“Lights, Please?” Amid this longest night of the year – and especially for anyone out there who’s gotten sidetracked by the “holiday” frenzy – let’s all take a minute to breathe, look just ahead, and get ready where it counts most….-30- posted by Rocco Palmo at 19:45
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Christian Campbell reports on William “Doc” Holiday’s diaconal ordinationPosted onDecember 15, 2012by Foolishness This morning I attended the ordination of William “Doc” Holiday, a former Anglican priest and good friend, to the Catholic diaconate. The ordination took place at Incarnation Catholic Church, in Orlando, Florida, formerly the Anglican Cathedral of the Incarnation, for which, as Rector’s Warden, I had the honour of organising the process by which the parish entered the Holy and Apostolic Church via the Personal Ordinariate erected under the auspices of the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum cœtibus
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Christian Campbell reports on William “Doc” Holiday’s diaconal ordination
Browse > Home / In the News / December 12, 2012: FoxNews.com – Catholic League December 12, 2012: FoxNews.comDecember 12, 2012 by admin Filed under In the NewsFoxNews.com, “Holiday message: Atheists dub Jesus a ‘myth’ on Times Square billboard”Written by admin
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Occasionally you come across quite bizarre things as a Chaplain Abroad. You read in the news papers about holiday makers who went off on their holiday of a life time to some far flung place.
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For our weekend in Seattle, we used the CityPASS—a super easy way to save almost 50% on Seattle’s top attractions.
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Written By: Raphael Ma,
“There are too many people who go before God with the pretence of being useful to Him” – St. Thérèse of Lisieux
If you think St. Thérèse’s observation also applies to you, then I wrote this post especially for you. The other day I had to go downtown in a big city to see the doctor. So I got on the train with my parents, and went to Mass at this wonderful chapel on the 3rd floor of a pretty inconspicuous building in the heart of the banking district of that same city. The whole trip brought back memories, since I used to take the same train to get to high school every day, and memories of other times on my way home from university between bus schedules, when I had dropped in that chapel for Mass, or on Fridays when they had all day adoration.
I have always found it difficult to keep my daily routine of prayer while I’m visiting home, and this Easter was no different. So in addition to the holiday “dissipation” – that’s a term some spiritual writers use to describe the “blah” feeling and difficulty focusing that comes from sort trying to do a whole bunch of things and really doing none of them, as in having music playing in the background while working on final exam sample questions while logged into facebook while carrying on a conversation with someone in the same room whom you are supposedly watching TV with… – there was the whole swirl of memories of my travels going on in my head, and so that day I was finding it difficult to concentrate and make my thanksgiving after Communion.
Then I got a little frustrated. I thought to myself – I’m a seminarian! Come on! I should be able to focus for just five minutes to pray!
And then I remembered a similar incident that happened just before Holy Week that I was going to take to confession soon.
It was our last hockey game before the break, and due to some personnel changes, I ended up playing goalie using someone else’s equipment. Even when I normally play goalie, I’m still using someone else’s equipment, but the equipment I used that day was new to me. About halfway through the game, I was letting in a lot of goals, and after one particularly frustrating one got in, I threw down my stick as hard as I could and swore loud enough that my teammates could hear me. I then proceeded in my mind to blame everyone and everything else – it’s because I’m using different equipment, it’s because my defense wasn’t there, etc. – anyone and anything other than myself. I did not want to consider the possibility that I just wasn’t as good in net as I thought.
While walking back to seminary after the game, I reflected– “thank God the stick didn’t break, after all none of the equipment was mine, and I guess I had no right to thrash it in my frustration.” And while I was at it, it was also time to face the truth that I had only been playing goalie since the summer, and I thought I was better than I actually was, and that’s why I was frustrated.
