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NEW AMERICAN SAINT

May 21, 2017, 10:25 am
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This year we shall add another saint to our growing roster of saints born in the USA. He will be beatified in Detroitthis year.FATHER SOLANUS CASEY was a  Capuchin Franciscan friar who ministered in Detroit. 

He was born in Wisconsin in 1870 and spent his life in the service of others, especially the poor. He is the second (Bl. Stanley Rother is the first)  American born male saint.



He contracted diphtheria in 1878 which permanently damaged his voice and left it wispy and slightly impaired.  In 1887 he left the farm to work in a series of jobs in his home state and in Minnesota working as a lumberjack and a hospital orderly as well as working as a guard in the Minnesota state prison and a street car operator in Superior.  

While working at his last job he witnessed a brutal murder which caused him to evaluate his life and his future. When driving in a rowdy section of Superior,  he saw a drunken sailor stab a woman to death. He then acted on a call he felt to the priesthood. But due to his limited formal education he enrolled at Saint Francis High School Seminary - the minor seminary of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee - in January 1891 hoping to become a diocesan priest. Classes there were taught either in German and Latin which he did not know how to speak. He was advised that due to his academic limitations, he should consider joining a religious order if he wanted to become a priest. There he could be ordained a "simplex" priest who could preside at a Mass but would not have the faculties for public preaching or hearing confessions.


Fr. Wm. Hart McNichols

Following this advice he applied to the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in Detroit into which he was received in 1897. But his moving to Detroitcame on December 8, 1896 after reflecting before a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary when he heard her distinct voice telling him to "go to Detroit". He struggled through his studies, but received his ordination to the priesthood on July 24, 1904 from Archbishop Sebastian Messmer at the Saint Francis of Assisichurch in Milwaukee. Because he had not performed well enough in his studies he was ordained as a "sacerdos simplex".

He served for two decades in a succession of assignments in friaries in New York. His first assignment was at the Sacred Heart Friary in Yonkers and was later transferred to New York City where he first served at St John's Church next to Penn Station and later at Our Lady Queen of Angels in Harlem.

He was recognized as an inspiring speaker. In August 1924 he was transferred to the St Bonaventure convent in Detroit where he worked until 1945. During this time he served for the most part as the simple porter (doorkeeper). Each Wednesday afternoon he conducted well-attended services for the sick and through these services became known for his great compassion and the amazing results of his consultations with visitors. People considered him instrumental in cures and other blessings received from him.
Lewis Williams


He loved to kneel before the Eucharist in the quiet of the night; Father Benedict Groeschel once recalled visiting the convent on a warm night and was unable to sleep. Taking a walk around 3:00am, he arrived at the chapel where he put on two lights and saw Casey kneeling on the top step of the altar. Father Groeschel observed him for several moments and noted Casey didn't move – the priest simply flicked the lights off to leave Casey to his prayer.

Father Solanus  loved to play the violin for his fellow friars during their time of recreation and often accompanied this with an Irish song. His terrible singing voice was attributed to his speech impediment he had since his childhood. His fellow friars could not refrain from rolling their eyes or cuffing coughs so he would excuse himself politely and sneak down to the chapel to entertain an invisible audience at the tabernacle. The friar often fasted but did eat enough in moderation since for him that was essential. Until his late seventies he was able to join the younger religious in games of tennis and volleyball and even went jogging on occasion.

In 1946 in failing health and suffering from eczema over his entire body,  he was transferred to the Capuchin novitiate of St Felix in Huntington in Indiana where he lived until 1956 when he was hospitalized in Detroit. In 1957 he was rushed to hospital for food poisoning and upon his release was noted by the friars that he was walking much slower and was scratching at his legs only to discover his skin was raw and infected which prompted a return to the hospital. The doctors diagnosed him with erysipelas which was beyond treatment and the doctors were even considering amputation. This idea was dropped soon when the ulcers began to heal.



On July 2, 1957 he was readmitted to hospital for good.  e died from erysipelas on July 31, 1957 at 11:00 am at St John Hospital in Detroit with only his nurse at his side. His last words reportedly were: "I give my soul to Jesus Christ." There was an estimated 20, 000 people who filed past his coffin prior to his funeral and burial in the cemetery of the Detroitconvent he had lived in. On July 8, 1987 his remains were exhumed and reinterred inside the FatherSolanusCaseyCenter at the St Bonaventure convent; his remains were found to be incorrupt save for a little decomposition on his elbows.

He was known during his lifetime as a wonderworker known for his great faith and his abilities as a spiritual counselor but also for his great attention to the sick for whom he celebrated special Masses. He was dubbed a wonderworker for his working of miracles during his life which made him a much sought-after individual and came to be a revered and notable figure. He also loved the violin which was a trait he shared with his namesake St Francis Solanus.

About 20 years ago I was in Fond du Lac, WI and visited the nearby monastery at Mount Calvary, where even then father Solanus was honored as a future saint of the Capucian Order, which also boasts St. Padre Pio.




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AMERICAN TIES

May 23, 2017, 11:58 am
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 While not considered an American saint, he did work in our country and has relatives here, generations later, including a young priest in Wisconsin.
 

ST. LUIGI GUANELLA  was the ninth of thirteen children born to Lawrence and Maria Guanella, a poor but pious family in the Italian Alps. He grew up experiencing both poverty and illiteracy, which had a profound impact on his life. Luigi lived during a time of intense political persecution against the Catholic Church, and its priests and religious were constantly harassed and threatened by civil authorities


Luigi entered  the seminary at age twelve, and was ordained on 26 May 1866. After seven years, he joined the Salesians, working  with St John Bosco from 1875 to 1878 to care for homeless children. He was a youth director in Turin,  and parish priest in Traona, where he opened a school for the poor, which local anti–Catholic Masons forced its closure in 1881.

In 1881 he founded an orphanage and nursing home. In 1886 the need had outgrown the facility, so Father Luigi moved the home to a larger building which he called the Little House of Divine Providence. There he founded the Daughters of Saint Mary of Providence to minister to the residents. The congregation received papal approval in 1917, and today has over 1,200 sisters working in over 100 homes. In 1908 Luigi founded a men’s congregation, the Servants of Charity (Guanellians) which received papal approval in 1928 and 1935, and today has over 500 brothers in over 50 houses.


 Father Luigi never bothered to retire, continuing to write meditations and inspirational works, and minister to those in need. He was a friend and adviser to Bl. Andrea Carlo Ferrari and Pope Saint Pius X. He reclaimed marsh land in the Sondrio region, and built an institute for the handicapped.

In December 1912, Father Luigi traveled to the major cities of America, and saw for himself  the deplorable conditions emigrants from Italyand the rest of the world were living in. In May 1913, six Daughters of St. Mary of Providence traveled to Chicago, Ill., thus beginning the presence of the Guanellians in America.



In 1913 he founded the Confraternity of Saint Joseph whose mission is to pray for the dying, and which today has 10 million members. In 1915, just months before his death, Father Luigi went into the fields to minister to those who had been harmed by a series of earthquakes in the region.
With Bl. Clara Bosatta

He died in Como, Italy of complications from a stroke he suffered on September 27, 1915and died October 24. His final resting place is in the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Como.

