"In the Breaking of the Bread" Luke 24:35

PRAYER - Fr Ron Rolheiser on Prayer - 4 part series

2011-12-31T12:43:00.000-05:00

Dear Reader,

Merry Christmas! Yes, Christmas Eve and Day are past, and today we come to the end of the Octave of Christmas with the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God, but we are still in the heart of the Christmas Season as we celebrate, ponder, and contemplate deeper each day into the Mystery of our God who has come among us in the Person of the Divine Son, who is now forever also Jesus Christ, Son of Mary, Jewish man of Nazareth and Galilee, but also our Messiah, our Lord, King of Kings as so beautifully expressed by Haendel in his "Messiah" overture sung so often all over the world at this time of year.

So it is still time to wish you and your family, friends, work and school colleagues, neighbors, and even enemies, a Merry Christmas, and of course a Happy, Healthy, and Holy New Year 2012!

I am pleased to offer you the gift of a link to a wonderful 4-part reflection by Fr Ron Rolheiser, OMI, columnist and speaker, on prayer, which is so essential to our growth in faith and in a living and lively relationship with the Living God through Jesus and in the Holy Spirit.

2011-11-28 | Prayer as Seeking Depth
2011-12-04 | Praying So As Not To Lose Heart
2011-12-11 | Prayer as Seeking God's Guidance
2011-12-18 | Praying So As To See God's Glory Inside Of Humanity

As in all things given or offered to us by Jesus, it is in the actual doing of it that we can and do and will go on experiencing the benefit and the blessing. It is not enough to hear and agree, we must pass into action and practice what we have heard, not being dismayed by our emotional or intellectual impressions of inadequacy, but being content to be poor in the presence of our God, who is infinitely rich and who loves nothing more than to bestow upon us his riches and even his own self, which the Father does in offering us his Son Jesus again and again in his Living and inspired Word and in the Holy Eucharist, the gift of himself as food for our soul, food for the journey....

May you and your loved ones accept to ever dwell in the Love, Peace, and Joy which are the life of the Holy Trinity from all eternity, and into which they are drawing us, if only we continue to humbly give them our consent, as did Mary when she responded "Let it be done to me according to your word!" to the Angel Gabriel's message of proposal from Almighty God....

Fr Gilles

America is out of control

2011-08-02T11:25:00.005-04:00

So much is being made in the media of the wrangling by American legislators about their need to raise their debt ceiling that it is difficult to avoid making some comments and observations.

It appears that America - the U.S.A., the United States of America - long deemed a great nation has become a nation careening out of control and destined for a crash, a very damaging collision with unchanging realities that seems unavoidable if they continue on their present course.

It could be said that the motto of the USA or of their people is "America is the land of opportunity, the land of freedom for all where anything is possible." In their culture, in their beliefs, in their practices, and in their institutions this has come to be expressed in the avoidance of controls and restraints in order to avoid limiting those freedoms and opportunities.

A corollary belief is that Americans can accomplish anything they set their mind to do; therefore, those who do not succeed fail to succeed because of their own lack of imagination, creativity, will, discipline, or effort. It follows then, according to this generalized line of thinking, that all those who have failed, who are without work, who have lost their homes, who have lost their health, who are down and out or homeless, that is, all those who do not enjoy the full realization of the American Dream, are in that state by their own fault and only by their own fault.

That is why American culture and politics generally consider a country like Canada to be a socialist state, a short step from the Communist or Marxist states. In recent discussions about their Medicare system Americans resisted extending coverage to every citizen in the USA. There continue to be in the USA what are called working poor, those citizens and families that work one, two, even three jobs but are barely able to sustain themselves, cannot afford medical insurance, and are one hospital visit away from losing their home and being on the street.

Representatives of their association told me personally in the Fall of 2004 that there were at that time in the USA 75 million working poor, that's 75,000,000 Americans without medical coverage. I don't fully understand their system, but it seems that those who are actually poor and reliant on government welfare payments are eligible for Medicare support if they are hospitalized, but the working poor earn too much to be eligible for those benefits. The only way working people can have medical coverage is by buying medical insurance.

Not only that, but those on welfare and the working poor generally seem to have to resort to what we could call "B" hospitals - as in "B" movies - hospitals that may still come under the public system or hospitals founded and still managed by what are considered neither public nor private institutions such as the Catholic Church or other Christian churches, where funding may not be as abundant, where there may not be found all the latest in medical technologies and practices, where the best medical practitioners may not normally be found.

Since the privatization of hospitals and medical institutions in the USA the costs have increased well out of reach of ordinary citizens. Medical procedures and any hospitalizations now cost more than what ordinary people earn in a year or more. The costs have been aggravated by unrestrained technological developments and further aggravated by unrestrained exploitation by the legal system.

There seems to exist in the USA what we could call "perfect storm" conditions that came into being when unrestrained exploitation of the legal system by greedy lawyers and legal firms converged with unrestrained increases in investments in advanced medical technologies and unrestrained increases in medical profession salaries - which in turn may have been exacerbated by unrestrained increases in the salaries of athletes and entertainers - and unrestrained exploitation of the public by some medical insurance companies, who in their turn exploited with their money and power the legal system in order to refuse and wear down people who had rightful claims to medical coverage.

I would hope and do believe there are medical insurance companies out there that tend to honor their policies and do compensate claimants and avoid the shameful practices of putting them through the ringer and exploiting them in their pain and vulnerability in order to dissuade them from following through on their claim or in the hope that they may die and in that way put an end to their claim. The perfect storm of which I speak then is the convergence of greed, lack of regard for justice, and the lack of moral restraints in the legal profession and its institutions - both public and private - in the medical profession and medical institutions - both public and private - in government institutions, and finally in citizens themselves.

The sharks are circling out there, and in the USA if you look at someone the wrong way there may be a lawyer out there capable of convincing that person to sue you. If that other is crazy enough, or sufficiently without principle, and has enough money, they could sue you and destroy you by wearing you down in the courts; which seem no longer able to distinguish true justice from frivolous action or unjust exploitation of a system that has lost its ability to recognize or render true justice.

That is a perfect storm, and if you're in the wrong place and the wrong time and a shark bites you, or if you lose your job and have a hard time finding another, or if you or a family member gets sick, has a baby or an accident and is hospitalized, you can find yourself with a debt you can never repay or even find yourself losing your home. A whole new private enterprise has cropped up in infomercials whereby they show you how to buy up the homes of citizens temporarily defaulting on mortgage payments - often because they are out of work or have a medical bill - so there are "fire sales" on peoples' homes in America, the land of opportunity for sharks.

In this article, I contend that the USA is a nation out of control. You will find the link at the title a site that reports the actual philosophy of society and of governance of the "founding fathers" who drafted the Constitution of the United States of America. Their consensus was that only faith in God and moral restraint shown by religious people could control the human flaws and passions and that the constitution was intended for such morally virtuous citizens. The USA as a nation is now out of control because as a nation with its public and government institutions it has distanced itself from the mindset and moral outlook of its founding fathers. As a result America in its government and public institutions and many of its own citizenry is incapable of living out of its own constitution.

Don't get me wrong, there are many wonderful Americans, people of character and virtue, people of faith and responsible for themselves, their families, their neighborhood, and their work. Sadly, the government and public institutions, and much of commerce and industry, and most if not all of their multinational and other large corporations are working against their own citizens.

The founding fathers enshrined in the Constitution document their values with the intention that their descendants would allow themselves to be guided by it to go on living the life of freedom and moral restraint they were setting up for themselves and their families and all the citizens who joined them in the founding of their new nation. The primary good was the welfare of every citizen, to be achieved through their own efforts and with the mutual support they were committed to offer each other as they had done in resisting the British.

That primary good has been replaced over time by the profit principle. It is now unrestrained greed that governs the USA. This has become obvious from the countless reports over the past few decades. As a nation, the USA refuses to admit that people can come into hard times, that it is possible for thrifty and hardworking citizens to get sick, to have accidents, to lose their jobs, and to need public assistance. Such people are considered a drain on public resources and on those who are healthy, wealthy, influential, and successful. They are considered unworthy of help.

That the USA considers itself the land of opportunity in actual fact means that it is a land of opportunity for various species of shark. Those who inherit fortunes or influence, those who by their own effort and also luck achieve positions of fortune and influence, those who are not hindered by moral considerations and have the ability to exploit the system - all of these and others like them - these are those for whom there is opportunity because it doesn't matter how many they trample in their reckless pursuit of success and profit.

At the time of the founding fathers, provisions were made for the state to seize and punish those who showed manifest lack of moral restraint and caused harm to others in their quest for success and profit. However, over time, a complex system of laws and legal practice seen develop a whole culture of legalism that has little or nothing to do with justice or morality. Those who have the influence, the money, and other means and opportunity to exploit even the legal system can, and money appears for the most part able to wear out and crush the ordinary citizen.

Money and influence have all but strangled the legislative and well as the judiciary systems. Lobbyists are known to be able to steer the outcome of legislation as well as legal outcomes, and the government has all but lost its ability to govern, as it represents interests more often than its own citizens. Greed unhindered by moral or other restraints is also in evidence throughout American and around the globe at the hands of American multinational and other large corporations and sadly also smaller private untraded companies.

The profit principle has trumped all other considerations for the most part: the good of the worker, the value of marriage and family, the value of building local neighborhoods and living environments - none of it matters - which is blind greed careening out of control. It is possible to merge new technologies with commerce in the development of living neighborhoods and in the establishment of cottage industry but the citizens must make those choices and support them.

Too often large financial interests establish cut price businesses that drive small businesses to closure because the population supports them and buy there endlessly pursuing discounts, and people just don't seem to realize there are costs. You can save by purchasing at a cut price outlet, but the cost is the loss of local business and in time of your neighborhood, your living environment. America is increasingly becoming a land with devastated inner city cores, sterile suburbs, and rural ghost towns as small businesses crash, victims of large profit driven cut price outlets that have little consideration for their own workforce.

America is beginning to look like the third world, with the gap between rich and poor widening, relentless impoverishment, erosion, and diminishment of the affluent middle class, increasing numbers of wealthy (many of whom have been able to prosper unhindered be consideration for those they in effect exploit), and increasing numbers of the working poor, and in the end, of the helpless poor on welfare or worse, on the street. That's the new class of poor, those who no longer even have a home or address and hence are ineligible for welfare, and find themselves homeless.

Americans who continue to live the kind of life intended by their founding fathers, a life of character and virtue, of faith and morality, are still able to experience the fruits and benefits of such a life, but they must be on their guard against the innumerable sharks out there. They can do their best to influence their government and public institutions for good, but realize they will often experience defeat at the hands of those bodies and individuals governed exclusively by profit. Even they can find themselves out of work, on welfare, or even on the street, if they find themselves in the kinds of conditions that put Job in total misery. This is for them an extreme test of faith, to continue relying on God, trying to help themselves, turning to others for help, and trusting that in the end the Lord will rescue them.

The massive scale of the American economy and the trappings of their government and public institutions has allowed the USA to maintain what has increasingly become a fiction of success, a travesty, an illusion. Their public debt has become so huge that they appear unable to pay it down. Their is no manifest public will to even acknowledge the debt, let alone pay it down. The dominant concern at present seems to be to continue increasing spending and the debt without any consideration for the future. If the government of the USA is not yet financially bankrupt, morally it is. It no longer reflects the character, morality, and virtue of its founding fathers, nor do many American citizens, businesses, corporations, and countless self-interest and lobby groups.

Not until responsibilities receive equal measure with rights will this situation ever change. If America continues on this course, it is only a question of time until they collide with undeniable reality. A nation unconcerned about its weaker and more defenseless citizens is not worthy of its founding fathers.

Only God can help them now, but they must first overcome those adhering to the profit principle who have all but succeeded in banning God from public life and discourse, and return to the character, values, morality, restraint, and faith of the founding fathers.

To genuflect and bow or not to genuflect and bow

2010-07-02T12:55:00.002-04:00

The Sacred Liturgy – Reverent Gestures toward the Holy Eucharist

In various times and places it is said that the current standard for Liturgy would have minimal distractions during the Mass: hence no genuflections, crossings, etc. The context for this statement would have been the changes brought about in the Liturgy by Vatican II and the subsequent reforms in the Liturgy. In the Mass celebrated since Trent, the priest made many crosses over the bread and wine, crossing also himself, and so on. The truth is that the Latin Rite then was closer to the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic rites, which have always made a point of making the Blessed Trinity visible throughout the Divine Liturgy.

It is true that since Vatican II our Church did simplify the Liturgy, and what the priests and deacons are to do is spelled out in the relevant rituals and accompanying documents. Another truth is that by simplifying the Liturgy and reducing the elements that spoke of the august Mystery of God present among us, we have widened the gap with the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy and hence with those sisters and brothers, making their Liturgy even more incomprehensible intellectually. But the simple truth is that whenever we attend one of their Divine Liturgies, the visuals are so eloquent and the accompanying words so significant that it takes a hard heart or an extreme intellectual not to be moved to tears.

The fundamental principle governing the Roman Sacred Liturgy is the full and distinctive participation of all the members of the Body of Christ, each with his or her own particular part, without infringing on the parts of others; so that the variety, multiplicity, and distinctiveness of the roles during the Sacred Liturgy reflect the variety, multiplicity and distinctiveness of the members of the Body of Christ. It is in truth the Risen Christ Jesus who makes himself visible, speaking, and acting in varying degrees in each and every member of the sacred assembly.

You may or may not know this, dear Reader, but there are currents in the Church invoking Vatican II in order to promote agendas that are actually the opposite of the reform of the Liturgy as it has taken place, by people who are frustrated that the reforms did not go far enough, that is, did not incorporate changes they favor. These tendencies would reduce our Liturgy to something much closer to the sterile evangelistic worship service that is full of words and almost devoid of symbols and visuals.

For example, Bishop De Roo of Victoria BC, now retired, almost forbade people kneeling at any time during the Mass, and would refuse permission for new churches to include kneelers in them, except when there was intense pressure of devotion from ethnic communities, but even for them he only allowed pews in the first few rows. I know this from good friends who have lived in that diocese since the late 1980's or early 1990's.

That is an example of open rebellion, which is not too strong a term, given that the proper authority to interpret Vatican documents on the Liturgy belongs to the national episcopal conferences, never to individual bishops, and certainly not to individual priests, and even then, only a few aspects are up to the bishops. The ritual itself is not open to interpretation or changes except by the proper authorities at the Vatican.

Specifically about kneeling or genuflecting, the ritual of the Mass states in red ink (rubrics) when the priest genuflects, that is, right after the consecration of the bread into the Body of Christ, and again, after the consecration of the wine into the Blood of Christ, and finally, just before presenting the Body of Christ for Holy Communion to the assembly. That is the proper protocol specifically spelled out in the ritual for the Holy Eucharist.

There is nothing in the ritual itself about going to the Tabernacle, but this is not because nothing should be done but rather because it is considered so obvious that it need not be spelled out everywhere. What is spelled out is that those approaching or leaving the sanctuary at the beginning and end of Mass should genuflect at to towards the Tabernacle, the only exception being in a large church such as St Peter's in Rome, where the Reserve of the Blessed Sacrament is nowhere in the church but deep in a side chapel beyond the pillars on the right side. Hence, the Real Presence is nowhere to be seen; so no genuflection.

Also, anyone passing by the Tabernacle is to genuflect at all times; however, this is generally meant for outside the Liturgy, since people generally don't pass it by during Mass. Here, where there is much commotion near the Tabernacle repeated genuflections would make no sense and actually distract from the Mass. Definitely no genuflections at Communion time when the focus in on Jesus as we approach and receive Him. Any who are specifically passing by even during the Mass could genuflect, as it is proper to bow to the Altar whenever crossing over the center aisle from one side to the other, as a sign of respect to Jesus who is the Priest, the Altar, and the Lamb of Sacrifice according to our Liturgy.

In our Church where the Tabernacle is visible, unlike St Peter's, the genuflections at the beginning and end of Mass are considered standard practice, whether or not they have actually been practiced in recent history. The role of the pastor is to preserve and hand on the tradition and rituals, so if I have stood out like a sore thumb with these genuflections, it is not to be difficult or irk everyone or offend the pride of local tradition and practice, but all for the glory of the Lord and the growth in faith of the people. The Liturgy not only celebrates, it also teaches and forms.

Anyone going to the Tabernacle during the Mass, usually before and after Holy Communion, opens the Tabernacle door, genuflects, takes out ciboria, closes the Tabernacle door, brings the ciboria to the Altar.... then after Holy Communion, returns with the ciboria to the Tabernacle, opens the door, replaces the ciboria inside, genuflects, and closes the door.

These gestures are spelled out in the various rites related to the Holy Eucharist and generally contained in what is called the Roman Missal. In English we don't use it, but only what is called the Sacramentary, which is a partial extraction of whatever is needed from the Roman Missal for celebrating Mass in a Parish setting for all occasions.

The Sacramentary spells out what priests and deacons do. Some of the details are not in the Sacramentary but only explained in detail in the General Introduction to the Roman Missal. The proper gestures when doing something at the Tabernacle are spelled out in the rite for Eucharistic Adoration, but are mostly taken for granted as standard practice and passed on. In a family, for example, when parents give specific task related instructions to their children, the fact that they omit reminding the children to say Please and Thank You does not annul those practices, because they are so common and obvious that they may be taken for granted. So it is with much that is traditional regarding the Liturgy and church Sanctuary.

It is traditional practice, which expresses our faith in the True Presence of Jesus, that anytime we approach the Tabernacle to extract the Body of Christ in one or more ciboria, one genuflects after opening the door - acknowledging Jesus and adoring Him - and again just before closing the door after having returned one or more ciboria to be reserved. This practice both expresses and teaches our faith in Jesus truly present in his risen Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist and reserved in the Tabernacle. It is an abuse of the respect, reverence, and obedience we owe to the Lord to deliberately refuse this practice or teach others to ignore it. To do so opens the door to the erosion of the faith and attacks against the faith by beliefs, ideas, and practices in the culture and society in every time and place that militate against the Lord and his presence, word, and work or salvation in the world.

There are those who would make the presence of Jesus in the whole assembly, with the Presider at the head, the exclusive point of focus, annulling any form of reverence for the Body and Blood of Christ either on the Altar or in the Tabernacle. Reality is not so monolithic, but multifaceted. It is no contradiction to have the Presider genuflect at the Altar during the Singing of the Lamb of God as he says the relevant priest's prayers before Holy Communion, and simultaneously for a deacon or extraordinary minister of Holy Communion genuflect upon opening the door to the Tabernacle. On the contrary, this merely makes visible the many facets of Jesus' presence, word, and action among us.

None of this is open to interpretation or change, because no one but the bishops together with the Pope can make major changes, and the pertinent Congregation can give interpretations and publish duly designed and authorized reforms. What we mean by authority is not power to impose in the midst of conflicted views, but rather faith in Jesus' ongoing presence among us, and in particular his own will to speak and act through the sacrament of Holy Orders in the roles and persons of the Pope and bishops. In order to respect the full magnitude of Jesus' presence, word, and action among us, we must respect them all.

That includes zealous attention to the rituals and other manifestations of our Church's traditions, the handing on of rituals, teachings, and practices of faith as handed on by our parents, teachers, catechists, and pastors, and as interpreted and corrected when necessary by the competent and pertinent authorities. This entire network is Jesus speaking, acting, and present among us.

In view of the constant erosion factor from our culture, I'd love all of our collaborators at St Luke St Luc to adopt with one mind and heart what I began over a year ago with regards to the Our Father sung in English, namely, regarding the 5 repetitions of Amen at the end and the related gestures. This is the only part that never made sense to me: the gesture for the 4th Amen is just a repetition of the 1st, i.e. a lifting up of the hands towards Heaven. It would make for sense for the gesture accompanying the 4th Amen to point towards Jesus truly present in his Body and Blood on the Altar, which we are about to partake.

1st Amen - hands lifted up side by side and arms fully extended towards the heavens = Amen to

You O Blessed Trinity!
2nd Amen - hands lowered to the horizontal and arms fully extended straight ahead, then fanning

out on either side in a sweeping embrace and inclusion of of everyone = Amen to everyone

here and in the world and all creatures in the universe!
3rd Amen - hands lowered to the ground and arms fully extended on either side = Amen to your

presence in me, Lord!
4th Amen - hands and arms fully extended towards Jesus on the Altar = Amen to You Lord Jesus in

the Holy Eucharist!
5th Amen - hands folding and joining at the chest in the traditional prayerful gesture = Amen to

your holy will in all things Lord!

“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us

When friends feel they are losing their faith....

2010-04-10T00:05:00.003-04:00

When friends feel they are losing their faith... and they call upon you, trust in God, listen with great interest until they have poured out their heart, only then share from your mind and heart, and put your confidence in God to save them from their trouble and bless them through it.

Question: What do you do with a friend or anyone who comes to you with doubts about their faith or feelings they are losing or have lost their faith? When I try to reassure this person and tell them we all have doubts so it's not a big deal, to try to diminish their distress, it doesn't work, doesn't help.

Response: First I must say it is commendable that you care about your friend, and he or she is blessed to have someone like you willing to be touched, moved, and concerned with their faith struggle. Now, there really is no ready made answer or strategy for such situations. However, I can tell you how I approach these things with people.

So far, from what you have written, if you don't mind my saying so, you have been far too quick to try to supply answers to her questions. That is not what she needs from you, and you can get out from the burden of feeling responsible to make her feel better. That is not our calling in life as Christians, to make others feel better, although we are called to give comfort, but not by resolving other people's struggles for them.

1. She must find her own answers, as we must all do. We are called by God to give meaning to our lives by the decisions we make, by the questions we ask, and by the answers we find, sometimes in what others have said but most often in reflecting on our own experience and questions.

2. Make more effective efforts to take interest and show your interest in what she is experiencing. Gently and with interest ask her to tell you more about what she is experiencing, thinking, wondering, and so on. As she sees you are really interested and will no longer try to stuff your own answers into her, she will slowly open up and share with you what it is she is experiencing, feeling, thinking, asking, wondering.....

3. Before you even approach her again, pray intensively to God for her with all the love you have for her. As you pick up the phone or go over to her place or anticipate seeing her at work or wherever, pray for her some more. While you are with her, keep prayer and love for her simmering on the back burner of your soul deep inside. In other words, let the Holy Spirit keep prayer going on inside you for her constantly... and you will find the Holy Spirit guiding you in your approach to her.

4. Don't worry about making a fool of yourself, or not knowing what to do or say next, and so on.... We are called to make fools of ourselves for Christ, as Jesus made a fool of himself before others for our sake. This is how the love of God makes itself known in the world, through the faithful hearts of those who have been touched by the love of God.

5. Know that in the journey of love, faith, and hope, even our mistakes are used by God for his glory and the good of others....

Be at peace dear friend.... in Jesus....

“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us

Christ is Risen ! Alleluia ! Alleluia !

Christ est ressuscité ! Alléluia ! Alléluia !

Sexual abuse - let's make room for the truth, all of it

2010-04-01T10:09:00.001-04:00

The truth will better serve the safety of children and all those at risk from abuse of all kinds.
Any children or anyone hurt by us priests or bishop need our immediate protection and help.
Anyone responsible for hurting others must face the consequences, but they need help too, since most often such heinous acts are not only crimes, but they are also manifestations of profound psychological dysfunction and illness.

If the media feeding frenzy turns its voracious appetite on people like Pope Benedict XVI, who is leading the way for us in dealing with sexual and other forms of abuse, it is not surprising. This time of year we commemorate and enter deeply and personally into the events surrounding Jesus of Nazareth, because through these events He has obtained for us salvation, rescue from our mortal human condition. The feeding frenzy existed then, as it will until the end of time, and though He was perfect, that did not deter the sharks from devouring Him. Once He was swallowed up by hatred, evil, sin, and death, He burst out and destroyed their hold of fear on us.

We must be wary. The unfettered frenzy with which we turn on others, at even the possibility they may be guilty, may be a function of our own fear of being caught, or if not guilty of the same thing, then of being found out to have at the very least thoughts and temptations of which we are not proud. The most likely person to accuse others is the one who refuses to accuse himself or herself. As Jesus himself said, our vision can only become clear enough to see the truth about the other once we have taken the log out of our own eye, that is, once we have admitted to ourselves and to others our own faults and sins.

Then beyond our actual sins, there is always the realization that in the end I am capable of doing much harm, and the only thing that saves me is opening myself up to the grace and mercy of God. You remember the saying, "There but for the grace of God go I"? Lord, have mercy on us, on our children, and on all those among us who carry from infancy or childhood hurts that twist our personalities out of shape and make us dangerous. As a Church, as a society, as a family, as parents, as pastors, as any with responsibility to care for others, open our eyes to see those around us in need of protection and in need of help, and those in need of careful, strong boundaries, for the safety of those in vulnerable states. In Jesus' Name we pray.
Fr. Gilles

Please check out the Ottawa Citizen via the link at the end of this piece.

Pope deserves better credit

BY DAVID WARREN, THE OTTAWA CITIZENMARCH 28, 2010 9:57 AM

Columnist Randall Denley

Photograph by: The Ottawa Citizen, The Ottawa Citizen

Palm Sunday is as good a day as any to be defending the Catholic Church against the latest onslaught of media smears, and the tireless efforts to tarnish Pope Benedict personally.

I desisted from writing this column for St. Patrick's Day, when the issue was whether in 1979, Joseph Ratzinger, then Archbishop of Munich and Freising, had knowingly transferred a pedophile priest to another assignment where he could abuse more children.

The truth was that he had removed the offending priest from his station promptly, and sent him into therapy; and that without Ratzinger's knowledge, that priest's parochial vicar, no doubt falsely believing he was "cured," later put him back in a parochial setting. To suggest that Ratzinger had knowingly put other children at risk was a calumny. But I notice the journalists are still combing old cc'd memos to find mud that will stick.

As I write, the latest -- originating in the New York Times, amplified by the BBC, and thus carried in some uncritical form on most wire services -- is that as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the 1990s, Ratzinger had failed to reply to a letter about a child-molesting priest in Wisconsin. The story is self-refuting: the Vatican did not intervene because U.S. civil authorities had themselves dropped the case.

The BBC website headline reads: "Pope Benedict faces child-abuse cover-up queries." I have written before about the deceitful journalistic practice of waving such insinuations about in headlines and leads. Only those who read carefully to the end of the piece discover how empty, and how unsubstantiated, are the implied charges. But the great majority of readers, who merely scan with half-attention, are left with the impression of accumulating grievous wrongs.

Here in Canada, the National Post gave prominent play to a characteristically smug, malicious and factually reckless attack on the Pope by Christopher Hitchens, which originally appeared in the Slate web magazine. Readers who believed a word of it should be referred via Internet to a carefully referenced point-by-point refutation by the Canadian Catholic layman Sean Murphy.

As Mark Twain (himself notoriously fast and loose as a journalist) is purported to have said, "A lie can travel half-way round the world before the truth has put its boots on." Or words to that effect. I am inclined to stone my reader with innumerable other quotes about the salience of half-truths -- how, like half-bricks, they are easier to hurl than whole ones, etc. But in the end the world is the world.

These half-brick thrusts are mounted from the top of a much bigger groundswell. A number of past cases of pedophile priests, and other male and female church figures, have been exposed in Ireland, and the journalistic taste for uncovering more has spread across Europe.

While the ground is littered with allegations that are hearsay, and while the scandal has been magnified by a routine failure to supply qualifications and context, it must be painfully admitted that there is also much truth mixed in with the charges.

The best way to appreciate this is by (actually) reading the Pope's excoriating letter to Irish bishops, sent on the Solemnity of St. Joseph (March 19) to emphasize its gravity. The letter was airily dismissed in the liberal media with, "Pope Offers Apology, Not Penalty, for Sex Abuse Scandal" (New York Times). This is a total misrepresentation of the contents of a document that is proposing to tear the Irish church apart in pursuit of malefactors and of the people who covered for them.

Nor is it an empty threat, given the scale on which North American dioceses, seminaries and religious congregations were scoured by "apostolic visitors" after scandals came to light here.

Pedophilia is by no means confined to the Catholic Church -- and the Boy Scouts -- though they are the exclusive institutional targets of liberal media. Nor is there evidence, beyond the selectivity of news coverage, that the plague is not worse in secular institutions. It is a problem to be confronted throughout our society, wherever children are left in trusted adult care; and it is a problem that would seem to have been vastly compounded by the collapse of traditional sexual morality over the last couple of generations.

Rome has, in fact, taken the lead in dealing with it, and has already put in place the most exacting safeguards against the depredations of sexual perverts inside the Church. Pope Benedict has, personally, done more to this end than, so far as I can see, any other living human, and is thus the least appropriate target for attacks.

Within the church, the need of renewal remains much deeper than the pedophile scandals. In the time both leading up to and since Vatican II, the faithful have experienced one of her greatest historical crises: a catastrophic retreat before, and compromise with, the "Zeitgeist" of modern worldly "libertarian" moral values and norms.

The answer isn't more retreat and compromise. The answer is to return to the splendour of the Mandate of Christ. And this necessarily involves implacable opposition to that Zeitgeist.

David Warren's column appears

Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Pope+deserves+better+credit/2736176/story.html

Lord purify my heart to look upon all my sisters with pure, life-giving eyes!

2010-03-27T10:15:00.003-04:00

Spring is not yet here, but already the parade of flesh is beginning, and what about the heart that is behind my eyes? Is it Spring itself, are hormonal levels what they have always been, or then again, maybe it gets worse with aging? There are such days even for celibates when the mind plays games with one's inner peace....

Lord, I give you thanks for all the wondrous creatures You have made.... Each more beautiful than the other, they provoke my imagination and rush my heart, and how easily I can forget each is your child too.... In our culture and time, as in other times and places, those who have allowed themselves to become obsessed with profit and influence, greed and serving their own self, have abused even the image of woman, yes and even of man, in various marketing ploys, appealing to the baser instincts of the herd.

It has become so grave that little girls are deeply troubled in their imaginations and spend many years searching for their identity, often losing their dignity or never even having a taste of it.... They become what the marketers have made them to be, and they exhibit themselves for the thrill of manipulating the passions of others.... Most of the time, they have no clue about what depths of dignity, true intimacy, friendship, and interpersonal love that they have lost, or have never yet tasted.

And what can we say about little boys? What has happened to their imaginations? Have they ever tasted the dignity that is theirs as children of God, and have they been offered examples of manliness, which draw us to become life-giving wholesome minds, hearts, eyes, and hands for others? Everywhere a good and just man walks, people are lifted up and catch glimpses of their best inner selves struggling to emerge into the light of day....

Grant us a heart to command our eyes to look upon them with manly, fatherly, brotherly love, and give them the gift of a look that will give them a taste of that dignity which is theirs, and which they were perhaps prevented from tasting. Lord, make the world new, and let it begin with me....

Shalom....

“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us

Suivons Jésus Christ, Lui donnant la 1^ère place en 2010 !

Let us follow Jesus Christ, giving Him 1^st place in 2010!

PAX + CARITAS Year for Priests – Année Sacerdotale

L’abbé / Fr. Gilles Web Site: http://fathergilles.net/

Operation Renew to propose Jesus Christ to all – 2009–2014

Opération Relance pour proposer Jésus Christ à tous – 2009–2014

Visit Madonna House Visitez Madonna House!

“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32

«Notre cœur n’était-il pas tout brûlant au-dedans de nous, quant Il nous parlait en chemin, quand Il nous ouvrait les Écritures?» Luc 24 :32

A friend wrote:

Perils of a Catholic upbringing?

As I walked down the busy sidewalk with my wife, knowing I was late for Mass, my eye fell upon one of those unfortunate, ragged vagabonds that are found in every city these days. Some people turned to stare. Others quickly looked away as if the sight would somehow contaminate them.

Recalling my old pastor, Father Gilles, who always admonished me to "care for the sick, feed the hungry and clothe the naked," I was moved by some powerful inner urge to reach out to this unfortunate person.

Wearing what can only be described as rags, carrying her treasured worldly possessions in two plastic bags, my heart was touched by this person's condition.

Yes, where some people saw only rags, I saw a true, hidden beauty..

A small voice inside my head called out, "Reach out, reach out and touch this person!"

(Then there appeared a suggestive photo of an ill clad beautiful person carrying two plastic grocery bags....)

So I did. .. . .I won't be at Mass this week.

