Communities of Prayer

Upon my return from the Dallas area where I just gave a parish mission, I told the Apostleship of Prayer staff that I wanted to move our office there. Now I know the pleasant Spring weather of 70's and 80's will soon enough turn to the 100's of Summer. And I know that the 40 degrees that greeted me when I left the Milwaukee airport will turn to 70's and 80's in the Summer. But my attraction to Dallas is not just the weather.

It was an amazing experience to meet such fervent Catholics. About 300 people came to my parish mission at Mary Immaculate Parish where it's estimated there are 6,000 families. Also, I was blessed to have lunch with Kurt Klement who runs one of the largest high school ministries in the country at St. Ann's parish in Coppell where there are an estimated 8,000 families and where Fr. Phil Hurley, S.J., our director of youth and young adults, will be leading a Hearts on Fire retreat June 22-23.

Another blessing of my trip was to meet Tom Grossman, the director of campus ministry for Mary Immaculate Grade School and the Young Adult Coordinator at the parish. His card has the following Scripture quote from Luke 12: 49: "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!" Tom is truly on fire with the love of God. Moved by the call of Blessed John Paul II for a new evangelization and for our communities to be "schools of prayer," Tom has helped start a group called "Communities of Prayer." One of their prayer cards caught my eye because it included the Morning Offering. My hope for the Apostleship of Prayer is that we not only unite in praying that daily prayer with the Pope's monthly intentions in mind, but that we truly become "Apostles of Prayer." The Apostles were the friends of Jesus who spent time with him. I think the materials available through Communities of Prayer are ideal for helping us grow in prayer and in our relationship with the Lord. Their "Lectio Divina" booklets can help us make this tried and true method of praying with Scriptures part of our life and the resources available at "Link to Liturgy" are excellent for using the Sunday and weekday Mass readings for prayer.

Once a month Mary Immaculate Parish holds a special Saturday night adoration service followed by entertainment and fellowship. It's called "The Shepherd's Cafe" and I met Yong Oh who is instrumental in organizing it. After Mass and dinner, Fr. Michael Forge, the pastor, and I stopped in for a visit. Throughout the evening the Sacrament of Reconciliation was available and there was a line for it the whole time that I was there.

Throughout the mission people mistook me for Fr. Michael. I guess that's because we part our hair the same way.

More on World Youth Day

I'm continuing to receive reports about World Youth Day and the Apostleship of Prayer's presence there. Jesuit scholastic Nathan O'Halloran has another beautiful reflection about his pilgrimage to World Youth Day. It can be found here at the blog "Whosoever Desires." I talked this morning with Fr. Chris Collins, S.J., the president of the U.S. Apostleship of Prayer's board of directors. He said that the "Hearts on Fire" events which we led at the "Love and Life" site in Madrid drew many young English-speaking people from around the world. One, a young woman from South Africa, came to every session wanting to hear again and again the message of the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and how we can return our love by making a daily offering.

He said our buttons, created especially for World Youth Day, "went like hot cakes."

I was particularly interested in hearing about the Saturday vigil where Pope Benedict was scheduled to consecrate the youth of the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He said that he was about a mile away from the actual site of Eucharistic Adoration hearing confessions, but he heard from someone that while the Holy Father could not finish his prepared remarks because of the storm that hit, he made the consecration.

Here are a couple photos from our good friend, Archbishop Terry Prendergast, S.J. of Ottawa. His blog is always an inspiration and I always wonder where he finds the time to keep it current.

The numbers at World Youth Day far exceeded expectations. Archbishop Prendergast reports that officials had prepared for 750,000 people to come to the Saturday vigil and Sunday Mass. Estimates are that 1.5 to 2 million actually showed up.

On the Vatican Web site you can find the Missal with all the prayers for the various services and Masses of World Youth Day. I went there and found the prayer that was used for the Sacred Heart consecration. It's in Spanish but our able AoP assistant, Stephanie Schmude, translated it into English for us. It's not the official English translation but I wanted to share this beautiful prayer as soon as possible.

