The Edmundian Society of North America

The Parable of Tomorrow

2010-08-02T09:18:00.002-04:00

“I looked at the mountain. ‘It is too hard, Lord,’ I said; ‘I cannot climb.’
‘Take My hand,’ He whispered; ‘I will be your strength.’
I saw the road, ‘It is too long, Lord,’ I said; ‘so rough and long.’
‘Take My love,’ He answered; ‘I will guard your feet.’

I looked at the sky. ‘The sun is gone,’ I said; ‘already the way grows dark.’
‘Take the lantern of My Word,’ He whispered; ‘that will be light enough.’
We climbed. The road was narrow and steep, but the way was bright.
And when the thorns reached out, they found His hand before they touched my own.

And when my path grew rough,
I knew it was His love that kept my feet from stumbling.
Then I grew very tired. ‘I can go no farther, Lord,’ I said.
He answered, ‘Night is gone.

Look up, My child.’ I looked and it was dawn. Green valleys stretched below.
‘I can go on alone now,’ I said—and then I saw the marks.
‘Lord, Thou art wounded. Thy hands are bleeding. Thy feet are bruised.
Was it for me?’

He whispered, ‘I did it gladly.’
Then I fell at His feet. ‘Lord, lead me on,’ I cried.
‘No road too long, no valley too deep, if Thou art with me.’
We walk together now and shall forever!” _Ruth Gibbs Zwall _

RECALL NOTICE

2009-04-16T14:08:00.002-04:00

The Maker of all human beings (GOD) is recalling all units manufactured, regardless of make or year, due to a serious defect in the primary and central component of the heart. This is due to a malfunction in the original prototype units’ code named Adam and Eve, resulting in the reproduction of the same defect in all subsequent units.

This defect has been technically termed "Sub-sequential Internal Non-Morality," or more commonly known as S.I.N., as it is primarily expressed. Some of the symptoms include:

1. Loss of direction
2. Foul vocal emissions
3. Amnesia of origin
4. Lack of peace and joy
5. Selfish or violent behavior
6. Fearfulness
7. Idolatry
8. Rebellion

The Manufacturer, who is neither liable nor at fault for this defect, is providing factory-authorized repair and service free of charge to correct this defect.

The Repair Technician, JESUS, has most generously offered to bear the entire burden of the staggering cost of these repairs. There is no additional fee required.

The number to call for repair in all areas is: P-R-A-Y-E-R. Once connected, please upload your burden of SIN through the REPENTANCE procedure. Next, download ATONEMENT from the Repair Technician, Jesus, into the heart component. No matter how big or small the SIN defect is, Jesus will replace it with:

1. Love
2. Joy
3. Peace
4. Patience
5. Kindness
6. Goodness
7. Faithfulness
8. Gentleness
9. Self control

Please see the operating manual, the B.I.B.L.E. (Believers' Instructions Before Leaving Earth) for further details on the use of these fixes.

WARNING: Continuing to operate the human being unit without correction voids any manufacturer warranties, exposing the unit to dangers and problems too numerous to list and will result in the human unit being permanently impounded. For free emergency service, call on Jesus.

DANGER: The human being units not responding to this recall action will have to be scrapped in the furnace. The SIN defect will not be permitted to enter Heaven so as to prevent contamination of that facility.

Thank you for your attention!

GOD

P.S. Please assist where possible by notifying others of this important recall notice, and you may contact the Father any time by 'Knee mail

Because He Lives!

Variety of Love Relationships

2009-03-09T11:02:00.002-04:00

By Frank Squitteri

Married life is an excellent model for our relationship with God. For both relationships are centered in love. Both relationships take on many forms. In the marital relationship, couples are friends, lovers, mentors, helpers, economic partners, spiritual partners. And there is mystery pervading the relationship, the mystery of relating to one who is other than and different from oneself.

Likewise, our relationship with God can assume many different forms, one of which should include a deep sense of mystery. Perhaps, because the human heart has so many desires, we seek in the other or the Other a response to our variety of longings.

Further, for both marital and divine relationships, variety is not only a possibility; it is also the spice of life and a sure sign of a fully alive relationship. Also, for both there is the need for discernment to discover our hearts’ longings and the appropriate form of relationship for any given moment. In the marital relationship, discernment must take into account the heart wishes of both parties. In the spiritual relationship, we must not only pursue relationship with God, but we must always leave ourselves open for the Spirit’s prompts.

Some common ways of relating to God are: companionship, ongoing incarnation, communal presence, mentor, divine eros, romance, divine love center, compassionate presence, cosmic presence, ultimate beauty, and Mystery:

We relate to God as companion when we hang out with Jesus, who lives on in the Risen Christ, and experience his companionship as we enter into prayer or study or reach out to others in our efforts to bring them the Good News.
We relate to God as ongoing incarnation when we however briefly act beyond our capacities to be Jesus to others.
We relate to God as communal presence when we affirm the Risen Christ’s presence in community empowering us to growth through one another with the Spirit’s help.
We relate to God as mentor and guide when we connect with the Spirit who conducts constantly a dialogue with us to let us know about what God wants of us. It is the Spirit too who helps us discern the movements of our hearts, whether they be holy or unholy, calculated only to hinder the work of the Spirit within us.
We relate to God as divine eros when we sense that the Spirit is directing arrows of love toward us to awaken us to the possibilities of love and to call us out of our tombs into new life like Lazarus.
We relate to God in a romantic way when we increasingly see the possibilities of divine love in the articles of our faith—Jesus’ birth, life, death, gift of the Spirit, incorporation into the Body of the Risen Christ. Or when we increasingly appreciate the abundance of God’s gift to us in creation. Or when we increasingly grow in faith and see God as our ultimate source of being and love and hope and enlightenment.
We relate to God as divine love center when we encounter God at the core of our being radiating out beams of love through our minds, hearts and wills so that we may see all through the eyes of love.
We relate to God as compassionate presence when we are fully present with a caring heart and attentive mind to “receive” God who is infinitely present in us and all creation with infinite love and infinite attention. And we gift ourselves to the Giver of all gifts.
We relate to God as cosmic presence when we encounter God’s presence and love radiating out through ourselves and all creation.
We relate to God as ultimate beauty when we encounter beauty in the arts, in nature, in other people and attribute that beauty to God.
We relate to God as Mystery when we surrender in absolute wonder and speechless awe to the One who transcends our knowing, who is beyond our understanding, as we do in centering prayer.

The possibilities of practicing relationship with God are endless. The very variety opens up for us countless points of encounter that can fill our day with God’s presence. The variety also gives balance to our relationship with God. The danger of focusing on one type of relationship is that we may make an idol of it. Worse, we may feel we own God, leaving us unprepared for the inevitable shocks of life.

Most importantly, practicing the variety of relationships with God drives us to engage in the Dance of the Divine Dance—Love radiating out, Love inviting and Love taking charge—three relationships flowing into one continuous movement of love, inspiration and action toward and for others.

This article will soon appear in the Spiritual Development Program on the Cursillo website: www.nycursillo.org
Send comments to frankkit@optonline.net

2009-01-19T16:47:00.003-05:00

Encountering the Infinite Lover
By Frank A. Squitteri

We have said elsewhere that through deep contemplative prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit, Jesus discovered God the Father as Compassion Who loved all beings and all creation with unconditional love. In other words, Jesus discovered God as the Infinite Lover at the very core of his being and all beings. This discovery transformed Jesus into a radical lover of God and all humanity.
What are the implications of Jesus’ experience for our spiritual life? Should not our spiritual life reflect Jesus’ experience? Should we not be attempting to encounter God as Infinite Lover as Jesus did? Should not Jesus’ vision of God as Infinite Lover be the overriding thrust of our spiritual practices? Here are three practices to deepen our encounter with God as Infinite Lover.
See Possibilities. See the possibilities of love for an Infinite Lover. Where? In the articles of our faith. We must view them, not just as articles of faith, but as the outpourings of love of an Infinite Lover. God assuming humanity in Jesus’ Incarnation. Jesus living our human life and dying our human death, and that a horrendous one. God gifting us with his Holy Spirit as our Higher Power and intimate guide. We being incorporated into the Body of Christ and empowered with Jesus’ powers. All the incarnate realizations of the infinite love of the Infinite Lover!
Not only must we see these articles of faith as actualized possibilities of Infinite Love, but we must also attempt to grow in our response to these love possibilities of the Infinite Lover. We cannot allow ourselves to acknowledge them only in our minds as infinite possibilities. We must seek to enter into their depth with our entire personhood.
These actualized possibilities of Infinite Love are the facts of our salvation history, but for our spiritual life the degree of our wonder at them must deepen, for it is wonder that will open us up to our encounter with the Infinite Lover.
Appreciate Abundance. Appreciate the abundance that God has lavished upon us. God as Infinite Lover possesses infinite abundance, and he shares that abundance with us. We see that abundance manifested in our salvation history, and everywhere we look—in the countless flowers and trees, in the mountains and the oceans. God creating and sustaining the universe and everything in it, and all manifesting his presence, beauty, wisdom, love and attention.
Had God created just one flower or one tree, pilgrims would flock to admire them. Instead, he has lavished his abundance upon us, and we tend to ignore it. Creation must be an intrinsic part of our spirituality. The degree of our appreciation for creation must deepen, for it is appreciation that will open us up to our encounter with the Infinite Lover.
Dance the Divine Dance. Dance the dance of the Infinite Lover. Divine Love dances us in three movements—Love Radiating Out, Love Inviting, and Love Taking Charge—over and over again. I will describe each of these movements separately, but there is a dynamic flow here. In fact, we must learn to move with the movements of the dance. It is like a ballerina dancing with three partners, each handing her off to the next. The degree of our engagement in this dance must deepen, for it is engagement that will open us up to our encounter with the Infinite Lover:

Love Radiating Out is the Infinite Lover at the center of our being radiating out love beams through our minds, hearts and wills so that we see all—people, ourselves, creation, events—through the eyes of love. However, it takes two to tango. For the first movement of the dance to begin, we must prepare ourselves through centering: the practice of firing up our hearts, focusing our attention and entering fully into the present moment to connect with the center of our being. And we must pray that our hearts be opened to the Infinite Lover’s outpouring of Divine Love.
Love Inviting, the second movement of the dance, is the Infinite Lover taking action in our spiritual lives, inviting us to break out of our comfort zones and take risks at greater love of the Infinite Lover and others. The first movement, Love Radiating Out, can be so heart-warming and joyous that we are tempted to rest in that experience. But divine consolation is divine invitation. Love Inviting wants more for us. To prepare ourselves we must grow in awareness of the Infinite Lover’s invitations and live in expectancy of them.
Love Taking Charge, the third movement of the dance, is the Infinite Lover taking over our lives. Here the Infinite Lover drives us to act beyond ourselves, beyond our normal responses to people and events. We feel Divine Love taking charge of us and moving us beyond our capabilities. And with such ease that we don’t mind the push. Then we understand what St. Paul meant when he said: “Now not I, but Christ lives in me.” With Love Taking Charge, the dance has been completed. However, it is up to us to initiate the dance over and over again through our practice of centering.

No one can ever fathom the love of the Infinite Lover. We can only reach out to the Infinite Lover. But our hearts have been created to pursue the Infinite Lover. And there is great joy in the reaching out--experiencing ever greater wonder at the possibilities of love as demonstrated by God’s actions in our salvation history, experiencing ever greater thankfulness for God’s abundance shared with us, experiencing ever greater engagement in the dance of the Infinite Lover, attempting to dance us into a deeper, more intimate relationship.

This article will soon appear in the Spiritual Development Program on the Cursillo Website: www.nycursillo.org
Send comments to frankkit@optonline.net (new email address)

The Essential Practice for a Spiritual Life

2008-10-10T12:43:00.002-04:00

The Essential Practice For a Spiritual Life
By Frank Squitteri

Of all the spiritual practices available to us, the one essential, fundamental practice that should precede all our spiritual activities is that of centering. I am not referring to centering prayer, which is really only an extension of the centering practice. In fact, centering prayer has become the tail wagging the dog. Ask anyone about centering, and they will identify it with centering prayer. By contrast, I am stating that centering is the essential practice of the spiritual life. Why?

Our concept of God has shifted dramatically in the 20th Century, although very quietly. No major announcements have been made. No sermons preached on the subject. However, in his book, Man Becoming, theologian Gregory Baum has stated that our concept of God has moved from an outsider God, a divine being facing us from beyond history, to an insider God who dwells within us.

At the core of our being, God reveals us to ourselves, calls us to growth and gives of himself to us. God’s revelatory presence, self-gift and call operate within each situation and experience of our daily life. This theological shift changes everything. To encounter deeply this insider God, we must center down to the core of our personhood where God’s Spirit dwells. We must connect with our Center!

Another term for the spiritual life is the “interior life,” and rightly so. If we are committed to living the spiritual life, we will practice centering many times during our day to prepare ourselves for spiritual activities—before spiritual reading, before we pray, before we celebrate Mass, before we attempt to encounter God’s presence in the divine gift of creation, before we encounter people. And on and on.

If we are not practicing centering, we may be living pious, faithful, church-going lives, but we are not living the spiritual life—a life of union with our insider God. We must connect with our Center!

Centering. What is centering? Centering is the conscious gathering of our mind, heart and will to surrender our self to the Divine Center within us and within all created reality.

Why is this psychological gathering so necessary? We are wounded people—alienated from God, ourselves, others and creation. Ordinarily, we get stuck in our heads or our hearts. Or we act as automatons, being controlled by habit. Despite even good intentions, there will be times when we will not succeed in pulling ourselves together. Only with the Spirit’s help do we experience our own spiritual unity—if we intentionally collect our faculties to create inner unity.