In response to this playful email message from a friend, I wrote the blog above it.... Given all the torment around sexuality, I find that even playful stories are no longer appropriate. As a species human beings are profoundly wounded in our apprehension of our own dignity as conferred by God in both our spirit and our flesh. We are inclined to view things amiss, and tempted to make wrongful use of the power of tenderness inscribed in our human sexuality. We must resolve to do nothing to encourage such wrongful use and do all we can to work towards the restoration of our human dignity and both of our capacity and willingness to live in the truth of that dignity in both ourselves and in others, all others, especially the most vulnerable. Fr. Gilles

Elderly Adolescents – Senior Teenagers – a new phenomenon

2010-03-06T16:41:00.001-05:00

What do you do when one of your parents, especially in a situation where they are separated and divorced, enters into an "affair" or illicit relationship with another person, a situation which at face value at least very much resembles adultery?

There are people who want advice and those who don't, those who look to be guided by authorities greater than themselves and others who are allergic to authorities and want only to follow their own heart, mind, conscience. The problem is original sin, which causes us to delude ourselves, and makes our own hearts unreliable as guides. We need God, we need others, we need to repent as Jesus said in order to welcome and believe the good news.

Your Mom is your Mom, not your daughter, and if it's your Dad, then he too is your Dad and not your son. You are not responsible for him or her, but of course you do care for them. St Monica was not able to tell her son Augustine what to do because he wasn't looking to her for advice; he was trying to find his own way. So she prayed for him, suffered and wept, and prayer some more, fasted, and kept on praying for years....

The only thing the commandments tell us to do with our parents is honor them. You can continue to honor your Mom and Dad for giving you life, and caring for you all those years, but you don't have to approve of their behaviour. You need to have pity for them and have mercy on them in their current state of weakness, confusion, or disorientation, and pray for them.

You know that we must all grow up sooner or later, and for many, it is later. Those who went from childhood straight into adulthood, having children and raising them, never got to fully grow up and discover for themselves the truth of all that they were told by their elders. That is why we find more frequently today the odd situation of "elderly adolescents" or "senior teenagers" who are of retirement age or older but behaving not unlike teenagers, doing strange things, acting as though they suddenly had no conscience, and so on.

It's not all bad news.... By the grace of God they will discover the hard way, if not the proper way, what's true and what's false, what's good and what's evil, and may come around to having room within them to consider what God wants of them....

Just as parents must be patient with their teenagers, so must we be patient at times with our parents, since God is patient with all of us, so that we might in time repent and come back to Him with all our hearts....

"Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us

Suivons Jésus Christ, Lui donnant la 1^ère place en 2010 !

Let us follow Jesus Christ, giving Him 1^st place in 2010!

PAX + CARITAS Year for Priests – Année Sacerdotale

L'abbé / Fr. Gilles Web Site: http://fathergilles.net/

Serial Email Messages – What’s wrong with them

2009-12-04T11:45:00.003-05:00

Have you viewed a lovely and inspiring power point presentation or slide show sent to you by a friend only to get on the last slide something like the line which follows?

Don't you find this so moving and inspirational? Now send it immediately to twenty of your closest friends, including the one who sent this to you, and you will be blessed beyond anything you could expect or imagine. Do it in the next two minutes and you will receive a special gift. If you don't care then just delete it, and why am I bothering with you anyway?

I strongly dislike this trend in email messages, which seems to originate among fundamentalist Christians who tend to see things as black and white, i.e. you're either saved and gave your life to Jesus once and for all, or you're going to hell. With tyrannical and judgemental thinking like that, you tend to get "send this to as many people as I tell you or you are a schmuck...."

It's just a shame that the good intention and the beauty of the message these people compose is marred, in my view, by the serial letter approach.... which basically treats people like kids: "now do what I tell you, or else why am I bothering with you? I know what is good for you and if you don't comply, then just stay in your abysmal ignorance and selfishness…." And so on….

Those who intrude into your space and time with an unwanted and unasked for "gift" by that very fact surrender their rights to that email message and what it contains. This is instant publishing into the public domain, which makes the slide show common property. There is no copyright claim attached to it, so you can edit the thing yourself by simply saving that file to a folder on your PC, opening up that file from inside Microsoft Power Point or similar software, going to the offensive page, and editing the text. Then you can really enjoy sending it around without a second thought, with a more respectful closing that appeals to the recipient's freedom and generosity, but leaves no hint of obligation, like this:

I hope you enjoyed this slide show. Feel free to share it with anyone you please. May the blessing, love, and peace of God remain with you and your loved ones.

As Catholics, we have come to understand that we don't just give our life over to Christ once and for all, after which we must live a perfect life as a Christian or go to hell. They ask "Are you saved?" and "When did you give your life to Christ?" expecting these answers: Yes, on September 21st, 1967, at 10:30 in the morning, as I sat at my desk at work, and I gave my life to Christ.

Rather, we understand that like the Apostles, we do decide at some point to follow Christ, and "surrender our lives to Him", but that's not the end of the story, because of our human condition. It's not enough to say it, then I must spend the rest of my life trying to assure that every aspect of my life, thoughts, words, decisions, actions, behaviour, renunciations, commitments, fidelity, falls, getting up again, sin and repentance, and life long conversion continues to go in the same direction.

Becoming a saint is the work of a lifetime, and it is God's work in us, which He cannot do without our consent and active participation. God bless you and your family during this wonderful time of Advent preparation for the joy of Christmas, when we appreciate in an ever fresher and deeper way that Jesus has come for all of us and for me.... for each and every one of us.

This text in pdf format to read or save to your PC

Jesus walked among us for a few hours in Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte

2009-10-20T13:29:00.016-04:00

Pastor’s Reflection to St Luke Parish – Réflexion du Curé à la Paroisse St Luc

Après la Consécration de l’Autel et de l’Église, où allons-nous ?

Now that our Altar and Church have been consecrated, where are we going?

La Consécration a été un moment marquant et déterminant pour moi, un moment décisif, et une grande et profonde grâce. At first, I was just overwhelmed by it all as the time of preparation gave way to the experience and the press of people, many of whom had the jitters and passed them on to me by asking me last minute questions. Si ce n’eut été du Cardinal, je n’aurais pas pensé à demander à Bishop Bob de faire sa part dans le texte et faire la bénédiction et l’envoi des enfants après le Notre Père.

Was it not amazing how the faithful who attended the Consecration Liturgy soaked up the Archbishop’s presence like people in the desert when they come upon fresh water in an oasis? Naturally, as I explained to a number of parishioners – I will write a reflection on this for either the website or bulletin or both – Cardinal Turcotte is our Archbishop, our chief Pastor. He has what is called the fullness of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, ordained three times; deacon, priest, and bishop. In addition, he was personally chosen by Pope John Paul II to be our Archbishop and shepherd the Church of Montreal.

When an Archbishop walks among the people – especially if he is a humble man of prayer and conscientious in manifesting pastoral charity to all whom he meets – it is much as when the Pope walks among the people. These men, personally chosen by Jesus through no merit of their own, are the poor instruments Jesus is pleased to use in order to continue his walk among us until the end of time. That is why people – even atheists – inexplicably melt into tears when the Pope passes by them, and they feel compelled to follow him: Jesus has touched them as Elijah touched Elisha, as Jesus himself touched throngs of individuals as He walked the roads of Palestine. This is what Holy Orders is, in three degrees.

Il en va donc de même avec notre Archevêque, et bienheureux ceux et celles qui se sont déplacés pour le recevoir et participer à cette Liturgie Sacrée qu’il nous a fait la grâce de présider. Nous avons été touchés par Jésus Lui-même, qui en toute génération se donne du mal pour choisir de pauvres instruments humains pour en faire ses représentants, Lui l’Époux de son Épouse l’Église, que nous sommes tous ensemble. Naturellement, cela aide que Monsieur le Cardinal Jean-Claude fait des efforts pour correspondre à cet appel qu’il a reçu du Seigneur. Avant même de venir, il s’informe de nous, il relève tous ce qu’il a observé de nous au fil des ans, même à distance, et il a beaucoup prié pour nous. Donc, à son arrivé, il avait déjà été précédé par la grâce de la sollicitude du Seigneur pour nous.

It was his smile, his demeanour, his warmth in word and gesture – like waving to the children in the choir in front of him – that demonstrated his joy at being among us like an unspoken or non-verbal “word” expressing the truth of who we are, all together, in God’s eyes, the redeemed and beautiful Bride of Christ Jesus, his Beloved Son. These are only some of the reasons why we responded so readily to the presence and service of our dear Archbishop during the few hours he spent with us. In him, Jesus walked among us in a personal way for a few hours, despite – no I dare say precisely because of – the Cardinal’s human frailty, unique character, approaching age and fragility, in short, all that makes him so human and sympathetic.
En tant que communauté paroissiale de foi, nous avons été ravivés et rappelés à notre vocation de cellule de l’Église universelle, comme l’Église domestique qu’est toute famille, et renouvelés dans notre participation à la mission que Jésus avait été envoyé par le Père pour commencer et confier à des êtres pécheurs et fragiles, mais pardonnés, sauvés, relevés, transformés, et envoyés dans le monde. Relisez l’homélie de notre Archevêque sur mon site web ou celui de la Paroisse, et notez ses dernières paroles.

So as a Parish we have been refreshed and recalled to our vocation as a cell of the universal Church, like every family which is a domestic Church, and we have been also renewed in our participation in the mission which the Father sent Jesus to begin and entrust to sinful and fragile human beings, whom He forgave, saved, lifted up, transformed, and sent out into the world. Reread the Cardinal’s homily on my website or that of the Parish and note in particular his last words.

Fellow Canadians, it's time to stand up for local television

2009-10-20T10:24:00.012-04:00

Do you know our cable and satellite companies pay for the right to broadcast American local television signals but by law have free access to Canadian local television signals; so that CRTC regulations under the authority of the Canadian government are directly depriving our local Canadian television stations of any revenue from Canadian broadcasting cable and satellite companies? Part of the money we pay for our cable and satellite services are in turn paid out to US television companies but not to Canadian television companies. What's wrong with this picture?

You too can get the basic text of this letter and make it your own. Click here.

Secretary General
Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0N2

Dear Secretary General:

RE: Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2009-614

Most of the factual information in my letter to you has been prepared by local television broadcasters, but I have informed myself and make my own the general direction of this information and lobbying campaign. In that light, please accept the following comments in response to the above-referenced Notice of Consultation.

Local television is where people in communities across Canada come together to learn about events that touch our everyday lives. Without local television, we would lose part of our voice, and viewers would have fewer choices in quality programming that reflects our unique Canadian identity.

It is not entirely clear to me how it came about in the beginning that laws and rules were put in place to give cable and satellite companies free access to local television broadcasters' signals for distribution through their wired and wireless broadcasting services. Perhaps it made sense to give what were then new broadcasting services an initial advantage to allow them to take off. If that is the case, then one would think it is time to revisit this legal protection. Cable and satellite companies are no longer fledglings, and their preferential treatment is now jeopardizing the local television companies that allowed them to begin operation to begin with.

Local television can no longer share our communities' stories on advertising alone. To compete with the hundreds of channels currently on the dial, our system needs to evolve and allow local TV stations to negotiate with Canada's cable and satellite companies for a fair market price for their signals. As a Canadian citizen I find it an outrage that local TV is obliged to offer their signal free to cable and satellite companies, while these are willing to play the game differently across the border and pay US TV companies fair market value. What's wrong with this picture?

Moreover, I am deeply concerned that my cable company is already charging me for local television service through my basic cable rate, and yet, is threatening to charge me more for local television. I believe it's time for the CRTC to protect consumers like me by regulating basic cable rates. This solution will provide more transparency and prevent cable and satellite companies from increasing my basic cable rate whenever they wish.

I urge the CRTC to do what is right and fix our broken television model by providing local TV stations with the right to negotiate for their signals and to protect consumers with the regulation of basic cable rates.

I authorize you to consider me personally represented by those Canadian citizens who are currently requesting the opportunity to appear before the Commission in person at the December hearings to further elaborate on these issues.

Yours sincerely,

Gilles A. Surprenant, Canadian, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, QC

The Interrogation of Michael Crowe

2009-10-19T22:15:00.006-04:00

I stumbled upon this 2002 made for TV movie about a true story that happened in the San Diego area of California in the years prior to the film. My revulsion and outrage surprised me, as I don't recall ever having such a strong reaction to the testimony about a true story, at least not with this intensity.

I've heard and read many times before about stories of erroneous accusation and conviction, and my own faith is based on Jesus Christ, who was falsely accused, summarily sentenced and executed around 33 A.D. I need to write as I reflect and attempt to understand the nature of my outrage.

How is it conceivable that policemen, detectives, representatives of the law would torment an innocent boy until they succeeded in breaking him and extracting from him a phony confession to suit their own hasty theory to explain the murder of his little sister? Mind you, long gone are my illusions that torture and the extraction of phony confessions only happened in the Middle Ages, or today only happen in "third world" countries, or totalitarian states. Could it be that in some ways America fits into one or both of these categories? Unthinkable, or is it?

For more than two days the detectives mercilessly manipulated and tormented the boy, without his parents' knowledge, and demonstrated they had no interest in discovering the truth about his little sister's murder, because in their genius brains, they had already come to an absolutely certain explanation of what happened. No element of evidence or testimony that did not fit their theory mattered or merited their attention or investigation. What kind of person or character does such things?

Most of the Americans I've ever met were wonderful people. What I don't understand is how their America has evolved to no longer represent them. Take for example their latest debate over health care. It seems evident to any outsider who knows of America and listens to the debate, as it is to many Americans, that some form of publicly funded health care system that would take the monopoly for health care out of the hands of insurance and health business interests would be better for the whole population, especially the 75 million plus citizens who can't afford insurance, let alone health care. Yet no one expects it to change, because America seems irrevocably committed to capitalism above human beings, profit over life, corporate health over human health.

I've always heard the americanism that money talks, and I never believed it until now. Those who can afford lobbyists in government circles can wear down and tie up legislators and under the threat of paralysis influence legislative outcomes in their favor, and the ordinary citizen is powerless to do anything about it. American cities begin to look more like "third world" cities all the time, with the sharp contrast between desperately poor and desperately rich increasing. We read articles about the disappearance of the middle class in America.

Perhaps part of what has come to be is simply the fruit of what was in the beginning, when, as in Canada, European settlers invaded the land inhabited by the first nations, spread contagion among the native population, and engaged in "ethnic cleansing" exercises whenever they could get away with it. Then again part of what we are derives from the arrogance with which we set ourselves apart from our European ancestors and as morally superior.

Part of what outrages me about the tragedy visited upon the Crowe family by those police detectives who didn't do their job is the arrogance with which they decided what the truth was in advance of a thorough investigation. Why is that? Have they become so accustomed to dealing with real criminals that they can no longer recognize a normal person when they see one?

What could possibly explain the way in which they mistook the boy's distraught state over the death of his sister as the guilt of a murderer? His behaviour didn't fit their image of a grieving brother. His mother noted that they didn't know him. Isn't that part of the reality of life, that we cannot possibly tell whether a person is telling the truth or not unless we know them well? Actions speak louder than words, and the parents knew the boy couldn't and wouldn't have done any harm to his sister, no matter what disagreements or rivalry there may have been.

In the world of science, scientists are also investigators, and they are true scientists when they follow what is called the scientific method. Facts precede theories that are to be elaborated in order to explain the patterns detected in the facts. Any scientist who starts out with a theory before investigating is limiting, narrowing his field of investigation, consciously or subconsciously eliminating fields of data potentially hazardous to his precious theory.

That is bad enough in science, but in law the results are extremely damaging to real people. It wasn't enough that the Crowe family experienced the devastation of the brutal murder of their little girl. The police department, who are supposed to be able to tell the difference between the victim and the criminal, trampled all over this family, doing them further harm. I understand that laws have been made brutal in order to deal harshly with hardened criminals, lest these do unending harm to society with impunity, but what happens when these brutal laws are applied to innocent citizens?

What would happen to these macho detectives were they to be subjected to their own tactics, I wonder? Take away all their supports and rights, torment them for days on end, lie to them about what is happening and fabricate all kinds of evidence and testimony against them.... and do it in convincing and brutally intimidating ways.... I wonder whether their arrogance would take a hit, whether they might change.

However, the 1969 movie starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis comes to mind.... "The Out of Towners". I had always remembered that the man in the story wisened up at the end and began listening to his wife and to others, but I watched it again recently, and he didn't really change. What is it about people that causes them to love the sound of their own voice, as they go on and on making judgements about everyone and everything as though they alone possessed all the truth and no one else knows anything. I found it hard to watch the movie this time and had to fast forward through most of it.... I just couldn't take the abuse with which he treats his wife, putting her down as though she were stupid and never listening to anything she says. At least a dozen times, if he had shut up and said, "OK dear, let's try your idea." their troubles would have come to an end and they would have gotten some rest and comfort, but no, he just wouldn't do it.

Perhaps there are psychopaths who are that way because they suffered a major arrest in their psychological development in infancy or childhood, and perhaps there are psychpaths who are made that way by some of the institutions we have created in society that intimidate, threaten, and hinder people from behaving, feeling, thinking, and speaking like true human beings.

I shudder to think that some of the people keeping the darkness at bay as members of our police forces are institutional psychopaths, people who no longer listen to what their ears hear, no longer see what their eyes look at, no longer feel what their heart observes. If such people take over, then no one is safe anymore, not even in their home or in their bed. We are not far from those places in the world when they come and take you away in the night, sometimes even with the pretention of doing it in the name of society, the government, or some political or religious ideal. The KKK may no longer be thriving, but some of its principles and strategies seem to have wormed their way into mainstream society, and into the forces of law and order.

What was motivating the detectives who badgered, tormented, brainwashed, and extorted the young Michael Crowe? Did they need to fill their quota of convictions for the month? Did they have a personal issue with "Dungeons and Dragons" through some family connection or personal experience? Can they not tell the difference between a moody or shy teenager and a teenage criminal? How could they be so cocked, trigger happy, obsessed with their theory that they cut short and botched their investigation? How could they be so callous as to feel nothing themselves for the state of the victim's family and become impervious to what the members of that family were feeling? There's a black hole of unanswered questions here that beg to be answered.

Despite the good nature and character of so many Americans, I am troubled by the America that has a love affair with its guns and weapons, that is "high" or "hooked" on authority, with wearing a badge, with being part of a uniformed service. They may have been through a gruelling and mind-numbing formation process, but they have no right to spend the rest of their careers passing the abuse and manipulation on to the very people they are called to protect.

I've met a few American lawmen, police in Massachusetts when my car was stolen, and a state trooper who drove me home, and they were wonderful. I now wonder whether they would have been just as wonderful if I had resembled someone on a poster or a description of someone who had committed a crime they were investigating. America's love affair with power and might, with influence and right, seriously question me about ever wanting to set foot there again....

I have long have been troubled with France's love affair with the guillotine, and their legal system that convicts you as guilty simply upon accusation, granting you the right to prove your innocence, but if you can't, then, well, off with your head. From this side of the border, it doesn't look like American law is much better. If the police think you're guilty, then your chances have suddenly been shrunk to close to nothing.

I'll close on this thought. At one time, during sleepless nights, I'd watch some of those American late night infomercials. One of the get rich quick schemes had to do with buying up property for back taxes and then making a killing on resale. I began to wonder, how can people get rich doing that unless there are a lot of properties in that situation. Most of these are homes. Why are so many Americans, living in the richest country in the world, losing their homes? Then while on sabbatical in Chicago in the Fall of 2004 I found out one of the reasons: no health care insurance. People get sick, are in an accident, or give birth, and suddenly they find themselves penniless and homeless. Why would anyone want to live in such a country where anyone can take away your livelihood, your very life, with full protection of the law and even the encouragement of the whole society?

Well, simply put, because of America's love affair with being a "land of opportunity". Here as in the ocean, the sharks do best. Americans live in a society caught in a stranglehold at the hands of lawyers, health care and insurance industries, and every corporation that can afford lots of lawyers and lobbyists in the capital.

Why must the Crowe family go on suffering? Why won't the police simply give them the closure and satisfaction they seek? Because everyone is scared to death of the lawyers.... life is worth nothing where money matters. To my mind, that is a novel definition of hell. Yes, indeed, there is such a place after all, and not just on Earth....

I admire this family for standing up for themselves, for their dead daughter, and for their son, who in addition to being tormented with grief for his sister was cruelly tortured under false pretenses and falsely accused by police who were hasty and sloppy, and psychopathic with their institutional blindness. Bravo to the producers, directors, and most of all, the actors who brought this human tragedy to the light of day which it deserves and long awaited. Perhaps someday, the good American people I have known will be represented and protected by officials worthy of the best among their citizenry. As I said above, I have no doubt there are marvelous people of great integrity in the courts, in police stations, in the military, and in government, and it's a shame that there aren't more of them, and that they have to suffer the indignity of such poor representation.

As a Roman Catholic priest, I know what it feels like to be poorly represented by the weakest and most depraved among us. It is, sadly, part of our human condition, for which we have only one Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory now and forever.

Extreme Islamic zeal on London, England streets vows extermination of western society

2009-09-20T14:35:00.028-04:00

CAUTION:

There is an email message being circulated with the following headline (in red):

Muslim 'Religion of Peace' Demonstration

These pictures are of Muslims marching through the STREETS OF LONDON during their recent “Religion of Peace Demonstration.” Makes you wonder doesn't it....

This author admits Islamic extreme zeal happens.... the signs seem to show that some would exterminate all who oppose or resist Islam... but before you panic, do a little research....

A Christian response

In the email messages being circulated there follow variations of comments as in the red print above, but no impartial analysis of the photos....

I grant that one cannot imagine having a Christian demonstration against Islam in downtown Baghdad or anywhere in the Middle East – first of all because Christians tend not to show such religious intolerance, but even if nominal Christians do, they tend not to do it in the name of Christ or of the Christian faith. Christian churches have leaders that regulate and attempt to discipline the behaviour of their members. That does not seem to happen, at least that we can observe, in the Muslim world.

Second, we cannot imagine such a demonstration in a Muslim country because the demonstrators would soon be put to death by the local crowd, as occasionally happened in Christian countries of the Middle Ages, in a feudal society, where behavior was on extreme occasions controlled by the crowd when they felt some behaviour was intolerable.

The Muslims in the photos seem to avail themselves of the freedom of western society to trample on that very freedom and threaten, even promise, the wholesale extermination of westerners and their society. Where it exists in truth, such hatred gives one a glimpse of hell.

In actual fact, the photos were of a different demonstration, and the local authorities made some arrests.... Check it out at the links below....

BBC News coverage…. Go to
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4700482.stm

Put it in perspective…. Go to
http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=60;t=001291;p=1

Analysis…. and conclusion: Don’t be so quick to pass on frantic, paranoid email messages… Take the time to research and analyze it first; lest you be manipulated for whatever reason by whomever!
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_muslim_demonstration3.htm

A Christian Response and Reflection

We are Christians. We have come to know, believe in, and love Jesus as the Christ, the Chosen One of God, the One and only Saviour of the world, of humanity, the only-begotten Son of God and Lord of all, Risen from the grave and firstborn of the dead, who at the end of time will stand in judgement of the nations.

Many who espouse Islam – submission to Allah – and claim to be fervent adherents to Islam and practitioners of the Muslim faith in the name of that faith seek a harmony of mind and heart with other human beings and peoples who try to live spiritual and just lives and adhere to the one God and Creator of all by way of the Jewish or Christian faith, the other great world religions, or other spiritual paths. These Muslims truly do as the Qur’an says and honor the “people of the book” and it is possible to dialogue and live in peace with them. These are a more peaceful kind of people, who do not seek headlines nor attempt to impose their will on others or society.

Then there are other Muslims who claim to practice unquestioned following of the Prophet Muhammad and literal observance of the Qur’an who seek to impose Islam on everyone and on the whole world. They claim to have and practice zeal for God as Allah and in the name of his prophet Muhammad, and manifest such hatred and murderous intent and conviction towards all who are perceived by them as resisting or denigrating Islam, even simply by virtue of believing in the God of Israel or in Jesus as Lord and God. In the face of such hatred and homicidal zeal, what are we Christians to do?

It was like this from the time of Nero until Constantine, and it was like that in Japan, Korea, Uganda, and so many other places when the Gospel was first preached and there were early conversions to Jesus.... It is the blood of martyrs that fertilized the Church in every place.... men, women, youth, and even children who received from God the grace of enthusiasm for Jesus and the Gospel at the exact moment that they needed power from God to face their persecutors and give a vibrant, awe-inspiring testimony to Christ.

Our time may come, but if it does, then it will be allowed by God and an opportunity of grace to give our own testimony to Jesus and his Gospel, and put our trust in the Father as Jesus did himself, as He showed his apostles in the Gospel quoted today, September 20th, 2009. As Fr. Michael said in his homily today, for Jesus glory and the Cross are inseparable; more than that, it is from the Cross that glory comes for God, that God's love for us is made fully manifest: God loves his human creatures even when they spit on Him, despise Him, torture Him and put Him to death.

Our Trinitarian God knows very intimately each Muslim who is so erroneously zealous to massacre every human being who in any way resists Islam or criticizes anything about Islam, and He alone knows his own will and plan for them and for us. As Jesus said, God allows the darnel growing among the wheat to go on growing and producing its unwanted fruit until the end, when He will send his holy angels to separate the wheat from the darnel and bring it into his house, while the darnel will be thrown into the fire....

This worldwide situation has in our time a new face, but it has elements that have been there all along from the origins of these cultural and religious traditions, and they may very well be there until the end of time. These are not problems that are ours to solve, but merely to live through them with the best of our faith and ability, and trust in our God and Father and in his Son Jesus Christ.

L’abbé / Fr. Gilles Check out the Madonna House website!

“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32 «Notre cœur n’était-il pas tout brûlant au-dedans de nous, quant Il nous parlait en chemin, quand Il nous ouvrait les Écritures?» Luc 24 :32

Email: ministry@fathergilles.net Web Site: http://fathergilles.net/

Blog Site: http://fathergilles.blogspot.com/ Site Blogue: http://labbegilles.blogspot.com/

Epilogue 03 - WYD 2008 Diaries

2008-08-02T12:42:00.003-04:00

Good Morning to All!

Just to help our pilgrims track our memories and experiences, and help our reflection, which I needed to do for myself, here is our WYD08 Itinerary - as well as I can remember it - of pretty much what we did or had options to do.... Feel free to send me additions and corrections....

In Jesus, Fr. Gilles

WYD 2008 Photos 007

2008-08-01T14:15:00.001-04:00

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Epilogue 02 - WYD 2008 Diaries

2008-08-01T11:01:00.007-04:00

Greetings to All,

Since we who have been privileged to pilgrim to WYD 2008 in Sydney haven't been aware of the media coverage, I'm just now discovering it, beginning with Salt + Light TV. Check it out.

They also have a Salt + Light Blog, on which among other things they give reference to Pope Benedict's reflection on his experience of WYD and his hopes for all of us pilgrims and for all the young Catholics and Christians of the world.

You will also find on their blog the WYD08 Final Statistics.

As I just begin really to reflect on how I myself experienced this WYD08 pilgrimage, browsing the Salt + Light website, listening to their Zoom reports, browsing their blog, I find myself being drawn to read and reflect on the texts of Pope Benedict's addresses to us, which were at times difficult to hear, let alone focus clearly on....

I am deeply impressed and touched to my soul's life experiences by his reflection shared with us at the Vigil on the Holy Spirit.... his final paragraphs on St. Augustine's struggle to understand the Holy Spirit in a practical way actually helps us picture the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in our personal lives, relationships, and faith community, and then his encouragement to us is remarkable and precious!

I'm so glad to now be able to reread his Sunday homily, which I had a lot of trouble even hearing because of the strong echo at Randwick.... Pope Benedict is really a good spiritual father for us, giving very practical and simple counsel on how to allow the Holy Spirit to fill us with his power and unfold in us his gifts. Our belonging to the family of the Church is the way in which God has been pouring into us the life of the Trinity, and it is Jesus who at every Holy Communion fills us anew with the Holy Spirit, who is Love in Person and the Giver of life.

I hope we get a chance to discuss the words of Pope Benedict that are having the most impact on us.... In this ongoing Epilogue WYD Diaries, I hope to go back and fill in our Itinerary and my own experience of our journey, so that it may become clearer how the Holy Spirit has been leading us throughout our pilgrimage and onwards into our future..... Thanks to Fr. Raymond Lafontaine who sent us all of Pope Benedict's addresses in a single document!

In Jesus, Fr. Gilles

Epilogue 01 - WYD 2008 Diaries

2008-08-01T01:45:00.005-04:00

Hello to you, dear fellow pilgrims, families, friends, and parishioners....

I'm still not on the right clock, but I've had a good long chat with my sister Lyette who is preparing her own vacation and with Papa whom I'm looking forward to seeing on Saturday.... I've emptied my backpacks and have had a look at my blog and journal and see the gap in both. I didn't have time to keep up my own journal and intend to catch it up this week. The blog was comprehensive until Thursday afternoon July 10th and resumed Saturday afternoon the 12th, and then was sketchy and brief from the 13th to the 18th, with little after that except one incident on the 23rd and then resumed on the 28th for a day and a half.

I hope to do a retrospective, a kind of epilogue over what I missed and also of my impressions overall in the days ahead.... This experience is too precious to allow it to fade. It is important to gather up the gifts the Lord gives us, to remember them and reflect on them and also to tell others about them, because it is only in the telling that we come to better understand and even to possess our own experiences.... otherwise they tend to fade into oblivion or at least aren't as available to us and may not have as lasting an effect on us as when we do reflect and give witness to what we have seen, heard, felt, thought, and experienced. It is for this that the Holy Spirit gives us power from above, to give witness to Jesus as the One we experience as truly our Lord, Teacher, Saviour, and the Beloved of our souls.

In Jesus, Fr. Gilles

the latest

2008-07-29T22:37:00.003-04:00

Hi. The latest is we've just been summoned to reboard the plane and we probably will make our flight to Vancouver out of Auckland. They've fixed the mechanical problem. Stay tuned. If there are further developments I'll try to blog again. God bless one and all. Fr. Gilles

WYD 2008 Photos 006

2008-07-28T23:31:00.001-04:00

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WYD 2008 Photos 005

2008-07-28T23:12:00.001-04:00

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WYD 2008 Photos 004a

2008-07-28T22:54:00.001-04:00

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Days 19-26 - July 22 to 29 of our WYD 2008 Pilgrimage

2008-07-28T22:31:00.007-04:00

Greetings to all of our family members, friends, and parishioners.....

I'm publishing this post as I begin it and continue to edit and repost, just to alert the casual browser that I'm currently online in Sydney at Global Gossip, which is incidentally the most reliable Internet place I've found to date. I am also concurrently uploading photos to Photobucket and will then post them to this blog. I notice that last time the post came in twice... I don't know how that happened, but I was making haste in my last few minutes of online time....

My earlier postings went into quite a bit of detail, that was while we were in New Zealand, a wonderful time for all of us, even though it was really cold from the evening to midmorning. Mind you, for most of our pilgrims, cold has never been much of an issue.... I think there are only a handful of us "frileux" types....

Once we came for the first time to Sydney for the week of WYD, our pilgrimage accelerated a great deal.... I managed to give you a bit of a glimpse of those days and all that activity, and you will hear a lot more from your pilgrim family member or friend. We celebrated the Holy Eucharist last night in the breakfast room (the only gathering place) of our hotel, which is not the one originally on our itinerary (there were cockroaches apparently there) and which at least is clean, though in an army barracks kind of way....

We have had a few such profoundly meaningful celebrations of the Lord's mysteries, in which we have left room for our pilgrims to voice a particular intention. On this occasion, it followed up on a very significant large group sharing time which we had yesterday morning, Monday here, after breakfast and before our four different activity groups headed out for their day's outing. Our first such very open large group sharing occurred as a Liturgy of the Word because I was unable to speak without coughing heavily, and that was while we were still in New Zealand at the Kiwi Paka Lodge on Monday or Tuesday the 7th or 8th of July. It was a very deep personal moment when all the pilgrims shared personal impressions, aspirations, concerns, spiritual desires, and prayer intentions.

As I remember it, we had a number of significant celebrations of the Holy Eucharist while in New Zealand, in different places. During the WYD week, we celebrated as a group only once, and that was Saturday evening at the beginning of the Vigil, and a handful of our New Zealand guests and pilgrims themselves joined us. While we were in Cairns, we had no place or occasion to celebrate the Holy Mass, and only did so twice. On the Wednesday we went by minibuses to Cape Tribulation, a kind of resort area in the rainforest, and on Thursday morning, our group decided to join a French group from S. Jerome Diocese, with l'abbe Martin presiding. I would have liked to preside a Mass for our own group, but being still troubled by a cough when I attempt to speak I didn't mind joining the French Mass too. It was beautiful, and all were pleased, except perhaps a few whose French is not so strong.