He was canonizedon  23 October 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI.


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EARTHLY FRIENDS

May 24, 2017, 12:39 pm
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BL. CLARA (Dina) BOSATTA was born in 1858 in Como to Alessandro Bosatta and Rosa Mazzocchi - her father worked as a silk manufacturer who died in 1861 when she was but a toddler. She was the last of eleven siblings.

She studied with the Daughters of Charity at the age of thirteen in 1871; she also took work as a janitor around this time. She decided to consecrate her life to God and made the decision to become a nun so entered into the period of novitiate with the Canossians from 1871 to 1878; however she felt that their charism was not that of which she felt she was being called to and so left that congregation to pursue her vocation elsewhere.

She returned to her home and joined with her sister Marcellina and the two joined the Daughters of Mary that Father Carlo Copponi had established. Marcellina would later become the superior of the order. The pair also worked at a hospice to tend to neglected children and older people as well as teaching children.

They coordinated efforts at establishing a new religious congregation - the Daughters of Saint Mary of Providence, alongside St Luigi Guanella (see previous BLOG). It was at this point that she took the religious name of Clara. She was professed as a nun on 27 October 1878.

Tending to the poor bought unwanted consequences for her when she contracted tuberculosis, which would remain with her until the end of her life.   
She died on 20 April 1887.  

St. Luigi Guanella  wrote three biographies of  Bl. Clare. The first two were discovered in Como in 1981, during the reorganization of the Archives of the Mother House in Como, Italy. The composition of the oldest, A Flower of Virtue Transplanted from Earth to Paradise, was presumably started shortly after her death, and was possibly completed the following year. The original is entirely hand written by the author in two pamphlets of 77 pages.
In 1907 St. Luigi produced a more voluminous manuscript of 111 pages in four pamphlets. The twenty-two long chapters of Biographical Notes of Sr. Clare Bosatta follow the events of her life faithfully.



The last booklet reports the vast and detailed testimony that Bl. Luigi gave from August 8th-23rd, 1912, at the Diocesan Tribunal of Como for the process of the beatification of Sr. Clare.

Both texts always show, though at various levels of intensity, Fr. Guanella’s strong emotional involvement. We can understand how his deep relationship with Sr. Clare was decisive for his experience as a Christian, priest, spiritual guide and founder. Pope (St.) John Paul II presided over her beatification on 21 April 1991.

Intense prayer, acceptance of constant sufferings are the main paths that lead her to total conformity with Jesus and urged her to the summit of Christian perfection like an eagle, as her spiritual director, St. Luigi, liked to compare her with. 
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FRIEND OF A SAINT IN EL SALVADOR

May 27, 2017, 10:30 am
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William Hart McNichols


SERVANT of GOD RUTILIO GRANDE GARCIA, SJ, was a Jesuit priest in El Salvador. He was assassinated in 1977, along with two other Salvadorans. Father Rutilio Grande was the first priest assassinated before the civil war started. He was a close friend of Bl. Archbishop Óscar  Romero. After his death, the Archbishop changed his conservative attitude toward the government and urged the government to investigate the murder.

Rutilio Grande was born  in 1928, the youngest of six children, to a poor family in El Paisnal, El Salvador. His parents divorced when he was young and he was raised by his older brother and grandmother, a devout and strong Catholic woman. At the age of 12 Rutilio was noticed by Archbishop Luis Chavez y Gonzalez during his annual visit to their village and was invited to attend the high school seminary in San Salvador, the capital of the country.


At the age of 17, following the final year of high school seminary (minor seminary), Grande entered the Jesuit process of formation called the novitiate. Thus began a period of time outside of El Salvador. Grande first traveled to Caracas, Venezuela, since there was no Jesuit novitiate in Central America.

Initially, Rutilio felt called to the missions of the Church in Asia. After two years in Caracas, he pronounced his vows and then traveled to Quito, Ecuador to study the humanities, which he completed in 1950. The following three years were spent as a professor in a minor seminary in El Salvador where he taught sacred history, history of the Americas, the history of El Salvador, and writing.


Rutilio was trained at the seminary of San José de la Montaña, where he became friends with Oscar Romero, a fellow student. Grande was ordained a priest in 1959, and went on to study abroad, mainly in Spain. He returned to El Salvadorin 1965 and was appointed director of social action projects at the seminary in San Salvador, a position he held for nine years. From 1965 to 1970 he was also prefect of discipline and professor of pastoral theology in the diocesan seminary. Father Rutilio  was master of ceremonies at Father Romero’s installation as bishop of Santiago de María in 1975.

Father Grande returned to Spain in 1962 to complete studies left undone due to his physical and mental struggles and in 1963 he finished a course of studies on Vatican II and the new directions in pastoral ministry at the Lumen Vitae Institute in Brussels, Belgium. He was particularly influenced by his experiences of an inclusive liturgy which insisted upon the widest and deepest lay participation possible at that time.

He served as prefect of theology from 1965 to 1966 in the major seminary. There he taught a variety of subject including liturgy, catechesis, pastoral theology, and introduction to the mystery of Christ (philosophy). He also fully utilized the social sciences in an effort to understand the reality within which he lived and ministered. 

During this time, Father Rutilio  initiated a process of formation for seminarians which included pastoral “immersions” in the communities they would someday serve. This included time with people listening to their problems and their reality. He said, “the first contact with the people was to be characterized by a human encounter; to try to enter into their reality in order to leave with a common reality.”

This innovative aspect of formation lasted for a year or two, and then the Bishops asked that seminarians be sent back to their dioceses during their breaks so they could be supervised and relationships with the Bishop could be better established. Father Rutiloio Grande eventually had a falling out with the leadership of the seminary over his methods for formation and evangelization. He disagreed with the insistence that seminarians separate their intellectual formation from their pastoral formation. Grande wanted equilibrium between prayer, study and apostolic activity, and this equilibrium was not accepted by the traditional Church of El Salvador.

While deeply engaged in the lives of the people he served, he led with the Gospel but did not shy away from speaking on social and political issues, which had profound consequences for the Church. Father Rutilio could be credited with promoting a “pastoral” liberation ministry that began in scripture and allowed lay people in El Salvadorto work for social transformation without resorting to Marxism.

All over El Salvador one finds these murals


Father Grande challenged the government in its response to actions he saw as attempts to harass and silence Salvadoran priests.

He was prophetic on issues of land reform, the relationship of rich and poor, liturgical inclusiveness, workers’ rights and making the Catholic faith real for very poor people. He was fond of saying that “the Gospel must grow little feet” if Christ is not to remain in the clouds. He  was a friend and confidant of  Bl. Oscar Romero whom he inspired through his ministry, and the ultimate sacrifice he made. On March 12, 1977  Father Rutilio Grande was assassinated by the security forces of El Salvador, just outside the village he was born in, suffering martyrdom for the people he served and loved.

Immediately, the news of these murders was transmitted to Archbishop Oscar A. Romero as well as to the Provincial of the Jesuits, who also resided in the capital. Three Jesuits from the Provincial office, Archbishop Romero, and his auxiliary Bishop Rivera y Damas all travelled to El Paisnal. At 7:00 PM President Arturo Molina called the Archbishop to offer his condolences and promise a thorough investigation.