World Youth Day Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Lord Jesus Christ,
Brother, Friend, and Redeemer of mankind,
Look with love upon the youth gathered here
And open for them the eternal fountain
Of your mercy
Which flows from your open Heart on the Cross.
They have come to be with you and adore you.
With ardent prayer
I consecrate them to your Heart
So that, rooted and built up in you,
They will always be yours, in life and in death.
May they never turn away from you!
Give them hearts like yours,
Meek and humble,
So that they may always listen to your voice and your commands,
Do your will,
And be praise to you throughout the world,
So that mankind, contemplating their works,
May give glory to the Father with whom you live,
In everlasting happiness,
In the unity of the Holy Spirit,
Forever and ever.
Amen

Magis and World Youth Day

I've been in Milwaukee all week, holding down the fort at the Apostleship of Prayer national office. Fr. Phil Hurley has been in Spain. I've tried to follow the events of Magis and World Youth Day and want to share some of those experiences here.


What is "Magis?" It's Latin for "More" and it's a theme that appears in the life of St. Ignatius and the order he founded, the Jesuits. For St. Ignatius, it wasn't enough to live and work for God's glory. He wanted to give his life for God's greater glory. That's the "more," the "magis."

Magis was a pre-World Youth Day program that brought together, from around the world, people associated with Jesuit schools and apostolates. They broke into small groups and engaged in service projects and pilgrimages. Some went to the birthplace of St. Ignatius where he also experienced his conversion and some others went on the Camino, the road to Santiago Compostela, to the shrine of St. James the Apostle to which pilgrims have journeyed for centuries.


Since the Magis program did not accept pilgrims under the age of 18, some Jesuit schools, like Jesuit High in New Orleans, made their own pre-WYD pilgrimage to the Ignatian sites. I was inspired by a blog entry of one of their chaperones, a Jesuit scholastic or seminarian, Nathan O'Halloran, which can be found here. There are other photos and descriptions of their pilgrimage here. I commented on Nathan's blog that I found these to be a "virtual pilgrimage" for one who stayed home. Through these two links I not only saw the sights but also experienced some of the grace of the pilgrimage.

Fr. Phil Hurley and the Apostleship of Prayer were present at the largest English-speaking venue at WYD in Madrid, the Love and Life site. He was part of a panel that talked about prayer and he sent us the link to the video that Salt + Light TV from Canada made of the presentations. His own contribution can be found on the video from 1:36:40 to 1:47:34 at the following site:


http://www.livestream.com/wydcentral/video?clipId=pla_e759f459-dc2f-4e1d-b640-4b72744e4f6f

I commented on our Facebook page that I wouldn't be surprised if we start getting requests for Fr. Phil to sing after he displayed his musical talent in the video.

Though a rain storm spoiled some of the Saturday night vigil, I'll be blogging more about that another time....

Christ the Teacher

This afternoon I spoke at a holy hour of "Roses for Our Lady," a group in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee that gathers at the local seminary to pray for vocations in the Church.

I asked them: Who was your favorite teacher? Who was your best teacher? Sometimes the two aren't the same person. Our favorite teacher might be someone who was nice and friendly and who pretty much let the class do what it wanted. Our best teacher might be someone who was tough and challenging.

Don Clifton, a professor in the School of Education at the University of Nebraska, developed an interview to find the best teachers. He discovered that all those teachers who were considered the best in their field according to their peers and administrators had one thing in common. When asked what they enjoyed most about teaching they responded that it was seeing growth in their students. Naturally, to achieve such growth they had to be challenging at times.

In today's Gospel (Matthew 15: 21-28) we see Jesus, the best of teachers.

At first glance Jesus appears harsh with the Canannite woman, telling her that it wasn't right to give the children's food to dogs. This was a common way for the Israelites to view pagans, yet Jesus softens this by using a term, according to commentators, that means "little dogs," "pets," or "puppies." The woman persists in her plea for help and Jesus, having challenged her to grow even deeper in her faith and seeing her growth, responds by healing her daughter. What joy it must have given Jesus, the teacher, to see her growth demonstrated by her "great" faith.

Pope Benedict is about to challenge the youth of the world. World Youth Day begins in Madrid, Spain on August 16 and on Saturday, August 20, at the Eucharistic vigil, he will consecrate the youth of the world to the Sacred Heart. This is not a symbolic gesture. It has significant meaning. He is placing the youth of the world into the Sacred Heart of Jesus, praying that they will truly be both rooted in the love of Jesus' Heart and strong in their faith. In a special preparatory catechesis, the consecration is called an act of faith. The Pope is challenging the young people of the world, as Jesus challenged the Canaanite woman, to grow in their faith.