Then we all trudged off to the nearby St Monica Cathedral of Cairns, a 7 minute walk of two blocks where we joined the 10 am regular Mass presided by Bishop Foley. I slipped into the sanctuary, having arrived just before Mass began - our group got a late start what with checking for presences and so on.... It was a lovely Mass.... The bishop was actually quite humorous, and I found out after Mass that he too has been suffering what what he called the flu, having spent a week in bed to no avail, which perhaps explains why he left out the creed and prayers of the faithful and went straight from the homily to the Offertory procession.... Still, we all felt revived by the Lord, the sheer beauty of the 24 stained glass windows telling the story of Creation, the faith of the congregation with whom we felt at home, and the beauty of the cantor's and choir's voices and music they had chosen, some of which was familiar.....

Sunday morning we had checked out of our rooms and loaded our baggage into a locked room near the entrance to Koala Beach Resort, and gone to Mass. After Mass, there were refreshments served and we are not known for refusing such offers!!!!!!!!! Meanwhile, Laura Ieraci with help from Isabel Correa set up a little studio outside the cathedral in a lateral courtyard in the sunshine - it was a radiant morning around 23 degrees - and interviewed a select number of our pilgrims, who had been asked the night before. A few others contemplated the stained glass windows and listened to a remarkable audio narrative interpreting them. Others browsed the cathedral gift shop on the opposite side of the church off the other courtyard. Eventually, we found our way back to Koala and from there went off into separate groups for lunch, shopping, browsing, exploring, or to rest in the sun at the Lagoon, a fresh water pond/pool near the shore and harbour.

We all met back at Koala for our bus to the Cairns airport to travel to Syndey, where we were welcomed once again by cold and rainy weather... oh joy!!! This brings be back to the sharing we had yesterday morning, the second such large group extended sharing of this pilgrimage, which is not a mean feat, considering the fact that most of our venues didn't allow for large group gatherings. We wanted our pilgrims to have the opportunity to share their impressions, hear those of others, and for us to reflect with them on the significance of some of our experiences and observations.

Sometimes one has to go to the other side of the world to notice things that may also be evident back home but are no longer obvious or consciously noticed because they have become familiar or commonplace. While the Church in New Zealand and Australia and Catholics here seem more orderly, for lack of a better word, I mean that they tend to be more reverent in church, less likely to chat and carry on as we do - especially in front of the Blessed Sacrament - and both the believer and the 'model citizen' tend to behave in an orderly fashion and carefully, politely; the society in general is quite secularized and shall we say a little looser than we are accustomed to see. For example, it is illegal in Quebec and the rest of Canada to drink in public, I mean outside or openly in public places. Not so here.

While we were in Cape Tribulation, our only night there, we had no scheduled activity except I believe a night walk on which a few went to observe the behaviour of the creatures of the night. Well not all the wild creatures were in the rainforest. We the adults carefully supervised our youth, around fifteen of whom were engaged in a social game in which the players act out specific roles assigned to them by the draw of a card. A few others sat and watched or played billiards nearby. A few I believe were resting in their cabins, and each cabin had at least one adult, and we did not allow any minors to be alone at any time, but always accompanied by an adult.

Our care and supervision paid off in a noticeable way that night. A stranger, a man in his 30's took interest in the social game and pulled a chair nearby to observe it as he sipped his glass of wine. Occasionally he asked a question of the game master, one of our young underage girls. When he left to replenish his wine, I approached Julie and Anna who had been standing nearby and was told that our young game mistress felt 'freaked out' by the man, who after all was a stranger and an adult. His interest had seemed innocent enough and may very well have been only that. Still, once I heard that I went into alert. I placed myself near our game mistress, and when the man returned and made a move to put his hand on her shoulder to ask another question, I moved in on him and informed him that his invasion of her personal space was not only unwanted but inappropriate, he being an adult and she being a youth. He showed some apparently innocent embarrassment, not realizing this was the case, and disappeared. Needless to say, our young game mistress was relieved and grateful.

Various of our pilgrims - youth together with adults - had other harmless encounters with young people or adults who were obviously inebriated, and our team took care to debrief with each of the groups their experiences. At the end of the evening, we met together and quickly came to a consensus that we needed to bring this up with the whole group at a general large group meeting in order to help them express their thoughts and feelings at their observations and draw some useful lessons from it all, in view of our experience of faith and of WYD.

It was useful that we had resolved to do this, because our first night in Sydney, Sunday night, we arrived at our destination on William Street around 10:30 pm. We brought our bags in, received keys to our rooms - four per room with at least one adult per room - and met downstairs, those who wanted to go out to eat. We went up the street to McDonald's and quickly realized we were in the red light district - our hotel was just off the edge of it. We carefully shepherded our sheep and surrounded them. While ordering and eating our meals - not the cleanest McD we've ever seen either - a few young men and women in line were obviously inebriated and carrying one a box of wine, another an open beer bottle. This would not be happening in Montreal.

Our presence reassured our youth, and the behaviour of our adults towards the troubled youth was a good example of Christian charity and respect for the dignity of others, no matter what. Obviously, we had all the more reason for our large group sharing yesterday morning. Well, it was wonderful to listen to our youth, how considerate and understanding they were for people who find themselves in various situations we would categorize as 'being lost'. Some also were glad for his opportunity to express their feelings: a bit spooked by it but reassured by the motherly / fatherly presence of our adult team leaders, angry at the conditions that cause youth to find themselves so lost, compassion at those who may not have had the experience of family and faith with which we have been so blessed, a mixture of compassion and need to be careful of oneself under such circumstances and glad to be with our group, and so on....

These are wonderful youth, our pilgrims, and it has been a joy and privilege for us to have accompanied them halfway around the world to these World Youth Days and to this great adventure, which many are already qualifying as life-changing, and an experience of a lifetime.

We have cautioned our pilgrims to brace themselves for the return. Having had many personal experiences of being on retreat, we have all known how difficult it is to return to the regular rhythm and routine of life once we have been off the 'merrygoround' of life in today's world. You our family, friends, and parishioners will not have had the countless experiences we and they have had here these almost 28 days, although you will undoubtedly be able to relate from your own similar experiences of being on retreat or pilgrimage.

For those of you who have never been either on retreat or on pilgrimage, then it may be more of a challenge for you to enter into the experiences of your pilgrims as they try to articulate and to relate to you their itinerary, the journey they have had from experience to experience, and from desire to faith encounter with the Lord, each in his or her own way.

We pilgrims ourselves will need time to debrief with each other all that we have experienced. The lucky ones are those who diligently kept a daily journal, while others of us like me just didn't find much time for it. Many days it was all I could manage to keep up with the Liturgy of the Hours, keep up with the group, and prepare for the upcoming celebration of the Eucharist. Still, we hope to provide those who can come a few meetings in the coming weeks to help us all to debrief some of our experiences while on pilgrimage, and how the Lord is inviting us to integrate these graces into our daily lives; so that we may no longer be as we were, but rather as the Lord is now offering us to be and to continue becoming.....

Peace be with you all, and please join us in prayer and reflection as we anticipate meeting at the airport and living through the days and weeks ahead that will, by our attentiveness and mutual caring, not let the treasures of this pilgrimage be lost, but will rather gather them up into hearts and minds and souls that are attentive, eager to receive from the Lord all the He desires to offer, and willing to take the time to contemplate the wonders He does in our lives and in the lives of those we love and of those we meet.

We are all conscious that life has gone on for all of you too, and we will also need to catch up on how you are and what has happened to you over this time, and what it has been like for you to accompany us in a spiritual and prayerful way through your love and desires for the Lord's man gifts..... Peace be with you one and all, and God bless you. Thank you so much for your kind prayers and loving consideration.....

Father Gilles, signing off for this WYD 2008 pilgrimage.

wyd 004

2008-07-22T08:53:00.001-04:00

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Days 12 to 19 of our WYD 2008 pilgrimage

2008-07-22T08:28:00.002-04:00

Good evening, day, to all....

Well, the WYD portion of this almost month long pilgrimage has come and gone....

It was a thrill and an honor for our youth and for all of us to animate the Catecheses in a sports arena in Sydney's Olympic Park, where we also slept, but that was in "The Dome", a large facility - whose purpose I never got the opportunity to discover - shaped like a velodrome without the track. We were set up all in a row, girls at the far end with leaders at the end and leaders separating them from the boys at the near end to the center, with more leaders at that end.... Once we got used to it, we were glad to get back to it each night to sleep.

There was a lot of singing, a few skits, and lots of laughs and high spirits as we brought the other pilgrims, from 2000 to over 2500 to participate and sing. A lot of people were somewhat blitzed by the cold air, around 1 to 4 degrees at night and 10 to 14 during the day, so warming up with singing and movements was a welcome idea. We were glad to be there to welcome Pope Benedict on the Thursday and to participate in the grandiose way of the cross on Friday by sitting in a park which was one of the stations. Of course, the highlight was the overnight Vigil and the final Mass on Sunday.

Through the week, more of us have developed cold symptoms, so we continue to stock up on vitamins, try to get more sleep, and do all we can to keep warm. Still, not much can dampen the high spirits of our youth as we continued to enter into the significant and fascinating events of WYD. A few of our pilgrims elected not to go to the Vigil and one of our leaders accompanied them to stay in a hotel suite for the night so they could get better rest and keep warm. Franca took good care of them like a good mother, and got those who were coughing to wear a hospital mask to keep the room sanitary. On our return, I went to visit our convalescents and brought them Holy Communion from the Pope's Mass, beginning by praying with them, having them take turns reading the Mass readings, and sharing our impressions of the Pope's message, which those who were awake saw on TV.

After going back to the Dome for our last night, we packed up and left for good in the morning to fly out to Cairns, where we are now. It is much warmer here.... It was 25 when we arrived even though it was overcast and continues to be.... Today we went on a cruise to the Great Barrier Reef, where most snorkelled and a few tried scuba diving. I tried it but didn't get very far, what with my persistent cough.... We all had a good time and most are going to bed early tonight on a voluntary basis, even though Michael has given us a 9:30 curfew.

I'm trying to upload more photos... I've tried in two different places this past week, but the PC's were locked in some what that wouldn't allow me to download my photos from the camera and then onto a portable memory stick. I finally found a place that would allow that, and am now uploading the photos to Photobucket, but must then share them to the blog. I may not have the time to do it as the operator closes soon.

God bless you all. Don't worry, we are either well or recuperating. Either way, we are taking good care of our pilgrims as though they were our very own. Peace and love.

Days 7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14 News of our WYD Pilgrims

2008-07-17T09:02:00.005-04:00

Hello everyone! No, we didn't fall off the end of the Earth.... Last Thursday July 10th, our day 7, I spent several hours in the afternoon becoming familiar with the St Patrick Parish PC and tried to load up photos to Photobucket and my blog, and also to send you news.

Our hosts then offered us supper cocktails style, with volunteers passing among us with trays of various homemade or bought goodies, mostly hot, and a good time was had by all. For my part, I was not feeling so good, having started with a sore throat the day of our arrival and now having trouble speaking without coughing at the end of the day.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I spent Friday and Saturday morning recuperating at Dale and Dave Elliot. In the afternoon they drove me to the Cathedral where they joined us for a Mass I presided for our pilgrims. I then rejoined them for a visit to Kelly Taltons, an oceanarium with a history of Antarctic exploration. That night we all had dinner as usual with our host families except for the 8 of us at the Monastery. We were invited to go as two groups to two other families and then four of us and our family joined the other group and family to watch a rugby match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the South Africa Springbocks - well was that ever exciting. The Kiwis really take their rugby seriously and it as almost as loud with the 35 people in that living room as in the Canadians' forum!

Sunday we joined the Parish for their main 10 am Mass and our pilgrims sang a few songs with the local choir, who were very good! In the afternoon there was a pilgrim walk to Tyburn Monastery, where 8 of us were staying, and the Mothers received them with refreshments. Then we went to the chapel for a holy hour of prayer and adoration. It was meaningful and very touching. That night we all went out to Peter O'Connell's for a Farewell Bar-B-Q. When touching words were exchanged and also the next morning, heart swelled with emotion as both our youth and our hosts were reluctant to see these days come to an end, but of course they must and did.

Since Monday we have had very full days. We are staying at the Olympic Park in a sportplex called the Dome, sleeping on mats 18 inches apart on the sides and 6 feet apart at the head, with the feet on the aisles, with over 3000 other pilgrims!!!! We wouldn't have believed it when we arrives, but after full days of walking around from 7:30 am to 9:30 pm, we're glad to come back to our "Home Sweet Dome".

Tuesday we had the opening Mass presided by Cardinal Pell. Yesterday and today and again tomorrow (Friday) morning we along with Transfiguration and Holy Name of Jesus are animating the morning catecheses given by a different bishop each day. Our youth are having a blast getting 2 to 3000 pilgrims singing in another sport arena... One of the most exciting, moving and draining experiences of these days is marching up boulevards closed to traffic immersed in a sea of tens of thousands of other pilgrims travelling in groups like schools of fish, carrying flags and chanting in their own languages....

I'm about to run out of dollar coins and time and I'll take it to the max....

Some of us have had scratchy throats and today we descended on a 'chemist' - what they call a pharmacy - and scooped up remedies and lozenges... Don't worry parents, we are taking good care of your youth. They aren't much different with us as they are with you.... We look forward to all having internet access and sending longer messages. God bless you and until next time...

Today we got to see Benny!!!

Pax + Caritas

Fr. Gilles

Days 6-7-8-9-10-11 Catching up on our travelogue

2008-07-13T19:26:00.002-04:00

It's already 5 days ago that we made our way from the Waitomo grotto caves to St Patrick Parish here in Pukekohe, some 40 kilometers out of Auckland. Don't ask me what direction.... It's all so disorienting... We put on our bright red Habs shirts and grouped together outside the entrance of the Parish Hall (it's on the right, with the church in the middle and the rectory on the left) where a contingent of parishioners had gathered to welcome us, with folk of every generation from grandparents to toddlers....

We sang a song and an elder religious Sister Mary Martin sang a Maori welcome... There were some official words of welcome by Vicky, the Parish WYD Coordinator for these Days in the Diocese, and others. Then we all mingled and piled into the hall for "afternoon tea" .... it was all so civilized and proper, a good rest and food for body and soul after our long bus ride.

There was much mingling and introductions and in time we were all introduced and assigned to our host families... 8 of us were to stay and Tyburn Monastery, where 5 Benedictine nuns carry on continuous adoration and maintain a house of prayer and retreat. We were delighted to arrive to a warm supper waiting at 6:30 and later settled into our rooms. We joined the sisters for Night Prayer (Compline) which was very touching. The sisters sang with such small, delicate voices, as though expressing to the Lord with great affection their poverty and fewness in numbers and yet great confidence in his love and faithful help....

We were blessed with individual rooms with electric space heaters... and enjoyed showers and good food. The sisters prepared lunches for us, whether midday meal was already planned or not and we all found enough appetite to eat them, if not for lunch then for a snack in mid-morning or afternoon. We didn't get to see the beauty of the site where we were living until the weekend because we arrived at night after dark hits at 5 pm and left before morning light after 8 am.

Thursday - Day 7

We made our own breakfast from what the Sisters provided in the guest house: whole wheat bread, toasters, peanut butter and jams, fresh fruit, teas and coffee, milk, etc. Thursday, Friday and today Monday we made our way to the church for 8:45 to prepare for morning Mass at 9:00 with Frs. Peter Gray and Ikenasio Vilaliano (a Samoan), who have been simply wonderful. This first morning here we chatted and then were led on foot to a public park where we would perform a public service as part of our stay. Vicky said it was not far, just two blocks. She didn't say it would be two New Zealand blocks, which made it a 20 minute walk!

The weather was lovely and mostly sunny, though, and we enjoyed the walk and chatting, and photo ops. We arrived at this lovely park complete with hillside, gully, spring, trees, grass, and had 300 "trees" to plant. They were grasses and tropical tree seedlings around 12 to 24 inches high with root balls. Digging holes in the ground varied from very dry and hard ground to soft and muddy near the stream. Yes, some of us managed to get properly muddy and one of the local boys (6 foot +) managed to trip on a tree root jumping over the stream and landed one foot squarely in the water.... lots of giggling all around, and he was a good sport...

This was real labor, and many of our pilgrims looked like they had never handled a spade or shovel before, but quickly got the hang of it.... and all experienced deep satisfaction at making a difference and planting seedlings that would live on for many years and help the local Council reclaim unused land previously used as dumps.... The camaraderie and cooperation was a wonder to behold as pilgrims worked and helped each other and took time to have fun while still getting the job done. The organizers were thrilled at the group's progress and delighted that all 300 seedlings were planted.

We leisurely made our way to the other side of the stream and park where a grill had been set up and as Sami put it "an infinite number of sausages" were waiting for us... They do it simply here, serving on a slice of bread you could grill yourself, with butter, and ketchup... there were fruit and cookies... and of course the guys and a few gals played Haki Sak....

to be continued.....

Days 6-7-8-9-10-11 Our wonderful stay in Pukekohe, New Zealand

2008-07-13T18:56:00.003-04:00

Good Day! Please note I've edited the previous post titles a little to put order in the photos postings: 001 is the Sunday Mass sendoff of June 28-29, 002 is the first posting of photos from New Zealand, and 003 is the most recent posting of photos from here. Now we are Monday morning and preparing to leave at noon. We've had a wonderful stay here in the little town of Pukekohe, among the people of St. Patrick Parish. I'm going to check on what's happening and if there's time I will return to catch up on my travelogue.

You see I've been out of commission for a bit. On our first day a week ago Friday it turned cold, rainy and windy and we walked, the leaders, back from a restaurant after Mass at St. Benedict in Auckland, and I caught a chill. Sore throat, dry cough when I tried to speak... So the leaders agreed I should go to see a doctor. Helene and Kim's hosts, Dale and Doug Elliot brought me to the clinic where she works as receptionist and a doctor put me on penicillin and other tablets, rest, Vitamin C, keeping warm, etc. I spent Friday and Saturday morning at Dale and Dave, and they drove me in to St Patrick Cathedral in Auckland where the pilgrims came after a climb up a volcano on the island in the harbour and we prepared and celebrated the Holy Eucharist.

It was a marvelous Mass in a remarkable setting, a beautiful worship space recently renovated. The Lord inspires us at such moments with meaningful words, pregnant silences, moving singing and touching communion of spirits.... So I'm still recovering, and I managed yesterday to have the PC load photos to Photobucket during our 10 am Sunday Mass with the parishioners, and after Mass sent them to the blog. Now I'll go check on the rest of our group and may or may not come back to continue the travelogue where I left off last week. God bless. Pax + Caritas.

We all love you our families, friends, parishioners very, very much, carry you and our intentions in our hearts and prayers and at Mass, and wish you were here with us, and look forward to see you again soon.... Hugs and kisses from everyone!!!!!!! ooooooo xxxxxx

Fr. Gilles for all our Pilgrims

WYD 2008 St Luke Pilgrims Photos 003

2008-07-12T19:26:00.001-04:00

Photobucket Album

Finally, you get to see some photos!

2008-07-10T01:11:00.002-04:00

Good Evening to All,

I finally have managed to upload photos to Photobucket and send them to this blog. It took a couple of hours on an unfamiliar and slower PC, in the Parish Office in a country where there is no indoor heating; so it's like sitting outdoors around 8 degrees minus the wind....

Anyway, here they are, but I'm afraid they're not in much order. There are photos taken the day of our departure, during the flights, in between flights in airports, on arrval, and all along the way.... up until our white water rafting last Monday - it's now Thursday evening here. In future, I will try to keep photos in separate folders for each day so the PC doesn't scramble them. Why PC's do such things I'll never understand, but there you are.

Enjoy!!!!

Fr. Gilles

WYD 2008 St Luke Pilgrims Photos 002

2008-07-10T01:10:00.002-04:00

Photobucket Album

Two years of anticipation - we finally meet our host families - Days 6-7

2008-07-09T21:36:00.010-04:00

As we their team leaders observe our marvelous youth - and we are very proud of them, of their attitudes, of their behaviour, wherever we go - we are glad to see that so far our pilgrimage has been an adventure that manages to keep ahead of their expectations and is generally at a pace to match their youthful enthusiasm and boundless energy.... I can attest to that, no longer being so youthful myself!

I started numbering our pilgrim days at 0 for Wednesday and Thursday July 2-3 our travel days, with our first day on the ground here "down under" in New Zealand being Day 1. So then yesterday Wednesday July 9 was day 6 and we were off again to an early start, reporting at the breakfast area / conference room with our bags. The bus wasn't there and some of us became a little panicky, just a little, wondering whether we had gotten the time wrong, but no, David had gone with the bus to fuel up with diesel.

Many of the pilgrims bought the breakfast for NZ$13 and all who had it two days earlier got a $5 credit because they didn't actually provide enough bacon for everyone.... The rest of us opted to have breakfast from supplies we had accumulated these past few days. We were all in a good mood, in varying degrees of wakefulness, despite the third night in a row at or below zero, but we had gotten the knack of making the best of the room heater and layers of clothing. Some used their sleeping bags over their bed. Finally we were off exactly at 8:30 as scheduled, and our team leaders, guide, and driver were very happy about that, because we had an appointment to visit the Waitomo Caves at 11:00 a.m.

It was a long drive of over 2 hours away, and we observed magnificent landscape. In the far distance dark green tree covered mountains... at their feet rolling towards us energetic rolling hills covered with moist green grass kept quite short by flocks of sheep scattered all over the hill sides and tops, and around Rotorua, herds of dairy cows.... valleys and gulleys in between the hills and in some places brooks and little rivers, with sheep fences all over the place, and pretty little homesteads dotting the landscape here and there.

We pass through little villages and bigger towns, with picturesque and quaint homes.... We are told that in and around Auckland even modest 3 bedroom homes go for at least NZ$350,000. Nothing very big exists for less than that, unless you go into the countryside, but even there, it is hard to find anything for what we would consider a decent price. The cost of living is relatively high here. At first this was a shock to our pilgrims as we went out for meals or shopped at a food market for the fixings we needed to make a meal. However, since we rarely go out for three meals a day, we are remaining within the $35-50 range we originally told our pilgrims, which translates into NZ $45-65.

The Waitomo Caves are known worldwide because their ceilings are covered with glow worms that glow constantly as they burn their waste - they leave no droppings - and lower long sticky filaments with which to catch passing unsuspecting insects, which they then draw up to eat much as a fisherman draws up a fish caught on a fishing line hook. We had stopped just before arriving at the Caves because of the constant winding turns we were taking in the bus as we drove up into the hills, which caused a few to feel a bit noxious.... On arriving, we gathered outside the bus and lined up to await our guide.

I may not have mentioned before, but this is a good spot to do so... Whenever we have found ourselves waiting in line or in between activities, or for others to get back from something, our pilgrims naturally do as they do at home. They "swarm" together... in circles or in a row to chat, sit or lie down together, even nap together, like so many kittens or puppies in a litter.... When they are feeling more energetic, the "Haki Sak" enthusiasts gather in a circle of 5 to 8 or more to try to keep in the air without touching with their hands a little cloth bag the size of a golf ball, only it is soft and half filled with little beads.... It's really quite amazing to see them go at it for an hour on end, like when the first group had returned from white water rafting and had showered and changed and we awaiting the second group to return. The second group had hiked up the trail to observe the first group come over the 7 meter waterfall - not a 90 degree drop but more like a 45 degree rapid that goes down 7 meters - but once the first group was done, some hiked up the trail to observe the second group do it, while others just wanted to get out of their wet suits, boots, spray jackets, and fleece underneath it all....

Getting back to the caves, it was amazing to walk through the caves, up and down staircases put in after they were discovered, explored, and first opened for tours in 1889. Most of the caves are huge, as long as 40 kilometers - your eyes are not deceiving you - while the biggest one we got into here was a mere 80 or so meters long and 35 meters high. It is called the cathedral and has amazing acoustics since the limestone absorbs all the sound and leaves no echo. A number of famous singers have been here to sing in it: the Beatles, Tom Jones, and now St. Luke's Youth Choir! We kept going further down until we came to the home of the glow worms, and took two turns getting into one of two large aluminum boats capable of holding 25 or so. We sat down, did as we were told and kept very quiet and flashed no lights and took no pictures; so as not to spook the flow worms, lest they turn off their little lights.

It was so eerie and peacefully quiet down there, as we slowly drifted under ceilings of glow worms that looked like starry night skies.... When we finally emerged from the caves and walked back down the short trail to the bus, I couldn't help but notice the beautiful large trees in the gully dropping down fairly steeply on our left... for a moment I saw myself in one of the many scenes in The Lord of the Rings where the hobbits travelled through strange forests filled with living, moving trees.... It was so still, so calm and peaceful, so eerie in the half light of the shade under the canopy formed by the branches of the tall trees in the gully and the fern trees on the right.... I walked slowly, quietly, drinking in the sights, colors, stillness, fragrant moist air mixing the perfumes of the trees and plants all around....

One of those timeless moments you know will stay with you for a long time.... It was a kind of feeling mellow, as Helene said when we slowly walked away from the Polynesian Spa where we had soaked in that wonderful series of hot pools the other day... Well, that mellowness lingers with me, with us, and this is one of those moments where I was pleasantly aware of my whole body again in that mellowness, just from the sensory symphony of impressions in this place of marvels....

I believe that each pilgrim has been soaking up such experiences, and many have taken the opportunity to share their impressions with others in twos, threes, fours, etc. etc. and when we are all together....

We finally got ourselves back on the bus and drove back to Otorohangha, I think it was, where we had stopped earlier, only this time it was for lunch. We walked off in little flocks... Matthew wanted to join the others up ahead I could tell, and I accompanied him, as do all the mentors paired with younger pilgrims, and left him with Louis, knowing that this was one time I just couldn't bring myself to eat fast food - Subway - as comforting as it is for them to find something familiar. So I backtracked and found another little flock had gathered in a local grocery store open onto the street in a market like full view entrance and picked up bananas, cream cheese, a pear and made my way back to the bus to get some left over whole wheat bread, a tomato, and an opened jar of pitted olives stuffed with red pepper. When David got back and opened the bus I got those items and sat down at first at a picnic table in the shade and realizing it was around 10 degrees moved into the sun near a coffee shop. Pleasant to eat when you're hungry and warming up in the sun.....

Gradually, all the sheep gathered around the shepherd, Michael, chatting with contented tummies and smiling faces, in little groups, taking photos, and made our way back into the bus for our long drive to Pukekohe and St. Patrick Parish, where we would meet our host families. On the way Helene gave us a singing practice of the French Canadian songs in our songbook that we will sing for our hosts this week. We had a lot of fun not only singing them, but carrying on lively conversations about all that we have been experiencing. It's a wonder that Helene was able to carry on the practice at all, with all the chats going on, and she called on Philippe McAnany, Catherine Millette, Patrick Renaud, and others to help....

As we approached the town, the excitement level noticeably rose and Michael asked us to put on our Canadiens shirts. On arrival Laura Ieraci representing the Catholic Times and the Diocese of Montreal set up her tripod and camera and then we all filed out. There was a delegation of all generations waiting for us on the steps of their Parish Hall and we sang "He Reigns - Awesome God" for them. An elderly Sister from the Convent next door sang a Maori welcome song for us. Words were exchanged, and we were welcomed into the Hall for afternoon tea. How civilized and proper! We got our things off the bus and brought our bags into the Hall and mingled and enjoyed tea, which means tea, coffee, or other drinks such as juices, and cakes and cookies.

After a time, we had a little singing practice and at the same time sang for our hosts, inviting them to join in. Some of their youth also going as pilgrims to WYD 2008 in Sydney joined us. We sang the WYD 2008 theme song "Receive the Power" and several other songs. It's fair to say we raised the roof and warmed many hearts. Then our host families arrived and we were called by name and assigned to our hosts and sent to a table to retrieve our Auckland diocesan Pilgrim kit and an instruction sheet. Once everyone was assigned and announcements made, we all went off to our respective host homes. Seven other pilgrims and myself, including Louis, were assigned to the Tyburn Benedictine Monastery of contemplative Sisters, where they conduct what is called Continuous Adoration, i.e. not perpetual because they aren't enough to cover the week.

We had a lovely supper once we got our things into our rooms and after supper settled in. We joined the sisters for Compline, Night Prayer, at 8:00 p.m. and then went to our rooms. From what I hear, all of the pilgrims are encountering cultural differences of all kinds, from entering into homes without central heating and just electric space heaters in their room, to different diets and different ways of going about domestic activities, to the different climate. It's already dark at 5:30 or 6:00 pm and doesn't get light till around 8:00 am.

This morning we got ourselves breakfast and prepared to be picked up - we are the farthest from the church at around 15-20 minutes - and we gathered around and then went into the church for morning Mass. I went to the sacristy and was warmly welcomed by Fr. Ikenasio Vilaliano, originally from Samoa. I was thankful I kept my woolen sweater I bought a few days ago but regretted taking off my jacket which I could have kept under my alb. I must remember to bring my church cap I wear at St Luke in winter -my head and hands were bitterly cold in this unheated church - it must have been only 5 degrees if that. Still, Mass was lovely, and Jesus was here for us.... The pilgrims broke out in lively chatter and flocked together in the aisle after Mass.

We gathered together outside, the pilgrims chatting and sharing stories, while the leaders briefly met to discuss a few issues experienced overnight. Then we all trooped off for a 15-20 walk (not far our host coordinator Vicky said, just two blocks). She neglected to tell us it was two New Zealand blocks..... to a park where we helped the local Council plant some plants and trees along the sides of a brook to beautify the park, which they have worked very hard over a few years to clean up. The youth and leaders really got into this labor, the first real work we've had to do since we left Montreal. Carly and others also got to hold Vicky's baby before and afterwards in the still moments. A few got their shoes and pants muddy, but nothing that can't be easily remedied, and we were then treated to hotdogs (local sausage) on buttered brown bread we heated on the grill ourselves. Two local young men had grilled and prepared the sausages and napkins. Simplicity, with ketchup, but so satisfying after a good work shift!

There were also lots of bananas, apples, and cookies. Everyone had their water bottles and extra had been provided for those who didn't before we came to the park. Then our group did what they do so well, gathering around, sitting, chatting, playing Haki Sak, a few even climbed a tree to sit and chat... Our youth have enjoyed taking in the local youth and pilgrims.... And now, they have been at the school across the street for a singing practice, which must be over by now. I will continue trying to upload some photos, which is currently happening, and transfer new photos to my memory flash stick.

God bless you, one and all..... Union de priere. Desole que tout est en anglais....

Day 5 - As we prepare to leave Kiwi Paka and meet our host families

2008-07-08T05:36:00.006-04:00

Paul Di Libero

Jesus is truly present with us.

Catherine Millette

This is truly the most amazing felling in the world. There are no words to explain how we feel and the beauty of the group that surrounds us. God bless you all!

Jessica Pereira

New Zealand is FANTASTIC! It's impossible to describe the beauty and the greenery and the magnificence that surrounds us every minute of every day. Though we cant describe entirely the beauty of it all, we are becoming more and more grateful to the Lord as each day passes, as we are taking it all in. The power, the glory, the love and the infinite grandeur of God is so apparent to us now as we are journeying together. Thank-you Lord Jesus Christ!!!

Fr. Gilles

Day 5 has been exhilarating for the whole group.... After our Spaghetti Bolognese with garden salad prepared by Franca, Mario, Louis, Laura, Helene, and a host of others, we opened up this blog and several contributed posts.... Then we were off for a good night's sleep and awoke to, believe it or not, -2 degrees Celsius!!!! Even the bus had frost on it. I've been finding it hard to recover from the throat irritation and both yesterday and now today the second half of the day I have increasingly difficulty to speak without coughing, a dry cough. Several have offered help with their various remedies....

We were off to an early start at 7:15 this morning with breakfast at McDonald's and then on to the Agrodome where we enjoyed a gift shop of various sheep and wool related items of clothing and souvenirs, and then a show demonstrating the 19 different varieties of sheep in New Zealand, sheep shearing, lamb bottle feeding, cow milking, and a demonstration of sheep dog talent.... It was really very informative and entertaining.

