Be Thou my Vision

The End

2011-09-22T15:57:00.001-04:00

After consideration, I've opted to discontinue publishing in this blog at least for the near future. Keeping up with it is not on the list of my priorities at this point in my vocational journey as there are other, more important, matter that I feel I need to attend to within my own life and my own vocation. I appreciate all of you who have read this and know of my prayers for you in the future.

Pax et bonum.

QOTD

2011-09-11T20:34:00.000-04:00

From an address by Pope Benedict XVI to seminarians at the Cathedral of Santa Maria la Real de la Almudena. It's worth being quoted at length (emphasis added):

"How should you behave during these years of preparation? First of all, they should be years of interior silence, of unceasing prayer, of constant study and of gradual insertion into the pastoral activity and structures of the Church. A Church which is community and institution, family and mission, the creation of Christ through his Holy Spirit, as well as the result of those of us who shape it through our holiness and our sins. God, who does not hesitate to make of the poor and of sinners his friends and instruments for the redemption of the human race, willed it so. The holiness of the Church is above all the objective holiness of the very person of Christ, of his Gospel and his sacraments, the holiness of that power from on high which enlivens and impels it. We have to be saints so as not to create a contradiction between the sign that we are and the reality that we wish to signify.

Meditate well upon this mystery of the Church, living the years of your formation in deep joy, humbly, clear-mindedly and with radical fidelity to the Gospel, in an affectionate relation to the time spent and the people among whom you live. No one chooses the place or the people to whom he is sent, and every time has its own challenges; but in every age God gives the right grace to face and overcome those challenges with love and realism. That is why, no matter the circumstances in which he finds and however difficult they may be, the priest must grow in all kinds of good works, keeping alive within him the words spoken on his Ordination day, by which he was exhorted to model his life on the mystery of the Lord’s cross.

To be modeled on Christ, dear seminarians, is to be identified ever more closely with him who, for our sake, became servant, priest and victim. To be modeled on him is in fact the task upon which the priest spends his entire life. We already know that it is beyond us and we will not fully succeed but, as St Paul says, we run towards the goal, hoping to reach it (cf. Phil3:12-14)."

Pax.

9/11

2011-09-11T17:06:00.001-04:00

The emotions of this day ten years ago were dominated by fear. I was 12 years old when suddenly war slipped from the periphery into the forefront of my vision as an individual. I am really too young to remember the First Gulf War and subsequent military actions against Iraq, or NATO intervention in Bosnia or the UN and later US intervention in Somalia. I suppose if I had been aware, I might have seen the pieces slowly falling into place for the events of 9/11/01 to come to fruition, the boiling over of hatred could not have been invisible.

I had an appointment this afternoon to meet with the organist and director of music at the Basilica of OLPH in Mission Hill after the 12:30 Mass. I had gone to Mass earlier in the day and arrived a little early, so I slipped into the back of the church and quietly ascended into the choir loft where I watched the rest of the Mass from above. It seems that every year on this day since 9/11 the Mass has been celebrated for a member of the parish, a former Brookline firefighter, who died while offering assistance to the FDNY on that fateful day. While some of the staff at the church were a bit frustrated that yet again this Mass was being done in his honor and yet again his brother eulogized him with the same stories, what moved me was the number of firefighters in attendance at the Mass. It seems as if, even if some have gotten a little bored, there are still people who every year gather together again to remember this man who died trying to do what he thought was right on a day that everyone felt hopeless and vulnerable.

I think that underscores for me the real 'positive' (if I can use that word) side effect of such a tragic event. Around the pain and the suffering, we as people coalesced and became about something more than ourselves. The events of 9/11/01 proved quite firmly that, while man is prone to failure and violence, out of the ashes of his destructive abilities rises a man who is endowed with a kind of hope and love that can only come from God. Ironically, an action of mankind's hatred and fallibility proved most assuredly its goodness and its unwillingness to let evil prevail.

Yet much is still to be learned about how to be about others and not about self. After the tears had been wiped away, the debris cleaned up, the pieces slowly put back together, our fallibility and weakness came to the surface again, we began to fight and to argue and to question and our hope waned. Our thirst for justice became lost somewhere along the way and became confused with vengeance.

We are weak and the events of 9/11 were both a sign of that weakness but also of our strength. May God still permit us to be strong in faith and hope, may He still permit us to be selfless and about others and in that way our goodness can prevail against our weakness and we may all, finally, find true peace in God who through Christ lifts up our nature.

Pax.

A Few Thoughts

2011-09-07T20:09:00.004-04:00

Today I started back at college again after a two-year hiatus. The honest truth is that I was not looking forward to going back to college. I had a good time at Stonehill, but more so for the people I knew and less for the experience in itself. College has multiple sides to it, positive and negative, and I think too often the negative aspects are emphasized as "part of the experience," meaning that one must experience this or one must do this or that in order to say that had an "authentic" college experience.

In truth, college can't be a place of absurd rigidity that does not allow the individual to start making decisions about present and future or that does not allow the individual the opportunity to start to discover an independent identity. When I started college, I was really starting new: no one at Stonehill knew who I was when I arrived and I had the opportunity to create for myself an identity based on whatever I wanted and no one would know any different if my recreated self did not coincide with my past self. In a way, that was a good experience for me because my ability to construct my own identity failed and I found myself friendless and alone, which drew me into the arms of Christ, who would become the foundation for my real identity, one authentically my own and, ironically, one authentically not my own.

But the binge drinking, the drugs, the promiscuity, the lethargy, the arrogance, they all vexed me and still do and the trouble that I find is sometimes these things are encouraged, either blatantly or quietly, because they are "part of the experience."

So being back in college as a friar is unique and different and, admittedly, awkward. I'm 22 years old and I should have graduated last May, meaning that I'm the oldest one in my classes and, being in a habit, I stand out like a sore thumb. Plus now my studies are directed toward the hope of ordination, which realigns how I will go about studying and knowledge. This knowledge isn't being gained for its own sake, but for the sake of Christ who I believe is calling me to be His priest and so whatever knowledge I do gain must be directed back toward Him. If it doesn't help me to understand Him better, then it is useless. But my understanding of my education is no the pervasive or popular opinion in higher education and, while the rhetoric is there, Catholic higher education often falls short of attaining this ideal as even the largest and most proud Catholic institutes of higher learning combat secularism, indifference, and atheism in its ranks.

How it will all play out is still a mystery.

Pax.

Quote of the Day

2011-09-02T21:59:00.001-04:00

"Christ did not promise an easy life. Those who desire comforts have dialed the wrong number. Rather, he shows u the way to great things, the good, toward an authentic life." - Pope Benedict XVI

Transition

2011-08-31T21:06:00.001-04:00

Things are slowly starting to take shape here at the post-novitiate house. I'm singing in the choir for the welcoming liturgy at Emmanuel College on Sunday evening, then I start my part-time courses on Wednesday. The horarium for the semester begins on Tuesday. I'm on the verge of having a ministry site. I've moved into my new bedroom and office, I've unpacked everything, set up my voicemail on my new extension. I haven't made a mess of my room or my office - yet - but they're slowly getting a lived-in feeling.

Transition here to Boston has been far harder than I thought it would be. Since I grew up around here, I imagined that it would be a welcomed and easy homecoming, yet it has been far from either. Novitiate is such a structured environment and as a consequence my life became very structured, which I have the tendency to do anywhere and everywhere I go, and at the end of the novitiate that structure was suddenly pulled away. It was like having the rug pulled out from under my feet and falling ass backwards, getting the wind knocked out of my lungs. What I thought would be a nice, relaxing vacation was actually an exercise in spiritual patience and perseverance. I tried to shake off the laziness and lethargy that gripped my life during those few weeks - and still does to some extent - and all of the negative parasites that such attitudes and behaviors bring. I thought being alone would be good, and to some extent it was, but to a larger extent it was emptying in a bad way; it dug a hole in me that remained raw and open and sore.

The community has only just recently assembled and it is strange coming into a community has preexists me and therefore has its own dynamics and relationships and ways of doing things that are based on a history of which I have had no part. This is the first time in my two years as a Capuchin that this has been the case, since I was a founding member of all of the other local communities of which I have been a part (Brooklyn, Victoria, Pittsburgh). That adds some stress and some awkwardness for me, as I have never been good at engaging new people or new circumstances and even more so that I've always been slow to make friends or build relationships.

Then there's school. Going back after a two year hiatus seems strange, especially now that I'm a friar, and going back with a lightened course load for the first semester is a bit frustrating too. Part of me really just wants to start because I know that I can, but then again, given all that I'm trying deal with in this transition, maybe I can't.

Going back to old and familiar places was a mixed bag, too. Psychologically, I left my hometown at 18 and thus haven't been back in four years, even if I had been back physically before leaving for novitiate. I had, intentionally, disassociated myself with anything and everything to do with that place, alienating myself from those familiar places and all of the bad memories attached to them in order to try to find a new life, a different start where I only had a present and a future, but no past, nothing to be held over my head. My attempts at doing so in college failed miserably, which contributed to my conversion, and in a lot of ways these troubles followed me into religious life. I looked at them extensively through the novitiate year and thought that I was finally ready to make a return to what I had tried to forget, yet going back brought some sense of liberation and yet renewed to a certain extent my slavery to my past.

As well, as I alluded to in a previous post, I'm confronted now with the very dramatic question of how I am to live my religious consecration within the circle of friends and family that I have, some of whom don't understand (or enjoy) the fact that I am a vowed religious.

In many ways, the liberating feeling of professing vows has been tempered by the bitter reality I have confronted since being back "home." Things have changed since I've been away, both in my old life and amongst the friars, and I was away from almost all of the changes and some of them I really don't care for.

In the midst of all of this, though, I need to remind myself of a few things. The first is that I am a child of God and that I have been blessed to participate in the Sacred Mysteries. Participation in the Eucharist is both a unitive and transformative event, one in which I am both united to my God and drawn into the mystery of my Savior's life and thereby transformed by it. I need to remind myself of the confidence I ought have in God, who has brought me safe thus far and who will lead me home. I must also remind myself that the broken road that lies behind me and the uncertain road that lay ahead of me and not meant to be taken away. I can't pray away my past or my future. My life of grace is not meant to make what has been unpleasant or difficult in my life disappear. I am who I am for a reason and God's hand was working in the midst of the turmoil. Somehow all of what is there is meant to be lifted up into God's hands.

Bow humbly under God's mighty hand, s that in due time he may life you high. Cast all your cares on him because he cares for you (1 Peter 5:5b-7). That ought be the motto I live by.

PAX.

Praying for the Pope

2011-08-27T20:07:00.000-04:00

I wasn't a Catholic when Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was installed as the 265th Successor of Saint Peter. I was still a few years away from becoming a Catholic at that point. Because some of my decision to enter the Catholic Church was based on my appreciation for the hierarchy as a means of providing stability and catholicity to teaching, I grew a warm fondness for His Holiness during my time in RCIA.

Shortly after entering the Church, I attempted to read the first installment of Jesus of Nazareth and was totally lost. His writing was far beyond what my capacities intellectually or spiritually were at the time and so, while I managed to read a good portion of the book, most of it was lost on me. I realize that even more so now as I am re-reading this book in order that I might read his new installment (which I am disappointed to see does not contain his exegesis on the infancy narratives as he had suggested in the Forward of the first edition).

Although his writing was at first, and still is to some extent, over my head, I owe a lot to his writing. While a novice, a fellow friar from here in Boston suggested to me that I read On Being a Christian, a collection of four Advent homilies given by the then-Cardinal Ratzinger while he occupied the See of Munich. It is a tiny book, only 90 pages, and I found it on the library shelf at the novitiate and used it as my Advent reading. I found that once I had begun to read it, I could hardly bear to put it down. It followed me out of the chapel as I poured over it, sometimes reading the same part of a particular homily over and over again, each time amazed at the depth and the richness of knowledge offered in it. Reading his works that Advent really reinvigorated my prayer life and set the derailing train of my vocation back on track. His works reminded me so much of why I decided to become a Catholic Christian in the first place, which in turn reminded me of why I became a Capuchin. I had the opportunity to read several other things that the Pope has written during my time in the novitiate and my fondness and respect for him grew all the more.