                                                                  With Archbishop Romero

At 10:30 PM that same evening, Archbishop Romero presided over the Mass, which lasted until midnight. The next morning, responding to a radio announcement by the Archbishop, streams of peasants began walking into El Paisnal for a 9:oo AM Memorial Mass.They came from near and far to mourn the death of their beloved priest and his friends. During the final funeral procession, one that would ultimately inter these bodies in the floor of the church in El Paisnal directly in front of the altar, the slogan could be heard: “Rutilio’s walk with El Paisnal is like Christ’s journey with the cross.


Mass with Archbishop Romero
The Archbishop said: The true reason for Father Grande’s death was his prophetic and pastoral efforts to raise the consciousness of the people throughout his parish. Father Grande, without offending and forcing himself upon his flock in the practice of their religion, was only slowly forming a genuine community of faith, hope and love among them, he was making them aware of their dignity as individuals, of their basic rights as words, his was an effort toward comprehensive human development. This post-Vatican Council ecclesiastical effort is certainly not agreeable to everyone, because it awakens the consciousness of the people. It is work that disturbs many; and to end it, it was necessary to liquidate its proponent. In our case, Father Rutilio Grande.
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NEW PRIESTS- CLOSE TO HOME

May 30, 2017, 11:20 am
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Chad is bottom of photo (Stephen Brashear photo)
This is a big week for the Archdiocese of Seattle. Tomorrow, the feast of the Visitation, is the blessing of our new bishop Daniel Mueggenborg (see Blog 4/9/17)) and on Saturday the ordination to the priesthood of four young men for our Archdiocese.

It is the second straight year  that we will have four new priests, as Archbishop J. Peter Sartain ordains Deacons Chad Green, Chris Hoiland, Jeffrey Moore and Colin Parrish.

“They’re an interesting mix of personalities,” said Father Bryan Dolejsi, director of vocations, with “a diversity of different gifts and backgrounds.”

But they have some important things in common.

“All four of them have had very powerful experiences of the risen Christ,” Father Dolejsi said. “All four of them, their motivation is to really love God and love God’s people.”

And “all four of them have a heart of service — they want to really give of themselves for God’s people and help the church grow.”

Chad has a master’s in civil engineering from StanfordUniversity. He said  his favorite saint is Andre Bessette. “The rector of my residence hall at Notre Dame told us to remember that a future saint used to stay here in this building. That was Brother Andre,  from Montreal, who stayed there several times when he visited his Holy Cross brothers in Indiana in the early 1900s. Living there for three years made me feel a bond with Brother Andre, and I began to learn more about his life."



We feel we have a connection to at least one of these young men,  as last year Chad made a retreat with us and two of his fellow seminarians  (Mt. Angel Abbey, OR) before their ordination to the deaconate.  Bill & Nathan are from the archdiocese of San Diego and will be present to Chad’s ordination on Saturday. They will then come for a few days to our monastery before their own ordination to the priesthood on June 9th. 

We have had many seminarians come for retreats over the years but some remain on your heart, and these young men are at the top of the list. Their obvious love of Christ in the Eucharist and great devotion to His Mother touched all who met them.  We pray that they will continue to grow in this love, spreading it to all they minister to in their priestly lives.
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NEW AMERICAN MISSIONARY SAINT

June 3, 2017, 10:44 am
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We start the month of June with some American missionaries who have been declared Servants of God. They all set an example for us, and the world, as they gave their lives in service of others.

SERVANT of GOD FATHER JOSEPH CAPPEL died on May 31, 2004 in Curepto, Chile. He was 95 years old and a Maryknoll priest for 68 years.

Joseph Henry Cappel was born in Covington, Kentucky on November 16, 1908, son of Joseph and Eleanora Farfsing Cappel, he has six brothers, one of whom wa also a Maryknoll priest, Father Charles Cappel.

He attended St. Matthew’s grade school in Norwood and graduated from St. Mary’s high school in Cincinnatiin 1927. He attended the University of Dayton in Ohiofor two years before beginning studies to be a Cincinnati diocesan priest at St. Gregory’s Seminary. He entered Maryknoll in 1931 and was ordained in 1935.

After ordination Father Cappel was assigned to Masan and then to Chinnampo Mission, Peng Yang, North Korea, and in 1937 transferred to the Chu Ko Chin Mission, in a mountainous area near the Yalu River. In 1941, he was interned by the Japanese and returned to the United States. The following year, he was assigned to Chillan, Chile, and appointed Group Superior for the Region. In 1944, he was appointed second assistant to the Society Superior, and pastor of Parroquia San Vincente in Chile.


In 1947, he served for a year in the United States as assistant spiritual director at Maryknoll Seminary in Ossining, New York, returning to Chile in 1948, as assistant pastor of the Catholic parish in Temuco.

In 1949, he was made pastor of Parroquia De Nuestra Senora Del Rosario in Curepto, an extensive parish with a grade school, an asylum and five mission chapels. Father Joseph was beloved by the people,  traveling by bicycle to serve all their needs.

Thirteen more chapels have developed since he first went there. Father Cappel continued to serve in that parish until his death in 2004.

The funeral  Mass was held in the Plaza due to the great number (3,500) of people in attendance. The Bishop of Talca presided and forty priests concelebrated.




"It is an absolute necessity to keep constant close contact with the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ as a sure way to discern the opportunities that can build the kingdom of God," Father Cappel said at his Golden Jubilee.
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MARYKNOLL FOUNDRESS

June 7, 2017, 9:57 am
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1941 At Her Desk


Our Last Blog dealt with a member of Maryknoll.  This Blog  introduces the foundress of the women's branch of that missionary order.

SERVANT of GOD MOTHER MARY JOSEPH ROGERS was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1882. Mollie was the fourth child and first daughter in a family of eight. Mary Josephine attended public schools in Boston, then SmithCollegein Northampton, Massachusetts, where she specialized in zoology, graduating in 1905. She also spent a year at BostonNormal Schoolin a special program for college graduates that earned her a teaching certificate. After two years at SmithCollege, where she was an assistant in the biology department, she taught in Boston’s public schools, at both the elementary and high school levels. 

At the suggestion of Elizabeth Hanscom, a faculty member, and with the encouragement of the Rev. James A. Walsh, director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Boston, Mary Josephine organized a Mission Study Club for the college’s Catholic students in 1906. From 1908, when she returned to Bostonuntil 1912, she devoted her spare time to assisting Father Walsh in the work of mission education–editing, translating and writing for The Field Afar, a mission magazine begun by Father Walsh in 1907 and now called Maryknoll.


In 1911, Father Walsh and Father Thomas Frederick Price, a seasoned home missioner in North Carolina, were commissioned by the Bishops of the United States to begin a seminary to train American young men for mission service abroad. Later that year, they went to New York to make their foundation, the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, more commonly known as the MARYKNOLL Fathers and Brothers.

Mary Josephine was not able to go with the first small group of three women who offered their services to the young organization. But in September 1912, when the family obligations that prevented her from leaving Bostonhad been satisfied, she joined them in their temporary home in Hawthorne, New York.

