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.)

Holy Name of Mary

Today's feast of the Holy Name of Mary was first celebrated in Spain in 1513 but was extended to the whole Church as an act of thanksgiving by Pope Innocent XI. What was he thankful for? The victory of Christians forces over the Turkish army which had besieged the city of Vienna for two months. Pope Innocent XI had appealed to the leaders of Europe to come to the aid of Vienna and on August 15, 1683, King Jan Sobieski of Poland, answered the call and brought together their armies. On the way to Vienna, he and the army that began to gather, stopped in Czestochowa and prayed before the image of Our Lady that is there. Marching toward Vienna, the army prayed the rosary and the king gave them for their battle cry "In the Name of Mary: Lord God, help!"

Here is a description of the Battle of Vienna from Adam Zamoyski's book The Polish Way.

They reached the heights of the Kahlenberg just before nightfall. From this vantage-point the king and his generals surveyed the great plain stretching into the distance, cut across by the winding course of the Danube. At their feet lay the city of Vienna. Only the occasional flash of a cannon from its battered ramparts and the distress-rockets rising periodically into the evening sky from the tower of St. Stephen's Cathedral confirmed that after sixty days of siege the garrison was still holding out.

The proud Habsburg capital was dwarfed by a larger city, a sprawling encampment of many thousand tents which pullulated with a quarter of a million soldiers, slaves, camp-followers and houris; with horses, camels and buffalo. ...

"He's badly camped--we shall beat him!" said the king, turning to his generals. Few of them shared his confidence, but they trusted his experience, his reputation, and the renown of the strange-looking regiments he had brought with him. A beacon was lit on the heights to inform the defenders of the dying city that help was at hand. This signal did not unduly worry Kara Mustafa. He had over a hundred thousand fighting men securely entrenched with plenty of artillery, and he was convinced that no serious threat could come from the Kahlenberg: a large army would have chosen a longer route through the plain. His own army did not fear the solid but slow-moving Austrian and German troops, their unadventurous generals or their pusillanimous emperor, who had abandoned his capital. The only Christian general they held in awe was Jan Sobieski, the King of Poland. But he, Kara Mustafa believed, was still hundreds of miles away in Krakow.

Just before dawn on the following day, 12 September 1683, the King of Poland attended Mass in the ruins of an old convent on the Kahlenberg. ... Only about one third of the 68,000 troops were Polish--the rest were Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Scots and Irishmen. ... The king felt tempted to put off the decisive battle to the following day, even though this would give the Turks time to turn the heavy guns bombarding Vienna to face his army. ... Instinct made the king change his mind....

Zamoyski goes on to describe the battle in which the Polish cavalry or Husaria, with eagle feathers on their backs rising above their heads, cut through the Turkish encampment and sent the Turkish army .

Then, he continues:

This battle, which was crucial to the future of the whole of Europe, had not been hard-fought, and the casualties on both sides were light. It had been won principally by the prestige of Jan Sobieski and his army. In 1683 Poland was the largest state in Europe....

As Pope Innocent XI recognized, there was another reason for the victory. Grace came to the aid of nature and that grace came through the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our secularized world tends not to see it that way and so today we tend to rely more on human than heavenly means in the battles we face. Today's feast is a reminder to seek and to trust in heavenly help, especially the help of her whom the first book of the Bible prophesied would crush the serpent (see Genesis 3:15).

A Spirituality of Work

Since today is the day after Labor Day, I thought that a good topic for discussion on Relevant Radio's "Inner Life" show would be "The Spirituality of Work." 

The pain and frustration associated with work is the result of sin.  These are often the result of our own sins and those of others, but also because of Original Sin, which resulted in difficulties and pain in work, for God said: "Cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, as you eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat..." (Genesis 3:17-19).  But this pain was not part of God's original plan.  Made in the image and likeness of God, humanity was created to work with God in caring for creation.  A chapter earlier in Genesis we read: "The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it" (2:15). 

Jesus, the model human, shows us the beauty of work.  We often think of his work of redeeming humanity only in terms of his three years of active ministry when he taught, healed, raised the dead, and then suffered, died, and rose.  But each of the years and minutes of his "Hidden Life" was redemptive.  When he worked as a boy and adolescent side by side with Joseph, he was saving the world.  When he did his chores around the house, he was saving the world.  All this was done in obedience to the will of the Father and as an act of love for the Father, thus undoing the rebellious sin of Adam and Eve. 