We went on from there to Rainbow Springs - a sort of zoological garden where we observed in a nature park the various animals, birds, trees, and plants native to New Zealand and a wonderful setup for various trout that come up to spawn. I've never seen such humongous trout up to 30 inches long and some 8 inches or more in height... and over 5 kilos I'm sure.... in a beautiful pool with great vantage point views at poolside and up above it....

We went back to the mall and the food court for lunch and then on to Skyline Skyrides and Gondola / Luges where we rode gondolas up to the top of a mountain, what a view, and three brave souls rode the Sky Swing, a ride taking them up 100 feet by cable and then they pulled the cord themselves and were dropped, swinging in a huge arc back and forth until they stopped.... breathtaking! Just about everyone rode little luges down the mountain and went back up for a couple more rides.... They all had a lot of fun, and of course several of the youth played Haki Sak, or however it's spelled, in groups up to 8 in a circle.... Whenever they have a few moments in between acitivity.... They're getting to be very agile and a second group has begun.

We had supper back at Kiwi Paka and then a Prayer Service, given that my voice has just about given out and I can't speak without coughing, and Divine Providence made this a wonderful opportunity for the youth to celebrate Evening Prayer and share their thoughts and feelings as the Lord spoke to them in the reading, Psalm, and Gospel of Jesus calming the storm. How very deeply these young adults and adolescents live their lives and faith, responding deeply to all that happens to the members of their families, to their friends, to school and work colleagues.... Some of them shared how they came to faith or to know the Lord, or how Jesus has comforted them, and how intensively they desire those they know and love to come to know Him and taste his consolation too....

They then prayed for all of these people they mentioned, for Pope Benedict who himself faces many obstacles in his way as he prepares to come to meet us in Sydney, for our host families preparing to receive us tomorrow, for all the other Catholic youth of the world preparing to come and for those unable, and for all Christian and other youth and all people facing the challenges of life in our time.... They also remembered with affection and gratitude our families, friends, and all the parishioners who have been so supportive and who are in spiritual communion with us in prayer and joyful anticipation of the grace the Lord is pouring out upon us all in these days of grace. Pope Benedict is praying for and anticipating that these World Youth Days will be for the young pilgrims and for the whole Church a new Pentecost for a renewed period of evangelization that more and more people in our world may come to know Jesus, accept Him as their Saviour, and love Him, and in this way come to know the joy, peace, and love we who believe in Him have come to know....

Well, off to bed... after we pack our bags for another early departure.... Please pray for us, and for me that I may recover my health and voice....

Day 3-4 News, comments, notes from our pilgrims....

2008-07-07T05:50:00.002-04:00

Julia Kubow
Soaking in New Zealand's natural hot springs today, we had the oppurtunity to appreciate this county's beauty at it's fullest. Though all the pilgrims were reluctant to leave the springs, we were greatful for the chance to witness the beauty of this country, and greatful to God for guiding us here. We look forward to what each new day will bring.

Amber Adaszkiewicz
This trip has been such an amazing adventure. The amazing scenery is beautiful and the memories were share together would be a longterm rememberance. I'm so grateful to God for allowing me to share this wonderful experience with my second family. This will be a trip that we will never forget.

Patrick Renaud
Ce voyage est pour linstant une experience absolument incroyable a vivre. Bien entendu le paysage est paradisiaque et ce, a perte de vue; cest beau et tu sens cette beaute transcender tout ton etre. chaque journee est un collier assemblant des moments-perles inoubliables. Je remercie sincerement tous et toutes ceux qui ont contribue dune facon ou une autre a la gigantesque organisation de ce pelerinage. jespere seulement que les temoignages et les photos que vous trouverez sur ce blog vous inspira la meme senerite.

Ryan Alfred
This trip is a once in a lifetime experience and I'm so grateful God has given me the strength to go on this grand pilgramage. A big part of this trip for me is the actual faith journey, it has helped me to connect to God a lot more so far. Experiencing this trip with some of my best friends only makes this hourney so much more exciting sng wonderful. I miss everyone back home and am praying for you. WYD is only the beginning of this pilgrimage I'm on.

Erin Johnston
Wow. Through all the rain, wind and cool New Zealand air, God's work and beauty is so vibrant and amazing here. So far, the scenery has been amazingly beautiful. Though we have had our many cold days, God has blessed us with a safe trip here as well as a wonderful opportunity. I have a feeling that this experience will definitely help all 46 of us to grow deeper in our faith... and if a few hot springs are included on the way, all the better!
We all miss everyone back home and are extremely thankful and greatful for all of your help and support in sending us pilgrims to New Zealand and Australia this year for the trip and pilgimage of a lifetime!
I thank God for all that we have had the chance to see and do. It is amazing!

Matthew Rettino
Here we are at the other end of the world, and yet it feels like we could be home, though it is just the same entirely different. The Waikato region of New Zealand looks like we are in Vermont or the Eastern Townships save for the odd tropical plant. This is an entirely new experiance for me. Until now, I have never flown, never been to another continent, never been to another hemisphere, and never been to another radically climate. I have also never consdidered myself on a pilgrimage. This pilgrimage is the summit of the trials of the year, with finishing High School and all finishing writting a book just before. I am treasuring every single experiance in this new land and look forward to going to Australia and get that place stamped in my passport as well. I hope World Youth Day in Sydney will chan ge my way of thinking in some way before I return home. It is truly amazing here, a good country.

Fr. Gilles
Well, time to wrap it up for today / tonight. God bless us all, everyone, as Tiny Tim said so well in A Christmas Carol. Union de priere....

Greetings from Kiwi Paka **** Youth Hostel in Rotorua, New Zealand - Days 3-4

2008-07-07T04:18:00.003-04:00

Greetings to All,

Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday, but it was quite a day. Saturday we celebrated a weekday Mass at the Armitage Hotel in Tauranga and we left there Sunday morning after such a hearty breakfast I have the impression it was really a Hobbit breakfast: sausages, eggs, fried mushrooms, beans, various fruit from preserves, fresh fruit wedges, cheeses, toast, coffee or tea, juice, and on and on.... poor pilgrims we were not in that wonderful moment!

On the road we went to visit Kiwi 360 which is a display farm like an eco museum combination arboretum displaying all the kinds of fruit and nut trees grown in New Zealand. It was an amazing tour on a little motorized train with a great guide. We stopped a few places to see close and touch the trees and kiwi vines that grow about 6 feet off the ground. Kiwi was the first local product of New Zealand fuelling their independence around 50 years ago and continues to drive the national economy. We got to sample green and golden kiwi fruit in the gift shop and also some local kiwi and other wines and liqueurs. (We were careful of our minors, don't worry.) It was very pleasant and most bought souvenirs, plastic bottles of kiwi juice, fresh kiwi fruit which are harvested over a 6 week period every year in April/May.

Our itinerary was tweaked by Michael and our team of leaders who then had our guide Margot and bus driver Dave bring us to a supermarket where we had time to stock up on items for lunch and perhaps another meal and snacks. We enjoyed the shopping too much and took more time than we had been allowed, so we only had 30 minutes to get back to Kiwi Paka 5 minutes away, prepare and eat our lunches and get back on the bus, but we made it! Margot was impressed that such a large group could actually make and eat lunch in 20 minutes flat! The reason was we had an appointment for a tour of the Maori Cultural Center, which is so busy with tours that we would have missed out had we been late.

Very fascinating culture, the Maori, who are a Polynesian people who came here some seven centuries ago. Like most indigenous peoples, they identify God as represented in the elements of the environment with which they relate and from which they derive their sustenance; so that the various tribes relate to the ocean, or the forest, or the mists, as do the locals here, who have settled in the area at the center of volcanic geysers and mists. The guide left a deep impression on us of a people with strong family and ancestral ties, a strong sense of honor and identification to one's tribe and family. We lingered a bit there and in the gift shop and by the time we made our way to Kiwi Paka and settled into our chalets, it was past six o'clock.

Until now, we shared rooms in twos - one adult with a minor - but now we were grouped in fours with two sleeping in beds on the ground floor and two on the upper level. Because we had not had the opportunity to have an exact time at which we would have wanted to celebrate Sunday Mass - we had planned to celebrate before supper but hadn't been able to communicate that in advance to the desk - it took a while for us to negotiate permission to use the only conference room from the group that had exclusively reserved it. In the end, we celebrated Sunday Mass at 9:30 until 10:15, and it turned out to be a very personally meaningful celebration. At the Offertory each pilgrim came to place a host for Communion in the paten and mentioned out loud an intention for which he or she particularly felt drawn to pray: a person, a place or people in the world, or a situation. I got to hear them all, and it was profoundly moving to see how deeply each pilgrim felt about the intentions, needs, hopes, and caring for others they carry within.....

Everyone seemed to get a good night's sleep, but we are all still learning to adapt ourselves to this winter climate. It was cold in our chalets despite the heater in each of them. You see, there are only single pane windows, this being a moderate and almost semi-tropical climate. When it's 10-11 degrees in the morning, it's 4-5 degrees during the night. So we find ways, sleeping with tuques, caps, scarves, whatever works.... We had breakfast - a very simple, even frugal buffet served up by the hostel - and were off to the Kaituna River 20 minutes from Rotorua with River Rats White Water Rafting for, you've got it, WHITE WATER RAFTING!!!! We hope at some point to post photos, if I can find a PC that's up to date enough to allow it. You'll definitely get to see them on our return. We hired two professional photographers who took lots of shots and gave us 5 CD's with infinite copy rights!

Three of us bumped or bruised out hose or head.... Isabelle Correa, who had been with us along with Laura Ieraci of the Catholic Times and also representing the Archdiocese, and Louis McAnany, and Stephanie Chehab, but all are well and glad for their experience..... It was quite the exhilarating experience, even for Laura and I and our Guide Margot who simply watched. Had it not been for my throat irritation and dry little cough, I would have been in there like a flash...

However, it was a delight to have lunch at a central food place in a mall where there were half a dozen food counters; so all 47 of us (40 St Luke + 4 Chinese Mission + Isabelle & Laura + our Guide Margot) could choose what we wanted without having to wait hardly at all. Matthew Rettino and I (we were grouped in our pairs for rooming) had fish and chips and they were so good we had a second helping, which we shared both times. Then we drove a relatively short distance to the Thermal Baths and had an exquisite time going from one thermal pool to another ranging from 38 to 45 degrees C..... Awwww... poor, poor pilgrims!!!!!!!!!

Well, let me tell you, considering all the cold we've endured, it was really divine providence that arranged us to be warmed, comforted, and consoled in these baths. Truly therapeutic in every way.... It's been some time since any of us have felt so relaxed, mellow, alive, great.... We came back, and with military precision, in minutes gathered in the conference room and prepared for the Holy Eucharist, and once again put our intentions along with a host into the paten.... and so prepared ourselves. The Lord spoke gentle words to us about how He is the One who as our loving Father and Creator provides all these powerful forces for our good and life, as Francis of Assisi was the first to so clearly proclaim it: Blessed are You O Lord our Creator for Sister Water, so fair and pure, for her power to cleanse and refresh us....

The gods identified by the Maori in the elements of nature are actually the servants of the God we have come to know and adore in Jesus, who alone reveals to us the Father. As in the Gospel Jesus touched and revived the little dead girl and the woman with the hemorrhage, so too does He call us to touch others in their need and bring them the same comfort and consolation with which He fills us with life and goodness.... Now it's time for me to let this go and join the gang in enjoying a pasta supper Franca just cooked up for 47!!!!!

We will now being to include pilgrims in this blog, as they come over to the PC and add their comments, observations, messages to you all..... Enjoy them.

Sandra Ouellet
Up to now, my journey is as colourful as a rainbow:
Red for all the warmth we can feel,
Orange for the glow of our light unto the world,
Yellow for having good weather or hoping to see the sun,
Green for being respectful and nice with others in ANY situation,
Blue for having a place where we can rest,
Indigo for having such faith to cross all boundaries,
Violet for hoping to have a better world.

Day 2 - P.S.

2008-07-05T05:49:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, the PC at the Kiwi International wasn't up to date in Flash and/or Java, so I wasn't able to load photos up to Photobucket even though I spent close to an hour and $5 only to be given an error message at the end. Today, I haven't had time to try, and this PC for a reason I don't understand won't allow me to write and email, though I was able to read. Time and energy may prevent me from even trying tonight and tomorrow we're off again at 9 am, so....

Greetings from Armitage Hotel, Tauranga, New Zealand - Day 2

2008-07-05T05:01:00.004-04:00

Goodness but it seems that we've been on the road longer and that this couldn't just be day 2, but there it is. We landed in Middle Earth yesterday, which actually seems a week ago, and today we were in Hobbiton itself, in Matamata, and entered Bilbo and Frodo's hole at Bag End and we all fit into it, even though it's not the full dwelling we see in the films or in the book, which was built on set in studio in Wellington, NZ.

Our tour guides took us in 2 groups up and down the amazing site which is in the heart of a sheep and cattle farm of 500 hectares. They provided us with huge golf size umbrellas in pairs and we spent almost two hours hearing details about the construction of the site and filming of the scenes depicting life in the Shire. We stood under the Party Tree where Bilbo made his farewell speech, a huge tree almost a hundred feet high and almost ten feet in diameter!

We saw a sheep shearing demonstration and two of our young women got to bottle feed a couple of lambs three months old. Awwwwww........ they're so cute!!!!!!!!!!!!! exclaimed all the youth. But all was not joy and comfort, as we were exposed to some cold weather last night and today.

Last night we went out to join Fr. Tony pastor of St. Benedict's Parish up Queen Street in Auckland at 5:45 and our pilgrims were a hit with the local congregation who were thrilled to meet us. In fact Fr. Tony and Eva and her husband joined us for supper at Denny's but while a few got lifts with Fr. Tony and Eva in two vehicles the others trooped through wind-driven rain for a 20 minute treck only to find ourselves in a supercooled airconditioned restaurant, and try as we might, nothing could or was done about it. Then we had to walk back, but again Fr. Tony and Eva with her husband's van came to our rescue and in the end only the leaders walked all the way back. I took a chill and have had something going on in my throat since then but have been taking Echinachea remedy to fend off anything serious. The jury is still out.....

Michael had to forbid anyone wearing sandals or going barefoot until the end of our pilgrimage at Cairns, where it will be warm enough for that. At Hobbiton today near Matamata we were again out in the weather and despite taking better precautions, several found themselves shivering and were glad to get back into the heat of the bus. Yet, for all that, the majority of our youth as I write these lines have been having a great time swimming and diving in the heated pool or heating up their bones in the hot tub steaming in the cold night air... with the exuberance and stamina that only youth enjoy, at least to that extent and with that much energy..... Oh, to be young again, eh?

After Hobbiton, we drove an hour or so through awe-inspiring rolling hills covered with sheep - they number in the millions here - and gullies and mountains that remind one somewhat of Ireland or Scotland and yet with a difference... the vegetation and trees are different.... We stopped for lunch in Matamata, the main town in this rural sheep and dairy countryside, and guess where we ate, after travelling some 20,000 kilometers? You got it, McDonald's! I was so hungry I didn't care where we ate! Being out in the intermittent showers and chilly wind does that to your appetite!

Well, by then it was around 4 pm when we were back in the bus and on our way here to the hotel, a very nice hotel I might add. Unloading of backpacks, gathering in the lobby around Michael, giving out of keys to our regular twosomes adult/minor, up to the rooms with our loads to reconnoitre our rooms, and back down for a meeting to see where we go from here. The leaders met first and we decided to celebrate Mass first, a Saturday weekday Mass, followed by supper, followed by frolicking in the pool etc. We had a lovely celebration of the Holy Eucharist with everyone participating in the preparations and the celebration itself... great joy, robust and enthusiastic exchange of the Lord's peace, profound silence and recollection before Holy Communion, extended silence and personal adoration and openness to the Lord, reading of the daily reflection in Magnificat, this one by Catherine of Sienna.... oh joy!

15 minutes to put things back in our rooms and then powwow, at which the consensus was to order pizza in, and while we wait the youth enjoyed the invigorating heated pool and hot tub, now they've all come back in and run up to change, and any moment the pizza will arrive. Well, there you have a glimpse of our days, and may you continue to be open to the grace of these days which bind us together in spiritual communion across tens of thousands of kilometers, for there is no separation of distance or time in the Lord! Pax + Caritas to all!

Greetings from Auckland, New Zealand! All is well!

2008-07-04T00:23:00.003-04:00

Joyful greetings from our 40 + 4 from the Chinese Catholic Mission of Montreal + Isabel Correa and Laura Ieraci who have joined us at Kiwi International Hostel....

It's an amazing experience to lose a day in one's life.... as we crossed the International Date Line it was suddenly Friday morning.... what happened to Thursday? This has been my most amazing anniversary of ordination ever... riding the waves of excitement of all our pilgrims... 25 years ago I was ordained a priest and celebrated my first Mass at St. Kevin Parish.

Our first obstacle turned into a blessing... the way our agent Spirit Tours booked our flight we had no assigned seats whereas all the other passengers did, so in effect Air Canada was oversold by 40 seats - we were now 44 as we were joined by four youth from the Chinese Catholic mission of Montreal. So the airline offered us 25 seats in executive class... our adults and a few youth had the opportunity to stretch their legs and get a little more attention and care, but we looked in on our younger pilgrims and everyone had enjoyable flights from Montreal to Toronto, a fun wait and then another flight to Vancouver, rather than our original direct flight.

All was well and we had time to spare to board our long flight for New Zealand. We had good meals all the way, but of course some of our "growing" pilgrims managed enough appetite to find other things to eat along the way. As you will see from the photos, we are off to a great start. The travelling was rather long, but most managed some rest. We started off with a bang in Auckland by going to visit the Sky Tower (we skipped the NZ$220 Sky Jump bungee cord thing...) had a snack from a corner store, went to visit Mt Eden, the most prominent extinct volcano (the city is build on dozens of these little cone-topped grass covered hills) where there was a breeze that my 59 year old bones found chilling but the youth enjoyed. Then we visited a park with a beach on the Sea (Tasmanian or Pacific, I don't remember) and we finally came and settled into our rooms at the hostel, two by two.

We went strolling along these fascinating downtown streets and found a few places to have a late lunch - some of our youth went for Subways, others for a Pizza place, and the rest of us found a vegetarian Indian place where a most satisfying meal was only $6. Now I'm uploading photos to Photobucket while all around me there is a buzz of chatting and guitar tuning... We are going to have a music practice to limber up for the catecheses we will be animating for a rather large crowd of youth for three mornings in Sydney in a few weeks, then we're off to join the local Benedictine parish for the regular 5:45 Mass. We called ahead and asked if they could allow us room to celebrate Mass and it turns out they will be very happy to have us join them for the regular Mass.

All the pilgrims are deeply aware of your loving support, prayers, and love, and we carry all of you in our minds, memories, hearts, and souls, and lift up your intentions and those of all whom you love and/or carry in your hearts.... May we all be a leaven of God's love in our world in which so many people are seeking for a greater purpose and meaning for their lives. We pray that they will come to meet Jesus as Simon and Saul did, and the encounter so changed them they changed their names to Peter and Paul....

Open your arms and hearts to receive 44 hugs and kisses....

WYD Pilgrims Photos 001 Sendoff 080628-29 L'Envoi

2008-06-29T21:02:00.002-04:00

Photobucket Album

Day 6 & 7 - When life becomes so intense it sweeps you off your feet, don't resist; rather listen for the gentle breeze of the Holy Spirit within....

2008-06-21T17:48:00.011-04:00

The last 3 days have blurred into one.... not just because they were full and we went to bed late, but more importantly because of the transparence, maturity of faith, and incredible depth of the witnesses offered to the Congress delegates and pilgrims....

If you've read my previous post, you can catch a glimpse of the power of God's truth radiating from the young Philippino Bishop Luis Antonio G. Tagle.... Click on the title above and see the powerful Liturgy of Reconciliation and the original drama performed as a theatrical proclamation of the Good News. The whole morning and Cardinal Claudio Hummes' homily brought home to me that much if not all of our human suffering and confusion is related to preferring to try to give ourselves life rather than receive it from God (Adam), letting ourselves be dominated by our jealousy of the love others enjoy and refusing the opportunity to awaken to our own sinful selfishness (Cain), or allowing ourselves to become distant from our loving Father (the prodigal son openly rebelled while the older brother openly remained obedient but secretly rebelled).

The first result of all serious sin is fear, fear of God, of not being loved, of being rejected, hurt, or killed, fear of living fully, fear of God's will for us. The Son of God made himself small and weak in order to allay our fears; yet some of us continually or all of us occasionally continue to be afraid. Though Jesus was an innocent little baby, Herod was still afraid of Him. Because of his preaching the religious authorities were afraid of Jesus.... yet what we all desire is to come to our Father's table and have a place there. When we let ourselves be driven by fear, we end up trying to control the very life we can only receive as gift. We must let go, repent, and accept to receive the gift of his love our Father freely offers us in Jesus.

The wonder, truth, and beauty of our catechesis, testimony, and Penitential Liturgy was felt by all as awesome and profoundly moving.... Our faith was stirred to the very depths, and our need for repentance was awakened.... I had already had the joy of going to confession a few days earlier and also had the privilege of hearing a few confessions and celebrating Reconciliation with those penitents... on this day I had not signed up to hear confessions before coming and now they didn't need my; so I had a few hours "off" and wandered around then went to the adoration Chapelle Don de Dieu to pray.

During the Mass at 4 pm I dozed during the homily, but the Liturgy was beautiful and moving.... Afterwards, some of us got together and had supper in the same manner as lunch, filing through the distribution tent along with thousands of others to receive a box lunch and then finding seats in one of the 12 tents named for the Apostles in which there were dining tables and chairs. We began making our plans for the end of the week....

EUCHARISTIC PROCESSION THROUGH THE STREETS OF QUEBEC

I realized I didn't want to carry my bag so I did a little extra walking and brought my bag to the van at the other end of the grounds in the free parking area, decided what to bring in view of the wet weather we've been having, and returned to the Colisée Pepsi for the start of the procession. Well, they had already started, but I didn't realize it right away and wondered where the 100's of bishops and 1000+ priests were and only saw them later... they were far enough ahead of the "Host Mobile" as some called it.... I joined a few dozen priests who with seminarians carrying torches and incense made the vanguard. We were followed, accompanied, jostled, and generally crowded by the faithful, who could not contain their desire to be close to Jesus and contemplate Him in the Sacred Host....

We walked for 3 hours along some 5.1 kilometers, and saw the full range of humanity along the way.... It was wonderful to manifest our faith and affection for the Lord and accompany Him in his procession through the streets, as though He were reclaiming his rightful place in the city of man, from which He has too long been banished, at least in the minds, hearts, and eyes of some.

I hadn't brought my camera, though originally I planned to bring it. I forgot when I dropped my bag at the van, but I was glad I didn't have it, because it was an immersion of grace to attend to Jesus, listen to the prayers and reflections on the little portable radio we had for simultaneous translation, and watch the people in the procession and on the sidelines... and reflect on the love God has for all his children, for all of humanity, and for creation....

BOOT CAMP FOR WYD 2008

We've been walking all week, some 2-3 kilometers, and with the procession on Thursday, it was more like 8-9. This is far tamer than a real military boot camp, but in a way, I've been feeling that this week has been just that for me, a boot camp to tone up for WYD 2008 in Sydney. We have been doing things we don't normally do: walk a lot, carry a backpack all day, go out in the rain and wind, eat food that has little or no resemblance to a familiar diet, get immersed all day long day after day in a sea of people, sleep less hours than the body craves, pray a lot more than usual, and so on....

The shocking result is that as much as the body feels unhappy and wants to complain loud and long about what it's going through, by the end of the week it suddenly finds itself feeling better than it has in a long time. That just goes to show that our feelings - both physical and emotional - are so often unreliable in telling us what's really going on. Could it be that discipline is actually good for us? Imagine that!

FRIDAY THEME: The Eucharist and the Mission

OCEANIA

On Friday, Cardinal Telesphore Placidus Toppo, Archbishop of Ranchi, India, asked "Who is this God who shares with us his own mission?" He is a God of love. Jesus in the Eucharist is the secret of the successful mission and conversion of the poor and oppressed tribals centered in Ranchi since 1845. Then as now, the challenge for the mission to the poor, oppressed, and those whose human rights and dignity are denied is threefold: social and economic disparity, diversity of religion, and cultural diversity.

Today, the bulk of humanity and of the poor are in Asia. 1.9 billion in Asia live on less than US$2 per day, and 900 million live on less than US$1 per day; yet increasingly those who are well off and rich are increasingly restless. Lingering trends are a need for personal meaning, freedom, love, equality and peace; the desire to make a more just, equitable, and better society; and the need for communion with other human beings. In addition, given Jesus' command of mutual love and unity in Him, there is no place for religious rivalry and discrimination. We must dialogue and work together with other Christians.

The first Christians understood that because of Jesus' love for each of them, they were no longer apart but one body together, and their fraternal love and caring engendered a new society based on mutual respect and sharing in the midst of diversity. It is because of our human condition that this new society is not finalized and we struggle against inequality, injustice, and exploitation. Christians learned that it made no sense to honor Christ in the beauty of the Liturgy and church adornments while showing contempt for Christ when He is poor, hungry, naked.... which is why the Eucharistic Liturgy and community must be different from the world.

Because Jesus lay down his life for his Church, now his Church of every generation is able in Him to lay down her life for the world. God made visible in Jesus his desire that all humanity may experience the life nad love of God offered in Jesus at every Holy Eucharist, when Jesus gives birth to and develops a loving, sharing, humanizing faith community as a leaven for a new society anticipating the fullness of the Kingdom of God....

TESTIMONY

It was good that I heard in simultaneous translation Jose H. Prado Flores' workshop on Tuesday and appreciated all the more his testimony on Friday. He proposed that the sin of good people is getting used to God, prayer, the Eucharist, and all the things of God and then trying to give something to others while in this frozen state, like offering someone a frozen steak uncooked. He was in this state, talking more about Jesus than with Jesus, not being taught by his Word, not more than a reporter relating what others have said, caught in a routine like the disciples on the road to Emmaus who were trying to control God, to control the hurricane of Pentecost into air conditioning that I can control and not allow myself to be disturbed.

This is the sin of good people: "I am the one who decides." Then one day I asked God to drive the car, but I kept the map, wanting to decide where we're going and when to turn. But He had mercy on me because He is God and allows no one to control Him. So Jesus taught me the meaning of his Word and I began to live the Liturgy of the Word and became on fire with his Word burning in my heart like a steak sizzling on the Bar B Q - other people notice, they smell and come to find out what's cooking. Still I needed surgery on my cataracts to see that God is God. Only the Holy Spirit can reveal this or bring us close to the mystery. The Eucharist is beautiful, and it's good to understand but we need to enter into the mystery of God.

I thought I was good, he says, and didn't need any conversion, like the Pharisee who was pleased with himself and was in effect changing the God of Mount Tabor for a god of rewards. The conversion of the sinner to the just is easier than the conversion of the just to a son of God who knows God as "Abba, Father", which only the Holy Spirit can reveal to human hearts.

In addition, I needed conversion from a master of the Word - I was at that point a professor of biblical languages and theology - to a disciple and servant of the Word, letting God be God. Then He transformed me. "You seduced me, O Lord, and I let You seduce me. You overcame me because You are stronger." So this is how the St. Andrew School of Evangelization came to be formed to train and form disciples to train and form other disciples to look for Peter's just as Andrew found his brother Simon and brought him to Jesus.

The Holy Spirit showed me that the Word of God is inspired by the Holy Spirit and constantly expiring the Holy Spirit, as Mary was filled and made pregnant with the Word of God, but I wanted to control the Holy Spirit like a tied balloon, but then the Holy Spirit can't breathe out or blow where He wills. (Prayer) "Father, through your Son Jesus, grant our Pope, Bishops, Priests and all yor people to be filled with your Holy Spirit and serving your Word allow the Spirit to blow where He wills. Amen."

In his homily, Cardinal Joseph Zen Zekinn s.d.b., Archbishop of Hong Kong, made the point that when we hear "Ite, Missa est." we know the Lord sends us into the world. The Eucharist is of the faithful but for the world. God wants to bring all humanity to the eschatological banquet. The Eucharist makes the Church a sacrament to be an instrument of God to bring humanity into communion with God. The New Covenant is universal, for all mankind. "When I am lifted up from the Earth, I will draw all things to myself." John 12:32

We must keep the windows and doors of the Church open to the Holy Spirit and to allow people to come in. God can and wants to save everyone; yet He wants us to share the Bread of Truth with all for the full knowledge and experience of his salvation. "Come to me and I will give you rest." See all the restless people in the world, and all the calamities. Where was God when these calamities strike? Jesus was letting them complete what is lacking in his sufferings, and at the moment of death surprising them with an occasion to know and love Him and fullness of life. We accept to be messengers of God's offer of life and love both by Word and works of justice and love. These varied works are like planting trees which will naturally bear fruit.

SATURDAY THEME: Witnesses of the Eucharist in the midst of the world

AFRICA

What with going to bed late and morning traffic, we only arrived early for morning prayer on Saturday, but each morning the Liturgy of the Hours lead in English, French, and Spanish, with a variety of choirs and music directors made for a most prayerful start to each day....

His Eminence Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi, Archbishop of Douala, Cameroun, was a very powerful speaker, generally soft spoken for emphasis, in short an experienced orator and preacher. He is a man of great accomplishment in the area of fundamental human rights and the defense of the defenseless and their human dignity. I want to listen to him again, as I was tired and couldn't help but nod off....

One of the most powerful witnesses this week, though there have been many, was Marguerite Barankitse of Burundi, who wanted to engage the full assembly, wanted her word to be used by the Lord to touch us; so she asked that we all put down our papers and pens and listen to her. She has been laboring for some years with courage to promote peace and reconciliation in Burundi. She has consecrated her life and all her efforts to children victims of the war, running La Maison Shalom since 1994. Listen to her powerful testimony on the Quebec Church website.

Treated like "the fool of Burundi" by European journalists, as a traitor by her Tutsi tribal people for having taken in Hutu children in her Maison Shalom, she is considered to have lost her head by people for whom social categories are all important. She was threatened but clung to the faith she learned from her mother and faced many dangers focused on Jesus as her Lord. She has been stripped of everything and has learned to put her trust only in the Lord. Her testimony questions us who claim and want to follow the Lord; yet insure ourselves "for the next 100 years or more". Our belonging cannot be to this world, but to Jesus Christ....

This beautiful woman in love with God and with people is at the same time seductively attractive for her beautiful soul and transparent heart, and in the same moment very unsettling as Jesus was in his time and St. Francis of Assisi 800 years ago.

There is much more happening at the Congress today, but I have run out of steam and went home in late afternoon, packed all I could for tomorrow morning's trek to the Plains of Abraham for the closing "Statio Orbis" Mass over the whole world. At this writing I'm listening to the live Internet cast of the Youth Vigil at the Congress. Have fun listening to these and other recordings on the Quebec Church website.... God bless you.

Day 5 - continued... The Eucharist, the life of Christ in our lives....

2008-06-21T00:19:00.007-04:00

THURSDAY THEME: The Eucharist, life of Christ in our lives

ASIA

I encourage you to click on the title to get to the catechesis given by Luis Antonio G. Tagle, Bishop of Imus, Philippines, from Thursday morning. He is a young bishop and dynamic teacher who led us on a remarkable reflection on the life of Jesus in our life. Jesus guides us on the true way of spiritual worship and authentic adoration.

1. The sacrificial worship Jesus offered was unlike that of the Temple and was authentic worship in that He offered himself in cries and tears to the Father, so that He could express to the Father our own cries and laments which He made his own. Jesus' sacrifice of himself to the Father was also authentic worship because He offered himself in obedient submission to his Father's will, not out of any personal desire, identifying himself to our weaknesses and sins so as to lift them up to the Father rather than judging us. In Jesus' sacrifice and worship obedience and compassion are inseparable.

2. Baptism unites us to the sacrificial death and perfect worship of Jesus, and in Christ we can offer our lives to God, and this involves dying to sin, which is the fundamental worship of the baptized. We are to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to God (Romans 12:1) and joined to the sacrifice of Christ build the Church. Part of Jesus' suffering was the irony that his free offering of himself in obedience to the Father and out of compassion for us was not recognized as obedience to God or communion with us. Instead, he was condemned as a blasphemer because his authenticity was a threat to those considered the good people, people of influence. The One who proclaimed God's mercy was shown no mercy.

