NCDVD conference

The annual NCDVD conference is being held in Milwaukee this week. That's the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors. Through the generosity of a benefactor the Apostleship of Prayer was able to have a table at the conference. I used the slogan that I've used with Serra Clubs and other organizations that promote vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life: "The Apostleship of Prayer: Creating a Culture of Vocations." I believe that using the Morning Offering can be an important step in planting a seed that could one day sprout in a call to offer one's life in service to Christ and His Church. Along with our CD's of the Morning Offering, I also offered to the participants our Evening Review CD in which I lead the listener through the Ignatian Examen, a way of discerning God's presence in one's daily life. I think that if a person is discerning those daily movements of the Holy Spirit, one will be better able to discern a vocational call.

The conference also gave me the opportunity to connect with friends, priests from dioceses where I've worked or given retreats and missions, as well as a local friend, Anne, who follows this blog and has a tremendous blog of her own called "Imprisoned in my Bones." And I made new friends, some of whom are priests who work at seminaries and who were at the conference to tell the vocation directors about priestly formation at their seminaries. My table was right across from two laymen, John Bradford and Ryan Anthony, who run a fascinating program called "Wilderness Outreach." They propose the following question to men: "Do you have what it takes to go deep into the Wilderness, deep into work, and deep into the Heart of God?" The last part of that question caught my attention because that's a key part of the spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer--to enter more deeply into the Heart of Jesus.

It's About Relationship

Over the past weekend I gave a retreat to 56 women at the Jesuit Retreat House in Oshkosh, WI. I preached at Mass today and here is part of what I said.

Periodically I'll hear one parent say to the other: "That son of yours..." or "That daughter of yours...", as though that particular child wasn't his or hers. This is usually said when the child does something wrong and one of the parents seemingly doesn't want to take responsibility for what the child has become and done. We hear this same dynamic in the first reading today (Exodus 32: 7-11, 13-14) and in the Gospel (Luke 15: 1-32).

In Exodus, Israel has just forsaken God and made a molten calf to worship. God says to Moses, "Go down at once to your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt...." It's as though God is disowning them, but not really. The people have disowned God, rejecting Him for an idol they can see and touch. Moses in turn asks God, "Why, O Lord, should your wrath blaze up against your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt...?" Moses is right. God is the one who chose this people and brought them out of Egypt. Moses, though the instrument God has called to lead His people, is one among many. Moses reminds God of the relationship He has with this chosen people who have rejected Him.

In the Gospel, the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son rejects the relationship he has with his profligate younger brother, telling their father that he is "your son." The father's response is to remind the elder brother of the relationship he has, telling him that the younger son is "your brother."

It's all about relationship and we are challenged by these readings to examine how we view others, especially people who have hurt us or are our enemies or are living in ways that are opposed to us and our values.

We are all children of God our Father who created us all for eternal life with Him in heaven. We must see the deepest identity of others and recognize them as brothers and sisters.

Moreover, Jesus Christ shed His Precious Blood to save them as well as us. Quoting from the Council of Quiercy which met in the year 853, the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" states in #605: "There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer." He suffered and died for all. His Precious Blood, shed for all, makes everyone precious to Him and to us.

In the second reading (1 Timothy 1: 12-17), St. Paul writes: "This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." He did this by suffering and dying for them. Now we, His Body, must see others as precious to Jesus and do all we can for their salvation.

Belated Birthday Greetings

Belated Birthday Greetings to Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother!

I had hoped to make this greeting yesterday but it was a busy day in the office and in my community. So I'm a day late. September 8, nine months after the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is the Feast of the Nativity of Mary.

We didn't pray the rosary in my family when I was growing up. I remember praying it at wakes and on special occasions in the Catholic grade school I attended. It certainly wasn't part of my spiritual life in high school. So when Fr. John Eagan, S.J. proposed that I and my five friends who were about to leave Milwaukee on a two week camping trip with him in the summer of 1969 pray a rosary as we drove, I rolled my eyes. The rosary wasn't cool. Seven of us were crammed into a station wagon: three in the front seat, three in the back seat, and one in the very back behind all the equipment and supplies. That was the choice spot that we all took turns getting because the one in that spot didn't have to lead one of the decades of the five decade rosary. In fact, being in the back as the car rolled down the highway, he didn't have to respond. He could nap or read or just zone out.