The consecration is also an act of hope: "The Pope will consecrate every young person in the world, not only the ones present at the vigil. In today's youth we find the hope of the Church and of humanity. In this consecration, the youth will state, together with the Pope, that 'apart from Jesus Christ risen from the dead, there can be no salvation! He alone can free the world from evil and bring about the growth of the Kingdom of justice, peace and love to which we all aspire.' (WYD Message)"

And the consecration is an act of love: "In this consecration we will touch Jesus, and we will renew the grace of our baptism in which we were immersed in this Love."

Let's all pray that Christ our teacher, speaking through Pope Benedict, may help the youth of the world grow in faith, hope, and love this coming week.

Door County Weekend

Though I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I'd never been to Door County, the peninsula that sticks out into Lake Michigan and forms the bay for which the city of Green Bay was named. I'd never been there, that is, until this weekend.

The Diocese of Green Bay has a gem called "Holy Name Retreat House" that is located on Chambers Island, a 45 minute boat ride from the harbor in the town of Fish Creek. I gave a retreat there from Friday to Sunday on the theme "Put out into the Deep: Entering into the Heart of Jesus." My first talk was the homily at Mass on Friday evening and the two talks on Saturday were "The True Love Story: the Sacred Heart of Jesus" and "Entering into the Heart of Jesus through Word and Sacrament." On Saturday evening we celebrated a reconciliation service during a holy hour of exposition, adoration, and benediction. The retreat ended on Sunday morning with a talk on "Living in Union with the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus through the Apostleship of Prayer" and with Mass for which some of the 60 or so "Islanders" joined us. Holy Name Retreat House, which is celebrating its 60th year, is a beautiful, holy place, one of only two English-speaking island retreat houses in the world, and I highly recommend it.

On my way to Door County I stopped at the shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, the first and only Church-approved Marian apparition site in the U.S. There is a small church and in the crypt under it is a statue marking the place where Mary appeared in 1859 to a twenty-eight year old Belgian immigrant named Adele Brise.


I also visited the Catholic Youth Expedition camp located in Baileys Harbor. I know several of the staff members and it was a pleasure to spend some time with them, get a tour of the facility, meet some of the other young and enthusiastic staff members, pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy with them, and have lunch. They were getting the place ready for the 140 people who were coming for the Father's Day Weekend Family Expedition.




Though it was a grace to experience for the first time God's beautiful creation--Door County--I am savoring the greater grace of experiencing God's work at the shrine and in the lives of the enthusiastic and faith-filled people at the Catholic Youth Expeditions and Holy Name Retreat House.

Hearts on Fire in South Bend

Last Friday night and Saturday morning I joined Fr. Phil Hurley, the Apostleship of Prayer's youth and young adult director, and three other Jesuits (aka the Jesuit Mission Band which included Michael Rossman and Joseph Simmons, both Jesuit scholastics or seminarians studying at Loyola in Chicago, and Fr. Brian Dunkle, a doctoral student at Notre Dame) for a "Hearts on Fire" event at the Sacred Heart Pastoral Center next to Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. These events for young adults began last summer and we have been able to continue them during the school year at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan and at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York). Next summer Fr. Phil and the Jesuit Mission Band will go to five East Coast Cities before going to World Youth Day where they will team up with the Knights of Columbus, the Sisters of Life, and several other groups at a site called the "Love and Life Center." A recent issue of the Knights of Columbus magazine Columbia had an article about all this. The Jesuit Mission Band will be giving presentations there throughout World Youth Day.

The South Bend event was my first experience of the "Hearts on Fire" retreat which includes talks, prayer, music, and a coffee house setting for socializing on Friday night. I was very impressed with how the retreat combined, in such a short time, key elements of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and the offering and heart-centered spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer. Over 60 young adults came to the South Bend event and it was a blessing for me to be with them for part of their retreat.

Baptismal Consecration

Yesterday morning and today, as part of the parish mission I'm giving in Affton, Missouri, I went around to the grade school classrooms to talk about baptism. Most of the students had no memory of their own baptism, but in a few cases there were students who had been baptized as children, and in some other cases they had been present at the baptisms of their siblings. They remembered that the ceremony included water, oil, a candle, and a white garment.

We then talked about the oil, the sacred chrism. I asked them: "Besides baptism, what other three times is sacred chrism used?" The easiest of the three other times was the sacrament of confirmation. With a little prompting they were able to figure out the third time--at the ordination of a new priest. But they had trouble with the fourth time. An eighth grader was the only one to answer: "At the blessing of a new church."

