|
The Calling of the First Apostles
Domenico Ghirlandaio 1481 |
 |
Sunday SermonClick here to visit our new page of Sunday Sermons and hear the latest from Saint Vincent's |
 (Please give them a moment or two to download to your PC)
on Relevant Radio
Fr. Gene gets up early in the morning for a conversation about some great quotes for Advent |
 February 1, 2012
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Expediency vs. PrudenceBy Father Eugene Hemrick"I used to be liberal, but now I find myself being conservative and wondering if we are moving ahead far too fast and way beyond our means of being in control of ourselves." This statement was made by a friend who was talking with me about the oil disaster and whether the end justified the means. We definitely need oil. This is certainly a justifiable end, and it needs acting on now. Drilling in the ocean to obtain it is also a justifiable means. Do we then just chalk up the oil disaster as a freak accident and leave it at that, or is it a sign that there is a need for profound wisdom in our accelerating times? President Theodore Roosevelt once said, "No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency." The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. expanded on Roosevelt's idea (Click title to read more) |
Like two sacred bookends, the first reading from Deuteronomy and the Marcan Gospel complement one another. Together, they attest to the truth that God’s promises are always fulfilled. Speaking for God, Moses announced that God would raise up from among the Israelites a prophet who would also speak for God, as he did. “Listen to this prophet,” advised Moses. When the Marcan Jesus began his public ministry in Capernaum’s synagogue, those present sensed that his words were empowered by God. He spoke with such authority that even evil spirits listened and obeyed. In the end, for all his efforts at speaking and living for God, Jesus would be rejected, tortured and put to death. Paul (second reading), who spoke for God in his many letters and through the witness of his life, would also die for his commitment. Through the centuries, God has (Click title to read more) |
Other Sheep
Ron Rolheiser |
Mosquito BitesBy Ron RolheiserWhen grace enters, there is no choice - humans must dance. W.H. Auden wrote those words and, beautiful as they sound, I wish they were true. When grace enters a room we should begin to dance but, sadly, more often than not we let some little thing, some minor mosquito bite, blind us to grace's presence. I say this with sympathy, not cynicism. We all know how mosquitoes can ruin a picnic. Here's an example: You are celebrating your birthday in your back yard, having a picnic with family and friends. The weather is perfect, the sun is warm, the mood is mellow, and everything around and within you is an invitation to be joyful and grateful. This is "Sabbath" in the biblical sense: You are celebrating life, your birthday. You are healthy, surrounded by family and friends who love you, enjoying leisure, time off the wheel of work, all with good food and good drink. Grace has entered and everything is wonderful, except for one thing, mosquitoes. As dusk begins to take hold they discreetly begin to infiltrate, inflicting a bite here and a bite there until eventually most everyone loses his or her focus and is preoccupied with keeping exposed parts of their flesh under vigilance. Eventually most of the good cheer and the gratitude evaporate and irritation at the mosquitoes effectively ends any inclination to dance. The picnic is brought down by a series of little bites! We could all recount a hundred kinds of incidences of this sort. Given the complexity and contingency within our everyday (Click title to read more) |
The Message and the Book: Sacred Texts of the World’s ReligionsAuthor: John BowkerYale University Press. New Haven, Conn. 2012. pp. 406 An Excerpt from the Jacket: Grand in its sweep, this survey of the sacred writings of the major religions of the world offers a thoughtful introduction to the ideas and beliefs upon which great faiths are built. Under the expert guidance of John Bowker, a religious scholar and author of international stature, readers explore the key texts of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Buddist, Parsi, Confucian, Daoist, and Shinto traditions. The author discusses some 400 books, among them such well-known sacred texts as the Bible and the Quran, but also spiritual writings by theologians, philosophers, poets, and others. An Excerpt from the Book: In the year that Aquinas died (1274), a boy nearly nine years old went to a children’s party. He saw a girl there, about a year younger than himself, and fell instantly in love. The boy was Dante Alighieri, the girl was Beatrice. Of that first sight of Beatrice, Dante wrote twenty years later, in La Vita Nuova: She came into my presence at about the beginning of her ninth year when I was almost 10. She appeared dressed in a most noble color, a rich and yet delicate red, tied and adorned in a style well-suited to her tender age. In an instant that vital urgency which dwells at the inner heart of our being made me tremble so violently that I felt it in every pulse, and it cried out, (Click title to read more) |