Secretaries (First Maryknoll Sisters) -  MMJ front 2nd from right

 Mary Josephine was chosen by Father Walsh and the “secretaries,” as they were called, to direct the group under Father Walsh’s guidance. She continued in that capacity until 1920, when the group, then numbering 35, was recognized as a diocesan religious congregation: the Foreign Mission Sisters of St. Dominic, generally called the Maryknoll Sisters.


At the first General Chapter in 1925, Mary Josephine was elected Mother General. Mother Mary Joseph (her religious name) was re-elected to that office at subsequent General Chapters until her retirement in 1946 at the age of 64.  At that time the Congregation numbered 733, and the Sisters were working in China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Panama, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, as well as with ethnic and racial groups in the United States. When she sent the first sisters to Chinaon mission, she followed them spending several months immersed in the culture, experiencing the hardships, and learning firsthand the ways of a new culture.

From the beginning, she accepted sisters from any culture of the world where Maryknoll worked. That represented an amazing openness to other races and cultures for the time.

1923 Departure for China

The reverence and esteem for Mother Mary Joseph extended far beyond the religious community she founded, as is shown by the honorary degrees which were bestowed on her: Doctor of Laws by Regis College in Boston in 1945 and Trinity College in Washington D.C., in 1949 and Doctor of Letters from her alma mater, Smith College, in 1950.

Manila, Philippines  194

The Maryknoll Sisters became a Pontifical Institute in 1954 and the name of the Congregation was changed to Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic.


Mother Mary Joseph died in 1955.  She often spoke of the Maryknoll Spirit “as being a reflection of the love of God, nothing more nor less than that, a reflection of the love of God.” 


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MISSIONARY BISHOP

June 10, 2017, 1:56 pm
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June, with no laid out plan, seems to be dedicated to missionaries, who were from the USA, or served here and lived within our lifetime.  This next was also a Jesuit. 

SERVANT of GOD BISHOP ENRIQUE SAN PEDRO, SJ was  a native of Cubaand a former missionary. He became the fourth bishop of the Brownsville Diocese (Texas).

He was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1926, where he lived until he left in 1946. He entered the Society of Jesus on Dec. 7, 1941 and was ordained a priest on March 18, 1957. 

Bishop San Pedro was appointed the first Hispanic auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston in 1986-  until 1991. At the time of his ordination as bishop, he was only the third Jesuit to be named a bishop in the United States.

Prior to his ordination as a priest in 1957, he received a master’s degree in Classical Literature from St. Stanislaus College, Salamanca, Spain in 1947, and a Licentiate in philosophy from the Pontifical University of Comillas, Santander, Spainin 1950.

Bishop San Pedro continued his studies earning a Licentiate in Theology from the Leopold-FranzensUniversity, Innsbruck, Austria in 1958 and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the same university in 1965. He also did postgraduate work at the Franz-JosephUniversity in Vienna, Austria from 1958-1959. From 1960 to 1964 he attended the Pontifical Biblical Institute where he obtained the Licentiate in Holy Scripture in 1962 and finished the following year as a candidate for the doctorate in Rome.

Bishop San Pedro spoke seven languages and served as a missionary in the Philippines and China.

Following his studies, he taught at various universities until this appointment as auxiliary bishop of the Galveston-Houston Diocese. He was in Vietnam from 1963 to 1975 but left because of the Communist takeover. He also served in Suva, Fiji, 1978-1980; and Boynton Beach, Florida, 1981-1985.

Lydia Pesina, director of the Family Life Office, said Bishop San Pedro “was an educator ‘par excellence.’ In the tradition of the Jesuits, he believed in education and formation for all involved in parish ministries.”


Bishop San Pedro had few possessions other than his books, as he was an avid reader, learner, and teacher. He said that he read whenever he had a chance such as waiting at airports.

He quipped that he gave his day to service to the Lord, but after his night-time prayers he would say something like, “I did what I could today for your people, but now I leave them in your hands, Lord; I am going to bed.”

In March 1993, Bishop San Pedro was part of a bishop’s delegation to address the United Nations on the plight of refugees, many of whom had been sent from south Florida to his diocese.

Bishop San Pedro, age 68, died of cancer on July 17, 1994, in Miami Beach, Fla.He was buried in a section reserved for bishops and priests in the Catholic cemetery “Our Lady of Mercy” in Miami.

Bishop San Pedro’s motto: “Most gladly I will spend myself and be spent for your sakes.” – 2 Corinthians 12:15
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UPDATE ON NEW BLESSED LAY WOMAN

June 13, 2017, 11:37 am
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Last April 30 (2016) I introduced a laywoman who can be an example to all called to sanctity in the Church.  She was a  Benedictine Oblate. On June 10 of this year she was beatified in her native town of La Spezia, Italy.






Following the recitation of the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square on June 11, Trinity Sunday, Pope Francis said that BL. ITALA MELAgrew up in a family that was far from the faith. In her youth she professed herself  an atheist after the death of a brother. She later converted following an intense spiritual experience. She was committed among Catholic university students; then she became a Benedictine Oblate and undertook a mystical journey focused on the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity taking the name Maria of the Blessed Trinity.


“May the testimony of the new Blessed encourage us, during our days, to turn our thought often to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who dwells in the cell of our heart.”
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CHURCH UNITY FOUNDER

June 16, 2017, 10:48 am
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SERVANT of GOD FATHER PAUL WATTSON was born in  Maryland in 1863 to a devout Episcopalian family. His father was an Episcopalian priest.  He himself was ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in 1886; but he was deeply influenced by the life of St. Francis of Assisi.  He saw a need for a preaching order which emphasized service to the poor; he also sought to repair the breach which divided Christianity.

In 1900, Father Wattson was professed as a Franciscan friar in the Episcopal church, bringing  with him a number of other people.  Nine years later, in 1909, Father Wattson–together with his Friars and Sisters of the Atonement, was received into the Roman Catholic Church.  The group was the first religious community to be received corporately into the Catholic Church since the Reformation.

He was ordained to the Catholic priesthood by Archbishop John M. Farley in 1910.

Among his many contributions to the faith, Father Paul founded St. Christopher’s Inn, a refuge for homeless men, The Lamp, a monthly magazine devoted to Christian unity and the missions, The Ave Maria Hour, a radio program that broadcast stories about the life of Christ and the lives of the Saints, and the Union-That-Nothing-Be-Lost, an organization founded in 1903 to disperse donations to other charitable organizations.  

He began the Church Unity Octave, commonly known among Catholics as the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, in 1907, before he had been received into the Catholic Church.  He also co-founded the Catholic Near East Welfare Association.



The friars continue their focus on ecumenical work. In this many serve as resource people to dioceses throughout the world. 

Their motherhouse continues to be Graymoor in the United States, but they have houses in Brazil, Canada Italy, and the United Kingdom. As well as running parishes in the United States, the Friars are engaged in ministry to those in prison, in hospitals and in nursing homes.

The Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement have established catechetical and daycare centers all over North America, serving rural communities throughout the western United States and Canada, as well as inner city locales, such as Harlem in New York City. Several accompanied the Japanese-American communities they served into the forced resettlement conducted during World War II. Today, the Sisters serve in the United States, Canada, Italy, Japan, and Brazil.