Centering is the way we form our intention that drives our spiritual activities. It helps us to achieve wholeness, inner spiritual union within ourselves. It is by first experiencing this inner spiritual union that we prepare ourselves to experience union with our inner God. Centering, as the term is used here, is not just a technique for concentrating the full energies of our mind and heart. It does that, but it does more than that. It is the way to spiritual union—first with ourselves and then with God.

Centering and Compassion. I have shared with you my discovery of the practice of compassion at the Louvre Museum in Paris. That is the practice of being fully present to the object of our encounter with a caring heart and attentive mind. In other words, we must make a self-gift of ourselves to receive the gift of the other, whether it is the arts, the beauty of creation, other persons or our insider God.

What I now realize is that this practice of compassion is actually the practice of centering, helping us to form our intention for spiritual union. For example, to prepare ourselves for union with God, we must be fully present to the Divine Presence within us with a caring heart and attentive mind. We must gift ourselves, we must surrender ourselves to our insider God. That is the practice of compassion and the practice of centering.

Centering and Perceiving. Spiritual writers and poets voice the human problem of perceiving the depths of things—God, creation, people. We tend to perceive without perceiving. They say we must see with the eyes of our hearts. Or they say we must see with the eyes of love. E.e.cummings writes of revelation: “The eyes of my eyes are opened.” Teihard Chardin prayed, “Lord, grant that I may see, that I may see You, that I may see and feel You present in all things and animating all things.” Our powers of perception are at their best when we are centered and compassionately united with ourselves and with the object or person or God we are attempting to encounter.

Centering Method. Whatever helps you to fire up your heart, focus your attention and bring you fully present into the present moment is your best method for centering. Remember too that your heart’s desire is your most creative force. No matter what method you use, you must experience ardent desire for spiritual union. Here is how the practice of compassion works for centering:

1. Become fully present. Enter the present moment—the entrance to inner spiritual unity. As bodied persons, you need to use your body to become fully present to yourself. Our minds may be in the past or future, but our bodies are in the present moment. Take time to become conscious of your breathing. Breathe deeply from the gut, inhaling and exhaling rhythmically for a period of time. Make your body attentive by the way you hold yourself. If that fails, use Sadhana prayer. Fr. Anthony DeMello, SJ popularized this method which uses the body to awaken the mind and heart to being fully present in an energized way. It consists of becoming conscious of your body through the body awareness exercise of ritually experiencing your body parts from head to foot for a period of time. Note: Doing both the breathing exercise described above and the body awareness exercise at the same time enhances the experience.

2. Seek a caring heart and an attentive mind. Lead with your emotional center to achieve a caring heart and an attentive mind. When you experience strong feelings, they register themselves in your body, either in your stomach or chest. If you want to enter into total centeredness to encounter God or created reality compassionately, mind and heart, you must consciously enlist your body’s emotional center to generate a caring, attentive attitude. And you will deepen your sense of being fully present in the present moment.

3. Attempt to experience union. Arouse desire for union with God. Pray that the Risen Christ will pour Jesus’ life energies, present and available here and now, into your heart that you might encounter the Divine Presence within you, as he experienced when he went into the mountains to pray. Express acts of will to encounter God while admitting that your will is powerless to command love, relationship, encounter. For spiritual union is the Spirit’s gift to give or not to give. Give yourself as self-gift to God. Ask the Holy Spirit to connect you with your Divine Love Center. Then begin your spiritual exercise.

The practice of discernment should be viewed as another essential spiritual practice that flows, like the centering practice, from the theology of the insider God. For our insider God carries on dialogue with us through his Spirit taking initiatives within our hearts’ movements, inviting and inspiring us. But why is centering essential for discernment? Because we want to center our mind and heart and will on the issue under discernment for our deepest perceptions and spiritual insights, and that in the presence of our Divine Center.

Further, the practice of centering as described here is valuable for those who practice centering prayer. It could precede centering prayer to prepare oneself psychologically and spiritually for this rich form of prayer.

Learning the practice of centering should be the first step toward a deeper spiritual life. The French have a phrase for it—the point of departure. If you have your right departure point, you will have a good journey and arrive at your destination. Generally, it happens that when people have decided to take their spiritual journey more seriously, they are directed to Bible study. Most likely, that departure point will not bring them to their destination—a deep relationship with their insider God. However, after they have made the practice of centering a habit, Bible study will contribute to their growth in the spiritual life by deepening their relationship with their insider God.

For centering is the essential, fundamental practice of our spiritual lives. And it is the essential, fundamental practice of living the fully human life. It should be the act that precedes all our spiritual and deeply human acts. Let us connect with our own center and our Divine Center!

This article will soon appear in the Spiritual Development Program on the Cursillo website: http://www.nycursillo.org/
Please send comments to frankkit@sprynet.com

2008-04-07T10:46:00.002-04:00

Philosophy and Ethos

BLESSED EDMUND RICE

By David Elebert
Edmund Ignatius Rice was born in June. He was born in the Westcourt, Callan, Co. Kilkenny. He was to be a man of heroic virtue and worthy of the title "Venerable". On 2nd of April 1993, Pope John Paul II declared the Irishman, Edmund Rice, to be a man of heroic virtue.
Two years later, Rome approved a miracle attributed to Edmund's intercession. This cleared the way for his beatification with the bestowing of the title "Blessed Edmund Rice" at a ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, on Sunday, 6th of October 1996. In recent documents issued by the Vatican Congregation of Saint Edmund was recognised as being a gift to the Church. Recalling the era in which Edmund lived, the document praises him for his strong and clear faith, his Eucharistic piety, his devotion to the Mother of God, and his constant reflection on the sacred scriptures.

CHILDHOOD
On 1st June a baby boy was born, he was christened a couple of weeks later with the name Edmund Rice. His mother and fathers names were Robert and Margaret Rice. He was the fourth of seven brothers. He also had two sisters from his mother's first marriage.
Ireland had just pasted through the anti - Catholic period It had more to do with politics allegiances and the for land than with adherence to Catholicism By the year that Edmund was born this had all passed
Edmunds father Robert worked on a 180 acre farm leased from Lord Desart Other became traders, merchants and shopkeepers. Christ was the centre of his through, affections and apostate, and it was Christ whom he served when he tended the poor and needy His life was characterised by dedication, generosity and humility He truly loved God and his neighbour with all his heart
If all this is true, Edmund would appear to be a man, not only for his own time but for our time as well. Who then was this exceptional Irishman who is being so signally honoured in the last decade of the second millennium, more than 150 years after his death?

YOUTH
Edmund Rice`s youth was unexceptional for the better off Catholics of his time. Irish was the language that people used in those days, with sufficient English o deal with legal and financial affairs. Edmunds parents were respected in the community for their generosity, fair-mindedness and humanity. The Rice children were fortunate that they had parents whose personalities balanced so well. The father's shrewdness, sturdy common sense and practicality complemented the mother's warmth, sensitivity and compassion. Like any boy growing up in the Kilkenny countryside, Edmund fished, swam, and played hurling. For Edmund life was not all fun and games. Edmund received an education denied to the majority of Catholics. He first went to "hedge school" an illegal pay-school set up by a travelling teacher for those whose parents could not afford to pay the fees. But his parents and family provided his religious education.

Later when Edmund was seventeen he attended an academy school in Kilkenny. Here he received a practical and classical education. This was to prove helpful to him, not only in his business career, but also in his future as founder of schools for poor boys.

For boys of families that were well off Catholic farmers there would have been two choices of jobs. They could stay at home and work on the farm, or they could go overseas and study for the priesthood, or even enter the world of business. Edmunds brother John became a priest in the Augustinian order later becoming Assistant General and died in Malta. Edmund was mostly interested in the business world.

THE YOUNG BUSINESS MAN
When Edmund was seventeen he got a job as an apprentice at his uncles business. Michael Rice was well established in victualling and ship chandelling in the thriving port of Waterford. Although Michael ran a business his sons did not follow in his footsteps. That's how Edmund was given the opportunity of training in the business.
Waterford at that time was both an ancient walled city and a bustling modern port from which a thousand ships sailed each year to Britain and the Continent, as well as to places as far away as Newfoundland. Soon Edmund became a familiar figure in his uncle's stores in Barrowstrand Street. He quickly won his uncle's confidence and a deep affection grew up between them. The business thrived on the two of them. Edmund loved dancing, singing, boating and horse riding, and he dressed in the style for every occasion. Sometimes he would visit his home in Callan.
A man called James Phelan saw that Edmund was a bit giddy in Mass one Sunday. Afterwards the man made his disapproval clear. However he need not have worried. For the faith that Edmund had learnt at his mothers knee had deep roots as witnessed by his custom of reciting the Rosary either alone or with a companion on his travels.
When Edmund was 24 his uncle signed over the business to him. Edmund was the fourth son but his father named him as the legal head.

THE NEW COMMUNITY
Two young men, Patrick Finn and Tomas Grosvenor, heard of Edmunds dream of a new `brotherhood` to teach the poor. They had both been thinking of dedication their lives to God and early in 1802 they offered to throw in their lot with Edmund without fee or reward. Edmund was elated. The new monastery at Ballybricken, to be named Mount Sion by Bishop Hussey because of the lofty position overlooking the city of Waterford, was not yet finished. So Edmund and his companions took up temporary commendation over the stables in New Street, and immediately began a form of community life. The men rose early and prayed together. They also attended daily Mass. They ate sparingly, they taught all day, and they spent some time doing spiritual reading and prayed together again before going to bed. This became the men's daily life.
In 1803 Edmund and his friends moved to Mount Sion. The Bishop blessed the building that they were in. His name was Bishop Hussey. Near the school Edmund built a small bakehouse. He built it so that he could give students daily meals. In a loft over the bakehouse tailors were busy making clothes for the students that went to the school.

SOCIETY OF THE PRESENTATION
Other people began to join Edmunds movements. By 1808 two other people had joined. Edmunds monks had round towers at Carrick-on-Suir and Dungarvan. Edmunds priest friend, John Power, was now the Bishop of Waterford. Together Edmund and himself drew up a rule of life based on the constitutions of the Presentation Sisters. On August 15th 1808, Edmund and eight companions were clothed in a simple black habit (it was to be worn indoors only). They made vows of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience. An official diocesan congregation of brothers known as the "Society of the Presentation" was formed under the authority of the Bishop. The ordinary people among whom they worked called them simply " the gentlemen of the Presentation" or more simply " the monks". Edmund soon after received the name Brother Ignatius after Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits.
Discipline was maintained by a system of small rewards and as often as not by the personality of the teacher. An early report informs us that "The Brothers seem in a wonderful way to have won the affection of the boys under them, and in a very large measure to have dispensed with anything in the nature of corporal punishment. "

In the way that good news was spread men from different counties in Ireland heard about Edmunds work. Some went to join him at Mount Sion. It was said that the people of Callan, his hometown, were the first to come. Soon others joined them from different places and a wide variety of backgrounds. There was a man called Francis Manifold. He was a major in the Wicklow Militia, who became a Catholic and joined Edmund in his party. Then came Joseph McClelland, a former Presbyterian, and son of a minister in the Church. There was Joseph Watson (Dublin) and Tomas Brien (Waterford). Some young men who wanted to be Brothers had to go through training of two and a half years. Soon they would be Brothers. There were new foundations built in Cork, Dublin, Thurles, and Limerick. All members adhered to Edmunds rule and looked to him as their leader and guide, although technically their local bishop was their Superior.
There were some problems between the Bishop of Waterford and Dr. Murray the former Bishop of Dublin. He was pressing for more Brothers schools for the capital of Ireland. Dr. Murray told Edmund to try and amalgamate all of his institutes under a Superior General on the same lines as the Jesuits. This would allow Edmund to transfer his men from diocese to diocese. Whether the majority of the bishops were ready to accept such a structure for a group of lay religious remained to be tested. Bishop Murphy of Cork, for one, did not approve of 'foreign domination' and made no secret of it.
The rector of the Irish Jesuits, Peter Kenny, a close friend of Edmund's, was a generous man. He gave Edmund advice and encouragement. Edmund in return is credited with helping to purchase Clongowes for the Jesuits. Dr. Murphy gave Edmund a copy of the brief approval of the De La Salle Brothers from their Superior General in Paris. He was then restoring the order on the Continent after its suppression during the Revolutionary period. Here was a model of the kind of central government the new institute needed for free expansion wherever the Brothers were needed.

CONGREGATION OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS
Edmund consulted the superiors assembled at Mount Sion in August 1817 for their views. They were unanimous in adopting a style of government similar to that outlined in the De La Salle brief, although individual Brothers were strongly attached to their own diocese.
The Bishops were divided. For all the work that the Brothers did, they were still not happy that lay religious should be placed outside their immediate jurisdiction. The Bishop of Cork, looked to the North Monastery as his own foundation. When the Papal brief for the new centralised Congregation of Christian Brothers arrived from Rome in late 1821, the Cork Brothers, at the request of their own Bishop, did not attend the meeting for its acceptance. Edmund was sad because of all these divisions among the ranks.
On the feast of the Holy Name (20th January 1822) the majority of the Brothers voted for Edmund Rice as their Superior General and made their vows as Christian Brothers. A committee, run by Edmund was to work out new rules for the Brotherhood. They studied the rules and constitutions of the Jesuits and De La Salle Brothers and the Presentation sisters and finally compiled a rule " best suited to the peculiar nature of these countries and the genius of the people". After a trial period and some amendments the rule was printed in 1832.

After the hiccups of the 1820s, the schools of the Presentation and Christian Brothers continued to spread across Ireland and, soon, overseas. As early as 1810, Edmund had written to the Archbishop of Cashel that he prayed that his society would spread "to all parts of the Kingdom". In 1825 a foundation was made by the Christian Brothers in Preston, Lancashire, thus opening up a whole new field of labour to the Brothers on the English mission. Further schools were opened in Manchester and London in 1826, and shortly afterwards in Liverpool which was to become the centre of the Brothers greatest involvement in education in England. The Presentation Brothers also would soon spread to England.
The Christian Brothers were transferred to Dublin. Daniel O'Connell the great lawyer and Irish patriot laid the foundation stone of 'Connell Schools, North Richmond Street, Dublin in June 1828. O'Connell was then at the peak of his popularity in his campaign for Catholic Emancipation, drawing huge crowds wherever he went. The newspapers reported that 100,000 people crowded the streets around the new foundation, where O'Connell referred to his old friend Edmund Rice as the "Patriarch of the Monks of the West". The new buildings were to house the Generalate and Novitiate of the Brothers, a large school, and a training college for teachers.