I say this because it seems like so often he is the target of unnecessary criticism from both inside and outside Catholic circles. Sometimes, I think that the Pope becomes too much of a political figure in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics alike when in reality he is a pastor, a shepherd, a servant. When we politicize his role, we allow him to become a figure of polarity, as a defining point between "conservative" and "liberal" Catholicism and in that way we allow the great symbol of unity that we as Catholics are blessed to have become a symbol of division and disagreement.

To his critics I would suggest they pick up his works, read them, study them, and understand them, because the man who emerges from those pages is not the man I think we can so often perceive him to be but instead a man who is deeply devoted to the Church, her safety, her protection, and most importantly her propagation.

Vivat P.P. Benedictus XVI!

Pax.

Jesus on the Subway

2011-08-25T11:27:00.000-04:00

I can't say how many times I've told my fellow friars or those aspiring to be friars in our Order and our Province that, to get through life, they need to find ways to be edified in daily life. This becomes especially important in fraternity when the brothers are getting on your nerves: it's important to be able to look at your brother and see some good in him and be edified by him, even if his dedication to the life is questionable. But then you have the real world that exists outside of the walls of the friary. From the lofty perch on the inside of a friary window, it is easy to look out on the world in a disdainful way. It's always a danger to get a bit high-and-mighty with our vocation and presume the world is not living up to the right standards.

Although it is fair, I think, to say that the world does not live up the right standards and that it offers only passing and illusory promises of happiness now and forever, we can't cast out the entirety of humanity based on general trends. It is equally important to be edified by those we see in ministry, our families, our friends, or even just passing strangers on the street. In them, we can encounter Christ in ways that we never expected to.

This morning I went for Mass downtown. On my way back to the friary, sitting in the stagnant and stifling air of the subway station, a man began to sing. It was a simple song, one that I'm sure he was making up as he went along, and he strummed the same few chords on his guitar. "Jesus turned the water into wine, oh yes He did," was the chorus, "and news went out from a little Cana town." He went on, "Jesus healed the lame and the sick, oh yes He did." Although his singing seemed to be annoying others gathered at the station waiting for the Forest Hills train, I found his emphasis on the phrase, "Oh yes He did!" to be impressive and almost moving. I could tell he believed what he was singing. As he sang the line, "Jesus healed the lame and the sick, oh yes He did!" an MBTA employee passed by him, gave him a bright smile, and said in a loud and sincere voice, "Oh yes He did!"

Sometimes the great willingness with which the average person expresses and lives their faith in Christ publicly puts me to shame.

Pax.

Religious Life: 2 Years Later

2011-08-24T13:14:00.000-04:00

I was reading one of the blog posts by one of our new postulants about the beginning of orientation in postulancy. I remember how much I disliked the postulancy orientation. As a matter of fact, I thought of leaving all through the orientation. There is so much that needs to be done and said in one's orientation into a religious community. I had never really lived in a community with obligations before. Sure, I lived at home with mom and there were certain expectations, but my freedom far exceeded my obligations. I was flabbergasted and frustrated when we were instructed on how to use a washing machine and a dryer... I knew how to do that!

There is so much that is awkward and uncomfortable about those first few weeks of living in a religious community (and once you're in the Order, the first few weeks of a new assignment are equally uncomfortable). You have to relearn things you thought you knew: yes, you know how to use a washing machine, but do you know how to use it the Capuchin way? I think that for a lot of people, living in a religious community is their first time really living in an intentional community, one in which you follow a deliberate set of rules and obligations that are not imposed from outside but rather arise from within as part of a desire to follow the Gospel. But part of the tension coming in is that no one really ever expects that the Gospel requires so much of you.

If anything, I think that has been the central theme of my religious life from the beginning. It all started with a prompting from God to live the Gospel and really that's what the core of the call is all about, I think, to live out the Gospel in a unique and deliberate way. Yet time and time again I've come up against brick walls in my own life as a Capuchin in which I thought I had done enough, I'd given up enough to live the Gospel, and nothing else needed to be changed. In those moments God always provided the grace to see the difficulty of a given situation, how my response or my attitude was not in line with what He expected of me and that a change must necessarily take place.

I have fought against that tendency toward complacency or stagnation in my Capuchin life and continue to fight against it. Even now there are parts of my life which remain outside of the healing touch of God and which remain sinful, broken, incomplete. Today, as two years ago, I take to heart the words of Pope Benedict XVI who prayed, "May the example of the Apostle St. Bartholomew, who we are commemorating today, help you look with trust to Christ, who is our light in difficulties, our support in trials, and our guide in every moment of life."

Pax.

Two Years

2011-08-23T21:39:00.000-04:00

Today is the feast of Saint Rose of Lima and it marks the two-year anniversary of my entering the Order. At this time two years ago I was unpacking my stuff in the postulancy house. Tonight, I finally unpacked all of my stuff at my new assignment here in Boston after a month of waiting. In some ways the feelings are again the same: a little exhaustion, a little anxiety, a little loneliness, and yet... hopeful, for I know that when I fall to sleep, it is into Christ's arms that I fall and there rest until morning comes, when He will give me the honor and joy of praising and serving Him all over again.

Pax.

East - West Liturgy

2011-08-20T21:00:00.000-04:00

I did an overnight stay at a Maronite Catholic monastery in Petersham, Massachusetts just a couple of days ago. Although all of the members of this monastery, including Father Abbot, are all Roman Rite Catholics, they celebrate all of their liturgies according to the Maronite Rite, including the Divine Office and Mass. I noticed some interesting things about the Eastern liturgy that are very different from the West.

The first is that, while in the post-conciliar West we seem to have tended more toward brevity, in the East they have no fear of long, elaborate liturgies. The hours of the Divine Office last at least twenty minutes as a standard, and I can only imagine that on Holy Days they celebrations are even longer. In the novitiate, the longest we could get Vespers to last was 15 minutes and that was for Solemn Paschal Vespers on Easter Sunday, which included extra singing and a procession to the newly blessed Easter water. Daily Mass is a minimum of an hour, while in the West some priests pride themselves on the 20-minute daily liturgy.

The second is that Eastern liturgy is very supplicatory. This is really the most noticeable difference, I think. In the West, the emphasis post-Vatican II seems to be fellowship, we emphasize the Resurrection and our fraternal bond with Christ, thereby making us children of God. As a result, our prayers tend to be more prayers of praise, adoration, and communion (or unity, if you like). The East is different. While they, too, are a "people of the Resurrection," there is a deeply rooted penitential emphasis in their liturgy. They recognize their sonship with Christ, but in some ways they are still a people waiting and longing, ever conscious of their sinfulness and how that divides them from unity with God. They are at one and the same time aware of Immanuel, of God-is-with-us, and a people still longing for Immanuel, longing for his return. I found this to be subtle, but present in all of their liturgies. For example, the Trisagion (Holy God, holy Mighty One, holy Immortal One, have mercy on us), is sung at every gathering in prayer. As well, when Eucharist is distributed, it is done so with the words: "The Body (Blood) of Christ is given to you for the forgiveness of sins and for eternal life."

The third is that, in the East, there doesn't seem to be that tension between what we in the West might call "the God of the Old Testament" and "the God of the New Testament." The Eastern liturgy is very much like the Pslams, it flows in that particular way, has a lot of repetition, and recognizes this sometimes confusing dual face of God, who is both compassionate and a God of justice. The East seems to capture this duality well in its liturgy, recognizing both the fellowship of God and God's justice for the sinful.

Now if I may offer a little commentary, I would say that the liturgy in the West could learn a lot from the liturgy in the East, and vice-versa. There is really an opportunity for a great enrichment of the Catholic liturgy should the two inform one another. In the West I think sometimes the penitential aspect is under-appreciated or not even present. Sometimes we over-emphasize that we are "people of the Resurrection," forgetting that the Resurrection comes only after the Cross. We are a sinful people always in need of God's reconciling love and to petition for that forgiveness is one of the great blessings of our sonship through Christ - we need not be afraid to recognize our sinfulness and beg for forgiveness because in Christ we know that the truly contrite heart is never spurned by God, who is our Father.

As well - and this is never a popular opinion - our desire for brevity and simplicity in liturgy has in some ways demystified the liturgy. We can take it for granted when it is really one of our greatest gifts. Our liturgy, as then-Cardinal Ratzinger once said, is like a thread that unites earth and the cosmos: in it, our lowly state is exalted in the God who chose to assume our lowliness and God condescends Himself in order to be ever-present. That is where our fellowship comes from, that we share in this upward movement of humanity and this downward movement of God which serves not only to lift us up but draw us into humble adoration of the God who looses nothing in coming among us under the simple form of bread. Our liturgy, for that reason, is not something that need be rushed along or sped through because it takes away from the great dignity of meaning and purpose of liturgy. To be fair, I have always been a "smells and bells" kind of Catholic, and while we can look at such things as "add-ons" they have been a legitimate part of our celebration of Eucharist for hundreds of years. We need not assume that anything old is thus abrogated by virtue of the fact that it predates the Second Vatican Council. I'm not saying restore the old liturgy, but what I am saying is that the current liturgy necessarily needs to be celebrated with the dignity it deserves while respecting the mystery of our covenantal relationship with God. Simplicity is not always the best way to go about liturgy because in my experience simplicity has been more a matter of laziness than a desire to recapture something of ancient Christian worship.

I would say that we need to God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture and in Tradition instead of trying to make Him into what we find more acceptable or likable. The reality is that God has revealed Himself both as a God of love and a God of justice, fire and brimstone mingled with profound closeness and tenderness. I struggle with this at times, but if we only seek to encounter God in the way "we experience Him," then we only see a partial picture and do a disservice to ourselves. If we strive toward union with and in God, we must strive to know who He really is, not just who we think He ought to be. Christ revealed His meekness and humility, but he was also short with his Apostles and with those who approached Him looking for His help. I think in the West we can get too hung up on a image of God that is incomplete and we would do well to accept the fullness of what has been revealed to us through God's messengers in Scripture and let ourselves struggle with that in our prayer and recognize it in our liturgy.

Finally, I think we need to remember that, yes, we are people of the Resurrection, people who rejoice in a risen and glorified Lord, but that that is not the end of the story. We carry on the story line in our time, just as the saints and holy men and women of God carried on the story line in their times. We are people who worship a God who is present, but we also need to pray fervently that He hasten His return so that God's justice can be done and the world might bend the knee to the true master of space and time. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we pray it at every Mass and in the Divine Office and in so many devotional prayers, yet how often we overlook the words. We must seek fervently the Kingdom of God, for while it is present in Christ, the fullness of God's plan will not be revealed until His return. We need to be ever-ready for His coming so that we might not be the ones caught off guard and thereby lose our inheritance. We also need to work fervently for the conversion of souls so that all might be converted and thus be saved. Our liturgy, being the central part of our life, must necessarily reflect who we are, where we have come from, and what our mission is. We can't settle for a liturgy that is anything less than all we can offer. We must offer all that we have to God, who offered all to save us and bring us to life.

Vacation Silence

2011-08-15T13:59:00.000-04:00

Please excuse the silence while I'm in vacation. While I still have thoughts knocking around upstairs, I find myself a bit too lazy to put them down into words or I want to give myself a chance to chew on them more before I share them, since the gestation period for my posts tends to be rather short and it would perhaps be beneficial for all should I stew with them a bit more before posting them, that way they are not random thoughts or knee-jerk responses.