Jesus denounced the worship of false gods such as profit, prestige, pleasure, and control, which made those who engage in it insensitive to the needs of others. The false god is self interest, it is the self, and to maintain false gods other people are sacrificed in order to maintain self interest; while Jesus sacrificed himself in order to offer true worship to his Father. "How many factory workers are being denied the right wages for the god called profit? ...women are being sacrificed to the god called domination? ...children are being sacrificed to the god called lust? ...trees, rivers, hills are being sacrificed to the god called progress? ...poor people are being sacrificed to the god of greed and defenseless people are being sacrificed to the god of national security?"

The bishop then added it's not enough for us to point the finger, but we must examine ourselves as Church, because, like those who condemned Jesus in the name of authentic religion, we can become blind to God and neighbor through self-righteousness, spiritual pride, and closedness or narrowness of mind. The authentic and generous faith and love of simple people regularly puts us clergy to shame and teaches us, puts us in the presence of authentic worship of God which enlightens us.

3. "Worship and adoration are so intimately connected that they could be considered one and the same. The spiritual worship of Jesus on the cross is his supreme act of adoration. In the Eucharist the Church joins Jesus in adoring the God of life, but the practice of Eucharistic adoration enlivens some features of worship. We believe that the presence of Christ in the Eucharist continues beyond the Liturgy. At any time we can adore the Blessed Sacrament and join the Lord's self offering to God for the life of the world.

Adoration connotes being present, resting, beholding. In adoration we are present to Jesus, whose sacrifice is ever present to us. Remaining in Him we are assimilated more deeply into his self giving. Beholding Jesus we receive and are transformed by the mystery we adore. Eucharistic adoration is similar to standing at the foot of the cross of Jesus, being a witness to his sacrifice of life and being renewed by it. Apart from the Blessed Mother and the Beloved Disciple who kept vigil with the dying Jesus, the Roman centurion who had been watching over Jesus when He died could be a model of adoration.

Probably the centurion started guarding Jesus from his arrest in the garden up to his death. Seeing Jesus betrayed, arrested, accused, humiliated, stripped, and brutally nailed to the cross, he surprisingly concluded, "This man is innocent. Truly this is the Son of God." Already hardened by many crucifixions he had supervised, he must have seen something different, something new in Jesus. At the end of a routine execution came a profession of faith. It was not just another crucifixion after all. It was a manifestation of innocence, a manifestation of the Son of God. We learn from the centurion's adoration that the sacrifice of Jesus cannot be appreciated unless we face the cross.

Mark's gospel says the centurion stood facing Jesus. Like any leader of guards he kept careful watch over this criminal. He did nothing but look at Jesus, but physical nearness was not enough.
He had to be vigilant, observant, focused, so that he could account for every detail. We learn from the centurion to face Jesus, to keep watch over Him, to behold Him, to contemplate Him. But first, the centurion spent hours watching over Jesus out of duty, but ended up contemplating Him in truth. The Holy Spirit had guided him to confess "Jesus is the Son of God."

What did the centurion see? I can assume that he saw the horror of suffering that preceded the death of Jesus. He was an eye witness to the torment, humiliation, and loneliness inflicted on Jesus when friends betrayed Him and left Him. He must have been shocked to see Judas plant a seemingly caressing kiss that was in fact an act of treachery. He heard the lies fabricated in the Sanhedrin and Pilate surrendering to the crowd despite the lack of a case against Jesus. He heard a painful cry, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?"

The centurion saw unbelievable cruelty from friends, leaders, and the silence of a distant God. Betrayal, inhumanity, viciousness continue up to our time in the many crucifixions of the poor and of creation. We cannot help but wonder why friends, leaders, and even God cannot respond. But I also believe that the centurion saw incredible love, love for God who had failed to remove this cup of suffering from Him, and love for neighbor. For his enemies He begged the Father's forgiveness, to abandoned He promised Paradise, for his Mother He secured a new family, and to the God who had abandoned Him, He abandoned Himself: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

The centurion saw love blooming in the desert of inhumanity, amid the noise of ridicule and lies. This man saw truth, only yes to God, yes to neighbors, yes to mission. On the cross of hatred and violence the centurion found love, a love that refused to die, a love that is as strong as steel against evil, yet tender for the beloved. His death was transformed into life. Jesus survived the horror of the cross with hope and love and conquered the evil with tenderness. He was innocent. He was from above. He was the bread of life. He was from the Father. He us truly the Son of God."

Because of God, we can find goodness, beauty, and love in unexpected places, like the 13 year old the bishop met in a nutrition program. She was too old for the program but was feeding her little brother in place of her mother. The bishop offered to have food given to her, but she said, "No bishop, there are many other hungry children in the village. Give the extra food to them." He was struck by her honesty and innocence and drawn into deep silence. "My God, my God, why are these children going hungry. I did not expect to see love, sharing, honesty in this place of death. Truly these are innocents. Truly these are children of God."

"In eucharistic adoration let us join the centurion in watching over Jesus and see what he has seen. Let us spend time too with the multitudes of innocent victims of our times; we might be able to touch Jesus who knows their tears and pain for He has made them his own and changed them into hope and love. Watching over our suffering neighbors we could be changed like the centurion into discerners of truth and heralds of faith, and hopefully, when people behold how we carry each other's crosses in love, they too would see innocence and the Son of God in us. Let us adore Jesus who offered his life as a gift to the Father and breathed the Holy Spirit on us sinners. Let us adore Him for ourselves, for the poor, for the Earth, for the Church, and for the life of the world. Thank you." (Loud and sustained applause and extended standing ovation, the longest of the whole Congress)

Needless to say, this young bishop had an incredible impact on the entire congressional assembly and on me personally.... Next came an older Vietnamese woman and sister of a bishop who was incarcerated for around 30 years by the communist regime and became incredibly close to Jesus and even ministered to prisoners during that time. Salt and Light has or will air a show on his life entitled "Road to Hope." Her account hit very deeply after what we had just heard in the deep catechesis by a lively bishop and witness to Jesus, and we were then three for three in the lead into our celebration of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation.

"La Table de la Réconciliation" was an exquisite drama written by l'Abbé Robert Gendreau of Montreal who staged and produced the Way of the Cross for WYD 2002 in Toronto when he used in its integrity the text written by Pope John Paul II. This time he adapted key Scripture texts pertaining to Reconciliation: the fall of Adam, the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, and Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son.

His Eminence Claudio Cardinal Hummes, Archbishop of Sao Paolo, Brazil, gave a masterful homily highlighting the points demonstrated powerfully in the play. Adam tried to give himself life rather that continue accepting to receive life as gift from God, and the result was fear of God over his own nakedness. Cain was jealous of his brother's approval from God because he refused to face his own selfishness and greed and was bothered by his brother's innocence, generosity, and love for God, and the result was fear of himself being killed by strangers.

Jesus' response to overcome Adam's fear and shame was to allow himself to be rendered naked and tortured, and make himself close to him. His response to Cain was to allow himself to be killed by strangers, that He might win Cain over.

The prodigal on his return was afraid to look into his Father's eyes, lest he see disappointment and no love. His elder brother pointed out that of course the Father loved him, and the ensuing dialogue, it came out that the elder brother was no so perfect after all but played the part of a good son in order to enjoy the abundance, power, and influence he could have from the father's estate and approval. In the end, the elder convinces the younger that he has a lot in common with their father and should go to him, and the younger convinces his elder brother that he has forgiven him now and he too should go to the father, and they both do.

It was so real and revealing and touching - we all saw ourselves - that the assembly broke out in spontaneous applause and even cheering at various points at the end, as the drama unfolded in a satisfying conclusion and reconciliation at the father's table, which was a powerful image of the Eucharistic Table set for us by Jesus with his Body and Blood.

to be continued....

Day 5 - Jesus comes to find us in our deepest fears, lifts us out, and satisfies our hunger with the love of his Father.

2008-06-20T00:41:00.004-04:00

It has been a long 16+ hour day.... we just got in and I had a snack and took care of emails.... After walking 3 hours in our amazing Eucharistic Procession, in addition to all the other walking all day, it's now after midnight and I'm going to bed.... I'll blog this amazing Eucharistic day of Reconciliation as soon as I can..... God bless you and yours.....

Day 4 - A Congress or retreat experience is also about making room for others....

2008-06-18T21:50:00.009-04:00

WEDNESDAY THEME: The Eucharist builds up the Church, sacrament of salvation

SOUTH AMERICA

On days 2 and 3 I was humbled by being 5 to 10 minutes later than my 5 passengers... having slept only 5 or 6 hours on a mattress too soft for a deep sleep.... Then this morning, having made an effort to be on time at 7:30, it was my turn to wait up to 15 minutes for the others.... So we still have to fight traffic and for the third morning in a row arrived after Morning Prayer had started... and I forgot my umbrella in the men's washroom.... needless to say it was gone.... in a Christian community as in a family, what gets left hanging around becomes common property.

My late nights caught up with me and I had trouble focusing on the simulataneous translation of the excellent catechist at 9 o'clock, his Eminence Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., Archbishop of Buenos Aires and Primate of Argentina, who reflected on how the Holy Eucharist builds up the Church, Sacrament of Salvation. He had an energetic and powerful voice and the sound system in the Colisée is excellent, so it was tough to try to focus on the sound coming from my little ear phones with the one good ear I have....

So I drowsed....

Poor Father!!! So what, you might ask, does this have to do with the grace of attending such a serious and spiritual event as a Eucharistic Congress? Well, nothing, and everything. A Congress like a retreat is not just about lofty spiritual matters, but more importantly how I relate to those spiritual matters, or better, how I experience those spiritual matters and how this experience has changed and continues to change me.

At Baptism our heavenly Father shared with us the life He enjoys with his divine Son through a spiritual adoption making us his children. What follows then is our willingness to live as children and participate in the divine life He offers and gives us through the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in us. Of course, God can give us spiritual and divine helps without our consent, but when it comes to our progress in the divine life made visible to us in Jesus, no real progress can be made without our consent and willing participation.

It follows then that we accept the awareness the Holy Spirit gives us of our own inner states, so that we can understand in what ways we need God's help to change and grow. So this morning I saw how easily, under the right circumstances, I can feel irritated by the minor faults of others. Believe it or not, it took a while for me to realize that I too make other people wait at times when I am late; so now the shoe was on the other foot and the opportunity was now mine to be kind and patient with others.

It's harder to do that when you're feeling tired or burdened in any other way. Then I began to recall some of Catherine Doherty's teaching and formation of staff workers at Madonna House Apostolate at the Training Center in Combermere Ontario. She often spoke of the duty of the moment, which she was inspired to understand from her contemplation of the life of the Holy Family in Nazareth.

For the Christian and child of God, the duty of the moment isn't just doing what we know to be the will of God for us at any given moment, although it is also that. In addition, inspired by Mary and Joseph caring for the Holy Child Jesus in Nazareth, we can see that in response to the great love of the Father for us, it is right and good that we do what we know to be his holy will with all the love we can muster, and so to do whatever we do with our whole and undivided attention and heart, as though we were doing it personally for God. After all, Jesus did say in the parable of the judgement by the great king that whatever we do to the least of these his brothers we do it to Him.

So my thoughts wandered to the countless people, parents, aged, youth, and children all over the world who suffer far worse irritations and even violence against their human dignity, health and well being and that of their loved ones. Suddenly I found myself very small in the face of so much patient suffering by so many people manifesting far purer and more generous hearts than me....

Such a revelation and self discovery is an important part of any Eucharistic Congress, because the Jesus that is ever waiting for me hidden in the Sacred Host under cover of the Tabernacle is the very same Jesus who desires to lift me up from my smallness, forgive my sinfulness, heal my wounds, cure my diseased sensitivities, and strengthen my weak character.... As Fr. Nicolas Buttet of Switzerland shared with us yesterday, it is better to be transformed by adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament than to be disfigured by consumerism and various dependencies.

We then prepared for the Mass which today was longer, being the Divine Liturgy celebrated in the Byzantine Tradition of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada. Such dignity and beauty in pageantry of vestments and multiplicity of participants and roles, multiple incensings, candles, gestures, processions, and beauty of ritual and words, and solemn music led by the joint choirs...

I later met Fr. Michael McKenna of Montreal who today celebrated his 79th birthday, being a priest now for 52 years! He shared with me that he had rarely prayed so much during the Mass, which was longer with many beautiful prayers absent from the briefer, more streamlined Roman Rite. At Madonna House, since 1992 I have had the privilege of celebrating the Byzantine Divine Liturgy in the Melkite Rite several times, and so am prejudiced when I say that I have never experienced a more beautiful, touching, and life changing Liturgy than that one. The exquisite beauty of the schola and congregational singing, the intimacy of the participation of the priests, the beauty of the icons and pageantry, all make it truly a glimpse of Heaven.... which is what the Eastern Rite Divine Liturgy was originally intended to be from its early development.

It would be an amazing experience for our youth to go to Madonna House one summer for their Summer School for youth and other guests, where they would be treated to opportunities to learn much about prayer and contemplation, the spiritual life, community living, the Church and Church history, the faith and morality, Liturgy and the role of the laity in the Church, and much more. A number of youth from across Canada, the States, Europe and even the Far East come for this Summer School and leave enriched and having made new friends in the faith.

So I had lunch with Fr. Michael and later wandered around, in awe of the "bath of people" we are experiencing here.... thousands of people from all over.... and stumbled into one of the Adoration Chapels.... After my experience yesterday I wanted to go back.... I snoozed again, but also prayed and kept the Lord company only to find He was keeping me company.... After quite some time, there was a request for English speaking confessors, so I went in and received two French penitents, go figure.... But it seemed the Lord wanted me there just for them....

I wandered around outside taking in the rare sunshine and bumped into some people, among whom was Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa, originally a Montrealer, who is such a kind and warm hearted man.... I saw Paul and Connie from St. Luke and we progressed our plans for Sunday morning, our departure day....

It was a graced day, though so very simple, because grace isn't only dramatic... it is often quite ordinary, though long lasting.... and in the end I came home early, relaxed, ate supper, chatted with other delegates living here, and here I am back at the blog.... Good night to you, pilgrim of the Absolute....

For more on the love of Jesus in our lives and how to enter more deeply into his love even in our relationships with others, see Fr. David May's reflection "Prayer at a Roadside Shrine."

Day 3 - What difference is Jesus in the Holy Eucharist making in my life?

2008-06-17T23:15:00.008-04:00

TUESDAY THEME: The Eucharist, memorial of the Paschal Mysery

EUROPE

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyons and Primate of the Gauls gave us the catechesis this morning, on the Eucharist, memorial of the paschal mystery. He focused on the presence, sacrifice, and communion Jesus offered then and offers now. Jesus makes Himself present to us, He freely offers Himself out of love for us, and He brings us into communion with Him in the Father's love by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Such an offering of one's life is both a gift and a fight. Just as Jesus wrestled with the giving of his life for us, so we too wrestle with the giving of our life out of love. The love of God in Jesus requires everything of us, that we offer our whole lives to God in Jesus and with Jesus. This love is so great that it requires our whole life to live it out, either in Marriage, or Holy Orders, or in some other form of vocation.

In his testimony yesterday, Jean Vanier explored how it is that people with handicaps more openly seek real presence from people, though it is something we all crave and desire. Jesus made Himself truly present to people in his life on Earth and continues to do that for us in the Holy Eucharist, both within Mass and in the reserve of the Blessed Sacrament.

It's only possible to perceive Jesus' presence by lingering there, in front of the Blessed Sacrament, for a while. We know and believe that in offering his life for us and for all humanity, sinners all, Jesus made a sacrificial offering to God his Father. We tend to think of sacrifice as something awful, painful, difficult to do, but Bishop Barbarin led us into another view of it.

He gave the example of a mother who threw herself headlong into the preparations for a birthday party for her son and did it with joy and delight, not thinking of the time and effort and expense it cost her. Not too long later, her son fell seriously ill, and again she threw herself headlong into all she could do to understand the disease and seek out treatments for him.

People looking on thought and even said to her she was behaving like a mad woman, neglecting herself and not counting the cost of her efforts for her son, but no one dared to try to stop her because there was something unstoppable in her devoted love. She could do nothing less than she did out of her great maternal love, nor would she for a moment consider doing less. It was spontaneous and natural for her to do as she did.

Such was the sacrifice of Jesus, not a chore, duty, or burden, but a spontaneous outpouring of his love for us in the conditions in which He found Himself in face of the authorities and attitudes of his contemporaries. Not only did Jesus offer Himself for all people of all time, He found a way to allow us to enter into his offering of Himself, and that is the Eucharist. Our participation in the Holy Eucharist is not full and complete until we enter willingly, spontaneously, and gladly into Jesus offering of Himself and offer up our own lives to the Father in order to follow Jesus.

In the everning conference given in Spanish by Mr. José H. Prado Flores, Director and founder of the St. Andrew School of Evangelization, he said that we are not fully disciples until we allow ourselves to be molded and shaped by Jesus in his hands like a loaf of bread or a lump of clay. He led us in a reflection on the 7 steps in the process of discipleship summarized in what Jesus did at the Last Supper. Jesus (1) took bread in his sacred hands, (2) blessed it, (3) broke it, (4) gave it to his disciples, (5) saying, "This is my body...." (6) "eat it...", (7) "Do this in memory of Me."

It is only in Jesus' hands that we can be shaped into disciples. There, as we listen to Jesus and the Word He speaks to us, we are shaped in accord with his mind and heart. We cannot be his disciples unless we listen, read, and ponder his Word all the time.

Without returning to the Word of God we are like a woodsman who works harder and harder but cuts less and less trees because his axe is losing more and more edge. His companion steadily produces the same number of trees and even seems to go away to rest, because those are the times he sits down to sharpen his axe.

Jesus breaks us like bread in order to purify the intentions of our hearts until we desire only one thing, the Father's will, just like Jesus. We are either purified of our sins, like Mary Magdalene, or else in view of the mission the Lord knows He wants to entrust to us. The greater the mission, the greater the purification we must endure. The Lord breaks and purifies us through opposition or persecution we must endure when we try to live the Gospel and others don't like it, when we proclaim Jesus and people ridicule us because they are caught up in the way the world thinks.

The Lord also purifies us through failures we undergo in trying to serve Him. We are purified of any need for recognition and applause, or for the affection of others. The Lord also breaks us and purifies us through the humiliation of our sin and of our condition as sinners. While we must weep for our sins, we can rejoice that the Lord uses even our sins to purify us and give us a capacity of compassion for sinners.

Jesus distributes his disciples just as He distributed the bread He had broken. Once He has broken and purified the intentions of our hearts, Jesus distributes us and gives us to others, that we might make other disciples to be formed by Jesus and become like Him too. Jesus says of us too that we are his Body, just as the priest says it of himself as He says it of Jesus, who calls him to live out the same gift Jesus is offering today through the priest.

For a disciple to become identified with Jesus' Body means that the disciple becomes one with his Master, proclaiming the Good News as Jesus did, serving, healing, loving, suffering, and dying as Jesus did, becoming another Jesus for people today. Then Jesus says to people "Take and eat..." The disciple becomes bread to be eaten by people today famished for the life only Jesus can give. The disciple is to be eaten and disappear, leaving only Jesus to be seen; so that people will eat us and find Jesus and believe in Him, follow Him, and love Him.

Finally, just as Jesus forms us into his disciples, He tells us to go and do the same in his memory, so that it's not just the Mass He wants us to go on doing in his memory but also the giving of ourselves as He did and the making of more disciples as He did. Jesus wants for us the joy of Andrew, who brought Simon to Jesus, and Simon became a greater disciple and apostle than Andrew was. This is the joy of the disciple, to make Jesus known and loved and to bring more disciples to Him, who will in turn bring more people to Jesus, that they may know and love Him.

Feel free to check out further impression in my French blog....

Day 2 - The grace of a Eucharistic Congress is an awesome encounter with the Holy Eucharist as a Person, Jesus Himself!

2008-06-16T21:45:00.008-04:00

MONDAY THEME: The Eucharist, gift of God par excellence.

NORTH AMERICA

When I was a young man and member of a youth group in town, we went to the Oka Trappist monastery where a monk, Fr. Benedict Vanier, gave us an inspiringly simple talk about prayer as visiting with God. I later returned for a retreat with Fr. Benedict as my director. The first thing he told me that I should do on retreat was "Don't resist the urge to sleep for the first two days. Most people come here tired, and you simply have to allow your body to catch up on rest."

Well, since a Eucharistic Congress is in many ways a retreat - since there is a lot of activity all around, the only silence to be had is the silence we must make within ourselves, with the help of the adoration chapels - my need for sleep and rest has come home to me today.

I was really revved up last night, and after blogging I went up, listened for a while to the replay of part of the opening ceremonies on the little radio they gave us for simultaneous translation, wound down and prepared for sleep. The night was too short, but I went out for a walk and did my best to quickly get ready and have breakfast and then gave a lift to two priest from Burkina Faso, two ladies from Guatemala now living in Montreal, and another lady.

The main congress events at this point are a musical interlude from 7:30 which we missed, Morning Prayer at 8:30 for which we missed a few minutes, a major address called a catechesis at 9:00 which was given this morning by his Excellency Msgr. Donald William Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., U.S.A. He gave us a marvelous reflection on the significance of Jesus' gift of Himself at the Last Supper establishing with humanity the New Covenant prepared by God from all time for our salvation out of love for us. He focused on the perspective of what Jesus did in Holy Week, which we continue to experience year after year, and showed why it is so important for us to do so, as Jesus draws us to enter into the mystery of the love He came to reveal.

After a short break, Jean Vanier came to give a testimony from his experience of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist and Holy Communion. He shared his and our anguish over what is happening in the world, which is so bruised, wounded, and divided. Every human wants to be of value, needs to be loved, though some ignore this in them. Jesus intends that as we receive Him into our lives we be touched by his love and changed by it to become more like Him and commit ourselves to be a real presence in the lives of others, especially those whom we find difficult to love....

After another break and some chatting and singing, we prepared to celebrate the Holy Eucharist. This Liturgy was not as "high" or solemn as yesterday. By the way, I made a mistake about the number of singers in the choir. Today we could see their chairs, as there were only 30 or so, and there seem to be some 250 or so chairs in the choir section. There were only a dozen or so musicians today as well, but what music, what singing! These people are not only talented, but they sing and play with such faith, joy, and expression....

If you haven't yet taken the time, check your TV channels and find either a live or rebroadcast glimpse of the main Congress events and Liturgy.... You will be touched by these events....

Some members of the Archdiocesan Council of the CWL found me and I joined them for lunch after Mass. We got to use the little transparent raincoats they had put in our pilgrim delegate bags as we experienced a Quebec version of Irish mist.... Part of the grace of the Congress is meeting and sharing with people we know and also with strangers, people we never met before. Another part of the grace is being immersed in a little sea of humanity, seeing and hearing people from all over the world - some 70 countries in all - and lots of clergy: 40 cardinals, some 250 bishops, and hundreds of priests.

I wasn't fast enough to get into one or other of the workshops or animated adoration sessions offered after lunch, so along with a few thousand other people I visited over a hundred kiosks presented by religious orders, new religious communities, various New Evangelization initiatives, various purveyors of religious goods, devotional articles, books and other tools of evangelization and catechesis, adoration communities and intitiatives and projects, and lots more....

All the colors, visuals, materials, and the dense press of people was a little overwhelming at one point and I went out to seek one of the adoration chapels. I soon found one, went in, knelt and adored Jesus, and sat down. I took out a devotional prayer book from my pilgrim bag, and soon found myself dozing. My body claimed some of my back ordered rest....

I was there for an hour and a half or more, and after a while, life began to come back into me. I became aware of my overdue need to seek the Lord's forgiveness and experience the joy of going to confession; so I lined up along with a dozen other penitents.... The Confessor was a happy and delightfully radiant middle aged priest from the new community of L'Émmanuel here in Quebec. He said only a few words which were what I needed, inviting me to reflect on John 15 where Jesus spoke to us as branches on Him the Vine...

He had brought out a group of youth once into the woods in early Spring for adoration, and he asked them whether they could hear or see the sap running in the trees. Of course they couldn't. Well, he said, it is like that with Jesus. We cannot hear, see, or smell the sap running from Him into us, but just as we see evidence of it in the trees as they sprout fresh new leaves, so it is in us as Jesus gives us to bud forth new shoots of vitality within us and all around us as we overflow of his love to others around us....

On leaving the adoration chapel, I wandered around the main welcome center where a number of afternoon events are also staged and where the booths are on display, and I bumped into former parishioners and friends from St. Thomas à Becket Parish in Pierrefonds. I also saw a number of other people I know, religious and laity from the Montreal area....

Two of my morning passengers and I reconnected, decided to shop for groceries, and I brought them back to the rectory where I am staying and we made and ate supper together.... That too was a blessing... So the central grace of a Eucharistic Congress is to finally slow and quiet down enough to notice one's hunger and thirst within for Jesus, and in the course of a prayerful visit with Him in adoration, to suddenly realize that He is pouring out his sap into us, into me, and in that moment I remember that He loves me personally. I remember my true name, who I am before God and in Jesus, and I find myself completely back in the present moment, having gotten off the merrygoround of business and busyness....

If and when I have any vitality at all, it all comes from Jesus, whether I am aware of it or not, and it is a great joy to remember the truth... Peace be with you.... May you allow yourself, even from a distance - distance doesn't matter for the Holy Spirit - to enter into this grace of the Eucharistic Congress!

Jesus is a living Banquet of divine Love

THE INTERNATIONAL EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS IS ON!!!!

2008-06-15T22:38:00.005-04:00

CONGRESS THEME: The Eucharist, gift of God for the life of the world.

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Our St. Luke Parish contingent made it safely and in time for the start of the 49th International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City today. It was cloudy and cool here when we arrived and our hardy leader Paul Aitken kept his shorts but I quickly changed into my clergyman suit and long sleeved shirt in the van and off we went to get ourselves accredited as delegates.

The process was fairly quickly. We received our name badges and delegate bag of goodies including participant booklets for the daily prayers and public liturgies, a little fm radio with head set for simultaneous translation on different channels posted around the Colisée in neon lights, a water bottle, and other goodies I haven't had time to check out.... Priests and deacons were given a stole as part of their registration package as well.

We had a quick bite to eat forum style - fast food that is - and met people we knew going by or joining us... and off we went for the opening ceremonies. I met a priest from Saskatoon who's also a Madonna House Associate and we wandered around the bowels of the stadium led by helpful ladies trying to track down the changing room for priests. Because of the nature of the International Eucharistic Congresses, there are a large number of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, and there are special changing rooms for them, but it would have been too much to provide for the priests; nevertheless some kind souls among the volunteer team added at the last minute priests to the sign designating the changing room for altar servers. I was able to hang my jacket and leave my bag.

Things began formally but with lightness of heart and joy as the dignitaries offered their well scripted remarks. The role of Quebec in the colonization and evangelization of North America was highlighted, and after the speeches we were treated to visuals and dramatic animation as people wearing 20-foot high puppets of the founders of Quebec and the New France Church came in and strode around the round center piece stage, in the middle of which was the Altar and where the podium was also situated. Lighting and sound effects brought the puppets to life and drew spontaneous response and applause from the thousands in attendance.

The music played by the philharmonic symphony orchestra was heavenly as was the singing of the 400 voice choir! The big screens in the four cardinal directions up in the rafters of the stadium above center ice added well composed images to the festivities. The significance of the hymns and prayers, the pageantry, the quality of the musicians and singers and directors, the dignity in movement of the liturgical dancers at the introduction ceremonies and bearing incense during the Mass, the clarity of the lectors and speakers, all brought to mind the high quality of the best shows we've seen at occasions like the Olympics and the Year 2000.

Cardinal Tomko representing Pope Benedict XVI spoke and preached incredibly well, and told everyone that Pope Benedict will deliver the homily of the closing Mass by satellite. He read the Pope's letter decreeing the opening of the Congress as well. I has volunteered to distribute Holy Communion and was chosen to go up to the nosebleed section, up innumerable stairs (good training for WYD!) and I gave Communion to so many devout participants in the Congress. A lovely young girl had led me to my station and brought me back down afterwards. On our side, we ran out of Holy Communion and the folks were told that another priest would be sent to them....

It was a kind of spiritual experience for me to see myself running out of the Blessed Sacrament and the faithful coming around like so many hungry children coming to their mother.... I myself had not communed first as priests normally do because our ushers led us forward just before the invitation to exchange a sign of peace, and deacons handed us the Blessed Sacrament and our ushers led us to our stations. I was more conscious than ever of the Lord giving Himself to his faithful and so experienced a fresh and different communion with our Beloved as I held Him and distributed Him to those He loves....

The highlight was the time of adoration after the Mass was over and I was back at my seat... even without kneelers many knelt on the concrete floor where they stood.... The Blessed Sacrament was displayed in a huge monstrance made of wood at least 5 feet wide and as high... The Host must have been at least 18 inches in diameter.... We worshipped Jesus a good 10 to 15 minutes in silence and in song.... and at the end the cardinals responsible for the various adoration chapels throughout the city were sent off... and as the huge monstrance was installed atop the Ark of the Covenant and it was wheeled slowly away from the Sanctuary, the whole throng cheered wildly for the Lord... it was glorious and triumphant to see such a warm and genuinely affectionate outpouring of love and devotion for Jesus the Christ, our Lord, the One Saviour of the World, the Gift of God for the life of the world!

During these holy days, may we be united in prayer, worship, adoration, and love of our God and of his Body the Church of his faithful disciples.... Fr. Gilles from Québec at the Congress, and writing from Paroisse St. Jean Chrysostome in the suburbs.

Deceived, betrayed, cheated, what do I do now?

2008-06-12T11:09:00.003-04:00

What do you do when you suddenly wake up to find that a good number of the people around you have been deceiving you, lying to you, taking advantage of you, doing all kinds of evil things behind your back, speaking falsely about you, in effect, making a fool out of you?

This dramatic situation may seem a little too much so, even melodramatic, but that is not the case. This question cuts to the heart of what is happening in the world, and in life. This is the agonizing question that keeps coming up over and over again in the Jewish and Christian Sacred Scriptures. The reason this question is so persistent has to do with our human nature, which is no longer as our Creator first intended and still desires for us.

We have been damaged, weakened, confused, and disoriented from our origin and destiny. As a human race we are so lost that we remain in every generation in need of a saviour, and it is for this reason that our Creator God and Father sent his only begotten Son into the world to take on a human life in order to be with us in the very midst of our torment and pain.

Why was Jesus betrayed, falsely condemned, tortured and executed? Because those who make themselves at home in evil are in such darkness that they cannot tolerate the light. They hate the light and will do anything to put it out and stop their torment. What they don't realize in their blindness is that it is not the light that hurts them. The light merely forces them to become aware of the darkness, pain, and torment that is already in their soul. Their attempts to put out the light are futile, because the light will never go out... it is shining on the human face of Jesus and originates in the power and love of God the Father, Creator of us all.

So what do we do when we wake up and see all the evil and sin around us and all those who take their pleasure in evil and darkness tormenting us? We pray to our loving Father as Jesus prayed on the cross. We pray words, feelings, sentiments as expressed in the prayer Jesus quoted on the cross, Psalm 22. The other thing we do is imitate Jesus' own gesture, which was in accord with what the Father sent Him to do. He forgave his tormentors and even went further, making an excuse for them. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." click for the text

The best thing we can do for ourselves is to follow Jesus' lead and seek to know and do the Father's will, because He knows the path that brings us to abundance of life. All the other ways are dead ends. Jesus came to show us the way, and He is himself the way to follow. We go to Jesus and will never be lost again. We open our hearts, minds, and souls to the Holy Spirit, the living flame of God's love that initiated the universe in the moment of the big bang or whatever it was that happened at the very beginning of the universe.

The Holy Spirit, the third divine Person in God, though all powerful so as to appear frightening, is nonetheless so gentle as to be expressed in the warm and secure embrace of a parent for a little child. Read, ponder, and pray with Psalm 22, and look around in the other Psalms, and find that the three divine Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - are always present to us.... We are the ones who go absent, lost in the illusion that we are alone.... We are never alone, because they love us and care for us. They allow us to make our decisions and live our lives, but they watch over us and help us to make men, women, of ourselves and participate fully in the unfolding of our lives.

God bless you.....

Fr. Gilles

What does Gospel mean? What do we need to get to Heaven?

2008-06-02T16:23:00.003-04:00

Hello Dear Readers....

It's been 10 months since my last entry... incredible but true... Ah, the life of a busy pastor and hospital chaplain....

A kind visitor sent me a few questions and I am taking the liberty to post them with my response, since both may be of interest to others....