Sacred chrism is very special. It is used to anoint the walls of a new church, setting that space aside for a holy purpose. It's used to anoint the altar of the new church, setting it aside for a holy purpose. It's used to anoint the hands of a newly ordained priest, setting them aside for God's service, the holy purpose of offering the sacraments. And it's used to anoint the heads of the baptized and the confirmed, setting these Christians aside for a holy purpose, consecrating them for God's service. One of the ways that we serve God and fulfill the holy purpose that we've been given in baptism and confirmation is to pray.

At this point in our little baptismal lesson I asked the children if they ever prayed for other people and they went through a survey of the people for whom they pray. Then I showed them how at every Mass we pray for the local bishop and for the pope. This is a general kind of prayer and I asked them: "If the pope asked you to pray for something would you?" The answer I get is usually a pretty spontaneous and enthusiastic "yes!" And then I told them about the very specific monthly prayer requests of the pope. In some cases I was able to show the students the Apostleship of Prayer web site and how to get to the "Kids' Page" or the "Teenagers' Page." And I left every teacher with a leaflet that has the pope's intentions for the year and with the encouragement to remind their students about those intentions at the beginning of each month.

Long Roman Days

It´s late here in Rome...about 9:30 PM. Given our schedule, this is actually the earliest that I've been able to write. Our meetings of the advisory council of the Apostleship of Prayer begin at 8:30 AM and continue into the evening. Tonight was the first time that we were actually free after supper, which is usually late--around 8 PM.

Fr. Fidelis Jaybalan from India was not able to get a visa to enter Italy for this meeting, but he saw God's hand in this because he is being given a different assignment and will no longer work as the coordinator of the Apostleship of Prayer in India. So we are a small group of five: I, who speak English and understand and speak some Spanish; Fr. Frederic Fornos from France who understands English and speaks both French and perfect Spanish because he lived in Bolivia for two years; Fr. Juan Antonio Medina from Uruguay who speaks Spanish; Fr. Rigobert Kyungo from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who speaks French, English, and Italian; and our international delegate for the Apostleship of Prayer, Fr. Claudio Barriga, who speaks English, French, Spanish, and Italian. I must admit it is not easy having a meeting or even communicating at meals with such a diverse language group. Yet we have many things in common, including a love of the Apostleship of Prayer and a desire to see its renewal and spread. Naturally how this will happen will be different in various parts of the world.

On Tuesday morning we shared our vision of the Apostleship with one another and three members of the Jesuit Curia. It was very consoling to see how inspired these advisors to the General of the Jesuits were as we shared with them the important role we see the Apostleship playing in the world. In the afternoon we talked more among ourselves about how we see that role.

On Wednesday morning we met with Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, the General of the Jesuits and the Director General of the Apostleship of Prayer. His words resonated with us, especially with regard to his desire that the Apostleship be renewed for our times, his encouragement that we help people understand what it means to have a well-grounded Eucharistic spirituality, and his challenge that we develop links with many different groups and people. In the afternoon we met again by ourselves to talk about the essential qualities of the Apostleship of Prayer--that it is Eucharistic, Ecclesial, and for Mission. In other words, the Eucharist and our daily offering of ourselves in which we join ourselves to Jesus' perfect offering of himself on the cross and in the Mass insert us fully into the Church from which we are sent forth to bring God's love into the world. We also discussed how the daily offering prayer is not simply a prayer to be recited but one that has to be lived; in order for that to happen there is need for growth in prayer and the spiritual life. We all need, in the words of Pope John Paul II who loved to quote Jesus' words to Peter (see Luke 5), to go deeper.

Today we continued our discussions about how we would describe the program of the Apostleship of Prayer to people of today and then we moved on to some more concrete and practical matters. We heard a report about the Eucharistic Youth Movement whose mission is to introduce children and young people from 7 to 25 to the way of the Apostleship. We talked about a meeting of the Movement that will happen in Argentina in 2012 and about World Youth Day 2011. Then, in the afternoon, we discussed the 1968 Statutes of the Apostleship and addressed the question of whether they needed revision ("yes") and we asked the question for whom the Apostleship of Prayer was meant and if there were groups on which we should in a special way focus our attention. Obviously, the way of the daily offering is for everyone, but in our times it may be especially important for young people searching for meaning, for sick and elderly people who may see no meaning in their sufferings, for busy people who have little time for long formal prayer, and for seminarians who would find this method helpful for the people they will one day serve.