Guiding principles for finding a job and keeping composure after losing a jobTaken from Finding Work without Losing Heart by Fr. William Byron, S.J.Confucius is supposed to have said, “A fool on a mountain-top can sometimes see more than a wise man in a valley.” Even I was smart enough to notice that you should strive to maintain outside interests and learn new fields while still in the top job. Because I did that, the interval between jobs for me was quite short. Your personal worth transcends the ‘job.” When you wrap things up before departure, do it in the best possible fashion. You’ll feel better, and you will leave on a positive note. Go after what you enjoy most and do best Don’t ever turn a job down until after it is offered Help others when they are in transition; they will likely be there for you when you need their help Let your pride push you rather than hold you back Let your values (as well as your conscience) be your guide Keep balance in your life -- work, family, religion, friends, sports hobby --- so that when one goes ‘pfft!’ there are others to keep you going Never let yourself be isolated; never assume ‘it cannot happen to me’ Don’t attempt a search on your own. Seek out a support group; (Click title to read more) |
Embracing MotherhoodAuthor: Donna-Marie Cooper O’BoyleServant Books. Cincinnati, OH. 2012. pp. 141 An Excerpt from the Jacket: Popular author Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle is back, this time with a book that addresses the vocation of motherhood, with all its joys and challenges. Using personal recollections, stories, Scripture, papal writings, and quotes from the saints, Donna-Marie encourages women to fully embrace their calling as mothers. The book takes an honest look at family planning, raising sons and daughters in our media age, overcoming perfectionism, single parenting, and dealing with the tough issues of today’s families face. An Excerpt from the Book: The Dinner Table “The best and surest way to learn the love of Jesus,” Bl. Teresa of Calcutta said, “is through the family.” In our everyday dealings with the family, we can surely experience the love of Jesus. I am convinced that amazing things happen when families gather at (Click title to read more) |
Catholic Leaders React to Obama Administration DecisionTaken from theNational Catholic Reporter WASHINGTON -- Although Catholic leaders vowed to fight on, the Obama administration has turned down repeated requests from Catholic bishops, hospitals, schools and charitable organizations to revise its religious exemption to the requirement that all health plans cover contraceptives and sterilization free of charge. Instead, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced Jan. 20 that nonprofit groups that do not provide contraceptive coverage because of their religious beliefs will get an additional year "to adapt to this new rule." "This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty," Sebelius said. "I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services." (Click title to read more) |
Finding the 'new' in Vatican newsby John L Allen JrNational Catholic Reporter It's my birthday today, so I guess that means I can cry if I want to. Although I'm not exactly weeping, I do find myself grousing a bit about the way recent Vatican stories have played in most news coverage. It's Journalism 101 that to count as "news," something is supposed to be previously unknown, out of the ordinary, or not widely familiar -- i.e., "new." This is where the contrast between "dog bites man" versus "man bites dog" enters the picture. Yet on two recent storylines out of Rome, we've seen some remarkably "dog bites man" coverage while either playing down or missing what was new. The pope's speech One such case is Pope Benedict XVI's Jan. 9 address to diplomats, generally the pope's top foreign policy speech of the year. Coverage in the English-language media focused on the pontiff's statement that "policies which undermine the family," (Click title to read more) |
Vision and wisdom meet in Occupy support groupBy Joan ChittisterNational Catholic Reporter There's a new group in town that you ought to know about. They just may be the beginning of a bridge between a climate of despair and a vision of new life for us all. It's obvious that social change is in the air again. But thanks to this new group, it may be about to happen differently. Up until now, change at least initially has commonly pitted one part of society against another, Republicans against Democrats, north against south, white against black, the old against the young. In 1922, mainstream types said of the young women who picketed the White House on behalf of women's suffrage, "They're destroying the family." Women who knew their place, "nice" women, turned their faces away from such a disgusting sight, ashamed of females who would act so boldly. "Upstanding" men dragged the women off to prison to force-feed them for wanting to do something as obscene as casting votes. The vote came, of course, as necessary change always does. Eventually, even "nice" women did it; upstanding men accepted it; family life survived it. But nobody learned much. Almost a hundred years later, we're still suspicious of those who dare in every generation to suggest a change in systems that may have served the last era but is argued to be destroying this one. So the temptation if not, in fact, the well-worn strategy is to brush off new social impulses of the next (Click title to read more) |
