"The Benjamins of Providence"

This morning I celebrated Mass at Mount St. Joseph, the care center run by the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence in Lake Zurich, Illinois for people with developmental disabilities.  My retreat with a dozen of the Sisters ends today and I celebrated Mass not only with them but with the residents, some of their families, and some of the staff.  As Providence would have it, the readings were perfect.

In the Gospel (Mark 9: 30-37), Jesus is on the road with his disciples, teaching them and preparing them for what is going to happen--that he is going to be handed over and killed and then will rise from the dead.  They are confused.  How could this man, so successful that crowds follow him to hear his every word, come to such a bitter end?  How could this man who has healed so many be rejected in such a way?  They are afraid to ask him for an explanation.  Better to let it pass.

Jesus knows their lack of comprehension and he walks ahead of them.  They begin a discussion that turns into an argument over which of them is the best, which is the greatest apostle, which of them is Number One.  When they arrive at the house in Capernaum, Jesus asks them what they were arguing about.  They fall silent, ashamed.  They know Jesus doesn't approve of such talk.

So once again Jesus begins to teach them about greatness.  He tells them that God sees things in a very different way.  God turns worldly values upside down so that the least are the greatest, the last are the first.  He tells them to be servants like he is.  Because he is the servant of all and because he will be despised and rejected and discarded, he will be raised up to be the greatest and the source of salvation for all. 

Then Jesus hugged a small child, one who in that world was considered unimportant, and said: "Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me."  These words echo another Gospel--the judgment scene in Matthew 25, where Jesus says that whatever we do for one of his least brothers and sisters, we do for him. 

This is true wisdom.  Wisdom is not knowing a lot of things, knowing how to make a lot of money, becoming wealthy and powerful.  The Second Reading from the Letter of Saint James (3:16-4:3) says that this worldly wisdom leads to envy and conflicts.  True wisdom "from above" is, according to James, "pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits."  True wisdom is knowing what's most important--God and the heaven he has prepared for us.  In the Gospel Jesus shows us true wisdom, the way that leads to our ultimate goal of heaven.  It is to care for one another.  It is to care for God's "good children."  It is to serve all those who are in need and whom God places in our lives. 

That's what I told the congregation this morning.  The expression "good children" is what St. Louis Guanella, the founder of the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence, used when speaking about those who had developmental disabilities.  There they were in front of me.  The world thinks of them as the least and the last, as people lacking wisdom because they cannot read or write or care very well for themselves.  Many were in wheelchairs and movable beds.  Fr. Guanella had another expression for them--"the Benjamins of Providence."  Remember: Benjamin was the last son of Jacob.  After the disappearance of the second youngest son, Joseph, Benjamin became Jacob's favorite.  It is a mystery of Providence that some people are born with disabilities.  They are seen by the world as the last, but in God's eyes they are the first and the favorites.  They are given to us so that we may have the opportunity to love God by loving them.  What a privilege it was for me to celebrate Mass with them today.

Fr. Guanella and the Daughters

On December 15, 1912, Fr. Luigi Guanella boarded a ship to take him across the Atlantic to the United States.  He was 70 and the winter seas were rough.  He spent most of the time sick  in his cabin and as the ship was tossed around he probably thought about another ship named "Titanic" that tried to make this same journey only eight months earlier.  He was on his way to Chicago where the archbishop had asked for the help of a community of Sisters which he had founded.  He carried a letter from his friend, Pope Pius X, which read:

"Fr. Guanella undertakes this journey to explore the possibility of beginning a foundation directed by his Sisters to assist the mentally and physically disabled of every age and social background in order to care for them and look after their needs.  We bear witness that these dear Sisters here in Rome and anywhere else are very appreciated because of their committed ministry and obedience to the holy charism of their institute.  They perform miracles of true charity."

On December 23 the ship carrying Fr. Guanella docked in New York.  Over the next one and a half months he visited Boston, Providence, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Utica, New Haven, Baltimore, and Washington, as well as Chicago where he laid the groundwork for the first Sisters to follow him.  He would have liked to have gone to Genoa City, Wisconsin where some of his relatives had lived and died, but he did not have time to make that trip.  He left the U.S. in early February and arrived back in Naples on February 22, 1913.

Who are these Sisters about whom Pope St. Pius X spoke so highly?  In 1871 two sets of siblings, the Bosatta sisters and the Minatta sisters, came together with the encouragement of their pastor to care for the orphans and the sick in their village.  They were called the "Pious Union of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate."  In 1881 Fr. Guanella was sent to take the place of their deceased pastor and in time they changed their name to what it is today--the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence.  From this small beginning they have spread throughout the world in order to create, in their words, a "culture of charity," by caring for the poor and abandoned, the elderly, and especially the developmentally disabled. 

One of the original four, Clare Bosatta (1858-1887), was beatified in 1991.  Fr. Luigi Guanella, who was himself beatified in 1964 and canonized in 2011, was amazed at her deep spirituality and took it upon himself to read St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, the great Carmelite mystics and doctors of the Church, in order to be a better spiritual director for her.  He wrote the following about her.  His words are a reminder to us that because the Son of God united in himself a divine nature and a human nature, and because he said that whatever we do for the least of his children we do for him, our own longing for God is partially satisfied on earth not only in prayer but in our service of our least brothers and sisters.

"Clare wanted God; she wanted to be able to hug Him physically and see His face if she could, but not being able to do that, she extended her hugs to the creatures who could attract her to Him and from whom she could draw a drop of water that could quench her heart which was always thirsty for God."

Mount St. Joseph

I'm in Lake Zurich, Illinois these days, at a place called Mount St. Joseph.  It's a care facility for developmentally disabled adults that is run by the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence.  I've written about them and their recently (October 23, 2011) canonized founder St. Louis Guanella in other blog posts.  I'm giving a retreat to a dozen Sisters from various parts of the U.S., using their small community chapel where we meet for Mass, adoration, prayers, and my talks.  I was happy to find that they include the Daily Offering in their morning prayers and even explicitly recite together the pope's monthly intentions. 

On Tuesday afternoon I took a walk around their spacious grounds and entered the large church that serves the care center.  I didn't go beyond the vestibule because I didn't want to distract or disturb the residents who were praying the rosary together.  I couldn't help thinking how pleasing to God are the prayers of these people whom St. Louis Guanella called "good children." And how powerful they are!

The world doesn't understand the developmentally disabled.  Through testing and abortion it wants to rid itself of any "imperfect" human beings.  But I have found--through my high school classmate's Down Syndrome sister, through my work as a Jesuit novice at Cambridge State Hospital in Minnesota, and through Andy, the son of one of our volunteers--that the disabled, the mentally and physically challenged, are gifts from God.  All life is a gift and these particular gifts are given to us so that we may have the opportunity to love God by loving them in their weakness.  As God told St. Paul when he asked that his particular weakness might be removed so that he would be a better and more effective apostle: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."  (see 2 Corinthians 12:9.)