Jesus declared that through work we imitate God the Father.  He said: "My Father is at work until now, so I am at work" (John 5:17).  He made it clear that he worked in union with God the Father when he said: "I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me" (John 5:36).  If, as Jesus says, he can do nothing on his own but does everything in union with the Father, how much more is it true that we can do nothing on our own.  After telling his disciples that he is the vine and they are the branches, Jesus says: "Whoever remains in me

and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). 

With this in mind, everything we do can play a part in the ongoing conversion and salvation of the world.  When we pray a Daily Offering prayer at the beginning of the day, we ask that everything we do may be done in union with God's will and may give glory to God.  Chuck Neff, the host of the "Inner Life" show, shared that one work he particularly dislikes is mowing his lawn.  He said that as he mows he thinks about various people that he wants to pray for or has promised his prayers to and he offers his work for them.  I

added that praying a version of the Jesus Prayer--"Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me"--can be another way of uniting prayer with our breath and our work. 

We can also see work as an opportunity to practice and grow in the virtues.  Take the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love.  We can make our work an act of faith by surrendering it to God and trying to see how it can give glory to God.  We can acknowledge that God is always present and we can ask, "what are you trying to teach me through this work, through this event?"  When our work becomes especially burdensome and we are tempted to get down and to despair, we can exercise the virtue of hope, recognizing that our true home is heaven and that this--whatever it is that causes us pain or struggle--this too shall pass.  We exercise hope by substituting positive thoughts for the negative ones.  And we can exercise the virtue of love, telling God that the work in which we are engaged is being done as an act of love for him.  Especially when we are dealing with people who frustrate or upset us, we exercise love by praying for them, willing their good, and expressing that love in the way we treat them.  In this way work becomes a very practical way in which we grow in holiness.

One of the last questions we addressed involved rest, balance, and overwork.  In Genesis God rested from the work of creation to show us the importance of balance.  We too must rest, for in doing so we practice good stewardship of ourselves, our bodies.  But it is also a way of exercising trust.  When I am tempted by overwork it is usually not only because I want to give glory to God.  There is often a good bit of ego involved in the temptation to work too much or too hard.  It involves the fear of saying "no" and displeasing others.  It involves the desire to look good and to be successful.  God wants us to do good work and to follow St. Paul's advice to the Colossians: "Whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for others..." (3:23).  In that way we can seek God's glory at all times and not our own. 

An audio of the program can be found here, on the Relevant Radio website.  Just go to the calendar and click on September 4. 

Mother Mary Teresa Tallon

The woman who founded the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate with whom I've been on retreat this week is Mother Mary Teresa Tallon.  She was born on a farm near Utica, NY in 1867, the seventh of eight children of her Irish immigrant parents.  At 19 she entered the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul but left after a few months.  Shortly thereafter she entered the Holy Cross Sisters in South Bend, IN where she stayed for 33 years.  She felt a strong call to start a new congregation that would go into the streets and homes and, like the Good Shepherd, find those who were drifting away or had left the faith.  The Parish Visitors were founded on August 15, 1920 and Mother Mary Teresa died on March 10, 1954.

She gave many talks to her Sisters which were taken down in short-hand, typed, and published in a series of books.  During this week, I've found myself resonating with her words and quoting her frequently.

In the Sisters' Constitutions, describing the spirituality of the congregation we read: "Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate are to be contemplatives for the street.  They are to have cloistered hearts, safeguarding a faithfilled contemplative spirit in the midst of the world, and bringing to the people they serve the fruits of their contemplation."  This sounds very much like the Jesuit ideal of being "contemplatives in action."  The Parish Visitors do not live in a cloister away from the world.  In fact, Mother Mary Teresa said to her Sisters: "Your cloister is the Sacred Heart."

In my work with the Apostleship of Prayer I often speak about Pope Benedict's Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis where he calls the Eucharist a mystery to be believed, celebrated, and lived.  Mother Mary Teresa's spirituality was very Eucharistic.  She said:

"In the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, every morning, we offer Jesus, the Divine Victim, to His Father, in union with the priest, and as we do so we offer ourselves with Him and our poor, needy people as well.  The best prayer is the liturgy of Holy Mass, therein we ask that all may be saved--through the power of Christ in His Holy Church.  This thought strengthens our faith, sustains our hope, augments our love.  We pray the Mass; we live the Mass...."

In every Mass we offer ourselves with Jesus to the Father.  But we need to be conscious of this, as Mother Mary Teresa said:

"Offer yourself in sacrifice during Holy Mass, every day; ... lift and offer yourself up to God with Jesus at the Elevation--a complete holocaust."