Vacation progresses well enough, although idleness is bad for my soul so I've tried to keep as strict as I can with prayer and I've still managed to keep my usual daily holy hour every day so far. I've managed to spend most of these holy hours before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, which has been a tremendous blessing. I will very much miss the weekly, communal adoration of the Blessed Sacrament we shared in the novitiate year, although I have a promise from another brother that he would join me at least once a week during the semester at Saint Clement's here in the city, which has perpetual adoration.

I'm planning on taking an overnight stay in at a monastery out west, just to step away from the city for a little while and have some time to recollect. One overnight stay may not be enough, but one overnight stay is what I've got, so it's what I'll work with.

Happy Feast of the Assumption.

Pax.

Witness

2011-08-11T21:06:00.000-04:00

After having been away for a year at novitiate, it is sometimes easy for me to take my vocation for granted. What I mean by that is, the novitiate was a contained environment in which the values of Capuchin life were lived out in a very real and specific way each day without justification. We were Capuchin novices, unequivocally, and there was really no need to prove that or justify that to anyone because there was really no one else around. Now, however, when I step outside the door with a habit on and get onto the T as it lurches toward downtown Boston, it seems like I have a lot of justifying to do.

Here in Boston, for every friendly smile or nod of acknowledgment, a habited friar is confronted with at least ten semi-hostile stares, curious gawks, or frown (whether the frown is hostile or curious, I'm not sure) and it seems like everyone is looking for an explanation of who you are and why. Sometimes this gets annoying, especially if I'm just on my way to Mass or to a holy hour at St. Clement's on Boylston, minding my own business and more or less keeping my head down. I'm doing nothing but witnessing to my faith and my vocation, so why does it attract so many stares, glares, frowns, and comments? What about all of the women walking around the city in burkas? Or all of the Orthodox Jews with their kippahs? Beyond that, there is justification to be made to friends and family who are still confused or curious about your vocation; there is the call to be a witness to those others in your life.

As frustrating as it may sometimes be, the reality is that God does not call us to be disciples so that we can just live unnoticed in the world. He is very clear about that in the Gospel. You do not put a lamp under a bushel basket, a light set on a hill cannot be hidden. But learning how to live that discipleship in the world is something I still struggle with. Part of me is still uncomfortable with people so public a witness for fear I won't know the right thing to say when it needs to be said or, worse set, being a poor witness, thereby pushing people away from the Gospel instead of closer to it.

The temptation, on the one hand, is to overcompensate and become an extremely aggressive witness: to be totally unabashed in witnessing in public life. The other extreme is to be so shy and quiet, hoping people might see the little things you do, but not making any attempts at a more noticeable witness. I'll often flip between these two extremes several times in the same subway trip, thinking I came off too strong in one case, then not strong enough in another case. The problem with the first extreme is that it takes people out the consideration: the objective is only your witness and everyone else needs your witness and you don't need theirs. Or, as a local priest put in his homily on the Feast of Saint Lawrence, the tendency is to say, "I'll tell the Gospel. There might be a few dead bodies when I'm done, but I'll tell it."

This comes to me most clearly with what I'll call "old company," people who have been in my life both before and after my conversion and thus before and after my entrance into the Order. I made the decision in the novitiate that I didn't want to do this life "half-assed" (even though Homer Simpson says it's the American way) but that I wanted to live up to the dignity of it to the best of my ability. To do this, there are certain rigors, certain patterns of living and working in the world that I need to hold onto, like the Divine Office, daily Eucharist, time spent with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, etc. But sometimes "old company" can make following through on these personal commitments difficult or, even, impossible. How far is too far when it comes to pushing back and asserting my need for these pillars of my faith and my vocation? Just sticking to my guns might hurt them and thus set a bad example and maybe push them further away from embracing the Gospel, in which case I failed on two counts.

How I spend time with these people in my life is very important because they, more so than the hundreds of total strangers who pass me by on the subway, look to me to be an example or, rather, need me to be an example of the Church and ultimately Jesus. I am their most concrete and immediate access to the Church and, they think, to God. If I am this "divine courier" for them, then I have to show them that I am both prayerful and dedicated to my life of prayer, penance, chastity, austerity, and obedience, and that I'm also compassionate and understanding of their needs, their doubts, and their fears about faith.

Being this person for them is made difficult by the fact that, to them, I'm always going to be the Matthew that I was before my conversion, I'm always going to be their best memory of me and thus I can never become anything different. For some, dedication to prayer is obsessive compulsive piety. For others, dedication to the Church and her teachings is blind obedience. In these cases I can't win, but just the same I need to be the best witness I can be to them and for them because I may be the one vehicle through which God can work in their lives and that is a mighty responsibility and my Christian obligation.

So I haven't figured it out yet, I'm just musing, thinking, praying... that's all I can do really. I know that I need to have no fear to be a Catholic Christian and a Capuchin publicly. I professed my vows publicly, I wear an outward symbol of their profession and I am not ashamed or embarrassed by it. Having trust and confidence in Christ is what must be at the core of my witness for in that trust I will know that God will work and He sees fit, that I am merely one vehicle among many through which God reaches out to His lost sheep to bring them back into the one fold and that, although I must take my public actions very seriously, I must never think that the entire fate of God's plan rests on my shoulders because God is bigger than me. I can only be me as He allows but even in my weakness He will work. The saints were nothing but ordinary people who so trusted God that they became extraordinary and their continued witness to holiness is an example for us. May they pray for me as I seek to understand how to be a public witness to God and His holy church.

Pax.

Profession II

2011-07-31T11:16:00.000-04:00

The habit of probation that Capuchin novices wear in the United States consists of a complete First Order habit (meaning it has a hood), with a strip of fabric about as wide as the shoulders worn underneath the cowl that extends down to the cord in the front and the back called a caperone. When a novice makes his profession, the caperone is removed, thereby ceremonially investing him in the habit of the Order.

The caperone is a pain to wear. Mine was a bit longer than necessary and so it often would fall into the sink while I was washing dishes after dinner or plop squarely into the mashed potatoes during the evening meal. It would get caught up in the breeze and blow into your face and whenever you went out with professed friars (who were obviously not wearing the caperone) everyone saw the caperone and assumed that you were a member of another Order. I used to keep the front end of my caperone tucked into my cord so that it wouldn't fall in my food or in the dish water or in any other unpleasant places.

Pain though it is to wear, one gets accustomed to wearing it. It has its advantages, after all, because if you spill your soup down the front of your habit during a meal, the caperone prevents the habit itself from getting dirty. It can be a convenient hand towel to dry off your hands if there are no towels around. You can hide your hands behind it in the cold, keeping them just a little bit warmer.

This morning I woke up to go to Mass with two of my new housemates and when I went to put on my habit I instinctively reached up to adjust the caperone, which often was crooked after I put my habit on in the morning. It was then that I remembered yesterday....

The vows Mass was wonderful, albeit very hot. I was very proud of my mom, who proclaimed the first reading, and of my other family members for the level of respect they showed for the whole proceedings. I wasn't nervous (honestly!) until the procession began to form at the door of the church and the musicians began to gather themselves together. Then the organist struck the first chord and the first strains of the hymn began and the procession lurched forward. Then the nervousness kicked in. But I kept my cool and professed my vows as calmly as I was able.

My head is still spinning about the whole affair. I guess part of me thought that the skies would open up and a new revelation of God's glory would appear to me after I professed my vows, but, obviously, they didn't.

The truth is, though, is no matter how fast my head is spinning, I'm happy. Saying that means more than it might seem, not just because of my life before my conversion or even before entering the Order, but because what I mean by happiness is different than it ever has been. When I was growing up, happiness was defined by being everything I was not: I couldn't be happy as I was because what I was was undesirable and not good. I was no good, my place in life and the social hierarchy was not good. I could only be happy if I was different. I sought to be like the people I saw in movies or on TV.

My profession didn't open up the heavens, I didn't fall into ecstasy or see visions of the Blessed Mother or Francis, in many ways I stayed the same. My profession didn't change my tendency to be uncharitable, judgmental, or bossy, but what it did do was prove to me and to the world that God is love and that God works through broken, earthen vessels to make his glory known. My happiness comes from conforming myself to Christ, it comes from being more like Him and now I've promised to dedicate my life to being more like Him.

Thanks to be God who has called me to this grace. It is my sincere prayer that He who has begun His good work in me can bring it to its fulfillment.

(more to come...)

Pax.

Profession

2011-07-30T20:06:00.002-04:00

I made my profession of vows this morning. My head is still spinning. More later, but in the meantime I'm back in Boston.

Peace and all blessing,
Br. Matthew A. G., OFM Cap.

Vows Tomorrow

2011-07-29T15:22:00.000-04:00

We ran through our last rehearsal for vows today with Fr. Moe, who will be our Master of Ceremonies. I signed the paperwork stating that I was making the decision for vows willingly while in the presence of three witnesses, as per the regulations, and a host of other paperwork is left to be signed tomorrow. My dad and his side of the family came by today to see the church and I will see them again tomorrow. My mom is leaving in the morning to get down here for the Mass. My pastor from Ashland is coming to concelebrate. Friars are coming from across the Province. The big day looms near.

It's been a long, strange journey to this point, yet the irony is that it has also gone very quickly. It seems like not so long ago I was standing outside of the church, waiting to proclaim my faith in the holy Catholic Church. Tomorrow I'll stand at the entrance to a church again, this time in different garb, to again proclaim with the fullness of my being that God is real and He loves us and that it is my mission, my vocation, to live in close proximity to Him to proclaim His love and his truth throughout a world ready to turn its back on Him.

It's more than I can really fathom. I'm excited, but nervous; confident, yet doubtful; hopeful, yet anxious. Familiar faces have gone, familiar places are nothing but a memory: my world is filled with what is new and different, which is at one and the same time exciting and terrifying. I stand at the threshold and on the other side of the door is the road to Calvary and behind me is the way to destruction and misery. The road to Calvary is a road to joy, but not always a road of joy. The pain and suffering is there - just as constant a companion as Christ. But in the midst of that joy is found, peace is found, and I go on. Sometimes when the going gets really tough I want to turn back, but behind me is far more pain that I can imagine and I will never find my way home. I'm setting out on the the homeward journey. Home is a long way away, but my faith in Jesus tells me that there is a home waiting there and He wants to walk with me there and when we get there He wants to go in, sit, and share Himself fully with me.

Tomorrow is the day. Pray for me.

St. Bonaventure, bishop and Doctor, pray for me.
St. Michael the Archangel, valiant warrior of God, pray for me.
St. Francis, humble and poor brother, pray for me.
St. Clare, brave and noble lover of poverty and prayer, pray for me.
St. Fidelis of Sigmarigen, noble defender of the faith and Protomartyr for the Order, pray for me.
O most holy and blessed Virgin Mother, my protectress and patroness of the Order of Lesser Brothers, pray for me.
O most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me.
All you, most holy and noble saints who have paved the way of perfection, intercede for me before the throne of Almighty God that He may smile on me and guide me.

The Tappan Zee Bridge Pledge

2011-07-25T20:31:00.000-04:00

I needed to get out of the friary today. My soul is somewhere between restless and content, anxious and calm, and having been cooped up with the senior friars for the past week had been just about enough, so I took a drive up to Nyack to take a walk around the very large mall they have there. As I was crossing over the Tappan Zee Bridge, catching quick glimpses of the NYC skyline to the south down the Hudson while trying my best to keep from swerving into the other lane, I was reminded of something.

When I was a candidate, I had crossed this same bridge with my current classmate. We were on our way up the Palisades toward Perkins Memorial Drive. We were both getting ready to enter in a few months and I was a little bit anxious and upset about some things that I had seen in the community. My candidate's world was shattered when I realized that the friars weren't the perfect men I thought that they were. In fact, they were rather imperfect. There were some interpersonal difficulties playing out in one of the friaries that I frequented and I became distressed at the way some of the brothers were treating each other, most specifically I was distressed about the gossip and the backbiting I saw going on.