Seismic shifts reshape US CatholicismTom RobertsNational Catholic Reporter Archbishop Charles Chaput, right, sits with Jack Quindlen during a Jan. 6 news conference to announce that 48 diocesan schools in Philadelphia will close or merge. (Reuters/Mark Blinch) Archbishop Charles Chaput’s announcement Jan. 6 that the Philadelphia archdiocese will be closing schools in record numbers during the coming year (see story [3]) was the latest and loudest rumble in a series of seismic displacements that are permanently reshaping the look of U.S. Catholicism. What is happening in Philadelphia follows the same script, fashioned by demographic shifts and economic need, that has been in use throughout the Northeast and Upper Midwest. The drama may differ in particulars from place to place -- some bishops might accomplish the grim task with more pastoral sensitivity than others, some may involve the larger community more deeply in the decision-making process than others -- but the results are pretty much the same. From Philadelphia to Newark, N.J., New York to Boston, Cleveland to Chicago to Detroit and beyond, the church of the immigrants is going the same route as the old industrial America of our forebears. The huge plants -- churches, schools and parish halls -- markers of another era, like the hulking steel mills and manufacturing plants of old, can no longer be sustained. There aren’t enough Catholics left in those places, not enough priests and nuns and certainly not enough money to maintain the church as it once was. (Click title to read more) |
Chastity As Purity Of Heart And IntentionRon RolheiserTo live a chaste life is not easy, not just for celibates, but for everyone. Even when our actions are all in line, it is still hard to live with a chaste heart, a chaste attitude, and chaste fantasies. Purity of heart and intention is very difficult. Why? Chastity is difficult because we are so incurably sexual in every pore of our being. And that is not a bad thing. It's God's gift. Far from being something dirty and antithetical to our spiritual lives, sexuality is God's great gift, God's holy fire, inside us. And so the longing for consummation is a conscious or inchoate coloring underlying most every action in our lives. And so it is hard to pray for chastity because to pray for it, seemingly, is to pray that sexual yearning and sexual energy should lessen within us or disappear altogether. And who wants to live an asexual and neutered life? No healthy person wants this. Thus, if you are healthy, it is hard to put your heart into praying for chastity because, deep down, nobody wants to be asexual. But the problem is not with chastity but with our understanding of it. To be chaste does not mean that we become asexual (though spirituality has forever struggled to not make that equation). Chastity is not about denying our sexuality but about properly channeling it. To be chaste is to be pure of heart. That's the biblical notion of chastity. Jesus does not ask us to pray for chastity, he asks us to pray for "purity of heart": Blessed are the pure of heart, they shall see God. They also channel (Click title to read more) |
A Search for More Abundant LifeTaken from Say Yes To Life: A Book of Thoughts for Better LivingAuthor: Sidney Greenberg Crown Publishers, Inc. New York. 1982. pp. 150 The Search for More A Abundant Life One of the distinctive, traditional synagogue practices is the public reading of a portion of the Torah, or Pentateuch. This is done no fewer than four times during the ordinary week. Should a Jewish festival occur during the week, the Torah would be read on those days too. The most joyous of all Jewish festivals is Simchat Torah --- “Rejoicing in the Torah.” On that day the reading of Deuteronomy, the last of the Five Books of Moses, is completed: immediately thereafter we begin again the reading of Genesis, the first book of the Torah. Thus the reading of the Torah is never really finished. It continues uninterrupted. (Click title to read more) |
Maintaining Balance Amidst DisillusionmentEugene Hemrick“If this had been done by an enemy I could bear his taunts. If a rival had risen against me, I could hide from him. But it is you, my own companion, my intimate friend! How close was the friendship between us. We walked in harmony in the house of God.” The disillusionment of betrayal by a friend conveyed in Psalm 55 is one of countless ways disillusionment can strike us. British poet John Keats once stated, “There is nothing stable in the world, uproar is your only music.” One glance at the violence happening around the world confirms how true and disillusioning this is. French novelist Gustave Flaubert counsels us, “We shouldn’t touch our idols: the gilt comes off on our hands.” Written in the 1800s, this sage advice is as pertinent now as it was then. When we reflect on (Click title to read more) |
Out of Work and Losing Heart? Here are some tips from a book Fr. William Byron wrote in 1996 that mean more now than then.