It often happens that people who are doing as Jesus suggested in the Gospel, people who ask, seek, and knock on the door come to pastors when they are not finding what it is they desire to know or understand, or when they want to test their pastor to see what kind of reception or response they'll get.

At such times, a person may ask the kind of question that puts me back in the oral exam mode I experienced during my seminary time of formation which was, as the Rector put it, like being among the 12 apostles following the Lord around and learning from Him for a few years. This is something I don't mind at all but actually enjoy, since in a way it is a pure sort of reflection that is entirely focused on the truth, on goodness, justice, and goodness, which are all attributes of God.

Here are the recent questions I was glad to receive.

"I would like to know what "Gospel" means, and the importance of personally studying the Bible. Would you please comment on what is necessary for a person to go to heaven."

You will find a more precise answer in texts or from a theology professor, but I can tell you that I remember that our English word "Gospel" comes from the German and literally is our derivation of the expression "good news" in the Gospels reported coming from Jesus' own mouth when He said "The time is at hand. Repent and believe the good news."

Of course, the good news is what Jesus proclaims about God his Father and about our relationship with Him, about the salvation Jesus has been sent to offer humanity, and ultimately, the good news is someone, a divine Person, Jesus himself.

Hence the importance of reading, praying with, meditating, and studying the Bible. Without the Word of God there is no good news, no Church, no salvation, and humanity is back where we were before Christ came, for He is himself the living Word of the Father; as John so eloquently reports at the beginning of his Gospel.

When Jesus' work was complete, though the work He entrusted to his newborn Church had barely begun, he ascended and went back to the bosom of his Father, to be glorified again with the glory He enjoyed as the divine and eternal Son of God before He entered the veil that was his human flesh, which concealed as much as it revealed of his divinity and the abundant life the Father sent Him to offer fallen and lost humanity.

Heaven is that glorious place or presence of the Father, which John in his Revelation describes as centered around a glorious throne around which are gathered the multitudes of angels and saints in constant joyful adoration and praise. Every human being in his or her right mind would want to be there, but part of Jesus' mission was to bring us to understand that we can only bring good and love into God's presence. Impure intentions and sin cannot cohabitate with the Blessed Trinity, and even our soul will be embarrassed by any shred of remaining and unrepented sin and evil intentions when at the moment of death we find ourselves suddenly thrust in the glorious presence of God.

Well then, what is necessary for a person to go to heaven? Nothing less than to become like Jesus; so that the Father might recognize in us the reflection of his divine Son. How do we do that and get there? This is the matter about which most pastors bear the burden of preaching every Sunday. Every Christian is drawn to Jesus Christ as the gift of God for the life of the world, which is the theme of the International Eucharistic Congress being held this year in Quebec, Canada from June 15-22 in Quebec City. As each Christian comes to the Lord, then gradually, day by day, with great kindness and mercy but also with firmness and the discipline of true love, Jesus prunes us of all that is not worthy of Him and of Heaven. As John reports in chapter 15 of his Gospel, Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Not only must we remain connected to Him at all times to have life, but we must also endure his pruning day by day.

I encourage you to continue searching for the truth, for Jesus himself, because the search is itself a grace, a work of the Holy Spirit within us, attracting us to Jesus, that He might have the joy of bringing us to his Father now and for all eternity.

If you haven't read it or it's been a long time, may I suggest Pope John Paul II's first encyclical letter Redemptor Hominis on Jesus, the one Redeemer of Humanity, and many others of his letters and writings, sermons and teachings. There is also the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

What happens is we harbor anger too long?

2007-08-08T22:20:00.000-04:00

Dear Reader,

When you respond by email through the blog, your message comes anonymously; so I can't respond to you personally. Should you want to send me email directly, you can find a General Queries button on the main page of my website, and just click on that button and your messaging software will open up an email window addressed to me personally. I'll be glad to answer you as soon as I can.

Having said that, allow me to briefly answer the question I recently received from you following on my previous post of July 2nd, which took a lot of time and energy to do, which in part explains the lapse of time since then. I developed quite extensively the background context in which Christians and for that matter any human being can best understand the mechanism of anger.

You quoted me where I wrote:

"On a human level, if you harbor your anger too long without acting you may begin to have homicidal fantasies - even though you may have no intention of ever acting them out - so you need to find some way to channel your anger, which is raw power, into some constructive form of action."

What I didn't explain fully is that such fantasies tend to occur in more extreme situations. For example, one woman explained to me years ago that after her husband abandoned her and their young children, she just knew from the fantasies coming into her imagination that during that extremely emotional initial period, had she come upon him in front of her on the street while she was behind the wheel of her car; she would have been severely tempted to step on the gas and not on the brake.

I believe that this would be a fairly common fantasy for abandoned women to have during the initial period of emotional turbulence, and this condition could last longer depending on what help she seeks for herself. That is just one example, but the point here is than anyone - man or woman, youth or child, young adult or elderly person - will have trouble with anger when it is allowed to simmer on the back burner for too long without relief of the pressure; much like a pot left to simmer too long on the back of the stove with the cover on tightly.

What came after what you quoted from me was an explanation of what kinds of things we can and must do in order for the mechanism of anger to play itself out, deliver its message, see that we have received the message, and then go away and leave us alone and in peace once again.

What you mentioned, reader, was a much more normal and not at all extreme case of anger. In the normal course of the day, someone offends or hurts you, and you feel angry. However, out of Christian charity, you decide to love your neighbor - even when the neighbor behaves like an enemy - and you hold your anger in rather than act it out and react. So you don't react and you instead treat the person with equanimity, also out of concern for the example you are giving to others. You certainly don't want to cause scandal.

I couldn't agree with you more. This is what Jesus did himself, and He didn't suggest we do the same, but Jesus actually commanded us to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us, and so on. Most of what I wrote in the last posting was not at all about what we actually do in our relations with others when the circumstances cause us to experience anger. Rather, what I was concerning myself with was on the inside of us, while the anger is going on, what we can do to help ourselves manage that energy of anger and what it does to us.

We need to channel the energy of anger into some useful outcome so that it doesn't sit on our back burner and burn a hole through our pot, or boil over and cause a fire on our stove top, and so on. I certainly don't suggest that the only way to channel the energy of anger is to throw it in the face of the person who triggered that anger, no, not at all. We need though to acknowledge the anger happening inside us and we need to develop a whole bag full of tricks or ways of using or diverting that angry energy to useful outcomes.

Here are a few examples. On the heels of anger churning up inside of you, your swim, run, or walk may become rather more vigorous than usual, as you give the anger free rein in a safe way and allow it to play itself out until you feel calm, loose, and peaceful again. If you need to beat the dust out of some carpets, well those carpets would get a beating the likes of which they've probably never seen! In a completely different way, if the situation causing your anger requires that you sit down and have a talk with someone, then the anger can give you the boost of energy you need to make up your mind to do it and to actually approach the person and not settle for no until the person finally agrees to meet with you.

It is certainly possible for us to allow ourselves to be governed at all times by Christian charity, and love others - even enemies - as God has loved and continues to love us, which is in mercy, in a love so great we can never deserve it. Nevertheless, we can still, on the inside, manage our energy budget in such a way that the anger we are experiencing won't burn us up. The thing about anger is that it will keep stirring us up as long as the conditions generating it continue to exist. The more difficult and outrageous the situation, the more intense and persistent the anger, and the more our anger managing strategies need to be creative, diverse, and effective.

God bless you, and may the rest of what you find in the July 2nd post help you do that well, for your sake, for the sake of the good example you will give others, for the good of souls, and for the glory of God!

Anger can actually become a moment of intimacy with God

2007-07-02T19:00:00.000-04:00

What do you do when something really terrible is done or allowed to happen to you or a loved one, and you find yourself consumed with anger if not rage that just wants to pulverize those who have acted as your enemy or the enemy of your family?

We are all too familiar with Jesus' teaching, even commandment, to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us and desire their good. What's difficult is actually doing that.

May I share with you, reader, that one of my deep joys as a pastor is how readily children of God such as yourself are willing to entrust to us priests the amazing adventures of spirit that you - as we all do - encounter in your daily life, either to share with us the wonder of what the Blessed Trinity are doing in your soul, your marriage, your family, your lives, or to seek a little guidance among the many choices that open up on the path ahead of you, or simply out of need for a little light to better understand what is happening to you as you get caught up in thickets of thoughts and feelings in the very heat of the action as event unfold all around you.

How beautiful your soul is when, in the midst of the intense anguish you may be experiencing, you still manage to care for your family, for others with whom you are relating, and even for the Lord; as you struggle with the intensity of your feelings, especially if you have an impression that these are unworthy of Him or in some way impure.... For example, by simply observing a wrong being done we can feel somehow defiled by what we saw, even though we bear in no way any responsibility for it. Another example, perhaps more common and at the same time also difficult, is the myriad forms in which we can and do experience anger, which also leaves us in a feeling of defilement or impurity, if for no other reason than the sheer primitive intensity of this emotion and the aftermath of anger clinging to us as an impure residue.

How wrong we are but also right. It is true that anger and indeed many of our feelings have a primitive quality about them, I mean that they are raw, located right in our gut as it were, and intense, and so totally what they are. Let's examine anger as an example, since it is so common an experience. We must say that anger is exactly what it is, and it is not the same as love at all, but that does not mean that they are exclusive, because there are different centers of feeling within us. I sense that just a little more understanding about how we work as human beings can help us a great deal to find a bit more perspective that can allow us to find the freedom inside ourself that we ache for so much to be able to make the decisions we long to be able to make.

What is in a way most intense in us is the flesh, the body, because it is, well, so all pervasive, we just can't ever get away from our flesh. Hindu and Buddhist and other religious people give themselves all kinds of disciplines to deprive the flesh and as it were starve it into submission, to reduce the hold it has on the spirit and keeps it as it were earthbound, but that is not the way that Jesus revealed and came to the Earth to give us.

We have been created as souls enfleshed in the body, which as it were clothes the soul and lets it touch and be touched and interact with the creation all around us. The flesh has been made good by our Father, and its greatest virtue or strength is its truthfulness. What I mean is that if you burn yourself it will hurt, and if you rest yourself your body wants to hug and thank you for caring for it, and so on. Our body allows us to make contact with others with affection or understanding or compassion, or romance, or discipline, or friendship, through a look, a touch, a tone of voice, and so many different and creative ways of giving expression in a visible or audible way to what is hidden deep inside of us.

However, our body and its movements, sensations, emotions, and feelings, is also at times clouded by what are called passions and appetites. If unbridled, untamed, unbefriended, these passions and appetites can enslave the entire body and the person inhabiting it, confuse the whole person, and even tear it apart. That is why is simply is not wise to allow the flesh and its ways dominate our whole person, and why we must integrate our other levels, centers, or dimensions, or whichever way you would prefer to speak of our mind and its faculties and our spirit and its powers.

It is in what we call the mind that come together very complex processes that make up what we call the human consciousness or awareness: apprehension - which processes all our sensory information sent to the brain; understanding - which makes sense of all that data; memory - which stores all that sensory data as well as all our conscious and even unconscious experiences; imagination - which takes all that we have stored and can play with it to create new patterns, images, ideas; reason - which can take the realm of ideas, experiences, and motives and put order in it and relate it to everything else that exists outside of ourselves and inside of us; and so on. Then, there is the realm of the spirit or soul.

That, my Dear Reader, is far more subtle than the mind, though the mind itself can reach great heights and depths of subtle understanding and interpretation. That is because the spirit or soul, more than any other part of us human beings, is most like God, like each of the three divine Persons, because like them, our soul is immortal and can never be destroyed by anything that exists in the universe, except God - the three Divine Persons themselves - but they are committed never to do any soul any harm, let alone destroy one.

Having said that, we don't know what exactly a soul is, because we don't know exactly what a divine person is either, not the way we know what an acorn is, or a stone, or a neuron that does what it does in our brain. We know primarily by intuition that we have a soul, some dimension beyond what science can measure, in the very heart of what makes us what and who we are, because we are much more than the sum of what can be seen, observed, or explained. We also know from the exceptionally determined and humble ones among us, the saints, that in the realm of the soul, a different set of rules or laws is at work.

Whereas in the world, we must make efforts to achieve anything or get anywhere, in the soul, we must accept freely to be docile - willing to be led, like a child, by the hand; passive - willing to wait however long it takes for the moment to be right; receptive - willing to let the Divine Persons do what they do best and when they decide is the best time to do it and to receive whatever they decide to do within us.

When we or someone we love has been or is being hurt, violated, or threatened in any way, and especially in a serious way, we have every right to be angry but often feel somehow defiled by our anger and are in anguish that this anger is coloring and dominating our life at all the other levels and preventing us from being truly present to our family, to God, to colleagues, to friends, and even to ourself.

One primary reason is because anger is a God given attribute that has a very specific and time limited purpose. The longer we entertain it the more it tends to poison or turn against us and eat us up from within. If someone steps on your toe you automatically shout out "Hey, that's my foot!" That's a form of anger and the anger is a messenger bringing the pain in your foot to your attention so that the rational part of you has the sudden surge of power and strength to act: in this case to shout out and rush to the defense of your foot to undo the harm already done and prevent any further harm.

The greater the harm, threat, danger, or loss, the more intense the anger, because the obstacles to overcome are probably proportionate to the harm, threat, danger or loss. However, just exploding into action may not and probably won't achieve effective deliverance, because we would just be acting blindly and only by random chance might we succeed in accomplishing what needs to be done. So, our body's rush of anger needs to go and consult with all the powers our mind can muster in order to get a full grasp of what's going on and what's at stake and what are the ramifications of every conceivable course of action we want to entertain in response.

All that is well and good, but it still isn't enought to come up with a truly human response, because we need to go further and consult our soul or spirit, where we know by intuition and by faith if not by experience that the three Divine Persons always dwell with us unless we are in mortal sin. Even then they only stand outside the door until we decide we've had enough of the sin, repent, and ask them to return, and they come rushing like loving parents. As we consult our own soul and the Blessed Trinity abiding in our soul, we gain a much wider perspective and see a lot more possibilities of action and consequences and ramifications, and have the greatest freedom to consider carefully what we want to do in accord with the MEANING AND PURPOSE WE WANT TO GIVE TO OUR LIFE. (This is an expression which I first heard at this Institute and which they use in the course of their formation program designed to help people live their lives with greater autonomy.)

That is why what Jesus did on the cross was so remarkable. Yes, He fully suffered cruel agony on the cross, and didn't appreciate it one bit, but He remained in touch with that part of himself, his soul, where He shared the Father's love for human beings - even the most wretched sinner - because by intuition as a human being He knew what He naturally understood as the Son of God: that each human soul has infinite value because it has been personally created by the Father. Just as each human child born of parents was specially made in love and conceived in a moment of great self giving by a husband and wife, and so is special and unique, and that uniqueness and value becomes visible in time as the child grows up and chooses or fails to choose to open up and develop much or all of its potential; so it is with each soul.

On a human level, if you harbor your anger too long without acting you may begin to have homicidal fantasies - even though you may have no intention of ever acting them out - so you need to find some way to channel your anger, which is raw power, into some constructive form of action. Anger aroused by harm done, something lost, or persistent threat of harm can be resolved in one of three ways: 1. If the thing lost is returned or the threat ceases; 2. if something of greater value than the thing lost is given as compensation or an apology is offered for threats already made; 3. failing #1 or 2, all that remains is to let go of the thing lost, to release it and accept its loss, or to find some way to either live with the ongoing threats or move away from them to an effectively safe distance.

Any of these three will allow anger's message to be received and resolved, and the anger will dissipate. The best motivator for #3 is love, not the cheap sentimental hollywood feel good kind, but simply a pure hearted desire for the good of the other and letting go of any desire or attempt to change the other. This is what Jesus commanded us his disciples to do because it is the true test and way for us to practice being like Him and children of our Father in heaven, because this is the way He loves each of us.

None of us deserve the great immeasureable riches of his love and eternal life, not matter how good we think we are. Ultimately, our very life and breath are gifts being offered us from moment to moment and over which we have no power or control as to how much longer we will go on living. Even greater are the gifts of inner life and love by which we have begun to live with the same life and love the three divine Persons have inside and among themselves.

This is a far greater and more priceless gift, and we can only live it and go on enjoying it by trying to be open to the full extent of it, which is to exclude no one from the embrace of that love, especially not those who harm us, precisely because in harming us they betray themselves and reveal what a poverty they are themselves. If they were rich inside with the wealth of God, they would not behave in this way. For them to go on in their poverty will lead them to eternal misery unless they change, and that would be a far greater punishment than anything our devious little minds could cook up for their torture.

As we manage to find within ourselves the will and openness to trust the Blessed Trinity to know what is happening to us, to allow it for their kind purposes and in view of what will be not just good but actually the best for us and those we love; then we are securely on the path that Jesus walked and opened for us to follow behind Him. Trust in the Blessed Trinity and hope in the future they are bringing about in us are perfect dispositions for walking with the Lord, and these attitudes of spirit bring us peace and joy, even in the very heat of difficulty and trial, as contradictory as this seems to eyes open to see only as the world sees.

Of course, even with the best of dispositions we can expect a little more turbulence, human nature being as it is, as our memory resurfaces impressions, sensations, feelings, and thoughts.... Know Dear Reader that even though there may be moments when you feel yourself going backwards, that is, regressing, or succumbing again to intense feelings, it actually is not so. We are indeed very complex, intricately made, and functioning on many levels, and it takes time for the light shining from the face of Jesus to penetrate into the deepest parts of the most secluded rooms in the mansion or castle of our soul.

Each situation, relationship, memory, event, experience, feeling, can have such substance that it actually constitutes a room in the castle of our soul, and as such, is in need of the light and love of God so that we may surrender it to the lordship of Jesus. This is such a profound and patient, painstaking process that it is not something we can plan, let alone achieve, ourselves, but it is the beautiful work of the Holy Spirit in us. Our part, as each moment of the day unfolds, is simply to venture forward with trust in the Father's love and like a trusting child with its hand buried in the bigger hand of its Mom or Dad, allow the Holy Spirit to "touch" that part of our soul and bring it to life, order, harmony, peace, and fruitfulness.

To put it simply, as each moment of our day unfolds, pleasant or painful, it is that very moment that can become an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to continue his work in us, as we simply hand over that moment to his grace, and surrender it into the power of his touch in the love flowing from the Father to us through Jesus. It can happen through an inner dialogue as simple as, "Ouch! O Father, I thought this was settled, but I guess there's more in there that needs your love and the healing touch of your Holy Spirit. Take this memory, pain, anger, whatever; I give it to You. Glorify yourself in me and configure my heart, mind, and soul to Jesus, that I may walk on with Him and live like Him."

These are my words, but you see the gist... you too Reader can spontaneously enter into this kind of dialogue yourself with the Father, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit with words from your own heart, or at times even without words, as St. Paul mentions in Romans 8, where our soul prays simply through the groaning of labor pains within us... God be always with you and your family, and may the Blessed Trinity enjoy greater and greater freedom to glorify themselves - make themselves visible and attractive to others - in and through you.

Why are apparently good men leaving their wives and children - when it's not women leaving their husbands and children?

2007-06-27T22:55:00.000-04:00

What follows has been prompted by yet one more wonderful lady and her children being dropped by her apparently good husband and father, but the truth wasn't fully known until he revealed himself to the light of day and what was hidden in him finally came out, but it is sadly also applicable to some wonderful men who have been abandoned with their children by their apparently good wife and their mother. So what gives?

What a joy it is for me as a pastor to occasionally hear from someone I once served and who moved away as they just decide to contact me or as I send - which I don't like to and rarely do - one of those email warnings about something or other. What a shock it is for me to hear yet one more time that she has been abandoned by her man. Every time it happens everything in me wants to scream. "Do you realize what you're doing to them and to yourself? Don't you know that you are bailing out at the very moment and threshold of dramatic growth for you as a person, if only you face what it is that's going on and go through it, but no, you turn back and leave. What a waste. The loss is almost entirely yours, because the one who gets left behind will almost certainly grow, even if at first it's only for the sake of the children."

I really don't get what's happening to men in our society and culture... It's like they're not growing up.... What I really find strange is that all too often, at least where I have been, she is very beautiful, talented, smart, skillful, and just plain good and kind and generous, and the list goes on. It seems that no family is spared and everyone knows someone who is going through this, someone close, and I am no exception. What's interesting is that some of them have been telling me that they've discovered - the Lord is giving them - a new freedom and realization of how much they had been carrying their man, who really in varying degrees hadn't been fully a husband nor a father in too many ways to tell.

It would be harder to the extent that he was in any way a good husband and/or father.... or if the shoe is on the other foot and the one who left seemed to be a good wife and mother. Then the trap is to begin wondering what you did wrong, what was the cause that forced your spouse to leave you, but it's only a trap. The cause is not in yourself but in him or her who left you and your children. Of course, you're not perfect, who is? The point is that life is like that, and we are here on Earth precisely to experience the "sandpaper effect" of rubbing up against each other in irritating ways, so that our rougher edges may be smoothed and we might actually become more beautiful, kind, understanding, loving, ready to defend the good and the truth, and be generous.

Then there's the other trap at the other end, where the one who left was such a dead weight that you now may feel guilty about feeling so relieved of the burden of his dead weight that you actually feel glad, joyful, elated.... Don't feel guilty... that's just a trap. The fact is that a woman gladly carries the weight of her man during his struggles and uncertainties, and her constant love and support supplies him with time and an environment that actually incubates him and allows him to grow and put in his efforts and make of himself a better man. Our Father designed woman with the capacity to do that and do it gladly; that's how she nurtures life, and it is one of her greatest sources of satisfaction. The Creator designed man to awaken to her goodness and gladly, freely, and generously cherish her. Then the circle is complete and her love and efforts come back to her.

Conversely, the Creator made man to notice woman, to value her and take her under his wing. He leads her from her parents' home to a home of her own, even in cases where she is so talented and able that she actually leads in many of the decisions they make. We're not talking about who wears the pants here, but rather about the topography of the human soul. Woman has been designed by the Creator to desire and expect to have her own value noticed, wanted, appreciated, and affirmed in the eyes of another who looks upon her with love. She has been designed to be cherished.

So when a man does that and after a shorter or longer time she leaves him and even her own children behind, he can fall into the same trap of wondering what he did wrong, but it's just a trap. It's not about him or the children, who also wonder what they did to cause Mommy not to love them anymore and leave, but it's mostly about her and the decisions she has made. This man needs to remember that he is good and lovely and precious in the eyes of his true Father in Heaven, and that he has not love his ability to love and be loved, and at first he must carry on for the sake of the children, but in time, he will discover that he did not squander his love on her who left him, but rather that he has grown through it all and has become a better man.

You know, I've had lots of time to think about such hurts that really should never happen, wondering what is happening to the countless millions of people suffering such injustices and neglect and worse.... and where is our loving Father in all of that... I remember that He only ever has one answer to all our situations and questions: his own Beloved Son, the Word, whom He sent and who accepted to be sent to come among us, and whom we celebrate with such joy - and good reason - every Christmas... Jesus, the Beloved of our soul and the True Bridegroom of his Bride, the Church, us. He will ever remain faithful to us, having already poured out his life for us and for all of humanity who simply accept to receive the gift of his life by accepting to be called by it to move up a little higher and become a little better.....

Woman, or man, you who have been abandoned by one not willing to rise to the dizzying heights of true and profound love, love that is faithful and true and learns to leave self behind, this is an opportunity for you to rediscover in a deeper way the simple goodness of you, that you are ever so precious a daughter or son in the Father's eyes, and that He has so much trust in you to know that and to breathe deep and drink deeply from the springs of Living Water He has given to erupt in you - the Holy Spirit - from the moment of your Baptism and strengthened at your Confirmation and fanned into flame with every incident on the road of life as you allow it to prompt you to open wider with ever deeper trust the windows and doors of your soul....

Please give my regards to your children... Tell them that they are very special... They have a very good Mom or Dad who has chosen freely to remain faithful and true to them and won't leave them ever - until their body gives out and their soul moves on to be with God - and what has happened is not their fault, nor is it the fault of their Mom or Dad who has remained behind. It's mostly about their Dad or Mom who left and the choices they are making.

It's also because of our culture and times.... It isn't a good time for good, strong, just men to sprout up from the Earth... It's also becoming a very bad time for good, strong, nurturing women to sprout up from the Earth.... There was a time when many men tended to get caught up in macho activities to prove themselves and left the women to do the important and foundational work of rearing children and forging character in their children, and so women grew and became powerful and wise. Those times are quickly fading.

Too successful is the great lie being propagated by interests that want to manipulate and control destinies and/or want to hinder or even abolish the great and wonderful design of the Creator for our happiness. So more and more girls and women are trying to define themselves by being better men than males, proving they can do anything men can do or even better, proving to themselves they can enjoy the same sexual irresponsibility that for so long has been the reserve of men who don't have to carry newly created human beings in pregnancy. The tragedy is that by the time woman discovers what God already knew and intended, that she can do what man does at least as well and often better, it may be too late for her to realize that wasn't the point.

God designed men to compete against themselves, to become better than their own self, not to become better than others, but mostly, the Creator designed men to develop a life, a self, so that then they might freely and gladly lay that self aside in order to apply all their energy and devotion to cherish the woman who has accepted to share and enhance their existence.

God designed women to be content to observe the man competing against himself and by her freely and gladly given companionship be as a catalyst that enhances his ability to more quickly develop a life which he can then gladly and freely devote to her and cherish first her and then also their children. He designed her to find rather her inner satisfaction in fully developing her own potentialities for giving and nurturing life all around her, like a fruitful vine, but if she allows the great lie to distract her gaze from her own inner goodness and accepts to look outside herself for a measure of her own worth, then she will reject her own fertility and fruitfulness and become an arid and sterile wasteland that in the end remains alone and empty.

The tragedy of our times is that our culture has developed especially in the past fifty years around the momentum of reacting against elders and former ways of living in an insatiable search for novelty and the futile attempt to satisfy the appetites of the flesh. They have been given us to help us survive and to add color to life, but they have no lasting substance. That is something that grows root, stem, leaf, and fruit from within our spirit and has to do with our design to give and nurture life, one way or another, in our own children or in other ways of adding life to others by our presence and services.

This new orientation is actually not new at all. It was introduced at the very dawn of humanity and we have an account of it in Genesis in the drama staged with a first primordial couple, Adam (man) and Eve (wo-man). The great lie is to believe we can do better than follow the design inscribed within our very nature, but the proof is in the origin of the message we choose to believe. Our Creator loves us and designed us to be happy in a lasting and even eternal way, whereas the stranger who wants our attention and discredits our design wants nothing else than our total and utter destruction. The choice of orientation is ours. Will we have the wisdom to recognize the innate genius, beauty, and wonder of our own inner design, or will we prefer the attractive but artificial and sterile and empty appearance? That is the test of our humanity.

Too many of us are not passing the test... We are being sifted like wheat by the events and abundance and prosperity.... to discover what is really inside of us. No one can escape being tested. It's only when we discover what is inside of us that we know the truth, and knowing the truth about ourselves, we can act accordingly. Jesus' response to our situations was: "Repent and believe the Good News!" What good news? That He has come no to leave us orphans but to restore us to our true Father.

God bless you dear sister, dear brother, who have been abandoned but are not orphans, because you still have your true Father above, and the One who came among us to at last make Him known and loved. May this loving and Blessed Trinity of divine persons continue to pour out the Holy Spirit and have mercy on all the delinquent and lost spouses and parents who have left their treasures behind, blinded to their value and enamoured of the lie that they must cultivate their own life alone or with someone else; for sooner or later they will have to face the truth they is trying to escape.

About what goes on in the human soul

2007-05-23T14:03:00.000-04:00

Dear Soul,

As Jesus revealed to us while He prayed to his Father the night before He died and while He was in the company of his apostles, Jesus was not of this world, nor were his apostles, nor are we. Yet we are in the world, and having as it were one foot on Earth and the other in Heaven often causes us to feel off balance and we seek reassurance.

It is not so very healthy to become preoccupied with the progress of our soul or lack of it. Yes we are to desire God with all our being and respond to God with all our faculties and energy to the point of loving our neighbor and even our enemies. However, we are not to fall into the temptation of wondering or trying to catch a glimpse into the souls of others or even our own.

We are the work of the Blessed Trinity and we are a work of love. It is enough for us to put all our trust in them and allow them to use all the events - even unpleasant - of our life and world around us for our good and benefit and that of others. We are, as Jesus showed us, to accept to live fully and go through everything that is ours to live, do, and experience. We are to allow God to draw us away from our ordinary way of looking at and understanding things and into a divine way of looking and understanding everything. Many spiritual writers have used different words to try to give expression to this.

"The Cloud of Unknowing" is a book written by an unknown author in the 15th century or so, at what is considered the beginning of the so called piety movement, during which time ordinary Christians began to have more personal experiences of the presence of God and to write about that experience, simple people who were not bishops, priests, religious, or extraordinary witnesses as in the early Church, but just ordinary people.

The Cloud's author writes about how, once we are more conscious of the presence of God and respond, the Blessed Trinity give us to see everything with the eyes of faith, but in a way that often outstrips the ability of our reason to keep up. It's a new kind of knowing, which is actually opposite to the normal way of knowing with our intellect, senses, and reason. It is a knowing that happens in what is for the reason darkness but for faith light. Most of the spiritual writers like John of the Cross spoke of this in similar terms.

Be careful dear Soul of thinking you are making great progress in God or judging whether or not other people are experiencing intimacy with God based on your own inner view or impressions of them. What is new to you may be very familiar to others, whether or not it is given to you to know anything about it or about them. It seems to please God that what goes on in the human soul be hidden from the eyes of others, and often even hidden from the soul itself.

For my part, I do not share with anyone what is going on between the Blessed Trinity and my soul. That is for Jesus' eyes alone. You may at times have been somehow motivated to have others change, or experience something that you are experiencing, or to manifest external signs that are in accord with your view of what it means to be in love with God or vitally connected to God, or whatever. If you indeed have, then I am glad that you are feeling blessed by the love of the Blessed Trinity, and remember that they are looking after you as Jesus revealed in Himself as the Good Shepherd. He is doing the same with me and with all the other souls alive on the planet at this moment.

In the course of our lives we all go through many things, and God alone knows how He intends to use all these experiences to prepare us for eternal life. The progress, regression, stumbling, hurting and healing, sin and repentance and forgiveness and conversion of each soul is in God's hands, and our part is to keep a reverent silence in the face of the mystery of each soul and its realtionship hidden in God. Only at the end of time will what is now hidden be revealed.

Try to be content with the knowledge that you are indeed God's work of love, and allow yourself to be motivated only by gratitude to the Blessed Trinity, gratitude for everything at every moment of every day, and by eagerness to live in the desire and motivation to spend yourself with trust and generosity in one lifelong effort to respond to the Blessed Trinity and their love for you and for us all.

In the footsteps of Jesus, offer at every waking moment what is happening and what you are living and doing and loving and enduring in union with Jesus for the good of all living souls on the Earth - especially those most troubled, lost, suffering, sinful, and violent - and for the glory of God. God bless you and your family.

What to make of supernatural happenings and private revelations?

2007-05-23T12:34:00.000-04:00

I think the first time I began to notice strange possibly supernatural happenings going on around us was as a newly ordained priest in the Fall of 1983. Someone offered me a little wooden icon (a copy of course) of "Ou Lady of Tenderness" from a photo of the original in a Verdun church, where the original icon was sweating a fragrant smelling oily liquid. It smelled of roses only better, more heavenly somehow, and all who smelled them were mysteriously touched in a deeply spiritual way with sheer love from God and a desire or return of love to God and Our Lady.

Since then, I have noticed any number of such happenings, not to mention a plethora of so called personal revelations and inspired writings. You can see for yourself a few things our pastors have to say about these things in the Catechism of the Catholic Church among other sources. Why, I was myself quite taken up with some of these phenomena from 1992-3 at a time when I had been stirred up by an international priests' retreat in Rome (September 1990) and was marvelling at all that was happening in the Church and the world and wondering what the Lord was expecting of me.

Why all these amazing and often questionable phenomena and why now? What are we to do about them - what is the Father's will for us in the face of these and everything else that is going on in the world and in our lives?

My purpose in reflecting on this with you, dear reader, is that chances are you have asked or are asking yourself questions like these or know someone who is. Pope Benedict's presence, witness, and pastoral care for us directs us to Jesus, and especially, as the Father's eternal response to us in our need, Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist (choose your language version of Pope Benedict's Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist as the Source and Summit of the Church's Life and Mission (February 22, 2007). We have been designed and created by the Father for love, to receive and live in his love and that of his Son Jesus, in the communion of the Holy Spirit. All other things must be judged and ordered in light of this most important of all truths and realities.