I didn't really know the context of the argument, so for all I knew either side could have been justified in their feelings (although probably not their behavior). I expressed this to my classmate and he agreed with me and the two of us, as we crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge, pledged that we wouldn't be like that - we wouldn't give into the lure of gossip or slander. We were going to be different... or so we thought.

The truth is, I didn't keep that pledge. As a matter of fact, this year I broke it many times. I got very caught up in needless drama, slander, gossip, and the whole lot of bad community behavior. Somehow the struggles of living with these other men made my heart bitter and made me forget the pledge that I had made two years before, that I was going to be different.

The truth is, it is very hard to live the religious life and be human, at least for someone as scrupulous and self-depricating as me. You see the ideal, you try to work toward it, but when you fail, you fall into a spiral of dislike for yourself, which turns into dislike of other for putting you in that situation, which makes negative behavior easier and easier. The feast of Saint James makes this all the more clear as the scripture readings from today's Mass underscore the deep humanity of the Apostles.

I've yet to discover the key that turns off my inclination toward self-deprication and scruplocity, but I think the best way to "be different" is experience. What I mean by that is, as someone who both gossiped and was gossiped about over the past year, I've learned the pain that gossip can inflict in another individual, pain that I myself experienced and wouldn't want another to have to experience. This makes it easier not to gossip. As someone who slandered and who was slandered, I can say that it is a painful experience to be talked down to, to be broken down by another, so why should I want to do the same thing to another? I guess in many ways my life history has made this realization bear more fruit, but I need to continue to be open to experiencing pain and thereby allowing those tendencies in me that would place that pain into the heart of another to drown in a tide of grace and love flowing from the Heart of Jesus.

Pax.

The Paradox of Brotherhood

2011-07-20T19:17:00.000-04:00

Our eldest friar is Fr. Walter, who has been a friar for 80 years. Up until recently, he had been walking on his own but is now mostly confined to his bed and his wheelchair. He was brought down for dinner a little late this evening and all of the friars who normally sit with him had finished and cleaned up their places, so I decided to go over and sit with him while he ate so that he didn't need to eat alone.It's a bit overly sacren, I suppose, one of the youngest friars in the Province surrendering his evening to sit with an old man, but I do think that this is part of the reason why our formation leadership has chosen to send us here instead of having us stay in Boston until Profession.

One of the things that came to mind while I was eating with Fr. Walter is that friars are a paradox. I've known this for a while, but it comes back to me now on the verge of Profession as something unique and terrifying about taking plunge into consecrated life. When I was a candidate I was scandalized and a little disappointed by some of the behavior I saw among the friars - in particular the way that some of them treated one another - and it cast doubt into my idealistic mind over whether or not I really had a future among these men. While on the one had, the friars are the kindest, most welcoming, and most dedicated men I have ever met, but on the other hand they are, at times, rude, bitter, vindictive, or lazy. I've long tried to find a bridge between my idealism and the reality in which I live and I think my ability to build that bridge was even moreso limited by the novitiate in the sense that the novitiate gave me plenty of time to absorb ideals and, to a certain extent, let them bloat my ego and vanity.

I can't say that I know what it means to be a friar, I'm only in the Province for two years, only one year in the habit, and I still haven't even put on the training wheels of Simple Profession. But formation is all about ideals, about how one ought to live as a Capuchin Friar Minor, but even these ideals change from Province to Province or from provincial to provincial, depending on this seemingly unique competition of ideals in North American religious life (perhaps this debate exists elsewhere too, but it is always particularly acute for Franciscans). Different men came in a different times under different formation structures and so who am I to fault them on how they live their life if that is how they were formed to live as friars? On my own part, I struggle to say that ideals are subjective and sometimes I think the ideals of formation really ought to be the collective ideals of the religious community of which I'm a part.

The best explanation I can find is that we're men. I don't just mean that in the narrow sense of gender that is tied to that word, but in the broader sense too: we're male and we're human and each of these traits carry a certain amount of weight with them. As men, we're oftentimes competitive, we can be insensitive or unwilling to share in any more than a superificial way, and we can be a bit rough on each other. As humans, we're caught up in the tangle of original sin and the ebbs and flows of human living that make our earthly pilgrimage at once a delight and a nightmare. As humans we get caught up in emotions, self-interest, survival, and the questions of meaning that humanity has always searched for. I can't say that I don't struggle with any of the aforementioned vices: I can be competitive, as much as I struggle to avoid it, I can be closed off, I can be rough or insensitive to others, I can be selfish, and I can be any host of other things that come part and parcel with being a creature.

Our life as brothers together is a paradox in that we're called to live the Gospel more profoundly and while in some ways we do, in other ways we just go with the flow and fall short of our obligations. It's a paradox in that we're called to be light for the world and salt for the earth and yet we can't even be kind to one another or bear the Christ light to our brothers in their hours of distress or darkness. We are called to keep our eyes on Christ and we usually keep one eye on Him while the other is checking the score of the Red Sox/Yankees game (we are the New York/New England Province after all...). But Christ Himself is a bit of a paradox: He was fully human yet fully divine, He was King of the Universe yet He was a lowly carpenter, He is exalted ruler in heaven and yet we so often find Him hanging from the Cross.

Christ assumed into Himself the entirety of the Law and the Prophets, He has become our model for living and serving and being. Imitating Christ, then, is how we imitate God. While we as brother strive toward that, we can't help but be caught in the mire of earthly living. Contrary to popular opinion, we're not unlike the people in the pews - even though we're called to do something extraordinary with our lives, we ourselves remain utterly and hopelessly ordinary. Yet that's the beauty of it all, isn't it?

I think sometimes these struggles with ideals are more of a blow to my ego than a blow to my faith or my confidence in my vocation or my brothers. I want to be right. The hardest part about not wanting to be right is dealing with the fact that what you believe isn't bad or inaccurate, it's just not always possible. I believe it's good to be humble, but for some brothers that doesn't come easy. I believe it's good to be poor, yet some brothers are caught by the luster of mammon. Ultimately, that's why we do it together. If we tried this on our own, we'd foul the whole business up far more than we do already. We exist as companions to one another on the journey into God and we exist as servants and companions to the world, that they might join us and the countless numbers of holy men and women who proceeded us. The path is narrow and trecherous, filled with temptations and opportunities to fall or turn back, but somewhere deep down all of us friars know that that just isn't possible. Life doesn't work that way. We've put our hands to the plow and even though some brothers are stuck in the mud, I don't think they are turning back. Yet it is not for me to stand idly by, watching and criticizing my brother for being stuck in the mud. No, rather it is my place to stoop down into the thick of that mud and guide him forward. Only then will I be able to move foward too.

---

Some housekeeping news: I'm at the senior friary in Yonkers, NY, waiting for Profession on the 30th, which will be held here in Yonkers are our parish. The weather is dismal - hot and humid - and I pray that it will be cooler by next week because the church is a furance. (I reminded my uncle when I spoke to him yesterday and he started to complain about being too hot in the church that, for all that he would be suffereing, I would be twice as hot as he in my habit and the priest brothers will be four times as hot in their habits and vestments). Fr. Guardian is out watering the garden, for the rain has been very infrequent here as it has been in the rest of the country.

Thus far I've occupied myself with prayer, reading, and playing the pipe organ in the choir loft. I sweat off 10 to 15 pounds just sitting up at the bench and I usually play until the sweat runs into my eyes and makes seeing the notes impossible. The friary is, fortunately, air conditioned (I'm being spoiled by air conditioning... every friary I've lived in has had air conditioning) and so finding relief is relatively easy.

Vows day could not get here any sooner - I'm ready to make them!

---

Pax.

Boston

2011-07-17T14:49:00.000-04:00

Today I heard Reggaeton music for the first time in 14 months.

I went to Mass at Holy Cross Cathedral this morning. The woman who played the organ grew up in my hometown and teaches at my former college. Very small world, isn't it? After Mass I bumped into a Franciscan Friar of the Atonement who I had met while discerning who still lives at the Atonement Friar's friary in Brockton, MA, near my former college.

It's good to be back in Boston, albeit for a short time, but it's hot and humid as anything here!

Pax.

A Capuchin Birthday Celebration

2011-07-13T20:48:00.000-04:00

My 22nd birthday is on Saturday, but since the novitiate ends that day, the community decided to celebrate by birthday this evening. The story is too funny to keep to myself, hence I'm breaking the silence and hogging a little extra computer time.

One of our priest friars recently celebrated his going-away party at a local parish, as he will be travelling to the new novitate in California. He returned home from the party with a very large sheet cake. Another brother here, from Milwaukee, had his birthday on Sunday. For his birthday cake, he received half of a sheet cake, while the other half - conspicuously - remained in the fridge in the pantry downstairs.

Lo and behold, that cake was brought up tonight, but with far less fanfare than the first time. I already knew it was coming (since I go to that fridge every morning to restock our milk supplies before breakfast) and they all knew that I knew, so it was sitting out on the table covered in plastic wrap and sitting on a cookie sheet. The novice master lit the several year-old candles with his cigarette lighter why my formation director (and music instructor) lead the community in a rendition of a song he had written for my "fake birthday" called "It's Not Your Birthday,"sung to the tune of "Happy Birthday." The card they got me played the music for the Chicken Dance when you opened it.

Classic. It doesn't get much more Capuchin than that!

Pax.

2011-07-11T06:46:00.002-04:00

Yesterday began the last week of novitiate. Pray for us. I leave for Boston on Saturday.

Nota Bene

2011-07-02T18:37:00.002-04:00

I'm back from retreat. This page will fall rather silent over the next couple of weeks as the novitiate program wraps up. Our computers are being shipped to the new novitiate in California, so I'll spare my blogging until I return to the Province on July 16th. In the meantime, pray for me.

Pax.

Reflecting on the Novitiate (Part 2)

2011-06-25T20:21:00.001-04:00

When I was a teenager I can remember the million different ridiculous things that I did to try to impress girls. They often ended in failure or humiliation, such as when I tried to impress one who came into the store I worked at and I tried to show off by lifting up a heavy box and carrying it off to the back room (even though the box didn't need to be moved), but the box turned out to be heavier than I thought it would be, so I couldn't lift it up and in my struggle to try to pull it off the ground, I passed gas very audibly. Thereafter I shrank into the back room until she left the store.

There were other attempts that were a little more successful. There was a girl named Lauren in my high school class who, by my teen-aged estimation, was the most beautiful girl on the face of the planet and therefore she was an object of great affection for me. I did everything I could to try to get her attention and/or impress her in the hopes that she might suddenly dash into my arms as if she had been waiting for me her whole life (it may have been only a nerd's hope...). I slipped anonymous notes into her locker, which actually didn't help me any because she had no idea who was writing these things and for all she knew it could have been the boy she actually had a crush on. At any rate, I came close to asking her out but I never did, although some days I wondered if my chances were really as poor as I thought they were. Every once in a while she would smile at me and it would make me think that maybe I had missed an opportunity.

Then I met my high school girlfriend. I did the same stupid things to try to impress her, make her laugh, and/or get her attention. This time around I was successful in winning her affections. I've noticed that in this, and other relationships I've had, there is always a progression of love and affection. It starts with these little silly things that I did to try to get her attention, to try to prove I loved her and had more to offer to her than did the other guys. Sometimes these actions become a little ridiculous in their complexity. But there comes a point in the relationship in which all of that seems to fade away. I can remember one moment in my life that illustrates this well. I'll always remember it because it was one of the moments in my life where I think, for the first time, I experienced the love of another person. My high school girlfriend and I had gone to a party together at a friend's house during the summer. I was getting ready to leave and head back home and she walked with me to my car. We stood by the car for some time, not talking. She had her head resting against my shoulder and one arm wrapped around mine. I caught sight of her looking up at me (she was a bit shorter than I was) and in that moment it seemed like we both knew exactly what the other was thinking and no words were really necessary, we could just stand there quietly and that would be all we would need.