Tomorrow, I will moderate the discussion and act as secretary, writing the minutes of our day up in the evening, when we return from enjoying a Roman pizza. In the afternoon we meet again with Father General Nicolas. It will be a long and full day.

Children's Prayers

I've always thought that the prayers of children are especially powerful. With that in mind, when I'm giving parish missions, I always make myself available to talk to the grade school children about the Apostleship of Prayer. I usually begin my presentation by asking them, "Who do you pray for?" The most common responses are for sick family members, deceased grandparents, a friend, our soldiers, and pets. I ask them if they would pray for something that the Pope asked them to pray for and, of course, they all raise their hands and give a resounding "yes!" And then I ask the question that brings silence: "Did you know that every month the Pope has two special intentions that he wants you to pray for?" Unfortunately I've yet to meet a child who knows this. The Apostleship of Prayer really has its work cut out for it!

The other day, as I met with the children at St. Paul's Grade School in Danville, IL, I was able to share with them something new. In 2004 we began having a Children's Page on our web site. We tried to explain the Holy Father's intentions to children. Starting this month, with the help of Stephanie our administrative assistant and her sister Stacey, who recently provided the illustrations for our new Sacred Heart children's booklet, we now have a much more engaging "kids' page." Each month there will be simple reflections to help children understand the Holy Father's General and Mission Intentions and questions for them to think and pray about. And then there comes the "fun" part. Each intention has a word search and a coloring page. All of these things are in pdf format and can be downloaded. You can find them here: http://www.apostleshipofprayer.org/reflectionsChildren.html

When I projected these images on the screen in the audio visual room, the reaction was immediate and positive: "Cooooool!" Then I showed them the YouTube daily video reflection for September 1, when I reflected on being at the Minnesota State Fair. They enjoyed that and afterwards I heard that one of the things the kids most enjoyed about the presentation was that there was a priest showing them "good stuff" on the Internet and YouTube.

That's what we're trying to do. Like St. Paul, we're trying to bring the message to people of all ages wherever they are.

Our Kids' Booklet

A recent issue of the Catholic Herald, the Archdiocesan newspaper of Milwaukee, had a very good article about our new booklet for children Do You Know the Sacred Heart of Jesus? It tells the story of the creation of this booklet by interviewing the author (me) and the artist (Stacy Schmude). The article can be found in their online edition:

http://www.chnonline.org/special-sections/parenting/235-booklets-inviting-jesus-image-reaches-out-to-children.html

Outreach to Jesuits

I'm in Wernersville, PA again, at the old Jesuit Novitiate which is now a Spiritual Center for retreats and a community for retired Jesuits. I'm preaching an eight day retreat to over 30 Jesuits, primarily from the Maryland Province but also including a couple Jesuit students from other countries, the mission superiors for Micronesia and for Lebanon, and a couple other Jesuits from the New York and New England Provinces. The retreat is called "A Heart-Centered Approach to the Spiritual Exercises."

I'm not the only director. Fr. Phil Hurley of the Maryland Province joined the Apostleship of Prayer's national office on July 1 as the director of youth and young adult ministry [see http://www.apostleshipofprayer.org/fromfrphil.html]. Though the youngest retreatant here is about 40 and half are over 70, it's important that we work with other Jesuits in reviving the Apostleship of Prayer. In fact, Fr. Hurley will focus a lot of his attention on Jesuit high schools and universities, working with them to introduce their students to the Eucharistic way of life that the Apostleship promotes. Our hope is also to create a "mission band" of young Jesuits who will give youth retreats during the summer and be available as much as possible for retreats, talks, parish missions, and conferences during the school year.

We're very hopeful. At the beginning of the month we sent out our monthly email newsletter and within two days Fr. Hurley received two invitations--one from Houston and another from Monterey, CA.

Giving a retreat to 30 Jesuits is an opportunity for us to share the good news of the Apostleship of Prayer's revival in the U.S. and to invite them to be part of that.

The Sacred Heart for Kids

I met yesterday with Brian Olszewski, the executive editor and general manager of the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, the Catholic Herald. He interviewed me for a story he's doing on a new booklet we recently published called "Do You Know the Sacred Heart of Jesus?" In the the course of our interview I was reminded of how much Divine Providence played a role in the creation of this booklet.