For those of us who try to keep a daily routine of prayer, which is a good thing, I think there comes a time when it begins to feel like a duty I’m doing for God. As irreverent as that sounds, I think the temptation is a real one. We treat it like an impersonal duty, instead of an encounter. We treat it like just another thing on the to-do list, and since we didn’t plan our schedule around our prayer times, we ended up crashing into prayer immediately from some other activity, and continued to think about the last thing we were doing for some, if not the whole time we meant to pray! But what I think underlies that “impersonal duty” attitude towards prayer is the assumption that prayer something we can just do, as if there was a prayer switch in us that we turn on and off at will. Then when we find that we are “performing” below our expectations, we get frustrated.
Not unlike borrowed sports equipment or skills we never really had, prayer doesn’t “belong” to us, like some thing we can amuse ourselves with for a while then put back on the shelf, and get it later, expecting to enjoy the same experience. Prayer is a gift from God. To whom does God give this gift?
The way my schedule works out I end up praying vespers/evening prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours immediately before my daily meditation. That means I end up praying the Magnificat each day before meditation. And the answer to my question struck me later that same day.
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour
for he has looked with favour on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.” [Luke 1:46-55]
___________________________
Suggested Reading:
The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of the Little Flower
The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer
Catholic Living, Prayer, by Catholic Chapter House.
Taken from:
“…He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty…” [Luke 1:46-55]
It’s just begun to snow in Montreal. The snow is falling silently and steadily and sticking to the earth. Suddenly I very much miss Benedict Ambrose.
Travelling to Canada without B.A. feels like a ridiculous bad habit. My solo trips to Poland and Italy are different because there usually I have work to do–or a language to recall–and I need to concentrate. But Canadian trips are solely about larks, and two weeks of larks without my husband are a bit like dancing on crutches. Hopping around on crutches can be fun, but it just isn’t the same thing as dancing with both legs hale and whole.
As I often say to B.A. “It was fun, but everything is more fun when you are there.”
And this is what I am thinking about as snowflakes drift to the earth, as I tap away at my computer on the same kitchen counter on which I tapped a few years ago to tell my spiritual director that, after I came back from my holiday in Scotland, I was going to try my vocation with an enclosed order near Montreal.
Oh, dear. Toronto is one thing, but it seems a very great pity to be in Montreal without B.A.
I will comfort myself with thoughts of our Montreal nephew and niece. Nephew was absolutely delighted with his cousin’s present of a Thomas the Tank Engine whistle. Niece is almost frighteningly advanced for her age, and it is something to see this tiny doll-like under-two person marching around saying, “May. I. Have. A. Crac-ker. PLEASE!!!!”
She can also count to ten in both English and French; when I was her age I apparently refused to say anything at all. And both Nephew and Niece are big “Mary Poppins” fans and, when prompted, burst into “A Spoonful of Sugar.”
It is good to be an aunt. Maybe Aunt should work harder to make money so that she can bring Uncle over next time. (Sigh.)
Update: The girl even has a grasp of catechesis. Nanny, who is carrying Niece, pointed to an icon in the kitchen.
Nanny: Who is that lady?
Niece: That’s Jesus’ mama.
Doting aunt alert.
Credit:
Note: This is a much older post…I’m not sure if I had put it on my blog or not.
I should also note that I am blogging more regularly with my scholastics brothers:
http://www.iboetnonredibo.blogspot.com/
My contributions to that one will be bi-weekly..more than I can say for this current blog.
I’m sure this one will find it’s renewal at some point!!
My semester ended a few weeks ago. It’s been a good one, with it’s own set of challenges.
In my own little way, I have grown in God’s love deeply enough to understand that being loved
by God means being given the strength to renew ourselves, to strive even more towards that perfection that God invites us to. It’s probably something none of us ever will achieve.However, the most important thing I learned a long time ago in my faith journey, is that I have to accept the invitation towards perfection, without ever expecting to reach it. The moment one thinks they have perfection, they fall into the trap of complacency. I’m not free of the poison of complacency myself, but my labors towards building the Kingdom of God on earth move me further and further away from this! This has been the most positive thing of my year…growing in confidence in my own little contribution in helping build God’s kingdom on Earth.