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ANOTHER SAINT FROM TENNESSEE

June 21, 2017, 9:36 am
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On 3/12/17 we introduced Servant of God Isaac Hecker from Tennessee and now another has been introduced from that same state.

SERVANT of GOD FATHER PATRICK RYAN was born in Tipperary, Ireland, in 1845. He was of a good family, but his parents were evicted from their home by a ruthless landlord and forced to emigrate. They settled in New York. Pursuing his desire to be a priest, he entered St. Vincent's college, Cape Girardeau, Missouri  in 1866,  Although he was no genius, says one of his schoolmates, he was one of the soundest and most reliable students in the seminary and was noted for his common sense.  He excelled in athletics, and few could equal him in hand ball.

Father Ryan served as pastor of Saints Peter and Paul parish (now a Basilica) in Chattanooga from 1872 to 1878 and was instrumental in founding Notre Dame High School in 1876.

Father Ryan had already faced many difficulties in his administration of the parish.  When he arrived the city was just recovering from a series of disastrous fires that had destroyed much of the business  district. A cholera epidemic threatened the population in 1873. In 1875 a big flood came.  And now the horrible "yellow jack" appeared on the scene!


Because it had escaped previous visitations of the plague, Chattanooga considered itself protected by its mountains.   In offering hospitality to people of neighboring cities, where the fever has broken out, it gave refugees a chance to introduce the scourge within its own limits.

In September 1878, a yellow fever epidemic broke out in Chattanooga, in which 366 locals died. Four-fifths of the population fled from the city, but Father Ryan remained “going from house to house in the worst-infected section of the city to find what he could do for the sick and needy.” He himself became ill on September 26 and died on September 28. The heroic priest died September 28, after having received the last sacraments from the hands of his younger brother, the Reverend Michael Ryan.  Father Michael, who had just ordained, had come to Chattanooga a few days before to spend a short vacation with his brother.  The shock of his brother's tragic death so undermined the young priest's health that, after a few years service in Nashville, he retired to St. Louis, where he died shortly afterwards.

In 1886 when his body was transferred to the new Mount Olivet Cemetery, the city turned out in force to honor his memory. The funeral procession included more than 100 carriages.
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BENEDICTINE PATRONESS OF SKIN DISORDERS

June 24, 2017, 10:29 am
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As we hit summer with soaring temperatures, our skin can take a beating from the sun and insects. For myself I would rather have pain than an itch. I am reminded of this holy nun of our order who suffered much, and gave it all for others.


SERVANT of GOD SISTER MARY ANNELLA ZERVASwas born in Moorhead, Minnesotain 1900.  She was an American Benedictine nun who died after a three-year battle with the skin disease Pityriasis rubra pilaris. Prior to the 1960s, Sister Annella's grave in St. Joseph, Minnesota was considered a place of pilgrimage.

Her father, immigrant from the village of Immekeppel, Germany, was a butcher and ran a local meat market. Her mother, Emma was born in Saint-Theodore-d'Acton, Quebec.

Anna was raised as part of a large family which attended St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Moorhead, where her father was the choir director and a member of the Knights of Columbus. At the time, the parochial school from St. Mary's was looked after by priests and nuns of the Benedictine Order. According to Father Alfred Mayer, O.S.B.,"She sought only to please God and do His Holy Will in all things, and thence labored but for God's honor and glory. She sought to please God by an ardent desire and an earnest will to acquire virtue and perfection, a total renunciation and forgetfulness  of the world and its vanities, and an invincible fortitude in her sufferings... It was during the summer vacation of 1915 that she one day called on me and expressed to me her desire of going to the convent at St. Joseph and becoming a sister. I told her that I thought she had a religious vocation and advised her to carry out her holy design. She seemed to be so convinced of her religious vocation that she expressed no doubts or fears regarding it. After I had spoken some words of encouragement and explained to her, in short, the excellence of the religious state, she left happy and contented."

Hubert and Emma Zervas were reportedly very reluctant to part with their daughter at such a young age. Father Alfred, however, advised them, "Don't put anything in her way; she is not too young to give herself to God." Hubert Zervas wrote several years later that he and his wife had then "gladly consented to give back the child to Him from Whom they had received her."

Anna entered Saint Benedict's Monastery as a postulant in 1915 and entered the novitiate in 1918. She was remembered as a quiet and unassuming nun who was fond of reading The Following of Christ by Geert Groote.

In 1918, she received the habit in a ceremony conducted by Bishop Joseph Francis Busch of St. Cloud, Minnesota. This was the day which Anna had so eagerly awaited; in a simple, beautiful ceremony, she exchanged her bridal gown for the religious habit. Her expression of happiness upon returning from the sanctuary that day was termed 'angelic' by one eyewitness.

Anna rushed to tell her parents her new religious name, Sister Mary Annella. Her mother remarked, not unkindly, 'But there is no Saint Annella,' to which Sister Annella, concealing her slight disappointment at this reaction to the name by which she would henceforth be known, replied, 'Then I shall have to be the first one!'" She took her final vows in 1922 and was assigned as a music teacher and organist to St. Mary's Convent in Bismarck, North Dakota.
During the summer of 1923, Sister Annella noticed a small reddish brown patch on her arm which itched terribly. Despite attempts to quietly bear the disease, the spreading rash soon proved impossible to conceal and soon covered the majority of her body.



In April 1924, her parents were summoned to her hospital bedside. When her mother reached the door, she looked in, but she said, ‘I looked in and I saw someone’s head on the pillow and I thought, oh, it can’t be.’ She didn’t even ask, she just turned to Sister Annella and said, ‘Excuse me, I got the wrong room.’ And Annella broke down; she just screamed, ‘Mama, don’t you know me?!’ Mother said never could she have dreamed that she could change that much in that time. She said she though she was seeing an old man. Her hair was nearly all gone and her face looked terrible, blotchy. She said, ‘I couldn’t ever believe that my Annie could look like that.’

After their shock wore off, Hubert Zervas recalled, "Her parents were highly edified at her composure, her resignation to her condition… [and] her joyful bearing of an affliction sent by a loving Providence. They remained with her two days, and had many good laughs at Sister Annella’s witty remarks."
In June 1924, Sister Annella was transferred to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. According to Brendan D. King,

In Rochester, the doctors noticed that, as she undressed, Sister Annella’s skin was exfoliating in a manner similar to falling snow. After carefully comparing her symptoms against the rare diseases in obscure medical textbooks, the doctors reached a verdict. Sister Annella was suffering from Pityriasis Rubra Pilaris, a skin condition so rare that only six other cases were known to exist in the entire United States. P.R.P., as it is known for short, is an inherited disease usually passed down from parent to child. In the most serious cases, the skin becomes overactive and is unable to regenerate. The blood vessels dilate, which causes the body to hemorrhage moisture. This leaves the weakened immune system quite vulnerable to secondary infections. In some cases, P.R.P. can be fatal. 