Jesus’ Transformation, Our Transformation

2008-03-10T16:07:00.003-04:00

By Frank Squitteri

In the early 1900’s, the psychologist William James wrote “Variety of Religious Experiences”, the classic study of everyday “mystical” experiences. He recounts the transforming moments in people’s lives when they discovered deeply the presence of the divine in their lives and the impact such peak experiences had on them. They were found to be a relatively common experience among common people. Simply a surprising gift given without any concern for merit or learning.

Might not we suppose that Jesus, being the most human of human beings, must also have experienced such a peak experience that became a transforming moment in his life? I believe so. Therefore, I want to share the transforming moment in my life and attempt to draw parallel insights about Jesus.

In My Life. My transforming experience took place on a weekend retreat. I had brought to the retreat a lot of psychological baggage. On the first morning of the weekend, the presentation dwelt on our “persona”, the masks that we wear to hide our true selves so we can project a public self of self-esteem and confidence. During my meditation on this subject, I saw clearly the pockets of self-hate in my life as if they were on stage.

I became angry with myself that I had allowed so much self-hate to operate in my subconscious. I swore that I would never let that happen again. And suddenly I broke out into ecstatic joy. At that moment, I knew beyond doubt that love was at the heart of reality, Whom I called God, that all creation was lovable, that I was lovable. Instantly, my life vision was transformed—the way I saw myself, God, others, life, creation.

In Jesus’ Life. As Jesus studied the Scriptures to learn about God’s relationship with Israel and, more importantly, to learn about his mission and destiny, what must he have felt when he read the words of the prophet Isaiah 50:60 describing the obedience of the Lord’s servant? “I bared my back to those who beat me. I did not stop them when they insulted me, when they pulled out the hairs of my beard and spit in my face.”

Jesus was no dummy. He realized that those words applied to him and that he would become the suffering servant of God. Might Jesus have wondered to himself: “Is God a God of vengeance? Am I to be the victim of God’s wrath?”

I believe that it was only through deep contemplative prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit that Jesus came to discover God as Compassion Who loved all beings and creation with unconditional love. What the Old Testament did not reveal to Jesus, his contemplative prayer did. It was at that point in Jesus’ life that he must have come to know beyond doubt that God was love, that all creation was lovable, and that he was the beloved Son of God. In that moment, Jesus experienced transformation.

More than ever before, in that special moment Jesus began to enjoy the unique experience of intimate closeness to God—the Abba experience, the experience of God as a compassionate Father. Perhaps too it was at that moment of transformation that Jesus decided to quit the quiet, private life of Nazareth and embark on his public life and divine mission.

Transformation’s Effects. Transforming experiences are empowering, because they are a kind of a death/resurrection experience—moving one from self-hate to self-love, from self-ignorance to self-knowledge, from fear of God to deep faith in God as Jesus experienced.

Transforming experiences are vision changing experiences. When I returned from my transforming experience, I saw people as persons. My attitude toward women changed dramatically. They were persons, not sex objects. I was aware that all persons experience the pain of being human, as I had, and deserved my compassion. Likewise, Jesus too had experienced the pain of being human and his newly acquired solidarity with God created solidarity for him with all persons. The driving force behind his mission would become compassion for others: he would liberate them from all forms of oppression.

Transforming experiences open our eyes to creation. When I returned from my transforming experience, I was moved by a deep eros for creation. I wanted to touch the leaves of trees. I wanted to feel the essences of things, such as trying to feel the essence of water that was real but couldn’t be grasped. I can easily imagine Jesus at night marveling at the moonbeams shimmering on the Sea of Galilee, or being filled with wonder at the mighty olive trees.

This erotic awareness of nature soon became an awareness of the gift dimension of creation and life. Through this discovery of the gift dimension of creation I experienced creation reverberating with God’s presence, love and attention. Creation gave me the gift of God’s presence. I felt that I was surrounded by God’s love in creation. Likewise, from human experience we can deduce that Jesus must have experienced the presence, the beauty and the wisdom of God in creation.

Transformation and Spiritual Life. What is the nature of transforming experiences? When we discover that Love is at the heart of reality, we discover that Love Center that resides within us at the core of our personhood and Who radiates out the energies of love through the pathways of our minds, hearts and wills, and makes everything lovable to us—we are lovable, others are lovable, creation is lovable.

For a short but ecstatic period of time, I felt driven by my Love Center, Divine Eros. I believe that Jesus experienced this kind of transformation, only he was able to hold onto it and to live fully a life of love. However, I have come to believe that such transforming experiences are not just one-time episodes in our lives to be enjoyed for a brief time. Rather, they can happen many times and each time they once again disclose to us the depths of our spiritual reality and set a goal for our spiritual lives.

It is as if each day our love capacity falls to the default position of our self-centeredness, and we must raise ourselves to God-centeredness. Each day, we must recreate ourselves from the inside out; we must connect with our center, our Love Center. Each day we must rediscover our Love Center at the core of our personhoods and let it radiate out through our minds, hearts and wills. Each day we must re-experience our transformation

Jesus’ Transformation, Our Transformation

2008-03-10T16:07:00.001-04:00

By Frank Squitteri
In the early 1900’s, the psychologist William James wrote “Variety of Religious Experiences”, the classic study of everyday “mystical” experiences. He recounts the transforming moments in people’s lives when they discovered deeply the presence of the divine in their lives and the impact such peak experiences had on them. They were found to be a relatively common experience among common people. Simply a surprising gift given without any concern for merit or learning.
Might not we suppose that Jesus, being the most human of human beings, must also have experienced such a peak experience that became a transforming moment in his life? I believe so. Therefore, I want to share the transforming moment in my life and attempt to draw parallel insights about Jesus.
In My Life. My transforming experience took place on a weekend retreat. I had brought to the retreat a lot of psychological baggage. On the first morning of the weekend, the presentation dwelt on our “persona”, the masks that we wear to hide our true selves so we can project a public self of self-esteem and confidence. During my meditation on this subject, I saw clearly the pockets of self-hate in my life as if they were on stage.
I became angry with myself that I had allowed so much self-hate to operate in my subconscious. I swore that I would never let that happen again. And suddenly I broke out into ecstatic joy. At that moment, I knew beyond doubt that love was at the heart of reality, Whom I called God, that all creation was lovable, that I was lovable. Instantly, my life vision was transformed—the way I saw myself, God, others, life, creation.
In Jesus’ Life. As Jesus studied the Scriptures to learn about God’s relationship with Israel and, more importantly, to learn about his mission and destiny, what must he have felt when he read the words of the prophet Isaiah 50:60 describing the obedience of the Lord’s servant? “I bared my back to those who beat me. I did not stop them when they insulted me, when they pulled out the hairs of my beard and spit in my face.”
Jesus was no dummy. He realized that those words applied to him and that he would become the suffering servant of God. Might Jesus have wondered to himself: “Is God a God of vengeance? Am I to be the victim of God’s wrath?”
I believe that it was only through deep contemplative prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit that Jesus came to discover God as Compassion Who loved all beings and creation with unconditional love. What the Old Testament did not reveal to Jesus, his contemplative prayer did. It was at that point in Jesus’ life that he must have come to know beyond doubt that God was love, that all creation was lovable, and that he was the beloved Son of God. In that moment, Jesus experienced transformation.
More than ever before, in that special moment Jesus began to enjoy the unique experience of intimate closeness to God—the Abba experience, the experience of God as a compassionate Father. Perhaps too it was at that moment of transformation that Jesus decided to quit the quiet, private life of Nazareth and embark on his public life and divine mission.
Transformation’s Effects. Transforming experiences are empowering, because they are a kind of a death/resurrection experience—moving one from self-hate to self-love, from self-ignorance to self-knowledge, from fear of God to deep faith in God as Jesus experienced.
Transforming experiences are vision changing experiences. When I returned from my transforming experience, I saw people as persons. My attitude toward women changed dramatically. They were persons, not sex objects. I was aware that all persons experience the pain of being human, as I had, and deserved my compassion. Likewise, Jesus too had experienced the pain of being human and his newly acquired solidarity with God created solidarity for him with all persons. The driving force behind his mission would become compassion for others: he would liberate them from all forms of oppression.
Transforming experiences open our eyes to creation. When I returned from my transforming experience, I was moved by a deep eros for creation. I wanted to touch the leaves of trees. I wanted to feel the essences of things, such as trying to feel the essence of water that was real but couldn’t be grasped. I can easily imagine Jesus at night marveling at the moonbeams shimmering on the Sea of Galilee, or being filled with wonder at the mighty olive trees.
This erotic awareness of nature soon became an awareness of the gift dimension of creation and life. Through this discovery of the gift dimension of creation I experienced creation reverberating with God’s presence, love and attention. Creation gave me the gift of God’s presence. I felt that I was surrounded by God’s love in creation. Likewise, from human experience we can deduce that Jesus must have experienced the presence, the beauty and the wisdom of God in creation.
Transformation and Spiritual Life. What is the nature of transforming experiences? When we discover that Love is at the heart of reality, we discover that Love Center that resides within us at the core of our personhood and Who radiates out the energies of love through the pathways of our minds, hearts and wills, and makes everything lovable to us—we are lovable, others are lovable, creation is lovable.
For a short but ecstatic period of time, I felt driven by my Love Center, Divine Eros. I believe that Jesus experienced this kind of transformation, only he was able to hold onto it and to live fully a life of love. However, I have come to believe that such transforming experiences are not just one-time episodes in our lives to be enjoyed for a brief time. Rather, they can happen many times and each time they once again disclose to us the depths of our spiritual reality and set a goal for our spiritual lives.
It is as if each day our love capacity falls to the default position of our self-centeredness, and we must raise ourselves to God-centeredness. Each day, we must recreate ourselves from the inside out; we must connect with our center, our Love Center. Each day we must rediscover our Love Center at the core of our personhoods and let it radiate out through our minds, hearts and wills. Each day we must re-experience our transformation.

Prayer & Risen Jesus

2008-01-18T18:40:00.000-05:00

By
Frank Squitteri

The people in the Gospel stories had a great advantage over us when it comes to prayer. Jesus was present to them as a person, whom they could see and touch. The Jesus we know through the Scriptures no longer exists. Only the Risen Jesus exists. This leads us to two questions: First, in light of the Resurrection, to whom do we pray? Second, what is the place of the historical Jesus in our prayer life?

Fr. William Johnston, SJ. in an introduction to The Cloud of Unknowing answers our first question in this way: “Now the Christian, following St. Paul, does not pray just to a historical figure but to the now existing risen Christ who contains in himself all the experience of his historical existence in a transformed way, as he indicated by showing his wounds to his disciples.” So, the object of our prayer is clearly the Risen Jesus.

In response to the second question about the place of the historical Jesus in our prayer life, Fr. Johnston states that the problem is that “Christian theology, following the New Testament, situates the historical Jesus at the very heart of prayer—Christ the man, the Incarnate Word.” We are comfortable with the historical Jesus. We can have thoughts and ideas and images of Jesus through his life events. We can have no adequate picture of the Risen Jesus. How then do we make our prayer Christocentric and at the same time relate to the Risen Jesus?

The Jesus Process.

Let us revisit that concept and then explore its relevance to our prayer life. Jesus’ lived experience on earth is the core element driving the Jesus Process. Christ, as the Risen Jesus, no longer limited by time or geography, transforms Jesus’ historical experience into a power source, present here and now in the 21st Cent-ury. Out of this power source, the Risen Jesus gifts us with his Spirit who empowers us to carry on Jesus’ ongoing Incarnation in us and manifest his powers for others.

Seeing the historical Jesus as the catalyst of the Jesus Process enables us to make our prayer Christocentric and at the same time enables us to embrace the imageless Risen Jesus. Besides being the catalyst of the Jesus Process, the historical Jesus is our powerful psychological anchor in our efforts to encounter the mysterious Risen Jesus, according to the mystic St. Teresa of Avila.

Power Source—

To the two questions we raised at the very beginning about the place of the historical Jesus in our prayer, we should add one more question: What is the place of the Risen Jesus in our prayer life? We must situate the Risen Jesus at the very heart of our prayer, the very center of our prayer. For while the historical Jesus is the catalyst of the Jesus Process, it is the Risen Jesus who POWERS the Jesus Process.

Through the Risen Jesus sacramentalizing Jesus’ life and actions on earth, the Risen Jesus empowers us to practice union with Jesus’ life and actions. Through the Risen Jesus pouring out the Holy Spirit upon us, the Risen Jesus empowers our hearts to be awakened to the Holy Spirit who grows our faith, our hope and our love. And through the Risen Jesus incorporating us into the Body of Christ, the Risen Jesus binds us to our sisters and brothers in the Body of Christ, and empowers us to carry on Jesus’ ongoing Incarnation by being sacraments of peace, healing and forgiveness for others, by being compassion and communion to others, and by being channels of faith, hope and love for others.

Our prayer should always begin by praying to the Risen Jesus, the power source of the Jesus Process. Before we say prayers of petition, thanksgiving or adoration, let us begin by praying that the Risen Jesus unite us with the human experiences of Jesus, such as Jesus going off to the mountains to pray. Let us then ask the Risen Jesus to open our hearts to the initiatives, invitations and inspirations of the Spirit. The Risen Jesus brings all the players in the Jesus Process together to make our prayer effective.