Though this offering is made with Jesus at Mass, it is then lived throughout the day.  I was pleased to find Mother quoting a version of the Child's Daily Offering Prayer that we use in the Apostleship of Prayer and telling her Sisters to renew their offering throughout the day with this simple prayer.  She said:

"She may unite her heart, a seemingly small offering, to the infinite offering of Christ, by frequently saying the following simple verse that she may have learned as a child:

My God, I offer Thee this day
       All that I do, or think, or say,
Uniting it with what was done
       On earth by Jesus Christ, Thy Son."

What inspired Mother Mary Teresa to found a new congregation and what continues to inspire her Sisters is the love the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  It is what inspires the daily offering of all Apostles of Prayer as well.  Mother wrote:

"The Sacred Heart's inspiration of charity caused this Community to be established, and it will be the same inspiration that will perpetuate it successfully."

The fire of love within the Heart of Jesus set Mother Mary Teresa's heart on fire with love for all those who were at risk of not knowing or rejecting the love of God.  She encouraged her Sisters:

"Rise to the height of the true spiritual standard: the very Heart of the Good Shepherd."  And she said that "the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate ... take the message from the Heart of Jesus, that was lit at His Heart's flame and fostering the grace, they ignite other souls, that these may be brought to share in the favors that they themselves possess. ... Through all their activity they carry with them the light and heart of divine love."

The Sisters publish a quarterly magazine called The Parish Visitor which contains many more of Mother Mary Teresa Tallon's writings.  An annual subscription is only $5 and it can be obtained at:

The Parish Visitor Magazine

P O Box 658

Monroe, NY   10949

Detachment

In the Gospel at Mass today (Matthew 19: 16-22), a young man approached Jesus and asked what "good" he must do to "gain eternal life."  Jesus responded that "there is only One who is good"--God.  Then he told him the minimum requirements for eternal life: to follow the commandments which were given for humanity's spiritual health and ultimate well-being.  When the young man responded that he followed these commandments, yet felt that something was missing, Jesus challenged him to give everything away and to follow Him.  The young man "went away sad, for he had many possessions." 

Jesus told the young man that God is the only good, the greatest good.  No created good should come before Him.  If we choose a lesser good as more important that the greatest good, we've got our priorities wrong, we will be unhappy, and we will risk losing eternal life.  The young man was too attached to material things which were more important to him than following Jesus.  He could not let go of earthly treasures and his hands, full of these lesser goods, were not open to receiving "treasure in heaven."  He needed detachment.

Mother Mary Teresa Tallon, the foundress of the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate, to whom I am giving a retreat this week, wrote an article dated July 30, 1926 and entitled "On Poverty and Detachment."  She points out that true wisdom means having one's priorities right:

"But the Gift of Wisdom or spiritual detachment ... means freedom from all earthly things in order to reach an entire attachment to God and to the Will of God.  Detachment brings every virtue, or it presupposes the possession of every virtue.  True humility, which is the foundation of detachment ... means freedom from self with its aspirations toward egotism....  The possessor of the gift of detachment has every theological and Christian virtue.  Why?  Because the great obstacle SELF is eliminated, the spirit rises to Heaven, and the good God is brought into full possession."

Possessions or honors or relationships--any good that is less than God--can weigh us down.  They can distract us from the "one thing necessary" (see Luke 10: 42) and can lead us to lose track of our priorities and what is most important--eternal life.  The focus on self, egotism accompanied by selfishness or self-pity, is especially burdensome.   But detachment frees us to fly:

"So detachment means freedom from self, freedom from the earth, to rise like a great eagle--like a great angel, rather--up to God."

We can let go of all and surrender ourselves completely because God has done this.  Jesus gave completely of Himself, offering Himself for the salvation of every human being at the Last Supper and on the Cross.  He continues to offer Himself for us and to us in the Eucharist.  Having received all--our life, our talents, God Himself--we can give all in return.  We don't do this grudgingly but with joy.

The saint whom the Church honors today--St. Bernard--had a deep personal relationship with God.  His commentary on the Song of Songs addresses the spousal relationship that God desires to have with every human person.  Love cannot be forced or imposed, so God has continually proposed to humanity and to each individual.  In the Gospel Jesus reached out in love to the young man who could not return love for love.  He wanted to know what was the minimum he had to do in his relationship with God.  A marriage based on minimum requirements won't last.  Love doesn't ask "What can I get away with in our relationship?" or "What's the least I have to do to keep you satisfied?"  Love always asks "What more can I do to show you I love you?" 