After her diagnosis, Sister Annella was transferred to the WorrellHospital, where all skin diseases were treated. She was given a great deal of rest and fed a special diet consisting mainly of fish and vegetables. Every one of her nurses expressed revulsion at the task of changing her bandages and asked to be reassigned. There was little improvement, however. Sister Annella’s skin had grown so sensitive that lukewarm water seemed scalding hot. By the beginning of June, a grayish purple coloring began spreading outward from her face. Even hot packs could not stop her teeth from chattering. With the period of examination over, Sister Annella was transferred to St. Raphael’s Hospital in St. Cloud.
During the worst fits of pain, however, Sister Annella would repeat, "Yes, Lord, send me more pain, but give me strength to bear it.”

 In the summer of 1924, with permission from the Mother Abbess,  the Zervases took Sister Annella home to care for her.  This in no way altered her status as a religious sister, as the abbess remained carefully informed of Sister Annella's condition. Furthermore, the Benedictine nuns visited regularly, regarding Sister Annella as a part of their community.

In the fall of 1924, careful dieting and osteopathic treatments brought about a remission of Sister Annella's symptoms. Her family was certain that it was only a matter of time before Sister Annella experienced a complete cure and the remission of her symptoms. Sister Annella, however, was unconvinced. She told her mother, “When this disease leaves me, God will have taken it away and he will not want me to have it anymore. I do not want anything but what God wills. God did not see fit to answer the Little Flower's prayer with a sudden cure. What He has in store for me, I do not know, but all He does is well, so there is no need to worry. God has given me the grace to be resigned, and I thank him heartily for this, but also for all else He has given me with my illness.”

In the summer of 1926, the disease returned full force. As a novena was offered for her at Our Lady of Victory Basilica in Lackawanna, New York, her condition seemed to enter its final phase. According to Hubert Zervas,"Lying on her left side, her head slightly bent forward, her eyes partly open, her mouth... drawn in a faint smile, her knees bent, the entire form presenting a picture like the stations where Our Lord lies prostrate under the cross, Sister Annella peacefully breathed her last on the Vigil of the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 14, 1926. 

 Within seven months of her burial at St. Benedict's Convent, Bishop Joseph Busch was hearing rumors of cures and favors granted through Sister Annella's intercession. He asked Father Alexius Hoffmann, OSB, St. John's Abbey, to collect information on 'the circumstances of her sickness and death and the origin and progress of the cultus, if any, in her regard and any evidences there may be of miraculous intervention through her intercession.

"In April 1927, Father Alexius reported to Bishop Busch that five cures had been reported. He also submitted a biographical sketch written by Sister Annella's parents. While there is no evidence that Bishop Busch took further steps in the case, devotion to Sister Annella spread through the efforts of her father and a priest from St. John's Abbey, Father Joseph Kreuter, O.S.B. Interest in Sister Annella dwindled during the 1960s, but she still has some fans. At least one of them, no one seems to know who, puts flowers on her grave regularly. 

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OLR NUN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

July 1, 2017, 1:24 pm
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The desire to leave something of ourselves behind to the next generation is part of the human condition. We ask, what will I be remembered for? The saints are remembered for their holiness which was witnessed by many in their times.  Some wrote of their lives, others had someone write about them (eg. St. Marianne of Molokai). 



Whatever it is, we want a part of the life we lived, the work we did to be handed down. Sometimes I ask myself, I do this now, I save this, but who in the next generation will pick it up? Will it be worth anything? I think of our Mother Jerome who left  perhaps thousands of pages and notes of her many works, from herbs and poetry to Christology. You might have to write your memoirs to ensure that the answer to both questions is the same.

One of our nuns here at Our Lady of the Rock has written her own life, which stands as a memorial of her own giveness to us and others.

I quote the back cover:

THE CHORD OF LONGING explores a musical scholar’s search for meaning, love, and acceptance through decades as a single mother, a Marxist, a musician, and finally, a member of a monastic community. In frank and honest language, Mother Felicitas explains how that long search led her through extraordinary pain and difficulty, profound questioning, and finally toward everlasting and perfect love. The title is based on a chord of yearning—the famous chord that begins Wagner’s opera, Tristan and Isolde. Writes the author: “This chord’s dissonance, this tension, demands to be resolved.” It is the perfect metaphor to describe her own quest for resolution, beautifully described in this personal tale of tribulation and transcendence.

Mother Felicitas teaching Cate herbs


Mother Felicitas Curti, OSB, PhDin musicology and scholar of Gregorian chant, lives in a small monastic community on a remote island in WashingtonStatetending an herb garden and spreading joy with her violin playing and musical teachings. The path that took her to this Benedictine community and spiritual fulfillment is both rocky and remarkable. She was a rebellious child, bohemian teenager, and, in her twenties, a political revolutionary, publishing articles in radical socialist papers and journals. In her thirties she explored the New Age culture while raising two sons and teaching music history and theory in college. Always, she was questioning everything, especially herself. Her passion for a more just society and for an abundant, pure love guided her even as her life began unraveling around her—a life she examines with an open heart and
unflinching eye in her riveting memoir, The Chord of Longing.

 Her book is available at Amazon.






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AN ARTIST OF PRAYER

July 5, 2017, 10:44 am
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It never ceases to amaze me how many interesting Catholic artists of the past there are that I have never heard of who were famous in their time. One such is JOHANNES (JAN) TOOROP, who  was born  in 1858 in Purworejo on the island ofJava in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia).  His father was Christoffel Theodorus Toorop, a civil servant, and his mother was Maria Magdalena Cooke.  He was the third of five children and lived on the island of Bangka near Sumatra until he was nine years old. He was then sent to school in Batavia on Java.

In 1869 he left Indonesia for the Netherlands, where he studied in Delft and Amsterdam. In 1880 he became a student at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. From 1882 to 1886 he lived in Brussels where he joined Les XX (Les Vingts), a group of artists centered on James Ensor. Johannes worked in various styles during these years, such as Realism, Impressionism Neo-Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. I found many images where people are praying, some of which I think his strongest works.


The Prayer
The Nun
After his marriage to Annie Hall, a British woman, in 1886, Johannes alternated his time between The Hague, Englandand Brussels, and after 1890 also the Dutch seaside town of Katwijk aan Zee. During this period he developed his unique Symbolist style, with dynamic, unpredictable lines based on Javanese motifs, highly stylized willowy figures, and curvilinear designs.


In the late 19th century (1897) he lived for 20 years in a small house in the seaside town,  Domburg, Walcheren, Zeeland. He worked with a group of fellow artists, including Marinus Zwart and Piet Mondrian. There was no joint endeavor or common style among them. Each followed his individual personality, but they sought their inspiration in "the Zeeland Light", in the dunes, forests, beaches and the characteristic Zeeland population. Johannes was the center of this group.

Prayer


After this he turned to Art Nouveau styles, in which a similar play of lines is used for decorative purposes, without any apparent symbolic meaning. In 1905, together with his daughter Charley, he converted to Catholicism and began producing religious works. He also created book illustrations, posters, and stained glass designs.The overture for his move was made in the preceding years, as he joined a circle of Catholic creatives who called themselves De Violier. Having converted to Catholicism, the latter years of his life and career were focused on making pieces that correlated to his faith.