Also, in centering prayer we should begin by praying to the Risen Jesus. In centering prayer, we attempt simply to be fully present with all our heart and mind to the presence of the Risen Jesus. It is a wordless, imageless way of prayer to the Risen Jesus who is imageless. So, it is a very appropriate form of prayer.

An important aspect of centering prayer is our intentionality. Here we attempt to establish beforehand our desire to surrender to the Risen Jesus’ mysterious presence. Praying the Jesus Process prepares us for centering prayer. Before we begin, we should ask the Risen Jesus to give us the desire of the historical Jesus for contemplation, and the fire of the Spirit to lose ourselves in union with the Risen Christ.

Let us make the Risen Jesus the center of our prayer life. The Risen Jesus is the only Jesus we have!

West Park Memorial 2007 Homily

2007-10-02T14:23:00.000-04:00

REMARKS FOR WEST PARK MEMORIAL MASS SEPTEMBER 2007

We gather here each fall in West Park to do together that we do naturally every day. We mourn our beloved dead. We each know someone buried here. Some of us know many of these men. And we know many others who once were Christian Brothers and have died and whom we remember this day. So whether we are Christian Brothers or Associates or members of our extended family of Edmundians– all of us have some valued connection to those we came here to remember.

Many threads bind us living with those departed:
We are all members of Christ;
We are all connected to the charism of Edmund;
We are all united around the special graces of this place here on the Hudson River in one of God’s sweetest designs of water and woods and sky.
And so we have to be grateful today. We have the blessings of nature, the blessings of our shared charism and the blessings of each other in this prayerful company.

One way we might reflect today would be to contemplate for a moment the gentle music of these lives we commemorate--- to ponder the ways they contributed their lives down the years – each one a note of a great symphony being played still to this moment.

The theme of the piece can begin with Edmund. His sense of justice was aroused by what he saw in the streets of Waterford and he responded to the impulse and inspiration to do something to change things, and the theme developed in the gradual movement to vowed living in community. For his followers the music grew more varied as other places called out to the brothers and other nations and continents beckoned. The music swelled with the growth of membership and was enriched by new cultures. We may now be hearing music never contemplated by Edmund but still faithful to the gospel anthem he first responded to.

In all these years every note counted; every note made some contribution to the larger work; every note grew from a life given over to the greater thing, the symphony, if you will, of a charism. And today those notes, those melodies mean no less for having come earlier in the piece. Our efforts here on behalf of justice and the evangelizing of young people especially, add new measures and fresh melodies to the one composition. None that went before mean less; all contribute and make the music whole.

And still the symphony will have more movements, and the music will live on.

So this September afternoon we add we hope further grace notes to the larger work begun by Edmund but going on still. We know that others will be here in the coming years to celebrate and mourn but they also will be part of the same music. Nothing is lost to God’s ears.

Thank you and God bless you.
---Br. Kevin Cawley

New Perception of Jesus

2007-10-02T09:56:00.000-04:00

New Perception of Jesus: The Eros-driven Jesus

The previous article described my newly discovered perception of the Holy Spirit as Divine Eros. Divine Eros is the Spirit of Love directing arrows at my heart to awaken it to the possibilities of love. For me that was a peak experience, seeing the Spirit as well as myself in a whole new light. Then I realized that our peak experiences may well reveal to us something about Jesus, for he was the most human of all human beings.

Could it be that Jesus too must have experienced the Spirit of Love as Divine Eros? I think so. Jesus was familiar with the Song of Songs from the Old Testament and the erotic love relationship described in that book. He understood that the Divine Lover was searching for the beloved and the beloved was searching for the Spirit of Love, and he was the beloved. What emerges from this perception is not the typical holy-card Jesus but the Divine Eros-driven Jesus, the fully alive Jesus who did everything with passion.

Further, the Spirit operated in Jesus’ life, just as the Spirit operates in our lives. The Spirit would have invited Jesus to ever deeper faith, ever firmer hope and ever greater love through gifts of consolations which would have produced deep, positive feelings in Jesus. These feelings would have been the Spirit’s prompts and signs of Divine Dialogue, signs of the Divine Lover calling Jesus to discern God’s will and direction for his life.

The difference between Jesus and ourselves is that he was deeply aware, deeply expectant of the Spirit’s continuous presence in his life, Most importantly, the difference is that he surrendered to the invitations and inspirations of Divine Eros to grow in radical love. Now let’s look at three major directions the Spirit drove Jesus.

Driven to Contemplation. It was the Spirit of Love, Divine Eros, who urged Jesus to enter into the contemplation of his Father, states Fr. Raneiro Cantalamessa, OFM, preacher in the papal household. If we think that the desire for contemplation came to Jesus without effort, we are overlooking some of the obstacles Jesus faced. Jesus was a public figure. When word spread that Jesus was in the vicinity, crowds gathered. When Jesus tried to escape the crowds by sailing across the Sea of Galilee, the crowds followed him on foot. He was a celebrity whom the people would not leave alone.

Further, Jesus’ compassion for the crippled, the sick, the deaf and those filled with unclean spirits drove him to be available to all those who needed his healing power. It was the Spirit of Love, Divine Eros, who kindled in Jesus the desire to move away from the crowds and seek solitude to discover through contemplation his relationship to the Father and to discover his identity and mission.

Driven to Holy Partnership. Jesus was a radical, an extremist. He questioned every sphere of life—political, economic, social and religious. Jesus turned upside down everything in the society of his times, states Fr. Albert Nolan in Jesus Before Christianity. Jesus showed that ideas about what was right and just were actually loveless and therefore contrary to the will of God. We might add that Jesus’ teachings are radical and extreme for our times, and for all times.

However, Jesus did not come with a blueprint for the ideal life and the ideal society. He had to discover it. His radicalism was the result of his holy partnership with the Spirit. Jesus was pursuing the wisdom of God, not human wisdom. He was driven to the Spirit to help him create a whole new life vision, a whole new world vision.

Another sign of his radicalism was his choice of disciples. His choice put Jesus on the road to Calvary right from the very beginning. For he snubbed the established religious authorities. How radical to choose as his disciples ordinary men, even a tax collector, when he could have chosen men like Nicodemus, a Pharisee, and thus break into the ranks of the religious establishment! But that was not the Spirit’s way. Jesus was responding to Divine Eros’ initiatives, invitations and inspirations to steer him, not in the ways of men, but in the ways of God.

Driven to Compassion. The Spirit of Love called Jesus into an entirely different mission from that of John the Baptist who strove to bring people to a baptism of repentance in the Jordan. Jesus did not continue to baptize. Instead, the Spirit led Jesus to understand that his mission should be directed at the poor, the sinners and the sick—the lost sheep of Israel. The Spirit inspired Jesus to liberate people from every form of suffering and anguish. His miracles were performed not to prove that he was the Messiah; they were performed out of compassion, states Fr. Nolan.

It was the Spirit of Love, Divine Eros, who helped Jesus prepare his heart for the ultimate sacrifice he was being called upon to make for others. In the end, Jesus would go to his death knowingly and willingly, out of deep love for others. St. Augustine said that Jesus went to the Cross as a bridegroom goes to the bridal chamber. The ultimate and crowning work of Divine Eros!

Send comments to: frankkit@sprynet.com
This article will soon appear in the Spiritual Development Program on the Cursillo website: www.nycursillo.org

Brother John Gilbert Shea, CFC ( 1920 - 2007)

2007-09-05T16:48:00.000-04:00

Fratello Gilberto at the Boys’ Town of Rome

Vieni a tavola nostra. Mangi con noi oggi. Come to our table. Eat with us today.

Fratello Gilberto addressed the insistent conflicting requests for his attention with a fixed rotation among the eight tables of four in the Ristorante Cittadino of Garden City, home to the younger “citizens” (ages 10 - 14) at the Boys’ Town of Rome. Anyone ever at table with Gil understands what these youngsters sought and found in their Christian Brother Zio.

During our fifteen years as a community of two, three or four Fratelli Cristiani at the Citta’ dei Ragazzi (Boys’ Town of Rome), I came to rely on Gil as my advisor, counselor, consoler, spiritual guide and wisdom figure. When it came to any use of the written word, he was and remained to his death my primary proof reader. Much of what may have reached you in my e-mail missives from Rome or later New York City or Miami, had first received his close scrutiny in terms of grammar, style, political and ecclesial correctness and prudence.

His most recent service in this area was a Review for Religious article he critiqued during the Christmas holidays. (http://www.reviewforreligious.org/abstracts/66files/moffett.pdf . Its delayed publication now coincides with the time of his death. He cautioned me about an introductory story that associated the piece too closely to identifiable events and individuals. It was deleted. With respect to anticipating a time of not having priests available, he commented: “it is more sensible to use what is available until the “famine” comes. Retrenching now is a form of spiritual hunger strike. Let us rejoice while the Bridegroom is still present.”

He became passionate on the issue of presence: “.…there are various ways through which one may experience the presence of God, but, in itself, the most exalted is the REAL PRESENCE, the full meaning of which is dimmed in these days when reality and virtuality are confounded. In Penal Law days, political office and ordinary advancement depended on denial, on oath, of the Real Presence in the Species.” He liked the section on what it might mean to “behold”.

He concluded his critique with New Year greetings: “Anno Nuovo -- che sarà ? We had a good Christmas here in the community and in the extended family. On Christmas afternoon, forty four of the clan gathered as I did the Santa for the small fry of the fourth generation. Keep us in your prayers. Regards to all for a serene New Year. God bless. Gil”

Should you work your way through the article, I would like to suggest that you allow your memories of Br. Shea, assuming you have had the privilege of knowing him, to inform and enrich two of the themes -- what it means to be “at table” and the power of prayer in the first person plural.

Those who made their home at the Girls and Boys Towns of Italy, generations of young citizens, the staff and administration join with Br. A. Edmund D’Adamo, Br. Neil Langan and me in expressing condolences to Br. Shea’s family and friends. We do so in prayerful thanksgiving, delighting in the knowledge that Gil will always be part of the “we” welcoming us all to the table of the Lord.

Brother Patrick Sean Moffett, CFC
4949 NE 2nd Avenue

Meditation on Vision for Life Prayer

2007-08-28T16:00:00.000-04:00

Meditation on Vision for Life Prayer
By Frank A Squitteri

For a long time I have prayed the Vision for Life Prayer each day, because it sums up the Christian Vision succinctly and reminds me of the virtues that I need to live the Christian Vision. Then one day I began to meditate on this Prayer. I have received much inspiration from this practice, and so I want to share my meditation with you in the hope that it will inspire you to create your own meditation. The prayer appears in boldface; my meditation in lightface:

VISION FOR LIFE PRAYER

My God, be the center of my life.
Be the center of my feelings, desires,
intentions, relationships,
energy, creativity.
Be the center Who brings order
out of the daily chaos
in my mind, heart and will.
Be the center Who empowers me
to cope with my daily dialectic
of positive heart wishes
and powerful death wishes.
Be the center Who calls me each day
out of my tomb
to new life like Lazarus.
Be the center Who awakens my heart
to the possibilities of love each day.

Let me see all through Your eyes.
Through the eyes of the Creator
who brought all into being
and saw that it was good.
Through the eyes of the Divine Artist
who brought all into being
in such magnificent beauty
and exquisite design.
Through the eyes of our Father
who loves all his creations
with unconditional love.
Through the eyes of Divine Compassion.
Lord, You are fully present to all Your creations
with infinite love and infinite attention.
You “receive” the presence
and giftedness of each of Your creations,
and You pour out Your life energies
to sustain each in being.

Let me see myself as beloved by You.
And that from all eternity.

Let me see others
as my sisters and my brothers.
Equally beloved by You
from all eternity.
We are Your unfinished creations.
We are Your creatures
in the process of becoming.
We are Your diamonds
in the rough.
We are Your Spirit-driven creations,
For each of whom You have a vision:
Christ incorporated us all into Himself
at the beginning of time,
and at the end of time
Christ will gather us all unto Himself.

Let me see life and creation
as Your gifts to me.
The gift of personhood.
I am a knowing, loving, willing being
infused with the Spirit
who empowers me to live a life
of faith, hope and love.
Life is beautiful.
Life is Your gift to me.
Creation too is Your gift to me.
You created out of Your own resources
a stage for me to live my life on,
an environment for me to discover
Your presence, beauty and wisdom.
Creation is beautiful.
Creation is Your gift to me.

Jesus, let me see You
as the model of compassion to others.
You gifted others with Your presence
and You affirmed their giftedness.
And You carry on Your life
of compassion and communion to others
through the likes of me.
A poor substitute!
So empower me to live like You,
fully present to all my sisters and brothers
with a caring heart
and an attentive mind.
Empower me to be sacrament
of peace, healing and forgiveness
to my sisters and brothers
as You were when on earth.
Empower me to be channels
of faith, hope and love
to my sisters and brothers
to awaken their faith, hope and love,
as You did

Let me see Your presence in community
as the source of Spirit-empowerment.
Let me see Your presence in community
as the source of my faith
in community prayer and action.
Risen Jesus, You sacramentalized community
and made it an occasion
for us to grow our souls
through one another
in union with the Spirit.
You empowered community
to be a force for compassion and enlightenment
in their environments.
Risen Jesus, help me to believe
that You still penetrate closed doors and rooms,
closed minds and hearts
to gift us with Your peace
and the Spirit’s powers.

Spirit of Jesus, let me see You
as my Higher Power
who guides and enlightens me.
You are my inner guide, my inner mentor.
I need Your guidance and mentoring
to discern God’s will for me
and the direction of my life
that God desires for me.

Let me see You as the source
of my courage to act and to lead,
Completing Christ’s mission.
Spirit of Jesus, put heart into me,
lest I become disheartened.
Due to my own weakness.
Or due to the weakness of my community
that I need so desperately to support me.