I think that my relationship with God has worked in a similar way. At first it was the flutter of the heart, that quick glace that set my heart thumbing in my chest. Then started the little notes, the little smiles and other signs of affection. At first, of course, I wasn't all that ready to commit, I just had the crush - something more than friends but not a relationship. Even after the relationship had been firmly established in my Reception into the Church (and had been since my baptism, too), when everything seemed to be working well, I would still do those little extra devotions to try to get His attention.

By devotions, of course, I don't mean the Rosary or devotions to saints. No, I'm talking about those little things like a couple of extra genuflections, a few extra Signs of the Cross, more kneeling, etc, those things that go above and beyond what is required or even asked for. I think that, with my piety on overdrive, these things did not necessarily have a deeper meaning to them, they were just outward signs to try to "show off" to my God, to try to show Him how much I loved Him.

But throughout this year I've found that I wasn't as faithful to God as I thought I was being. I reached a point in which all of these little devotions fell apart. I stopped doing them and I didn't know why - they weren't important... I didn't need to do those things to prove I loved God! But - what was I doing to prove that love? Certainly my actions weren't showing love to Him or to my brothers. Certainly my prayer was not showing it either, I was just doing what was required and not much more, but thinking myself equally as pious as before or equally as connected to Him.

This was a slow realization, but kind of a painful one. Enter one of the heroes of my novitiate, a Brother from back home, who encouraged me to read the then-Cardinal Ratzinger's book "On Being Christian" for Advent, which reinvigorated my prayer life and gave me a good shot in the arm. But then came the fade - again I was drifting away and flirting with other gods who didn't love me the way that He does. Enter Brother Hero again. I've decided to pray for an extra hour every day... why don't you join me? I guess I could do that... right?

My relationship with God isn't perfect, just like my relationships with women have never been perfect. That moment at the car with my high school girlfriend was just one moment in a long series of moments, not all of which were my best or proudest moments. Some of them were bitter or, in retrospect, shameful on my part. That doesn't just go for my relationship with her, but my relationships with other women in which I did not always conduct myself with the greatest respect or dignity toward the other. Yet I've found myself being able to settle into those moments like that one at the car with God. I don't need to speak. In fact, speaking just ruins the moment. The devotions are necessary, but I do them anyway because I want to. He comes to me and we rest together and I think that my heart and my soul could just burst into millions of tiny pieces. The world fades away and silence reigns deep and profound.

But like that moment at the car, these moments too pass and I find myself back in reality. But these moments provide encouragement for me to be more faithful, to be stronger in my faith and to live it in action as well as in word. They remind me of a love far beyond anything the world can know on its own. They remind me of who the real master of my world and my vocation is and that if I ever hope to be a better man, a better Christian, a better Capuchin, then I have only to look on Him and wait patiently, for it is good to wait in silence for the justice of the Lord. I can't hope to dedicate my life to God unless my soul is intimately "plugged in" to that current of life and of love that flows forth from the source and summit of all creation, the Word made flesh.

Pax.

Reflecting on the Novitiate (Part 1)

2011-06-22T21:03:00.000-04:00

The novitiate will be winding down very quickly over the next couple of weeks. Next week we will be on retreat in Maryland, followed by two weeks of packing and cleaning. The novitiate here in Pittsburgh is closing and the program is moving to California, which means we novices have the joy of packing up all of the novitiate things (that is, all of those items that will not be used by the community of professed friars who will move in behind us to establish a new community) into a large travelling crate and sending it to California.

It's hard to believe, actually, that the year is about over. I got my official acceptance letter for vows from the Provincial today, even though I had heard last week by phone I had been accepted. It's puts the finality of the year into place. It reminds me of the two other letters that I have received from the Provincial over the past three years: first the acceptance to postulancy and the acceptance to novitiate. There is always such great expectation and anticipation in receiving these letters since it brings the prospects of a new life, a new beginning, along with them.

Novitiate has been quite the experience, both positive and negative. I think the rhythm of the novice's life allows him to live the spiritual life in a more profound way, and therefore in a more painful way. The ebbs and flows of the spiritual life seem to be felt more sharply than they might otherwise - that feeling of absence that so characterizes periods of dryness or darkness becomes very strong, but likewise the feeling of God's proximity overflows from the heart. It can be a very intense way of living indeed, but, as with all things, there are pitfalls.

There is a tree here on the novitiate property that illustrates my point, I think. It stands tall next to the dorm building where my bedroom is but it grows in an odd way. Half of the tree is dead, the mangled, dry, and brittle branches hang by a thread among fresh, green, and springy branches. In the midst of life, there can also be death. The novice is not just open more profoundly to the realities of the spiritual life but he is also opened up more profoundly to his weaknesses and to the Enemy. Standing at the gates of the heart are two choices, one is life the other is death, and sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. Taking time to relax instead of participating in the manual labor of the community can sometimes seem like a good - and indeed sometimes it is - but at other times our laziness grips our hearts and embitters us and keeps us from working. The world may seem far away, but the temptations of the world are still very real, all the more so since the novice is so often confined to the novitiate property. So you say let the novices go out more - that will solve the problem, won't it? That is the paradox: leaving the property does give the novice a sense of normalcy and a sense of place within the ranks of the ordinary and the everyday of 21st century America, which is necessary and healing, but it can become an abuse that opens the doors of the soul to greater evils.

But this of course is not just the reality of the novice, this is the reality the Capuchin! And not just the Capuchin, but the Christian! The life of a Christian is one that begins in darkness but ends in light as we strive forward to God's upward calling in Christ. In the midst of the darkness it is easy to get discouraged, but we must not, we must strive onward and never forget we are not of this world, it is not our home, and so what it has to offer can't take the place of Christ.

I think being a novice has reminded me of what my soul felt at the beginning - that spark of hope and fear that kindles of a fire in the soul and grows with time, with patience, and with love. Like any good fire, it does not just give warmth or light to me, but to all in need of it.

Pax.

2011-06-17T15:52:00.000-04:00

I saw an ad for a Christian fellowship church of some kind hanging in the break room at ministry today. Among many of the tag lines on it that were meant to grab attention were the following:

"First 40 people through the door get a FREE t-shirt"

and

"FREE gas card for the first 20 first time visitors"

Talk about buying your congregation!

Accepted

2011-06-16T15:04:00.000-04:00

I found out last night that I'd been accepted to make first vows with the Capuchin Order in July. It was an exciting bit of news. The news coincided with an end of day of celebration for the life of Br. James Townsend, OFM Cap, a Capuchin brother and a member of our community here at the novitiate. He had been very ill for some time, at least a few months, and finally passed to his eternal reward last Thursday and was buried in the friars plot in Herman, Pennsylvania.

Hopefully, this is a good sign for me. Brother Jim was a saintly friar indeed, passing from prison to paradise. At a young age he had been abused, cycled through many reforms schools, juvenile detention facilities, and orphanages before finally, at the age of 20, he received a life sentence at Western Penitentiary in Pennsylvania for shooting and killing his six-month pregnant wife. Yet even with such dark beginnings, Jim is an exemplary model of holiness and the virtue of Christian forgiveness. His embracing of God's forgiveness for his past lead him to embrace the Capuchin life, which he embraced whole-heartedly and devotedly and in which he excelled truly to the heights of sanctity. I joked with the other friars after the committal that I should have brought my spare caperone (part of the novice's habit of probation) and rubbed it across his casket so as to have a source for relics.

Jim found comfort, consolation, and acceptance among the friars and I give the friars of his Province tremendous credit for embracing the man, regardless of his past, and truly letting him become one of them. Although my past is not nearly as tumultuous and Jim's was, I never once set foot in a juvenile prison or any corrections facility, sometimes I wondered what would happen to me. Now, in hindsight, I wonder how I survived the whole ordeal. I wonder how I ever ended up on the path I'm on and I find myself amazed that I ever found a group of people who could accept me as I was and let me be a brother among them.

One of the friars told me, after hearing the news of my acceptance, that he (and perhaps others) climbed up into the choir loft of Our Lady of Sorrows church, our parish on Pitt Street in Manhattan, and rang the two bells, (Saint) Bonaventure and (Saint) Michael (the Archangel), in honor of me and my classmate. Perhaps a bit silly to some, but for me, even just the thought of such an action taken on my behalf gives my poor little spirit a stir of love and hope.

In his homily eulogizing Br. Jim yesterday, one of the friars spoke of the "small drops of love" that God showered intermittently on Br. Jim so as "not to scare him," but allow him to adjust to the reality of love and acceptance. In many ways this crazy journey with the Capuchins over the past three years (two of which have been spent with the Order) has been a lot like that, little drops of love and acceptance from men who had been complete strangers to me but whose fate has not somehow become sealed with mine. In this way I might not be scared by the love and the mercy of God.

It fills me with pride and humility to know that I will profess my vows with the Capuchins next month. Not just because saints have worn the habit that I myself wear today, not just because the Capuchins do great work with the poor and have a spectacular and proud history, no it's something more than that. My whole life, it seems, has been spent hiding myself from the world. I never felt good enough, was never treated like I was good enough (or at least never felt like I was), and I was always down in the dumps. But with the friars it's different. It's a kind of acceptance that no one can understand without feeling it themselves, a Christian acceptance that means more than just being picked first for the basketball team. It's not blind, it's fully conscious and supernatural. I've found a home with the friars.

Home... what is that? I always used to wonder. I think I finally know what it is. Praised be Jesus Christ, living and reigning with the Father and the Holy Spirit, perfect unity and simple Trinity, one God forever and for ages unending. Amen.

And Brother Jim, if you are up there with the Lord, in your mercy and goodness pray for me, poor though I am.

Silence

2011-06-14T15:15:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the recent silence. Things have been a bit busy, for whatever reason. I am waiting to hear from my Provincial whether or not I will be permitted to take first vows at the end of July. Until I hear, the posting will probably be slow in coming. Be patient....

Pax.

Death

2011-06-11T15:43:00.000-04:00

I went with three other brothers to a funeral today for a woman from our ministry who died on Thursday morning after suffering a heart attack. She was 90, but had otherwise been in good spirits and good health. A sweet woman indeed. The family was very gracious and glad to have us in attendance, even asking us to sit among them during the Mass and committal.

During the funeral I was reminded of what I wrote for the monthly novitiate newsletter for this month:

In this ministry I had a sudden reversal of what I had been accustomed to. As a postulant, and even before entering the Order, my primary ministry was with children and young adults: in the classroom, in the after-school programs, as a tutor, or on the streets. I knew walking into Vincentian de Marillac nursing home that this would be nothing like anything I had done before. These weren’t the faces of children I was looking into, but the facing of the elderly, the weak, the dying.

The first couple of months of ministry were filled with a sense of crushing disappointment. At the end of each day, as the four of us novices passed out the door and toward the car, I let out a sigh of exhaustion and hopelessness. What had I done that day? I felt like I had done nothing. So much sorrow and pain fill the lives of these people. They have lost their independence, their privacy, their friends, and their homes. Some have even lost most of their family and sit alone, “Just waiting,” as one 100 year-old woman told me once.

Yet at some point I realized something. There is no taking away the pain of arthritis, there is no taking away the embarrassment of needing someone to help you bathe or use the bathroom, there is no reversing the process of aging and death. But for these people, living a hidden life of pain, loneliness, and misery, just seeing the hems of our habits skimming across the tile floors, seeing our smiles break through the sea of the tired and overworked faces of nurses and aides, and knowing that we care enough to come back, over and over again, is more than enough. That is the only work we can accomplish, to be the presence of Christ as best as we can and to be companions, not healers. Life’s difficulties are irreversible but we, for our part, can be companions for all people on their journey back to God to remind them that we too suffer and they are never alone. Our Christian and our Capuchin lives remind us that the journey is never meant to be travelled alone and part of our vocation is to share that reality with the poor, the vulnerable, the weak, the sick, the dying.