 Among the few official commissions he received from the Catholic Church in Holland were designs for stained glass windows in the St. JosephChurchin Nijmegen, executed in 1913, as well as a series of paintings of the Stations of the Cross for the church of St. Bernulphusin Oosterbeek, begun in 1916 and completed in 1919. By this time he was in poor health, however, and by 1920 was largely confined to a wheelchair, with his left leg paralyzed. Nevertheless, he continued to work effectively, producing numerous drawings and prints. 

Stigmata

Throughout his life Johannes also produced portraits, in sketch format and as paintings, which range in style from highly realistic to impressionistic.  He was a superb portraitist, and produced a large number of drawn and painted portraits of family, friends and fellow artists, as well as many portraits - usually in the form of highly finished drawings - of some of the leading Dutch writers, poets, clergymen, politicians, lawyers, musicians, composers and intellectuals of his day. 

Johannes Toorop may justifiably be claimed as one of the finest Dutch portraitists of the early 20th century in  the period between Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) and Piet Mondriaan (1872- 1944). He died on 3 March 1928 in The Hague in the Netherlands. His daughter Charley Toorop (1891–1955) was also a painter, as was his grandson Edgar Fernhout.


Shepherd





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BENEDICTINES AND PERPETUAL ADORATION

July 9, 2017, 10:03 pm
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Mother Nicola Golden Jubilee- Peru


Mother  Marie Adele
Recently I heard from my Benedictine nuns in Sechura, Peru. Their Mother Abbess from Englandwas making a visitation.  Their foundress MOTHER MARIE ADELE GARNIERhas been made a Servant of God and evidence for her cause is being gathered.


Mother Marie Adela Garnier was born on August 15, 1838, in Grancey-le-Chateau, in northeastern France (Burgandy). She had three sisters and one brother. For many years she taught as a governess and was greatly loved and esteemed by both parents and children.  From her youth she felt deeply the love of Christ touching her heart, drawing her to surrender herself totally to him. Her devotion to the Eucharistic Christ became the center of her spiritual life.

The Eucharist, the Sacrament and Sacrifice of the love of Christ, and the Sacred Heart, symbol of the love human and divine of Christ for his Father and for all humanity, could never be separated in the soul of Marie Adèle.

Early in her life, she had a vision of Jesus in a Host given to her during Communion, which affected her for the rest of her life. In 1885,  Marie Adèle sought to live this Eucharistic life as a solitary at Montmartre in Paris. Her health failed and she was obliged to abandon this way of life.


Several years later the Lord called her to establish a religious family consecrated to the worship and praise of the Holy Trinity through liturgical prayer and Eucharistic adoration in the contemplative life. She founded her Congregation - the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre, in 1898 at Montmartre, Paris, with the  approbation of Cardinal Richard, Archbishop of Paris. The new Community would be dedicated to the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the Monstrance.

Mother Marie Adèle  established this form of contemplative life within the monastic tradition of the Church under the Rule of St. Benedict. In 1901 the young community fled to England on account of the laws of Franceagainst religious Orders. The Foundress settled her new community at Tyburn in London, at the famous site of the martyrdom of more than 100 Catholic Reformation Martyrs.

This monastery is now the Mother House of her Congregation which has monasteries in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Italyand France.

Toward the end of her life, in 1923, she had another  vision in the Eucharist, this one of the living heart of Jesus.

Mother Marie Adèle Garnier died at Tyburn in the year 1924 renowned for holiness and virtue. She is honored and remembered especially for her heroic love of God and neighbor, her spirit of prayer, divine contemplation, rich mystical and spiritual doctrine, humility, obedience, patience, simplicity & purity of heart, and above all for her spirit of total "self-abandon" to the Holy Will of God, which she declared to be her unique good.

In a letter she had written to Father Charles Sauve she related the following:

“At the moment in which the priest took a particle of the Holy Host and put it into the chalice I raised my eyes to adore and to contemplate the holy particle…The fingers of the priest held not a white particle but a particle of striking red, the color of blood and luminous at the same time … The fingers of the priest were red on the right of the particle, as from a blood stain that seemed still wet.”

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MISSIONARIES TO OUR LADY OF THE ROCK

July 10, 2017, 9:50 am
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Father Raja
We have a unique situation with our chaplain at Our Lady of the Rock. For the first time in 40 years we will not have a resident chaplain, but one of two priests will ferry over daily to minister to us.  Both are from India, both are young and full of missionary zeal- missionaries to the USA?  Seems that parts of southern India, in this case the State of Tamil Nadu, has a “glut” of young priests.  Father Raja whom we have enjoyed for a week (priests will alternate weeks) says he is number 52 of 73 priests from his parish church of  the Sacred Heart in the  village” of Sindalacherry. This small city, which is very lovely beneath mountains has over 1,000 Catholic families. In fact the whole town is Catholic. 


Father Watson



Father Raja and Father Watson, who is from the same state, but a large city  (Vellore), do not even speak the same dialect, so speak English to one another. While  separate in language, they are from the same religious order- and a new one at that. 


HERALDS of GOOD NEWS is a Missionary Society of Apostolic Life, started in Eluru diocese, India on 14th October 1984. It became an Institute of Pontifical Right on May 5, 1999. The specific aim of the Society is the promotion of vocations to priesthood, the training of seminarians and the supply of zealous and hardworking missionaries to India and abroad in places which experience a shortage of priests due to the lack of local vocations.




Heralds of Good News Missionary Society was founded by Rev. Dr. Jose Kaimlett in 1984 with the approval and blessings of  Rt. Rev. Dr. John Mulagada, Bishop of Eluru. For the better administration of the Society, it was divided into four Provinces, namely St. PaulProvince, Mary Queen of ApostlesProvince, MotherTheresaProvinceand St. JohnPaulIIProvince. Today, each province functions independently, taking care of its members and bringing about new initiatives for the greater Glory of God and Salvation of souls.


As Father Jose continued his priestly ministry and mission, he realized that the priests alone could not do all the work needed to meet the needs of the poor, the sick and education. He realized that there is a tremendous need for women religious. Being fully aware of the increasing shortage of vocations to religious life especially in the Western countries, Father Kaimlett started a missionary society for women in the year 1992 in the diocese of Eluru.


Over the years  the society has made rapid progress both in the number of sisters and their activities. At present  they have 16 communities serving in seven dioceses in India, 7 communities serving in 5 dioceses in Italyand another community in Tanzania. Through the guidance and direction of Father Jose they are also serve the poorest of the poor, marginalized and other sections of the society by imparting value based education to people even  in the remotest areas.

Father Watson is the priest administrator of our whole county- sounds big, but not many Catholics- so we really are mission country!  We pray the joy these two priests exude may spread rapidly to our  faith "poor" islands!


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GETTING TO HEAVEN

July 13, 2017, 1:35 pm
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Tapestry of  Saints- Cathedral in Los Angeles


Yesterday on the feast of St. Benedict, the Holy Father decreed that ‘offering of life’ is path to sainthood. 

Pope Francis has issued an apostolic letter decreeing that the oblatio vitae—the “offering of life”—has joined martyrdom and the heroic exercise of the virtues as a recognized path to beatification and canonization in the Church. Ah ha I said: one more way to become a saint, but alas it seems no easier than martyrdom!