Let me see You as my power
to live the discipline of love.
Spirit of Jesus, Spirit of Love, Divine Eros,
let me see You as my power
to live the life vision
of the primacy of love.
Jesus manifested the radical love
of God in a radical way
and gave us a life vision of radical love,
the primacy of love.
Spirit of Love, Divine Eros,
help me to live Jesus’ life vision.
Spirit of Love, let me see You as my power
to live the discipline of love—
to love despite my feelings, my fatigue,
my differences with others,
and despite the arrogance and
self-centeredness of others.
Spirit of Love, let me see You as my power
to concentrate on pursuing Jesus’ life vision.
Keep it in my focus
through Your initiatives,
inspirations and invitations.
Spirit of Love, let me see You as my power
to patiently pursue Jesus’ life vision,
one act of love at a time. Amen

Holy Spirit, Divine Eros

2007-05-11T15:05:00.000-04:00

By Frank A. Squitteri

How do you address the Holy Spirit in your prayer life? I call upon the Spirit as my Higher Power, my inner guide, my mentor. But upon examination, I find terms of love are missing. My perception of the Spirit? The One who gets things done. When I need guidance as to what God wants of me, I turn to the Spirit. Or if I need courage to evangelize, I call upon the Spirit.
Of course, I am aware that in the Prayer to the Holy Spirit, we ask that the Spirit: “Kindle in us the fire of Your love.” I am aware too that theologians describe the life of the Trinity as the Spirit flowing from the mutual love of the Father and the Son. Obviously, the Spirit has a lot to do with love, even the fire of love. But that perception has not penetrated my spiritual life. How do we explain this?
For the longest time, I suspect, we have attributed the actions of the Spirit to the term “grace”, the unmerited assistance given persons by God for their conversion and sanctification. In this view, there is a Higher Power who makes things happen, for which we are grateful, but not quite the Lover in our minds.
Further, the Spirit has been AWOL (absent without leave) for almost 2,000 years of Christian spirituality, until the Charismatic Movement rediscovered the Spirit for us in the Sixties. No doubt, the Spirit’s absence created a certain awkwardness of language. Instead of perceiving the Spirit as the source of loving assistance, we have lived our spiritual lives with the abstract concept of grace. Our spiritual love life needs rekindling.
Fr. Jules J. Toner, SJ states that faith is the radical work of the Spirit, and charity is the principal and crowning work of the Spirit. Let me suggest that we can come closer to an appreciation of the Spirit’s work if we recall Eros from Greek mythology. Eros is the son of the goddess of love who excites erotic love in gods and persons with his arrows. In our times, he gets a lot of publicity around Valentine’s Day.
For us, the Spirit is Divine Eros. The Spirit’s arrows are loving invitations to us to grow in faith in God, in the Historical/Risen Jesus and in the Spirit as well. These loving invitations are the calls of a Lover, calling us to expand our capacity for love. It is the Spirit who awakens our hearts to the possibilities of love each day. It is the Spirit who calls us each day out of our tombs to experience new life like Lazarus. It is the Spirit who invites us daily to live a life vision based on the primacy of love, the radical life vision that Jesus manifested for us.
The Spirit pours the love of God into our hearts through gifts of consolation. Through these gifts we experience our living faith increased in depth or firmness or purity or intensity or effectiveness. Through the Spirit’s consolations, we recognize that something beautiful is happening to us as we experience peace, joy, confidence, exultation and the like. When that happens, we know that we have been struck with the Spirit’s arrows. We know that Divine Eros, the Spirit of Love, is at work.
Of course, we cannot always expect such consolations, because they are the Spirit’s gifts. Let us be grateful when they come; in dry periods look forward with expectancy.
I believe that the Song of Songs in the Bible, which describes a torrid love relationship, is an allegory for the love relationship between the Spirit and ourselves. It is full of the language of desire and passion. Saints like Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross used this book to grow their spirituality. For the essence of the spiritual life is the heart’s surrender. Yet, we have no control over our hearts. We need to depend totally on the Spirit, Divine Eros, to direct arrows at our hearts to awaken them to greater love of God and others.
Perceiving the Spirit as Divine Eros radically changes our relationship with the Spirit and the tone of our spiritual life. Not that our perceptions of the Spirit as our Higher Power or mentor and guide are incorrect. They are correct, but they energize the faculties of our will and our mind, whereas the perception of the Spirit as Divine Eros energizes our heart which is really surrender of our total person to the Spirit—heart, mind and will

2007-05-02T10:01:00.000-04:00

SAVE THE CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

By SOL STERN

May 1, 2007 -- THE schools that have the best record in our inner cit ies are also the most endan gered. It's a system that largely started here in New York City, too: America's Catholic schools.

Consider Rice HS in Harlem, run by the Christian Brothers religious order. For decades, Rice has rescued at-risk African-American boys and turned them into responsible men who go on to college and then give back to the community. Yet it nearly closed down two years ago, and remains on the edge.

Demographic changes and financial pressures have led to the closing of thousands of excellent inner-city Catholic schools and needlessly deepened the nation's urban-education crisis. Philanthropists - and policymakers - need to help these schools continue their mission.

It's hard to exaggerate the challenge that Rice and similar schools voluntarily take on. Young black males lead the nation in homicides, both as victims and perpetrators; have the highest rates of unemployment and incarceration; and lag behind every other racial, ethnic and gender subgroup in academic achievement.

More than 70 percent of Rice students are black - and more than 90 percent of its entering students finish high school and go on to college.

Of course, studies galore have shown that Catholic schools do a better job of educating inner-city poor and minority children than do public schools with comparable student populations. Why this "Catholic school advantage"? One explanation - perhaps the most powerful - is discipline.

Above the doors leading to Rice's lobby, through which all its students pass every morning, a plaque admonishes: "The 'Street' ENDS here!"

That message is Rice's alternative to the metal detectors in so many of our public high schools. It's there thanks to Rice's head of school - 61-year-old Brother John Walderman, a lifelong Christian Brothers educator picked to save Rice two years ago, when enrollment had plummeted from 400 students in 1999 to a bankruptcy-threatening low of 265.

In his two years at Rice's helm, Walderman has managed to stop the hemorrhaging, though the school's condition is still precarious.

He views the plaque's "countercultural message" as a commandment. At Rice, students must cast off the destructive street culture that undermines academic achievement and that marches unimpeded through the front doors of most urban public schools. Walderman tells entering freshmen that they're in for a four-year grind of hard work and personal discipline - with no excuses accepted and no special dispensations given.

In the morning, the boys file through the doors into Rice's lobby, doff their coats and hooded sweatshirts - and suddenly transform into sharply dressed Rice men, with pressed slacks, oxford shirts, neckties and green school vests, sometimes adorned with colorful pins signifying the school's many academic awards.

Like boot-camp drill sergeants, Walderman and his aides relentlessly enforce the Rice ethos: There's a strict dress code and no tolerance of lateness or absences; homework must come in on time. Violations trigger immediate consequences, such as detention or calls to parents. Disruptive classroom behavior, disrespect toward teachers and violence against fellow students bring suspension, at a minimum. Expulsion is a final resort.

Public schools may simply lack the will to keep the "street" out. But political correctness and "rights" restrictions imposed by the civil-liberties lobby and the courts get in the way of discipline, too. As a result, for all the metal detectors and cops on hand, bedlam reigns at many urban public schools.

That chaos alone is a sufficient explanation for the dismal four-year graduation rate for black males in such schools, which rarely tops 30 percent.

Another way to see the power of the Rice approach: Walderman used the recent occasion of Black History Month to give the juniors an inspirational lecture about the challenges that they will confront as they head into the college-admissions process.

"You are the rising seniors," he boomed to 80 or so black 17-year-olds, sitting quietly in rows in the school's cafeteria/auditorium, "next in line to carry on the tradition." He implored them not to let up - to pass the Regents exams in the five subjects that the state requires for graduating public school students and that Rice has voluntarily adopted as its own minimum standard. "The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary," Walderman continued.

Then he reminded the students about where they came from and why it mattered: "This is Black History Month, but for you guys it is Black History Life. When you succeed here, you are putting another nail in the coffin of racism."

At last June's ceremony at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, 87 young men graduated from Rice - with all but three headed for college in the fall. Walderman estimated the original cohort for the class of 2006 to be in the low 90s - making for a four-year graduation rate of close to 95 percent and a college admissions rate almost as high.

Largely founded in mid-19th-century New York, the Catholic school movement sought to combat anti-Catholic discrimination and to lift up Irish immigrants from unspeakable poverty and widespread social dysfunction.

The schools succeeded beyond anyone's wildest hopes. Little more than a century after the city's Catholic schools opened their doors, Catholics had become one of the wealthiest Christian denominations in the country, fully assimilated into the American mainstream.

But that success precipitated the Catholic schools' long-term decline, as "mainstreamed" Catholics saw less need to send their children to parochial schools. The total number of Catholic schools in America fell from 13,300 in 1965 to 7,500 today.

The decline has reached crisis proportions in the urban centers, where Catholic schools now valiantly try to do for poor black and Hispanic children what they once did for the Irish underclass and other white ethnics. Yet many families who might want their children to fill the empty seats simply can no longer afford it. Next year's bill at Rice will be $6,000 - and that's one of the city's lower-priced Catholic high schools.

It's almost fashionable these days for politicians to acknowledge Catholic schools' history of lifesaving work with poor children. The Catholic schools still outperform their far wealthier public counterparts in test scores and graduation rates - but inner-city schools like Rice are now on the brink. They need something more than public kudos.

For 150 years, America's Catholic schools have helped turn millions of disadvantaged children into responsible, productive citizens, thereby contributing mightily to the public good. Now that serious obstacles are slowing them, will the public - either philanthropists or government - help them stay in the race?

Adapted from the Spring issue of City Journal, where Sol Stern is a contributing editor.

Compassion through Contemplation

2007-01-12T14:27:00.000-05:00

Compassion through Contemplation

By Frank A. Squitteri

Jesus’ prayer life is revealed in the Gospels. However, what the Scriptures do not disclose is Jesus’ life of contemplation. But how else can we explain Jesus’ intimate closeness to God?

In Jesus Before Christianity, Fr. Albert Nolan, O.P. states: “It is generally agreed that somewhere at the heart of Jesus’ mysterious personality there was a unique experience of intimate closeness to God—the Abba experience…we know that the Abba experience was an experience of God as a compassionate Father.” No doubt, it was his time in contemplation that led Jesus to the heart of God, and thus to compassion for others.

Jesus’ Contemplation. Surely, Jesus practiced this wordless, imageless form of prayer that concentrates on being fully present with a caring heart and attentive mind to God’s interior presence. In his prayer he would also have experienced God as One Who was, by his very nature, for others. Contemplative prayer would lead Jesus to experience God as Father who loved all his creatures with an unconditional love. Most importantly, in contemplative prayer Jesus would experience God as Compassion who was intimately and lovingly present to all his creation.

Here is the important point. Jesus’ solidarity with God gained through contemplation created solidarity for him with all humanity. Contemplation involved commitment of his whole being to his beloved Father, and concern for all that his Father loves. Thus, his contemplation would lead him to his life vision and life mission of compassion for others.

Our Abba Experience. How do we partake in Jesus’ Abba experience? In our contemplation, such as in Centering Prayer, we must experience God as Compassion for others, for only then do we embrace the true nature of God. Only then can compassion for others be the fruit of our contemplation of God. Only then can we experience what Jesus experienced. We cannot rest in the enjoyment of God’s presence in contemplative prayer apart from the creation and creatures God loves.

How do we enter into God’s compassionate life? By making the Risen Jesus the focal point of our contemplation of God. Why? Because the Risen Jesus is the continuous outpouring of Divine Love, beginning with creation, the Incarnation, Jesus’ passion and death, Jesus’ continuing involvement in bringing us to wholeness and ultimately to resurrection. Further, the Risen Jesus has bound us into solidarity with all human beings by incorporating us into his Body. So, the Risen Jesus holds all the world and all our sisters and brothers in his hands. Uniting with the Risen Jesus as Compassion for creation and others opens us up to compassion for all creation and our sisters and brothers. May the Risen Jesus stretch, extend and expand our hearts to embrace all that he loves!

Compassionate Life. The Gospels make it clear that the historical Jesus’ compassion for the suffering of others was a gut-wrenching emotion. However, Jesus manifested another form of compassion in his everyday encounters with people that shares similar qualities with contemplation. Let us look at those similar characteristics.

Both contemplation and compassion, as we are using the term here, require that we be fully present in a caring and attentive way to the other to “receive” the presence and giftedness of the other. Both require that we make a gift of our total person to the other to receive the other’s giftedness. Both require an openness to the other. When the Other is God, the experience is one of contemplation. When the other is a human person, we experience the call to compassion.

Now think of Jesus’ compassion—being fully present in a caring, attentive way—in his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. Or with Nicodemus who came by night to learn more about Jesus. Or with the apostles Matthew and Nathaniel when Jesus called them to follow him. Jesus gifted these people with his compassionate presence and affirmed their giftedness so dramatically that he changed their lives forever.

Earlier, we emphasized that Jesus achieved compassion for the suffering of others through contemplation of God. We also asserted that Jesus manifested a second form of compassion in his evangelization of others. Now we want to assert that compassion, in both senses of the word, can help us in our practice of contemplation of God. Both the practices of compassion to others and contemplation of God require a mode of being present to another that enables one to be affected by the presence of the other.

Therefore, practicing contemplation of God and practicing compassion to others are reinforcing practices that help us attain our spiritual goal of greater intimacy with God in our contemplation. Further, these practices encourage greater compassion to others, both those in need and those to whom we manifest Jesus’ ongoing Incarnation in our everyday lives, such as to our spouses, our children, our friends and acquaintances, the present-day Samaritan women, the Nicodemus’s of the world.

Paraphrasing St. John’s Gospel: How can we be fully present with all our hearts and minds to God whom we cannot see if we cannot be fully present in a caring, attentive way to our sisters and brothers whom we can see?