The funeral reminded me that, though we are shepherds of the dying, there is no reason that such a task should be so bleak. Rather, it is one of joy in that, though we depart in sorrow we are consoled in our faith that death is not the end but the beginning of an even greater adventure.

+Mary DeFrank

May she rest in peace.

Proof

2011-06-04T14:11:00.001-04:00

I actually can play the organ... when did that happen?

Change

2011-06-03T20:59:00.000-04:00

Change isn't always a word I like, for various reasons. On a secular level, the word "change" has become some an integral part of everyday political conversation that it's lost all meaning. "Change," politically speaking, seems to mean "stay the same in a different way." Voters choose change blindly, hoisting into office men and women who they maybe should have thought twice about whose policies - and their ability to enact them - are less than spectacular.

In the day-to-day, change is sometimes a bittersweet reality. I can remember when I was a little boy my mom would pull into the gas station in her early-'90's blue Hyundai hatchback and filling up the tank on $5 of gas. I mourn for those days when filling a tank on a community vehicle costs a minimum of $40 and a maximum of over $60. I remember going to a Hootie & the Blowfish concert when I was a kid, and now I'm not so sure anyone knows who they are (and Darius Rucker has his own solo act now, or at least he did the last I checked). There's now a new condominium built on top of the first place my mom and I lived after the divorce in '93. Wasn't it just yesterday I was using floppy disks on a computer the size of a Mini Cooper that operated on DOS? Wait... Michael Jackson is dead?

Sometimes I think the reality of how much things around us change on a regular basis can force our gaze inward. We insist that, if everything else is going to change, we are not. We're going to keep going steady, we'll be our own sense of stability as the places we played as children get paved over and turned into condos or as that place where we went on our first date goes out of business. I suppose I was content with that model of living for a long time. As a teenager and in college I was used to a good deal of independence. Balanced with the (faux) maturity of an only child, the independence was rarely abused, but allowed for a certain stability in my life that did not force or require any change. I remained very independent in my relationships too and this is reflective in the fact that most of the relationships I had then no longer exist.

But religious life is different. Religious life requires change. Why? Because we must conform ourselves to Christ and, trust me, no man or woman who enters religious life are perfect models of Christ without need for formation. I've found in my own experience of religious life that when I've gotten too stuck in my ways I've only perpetuated sorrow and misery. Christ wants what is best and what is best for me is, most often, to change so as to draw closer to him. This change is painful and, for lack of a better term, it sucks. The desire to change for the sake of Christ is not easy to foster, especially as the world seems stuck in its ways without any remorse and we note the hypocrisy of those who demand change but who change little to nothing. And yet the most important thing to remember is that our lives are in the hands of God. Refusing to recognize that is refusing to change.

Change is not the exclusive duty of priests and religious and "people of God" because all of those baptized into Christ are "people of God." The promises made on our behalf at our baptism are still our own and all people who profess Christ are obligated to conform themselves to Christ, to burn away those excesses that keep us from perfection in Him and the growth of the Kingdom.

(Some things never change, Blue's Traveler still has some of the catchiest music I've ever heard in my life:)

Pax.

Updates

2011-05-31T06:04:00.000-04:00

The past few days have been spent settling back into the novitiate life after a week at Chapter. It's been an easy transition back. Passing through Brooklyn again, visiting friends from postulancy, I had forgotten just how loud the J train is when it clamors over Fulton Street, careening off toward Manhattan or Queens. Back in Manhattan, waiting for the train to Newark airport, I forgot just how busy Manhattan is and how noisy and how hot in the late spring and in the summer. It will take some adjustment to move back into a city. Thankfully, Boston is both small and familiar, which will make the transition easier, but in some ways it will be like learning to walk again. I remember how I used to be terrified of crossing the street in Manhattan and would always wait for the signal to turn, but by the end I was passing through traffic like the rest of those insane New Yorkers who have no problem taking their lives in their hands so they can get to where they are going a few seconds faster.

Final evaluations are being returned soon, within a day or two. After that, assuming we have received support from the staff, we can make our formal request to take vows. One of our brothers has already heard he is not getting supported by the staff and so will be going home in a couple of days and so the rest of us are a little on edge, waiting to hear.

It is almost June. I've been gone for over a year now, with a month and a half remaining before returning to the Province. It's hard to believe. Time moves faster in retrospect. The past four years of my life have just been a crazy but blessed blur, two of which have been spent with the Order. I have some ideas knocking around about what to write next, but in the meantime please indulge my silence while I wait to receive my final evaluation and make preparations to send off what will no doubt be one of the most important letters I will ever write.

Pax.

Memorial Day

2011-05-30T10:59:00.000-04:00

A little bit of Ray Charles for your Memorial Day festivities...

May God bless America through the intercession of Mary, our Mother.

Pax.

Chapter

2011-05-28T07:07:00.000-04:00

I hesitate to write about my experiences at the provincial chapter because I think it is too easy to turn a reflection on an experience into a post full of gossip and political commentary. That is not what I want this to be, so those among my brothers in the Province who read this (as I was surprised to learn at the Chapter!), please correct me if you see either of these things in my writing.

I arrived at the Chapter with different expectations about what it was going to be, although with some "unsettledness" about what it was might potentially be. I've been away from the Province for exactly one year this Sunday (when the class behind me will arrive in Kansas) and so many faces I have not seen in that time and when I arrived I was so grateful to see those faces that became such familiar comfort for me in those early days as a candidate and those not-so-early days of postulancy. But a Chapter is, I think by its very nature, a political event. That is to say, there are questions to be raised and addressed, issues to be resolved, votes to be counted, ballots to be prepared, leaders to be chosen, and a future vision to - hopefully - be brought into focus. The politics were a bit disheartening and, to some extent, I think they hampered my ability to speak with men I haven't seen in a year yet who are still my brothers. This was a disappointment to me. As well, being simply an observer of the Chapter instead of a participator meant that boredom was in good supply some days.

I was close, at one point in the Chapter, of saying that it was a not-so-good experience, that I wished we had come back for a profession or an ordination instead of for the Chapter. Part of me still feels that way, yet there was something else that happened there that reminded me of what I loved about the brothers in the first place. I had a hard time sleeping at the Chapter, in part because my feet hung well off the end of the bed, in part because it was warm and humid on the Jersey seashore, and in part because my mattress made the sound of rusty metal grinding together whenever I rolled over. As a result, I was always awake long before I wanted to be, so instead of sitting in a hot room I rolled out of bed, took a shower, and wandered down to the chapel to sit there for the hour before breakfast. I was surprised to see one of the brothers already there, praying the Rosary quietly in the corner. I took a seat toward the front, near the altar, and allowed myself to gather my thoughts. Shortly thereafter, brother Barnabas shuffled into the chapel and, even in his old age, prostrated himself on the floor before taking his seat, as is the old custom. Them came brothers Timothy and Marty, brothers Sal and Victor and Eugene and Antonine, and brothers Carmine and Philip. There we all sat quietly, some praying their Rosaries, others musing over the readings for the day's Mass, still others praying the Office. Ah yes, the secret life of prayer of the Capuchin Friars Minor!

I found myself edified by these mornings of silent prayer with my brothers because sometimes it is easy to forget that other brothers actually pray on their own. We see them at community prayer, we see them celebrating Mass or leading the Office in the choir, but we forget about their silent life with Jesus. In some ways, it is better that this precious jewel of knowledge remain quiet and a little hidden, to be found only by those who seek their own quiet life of prayer and edification.

Then there were those moments when the politics ended and serious questions about the future were replaced with, "Do you remember when...?" or "Did I ever tell you the story about...?" or "Have you heard this joke before...?" And suddenly I found myself smiling again for no reason in particular, just feeling the warm sun, the cool breeze, and the freedom that only brotherhood in Christ can allow. We were ourselves and didn't need to be anything else.

And then came the inevitable goodbyes that I always hate, but which filled me with so much confidence and hope that will no doubt fill these final days of the novitiate year.

As I've said before, fraternity - brotherhood - needs to be an active decision not based on naivety or blindness but on clarity of vision: we need to see our brother as the leper he is but through all caution to the wind and embrace him anyway because you've got no one else but him. In a lot of ways, because of the circumstances under which I entered the Order, these brothers I have are almost all I have left. Friends have all scattered to the four winds, all trying to save the world in their own way but loosing touch along the way. Family remain wary and unsure about who I am and why. It is with my brothers that I can really be myself without fear and it is my sincere hope that they can be themselves in my presence. Although I was disappointed with some of the political aspects of the Chapter, I'm glad I saw them because they challenged me to remember that I need to actively choose, every day, to be a brother, no matter how leprous they might be.

Thanks to the brothers of the Province of Saint Mary of the Capuchin Order for all they are and remain for me.

Pax.

Life Continues

2011-05-23T06:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went to Mass at Saint Paul Cathedral here in Pittsburgh. It was the annual Blue Mass for police officers in the local county and Bishop Zubik presided over the Mass. As the color guard processed, flags unfurled down the aisle, followed by the brightly-colored uniforms of the Knights of Columbus, I was reminded that, just at that moment, back in Easton, Massachusetts, my friends and classmates were processing into their commencement exercises at my former college. Yesterday would have been the day I graduated had I not entered the Capuchins.

It was considerably difficult for me to not be with them yesterday. That is not to say I regret entering the Capuchins, but being so distant from friends and family has been one of the great difficulties of my Capuchin life, especially this year. Yet in every place that I go, God provides. As a postulant he blessed me with the grace of getting to know some of the local families in Brooklyn. I was also near many supportive friars who I could always turn to when I needed a little help getting by.

This year God has not so much provided relationships with others to fill the void of the missing ones, but He has given me Himself in a deeper way than I ever expected. By the time the bishop had processed past me toward the altar, I realized that nothing was stopping the procession and that, my friends, is one of the most spectacular and comforting things about a life in the Church. I have been comforted by the fact that, in every instance, the Church and her life together in prayer continues on and on, unstoppable by the turmoils and struggles of human life. She exists as stability in a hopelessly unstable world and through her God is made manifest in a broken humanity. In that moment of mourning for the loss of an opportunity to be with friends, I was lifted up as God humbled Himself to dwell among us in that vast cathedral. I was drawn to Him along with everyone else assembled there and everything seemed as it should be, at peace in the warm embrace of God and in the sweet sights, sounds, and smells of the Church's liturgical life.

Always, in the midst of our struggles, God keeps calling. Always, in the midst of disunity and turmoil God reminds us His Church is one place where one might dwell in safety and security. In her, the heavens and earth are united as God and humanity are both exalted and humbled.

--

In other news, I will be headed out to the Provincial Chapter tomorrow morning. Please pray for our friars who are assembled to make decisions about the future of the Province.

Pax.

Novitiate Lessons in the Meaning of Fraternity

2011-05-17T21:02:00.000-04:00

Fraternity is not a random even that occurs around us. Rather, it occurs with, in, and through us. True happiness does not exist in ignorance of your brother's faults or in being somehow distanced from them. Rather, true happiness in fraternity exists in being fully conscious of every pimple, wart, or boil that your brother has, knowing full well his brokenness, and making the conscious choice to embrace him anyway.

We don't do this for our own glory or to prove our sanctity, for indeed our sinfulness is most revealed in how we interact with our brothers. No, we do it because in him, our broken brother, we see Christ asking for our patience. We see in him also ourselves, we see our own heart, blacked and bruised by sin. We see in our brother our hope, our courage, and our strength.

We want to see Christ on our own, yet our very presence here tells us that our lonely search is in vain. This is how Christ reveals Himself to us: through others. It is through their eyes that we can see the Kingdom, the pasture, the Good Shepherd. All we have in this world is one another and a promise that if we persevere until the end, we will possess God.

Yet in our sin we turn from one another, our hearts too pregnant with pride, ambition, impatience, and arrogance. In poverty you can encounter a brother, but we are not poor if we are rich in self-importance and sin.