God has shown us the vastness and depths of His love for us.  What is our response? 

The Parish Visitors

I'm in Monroe, NY these days, giving a retreat to the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate.  This group of consecrated women was founded in 1920 in New York City by Mother Mary Teresa Tallon.  They call themselves "contemplative-missionaries in the midst of parish life."  They are dedicated to family ministry through prayer, the visitation of homes, and religious education and they serve in the U.S., Nigeria, and the Philippines.  Here is something their foundress wrote about their charism in 1930.  Her words and the goal of the Parish Visitors are as important today as they were then.

"The trend of the day is toward materialism, overindulgence, luxury, amusement.  Many families, caught up in the whirl of the times, or through poverty, change of residence, or some unfortunate mistake, have let slip the precious heritage of the True Faith which once was theirs.  Many, caught up in the mad seeking for pleasure or the blind battle for the almighty dollar, have forgotten their Creator or, entangled by spurious reading, have denied Him entirely.  All these cases cry loudly for help--for some apostle of holy charity to alleviate, to rectify.  This is where the Parish Visitor of Mary Immaculate comes in; one who can enter homes and seek for the Shepherd's lost sheep, who is consumed with a divine thirst for souls--'Souls!  Souls!  Lord, give me souls!' must be her cry.

On August 15 the Parish Visitors celebrated the 92nd anniversary of their founding with a special guest, Cardinal Timothy Dolan.  I was able to concelebrate Mass with this friend of the Apostleship of Prayer whom I first met when he was Archbishop of Milwaukee.  After Mass we went to visit the nearby grave of Mother Mary Teresa Tallon whose cause for beatification the Sisters hope will soon be opened. 

Praying with the Sisters

While giving a retreat to some Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma Michigan, I've been privileged to share in their prayer life.  While these Sisters are very active around the world, prayer is certainly a big part of their lives.  It's clear that prayer has a very apostolic dimension for them.   For example, every day the Sisters make a Holy Hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament.  They begin by naming many intentions and people for whom they are offering their Holy Hour.  I was happily surprised to hear, at the top of the list, the Holy Father's two monthly prayer intentions which we in the Apostleship of Prayer publicize.  That the Holy Hour has a strong apostolic dimension can be clearly seen in the prayer which the Sisters recite as they begin:

O Jesus, Son of God, You Who are to bestow Your blessing upon us assembled here, we humbly beg You that it may impart to each and all of us the graces we need.  Let Your blessing extend to places far and wide.  Let it be felt by the afflicted who cannot come here to receive it personally.  Let the weak and the tempted feel its power wherever they may be.  Let poor sinners come under its influence prompting them to turn to You.  Let it reach the missionaries who work for Your people, whose God You are.

Lord, we humbly beg Your blessing for us here and for all those dear to us, and may it effect that secret purpose for which, O Lord, You always generously impart it.  Amen. 

The Sisters also pray Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity every time they gather for prayer.  Here are these very simple and beautiful prayers:

My God, I believe in Thee and all Thy Church doth teach, because Thou hast said it and Thy Word is true.

My God, I hope in Thee, for grace and for glory, because of Thy promises, Thy mercy and Thy power.

My God, because Thou art so good, I love Thee with all my heart, and for Thy sake, I love my neighbor as myself.

After Mass the Sisters pray the Prayer to St. Michael, the Suscipe of Venerable Catherine McAuley, a prayer for her beatification, and the following prayer which Blessed John Paul II wrote as an Act of Consecration of the Modern World to our Lady of Fatima. 

Prayer for Peace to Mary, the Light of Hope

Immaculate Heart of Mary, help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down our modern world and seem to block the paths towards the future!

From famine and war, deliver us.
From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us.
From sins against the life of man from its very beginning, deliver us.
From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us.
From every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international, deliver us.
From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us.
From attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us.
From the loss of awareness of good and evil, deliver us.
From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us.

Accept, O Mother of Christ, this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies.  Help us with the power of the Holy Spirit to conquer all sin: individual sin and the "sin of the world," sin in all its manifestations.  Let there be revealed once more in the history of the world the infinite saving power of the redemption, the power of merciful Love.  May it put a stop to evil.  May it transform consciences.  May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope. Amen.

As I get ready to return home to Milwaukee, I'm consoled by the thought that the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma are offering these prayers every day.