by Father William Byron
On Feeling You Are a Failure The metallurgist-turned-entrepreneur explained to members of his support group why he started his own business: “It was better to do something than to slowly die.” His business forecast was modestly confident: “Lots of little seeds get planted and 88 percent of them die; you hope for the other twelve.” Regrettably, this new business seedling also died, so now his hopes are reduced to the remaining eleven possibilities. Tom Peters, of In Search of Excellence fame, had something encouraging to say to this kind of initiative in an interview (Click title to read more) |
|
A Spiritual Reflection for Lent
Taken from: The Saints in Daily Christian LifeRomano GuardiniChilton Books, Philadelphia, 1966. pp. 111 In our day the idea of a Saint appears to be undergoing a new and significant transformation. It seems that the notion of something exceptional or extravagant is no long necessarily involved in the meaning of the word saint. The evidence for this view is multiform, but the best way to approach a complete understanding of it seems to be through the writing of an 18th century spiritual writer, Jean Pierre de Caussade, who wrote books of simple and vigorous meditation intended primarily for religious, but one of interest to the laity too, provided only they make the necessary transpositions. In his main work, entitle, On Abandonment to Divine Providence, a Christian who wishes to become a saint asks the question: What kind of life must I lead? To this Caussade answers: "You must not make any particular plans, but do only what each hour, each minute demands of you. It is God Himself in His Providence who looks out for you. The road to sanctity does not follow a preconceived system of actions and exercises, but travels the very complicated fabric of life itself. Progress in the spiritual life does not consist so much in achievement, in actual accomplishment, as in a greater and greater purity of love with which you do at each moment what the situation demands. Note that you must do what it really demands; not what selfish (Click title to read more) |
(Deacon) Gary and Kay Aitchison live in Ames, Iowa and have 14 grandchildren. Over the years, they have shared with many parents and grandparents through their involvement in the Christian Family Movement.
Every child deserves a grandparent who will love unconditionally, and every grandparent needs the opportunity to love and be loved. While it may not take an entire village to raise a child, it certainly takes a loving family. Grandparents are a crucial ingredient in the family mix. They have a unique connection to their grandchildren and a wealth of gifts, talents and wisdom to share with them. For many families, family life is spinning out of control. Parents are increasingly busy, and family life is more often like a pressure cooker than a warm, bubbly stew. The demands of dual careers and an abundance of outside activities leave far too little parent-child time. Grandparents can make a huge difference to these busy families. Grandchildren and grandparents have a very special connection. The late humorist Sam Levinson once described it by saying, “The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is because they have a common enemy!” Grandparents as Models and MentorsGrandparents have many things to teach their grandchildren, both by their modeling and their mentoring. Having lived(Click title to read more) |
A Haunting EquationRon RolheiserIn her novel, Final Payments, Mary Gordon articulates an equation that has long influenced Christian spirituality, both for good and for bad. Her heroine, Isabel, is a young woman within whom a strong Catholic background, an overly-strict father, and a natural depth of soul conspire together to leave her overly-reticent and overly-reflective, looking at life from the outside, too self-aware and too reflective in general to enter spontaneously into a dance or trust any kind of gaiety One night she goes to a party of college students but almost immediately feels out of place inside the giddiness, youthful bravado, drinking, and dancing. So she falls back into an old habit: "I would look among the faces of the students for a face that I could love. I would look for something original, something attesting in the shape of the chin or the eyes, something that suggested the belief that there was residual pain that could not be touched by legislation. But they all looked so relentlessly happy and healthy that they did not interest me. I realized that I was looking for someone who was sad, and I was angry at myself for making the equation, my father's equation, the Church's equation, between suffering and value." That equation between suffering and value has a long-standing history within spirituality and has strongly influenced us both positively and negatively. It has also, I must confess, generally been my own equation. Like Mary Gordon's Isabel, I too (Click title to read more) |
|
Our inspiration for the National Institute for the Renewal of the Priesthood stems from a longstanding friendship with Father John Klein, a priest of the Our work is made possible in part by grants from the Catholic Church Extension Society, the Paluch Family Foundation and Our Sunday Visitor. We are also grateful for the prayers of the Madonna House. In addition, The Arthur J. Schmitt Foundation has generously provided us with a grant in honor of Monsignor Ken Velo, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago who has been an inspiration to so many for so many years. If there is any way that I can be of service to you, I hope you will take advantage of the link below to send me an email. I would enjoy hearing from you with any comments or questions you may have. Father Gene Hemrick
The National Institute for the Renewal of the Priesthood Washington Theological Union 6896 Laurel Street, Northwest Washington, D.C. Dedicated to energizing the spiritual and intellectual life of the priesthood
through an ongoing dialogue via the Internet. This Web page was created and is maintained by the National Institute for the Renewal of the Priesthood.
Please send comments to Father Hemrick by clicking on his name.  .Last updated February 1, 2012 |