Pax.

A Letter to my Friends of the Class of 2011

2011-05-12T06:46:00.000-04:00

Dear friends,

Your time at Stonehill College has finally come to and end. I'm sure it's hard to believe - I know that it is for me. When I made the decision to leave Stonehill to enter the Capuchin Order, it seemed like graduation was many, many years away and yet here we are. I am so happy for you all and proud of your accomplishments and I'm sorry that the circumstances of my life do not allow me to be with you.

Leaving Stonehill behind was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made, in part because I was stepping into something totally unknown. But also because it was you, my friends at Stonehill, that had made all of the difference in my life. It was you who began to lay the foundations for where I am today, it was you who showed me a whole new and exciting world and filled it with your own care and concern for me. It was you who helped me to realize my own dignity as a person. You are, no doubt, some of the best friends I've ever had.

I often think about why it was that God called me in the manner that He did. Why, for example, did I need to leave Stonehill? This is the answer I've been given: I am a pilgrim and a stranger in this world. Everyone is, even if we don't want to realize it. Life is a pilgrimage, a journey whose source and destination are in God. Along the way, we are given people and places to gladden our hearts and to revive our souls and to strengthen us as we move on. Sometimes we become too attached to these things that God gives to us, forgetting that they are meant to draw us closer to Him: we lose the Creator in the created. Stonehill was one of those rest stops on the soul's journey toward God. It was there, among you, my friends, that I began, for the first time, to have some appreciation of my own self-worth. It was there, among you, my friends, that I was able to realize that not only was I loved but I was capable of being loved, wretched and broken though I am. I did not always respond correctly to the love you all showed me, sometimes rude, crude, and selfish, and yet I never once felt that somehow you didn't all care about me.

I loved Stonehill, but it was never meant to be for me what it has been for all of you. Sometimes I'm sorry for that, especially now as you all prepare to move on into the realities of life. But I think that's okay, because God gave you and Stonehill to me out of love and, while it was meant to bring me closer to Him, good things from God are still meant to be mourned when they are lost. But as a novice in the Capuchin Order I've really come to appreciate the analogy between the spiritual life and gardening. Just the other day I was foraging through one of the many friary gardens, cutting down the old and ripping up the weeds so as to allow new life and new growth. If what is dead remains, new life can never grow. I'm very sorry to not be with you now, in the verge of what will undoubtedly be a day of excitement and tears for all of you, but I can't hold onto what is past because it will only prevent me from growing into what God really wants me to be. I have to keep up the journey up Calvary and be open to the new experiences that God will provide. But it's not just for me I say this, but also for you because sometimes I think that maybe I was only put into your lives for a specific reason or for a short time for some reason and you too must continue on your journey toward fulfillment in God without me to stand in the way.

Our paths have diverged, yet they both lead to the same place. Each of us is called according to his abilities and the journey is different for each of us, but we all find ourselves coming to the same destination. Sometimes these paths overlap each other again at different points along the way, but when and why we can never know until it happens, that's part of the excitement of the journey. I'll still do my best to keep in touch with you all, to see how your lives are and to see all of the great things I know you will all be doing in world, but when our paths diverge I will take comfort in knowing that someday we will find each other again at the foot of the Cross and there we can live in Him, who gave us to each other, forever. It's a melancholic but beautiful reality. Melancholic because we're human beings and don't like to be separated from one another or from what is familiar but beautiful because it is God who is with us and who strengthens us and who has made such a great promise, sealed in the Blood of His Son.

I love you all and I'm proud of you for what you've done. Know of my prayers for you. I pray that this world's bitterness may not destroy the Spirit within you nor that the lures of sin will keep you from being all you were meant to be. I ask you also to pray for me, as I keep going on my pilgrimage. I'm a wretched a broken creature, unworthy of all God's great mercies to me, and your prayers will be a bulwark to sustain me as I stumble after the man from Nazareth in the footprints of the poor man of Assisi who so valiantly walked before me. I am nothing but a pilgrim and a stranger, no place or people to call my own, but who is forever grateful for those friendly and warm faces that have brightened my life and gladdened my heart for they have truly turned my bitter valley into a place of springs. May God bless you through His Son who, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God in simple Trinity, lives and reigns forever and for ages unending. Amen.

Sincerely yours in Christ Jesus,

Brother Matthew A. G., OFM, Cap.

A Modest Proposal

2011-05-11T20:06:00.000-04:00

The novitiate year is slowly winding to a close - a little more than two months are left in the program. As it all starts to come toward an end, I find myself looking back to the beginning. Not just the beginning of the year, no that would be too narrow of a view, but the last five years have been almost a total blur. But as regards this year, when I look back, I see a lot of turmoil and difficulty and struggle. Sometimes I'm not so sure how I got through it all. I think one of the most important moments in the whole novitiate year has actually been a recent development.

Some months ago, a fellow friar approached me with a proposal. He told me that he was planning on praying an extra hour each day for a particular intention and he asked me if I would be willing to join him in this endeavor. I agreed that I would and that perhaps would could both keep each other on task. I admit that I've been poor at keeping him on task, but it's difficult to do so when you don't live with someone. Yet it was his proposal that I feel has actually had a tremendous impact on my life as a friar and I think turned my novitiate year around. As a novice, I already was spending about three hours a day in the chapel: an hour and a half in the morning, fifteen minutes at midday, a little over an hour in the evening, and fifteen minutes at night before bed. Communal liturgy is a beautiful thing, but one of the pitfalls is that you become accustomed to it and you start to take those moments for granted and they become moments of planning out what comes next or, unfortunately, moments of sleep (especially in the morning and evening). Forcing myself to take that extra hour a day was a burden at first, but I consoled myself by saying that I was praying in solidarity with a brother and that was the important thing.

Yet after a while it became more than that. Sure, I was praying in solidarity with a brother (and still am) yet I also found myself looking forward to that extra hour: it started to become a centerpiece of my daily life. What once seemed like an impossibly long time started to pass by almost too quickly. Spending time with the Lord is sometimes difficult because, as a friar once told me, "Sometimes the Lord is as boring as anything!" Yet waiting in these moments of dryness or boredom can be keys to humility and patience and simply excepting the silence moves the mind and heart to loftier places. Suddenly that brother you were having a hard time with seems to be less at fault than you first thought he was. God slowly reveals the other side of the scenario and your brother starts to become, well, a brother - someone who frustrates and annoys, yes, but someone who still deserves your love and compassion.

The Lord has a way of starting to work out things in your life, too, he starts to peel back the layers of mystery and reveals things to you in special ways, like a flower unfolding to soak in the warm midday sun. The soul is set free, like a bird coasting on the wind, seemingly free from cares. The cares do remain, of course, but somehow in that prayer they become less significant and you find the ability to cope with them and find the value in them, for, "Son though he was, Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered."

So I owe a lot to this little modest proposal put forth by a brother. My spiritual director told me that I should be very grateful to him for inviting me to such a grace and indeed I am. He knows who he is and I'm sure he may even read this, so thank you again, brother!

Pax.

Witness to Holiness

2011-05-07T16:26:00.000-04:00

So often in religious life we are given the opportunity to be edified by the holiness of those around us, both those we minister to and our brothers. This is not always the case, of course, given that we are all human beings, yet these moments move me in a way that nourishes my vocation. I thought I could share a few of these stories, little vignettes in the daily life of a novice with the Capuchin Friars Minor, in hopes that you too may come to know the great heights of holiness to which humanity can attain.

--
Brother James, OFM Cap.

Brother Jim is one of the elder friars of this province and he lives at a nearby nursing home. Jim has an interesting history: he came from a broken home and got married at a young age. He is perhaps most well known for what happened next - in a confused panic that his wife was about to leave him and not in his right mind, he murdered her and their unborn child. He was sent to prison where he initially became involved in the prison chaplaincy as a way to getting closer to escape. Yet by the grace of the Spirit he underwent a dramatic conversion and while on parole entered the Capuchins. I don't know all the details of his story, yet these are the facts that have been passed on to me through the friars.

Looking into his eyes for the first time, I never imagined that he had ever raised his hand to strike a dog, never mind to take a life. In them one can see only simplicity and peace, in them one can only see the soul of a man who knows his guilt but knows even more keenly the mercy and the freedom of God. Looking into his eyes, one can only see a man, broken but stitched together by grace and by love, who is entirely in love with God and with people and with life.

He loves to watch old movies and I can remember a number of times walking in to visit him and asking him what movie was on.

"What are you watching, brother?"

"Oh, I'm not sure...."

"Is it any good?"

"Oh yeah," he'd reply, "this is a good one."

He's in the hospital now in a rather grave condition and I visited him today with another novice. Standing at his bedside, I told him a few jokes at which he smiled, which filled me with hope and peace that he was not in any discomfort in what may well indeed be his last days.

"You know Jim, back at the nursing home I saw that they had Tarzan on. It was on that channel you always watch."

He smiled back at me with his soft eyes and looked off toward the wall, grin intact.

"Oh yeah," he said, "that's a good one."

Pax.

Response to Osama bin Laden's Death

2011-05-02T09:54:00.000-04:00

I was twelve years old on 9/11 and I was sitting in 7th Grade Life Science with Mr. Bacon, who had been quietly listening to the radio since class began. The principal called the teachers out into the hallway and told them to announce the news to us. After school activities were cancelled and my mom picked me up from school in a panic. I remember seeing the images in New York for the first time and being both shocked and awed. My young eyes have never seen war before, except on those black-and-white videos from World War II they show on the History Channel (and I vaguely remember images of the bombing of Iraq in the early '90s). Nothing prepared me for the horrified look on thousands of innocent faces fleeing as the claw of the devil tore that city asunder. There was no escaping it: it was on every channel all the time. The governor of Massachusetts, then it was Jane Swift, made a speech before the Commonwealth on TV, saying there was no reason to panic, and yet she herself was in a bunker surrounded by the National Guard and the State Police and somehow her words seemed hollow and useless to me. I was terrified, as were most Americans I would think, and all we could wonder is - what will happen next?

As Americans, we all know what happened next. President Bush mounted the debris piles in NYC, dressed as a civilian and covered in the soot of fallen buildings and uttered words of encouragement and justice. Back in the oval office, he spoke in somber terms of the loss of life but promised that justice would be done. It was encouraging to hear those words as a young person. As Americans we all know about the invasion of Afghanistan and then the repeated blunders that let such an evil man like Osama bin Laden slip away time and time again. Suddenly the news was filled with names and places that no one could pronounce in countries no one had ever heard of before. My young tongue twisted into knots trying to pronounce these names meant for a language I had never heard spoken before. Years passed and justice still wasn't done. My neighbor, a soldier, began to disappear for long periods of time and would sometimes come home late at night in his Air Force fatigues but leave again shortly thereafter for months at a time. Yellow ribbons and American flags were everywhere. But somewhere along the line, everyone seemed to get disheartened. Each new year brought renewed promises of justice and yet I felt let down as so many thousands of Americans tried to rebuild their lives around the empty seat at the dinner table.

Now Osama bin Laden is dead: shot and killed in an operation by American troops in Pakistan - a country all-too familiar to us now - and it would seem that justice has now, finally, been done. Yet that question arises again: what will happen next?

My first reaction upon hearing the news was, admittedly, a knee-jerk jubilation. As someone raised to abhor violence but to be proud of my country and her soldiers, I had to say that I was glad to hear that this nation's enemy had been 'taken out'. Somewhere in me I felt consolation and ten years of endless violence seemed to finally have an end in sight. I thought of how proud that soldier who pulled the trigger must feel this morning, know that he put to an end the life of the most wanted man in the world.

Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realized that that was naive. It is silly for me to assume that the death of one man can bring to a halt a whole force of evil that has been welling up and boiling over for years and years. It is silly for me to assume that all of the terrorists who swore allegiance to this man will suddenly put down their arms and submit to the power of the West and promise not to attack us again. It is silly for me to assume that the clash between the cultures of radical Islam and the Christian West will all be settled by this simple act of violence. No, no, this violence is much deeper than that and the conflict is much larger and it is a conflict that has been waged.