By the end of the trip something had happened to me. It was my turn to sit in the back of the wagon and not participate in praying the rosary. But I declined. I wanted to pray the rosary. I can't recall the reason anymore. Somehow, on a level below any conscious reasons, I felt good praying the rosary.

After my high school graduation I went off to college, commuting 35 minutes in a car my parents had bought me for that purpose. I began my commute praying the rosary. Most of the time I recited the prayers fast to get through them and then turn on the radio to the local pop station. Nevertheless, the rosary had become part of my life and I can't help thinking now that in connecting myself to Mary in this way, she somehow came to play a greater and greater role in my vocation.

After one year of college I entered the Jesuit novitiate. At night, before our common prayer at 10, I would take a walk and pray the rosary. A couple times a week, when I returned to the novitiate at night after working as an orderly at a nursing home, I walked back from the bus stop praying the rosary. And when it came time to finish the novitiate and pronounce perpetual vows as a Jesuit, I considered Mary to be the Mother of my vocation. Jesuits don't change their names when they enter the novitiate or take vows as other consecrated persons, both men and women, often do. But we do have a tradition of taking a devotional vow name. It's an option and the six of us who pronounced vows as Jesuits in St. Paul, Minnesota in August, 1973 all took a vow name. I remember one took "Jeremiah" and another took "Ignatius." I took "Mary." As the Mother of my vocation, that was only natural. Moreover, my middle initial was already "M" for "Michael," so it worked well. Now, when I sign official documents and include my middle initial, I sign "M" for "Michael" but also think of it as "M" for "Mary."

That's why I didn't want to miss the opportunity of celebrating my Mother's birthday this year.

Detachment

I was on Relevant Radio's call-in spiritual direction show "The Inner Life" today. Every Friday the topic is determined by the Gospel of the following Sunday and today's topic was "Detachment." The Gospel on Sunday is Luke 14: 25-33 and has the following line of Jesus: "anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple."

I began the show talking about the context for this saying of Jesus. "Great crowds," the Gospel says, "were traveling with Jesus...." Why? Was it because they liked His teaching? Or was it perhaps because He was able to feed thousands and heal many? Were they interested only in the earthly benefits that Jesus could bring them?

To make sure that they were following Him for the right reasons, I think, Jesus gave them a challenging word, telling them that they must be ready to let go of everything they might hold dear in this life in order to receive eternal life. He made it clear to the crowds that if anything on this side of eternity got in the way of the goal of eternal life--a relationship, possessions, honor or position--they should be ready to renounce it.

St. Ignatius makes the same point in the "Spiritual Exercises" where he writes: "Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created. Hence, man is to make use of them in as far as they help him in the attainment of his end, and he must rid himself of them in as far as they prove a hindrance to him. ... Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created."

This makes good sense and the world understands this lesson well when it comes to its plans. I can just imagine Jesus saying that the people of the world are much more clever and focused than the children of the Kingdom of God. Worldly people manage their time according to their goals. They plan everything around succeeding in business. They have a slogan: "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." If this is true for success in business and acquiring earthly wealth, how much more true is it for success in eternity and acquiring heavenly treasure?

Jesus didn't mince words about being ready to renounce everything for the sake of the Kingdom. But I can't help thinking that a lot of people in the large crowd that was following Him slipped away. It's not a message people like to hear, then or now.

Blessed Zdenka Schelingová

One of the news services to which I subscribe in order to keep up on Church news is Zenit. On Saturday they ran Archbishop Charles Chaput's recent speech in Slovakia, entitled "Living Within the Truth: Religious Liberty and Catholic Mission in the New Order of the World." It's an excellent speech and one reference toward the of it particularly caught my attention. It was a quote from Sister Blessed Zdenka Schelingová, a Holy Cross Sister who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2003. Archbishop Chaput paid tribute to Sister Zdenka, who served as a nurse, and other heroic Catholics who suffered under the Communists. He said: "We need to keep this beautiful mandate of Sister Zdenka close to our hearts." What is that mandate? The following--words which embody the meaning of living a Eucharistic life by making an offering of our day:

“My sacrifice, my holy Mass, begins in daily life. From the altar of the Lord I go to the altar of my work. I must be able to continue the sacrifice of the altar in every situation. … It is Christ whom we must proclaim through our lives, to him we offer the sacrifice of our own will.”