The title of the apostolic letter, Maiorem hac dilectionem (“Greater love than this”), is a reference to Christ’s words in St. John’s Gospel (“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” 15:13).

The faithful who “have voluntarily and freely offered their lives for others and have persevered until death in this intention are worthy of special esteem and honor,” the Pope wrote in his motu proprio.


The Pope wrote that five conditions must be met for a Servant of God’s beatification under this category:


Br. Mickey McGrath
“the free and voluntary offering of one’s life and the heroic acceptance, on account of charity, of a certain and near death”

a link between the offering of life and a premature death

at least an ordinary exercise of the Christian virtues before and after the offering of life

the existence, after death, of a reputation of sanctity and of (potentially miraculous) signs

a miracle obtained through the Servant of God’s intercession


The Pope’s letter follows a September 2016 meeting of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, whose members offered a favorable opinion on the question of whether the offering of life should become a new official path to beatification.

Still a lot of work to become a saint!





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THE HEART OF THE PRIESTHOOD

July 15, 2017, 10:42 am
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If you are afraid of love, don’t ever become a priest, and don’t ever celebrate Mass.  The Mass will cause a torrent of interior suffering to pour down upon your soul, with one purpose only– to break you in half, so that all the people of the world can enter into your heart.”  - Thomas Merton



Having our two new young priests who minister to us, makes me see the need to do more for our them and other priests. In recent Blogs we introduced the new priests of our Archdiocese. One, will come next week to say Mass for us and give us his blessing.

There was recently an article in Mother Dilecta’s Catholic paper regarding the increase of priestly vocations. I think I have said in the past that where there is Eucharistic adoration, there is an increase in vocations to the priesthood. But as one can see by the following statistics, it takes a lot to propel one into the priesthood.

The typical member of the priestly ordinations in 2017 is a 34-year-old cradle Catholic.  This was from a recently released survey of 444 of the 590 men slated to be ordained to the priesthood in the United States. The survey was conducted for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.



The typical ordinand also prayed the Rosary and regularly took part in Eucharistic adoration before entering seminary. 77% of the men were preparing for the diocesan priesthood. Among religious ordinations, the Jesuits (27 men), Dominicans (12), and Capuchin Franciscans (8) have the largest ordination classes. (Where are the Benedictines?)

25% of the ordinands are foreign born, with the most typical foreign countries of birth being Mexico (4%), Vietnam (3%), the Philippines(2%), and Colombia(2%). On average, these foreign-born seminarians have lived in the United States for 12 years and arrived in the US at age 25.

50% attended Catholic elementary school,  41% a Catholic high school or Catholic college (40%).  70% of ordinands are white, 14% are Latino, 10% are Asian, and 4% are black. 7% are converts, with the average age of reception into the Church being 21. 35% have a relative who was a priest or religious and in 80% of cases, both parents were Catholic.

69% prayed the Rosary, and 77% regularly participated in Eucharistic adoration before entering the seminary.

Ordinands typically first began to consider the priesthood at 16. 70% were encouraged by a parish priest to consider a vocation; 45% were encouraged by a friend, 44% by a parishioner, 40% by their mother, and 32% by their father.


43% had earned their undergraduate degree before entering seminary, and 16% had earned a graduate degree. 57% worked full time before entering seminary. 48% took part in a parish youth group, 31% took part in Boy Scouts, and 23% took part in the Knights of Columbusor Knights of St. Peter Claver.

15% took part in a World Youth Day.  75% had served as altar servers, 52% as readers, and 43% as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion before entering seminary.



A lot of statistics, but it is obvious that a vocation must be nourished if it is to flourish.
Eucharistic devotions such as adoration and visits to the Blessed Sacrament
are forms of prayer that increase our interior union with Christ. They help us gain
more benefits from the Mass and deepen our desire to serve others. and open our heart to the Heart of Christ.

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BIRD BRAINS- NEVER CHEAT A RAVEN!

July 18, 2017, 4:15 pm
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 My friends the ravens and crows  have been back in the news of late-  new research, new people interested in their antics, new books, etc.  Just this past week  The Week       had a two  page article  ("What a Crow Knows") about the on-going  research at UW (Univ. of Washington in Seattle) and always, Dr. John Marzluff (see Blogs Jan. 2013,  May & Aug. 2012), who once helped my 4H kids with their crow project, is featured.

Seems scientists in other parts of the world have taken an interest in the intelligence of these creatures, further demonstrating that they (not the scientists) are known for their
exceptional intelligence and ability to co-operate.

In 2015 scientists from the University of Vienna discovered that the birds will punish those who don't play fair. It is the first time this type of behavior, akin to social policing, has been observed outside humans and other primates.


John Marzluff & friend

In the experiment, captive ravens paired up to simultaneously pull the two ends of one rope to slide a platform with two pieces of cheese into reach.
If, however, only one individual would pull, the rope would slip through the loops on the platform and the birds were left with the rope and without cheese.
Without any training the ravens spontaneously solved the task and co-operated successfully.


However, it turned out that the birds didn't all get on very well, and that they chose to work together with friends rather than with enemies. When one of the birds cheated and took not only its own reward, but also the reward of its companion, an interesting scenario arose. These cheats were far more likely to steal a reward again, and their victims were only too aware of this.

Once the raven who had missed out completed the task, they became reluctant to take part in the experiment, at least with the same individual.
This in turn deprived the cheat of the treat, providing a form of punishment. 


How ravens achieve their high levels of intelligence is still somewhat of a mystery. It is generally believed that larger brains make animals smarter, but these birds do not read the books!. 

In a series of cognitive tests carried out at LundUniversity in Sweden last year, ravens performed just as well as chimps, despite having significantly smaller brains. 

The team tested the intelligence of the birds using what's known as a 'cylinder task' which measures the animals' level of self-control, said to be a key indicator of intelligence levels.

A total of five adult ravens, 10 adult New Caledonian crows and 10 adult jackdaws took part in the study.

The results of the tests were then compared the results of a similar experiment carried out with chimps, and animal brain sizes were taken and listed. Overall, ravens were the most successful and deemed the most intelligent with a score of 100 per cent - the same result as chimps. 

We  all know the expression “bird-brain” taken to mean an annoyingly stupid and shallow person.  Well, that is certainly a misnomer, and maybe not so bad to have one!
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A BIRD'S DELIGHT BRINGS US JOY!

July 21, 2017, 12:22 pm
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While the rest of our country swelters, summer has been lagging in our islands- not that we complain- we all enjoy the cool weather, even if it means the garden's produce will be later in harvesting.  Our feathered friends have not seemed to notice, as they delight in the many colored flowers and berries.



Brilliant purple finch with berry- Our neighbor Ned Griffin photo


As I  am recovering from back surgery, one of my joys is sitting on the deck watching the many birds who come to drink and eat.  Feast indeed!


Rufous hummingbird- James Benedict Sane photo

It is hard to say, as I sit here, who are my favorites, but at this time of year it may have to be the two pair of black-headed grosbeak who come daily for the seed.

  Grosbeak

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