For years the Apostleship of Prayer had a small, two-color booklet that was designed to introduce children to the Sacred Heart. When our inventory disappeared we had to decide whether to reprint it or completely redo it. We decided to redo it, keeping it simple and inexpensive, but making it more colorful, informative, and fun.

We began working with several authors and artists but nothing seemed to click. In the end, I took my experience of visiting with children in grade schools and at parish missions and wrote a text based on the question and answer format I used with the children. Thus, the children themselves contributed to writing the booklet. For example, in one parish I asked the children where their hearts were. They all put their hands on their chests to feel their hearts. Then I asked them to tell me where Jesus' Heart was in the picture I showed them. What was the difference between Jesus' Heart and theirs? Of course the answer was that their hearts were on the inside and Jesus' Heart was on the outside. Then I asked: "Why do you suppose Jesus' Heart is on the outside of His body? One girl raised her hand and answered: "Maybe He loves us so much He can't keep it inside." All I could think was: "Out of the mouths of children comes wisdom. Thank you, Lord!"

The question and answer format makes the booklet fun. On the right pages of the booklet are questions which children can answer for themselves, and then they turn the page to see the answer on the left side of the booklet. In that way the booklet goes through the imagery of the Heart of Jesus, explaining the symbolism of the crown of thorns, the cross, the fire, and the wound. All of these show us how much Jesus loves us. And knowing such love, our natural reaction should be to want to return love for love, to give Jesus our hearts, to give Him our whole life. Thus the booklet ends by leading the young reader into making a daily offering.

The art work was another challenge we faced. One artist hit a creative block trying to take a sacred subject--the Sacred Heart of Jesus--and presenting it in a way that would be accessible to children. After all, Jesus is, as Pope Benedict likes to say, the human face of God. And Jesus loved to be with children. So we needed images that would not frighten children but draw them close to Jesus and His Heart. Our administrative assistant, Stephanie Schmude, put together a "mock-up" of the images we had in mind to accompany the text, and shared them with her sister Stacey, a graphic arts student, who tried her artistic hand at illustrating the booklet. We worked with her and the results were beyond what we'd hoped for. I'll be honest: some of the simple images very much touch this adult's heart. Maybe it's a booklet not just for kids, but for all those who are young at heart. Remember, Jesus said that the mysteries of God's love are revealed to "the childlike" (Matthew 11: 25) and that unless we "turn and become like children" we "will not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18: 3).

Apostleship of Prayer for Grade School

I'm still in Des Moines giving a parish mission and today I had a chance to meet with Bishop Richard Pates who is very supportive of the Apostleship. Before he left St. Paul, MN where he was an auxiliary bishop, he gave me some advice about asking bishops to name diocesan directors for the Apostleship. From the hierarchy to the youngest members of the Church, we are working to introduce the simple and profound Eucharistic spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer to people.

Before having lunch with Bishop Pates I met with grade school students at Christ the King Parish. I was here last year and intoduced them to the meaning of the imagery of Sacred Heart paintings and statues. This year I went around and talked about praying for the Holy Father's monthly intentions.

I begin my brief presentation by asking the children if they ever pray for others. Then I ask who they pray for. Usually they say they pray for a relative who is sick or a friend or their parents or a grandparent who died recently. In some cases students will say they pray for our troops serving overseas. Then I ask if they ever pray for their pastor, in this case Msgr. Frank Bognanno. The children usually look at me with blank faces; this is not an intention that's part of their daily prayers. Then I ask who the local bishop is and the Pope and I point out that every time we go to Mass we pray for these two people. And then I ask the children the following question: "If Pope Benedict asked you to pray for something, would you?" Usually there's a pretty immediate response with nods. At this point in my presentations I tell the class that every month the Holy Father asks us to pray for two very specific intentions of his.

Christ the King School in Des Moines has the Internet connected to a projector and so I was then able to go to the Apostleship of Prayer web site and show the students how they can find out about the Holy Father's monthly intentions. With the older students I go to the regular monthly reflection and with the younger ones I go to the Children's Reflection. After going through the two intentions I show them that we also have a calendar with a daily, two minute YouTube video on it, and I watch a sample with them.

Recently a Religious Sister in the Philippines wrote us to tell us how much she appreciates these brief videos and how she uses them in her classes.

After a time for questions I go on to the next class. It all takes 10 to 15 minutes and I'm hoping the seeds that are planted will sprout into new generations of "prayer warriors" for the Pope.