What to think about all the strange happenings? First of all, we must be careful not to jump to the conclusion that they are from God. Paul warned us that even the devil can appear to us as an angel of light in order to deceive us and lure us away from the will and love of our Father. It also happens that strange things can happen due to human deception or illness that can cause or exaggerate unexplainable human behaviour. That is why our Church authorities have always taken great care in judging these things. It took some 20 years of investigation before the Pope and bishops felt the Church say definitively that what happened at Lourdes or Fatima was worthy of human belief, that is, that people can reasonably believe that what happened in these places was of supernatural origin, that is, from God.

Why are so many of these phenomena happening in our times? Perhaps because the devil has been for many years recruiting agents, witting or not, in such areas as the arts, media, politics, and culture in general, to break down any remaining barriers of morality, decency, respect, and consideration of others in human society, the Blessed Trinity are endeavoring to strike a balance in what is getting the attention of people, especially the innocent, the poor, the fragile, the old, and the young.

Since many have lost their way and may not even know about what really goes on in church on Sundays and so don't have any occasion to benefit from the pastoral ministry and care of the shepherds Jesus continues to send us, it seems as though the Good Shepherd is using once again some of the arts of Simon Peter the fisherman and casting all over the world a very wide net to catch all those that can be caught in order for the three divine Persons to get their undivided attention, if only for a few moments, hours, or days.

Each of these supernatural happenings, books of private revelations, and signs in the sun and in the sky, and so on are so many strands in this new fishing net from Heaven combing the seas of human society to catch all the good and often suffering souls who, though lost, are somehow seeking or desiring the good intended for them by our Father and Creator of us all.

Now, if the Father, Jesus his Son, and the Holy Spirit already have your attention, and you are walking in the company of our Blessed Mother Mary, Mother of all disciples and of the Church, and are allowing yourself to be drawn each Sunday to the Divine Liturgy at the faith Assembly where Jesus continues to nourish and form us to live and proclaim the Good News in the world all week with our lives; then you really don't need all these unusual things. If for a time they may help you better understand the Gospel and other Scriptures and the ways of the Lord and increase your enthusiasm for prayer, for reading Scripture, for living all day long in the presence and company of the Blessed Trinity, and for serving your neighbor - even to forgiving enemies and praying for the good of evildoers before the Lord - then perhaps the Lord intends for you to use them, for a while.

However, beware of the trap of getting hooked on these "goodies" and letting yourself become closed in on your own personal and private experience of God but diverted from actually living your life, having your own relations with the three divine Persons in God, generously carrying out your duties, and going out into the world. If these things anaesthetize you to what is your real life and pull you into something of a fantasy and a distaste for the company of others or for real life, then you would only be regressing. You would be like the person who throws away a precious gift in order to play with the wrapper in which it came. It's fine for little children to enjoy playing with boxes, but it's no longer healthy for adolescents or adults to do that all the time. Once in a while, OK, but be careful.

God gives us graces, kind of like spiritual "candy" that makes us feel loved and sense spiritual pleasure, but only sparingly, so that we will not become obsessed with getting more candy but rather fall in love with the Giver of the gifts, and want to become like Him and go out and do as He did and say as He said.....

How quickly the days go by....

2007-02-03T09:39:00.000-05:00

Good morning to you, or whatever time of day it is as you read me. The last 17 days have been so full.... Life in my family seems like a roller coaster ride some days.... It is a consolation for all of us to have one another, all the more so because we are relatively few. It is a fact of life that I have not been close to any of my cousins, perhaps because our lives were so different, and for a time I had a lot of difficulty enduring cigarette smoke and most of them were smokers.... I'd be open to renewing their acquaintance again... perhaps when I retire....

It was Saturday, December 9th that I had my first big breakthrough with my website when I enjoyed dinner with Marcus Arts, his dear wife and son, and then he introduced me to the art of webmastering. He helped me with the software and tutored me on its use. While there I searched the web and found a good web host and service provider and signed up. From then on, I found my way, continued doing what Marcus had shown me, and made new web pages, designed them and loaded all kinds of files.

It was as if a huge backlog of pressure built up over the past several years was finally allowed to rush forth! I had long accumulated reflections and documents that have various uses in the course of ministry that I wanted to make available both to share with other priests and with the people I serve and work with. It's all about the kingdom of God and not personal glory.

So these past few weeks have been particularly intense with creativity and the preparation and loading of homilies as MP3 files and miscellaneous Word documents and web pages from a few good Christian web publishers. My web site has been a real construction zone!!!! My intuition in reviving this English blog and in beginning another en français was that when the dust settles I will be able to slip into either one and log theological reflections on my days and experiences in the vineyard of the Lord; so that He might get the glory and souls might be helped, and that we who labor together might become more transparent to one another.

For these reasons I must heartily disagree with the professor who was quoted by the Gazette as saying that bloggers are primarily lonely and isolated individuals, for whom blogging is a kind of substitute for relating directly with real people. Get a life, please! Loneliness is part of the human condition for everyone, and it hits particularly hard at the turning of 40 - somewhere between 36 and 44 - according to Dr. Jeannine Guidon, who founded the Institut de Formation Humaine Intégrale de Montréal.

People like Francis of Assisi and Benedict of Nursia before him who went and spent years alone in a cave were not lonely, isolated people who couldn't face the rigors of relationships! No, they were people who could no longer ignore the profound and very intense desire in their soul to know and experience God directly, and it was the Spirit of the Living God who attracted them into solitude. The Holy Spirit even today attracts receptive souls into various forms of solitude - temporary, permanent, or periodic - in order to more easily perceive and actively communicate with the Three Divine Persons and then emerge purified for more transparent relations with real people. Whoever faces the rigors of relating in the dark night of faith with divine persons can certainly face the uncertainties and demands of relating to other people in the flesh!

Fr. Gilles

I'm a priest - why all this web activity? Who's going to read or listen to it?

2007-01-17T23:03:00.000-05:00

Yes indeed, that is an interesting question. Why should a priest, who has so many things to do and people to see, bother with a blog like this or a web site or an additional blog en français? This question was put to me by a dear friend today, and I'm so grateful that he did, because it sent me into the depths, where the meaning and purpose of our lives is to be found.

As Dr. Jeannine Guindon was fond of saying, as an integral part of the formation program she pioneered since the 1950's through the 1970's, it's about the meaning and purpose we choose to give to our lives that makes us the persons we are becoming. As my friend's question burrowed down into my soul, I began to notice again the depths of gratitude that I have been enjoying these past several months.... ever since my sabbatical experience in Chicago, really....

I'm grateful for the great grace and privilege of having been chosen and loved by the Blessed Trinity from infancy... I still remember my Christian Initiation: first Penance, Confirmation, and First Holy Communion.... there was Someone there! Indeed there were Three Someone's there! For decades from youth into adulthood there was painful confusion and inner conflicts, and it wasn't until a good and holy elder priest who loved young people shared with us the great grace of silence, reflection, and prayer, that I had a real opportunity - for the first time in my 27 years of life - to look back on my "sacred history" with God.

Once those flood gates opened, I couldn't get enough of silence and retreats and prayer and then getting to know the three Divine Persons and how They were present and speaking / guiding deep in my mind, heart, and soul.... Then came another great struggle and wonderful call: to follow Jesus and serve Him as a priest.... After 23 years and counting, I am filled with gratitude
to overflowing for the privilege of seeing Jesus speak, heal, enlighten, teach, warn, reproach, caution, instruct, form, lead, and nourish through me, and that is only the beginning of it.... It goes on! It's so clear to me how great God is for bringing about such wonderful blessings and life in others through the poverty and weakness that I am!

There are countless blessings going on all the time in my parents, who despite - no perhaps because of - their growing weakness and increasing illness, are aging and entering into the Fall and Winter seasons of their lives so graciously.... My sister and I are only two, and it has been and continues to be at times such a burden, and yet, we are being changed, purified, stretched and blessed as well as our parents by the opportunity and challenge of attending lovingly to our aging parents....

The transition I have been living from Becket to St. Luke and to the Lakeshore General has been and continues to be quite exciting and exhausting, but I have a deep sense that it is all good and for the glory of God. In fact, that is why I am bothering with this blog and began one in French and finally have succeeded in activating a web site. It is to put on display all the gifts the Lord is pouring out for you his people through me, such as I am. So we are posting the homilies on the website and occasional reflections here.

Beloved sisters and brothers in Christ, and other guests, feel free to share this site with your friends and family, with fellow students and work colleagues. Our Creator and God is doing a wonderful thing in people in our time, despite the dreariness and violence that the media are constantly feeding us in the form of a daily dose of poison. It's about time we give ourselves another diet than this poison. We know there is evil out there, all around us, and yes, even within us, but that is why it is such Good News that God has sent us a Saviour in Jesus Christ!

Jesus is God the Father's antidote to the poison unleashed as a dragon's vomit by the father of lies and chief rebel, the primodial serpent.... Jesus is Lord and has crushed the serpent, overcome the dragon, and robbed him of his treasure hoard. He has made us children of God so that we might enjoy the freedom of his children. Glory be to God our Father in his only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, victorious over sin, suffering, and death, and in the Holy Spirit, Lord and Giver of life! now and always and forever and ever! Amen!

Fr. Gilles

Let's pray together now - the Lord wants us to do it.

2007-01-13T01:24:00.000-05:00

You may never have seen it or not even know about it, but the Lakeshore General Hospital has an interfaith chapel that was inaugurated this past year 2006. Its benches hold 20 to 30 people and there is an altar. At the back there is a section for praying without shoes made especially for Muslims or for anyone wanting to pray without shoes.

Next week all over the world Christians will begin observing the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, while in Canada and other countries Christians will observe the week with two weekends bookending January 25, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. The Pastoral Services Team of the Lakeshore General Hospital has just sent out today to dozens of Religious leaders in the West Island and beyond an invitation to offer a prayer and worship service on one of the days from January 18 to 25 inclusive. Councils of churches worldwide have prepared the materials for prayer and worship gathering together Christians of all denominations throughout the week. Non-Christians are also welcome to attend these services, as it is in their interest that Christians become more united; as this will enhance peace among people and nations.

We've also invited these religious leaders to offer a prayer and worship service on one of the days during the week leading up to the World Day of the Sick on February 11, which would be on any of the days from February 3 to the 11. The purpose of this day - and we thought that a week would allow more people to participate and benefit the hospital population - is to affirm and raise the dignity of those who are sick, to commend those who care for and attend them, and to encourage their family and friends. Read Pope Benedict's message (another version) on the occasion of this 15th World Day of the Sick.

Naturally, people of all faiths and spiritual values are welcome to participate in these manifestations of solidarity, support, and prayer. As religious leaders respond to this invitation and offer to lead prayer and worship services on particular days and at specific times, we will draw up a calendar and begin to publicize it as soon as we can. You will find it on this blog as soon as it is ready.

With time we hope to better prepare such weeks and events, but since Fr. Michael Tauro and I are only part-time, we prefer to spend most of our time visiting patients. Exceptionally, I have spent two days setting up an email list of religious leaders and sending out our invitation to them. If you go to this link you will see that full time chaplains who have been at work for some time have prepared wonderful resources (more resources) to enhance our care for the sick and their care givers.

Feel free to let other people know about these events and to make use of this blog entry to help you pass on this information.

"He even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak" (Mark 7: 31-37) is the theme of the 2007 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. An annual event, the Week of Prayer is a significant time during which churches around the world express their longing for and commitment to Christian unity. You will find this and other texts at the World Council of Churches website.

If it's been a while since you gathered with Christians of other denominations to pray, chat, share or collaborate on a common project, why not talk it up with friends and consider coming together to participate in a little prayer and worship service during one or both of these two weeks, for the benefit of the patients and their families at the hospital, as well as the medical and support staff and administration, not to mention all those who come in for ambulatory care.

Prayer for others is a powerful instrument for good because it is motivated by love and taps into the very heart of the Blessed Trinity, source of all life and being. Contact your pastor and ask whether they intend to participate or even offer to lead a prayer and worship service and maybe you can offer to help or assist them.

Whatever you are able and choose to do, may the blessing of Almighty God fill you and rest upon you and your families, Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit, now and always and forever and ever.

What is the difference between denial and shock?

2007-01-12T00:03:00.000-05:00

This question arises from conversations I have recently had with folk both in the parish and at the hospital. I have had my own experience of both shock and denial, and you may be surprised by what you will read me write about them.

Denial - especially the kind related to illness and death, but other kinds too - is often if not usually spoken of as something negative that just cannot be avoided and that we should get out of as quickly as possible so we can get on to the good part, the healing, and move on. The fact is that in nature many things are as they are for a good or several good reasons.

Denial is somewhat related to shock, and it will be helpful to have a better appreciation of what denial is all about if we look at shock first. The shock I want to examine here is that physical state we go into that shuts down our feelings when there is trauma and the feelings are too overwhelming and could actually kill us. Shock allows us to go on for a while and as we go along in the process of the aftermath following our traumatic experience, we try as well as we can to carry on with life and as we do so begin to want to relate to others again, and we slowly begin looking at the experience, just fleeting glances at first.

Then, as we are able, our organism senses this and thaws out the tangle of emotions connected to the shock but only a little bit at a time, and so this emotional flood comes over us in waves, just to give us a taste or glimpse at first, then shuts down again. Something triggers these waves of emotions, we taste them more intensely and deeply each time, and they shut down again so we don't get damaged by the sheer power of them. This process accelerates and intensifies as our organism senses we're up to it. Faith in God, hope in his grace, and love lubricate this process incredibly.

Denial is like shock but different. Whereas shock shuts down our affectivity, denial shuts down our will, our willingness to look at, think about, admit, imagine, remember, visualize or even acknowledge the source of our pain, the traumatic event itself. The purpose is similar - our own protection and self preservation - and it enables us to go on functioning until we have enough energy, stamina, and vitality to begin looking at the awful truth.

When we consider then that both denial and shock, and other mechanisms like them, are really gifts from God, woven into the fabric of our being, to help us cope with the powerful events of life, then we can look at them and approach them with more reverence and appreciation for what they are designed to give us and allow us to do. Everything that is written or said about both of these by way of warnings applies to the danger of remaining in these states longer than we need to, as a kind of unhealthy appetite for the anesthetic effect, much in the same way one can develop a dependence or appetite for excessive alcohol or drugs.

There is great wisdom in the Jewish Scriptures that is applicable here:

"There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace." Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) 3:1-8.

“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32

«Notre cœur n’était-il pas tout brûlant au-dedans de nous, quant Il nous parlait en chemin, quand Il nous ouvrait les Écritures?» Luc 24 :32

l’abbé / Fr. Gilles A. Surprenant

15th Day of Christmas - the Baptism of the Lord

2007-01-08T20:27:00.000-05:00

What's that? Christmas is over, you say? All the lights are being put out, the decorations are for the most part gone, and other "commercial seasons" are beginning to clamour for our attention? Well, let them go fly a kite! They're not getting my attention, which I am carefully and jealously guarding for what and who really matters....

Since the time of the first Christians, they needed and loved to extend the festivals that grew around his passion, death, and resurrection, and subsequent ascension into heaven and sending of the Holy Spirit.... 50 days in fact! Even that wasn't enough, and they gave themselves another 40 days to prepare for that holiest of weeks between Passion/Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.

They did the same thing to properly remember, ponder, and celebrate the Lord's incarnation and birth, taking 30 to 40 days before Christmas - if we mark the time from the 33rd Sunday and the last Sunday of Ordinary Time, the Solemnity of Christ the King, which focus our attention of the "final things" and second coming of Christ in glory as judge of the nations - to get off the merrygoround of the world to give proper attention to the significance of the presence of God among us in the human flesh of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas" marked the high season of Christmas from the Day of the Nativity through New Year's Day marking the maternity of Mary, Mother of God (since Jesus although fully human was truly God, the divine Son of the Father, existing from all eternity with the Father) to the Solemnity of the Epiphany, the manifestation or the revelation of Jesus as Son of God and Saviour of humanity to the nations in the persons of the three Magi from the East.

The pressure from society at large and the secular culture to get on with the business of profit and pleasure is so great that only the devout and determined manage to maintain the ancient tradition of keeping festival of the Lord's birth not just for 12 but for 40 days, til February 2nd, the Presentation of the Lord, also known as Candlemas, when candles are used in procession to gather around the manger to acclaim, worship, and praise Jesus as the Light of the Nations.

Merry Christmas Season! Happy, Healthy, and Holy New Year 2007!!!! Fr. Gilles

The Nativity Story film - refreshing our view of the mystery of Jesus' birth to a real human couple.

2006-12-17T23:53:00.001-05:00

This film is a remarkable attempt to portray in a fresh way the great mystery of the Son of God coming to Earth as the infant of a virgin betrothed to a young man before they had come to live together. The sheer human drama of it has been found in every generation to be a gripping story that inspires the simplest and most sophisticated people alike. At Christmas we seem to catch a glimpse of what humanity could be all the time if we only came to accept one another as children of the same God and as brothers and sisters to each other.

When you first see the film, you may find some of your sensitivities shocked or surprised, because we become familiar with certain tellings of the Nativity Story and certain renderings of the details. It is like that with any element of our faith when in each generation it is reformulated so that it can be put in words more likely to convey to a new generation, for whom the usage of the language has changed, the full truth and wonder of the original events and divine revelation.

Check out the Catechism of the Catholic Church and what it says about the birth of Jesus. I seem to recall that our Church teaches that Mary remained a virgin before, during and after the birth of Jesus, but that does not necessarily mean she was spared birth pains altogether. She who shared in Jesus' passion would most appropriately share in what women have inherited from Eve, so that as Jesus took on himself our sins; so his Blessed Mother took on herself what is proper to women, but in a way that restored, by the grace of God, what the Creator originally intended for women to be and experience in cooperating with Him for the creation and transmission of life.

In reviewing this film and discussing anything related to our faith with people of our day, I think we would want to avoid approaching people with wholesale rejections of anything in the culture
that is not a faithful and exact expression, interpretation, or quotation of our Church's teachings. It takes nothing away from our faith for us to appreciate the value of such a film on its own merits and to see how it can be helpful in our ongoing quest to understand the mysteries of divine revelation and of our salvation. I was attentive to the teachings of our faith while viewing the film and found nothing that manipulated or contradicted the Gospels.

The film is the best rendering I've ever seen of what it would have been like for Mary and Joseph to go about their business in Nazareth once word got out that she was pregnant, and word must certainly have gotten out once she returned from Elizabeth's after four months or so. In fact, I found the film quite edifying in showing Mary and Joseph as quite human, though she is without sin. She is never portrayed as sinning, even though she is shown as experiencing a wide range of emotional states as she lives through the amazing events within her and around her. I don't think it is an insult to our faith and Catholic dogma to say that Mary would have experienced some childbirth pains.

In the Book of Genesis, the Lord told Eve that her pains in giving birth would be intensified; so even the way God created the sinless first man and woman, there would have been some birth pains, which is only logical in considering that a baby must pass through the birth canal. Original sin intensified those pangs. Mary's sinlessness would have spared her the intensification and acknowledging the possibility that she may have endured some pangs makes it possible for her to be presented to people today as a real person and not as one who wasn't really or entirely human but almost angelic. John tells us that Jesus was human like us in all things but sin, so why should his blessed Mother be any different from Him, the sinless One?

Devout or inspired renderings of the nativity such as by Maria Val Torta or some saints suggest that Mary was taken up in a sort of ecstasy at the time she gave birth to Jesus, which is not an insult to human nature or science either. Ths film goes along those lines, where Mary has some pains, not particularly intense, and then there's a hint of ecstasy as she looks up to the light shining down from the star. Very plausible and very reverently rendered, I thought.

If we want to evangelize the culture, I believe we must not descend upon it like a SWAT team to pounce on every potential deviation from Catholic dogma, and rather approach it critically, appreciating anything that can contribute to our understanding of these mysteries (we have no direct reports about what Mary's experience of childbirth was like), and graciously pointing out anything that is ambivalent with regards to our faith and anything that is inaccurate, explaining why we believe differently and pointing out how the sciences, theology, Church teaching, and art can work together to present as ever fresh the truths revealed to us by God for the salvation of humanity. Otherwise, the people we try to reach will only see us as the fanatics we would be and would dismiss us as irrelevant. We would not be honoring the Lord or serving his Gospel very well then.

How to love enemies and deal with offensive people.

2006-12-11T05:07:00.001-05:00

             It is a difficult thing to deal with people who are offensive, manipulative, or simply disagreeable. Everything inside us wants to escape, run away from them, and just get on with our day. The longer we have to endure them unwillingly, the more likely we are to explode at them in anger, or if we can't bear to be angry with them, we may very well dump all our anger on the next most likely recipient, who usually turns out to be a person we love or are very close to. Then they are shocked and wonder why we are treating them like that. Where is the Lord when we need Him most? What does the Lord expect us to do?
             Believe it or not, when we are harrassed by such life situations, and they happen far more frequently than we want to admit, the Lord is actually providing us with a wonderful opportunity to make progress in all the areas of our life touched by all of this. A lot of people struggle with similar issues but find it more difficult to make progress because the troublesome person has died and is no longer around for them to respond to in a different way, as they would like to have done earlier but were unable because they were too young or didn't know how. Now that they are older, they see how they could approach it differently.
             Here is my suggestion. While it seems to be so annoying or troubling for us to deal with an offensive person, the main part of our burden is that we allow ourselves to be drawn into the other person's agenda. What I mean is that we respond to whatever initiatives he makes or words she says. We are responding on their terms. Instead, we can try the following.
             We can choose how we want to respond to the other person. This is a way of practicing what Jesus said about loving our enemies and doing good to those who persecute us. Here is how the Lord has taught me to do it. When such a person is coming "at me" I retreat inside myself to that place where the Lord is with me and I ask Him, "So, Lord, here he is again. What would You suggest I do with him? Here is how he makes me feel..... I don't want to go there, Lord, but instead I want to remain peaceful in You. Please show me how You see him and love him." and so on....
             While you're doing this, you are removing your very sensitive self at least "one layer" away from the offensive person and choosing to walk around in that place where you can be with the Lord and notice your own thoughts and feelings. This is very important, because it is there that the best solutions will become apparent as the Holy Spirit sheds light on the situation and on your own thoughts and feelings and allows you to see the Father's will, just as He did it for Jesus when He walked this Earth.
             At some point, the offensive person will notice that you are not listening to him and will say something. That will be the first time that he will actually be looking at you and listening to you. That's when you can share with him something of what you have seen inside yourself of God's will and love for you. What I usually choose to say to an offensive or disturbing person is something like "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but right now I happen to be late for an appointment (if this is the case. Remember that it is important not to lie, not even little white lies, but always to remain in the truth. Jesus said that only the truth will set us free.) and so cannot continue this conversation. Don't call me, I'll call you. If you don't hear from me a month from now, please do call and we'll talk about it then." OR (In the case of an offensive father.)
            "Dad, have I ever told you that I'm grateful for the gift of life God has given me through you and Mom? Thank you. I am content with what I'm doing to help myself right now. I appreciate your concern, but it's all right. I can handle this fine. It's my life and I have to do this myself. I have a husband now, and he is the one I look to for the help I need. What I need from you, Dad, is.... (For example, "just pray for me", or just be supportive, and so on.)
             I would suggest other family members do the same thing. It may sound stupid for me to say that we don't have to let people upset us, since we have no choice about the involuntary feelings that come over us just as an immediate response of our organism to what stimulates it. It is true that our immediate gut reaction is involuntary and that we have no choice but to endure it. This is something we all must endure and part of what Jesus means when He asks us to carry our cross. Much of our cross is our own organism and all its inner workings which can be a burden for us each day.
             What I'm suggesting above relates to another part or level in us deeper than the gut reactions of our organism. It's the soul, which includes the faculties of intelligence to make sense out of what we observe with our senses and feel with our emotions. It also includes our memory and imagination, our heart and soul, where the Blessed Trinity stay within us. When we go into our soul consciously, then we go into a place where the possibilities are literally endless, because we are allowing the Blessed Trinity to partner with us, and we are being attentive to them. We can begin to learn how to better notice the suggestions and inclinations they are giving us as guidance and as alternatives to the gut reactions we are making efforts to resist. We want to resist our gut reactions so that they don't dominate our entire self.
             When we try to do this, this is what it looks or feels like. You continue to be aware of your gut reactions to the other, but you begin to see that these are on the surface, like the storm on the surface of a lake. You begin to feel less threatened or dominated by this storm of feelings and thoughts, as you discover the hidden depths within yourself, where there is a lot of room for refuge, and where you can find a few seconds to think other thoughts than the ones the offensive person wants you to have. Then you begin to taste how good that freedom, however small, can be, and this strengthens you to stand more solidly on your own feet, and you can begin to think independent thoughts about even this offensive person, and feel pity for him, and gratitude for the fact that he cares, however inappropriate the means he takes to show it.
             The key is simply to do something to assert your independence and to practice relying on the Lord in each situation by pulling your attention away from the person trying to manipulate or control or persuade you and giving your precious atention to the One who will make better use of it, Jesus. May you continue to walk in the Lord and make good use of this opportunity the Lord is giving you to allow that youthful part of us, what some call the "inner child" to pass through the threshold of the next generation, passing through the gate of youth into adulthood. This is what adults do. We stand on our own two feet, take responsibility for our own self, and face any and all comers, with the Lord's help, of course.
             Let us pray that we may all continue to find ways to enjoy the Lord's help and come to the satisfaction of finding our way through the thickets of obstacles in our life. There is nothing sweeter than the satisfaction of doing something like this ourselves. May we continue to have a meaningful Advent and peaceful, loving Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us

“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32

«Notre cœur n’était-il pas tout brûlant au-dedans de nous, quant Il nous parlait en chemin, quand Il nous ouvrait les Écritures?» Luc 24 :32

l’abbé / Fr. Gilles A. Surprenant

Where is God when we just can't find work?

2006-11-27T21:56:00.001-05:00

In recent months, a number of parishioners first at Becket and now at St. Luke have shared with me the distress of being out of work for a prolonged period. During this time naturally they had recourse to God so that they might quickly find a new job and continue to be able to provide for their families. As the weeks lengthened into months and the months into, yes, even years, the searching, failing, and waiting takes a toll on the person we are and can actually shake us to the very depths of our identity and loosen the grip we thought we had on life, on our faith, on God, on ourselves, on our spouses, and on our families.
The very heart and soul within us cries out to the heavens in words and groanings like these: "Lord, where are You? Do you not care that we are without work? When, O Lord, will you answer?" Such heart wrenching prayers are truly inspired by the Holy Spirit himself, and we can find their pattern in the Gospel when the apostles were in the boat on the lake during the storm that threatened to sink and drown them, and in the Psalms, which are filled with such cries that come from the depths of the heart and soul in us.
I know from experience that the Lord wants most of all and actually does support each of us in our persons, in who we are within our situations. That means that the Lord does not always seem overly eager to provide the answer which may seem to us to be so obvious. It also means that, ironically, such hardships actually become occasions to find ourselves closer to God, as we discover that He isn't just a valet who does our bidding or a Daddy who in our child's memory gives us what we need almost as soon as we need it or even before we realize that we need it. That is what makes great parents wonderful, the sollicitude with which they brood over their children's welfare and push away harm and envelop them in good.
Still, even perfect human parents cannot push away all harm or provide absolutely all goods, or they would in effect end up living their children's lives for them. Something needs to remain for the children to do for themselves. That is the gray zone in which children begin to doubt their parents and parents suffer over their children, and why when we go through hard times God suffers with us and in us through Jesus, who though in glory remains quite human too and is exquisitely sensitive and compassionate toward us.
Over the years as people have shared their struggles and stories with me, I have discovered that when it seems most difficult to find new work, what is going on is that the familiar categories within which we were used to function are straining against a lack of opportunity, and as the strain increases, what often happens is that it is the categories that burst open to reveal new ways of doing, or new kinds of work, or hidden gifts and talents never discovered or long unused, and so on, but also opportunities to resist feeling sorry for ourselves, resist the temptation to worry over our welfare, and go in the very opposite direction and with determination continue to trust in the Lord and his guidance and do something completely out of keeping with the situation such as volunteer our time and attention to someone in greater need than ourselves or to a neglected family relation.
Such a time of difficulty can be transformed by God's almighty power into a wonderful encounter of love and service, or restoration of broken relationships and reconcilations, which is the stuff that Christmas stories are often made of. May I join you, Reader, and your family members in praying that the Blessed Trinity may glorify themselves in you and bring out of your distress in your seasons of difficulty this very kind of good news and make you a blessing in yourself, for your family, your church, and your neighbor!
It does not immediately recommend itself to us to share with others our distress, since there's quite enough bad news in the world without adding our own to it. Surprisingly, the very opposite is true. It is precisely when all is not well that the Lord Jesus wants us to tell others the good news that He came to bring to pull the world up out of the misery of relying only on itself. He told us to ever be ready to speak up for ourselves and for Him when we are pushed or persecuted or challenged in our faith. He told us not to worry about what to say because the Holy Spirit would give us the words to say in that moment.
The most unlikely moment to tell others about the good God is doing is precisely when He doesn't seem to be doing it yet and we are still waiting. That really gets other people's attention, because it is counterintuitive to be full of hope when there are no hopeful signs, but that is precisely what hope is, to believe in the good that is coming before there are any signs of its coming at all. Once we see it coming it becomes evident and past the time for needing hope, which is replaced by certainty and jubilation.
May you and yours have an amazing season of hope-filled waiting for the Advent of the Lord and approach with the fresh joy of childlike hearts the celebration of his coming to us as a blessing for the whole Earth during the festive days of Christmas and its extension in the long winter nights that will bring us to "Candlemas" 40 days later at the Presentation of the Lord on February 2nd!

“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32

«Notre cœur n’était-il pas tout brûlant au-dedans de nous, quant Il nous parlait en chemin, quand Il nous ouvrait les Écritures?» Luc 24 :32

Jesus, Christians, intimacy, and you - 5.

2005-09-20T15:18:00.000-04:00

My last post represents a decision to publish my notes from this retreat by Fr. "Red" Eugene O'Reilly, C.Ss.R. to our English priests. My third post in this series was mostly a long digression from our priests' retreat, in which I looked at our human sexual faculties as a gift from God, one which is very powerful and calls for constant purification of our motives.

We ended noting that friendship is the best context within which married couples can manage their sexuality and the rest of us can harness our sexual energy. Our most basic challenge in life is to become more honest, better, kinder, and gentler human beings, and friends help each other take steps in that direction. I experience intimacy as I come to trust another enough to allow the other to see into me. Not only is it possible for both married and single to live life fully and be chaste, but chastity actually allows us to enter into much more intimate relationships, with much more honest and transparent motivations.

In our relationship with Jesus as Lord, the centurion shows us that another element of intimacy is being willing to allow the other to see what our situation is, to admit to the other our weakness, vulnerability, or helplessness. Once the centurion allowed Jesus to see his helplessness to do anything more to help his sick servant, and showed his willingness to let Jesus have the last word, then Jesus was able to do something for him and his servant. Because God is of course stronger, wiser, and has more time, it makes perfect sense for us to allow God to have the last word, which requires letting go of our opinions, demands, and expectations.

Jesus, Christians, intimacy, and you - 4 - (retreat notes).

2005-09-19T22:47:00.000-04:00

I began this series of reflections on a retreat by Fr. Eugene "Red" O'Reilly, C.Ss.R., given to a good number of our English priests at Maison de la Madonne, at Cap de la Madeleine, Trois Rivières, from September 11th to 16th, while still at the retreat. I was surprised to find that that his remarks and reflections stirred up so many thoughts in me, particularly regarding human sexuality, which is such a source of suffering and struggle for many people today. In the last two posts I developed fairly involved reflections on our human sexuality, and realize that in order to mine as much of the gold as I can from this retreat I should begin by publishing my retreat notes. These notes follow below.

Sunday night.

Warning: These notes are generally not direct quotes of Fr. "Red", but include his words as well as I could catch them out of the air, my own thoughts merging with his, and comments that I make to myself, either in the 1st person (I find that... We must...) or 3rd person (Priests experience...) and so on. If anyone wants to know at some point what is "Red's" and what is mine, ask.

People who have been in our lives have either been contributing, leading me to where I am going, or opposing, making it difficult for me to be where I am. Where I am, we are, is no accident. "Red" gave a brief overview of his life and vocation, sharing his gratitude for al these people and God's call. This week will focus on JOY and COMPASSION, which are essential for the priesthood and for the Church.

