have to look elsewhere for the answer to our unceasing search for “something.”

THE DIVINE MASTER put it bluntly many centuries ago: “What does it profit to gain the whole world . . . but suffer the loss of our soul?” And on the cross, in answer to the honest question of the man we call the Good Their, he said: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Problem solved – for the Thief, at least!”

THE MASTER paid the supreme price of death and of the most painful death known to the age in which he lived. And he paid it gladly because he was aware of the tremendous difference it makes to gain Paradise at the end of our time on earth and even to gain a more glorious Paradise. This final state after death is different for everyone.

BUT WE have grown cold in the faith. The main thing seems to be to “find ourselves” (or perhaps even “lose ourselves) in all sorts of “worthwhile” activity (and prayer) to the standing ovations of all sorts on important people.

IF YOU’RE not getting things done in public view, if yours is not a key project . . . you might was well be dead! The emphasis is always on being “relevant” or “being practical.”

AN SO OUR SUGGESTION of consecration and commitment is not seriously considered.

BUT, DEAR, what practical use is consecration? You don’t need vows to work for others – for the Church!”

THAT’S NOT what St. Paul said:

Athletes deny themselves all sorts of things. They do this to win a crown of leaves that withers. But we run to win a crown that is imperishable. I do not run like a man who loses sights of the finish line. I do not fight as if I were shadow-boxing. What I do is discipline my own body and master it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be rejected. (1 Cor.9:25-27).

IN OTHER WORDS: to help others, we begin by helping ourselves, preparing ourselves.

WE CANNOT GIVE what we don’t have. We cannot give the Lord to others if first we don’t possess him or possess him imperfectly.

CONSECRATED LIFE is by not means always oriented to activity . . . But it is very much needed for a special activity: activity linked in some way to an awareness of the power and influence of today’s “media” – Press, Movies, TV, Internet, etc. Silently, stealthily, in the privacy of millions of homes, lives are being damaged, families broken up, faith weakened by these awesome forces.

HOW DO WE REACT to this tremendous threat to our Christian and Catholic way of life?

IN BY USING THESE MEANS to preach the Good News, but mostly by making ourselves personally people who live the Good News in their lives. There is a limit to what our ACTIONS can do – very obvious limit actually. There is NO LIMIT to our spiritual power. the Master preached to big crowds, but they were superficial and missed his meaning. Then he gave his life Calvary and . . . Peter’s first sermon converted about 3,000 people! (Surely not Peter’s work only; also Christ’s.

THIS IS THE MEANING of Institute membership. it give your life a new purpose, a new impetus to your personal spirituality and a new goal to reach – the most urgent that there is.

NOT PRAYER ONLY - we cannot dispense with prayer, but ACTION is also needed and first of all your personal action to fill your heart and soul with a new understanding of the Lord and his plans for you.

MEMBERSHIP in the Holy Family Institute gives you this gift. And then you act. Using the media? Perhaps but not necessarily. Once you are linked officially to the Institute – and to the Pauline Family of which it is a branch – then ANY THOUGHT, WORD OR ACTION of your is – so to speak – “using the media.” Recall that when Pauline Priests, Brothers and Sisters actually use the media to “share the word,” this action of theirs is simply the last action in a line going back to all the others involved. The result of this action is therefore, not necessarily the merit of the one who does it but of the most dedicated individual in the overall line!

THAT COULD BE YOU!

GOT THE IDEA! Nothing vague about Institute membership, but rather a precise and effective way of doing the maximum good for others . . . and for yourself! Now THAT’S the sort of “identity you need! Make sure you get it as soon as possible!

Bits and Pieces

2011-03-19T09:46:00.001-04:00

Happy St. Joseph's Day! May the head of the Holy Family provide for your needs, sell your house... in a word, provide for your needs, both material and (above all) spiritual.

This is encouraging! Our mission, seen (and lauded) by someone outside the community...

News from the Daughters of St. Paul community of Sendai, Japan

2011-03-18T07:42:00.002-04:00

Our house of Sendai, located in an area that is hilly and far from the ocean, was hit by the earthquake, not the tsunami. The destruction inside the house is almost total. The book center, located near the cathedral in the center of the city, was greatly damaged by the quake. Today one of the sisters had the courage to survey the devastation. She attempted to begin restoring order. The others stayed home. It’s recommended not to go out because of the danger of radiation from the nuclear plant at Fukushima. This morning they had snow and rain contaminated by radiation.

There’s no news about the exact number of deaths. Thousands are homeless and gathered in the schools, churches and other public places. Without heat and food, many are at serious risk. Our sisters, too, are short on food. From Friday they have sustained themselves on the rice and canned food they had on hand, but that is running out.

If you would like to be part of helping our Sisters in Japan rebuild their lives and the Pauline mission in this devastated area, please donate here. As the Daughters of St. Paul continue to share the Word of God and the Gospel of hope with our Japanese brothers and sisters, Christ will be made present to those who are suffering, and He will offer the consolation and peace only He can give.

DONATE NOW at this web address:

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