Lolek Group

Last Tuesday I met with the Lolek Group (http://sites.google.com/site/lolekyoungadults/ ) . Up to 60 young adults, aged 18 to 35, meet twice a month at St. Mary's Parish in Elm Grove, WI. I was invited to speak about the Sacred Heart and Lent. After talking about how our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are not performed to win God's favor but in response to His love, I talked about how that love is revealed most clearly in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I call this "The True Love Story." There are all sorts of ideas about love and that word is used to describe all sorts of things, but true love is found on a cross. Here's what Pope Benedict had to say in his first encyclical "God is Love":

This is love in its most radical form. By contemplating the pierced side of Christ (John 19: 37), we can understand the starting-point of this Encyclical Letter: "God is love" (1 John 4: 8). It is there that this truth can be contemplated. It is from there that our definition of love must begin. In this contemplation the Christian discovers the path along which his life and love must move."

The "pierced side of Christ" is the opening to His Heart from which blood and water flowed to bring eternal life through the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. Jesus gave His life so that we might have life.

What is the history of this Heart? You could say the Heart of Jesus, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, is eternal. God, who is Love itself, has an Eternal Heart. His Heart was set on sharing His love and eternal life with creatures He made in His own image and likeness. But when these creatures rejected His love, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity chose to become human. That happened at a moment in time--the Annunciation. When Mary said "Yes" to God's plan of salvation, when she surrendered her will to God's will. At that instant a new life was conceived in her womb. God took flesh and began to develop in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Within twenty-one days a new heart began to beat--the Sacred Heart.

The "heart" is more than the organ which pumps blood throughout the body. It's also a way in which we talk about the deepest core of a person. Having a "heart to heart" talk doesn't mean that our physical hearts actually communicate to one another. But it's important to keep the two together--the physical heart and the heart as the deepest reality of a person.

God continues to speak to our hearts, just as He spoke to Mary's heart through the Angel Gabriel. And when we say "Yes" to God's will, something similar to what happened to Mary happens to us. We give flesh to Jesus today. We live as His Body. Pope John Paul II wrote about this in his 2003 encyclical "Ecclesia de Eucharistia":

The Eucharist, while commemorating the passion and resurrection, is also in continuity with the incarnation. At the Annunciation Mary conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives, under the signs of bread and wine, the Lord's body and blood. As a result, there is a profound analogy between the Fiat which Mary said in reply to the angel, and the Amen which every believer says when receiving the body of the Lord.

This is the "Eucharistic life" to which we aspire in the Apostleship of Prayer: to surrender to God's will one day at a time by praying and living a Daily Offering. Through this daily surrender and by receiving the Holy Eucharist we believe that we are bringing Jesus into the world anew. His Heart now beats within ours. His Heart loves in concrete and practical ways through ours.

Souly Walking

Yesterday, March 1, 2009, two young men set out on a difficult journey across the U.S. For seven months, beginning in Ocean Park, CA, they will walk twenty miles a day to Ocean City, NJ. What would possess anyone to do this? Are they raising money for a worthy project or protesting something? No. Inspired by St. Paul, they are going to walk, preach, and witness to the love of Jesus Christ. One of these young men, Jon Leonetti, is the host of a Catholic radio show on KWKY in Des Moines, IA. Jon interviewed me a month or so ago for his weekly youth-oriented show “Martyrs of the Third Millennium.” The title comes from a quote of Pope John Paul II. It’s what the late Holy Father called young people—those who would witness to the Gospel (the meaning of the world “martyr”) and be willing to lay down their lives for Christ. A “Martyr of the Third Millennium” is someone who continually dies to self in order to live for Jesus Christ, just the way St. Paul did. Jon and I had a great half hour conversation on the radio. I, with my desire to help people make an offering of their lives one day at a time through the Eucharistic spirituality of the Apostleship, and Jon, with his desire to help young people develop deep prayer lives which help them live not for themselves but for Christ—we were very much “on the same page.”

Jon and his fellow walking witness, Jesse Weiler, will be blogging, posting photos and videos, and creating a documentary of their journey. You can find out more about all this and see if they’re coming anywhere near your hometown on their web site: www.soulywalking.com . Please join me in praying for them—their safety and well-being, and that they may touch the hearts of many people, young and old, through this amazing journey of over 3,500 miles on foot.