Contemplation helps us to become more compassionate to others, and being more compassionate to others helps us practice contemplation of God. Together they comprise the Compassionate Life, a focused way of living, a Jesus-like way of living!

Br. A. F. Brennan, CFC RIP

2006-12-06T18:40:00.000-05:00

AN EX-PUPIL’S TRIBUTE TO BR. A. F. BRENNAN DEC. 4, 2006

On Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006, Br. Augustus Fidelis Brennan passed away suddenly at Mount St. Francis at the age of 84 - 1 week before the new Church year and 1 year before his 70th year as a Brother. Just hours before, he attended a celebration for 70 years service in the congregation for Br. P.J. Batterton, Br.J.B. Darcy, and Br.J.G. Shea.

In 1960-61, he was my grade eleven teacher at St. Patrick’s Hall School. (In 62/63 St. Pat’s would change from 1-11 to 1-8 school.) I remember our first day in Sept of 1960. Our names were called out in the gym and we were led away to our classroom by Br. Brennan. He had no discipline problems because he was well respected and an excellent teacher. He taught us all the subjects except Physics (Br. P. V. Shea).He didn’t waste any time in class (time on task was high). It took me about 5 hours a night to keep up with the written homework. On weekends and other times he would take us to the gym for basketball. Being tall, he was pretty good in basketball - earning his nickname "Stalks" Brennan. There were many activities in the school - cadets, sports, various clubs, and just hanging around. In the last few weeks (or months) of the school year, Brother would stay after class to prepare us for the CHE exams (Council of Higher Education). This paid off as a good number were able to win Government Scholarships. About 10 people in the class entered the priesthood or religious life - no doubt inspired by Br. Brennan and others. We paid $2/month in school fees - that was 10 cents a day for 10 subjects. To receive over 1000 hours of instruction by one so eminent for $20.00 was a great bargain.

Br. Brennan had a great interest in outdoor education. He was able to start the Br. Brennan Environment Center at Salmonier. All the materials for the first building were carried to the site by motor boat. For the first few years students and teachers travelled by motor boat to get to the site. Later a road was built around the pond. I had the opportunity to take several classes to this center and on one occasion I was able to give Br. a video tape of the activities of one such group. He didn’t think I should take up film-making.

It is indeed ironic that on the very day he died the city of St. John’s had a workshop on vandalism - a clear sign that crime and vandalism is on the rise throughout the province. In those days we were taught great respect for persons and property as well as the environment.

When he was founding principal of Regina High School (Corner Brook), he not only took on the full high school teaching load but also taught 3 university courses affiliated with St. Francis Xavier University - thus holding three full time jobs. Later, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of Laws from that university (1982).

When he was superintendent of the RC School Board for St. John’s, he showed his versatility. With the Arts and Culture Center filled with teachers and the guest speaker unable to land, Br. Brennan delivered the keynote address with great competence.

Three Christian Brothers were elected president of Newfoundland Teachers’ Association - Br. M. O. O’Hehir, Br. J. B. Darcy, and Br. A. F. Brennan and I had the opportunity to be taught by all three. Br. Brennan was also President of Canadian Teachers’ Federation.

I would like to give credit to the Christian Brothers for the great education I have received. Br. Brennan is certainly one of many venerable Newfoundlanders who have contributed greatly to this province and we must ensure that his legacy is preserved for future generations. To his immediate family and to his fellow Christian Brothers at Mount St. Francis I offer my condolence.

"They that instruct many to justice shall shine as stars for all eternity" (Daniel 12:2)

Garrett Bambrick

709 726 0126

garrybambrick@nf.sympatico.ca

Praying the Gospels With the Risen Jesus

2006-10-31T12:45:00.000-05:00

By Frank A. Squitteri

In the previous articles, we explored how our deeper understanding of the Resurrection and of the Jesus Process changed everything—the way we pray, the way we participate in the liturgy of the Mass. Now let us examine how the Risen Jesus changes how we read the Gospels, how we preach the gospels, and how we practice faith-sharing based on the Gospels.

When it comes to the Gospels, the tendency is to focus solely on the historical Jesus’ every word and action. But if we go no further, we lock Jesus into history and he becomes only an inspiring figure, whose words we use to moralize to improve our own or others’ conduct. But by so doing, we encounter only one dimension of Jesus. Thus, he doesn’t become the catalyst of the Jesus Process whereby he leads us to the Risen Jesus and to the Spirit’s empowerment of us.

We must read the Gospels three dimensionally. We must move the focus of the Gospels ultimately to all the dimensions of Jesus—the historical Jesus, the Risen Jesus and the Jesus who gives us the Spirit. Otherwise, we miss the power of the Gospels to transform us into persons who carry on Jesus’ ongoing Incarnation. Fr. John Walsh, M.M. says that we have to look at the Gospels as unfinished: we have to write the latest chapters. It is as if the Gospels are contained in a loose-leaf binder. However, to do so we must grow deeper in the awareness that we have been empowered by the Risen Jesus.

The Risen Jesus has empowered us to carry on Jesus’ ongoing Incarnation by giving us the same powers Jesus exercised in his earthly life. The key questions we have to ask ourselves are: How does the Scripture passage, which we are reflecting on, reveal the powers that the Risen Jesus has given us? How do the Gospels empower us to carry on Jesus’ ongoing Incarnation?

Take the Gospel story of the woman “who had suffered from severe bleeding for 12 years. She had spent all she had on doctors, but no one had been able to cure her. She came up in the crowd behind Jesus and touched the edge of his cloak, and her bleeding stopped at once. Jesus asked, ‘Who touched me?’” Despite the denials of everyone, Jesus insisted, “Someone touched me, for I knew it when power went out of me.” Today, we have to be the hem of Jesus’ garment. If people in need touch us, they touch Jesus. His power will go out from us—if we have faith, if we have taken possession of Jesus’ powers given to us by the Risen Jesus.

How do we carry on Jesus’ ongoing Incarnation in us? How do we write the next chapters in the Gospels? We must exercise the powers given by the Risen Jesus to be sacraments of peace, healing and forgiveness. The Gospels are all about these powers.

Does our reading of the Gospels awaken our faith in our powers to be sacraments to others? Fr. Ronald Rolheiser writes in The Holy Longing: “We can forgive each other’s sins; not we, but the power of Christ within us.”

Does a sermon on the Gospels inspire us to bind sinners to Jesus through our love for them? Fr. Rolheiser states: “If a child or a brother or a sister or a loved one of yours strays from the church in terms of faith practice and morality, as long as you continue to love that person, and hold him or her in union and forgiveness, he or she is touching the hem of the garment….and is forgiven by God.”

Does the compassionate life of Jesus that the Gospels relate raise our awareness that the Risen Jesus has given us the powers to be compassion and communion to others? Do our Gospel readings empower us to be channels of faith, hope and love for others as Jesus called forth faith, hope and love in others during his earthly life.

Who Are These Christian Brothers?

2006-10-23T15:57:00.000-04:00

By Father Jim Lloyd, Associate

I was a fourteen years old graduate of the Paulist Gammar School where I was protected and taught by the loving and maternal Holy Cross Sisters. Soon, I was to be thrown into the care of some mysterious, tall, black robed men known as the Irish Christian Brothers.[1] It was rumored that each one of them had a brown strap hidden in his Robes which he would whip out at the slightest provocation. Teen aged boys allegedly trembled in fear at the very sight of this tool of control! Horror stories of beatings and strange goings on swept our neighborhood. . I was in a near panic.My good Jewish father had wanted me to go to nearby Commerce High school where I would learn business basics for “making it” in this tough world. Besides, it was free. No tuition. No fees. All the freebies one would need. And, on the other hand, the Brothers at this fancy sounding school, Power Memorial Academy, would charge ten dollars a month! And they taught “useless” stuff like English Literature, French, Latin and Religion!However, my simple Irish Catholic mother, though usually acquiescing to my father’s wishes, stamped and stomped her way to my enrolling at a Catholic High school. With marvelous trust in the Almighty, she knew that although we had no money, somehow the Lord would figure out a way of digging up that enormous sum each month! And, of course, the Lord came through in the person of a gentle Paulist Father, Fr. Paul Ward, who paid my tuition for the four years, enabling me to have one of the most satisfying, productive educational experiences of my life.The school was located in Harlem, on 124th street right off Lenox Avenue. Power Memorial Academy was actually three or four crummy looking, old brownstone houses. And into them were crammed several hundred boys, a cramped “lunchroom” in the basement, a tiny chapel on the second floor, “classrooms” where walls had been broken down to accommodate the young scholars, a back yard passing as recreation space adorned with primitive basketball hoops and, of course, quarters for the Brothers.[2] It was not Phillips Exeter or Fordham Prep but we all loved it.These men had unbelievable dedication to the kids. They were superb educators. They were strong masculine role models and exemplars of Faith. They did demand excellence in scholarship which resulted in an impressive record of college scholarships and generally a sense of “how to study” for the students. The stories of beatings were largely mythical, the kind of exaggeration one might hear sitting before the fireplace on a winter’s night. If the strap was used at all, it was largely symbolic, amounting to no more than a slight sting on the hand. It never destroyed the psyche as is claimed by the contemporary bleeding hearts of Public schools. On the contrary, most of the boys who got so disciplined knew they deserved it and understood its meaning. It was not only justice but love. It helped us mature and become truly masculine. One need only check the reactions of Power alumni over the years to realize how strong was the bond between the Brothers and students.I needed 10 cents each day for the subway in addition to my homemade sandwich which I always found in my satchel through the “courtesy” of my mother (or grandmother when Mom was away on a job). Here I learned the practical meaning of “God will provide” or, as the Brothers taught me, Deus Providebit. I never worried about the daily dime or the sandwich. I knew they would be there. It left me free to enjoy the thrill of learning about Caesar and Vercingetorix, the dynamics of the quadratic equation, the fluid sound of “Bon jour, mes enfants”[3], the fun of Shakespeare and the endless excitement of the opened mind. It also pervasively taught me, almost like an osmosis, what it means to be a Catholic.Where in God’s Providence did these guys come from? How did they wind up in the Inner City teaching dirty necks like me the basics of reading, writing and computing? What made them tick?It started in Co. Waterford, Ireland with a layman named Edmund Rice (1762-1844), a prosperous businessman whose wife had died leaving him with a seriously ill daughter. It was a time when his land had been oppressed by foreign powers leaving the Irish impoverished and generally uneducated. This man who had a lively devotion to the Mother of God, the Blessed Mother, decided to spend some time teaching the many urchins floundering aimlessly around Waterford, giving them some skills in making a living. He did teach them basic computation and reading but it was always against the background of the Catholic Faith. Edmund who has been declared Blessed by the Catholic Church believed in the eternal destiny of all while at the same time being apparently a hard headed Merchant who knew how to turn pig’s ear into a silk purse. He was a Believer who like all saints will have empty pockets and “impossible” dreams but will dare to challenge the “Common Sense” of the world.His charisma, wonderful to most, insane to others, drew scores of good hearted men who eventually developed into that Congregation then called Irish Christian Brothers and now the Congregation of Christian Brothers. No longer just Irish[4] but Indian, African, Australian, American, Hispanic and even English names dot the International Roster of the Congregation.But it is always the spirit and vision of Rice which dominates the Monks. Although they number noted scholars in their ranks, they all commit to caring for the young. Recently, I had dinner with an old friend who, as a teenager, was totally disoriented relative to his future. By some strange twist of God’s plan, “Ray” entered Power Memorial and indeed was truly saved. A young Br. “Boney” Power took him over, directed him personally and educationally, to a career in the Board of Education of New York City where he became an able and successful leader. Now in retirement he openly (and often) states that his life was saved by Br. Power. Once a confused agnostic, he is today a practicing and proud Catholic. This is the plan of Edmund Rice and one which has been realized thousands of times around the world since those difficult early days in Waterford.In my years in South Africa, my initial impression of these Monks was re-enforced and highlighted endless times. They ran the prototypic high level Secondary school in Kimberly, the number one school in the country. The Headmaster, Br. McManus was called “Mr. Education” nationwide. He was consulted by Government Ministers as the ultimate source of “What to do” in this field. I gave an annual retreat to them at Kimberly, went on vacation with them, played tennis with them and shared their lives as much as a non-Monk could. But it was always the same. Dedication. Faith. Commitment to the young. Continual Study. True fraternity. Edmund Rice was written all over them.I met them in Fiji where they ran a top level school in the Inner city for the indigenous children. They greeted me with warmth and hospitality, even introducing me to the bitter local brew as the natives clapped their hands in delight. I met them in Hawaii where they run a top school for American kids of that area. I was welcomed as their “Brother” and shared their food and shelter. Edmund Rice, who probably never left Ireland physically, was spiritually right there smiling and encouraging them. I met them in Sydney, Australia, where they invited me to share my thoughts at their National Education Convention. Edmund. Edmund. Edmund. He was always there also—urging, challenging, even demanding his spiritual sons to carry on the Message of Jesus.In my own years at the “Academy” I was obviously drawn myself to become “Brother” Lloyd so attractive and symbiotic to me was their life It was all I ever yearned for—with one monumental exception! I had a huge and undeniable need to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Why couldn’t I be a Brother and priest at the same time?[5] I understand very well that the Vocation to be a Brother is a special and separate call. When Br. John Mark Egan, the superb Christian psychologist was asked why he didn’t become a priest and go “all the way”, he correctly and profoundly replied: “Then I couldn’t be a Brother…” In the mysterious and beautiful makeup of the Mystical Body of Jesus, there are different and equal “calls” as the Blessed Apostle Paul tells us. Perhaps, one of the three greatest human beings of my life was Br. A.A. Loftus (called “Austie” by the insiders). No one so deeply influenced me on multiple levels. He is the one who invited me to “come along with us” i.e. join the Monks. Like so many others, I wanted to be like him. He was an incredible scholar who taught me Virgil’s Aeneas, Solid Geometry[6], Trig, American History, Catholic theology, Cicero’s orations on Cataline, the Odes and Epodes of Horace.. All on superior levels of teaching. He was a top flight athletic coach winning in successive years the City championships in both basketball and baseball. He was extremely devout in his Faith, deeply Catholic, loyal to the Magisterium. Yet, as with many intellectuals, he relaxed with detective stories and Yankee ball games in the stadium. If he was displeased with us, we were exceedingly uncomfortable. His approval was essential. When as an insufferable Big Shot senior of 17, I was “goofing off” (slacking in my studies) he ordered me to school on a Saturday intending to whack me over the bottom. As I bent over the desk, with my knees quivering, his basic sensitivity took over and he relented with a verbal reprimand. I had been on the verge of leaving school in mid-year, possibly for a dead-end and mediocre life. Austie set me straight for what I consider my own “great ride”.Austie, the Ph.D. par excellence, became the Professor of philosophy at Iona College, later President of the College, later Provincial of the Brothers of North America and finally, the top dog, the Superior General of the world wide Congregation. After his retirement, I met him at Power; in fact in the Brothers chapel where he sat mystically gazing at his Eucharistic Lord in the Tabernacle. I had been deeply impressed, as a teenager, at his bouncing into the little Chapel at Power before class, oodles of books under his arm, with a quick genuflection asking the Master’s guidance on his day. I asked him if he was planning to return to Iona to teach philosophy. He laughingly replied that he was going to a high school because “that is where all the fun is.” It was in a high school chapel that he was stricken and quickly was taken to his Lord and Master.I have been invited several times to preach the Annual Retreat to the Monks at Power, Iona and elsewhere, It has been a strange feeling for me to see the wise, holy, wonderful Monks sitting before me listening with incredible humility to my words on the Spiritual Life. There was Br. Tom Perry at ninety with his hand cupped to his ear least he miss any of my spiritual gems (?). It was he who taught me French, English composition and basic theology! There was the genial, scholarly Br. Blondie Vaughan who taught me about the angles and triangles of Plane Geometry. There were Provincials and scholars and skilled professors listening with some pride to one of “their boys.”For ten years in my own retirement, I was privileged to say Mass for these Brothers as they became old and infirm. In a beautiful facility run by the Brothers themselves, the grand old men who gave so much of their love, talent and Faith for others wait patiently for their call to the Lord. Even with age and illness burdening them, they almost automatically radiate Edmund’s spirit. They are for others. They always welcomed me, their brother who was a priest as one of their own, making me feel at home with them. Sometimes, they made me laugh as did the Alzheimeric Brother who ran up to me one morning to announce that he was getting married the next day. I kiddingly asked if his bride was good looking and he replied with a satisfied and beaming “absolutely.” Others I comforted and encouraged as they worried about their very few inadequacies prior to meeting God. I was so grateful to minister to my dear friend, Br. Alexander Thomas as he lay dying in the Hawthorne hospice. He with whom I had so much fun competing in Bridge games and who in his own way taught me so many of the delights that God provides--- the cigar, the goblet with Grand Marnier, the French jokes------So many wonderful memories I have of these good men, these sons of Edmund, these champions of and believers in young people. Who are these Christian Brothers? How much time does one have to listen…. “Arma virumque cano…..”I sing of religious men and their battle against ignorance, bigotry, coldness and that which is not of God.It has been my pleasure and privilege along with literally thousands of others to say:“I know them and they know me.” May God be praised.[1] The title IRISH Christian Brothers was subsequently changed to Congregation of Christian Brothers as a more accurate reflection of the ethnic makeup of the more recent vocations to the Community. CFC is the present official “sign” after each Brother’s name.[2] When one got on the “inside” one learned that they were called “Monks”[3] Br. Tom Perry entered the classroom each morning thusly greeting us in French. with a pronounced Irish accent [4] Indeed Ireland no longer supplies recruits as of the old days. Irish Vocations are almost non existent. It is India, New Guinea, Africa and what was known as the Mission area which keeps the Congregation alive. The present Brother “General” or Leader is from India. [5] In fact, years later, as the Director of Pastoral Counseling at Iona College, I became the first priest to become an associate Brother, entitling me to add CFC to my name.[6] He demanded in his scholarship class that everyone who took the Regents exam in Solid Geom., get 100% on the exam. This was “passing” to him. I who could hardly add, under his leadership, aced the exam with 100%. His secret was check and check and check your work. Repetition was his answer.