One of the more difficult aspects of my journey that is almost becoming a routine for me considering how often I come back to it, is one rather complex question: How do I live my own vocation as a Brother, ‘seperately’ from the vocation of my scolastic -future priests- brothers/house mates, yet still in complete communion with them? I knew my community of studies would be a difficult place to make some progress in finding an answer to that question, being surrounded by guys who just have a different way of proceeding, and different ambitions than I do. It does become hard for me to be in such a community and to not compare how they approach their work, and how I approach mine. Those who know me well will be groaning at this point and be saying ” are you still comparing yourself to others? When will you let of that?”
Honestly? Probalby never. I mean, put yourselves in my shoes: We haven’t had a brother enter the Society of Jesus in almost 40 years, and the last one that considered entering would have done so with a carpentry background. So there are no more young brothers left, and most brothers in the Society are people that have specific manual skills. Other brothers have followed a similar path of studies in the past, but they’re not really my peers, at least, not in age! So, here I am, trying to help formulate an identity for Brothers in the Society of Jesus of Canada in the 21st century, and being surrounded by priests, older brothers, and future priests. I’ve never been in such a unique position in my entire life. Fr. Doug in Wiky was the first to point to this challenge I had, when he told me that I had no role models in terms of Brothers in Canada. This makes the path even more challenging.
However, from the moment I arrived in Toronto for studies, I realized how well surrounded, well supported I was. How many priests and how many of my peers have confirmed my vocation and its uniqueness by ‘validating’ the way I operate. Some would see the fact that I still need validation once in a while as a sign of weakness, but to me it’s an expression of the human reality that none of us are as strong as we think on our own, and that our true source of power is that which we gather from our community.
So we come back to this sense of communion. My experience of communion and love for God and others deepened these past months, not only within my community, but with the larger communion of Saints that is our Catholic Church. People like Theresa of Lisieux and Bernard Lonergan have been shaping my spiritual and intellectual growth in ways I’m still trying to process. To my surprise, my sense of growth has been accompanied with a deepening of my sense of love of self, and my confidence in the role I can play in the future within the Society of Jesus. The difficulty remains that I still don’t know what that role is necessarily going to be, but as my wise parents once put it, since my Jesuit journey has begun, I have always struggled for a week or 2 with new environments, and have eventually, always found a way to find my niche, and even thrive there. This idea is one of my greatest sources of trust for the coming year. I know I’ll still struggle some more this year, because it’s the struggle that leads me to this path of holiness that I seek to live.
Much more to tell…I’ll probably make a seperate post about my holiday experience!!
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A Capella
A fun song to help us remember what Christmas is about.
The Christmas Rush – LYRICS
I hit the mall, spendin’ dollars.
To show people what they mean to me.
Got trampled trying to find an elmo.
Got pepper sprayed, guess that was free…
They gotta know, that gifts mean love.
I got my Mom MJ’s glove.
And as for pops, a crystal bird house.
It doesn’t really even matter what Christmas about baby.
I bought the fam lots of crap for Christmas,
Forgot who I bought it for yeah.
It won’t be Christmas without presents,
Spending till my card gets sore yeah.
And who knew,
that this holiday could make me so poor yeah.
And who knew,
That i’d almost break my pelvis in a revolving door yeah.
I got my bro some N’Sync earmuffs,
then fought off Britney tryin’ to steal from me.
My sis is gettin’ a brand new loofa,
the jokes on her cause it was free.
This time of year the stores get nuts.
Who knew that meat mitts could cost so much?
I think the Mall Cop just grabbed my butt.
I’m gettin’ kind of sick of this Christmas rush baby.
I bought the fam lots of crap for Christmas,
Forgot who I bought it for yeah.
It won’t be Christmas without presents,
Spending till my card gets sore yeah.
And who knew,
that this holiday could make me so poor yeah.