Feast of St. Monica

Last February, when I went to Rome for the first time, I visited the Church of St. Augustine, where the relics of St. Monica are venerated. I prayed there for all the parents whose children are wandering away from the Catholic faith and into self-destructive choices and life-styles.

On this, her feast, I have in mind a group of people whose slogan is "It is not hopeless and we are not helpless." They're called the Marian Mantle Group and they are a prayer and support group for those who have friends and relatives who are wandering the way St. Augustine did. St. Monica's prayers played a key role in his finding the right way and the Marian Mantle Group can be a great support to everyone who grieves over a wandering son, daughter, spouse, other relative, or friend.

Sister Ida's Sisters

I'm back home and reflecting on my recent retreat with the Sisters of the Society Devoted to the Sacred Heart. Members of my community ask me how the retreat went and who were the Sisters whom I led in retreat. Answering their questions gives me another opportunity to reflect on what a grace it was for me to meet them.

I'm still amazed at being able to meet courageous women who survived the Nazi and Communist occupation of their country, Hungary, and hearing how they were able to find freedom in Canada and then in the U.S. The stories of the early members read like the script of an exciting movie.

Sister Hermine, now 92 years old, invited the foundress, Sister Ida Peterfy, to go on a Jesuit retreat which changed Sister Ida's life. She once spoke about the experience this way: "Suddenly I realized that God knew me and loved me, Ida, personally. To God I am not just one of the cabbages in a cabbage field. He knows me by name! Then I asked myself again; if I pursue my career as a chemist, who will take care of the children? The Church will. But who is the Church? I am the Church!" Thus Sister Ida said "Yes!" to God's call to form a community of catechists who would care for the spiritual needs of children.

This was 1940 and in the next few years other women joined the two. One was Sister Eva with whom I spoke. She told me that at the age of thirteen, when she was in a boarding school, she told a Jesuit priest about her interest in religious life. He told her that a new community was just being formed and introduced her to Sister Ida who was studying at a local university. When she was seventeen, Sister Eva took a private vow of chastity for one year. All the Sisters lived separately at this time because it was too dangerous to come together as a community.

When World War II ended, and the Soviets became the occupying army in Hungary, Sister Aurelia was arrested because she had a German surname. She was sent to Siberia where, according to Sister Eva, this frail woman shoveled coal in a coal mine for two years before a falling beam of timber broke her back and she was shipped back to Hungary. She survived, escaped with the others to safety in North America, and died shortly after Sister Ida's death in the Jubilee Year 2000.

I asked Sister Eva how they were able to get out of Hungary. It took two attempts. On the first one, she was in sight of the U.S. flag in the American occupied part of Austria when she was stopped. Her alibi was that she was on her way to visit German relatives, but her bad German gave her away and her forged passport was discovered to be false. She was arrested and sent back to Hungary where she was sternly warned not to try to escape again and sentenced to four months in prison. On the second attempt, with another false passport, she succeeded, speaking as little German as possible.

Once the other Sisters were free, Sister Hermine made her way to the West with the help of a false passport and smugglers who got her to Austria through what was then Czechoslovakia. Sister Hermine had three brothers were who Jesuit priests, one of whom, Fr. Stephen, served as a missionary in China. Sister told me about how one of Fr. Stephen's fingers was crushed by the Chinese Communists before he was released and migrated to Canada.

I also heard stories of the present good work of the Sisters of the Society Devoted to the Sacred Heart. Sister Arlene works in Taiwan at Cardinal Tien Hospital where she serves as a medical doctor. On September 3 she will be in Omaha for an International Medical Conference on NaPro Technology, sponsored by the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction on the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary. In her talk she will discuss her use of NaPro technology in Taiwan.

The spirit of these Sisters is contained in the following prayer that Sister Ida wrote:

"Come, follow Me." (Mt. 4: 19)

Lord Jesus Christ,
in baptism You placed Your hand upon me,
You chose me to belong to You.
You gave me new life.
Now I can respond to You.

I want You to make me holy.
I want to belong to You.
I want You to be the center of my life.
I want to love with Your Heart.

Let the splendor of holiness
shine on the world through me.
Help me to reach for more,
for holiness, for strength, for divine life,
to be like You,
to radiate holiness in the world.