Pray the Mass: Pray the Jesus Process

2006-10-23T15:52:00.000-04:00

By Frank A. Squitteri

In the previous article, we explored how the Risen Jesus changed even the way we pray. Should not our deeper understanding of the Resurrection and of the Jesus Process that flows from the Resurrection change the way we pray the Mass, the celebration of the Risen Jesus’ ongoing Incarnation among us, his ongoing transformation of us to become Jesus to others?
Prepare the Way. The historical Jesus is the catalyst of the Jesus Process that will bring us to the Risen Jesus who gifts us with the Spirit. So let us unite ourselves with Jesus prior to Mass and at all the key parts of the Mass. Before Mass, let us recall, with all the love we can arouse, our Crucified Lover who suffered a horrific death to win our freedom. Then, let us celebrate his rising from the dead. The stone has been rolled back from his tomb. The Spirit leads the Risen Jesus in triumph to his glory and power. Now let us ask the Risen Jesus to gift us with the Spirit’s power to celebrate at Mass Jesus’ Resurrection and ongoing Incarnation.
Seek Transformation. The Jesus Process continues as we listen to the words and life events of the historical Jesus in Scripture. Jesus’ life experiences have become power sources for our transformation to become Jesus to others because the Risen Jesus now contains in himself all Jesus’ experiences in a transformed way. Let us pray to the Risen Jesus to gift us with the Spirit’s power to bring about change in our lives. Let us ponder: What change in our lives are the Scripture readings and homile inviting us to make? What empowerment are we being called to in order to carry on Jesus’ Incarnation of service and healing for our sisters and brothers?
Prepare Hearts. The historical Jesus prepared his heart for self-gift on Calvary at the Last Supper. In loving service, he washed the disciples’ feet, and he gave himself in Eucharist. Uniting ourselves with Jesus’ actions, let the Jesus Process work to prepare our hearts for sacrifice and service to others. The bread and wine that we offer up are symbols of our lives that we are sacrificing. With the help of the Spirit, let us surrender our lives to the Risen Jesus. Let us prepare our hearts at the level of our feelings—with words, if necessary, or without words in a prayer of the heart, a prayer of desire.
Offer Self. The Jesus Process reaches its high point at the consecration. The historical Jesus made his offering once and for all. The Risen Jesus has perpetuated his sacrifice. Now it is our turn to make our own offering. We join the priest in asking the Risen Jesus to send his Spirit to empower our gifts of bread and wine with his presence. At the same time, we ask the Risen Jesus to empower us through the Spirit to give ourselves as self-gift to him and to our sisters and brothers in service to them.
When the priest offers up the Consecrated Bread and Wine, he offers the Risen Jesus and us as members of the Body of Jesus. We too are saying to our sisters and brothers, “Take, eat, this is my body; take drink, this is my blood.” We are sacrificing our body and blood, our life, time, energy and resources in service to them.
Power Up. As a truly human person, the historical Jesus was a work in progress. It was the Spirit who led Jesus to develop his innate powers of faith, hope and love of God. Now we need to ask the Risen Jesus for the Spirit’s power to live our self-gift to God and others, which we have just given at the Consecration.
Let us ask for the strength to practice Resurrection, to become persons of radical faith, hope and love. To become agents of the Spirit, beauty and new life. Let us ask the Risen Jesus for the power to practice union with the historical Jesus in our pursuit of holiness, spiritual formation and evangelization so that he can become the catalyst of the Jesus Process for us. Let us ask the Risen Jesus for the power to practice Pentecost by calling upon the Spirit for courage and enlightenment, for discernment of God’s will and direction for our lives.
Carry On Jesus’ Incarnation. When we receive the Risen Jesus in Eucharist, we are not only receiving his presence sacramentally, we are feeding on Jesus’ whole personhood and lifestyle. We are feeding on the Word of God that we have just heard in the Gospel portrayal of Jesus, and we resolve to live that Word of God. For we must put on the mind and heart of Jesus to be Jesus to others.
Now let us ask the Risen Jesus for the Spirit’s power to manifest the Risen Jesus within us to those around us. Let us ask that we become sacraments of peace, healing and forgiveness for others, that we might become Jesus’ compassion and communion to others. Let us ask that we might become channels to awaken faith, hope and love in others as Jesus did. Now the Mass ceremony is ended, but the Mass event continues on: Let us go and be Jesus to others!

Risen Jesus Changed Everything, Even Prayer

2006-06-21T15:51:00.000-04:00

By Frank A. Squitteri

The people in the Gospel stories had a great advantage over us when it comes to prayer. Jesus was present to them as a person, whom they could see and touch. The Jesus we know through the Scriptures no longer exists. Only the Risen Christ exists. This leads us to two questions: First, in light of the Resurrection, to whom do we pray? Second, what is the place of the historical Jesus in our prayer life?
Fr. William Johnston, SJ. in an introduction to The Cloud of Unknowing answers our first question in this way: “Now the Christian, following St. Paul, does not pray just to a historical figure but to the now existing risen Christ who contains in himself all the experience of his historical existence in a transformed way, as he indicated by showing his wounds to his disciples.” So, the object of our prayer is clearly the Risen Christ.
In response to the second question about the place of the historical Jesus in our prayer life, Fr. Johnston states that the problem is that “Christian theology, following the New Testament, situates the historical Jesus at the very heart of prayer—Christ the man, the Incarnate Word.” We are comfortable with the historical Jesus. We can have thoughts and ideas and images of Jesus through his life events. We can have no adequate picture of the Risen Christ. How then do we make our prayer Christocentric and at the same time relate to the Risen Christ?
The Jesus Process. The results of Jesus’ Resurrection as the Jesus Process. First, let us revisit that concept and then explore its relevance to our prayer life. Jesus’ lived experience on earth is the core element driving the Jesus Process. Christ, as the Risen Jesus, no longer limited by time or geography, transforms Jesus’ historical experience into a power source, present here and now in the 21st Century. Out of this power source, the Risen Christ gifts us with his Spirit who empowers us to carry on Jesus’ ongoing Incarnation in us and manifest his powers for others. Seeing the historical Jesus as the catalyst of the Process enables us to make our prayer Christocentric and at the same time enables us to embrace the imageless Risen Jesus and Spirit.
Prayer with Words— When we say prayers of petition, thanksgiving or adoration, let us begin by praying the Jesus Process. Let us unite with the human experiences of Jesus, such as Jesus going off to the mountains to pray. Remembering that Jesus is the catalyst of the Jesus Process, let us ask Jesus to lead us to the Risen Christ present in our midst, and let us ask the Risen Christ to gift us with the Spirit. We then pray to the Spirit to aid us. Now the Risen Christ loves our prayers with words, but there is a better way.
Praying without Words— Contemplation such as in centering prayer is a wordless, imageless way of prayer that enables us to seek union with the Risen Christ who is imageless. So, it is a very appropriate form of prayer to the Risen Christ. Remember too that when we pray with words, we are in control; we are asking for what we want. How-ever, in prayer without words, we let the Risen Christ take control and lead us to what he desires for us—ultimately to manifest increasingly the Christ who is incarnate in us.

An important aspect of centering prayer is our intentionality. Here we attempt to establish beforehand our desire to surrender to the Risen Christ’s mysterious presence. Praying the Jesus Process prepares us for centering prayer. We call upon the historical Jesus to act as the catalyst to lead us to the Risen Christ who gifts us with his Spirit who empowers us to lose ourselves in desire for union with the Risen Christ. This experience of union leads us to be transformed into persons who carry on Jesus’ ongoing Incarnation by being sacraments of peace, healing and forgiveness for others, by being compassion and communion to others, and by being channels of faith, hope and love for others.