And who knew,
That i’d knock a granny over face first on the floor yeah.
Feeling sweaty, feeling nervous.
Shopping’s not supposed to make you bleed.
I got a feelin’ there’s more to Christmas.
Then buying stuff that no one needs.
Look around you and find somebody,
who matters more than you can believe.
This is love so spread it around you.
Love’s a gift that all can receive yeah.
I don’t need all this crap for Christmas,
Don’t matter who I buy it for yeah.
It’s still a Christmas without presents.
To me it means so much more yeah.
And wooo,
You can’t buy love from any store yeah.
And wooo, with peace and love you’ll never be poor yeah
And wooo,
You can’t buy love from any store yeah.
And wooo, with peace and love you’ll never be poor yeah
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We will be celebrating Christmas this year on December 25. Same date as last year. Same date as next year. Same date people around the world have been celebrating it for generations, come to think of it.
I was going to let go after my little rant last year, complete with musical accompaniment here. But, then I got to watching the news on our local television station here in London, Ontario. And frankly, I got mildly bothered. You can substitute another word or two if you want, maybe one that is less . . . well . . . mild.
A lot of companies that we have never really heard of, take it upon themselves to issue a commercial greeting during the news this time of year. I lost count of how many lawyers, accountants, purveyors of things we need and other stuff did their thing but it was several. Of that several, more than half wished me and My Dear Wife in the next chair a Happy Holiday. Too bad I can’t remember who they were, since it was coming so hot and heavy. I would gladly communicate to them where I think they should put their Happy Holiday. Think lack of sunshine.
The brave ones who remembered that we would be celebrating Christmas were somewhat outnumbered, but not overcome. In fact, in most instances they had a gaggle of employees, students or friends with them to make sure that we knew they communally were wishing us a Merry Christmas.
As I said I would have let it go. But, a friend from Petrolia, who lives near us in our winter home in Tucson, Norm Sutherland, sent out the following in an email, which he invited us to share with others. It is cute. It is relevant, and it is poignant.
And so, I am sharing it with you in this forum, my blog. Should any of you want the original email, so that you can send it to your friends, relatives, mortal enemies (to whom you wish glad tidings) leave me a comment with your email address, and I will forward the original to you.
We will be making a conscious effort to wish everyone
a Merry Christmas this year …
My way of saying that we are celebrating
the birth Of Jesus Christ.
So, we are asking readers,
if you agree with us,
to please do the same.
And if you’ll pass this on to
your friends, and so on…
maybe we can prevent one more Canadian/American
tradition from being lost in the sea of
“Political Correctness”.
To One and All ! ! ! ! !
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A couple of days ago, the first real snowfall of the year made its way through southern Ontario. At my present location there is a vast open field behind the building, with grass, trees and some flower gardens. As I walked past a rather wide window and looked out on the entire scene covered in a blanket of snow, I just said to myself, “Now it’s Advent!” What did I mean by that? Well certainly there is very much an association with snow in my mind with this time of year, coming from Montreal originally, we know what real snow is. As I reflected further on my own exclamation, there is a good connection between snow and what the season of Advent is really all about. When snow is covering the ground, all of creation is asleep, waiting. Plants and trees are not growing, they are dormant, storing up energy for the spring time when they will bud forth into new life. Advent is about waiting, and it is about not doing. Out in the consumer world, the time leading up to Christmas is about anything but not doing, it’s about endless shopping, and “holiday” parties, to the point where Christmas just becomes an anti-climax, as we collapse exhausted after the pre-Christmas hustle and bustle. Perhaps we can take a clue from God’s creation around us, as it waits calmly, serenely, patiently, and quietly for the coming spring, so we in this holy season of preparation are invited to wait in the quiet of our hearts and homes for the coming of our Saviour. This Advent let’s pull back from the doing, and enter a bit more into the being, the patient and quiet waiting for the springtime of our Saviour’s arrival.
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