It is not easy to live in the present. We can get caught in the past, and we can apprehend the future. Only the present is mine, ours, God's gift to us.

Monday morning.

Remember the Baltimore Catechism? "We're made to know, love, and serve God now and forever in heaven." This definition of our destiny is true, but incomplete, which makes it effectively inadequate. This is because God also longs to love and serve us. This at first sounds outrageous, but it reminds me of the nun who told a young priest that when we pray before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament exposed, what is happening there is not only that we are contemplating Jesus Christ present in the Holy Eucharist, but also that He is contemplating us. God loved us first, remember, as St. Paul put it? That means God has been looking upon us with love even before we realized He exists, or knew who the Blessed Trinity are. If contemplation is also adoration, gazing with love at the Beloved, then we'd have to agree that God adores us, contemplates us, gazes at us with love. When we do these things, we are simply responding to God who does them first.

That God also longs to love and serve us can be seen in the countless ways in which what the Gospels recount about Jesus can also be understood as being about us. For example, at Jesus' Baptism, the Father's voice was heard to say, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Everyday, this is also addressed by God to us. We are pleasing to God our Father. He loves us and calls us. He loves us as we are and also calls us to be, to become, more.

How do we feel about ourselves? For some of us our seminary formation did not enhance our view of our own worth. It did not give us a healthy, positive self-image. Some of us were not encouraged to develop close friendships. In fact, at some times and in some seminaries there was a fear of particular friendships. This was often actually a fear of sexuality.

In some seminaries and houses of formation, we were told, "We'll take you apart and then put you back together in our own image, the way we want you to be, with no individuality, creativity, or sense of responsibility. We saw many of our creative, independent, and talented guys leave. The rest who stayed behind obeyed the rules. You could not question authority. Strange practices were imposed such as wearing a "discipline" - a wire with barbs - around a leg or arm underneath the clothing, or self flagellation. There were to be no demonstrations or assertions of personality or individuality. Such practices did not forster the notion of being good, or having anything good to offer.

Labels were put on some men in formation and they stuck. After that, they were never trusted with responsibility ever after, which is so sad, so tragic.

to be continued...

Jesus, Christians, intimacy, and you - 3.

2005-09-15T21:59:00.000-04:00

In the previous two posts, we appreciated the privilege it is for priests to go away for 5 days or longer at times for a retreat, when lay people - especially those with family responsibilities - generally can't do that. However, we did explore what it is possible for women and men to do, either with the help of trusted relatives to watch over the children or by going separately, to procure for themselves some days or even hours of retreat experience. Retreat means withdrawing for a time from the hubub of routine activity and constant flow of demands from those for whom we are responsible.

A key theme of our retreat and of life for every human being for that matter is that of intimacy. Though we may have been hindered from naturally developing an ability to open ourselves up to others in intimate and trusting relationships; it is possible even now to take steps towards authentic human intimacy. Simply defined, intimacy is what we experience when I let you see into me. Naturally, we can be afraid of doing that because of what may happen if we do. If you really see me as I am, you may not like me any more and may just walk away. I also run the risk that you will use what you find out about me and use it to other ends that will damage me or my reputation.

We also examined how it is that for many today, especially younger generations but not exclusively the young, the Hollywood "romantic" culture rapidly going around the world is taken for cash: intimacy equals sex. In fact, the truth couldn't be more different. It is a misconception which identifies sexual, genital activity as the most intimate human experience there is. At this point in my previous post, I took off from the reflection shared with us by our retreat preacher and began to ponder the whole area of sexual activity and its relationship to human intimacy. It is true that physical human contact does convey feelings of an intimate nature, and sexual expression evokes and involves among the most intense human emotions, but sexual activity by itself is not human intimacy.

For example, it's possible for those involved in the sex trade - both women and men - to so completely deny or shut down their personal feelings that they can engage in sexual activity as a commercial transaction, apparently remaining cool and collected, only pretending to experience feelings to satisfy the other person. The truth is that even this is an illusion, because we cannot shut down our feelings. What really happens is that these persons suffer damage to the capacity for genuine intimacy God has given them. It is not without hope, however, since Jesus came as a doctor for the sick, to forgive sinners and heal the lame and wounded.

Those engaged in the sex trade may even, for a time or an occasion, activate to some extent their capacity for compassion, and may even feel pity for those to whom they grant favors in exchange for money, feeling sorry for their pitiful existence and loneliness. The truth, however, is that such activity abuses the capacity given to us by God to give and receive human tenderness, and hardens the heart, as it were.

Moreover, it employs sexual power in ways that are manipulative, a mockery of human love, and ultimately destructive of the characters, emotions, minds, and souls of the persons engaging in them. Using our sexual powers, either for personal gain or in an attempt to strengthen a romantic relationship, but with no unconditional commitment of marriage, is a mockery simply because sexual imtimacy communicates something absolute, total, or permanent. Each use of our sexual powers in a transitory or occasional way, for one night or for limited duration, contradicts the significance contained within our sexuality itself.

If the entire life is not given as a gift in marriage, then any enjoyment of sexual favors is a violation of each person's integrity, or a commercial transaction, or a trivialization of something deep and holy, a betrayal of the permanence of genuine intimacy, or the predatory theft of affections already given to another in the case of a married party. Even misused, our sexuality feels good and may even seem right, until the contradictions and partial truths begin to sink in, and the cracks become visible, resulting in the painful tearing apart of what was not intended or meant to be permanent.

People who engage in sexual activity as a kind of sport in which they test and push to the limit their ability to conquer the hearts, at least temporarily, of those who are unwary and hungry for tenderness, or simply to accumulate "trophies" are the most to be pitied. They leave behind them a trail of wounded or broken hearts, turning their own heart into the coldest and hardest stone. Ultimately, they are destroying their own capacity to become truly human beings and authentic human persons. Their victims probably have more of a chance to become good, kind, compassionate, and truly loving people than those who violated them.

Then, there are those who simply enjoy the emotions involved with sexual arousal and activity. It's more like a hobby or drug for them. The people with whom they get involved don't really matter to them. Others don't really exist for them as people, but more as objects that they find attractive, try to obtain, perhaps collect, enjoy for a time, until they tire of them or find others that seem more exciting. Today's heartthrob gets dumped on tomorrow's trash heap. This is rather crude language, but it seems to be the only way of honestly depicting this kind of sexual predator, for this is exactly what this kind of personality is, a hyena on the prowl looking for a meal, a snack, to devour and feed a growing sexual appetite.

Perhaps a very large portion of people are more honest and sincere than any of these. They genuinely desire to find friendship that may lead to or include after a while an openness to sexual activity. Sincerity is good, but even sincere misuse of sexuality will result in either damage or delayed development of our God given capacity for tenderness and love. There has traditionally been more variation between men and women in their readiness to engage in sexual activity without a marriage commitment.

Women eager to take for themselves the liberties taken by men become, like them, more inclined to act out of physical urges of attraction and make advances of a sexual nature. Male sexual sensitivities are physically external, tending to activate more rapidly, which is why males without discipline are dangerous predators; so in many societies, women are raised to resist all advances until after a marriage commitment is secured. The good of society suffers is women surrender their sexual virtue and become as undisciplined as men. Men serve society better by acquiring the discipline of virtuous women, who know how to conserve their favors for their eventual spouse.

Both women and men need to develop character and discipline in order to rein in their feelings of arousal, learn how and accept to delay or deny physical satisfaction, and make room for human relating at a deeper level of complete respect and friendship. It is generally accepted that in comparison with men women are far more interested in relationships and friendship. Perhaps it is because their sexual sensitivities are more internal and diverse - linking up physical, emotional, psychological, and even spiritual realms - and also because of their closer bond to the maternal world within which life is transmitted and nurtured.

Both men and women have attributes desirable to the other, but as males are at first more subject to their physical impulses and tend to act in a way that's more directly focused on sexual gratification, women are in a position to take advantage of this situation by taking more time to explore their feelings and motivation. They are more focused on their relationships, including that with God, which tends to delay at least a little the onset of full blown sexual attraction. When women keep a cooler head for a while, they can take more time to decide their course of action: to allow themselves to be attracted, to manipulate the man to try to get what they want, or to disengage. Men can also manage a cooler head by going into their faith relationship with God, opening up to and getting support from family and friends, and working off their emotions through vigorous physical movement, exercise or sport.

Eventually, though, both women and men do decide to engage in sexual activity, as we can observe in the culture and society around us. Many deplore the fact that young people engage in sexual activity at a younger and younger age. This is sad, because until a human being is fully mature - in body, mind, heart, psyche, and soul - it is very difficult not to be overwhelmed by the sheer raw power of our sexual faculties. In other words, it's almost impossible for young people not to become addicted to the whole range of sensations in the body, emotions in the psyche, images in the mind, fantasies in the imagination, and movements in the soul that all relate to activating our sexual powers. The tragedy here is that once our personality is overrun by all this high intensity experiencing of sexual power and effects, it is difficult to pay attention to the far more subtle but deeper affairs of the heart and soul, such as friendship, fidelity, loyalty, commitment, trust, love, and, yes, intimacy.

That is why God's plan for human beings is so beautiful, meaningful, and effective. Men and women have been created by God to be complementary. This means that we each have attributes that are either unique, stronger or weaker in one than in the other, or else oriented differently. The differences are intended by God to challenge the other, requiring the exercise of freedom and will to endure the challenge and make the effort of continue in the exchange, in the dialogue, in the cooperation, and in collaborative ventures together.

Our differences are also designed to fit into one another in a complementary manner; so that together, women and men can make quite formidable human beings. The products of our relating, working, playing, caring, and living together in civil society draw out of men and women an ongoing commitment to care for, build, create, nurture, and multiply life and activity. The more men and women relate to one another in normal, honest, and gentle ways, the greater discipline they can exercise over their sexual faculties and feelings, because they are learning to consider one another as persons rather than treat one another as sex objects.

In marriage, the mutuality required for a single man and a single woman to commit to each other their entire selves and lives is astounding to the point of seeming quite impossible, were it not for the love that binds them together. Their individuality pulls them constantly in opposite directions; while their love ever pulls them toward each other. Their gender differences constantly push the other beyond their comfort zone into the realm of growth, purification, pain, and greater vitality; while their willingness to ever renew their interest in and care for the other draws the other into the warmth, healing, and safety of unconditional acceptance, kindness, and love.

However, because of the raw and incredibly volatile power of their sexual faculties, it is still possible for a husband and wife to prop each other up in an addiction to sexual pleasure that is simply a comfortable mutual arrangement, a kind of contract or commercial transaction. In either case, whether they are mutually considerate and practice a great deal of selflessess, or whether they are entirely self-absorbed and supporting each other's sexual addictions, or somewhere in between; God's plan goes further into the realm of generativity.

As married couples conceive and then bear children, the utter dependence of each and every child for many years and the ongoing dependence of children until the emergence of adolescence and young adulthood, draws them into a process that is guaranteed to push them beyond comfort, control, mutual arrangements, far into the realm of selflessness. Couples unable to bear children often adopt and experience the same benefit of being drawn out of themselves into a life of selflessness and loving care. Those unable to adopt find other ways to spend their energy in caring ways for those in need of love, care, and compassion.

People who marry without having attained an essential minimum of human character and maturity - though in their 20's, 30's, or older - in effect are really children having children; it is among such parents that occasionally some shake, strangle, or otherwise abuse their infants to death at the extreme, or simply neglect them or treat them as personal possessions, trophies, or accomplishments. It is very difficult, but by the grace of God not impossible, for children to become fully functioning, compassionate, honest, and gentle human beings if their parents are entirely absorbed by their own desires, impulses, and self-serving considerations.

The better human beings parents are, the more advanced the starting point they provide to their children. However, even so, the kind of rearing parents give or fail to give to their children has great influence on how their children will develop or fail to develop into good human beings. Children need to learn boundaries, the difference between good and evil, responsibility, that there is a hierarchy of good things, respect for living things, and a whole host of values, character traits, and a variety of disciplines necessary for living a good, just, honest, kind, loving, and meaningful human life.

So many parents over the years in sharing with me have said they deplore the lack of a proper school for parenting beyond what we can learn from our elders, families of origin, the families of friends with a better developed family culture, reading, and so on. It would be great if someone created a school for parenting with theoretical learning as well as practicums and internships! The family is the fundamental school of humanity, and it would be a necessary and wonderful thing to shore it up, so that it also becomes an effective school of holiness as well as wholeness.

Without maturity of character and personality, it becomes difficult to see that there is any difference between sexual satisfaction - which is ephemeral - and mutual care, which is deeper and generally more lasting. To put this in the simplest terms we can, I cannot know whether you truly love me as long as by being with me you are getting something, some pleasure or satisfaction, back. However, if I am sick, stink and can't do anything for you, am in bed and need your care for a long time, I get angry with you and treat you badly, and you keep coming back to care for me, and keep putting up with my terrible moods and treatment of you; then it begins to look like you really do care for me just because of who I am, and not because of any goodies you may be getting from me. Incidentally, this is also true for how we relate to and treat God: as three real though divine Persons that we try to appreciate, understand, and love, or as the provider of all the goodies of which God is capable.

God in the Bible says that the human heart is tortuous beyong reckoning; who can understand it? For this reason, it is so difficult to know the authenticity of the other person's friendship and love for me, or the authenticity of my friendship and love for another. In fact, we can only know the true nature of our own character or that of any other human being once they have breathed their last breath and are dead. Only then is their life complete. Only then can we judge the whole life as a single, complete reality.

In the meantime, we need to test and judge one another, and even ourselves, and never take for granted that our current state of emotions is pure and genuine. We are created by God to appreciate and delight in all the good things He has created, but our human nature is fallen and we are inclined to self-indulgence; so we must freely choose to embark on a journey of testing and purification of our thoughts, emotions, words, motives, decisions, behaviours, and actions.

Friends become friends because they accept to put up with each other along the way, and to help each other engage more fully in this personal purification and growth. This is why God is truly our ultimate friend, as Jesus revealed Himself to be for his disciples and for us. Now, at this point, I can return to reflections coming from our retreat preacher and some of the echoes within me as I ponder his words.

to be continued....

Jesus, Christians, intimacy, and you - 2.

2005-09-13T21:24:00.000-04:00

Last post we began to reflect on intimacy and what hinders or helps it, and that God wants us to enter into a deeply intimate, meaningful, joyful, and fulfilling life. We may still be carrying heavy baggage given us by others that cause us to be afraid of letting anyone see who we really are or see into what we are like on the inside, what we are thinking, feeling, desiring or what we find meaningful, beautiful, interesting. If when I was young a parent said "You have no will!" or a teacher said "You'll never amount to any good!" or a friend said "You're really dumb!" or the herd treated me like I had fleas, and I believed these untruths and actually became these labels; then it's as if I myself closed the door on any possibility of life, success, accomplishment, joy, love, or happiness.

It may be out of weakness, misery, sinfulness, or even wickedness that people say such terrible things to children or youth or young adults or young parents or anyone. The only way we can turn the page, get unstuck from the past, and move on into the present and into our future is by acknowledging the malice and destructiveness of the evil words or actions done to us, understand the shadows from which they came, forgive the poor, miserable souls for being in such darkness as to say or do such things to us, ask God's help to be glad to be alive right now, and take a step into our own future. God sent his Son into the world in Jesus to reveal our own goodness to ourselves; that we might take responsibility to live our life as the gift it is.

It is a very satisfying, womanly, or manly thing to do this for ourselves, and out of simple gratitude for God's gift of life to us from our conception until this very moment now accept to be delighted by our very heartbeat, breath, sight, hearing, touch, thought, and movement of soul. What a wonder my life is, what an intricate complex organism, operating with such harmony and order! What a gift I am from God to me and to the world. Why surrender all the responsibility for our present condition to others who won't perhaps care enough to change or apologize for what they did to us? Why leave our present potential and future happiness in the hands of those incompetent to build us up, when there are others who already love us or will when we meet them, and when we can be the first ones after God to love the gift of life we are being given?

So this is good news: to realize that we are created in the image and likeness of God our Father, that He intends us to take an active part in creating the person we are even at this very moment becoming, just through the decisions we allow ourselves to make. Jesus was the Son of God come to the Earth in a human life like ours, not only to reveal to us the Father's love but also to show us what that divine life can look like in a human form. In other words, we can be just like Jesus, not through our own efforts alone, but by following the path opened up for us by Jesus. He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." He openly admitted owing everything to his Father, relying on his Father for all things, ever seeking to know the Father's will, and ever longing to do it.

This is the path He invites us to walk. Of course, as He lived in the world, so do we, and today, we live in a culture that hardly understands the first thing about intimacy. When one asks young people what they understand as intimacy, all too often the answer is sex. There is a general impression or misunderstanding that runs deep and wide throughout contemporary society that sex is the way to find intimacy. Why is this a misconception? Lots of factors are at work. God had a plan for human life and happiness, but we gave in to curiosity and temptation and allowed ourselves to go away from God's plan, prefering to try out and experiment with other plans, opinions, or impressions. Another reason is that sex is so very powerful that nothing can stop us from getting intoxicated and addicted to it except true intimacy.

As in other areas of life, such as furniture or artwork or clothing, the quality of authentic materials, artistry, and craftsmanship shows up the fraudulent imitation or forgery. God designed our character structure, inner dynamics, and sexuality in such a way, and invested our human sexuality with such power for tenderness, that it can be kept from becoming violent and destructive only through a lifelong commitment of marriage between one man and one woman, with at least the possibility of children. This formula allows for a delicate balance between freedom and vulnerability and saves the husband and wife from the tyranny of control or domination that tends to result from sex on demand.

The lure of addiction remains ever present in the very power of our human sexuality, and it is kept at bay only through the disciplines of awe and wonder at the power and gift of our fertility on the one hand, and of the constant effort to allow the other to see into me on the other hand. It is not intimacy when I pry into my spouse with 20 questions as soon as they open the door or open their eyes in the morning. Prying not only does not invite intimacy, but even tends to close the door on it. No, I can only wait with trust and anticipation - as I accept to bear the burden of my own self and solitude - for the moment when you will take me into your confidence and allow me that precious glimpse into you. Then I must be as Moses before God in the burning bush, take my shoes off, and know that I am standing on holy ground.

The marriage commitment can - in the light of this - be seen as a true covenant, a commitment of one's whole life to be there for the other, as husband and wife, for the rest of our lives; so that we can be there for one another and allow for these intimate moments of disclosure. Only then can the coming together in a sexual and loving embrace express something that is true, namely, that we have already uncovered each of us our self to the other this day, and recognizing each other's self as good and holy, embrace each other's self in a tenderness that focuses on the beauty of the other. In this holy moment, where God reveals his vitality and love through both of them, the husband and wife lose all awareness of their own self as they gaze into the eyes of the beloved and delight in the depths of human personhood and love concealed yet revealed in those eyes.

Their touching is not at all a grasping, but rather a reverent contact with the other in all the mystery and beauty concealed within. The encounter they have just had on this day or in recent days, added onto all their previous encounters, sharing, and living together, draws them into the depths of the other's person. Their communion elicits the desire to give oneself to the other, allowing the other to gaze into one's eyes, to enjoy one's voice, to delight in one's fragrance, to embrace one's self. Sexual union is then simply allowed to happen by the married couple as a revelling in physical union with the other that alone fully expresses each spouse's desire to be fully for the other.

This embrace is only fully true and honest when it also respects and does not interfere with the other's fertility, which is an essential part of the person, and not a disease to be treated with drugs but a gift from God to be held in awe and wonder. This holy embrace designed by God is not about sexual prowess, or about 1001 positions, or about obsession with the intensity or duration of the sexual flutter. In fact, it is not about the self at all, but rather about joining with the other in a way that honors the other and is wholly attentive to and absorbed in the other. I must tell you that all these thoughts were not at all from our retreat preacher, but from what I have learned over the years. I include them here as a necessary reality check in reference to our preacher's observation that there is much confusion today of sex as intimacy, while in fact they are two separate realities designed to be one. We are however today in grave danger of separating them to our own peril.

We can see then that true intimacy can only happen in a relationship between one person and another. If we see another only as a desirable object that can fulfill my needs or desires, then that person doesn't really exist in my eyes as a person; not yet. For a time, we may simply by coincidence happen to simultaneously consent to fulfill each other's wants, desires, or needs, but that's simply a good business transaction, juicy contract, or beneficial partnership. It is not yet a meeting of persons. As soon as one does or says something that is not agreeable to the other or declines to fulfill the other's wishes exactly when and how they want it, then it breaks down, and the "honeymoon" is over. Reality hits.

Then what? Well that's actually the first real opportunity for such a starry-eyed couple or enthusiastic friends to discover the other as a real person, different from me, and not just a reflection of my own self as in a mirror. It's my first chance to leave behind my love affair with my own self and its wants and needs, and to discover the other, and further discover within me a capacity and willingness to put the other person first, to take interest in the other even in areas that are not my preference, and to invest the energy required to discover all that I do not yet know about the other, all that the other has not yet chosen to reveal.

It's a messy thing a human being, with the result that open, honest, authentic human relationships are also messy. The beauty of it though is that the more I let you see into me, both the beautiful and the ugly, and the more I discover that you still love and accept me; then the more intimacy I experience with you - I feel you closer to me because you don't run away. As I sense your sincere interest and genuine acceptance of me, I find myself becoming willing to trust you more. The more I open myself up and allow you to see into me, the more I accept the risk that you may hurt me. The people who hurt us the most are those to whom we have revealed ourselves the most, those we have trusted the most. Such hurt is simply another test and opportunity of friendship, bringing forth the possibility of regret and repentance in the offender, and understanding and forgiveness in the offended.

Letting you see into me is really a kind of nakedness that is actually more difficult than the physical kind. Authentic human openness is a true nakedness, without which the nakedness expressed appropriately in marriage is actually a fraud or even a mockery. Openness and trust are essential to true friendship, but physical nakedness is not. In fact, overt sexual expression is inappropriate outside of the marriage relationship. This divinely revealed truth flies in the face of commonly accepted practice in our "Hollywood culture". The confusion of intimacy with sexuality leads so many to consider sexual expression as a right or necessity, but it isn't at all. What we cannot do without in order to become fully human is intimacy, but we can live this fully without genital expression.

The truth is that trust and openness expose us more than nakedness to injury. Such vulnerability deserves confidence, that is, it deserves to be kept in confidence by the friend who has been privileged to glimpse this revelation of self by the other. To betray such confidence outside of the friendship is a kind of prostitution, a kind of bartering in the fruits of intimacy in order to gain ephemeral and empty pleasures: showing off, boasting, out of pride, competitiveness, or other shallow motivation. It isn't long before such trafficking in the fruits of trust and intimacy isolates the sinner and others come to realize that the fool is not worthy of trust and deserves to find themselves alone so that they can reflect on their sin and perhaps repent and change. Otherwise, they lock themselves in their own prison of isolation, loneliness, and the misery of hell.

On the other side, it's not catastrophic if we are betrayed, or people don't like us, or someone is angry with me, or I don't meet everyone's expectations immediately all the time. Life is tough, and it's their turn to get over it. Meanwhile, I need to carry on with the adventure of living and trying to remain open at every moment to the intimacy that is possible, with God's help and love. When others hurt me, they provide me an opportunity to forgive. When I hurt others, they give me a chance to regret it, apologize, seek their forgiveness, and change.

Jesus was the freest human being ever to walk the Earth. Even his enemies admitted that He wasn't afraid of anyone, was not influenced by a person's status or wealth, was not afraid of creating a stir or scandal, or even of losing his life. It was more important for Jesus to be an honest, genuine human being that to be a model Jew who observed all the rules and practices. It's not that He deliberately ignored or threw out all the rules and practices, but rather that He prioritized attentiveness to people, to the person. He came to reveal the Father's love for people, and He called everyone to buy into this same priority.

Jesus was filled with the joy of being loved by his Father, and proclaimed that the really good news was that the Father loved everyone with the same love. In fact, He loves us so much that He is willing and eager to go so far as to feel our suffering and make it his own. God is above all things compassion for his human children. This is not the kind of message people were used to hearing. Jesus accused religious leaders of piling up on the people's backs rules that they could not observe and that in effect threw them out of the Temple, out of God's favor and presence. Meanwhile, they who were rich and resourceful could find ways to observe all these rules, with an army of servants to assist them, and they had such little compassion for people that they didn't even lift a finger to help them in their misery. That was the point of the parable of the rich man and the poor beggar who died at his door, starving.

In summary, the real question of intimacy - whether we enjoy intimacy or not - has to do with our willingness to let chosen others see into us, with the attendant risk that we will get hurt. Left to ourselves, the fear of hurt is probably too great for us to be willing to venture it, except perhaps in the exuberance of youth. Jesus has come to show us that the love of our Father revealed in Him, his Son, a love without limits, is what can fill us with the love and strength we need to venture into intimacy, to live life more fully, to give the same love we receive in Him. We may not yet be able to allow the whole world see into us and have intimacy with us as Jesus did. He fully opened Himself to the pouring out of his very life blood, and deliberately gave his life and blood as food and drink, bread and wine.

However, we are to begin today, accept to be loved by God today, and accept to love another today, and give another a glimpse into our inner person. May you be so bold and so trusting in Jesus, who is so worthy of our trust, as to engage ever more fully and deeply into this great adventure of life, and in the Spirit of God yourself become ever more fully human and divine.

Jesus, Christians, intimacy, and you - 1.

2005-09-13T16:39:00.000-04:00

It has been a busy weekend for this pastor, since my last post. Friday to Sunday, I prepared for Sunday ministry and preaching, prayed with and gave the Anointing of the Sick to a few people, continued to host our new associate pastor - there are always so many things to learn in a new house and assignment - visited my aging but very dear parents, and made final preparations for this annual English Montreal Fraternal Gathering and retreat. I picked up our retreat master or preacher, Fr. Eugene "Red" O'Reilly, Redemptorist, at the airport in Dorval and we arrived here for supper Sunday night. Our associate pastor kindly delayed his departure in order to be able to pick up and drive one of our elder veteran priests on Monday morning. We are at the beautiful and extensive marian shrine of Notre Dame du Cap de la Madeleine near Trois Rivières, Province of Québec.

Every good retreat draws our attention to Jesus, the One Saviour of the world. It is because the journey is long, the journey of faith, even though life on Earth may seem short, that we need to go into the wilderness, to a quiet place, so that we can allow our spirit to rest in the Spirit of God, and once again discern his voice speaking to our hearts. Unlike what we construct in this world, where things tend to last or stay where we put them, at least for a while; our interior life is constantly in flux and we are ever creating as it were the person we are becoming through our decisions.

You may say, and rightly so, "Hey, Father, consider yourself lucky to be able to get away like that! With our family, and work, it's really difficult if not impossible for us to do that." You're right. We priests consider ourselves privileged, blessed to be able to go on retreat like this. One reason we need to, as part of our labor and job description in ministry, is because we spend so much time pondering the Word of God and concerning ourselves with the affairs of his Kingdom and the Church, and sharing the burdens of his people; that we actually need to go into the wilderness in a regular way just to remember who we are and find again our own mind, heart, and soul underneath all that is yours that we accept to bear with you. If we completely lose track of who we are, then we will no longer be of much use to you and will tend to go into "auto mode". If you catch us doing that, maybe we need encouragement from you not to wait any longer and go ahead and seek out a time of retreat.

So, you're right, but you're also wrong. I mean that it's not true that you can't go on retreat yourselves. True, you may not be able to go away, both husband and wife, and leave your little children behind. However, if they're older and can manage on their own, with their grandparents or other reliable and committed person to watch over them and assure the continuance of their routines, then there's no reason why you shouldn't consider both going, say, on a weekend retreat. It would not only be a graced time to bring you closer to God and allow Him more deeply into your life and soul, but He would also bring you both closer to each other, and renew your deep love of your children, and refresh you, and send you back with renewed vigor to love and to serve those entrusted to you.

If you can't both go on a weekend retreat at the same time, you may be able to go on it one at a time. If that's still too difficult, or you've never been on a retreat, then you can try a smaller bite. There are twilight retreats that go from late in the afternoon to early evening. Now that's something you can probably manage, either together or separately. The point I'd like to make with you is that, whatever your situation and conditions might be, God always has ways and means to refresh you in mind, heart, soul, and body, and He's always available to fill you with his mercy, love, kindness, and renew in you the freedom and vitality of the children of God by means of the Holy Spirit and his power. He does need your consent to work with, and awaits your decision to seek out the information and decide on an opportunity and go for it. We need to take the step and allow Him to do the rest.

What follows is not a transcription of our retreat preacher's words, but a reflection from my own spirit in response to his words, as I look back at his opening remarks on Sunday evening and the four conferences he has given us since then. Perhaps you may find in this ongoing reflection something that may help you come closer to Jesus or simply realize how eager Jesus is to come closer to you, that you may have the divine life He offers, bringing your human life to abundance and fruitfulness.

Fr. "Red" began by having us consider all the people and influences that have shaped who we have become, in particular how our formation either enhanced or hindered our ability and willingness to be open to the kind of intimacy that allows for a truly human and authentic life. There have been times past and perhaps still today when priests and religious were formed to fear intimacy, to fear their own frailty. This approach often applies as a solution to the dangers of human frailty a discipline of obedience without thinking. It is a blind obedience. You do this because I tell you to do it. Don't think. Don't trust your ability to make your own decision, but just obey. It is true that Jesus gave a lot of importance to his obedience to his Father's will, but this is not exactly the kind of obedience He practiced.

Catholic Christians who are older remember learning that we were made, created by God to know, to love, and to serve God. Fr. "Red" proposed that as true as this tenet of faith is, its expression in our catechesis was not entirely complete, because it left out the other side of this truth, namely, that God also longs to love and serve us. I remember hearing about a contemplative nun who once told a young priest that when we spend time before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, what is happening is not just that we are contemplating or attempting to adore God. God always precedes us, and like any truly loving parent, is also contemplating and "adoring" or loving us. He radiates upon us with love as that parent radiates upon their child with love.

Now, the formation we have received both as people, human beings, and as Christians, may not always have enhanced our ability to appreciate this reality about God. The very thought of God loving us calls for an intimacy of acceptance and response, and this is very much connected to our capacity for intimacy among ourselves, with other human beings. Sadly, there has been and probably always will be, such fear because of the possibility of sexual misconduct or acting out, that a disciplinary response which relies too much upon excessive authority doesn't really help a chld or youth to develop their own conscience and will, both their ability and willingness to make the discipline their own. Instead, we may have raised or be raising people who will only behave according to our values when they think someone is looking or out of fear of being caught and punished or fear of having love withdrewn.

Such fear of punishment is the lowest level of moral development, and doesn't really allow for independent thinking or decision making. My own thought, in light of those recent scandals in the military here and there, is that if an authority undertakes to deconstruct a person's character in order to rebuild them according to the accepted model currently valued by the military authority, they may not realize that they are actually severing the ties within the person between values and conscience. At the other end of society, we are discovering so much about what influences our thinking and behaviour that it is becoming increasingly common for people to blame conditions around them for their actions. In both cases, we are witnessing a society where we are more and more loath to accept responsibility for ourselves and rather inclined to blame someone else, anyone else, or even everyone else, for our own behaviour.

What is tragic about this is that, only through our own responsible decisions, do we grow as persons and become more fully human beings. Further, only as I accept who I am and take responsibility for my decisions, can I see anything good in myself. If everyone else is to blame and I see nothing good in myself, I will be so afraid that others won't like what they see, won't love me, that I will avoid revealing myself to others at all cost. In such a case, intimacy is impossible, but without itimacy, there can be no happiness, no meaningful existence, no personal encounter, and no real communion of persons. This is because, fundamentally, intimacy is what happens when I allow another to "see into me - into me see".

This is what happened when God came to the Earth in his Son, Jesus. He allowed us to see into Him, into God. More than that, Jesus then reached out to people and called them to receive his words and to accept the love being offered by God the Father through Him, his Beloved Son, whom He sent into the world to reveal Himself to us; that we might have life in Jesus and have it abundantly. Jesus even said that He gave us his joy and wanted our joy to be complete. This is a view of life that is at the heart of the kingdom, or reign, of God, and is completely different from other views of life prevalent in our world. What is exciting and at times excruciating is that we bear both views within us at the same time, and from time to time, in varying degrees. Letting the world, the weakness of the flesh, or the devil have the upper hand brings us into misery, but allowing God and his Spirit to have the upper hand and unite us to Jesus brings us into joy.

to be continued...