The Vision of Christ

2006-05-18T16:20:00.000-04:00

The Christian Vision: All About Jesus
By Frank A. Squitteri

The Christian Vision is not about a set of dogmas or about a set of pious practices. It is all about a person named Jesus. The Christian Vision is about (1) Jesus' life vision, (2) Jesus' life mission, (3) how he calls us to complete his mission, and (4) how he has empowered us for that mission.
Leave out any one of these four elements and the Christian Vision is incomplete. Omit Jesus' call to us to complete his mission, and a critical part of the Christian Vision is lost. Ignore the fact that Jesus has empowered us for our task, and we are left with an impoverished Church attempting the impossible.
Ultimately, if the Christian Vision is worth anything, it should move us to a dynamic relationship with Jesus. If it doesn't, our understanding of the Christian Vision is incomplete or we are rejecting one of its essential elements.
For isn't that the fundamental spiritual issue each of us faces? How do we transform a figure who lived 2000 years ago into a present day force in our lives? How do we make Jesus come alive? How do we make Jesus religiously compelling and spiritually transformative for ourselves, today, here and now?
In the end, the Christian Vision reveals that Jesus is not frozen in time 2,000 years ago, but is alive today and is the catalyst of a dynamic spiritualization process in our lives. We can have a dynamic relationship with Jesus because Jesus is a dynamic force. But first let us look at the historical Jesus.
Jesus' Life Vision. What was Jesus' life vision? Let us first define what we mean by life vision. Life visions are all about attitudes, our attitudes toward God, self, others, life and reality. Now a key question is what was Jesus' attitude toward God? The answer to that question will determine Jesus' total life vision.
In Jesus Before Christianity, Fr. Albert Nolan, O.P. states: "It is generally agreed that somewhere at the heart of Jesus' mysterious personality there was a unique experience of intimate closeness to God--the Abba experience....we know that the Abba experience was an experience of God as a compassionate Father." As a compassionate Father, God loves all persons.
Here is the important insight. Jesus' solidarity with God created solidarity for him with all humanity. The driving force behind Jesus' life vision was compassion for others. Jesus' God-centeredness impacted all the elements of his life vision, because he saw all through God's eyes.
What Jesus teaches us is that once we enter deeply into solidarity with God, we will become compassionate persons because God is compassion. The move from self-centeredness to God-centeredness is the breakthrough conversion in our life visions, and therefore in our spiritual lives. We see ourselves, others, life, reality in an entirely new light, because we view all through God's global view rather than through our narrow point of view.
Jesus' Life Mission. Jesus' life vision would become his life mission. Fr. Nolan points out, that unlike John the Baptist, Jesus did not feel called to save others by bringing them to a baptism of repentance. Jesus saw his mission as liberating people from every form of suffering--physical, psychological, spiritual, social, and political. Jesus would become God's compassion incarnate.
Jesus would seek to win over all people through compassion. His one and only motive for healing people was compassion, not to prove that he was the Messiah. He mixed socially with society's outcasts, sinners and tax collectors, completely ignoring the scandal he was causing, so that they would know they were accepted by him. He fought the oppression of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious leaders of the times, because they imposed a loveless, burdensome religion on the people.
Fr. Albert Nolan writes: "The kingdom in which Jesus wanted his contemporaries to believe was a kingdom of love and service, a kingdom of human brotherhood and sisterhood in which every person is loved and respected because he or she is a person."
Jesus' Call. In his radical love for us, God sent Jesus to save all humanity. And Jesus calls us to dream the impossible dream of joining him in his mission to liberate people from every form of suffering--physical, psychological, spiritual, social and political. Jesus wanted all people to experience the fullness of their humanity. We are called to make his mission our life vision and our life mission!
Jesus' mission is what we call broadly today "social justice", and is the essential mission for us. Over time, Jesus' mission has expanded to include many missions, among them Christianizing our environments and teaching catechetics. But in whatever mission we are involved, we are called to manifest Jesus' compassion, gifting others with our presence and affirming their giftedness. Our compassion toward others opens them to Jesus' message.
Jesus, Our Brother. Who is it who calls us to complete his mission of saving the whole world? Jesus, our brother. Jesus, though divine, was no make-believe human being. Jesus had to grow in understanding by moving from ignorance to knowledge, from doubt to certainty, from indecisiveness to decision, just as we do. Jesus learned from his Jewish culture as we learn from our culture. Jesus learned from his personal relationships as we do. Jesus learned the way every human learns.
Only when we can sense Jesus' confusion as to where the Spirit was leading him, can we feel at home with our brother Jesus and be open to his call to mission. So many times we read in the Gospels that Jesus left the crowds behind and went off to pray. What he prayed for was guidance.
Further, Jesus was no solitary man. In pious literature, Jesus is presented as self-sufficient, self-reliant. But the Holy Spirit was his tutor every step of the way. He depended on the Holy Spirit as his mentor and guide, just as we have to do. Truly, Jesus became our brother and embraced our human condition, except for sin. For this reason we can relate to Jesus as brother and friend. This is the Jesus who calls us to complete his mission.
Jesus, Our Crucified Lover. In time, our brother Jesus became our Crucified Lover. Jesus' priestly mission came to a shameful, horrific end. How we explain his passion and death can either cloud Jesus' triumph of love for us and weaken our response to his love, or it can transform us into tremendous lovers of Jesus and committed disciples.
For over a thousand years, theologians have been obsessed with the explanation of penal substitution as the rationale for Jesus' death: Jesus stepped into our place and experienced for us God's vindictive justice. Thus, God is a cruel God, even a child abuser. Ultimately, we must conclude that we are dealing with mystery, the mystery of God and evil.
However, Jesus' love for us is not a mystery. St. Augustine asked: "What is the beauty we see in Christ?...The crucified limbs? The pierced side? Or the love? When we hear that he suffered for us, what do we love? The love is 'loved.' He loved us so that we might love him back..."
What St. Augustine is telling us is: Don't focus narrowly on Jesus' suffering which he willingly undertook for us: concentrate on Jesus' love for us. Let us remember that for each of us personally, Jesus in his passion and death took upon himself all of our pains, anxieties, fears, self-hatred, discouragement and all our accumulation of wounds that we bring from our childhood and our childish ways of trying to survive. He did this out of love for each one of us.
It would be helpful to imagine the love life of Jesus as he encountered his agonizing last days. Imagine Jesus going up the mountain with the apostles and being transfigured before setting out on his journey to Jerusalem and certain death. Jesus thinks to himself: "I choose to live for and with those for whom life is one long, desolate corridor with no exit sign. This is the way I'm going... If it means dying for them, I'm going that way, because I heard a voice saying, 'Do something for others'...We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter to me now. Because I have been to the mountaintop...I just want to do God's will...I have seen the promised land... My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."
These are the words of Reverend Martin Luther King who prophesized the end to his life, a life of vision and mission. His words give us only a glimpse into the mind and heart of Jesus, our tremendous lover, the image and mirror of God, the Radical Lover. This is the Jesus who calls us to complete his mission.
Jesus, Our Leader. Jesus assures us: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." Fr. Nolan writes: "Jesus was experienced as the breakthrough in the history of humanity. He transcended everything that had ever been said and done before. He was in every way the ultimate, the last word. He was on a par with God. His word was God's word. His Spirit was God's Spirit. His feelings were God's feelings. What he stood for was exactly the same as what God stood for. No higher estimation was conceivable."
Jesus in his humanity is the physical revelation of the infinite God who is invisible and beyond our comprehension. If Jesus is forgiving, God is forgiving. If Jesus is compassionate, God is compassionate. Jesus is the image of God, the mirror that reflects God in all his reality. This is the kind of leader we have--a brother, a Crucified Lover and the very image of God. This is the Jesus who calls us to complete his mission. Nor does he do so without giving us the power.
Jesus, Our Empowerer. For too long the Church has ignored the meaning and significance of the Resurrection. The Resurrection is not just an historical event. It is not the anti-climax to what took place on Good Friday on Calvary, as it has been treated by the Church.
The Resurrection is all about Jesus' triumph over death and coming into the power of the risen life, and empowering us. If we minimize the Risen Jesus, we minimize the powers Jesus gave us. We are Resurrection People--full of faith in the power of the Risen Jesus, and thus full of hope. The Risen Jesus is the magnificent power broker. With Jesus we can do all things. Let us look at four power sources that the Resurrection opened up to us:
(1) The Risen Jesus sacramentalized the historical Jesus' whole lifetime by transforming his life events and words into a power source. It is as if Jesus' life events rose from the dead with him. Jesus lives here and now with all his life events acting as power sources for us. When we unite ourselves with Jesus' life events in our prayer life, in our spiritual formation and in our evangelization of others, in our suffering, we are empowered by Jesus because his life events live on as sources of power for us. We only need faith in the Risen Jesus.
(2) The Risen Jesus continues his Incarnation on earth through us by incorporating us as members of his Body. And he empowers us with the same powers that the historical Jesus enjoyed--to bring peace, healing and forgiveness to others. When we employ Jesus' powers, we manifest the Risen Jesus within us to the world. The challenge for us is to take possession of Jesus' powers. We have been given the powers. We only need faith in the Risen Jesus.
(3) The Risen Jesus pours out his Spirit on us, constantly empowering us with his Spirit's powers to bring us to self-discovery and to transformation into Jesus' ongoing Incarnation within us. The Spirit is our inner guide and mentor. God carries on a Divine Dialogue with us, making known his will and direction for our lives, and it is the Holy Spirit who confirms within us that we have recognized God's word to us. It is through the Spirit that we gain the courage to complete Jesus' mission. It is through the Spirit that we grow in the discipline of love to be self-giving persons as Jesus was. We only need faith in the Risen Jesus.
(4) The Risen Jesus sacramentalized Christian community and continues to do so. He promised that wherever two or three are gathered in his name, he would be present. Think of Jesus' disciples hiding in the Upper Room behind closed doors. Imagine the Risen Jesus here and now penetrating our communities, and most importantly, penetrating the closed doors of our minds and hearts, opening us up to his Spirit. Imagine Jesus saying to us: "Peace be with you!" and breathing his Spirit upon us. The Risen Jesus continues to empower us through the Spirit in our Christian communities. We only need faith in the Risen Jesus.
Thus far, we have seen how Jesus' solidarity with God who is a compassionate Father created solidarity for him with all humanity. His life vision became his life mission. Further, Jesus invites us to live his life vision, the Christian Vision for us, and to commit to his life mission. Lastly, the Risen Jesus has empowered us to complete his mission to the world.
Embracing the Vision. What remains to be answered is: how do we embrace the Christian Vision? Earlier we said, the Christian Vision is all about a person, a person named Jesus. We live the Christian Vision by embracing Jesus as ardently as we can and as often as we can. Does that mean embracing just the historical Jesus? No, it means embracing the total Jesus--the historical Jesus, the Risen Jesus, and the Jesus who gives us his Spirit. How do we embrace Jesus?
(1) Practice Resurrection. When we embrace Jesus' Resurrection, we embrace Jesus. At every Mass we attend let us rejoice in the rising from the dead of our Crucified Lover who carried our burdens on his cross and celebrate the Risen Jesus coming into his triumph and power--the power he has shared with us. Let us celebrate his ongoing presence among us, his ongoing Incarnation in us, his ongoing transformation of us, his ongoing empowerment of us, his ongoing bringing us into union with all men and women who are the Body of Christ. At the consecration, when the priest holds up the host, let us be aware that we are included in that host as members of Jesus' Body, and let us offer up ourselves as self-gift to Jesus and to our sisters and brothers.
When we are in Christian community, let us remind ourselves that the Risen Jesus is present in our midst, still gifting us with his peace and the Spirit's empowerment as on the first Pentecost.
(2) Practice Union with the historical Jesus. When we embrace Jesus' humanity, we embrace Jesus. Let us be keenly conscious that Jesus' power goes out from him 2000 years later due to his Resurrection. So let us practice union with our brother Jesus. Let us get in touch with Jesus' power in everything we do--in our prayer life, in our spiritual formation, in our evangelization of others.
(3) Practice Pentecost. Our dream of joining Jesus in his mission to save the whole world is the impossible dream unless we have a Higher Power. That Higher Power is the Spirit whom the Risen Jesus continually pours out upon us. So let us practice Pentecost. Let the Spirit become our guide and mentor. Let us pray the Come Holy Spirit prayer daily and many times during the day for the courage to act and lead to complete Jesus' mission, and for the power to love others with a radical love. When we embrace Jesus' Spirit, we embrace Jesus!
(4) Practice Jesus' ongoing Incarnation. When we embrace the Risen Jesus' ongoing Incarnation in us, we embrace Jesus. Let us manifest the Risen Jesus within us. Let us practice being sacraments to others--bringing peace, healing and forgiveness to others as Jesus did. Let us practice being Jesus' compassion to others by gifting people with our presence and affirming their giftedness. Let us practice being communion to others by being bodily present to others with our gestures, tone of voice and our attention to them. Let us practice being channels of faith and hope to others to awaken faith and hope in them.
Embracing Dynamic Jesus. The Christian Vision understood in all its splendor reveals the answer to the fundamental question: how do we move toward a dynamic relationship with Jesus. The short answer is: embrace the total Jesus revealed at the Resurrection.
For the Risen Jesus transformed Jesus' life on earth into a power source. Out of this power source, the Risen Jesus gifts us with his Spirit who empowers us to live lives of radical faith, radical hope and radical love. The historical Jesus has become and is the catalyst of a dynamic living process of spiritual empowerment for us by bringing into play all his dimensions--his humanity, his resurrected life, and his Spirit. We can have a dynamic relationship with Jesus because Jesus is dynamic!

Icon of Blessed Edmund Rice Explanation

2005-11-16T17:23:00.000-05:00

Main panel
A compelling figure, his head enfolded in the Celtic spiral symbolizing divinity/infinity, Edmund is enveloped in the mystery of the Trinity - the Father above him, the Son beside him, the Holy Spirit within him. As in his life, Mary occupies a special place. The many images of the Holy Spirit indicate the influence of the Spirit on him.
Edmund's left hand caresses his daughter while his right is extended to poor and disadvantaged children.
God's power is symbolized by lightning; the Lamb of God and the seven-tongued flame of the gifts of the Holy Spirit are at Edmund's feet.
The background depicts important places and events in Edmunds life and the images at the foot of the icon link him to his Celtic-Christian heritage, rich in apostolic endeavor, spirituality, wisdom and culture.

Left panel, from top
1. The Presentation of Mary, which influenced Edmund greatly. The open Scriptures display a text which touched Edmund deeply.
2. Edmund in prayer before the living God.
3. Edmund, the down-to-earth, practical man, finds Christ in hismission as easily as in the Eucharist.
4. Scenes from the bake house and the gallows are drawn fromEdmund's compassionate response to human need and human tragedy.
5. Edmund transfigured, united with the Trinity, his mission fulfilled, the world he served blessed with his favorite prayer: 'Live,Jesus, in our hearts, forever'.
Right panel, from top
1. The motto of the Jesuits, and of the Presentation Brothers, Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam - To the Greater Glory of God.
2. St Teresa of Avila, with The Interior Castle and her symbols from nature for God and his action in the world.
3. Nano Nagle, carrying a lantern symbolizing her charity. Below her image is the heart of Christ.
4. The family Rosary, led by Edmund's mother, Margaret.
5. Community life, of great significance for Edmund. A window from a monastery on the Aran Islands, symbolizing scholarship.

Welcome

2005-11-16T15:59:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Edmundians’ Blog (web log). We hope that it will enable us to inform you of what is happening among Edmundians and other members of the Edmund Rice Family.

We hope you will enjoy it.