I think that it is natural and in some ways acceptable for Americans to be happy today. For many people, this is justice served. The American people, contrary to popular opinion, is, by my estimation, a good and faithful people. The mainstream cultures of the major cities of the two coasts decry and criticize the simple, down-home American living still found in the heartland of this nation yet in those simple people - who are perhaps those who will be rejoicing most today - still beats the heart of a dream started long ago. In their ignorance they can't be blamed for being happy and proud of their country for doing what she set out to do.

Yet I would hope that somewhere in our people, the American people, we might be converted and realize that bin Laden is just another soul left unconverted before death. His acts of violence, while in now way justified, were the continuation of violence that we as human beings have allowed to continue generation after generation. We do not know peace in this world because we as human beings fail to realize the peace that Jesus Himself offered. As a people we cheer when evil men are overcome because we know that goodness and peace are the best way - the only way - and yet we become bored with peace and seek occasion for war.

Let us remember as a people, an American people, that it is only the death of Christ that can truly bring peace and justice to the faithful and just hearts of faithful and just people. Many are the trials of the just man, says the Psalms, but from them all the Lord will deliver him. Let us not assume, my fellow Americans, that we can bring justice on our own but rather let us have faith in God to bring justice on those who do evil. We cannot stop evil by the force of arms. The banners of the nations united together cannot bring peace to the world unless these nations are united under the banner of the Cross.

Pax in terra.

Easter Thoughts

2011-04-24T15:24:00.000-04:00

This Easter Triduum was my fourth, but only the third since I've been in the Church. On Saturday at the Vigil, there was a woman who was received in the Church and that particular moment in the liturgy sent me back to the day that I professed my faith in the Catholic Church and all of Her teachings. I still remember that day vividly and I still remember that feeling of joy mixed with trepidation as the organist struck the first few notes of the opening hymn and the procession moved forward: ahead was the altar and the crucifix....

Maybe the reason I can remember that particular moment is that it seems to have been at the center of my faith life since the very beginning. The biggest flaw in my entire mentality since beginning this faith journey has been that, when I first began, I assumed it would be easy. I assumed that I would be able to live the same way that I was living before, I would just do it as a Catholic. I didn't realize that I thought this way, but the reality is that I did - how else could I explain all that bad behavior that I've now come to regret? The joy of the whole experience of entering the Church, of finding a home in the midst of turmoil and pain, filled my mind and my heart but in all of that, I lost sight of the Cross, which is at the center of the faith.

The Cross holds a special meaning for me, more so now in these days of my life. The Cross is all that gives meaning and purpose to life's pains and troubles: it is the only thing that gives meaning to all that came before my conversion and it is the only thing that gives meaning to all that will come next. Suffering never ends. It sounds morbid in some way, I suppose, to say that, and yet I don't think anyone would disagree. So many people spend their lives hunting to avoid pain, yet all they realize is that they can't avoid it. When I try to avoid the Cross, I find myself suffering even greater pain than I might have if I had just embraced It from the beginning.

Listening to the great things that God has done for His people throughout the Easter Vigil, I can't help but wonder why it is, after hearing all of these tremendous stories of faith that our fathers in faith have passed down to us through the ages, that we today can't trust. I suppose it's a question for the ages - a question that has been asked since the ancient times by all who have tried to follow in God's way. But the most amazing thing about the whole Paschal mystery is that, despite our weaknesses of belief - the fact that, even after all God has done for us we still can't trust as we ought - still Christ died and rose again for us. He chose to suffer once for all and, even when He was raised in glory, he chose to bear the wounds He suffered for humanity. In these glorious wounds, our own wounds are glorified, our weakness is raised up to God.

As the light of the Easter candle burns, it burns with renewed hope. The promise of the Resurrection is that we are never alone and that none of the powers of this world can prevail over Christ, King of all. I reminded of something that Bishop David Zubik said at the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday morning at Saint Paul Cathedral. In speaking of the sacrifices made by priests he said that no headline in a newspaper or any remark by a cynic can take away from the Church the gift of the self-sacrificing priesthood. When I heard it, I wanted to stand and cheer, but figured that it would probably be slightly inappropriate given the context. Yet he touched one something profound that I think we should all consider as this season begins to unfold: Christ rose in triumph, as he said, says the angel in Matthew's Resurrection account.

In his account of this dramatic event, Matthew points to the fact that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the promises that God has made to His people since the beginning: He is triumphant and He is the King of Glory, He is that Christ, God's ultimate and definitive interaction with His world, the Alpha and the Omega. Some say that the "Christian age" is coming to an end, that, like all things human, Christianity too will come to an end. Yet, Easter teaches us that Christianity is not something human, but something divine. It teaches us that the Church poured forth from the side of Christ and what God has established the powers of hell cannot prevail against. The Church faces strong criticism and difficult days ahead but let us not falter in our hope! No headline, no critique, no slanderous word uttered can ever take away from us the fact that we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood. No one and nothing can take Christ away from us nor can they take away the death He suffered for us or the risen life that He imparts to us.

Therefore, let us hope and let us trust. Let us all, myself included, have the courage to live for Him just as He lived for us. As goes one of my favorite songs: Let's believe that if we all stand together, we're a force that can shake the whole world. Let's believe that if we all stand together in the Risen One, we're a royal and noble people destined for salvation.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Coming Soon...

2011-04-24T11:03:00.000-04:00

The vigil last night lasted two hours, with six people initiated into the Church. There was a small party afterwards in the church hall in which I promptly broke my Paschal Fast with two slices of pepperoni pizza and a can of ice-cold Coca-Cola... plus a cookie. After nothing but bread and water, I was glad to celebrate the Lord's resurrection with such a delicious thing as pizza.

I'm off to the noon Mass at the Cathedral today with a few of the brothers, but coming soon is a reflection on the Triduum, but perhaps not until tomorrow, as I also have to bake the bread for tonight's festive celebration of the Lord's glorious resurrection.

Happy Easter.

Pax, alleluia, alleluia.

Early Musings

2011-04-17T07:26:00.001-04:00

The days since the retreat seem to have been so ironically busy as we've settled back into the regular routine here at St. Conrad's. Now Holy Week has arrived. Holy Week is always a special time for me, in part because it recalls all the events that lead up to my initiation into the Church but also because of the noble simplicity and the rich traditions of the Holy Week liturgies, particularly those of Triduum.

What strikes me most about the Triduum is that it underscores the trust Jesus held in His humanity in the promises of God the Father. Indeed this musing on trust has been the center of my attention through the retreat and up to today. So many questions are laid bare before our consciences in the Christian journey and the ultimate answer to them can only be found in trusting God's promise. And yet how hard that is!

Yet through each day God strengthens those who hope in Him with His love and through that love we may learn trust for Him so that we too, like Christ, may have the courage to embrace the Cross on which all our hope rests.

Return

2011-04-12T15:57:00.000-04:00

I just returned from a week-long silent retreat in Wheeling, West Virginia. Photos and reflections to follow soon.

Pax.

Carthusian Wisdom

2011-04-03T19:32:00.000-04:00

"Yet there is something even more deplorable and worthy of limitless lamentation with heartfelt tears: Just as the people of Israel once abandoned worship of their Creator to serve idols made with hands, so too, in our day and age, many religious, indeed, many well-known and respected men, have abandoned the true wisdom in which God alone is worshiped perfectly and inwardly and is adored by single-minded lovers. Instead, they wretchedly fill themselves with all sorts of knowledge as if to fabricate idols for themselves out of various newfound proofs.... these ideas so absorb and take possession of the human spirit that they leave no place for true wisdom."

-Hugh of Balma, Carthusian

Church Anniversary

2011-03-30T13:02:00.001-04:00

Today is the anniversary of entering into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church. I've been thinking a lot lately about expectations and reality and how what I had expected in the beginning is nothing like the reality of what I have encountered, both in the Church and in religious life. Sometimes it can get me disappointed, but at other times I can't help but think about what my expectations really were and where my head and my heart were at the time when I entered the Church and when I entered religious life.

My jump into religious life occurred not very long after I entered the Church and so, while I had learned a lot both in RCIA and on my own, there was still a lot about the Church and her teachings that I was unaware of and, perhaps most notably, I had gained an intellectual understanding of certain precepts but I lacked an internal disposition that made living it difficult or, at times, impossible. I like to think that my time in religious life has refined this skill in me and I have been able to internalize at least some of the Gospel, so that I am able to live it out in a fuller way.

This has been one of the greatest difficulties of both my life of faith and my life in the Order. In order to change, in order to grow into Christ, there needs to be a breaking with a "gold star mentality" that makes everything about me "okay," that, because I'm special and unique unto myself, nothing in me needs to change for other people but I need to be "myself." Although this can be true, if that "self" is not identified with Christ but rather is self-absorbed, then this mentality is resoundingly untrue. I needed to realize that, while I am a child of God, unique and beautiful in my own right, there rests within me a darkness that can pervade my whole being and turn me from God and that necessarily needs to change.

I've been able to recognize this need in my own self, which has grown as the taste of the Lord lingers longer and longer on my lips and He tugs harder and harder on my heart, but one of the disappointments in my life both as a Catholic and as a religious is that this desire does not exist in everyone. The pursuit of holiness and perfection in Christ seems to be something reserved only for the "professionals," but even among the "professionals" the desire for holiness can fall short of expectation. I've learned not to tie people down to my own expectations, but is not a desire for a closer relationship with Christ a reasonable expectation for one Christian to have for another?

In this regard, there is a problem in the Church. I am careful to say this: I do not believe there is a problem with the Church, for the Church herself is the Bride of Christ, yet I do believe there is a problem within her caused by our own human frailty. A problem I see all often is that there is a mentality that the Church needs to make concessions to the modern lifestyle. What I mean by that is, pastors of churches decide to cut down Masses to bare minimum - no extra singing, no long processions, no incense, no baptisms at Mass - and reduce homiletics to mere "feel-good-ery" instead of letting it be the truly soul-piercing art that it can be. This isn't the case everywhere, of course, but the result where it does occur is "drive-thru religion" and "drive-thru sacraments" which sap our holy religion and here Sacraments to nothing more than rites of passage that everyone does just because you need to or isolate them to something just for Sundays. By making these concessions, people are not challenged to let their lives conform to the Church, and thereby to Christ, instead of making the Church conform to them. I suppose it is just another form of instant gratification that runs rampant all over the world.

That said, I have found in the Church and in religious life great holiness, which continues to inspire me and drive me on in my own journey. There's the priest in Brooklyn who works alone in a large and active parish, who does not fear violence and ceaselessly fights against it, who has a deep love for the poor and for Christ. There's the Capuchin lay brother who had stepped out into gun battles between inner-city teens, demanding they stop, who survived the streets of East Harlem, who tirelessly seeks the good of any person who crosses his path. There are those few older women who gather every morning at the local parish and who are endlessly dedicated to the Church and to the people of God and who, even in their old age, give all they can. There is that other Capuchin lay brother who has fought for justice as far away as east Africa, or that Capuchin priest who has dedicated his old age to constant prayer. All of these people fill me with courage and strength and humility. For those who take the Church seriously and who take Christ seriously there is an endless bounty of goodness that flows forth from their lives of heroic witness.

For my own part, these past several years of journeying in the Church have been grace-filled indeed, but they have also been extremely difficult. I've realize that faith is not something that can be contained just for today, meaning that the light of faith - that is Christ - must shine into the dark recesses of my past, areas which I would rather have not ever gone again, and also illumine my future. Being able to forgive myself for my unbelief, both in my past and even today, has also been difficult. The Christian life has required far more from me than I ever expected it would. Some part of me, when I entered the Church, thought that everything could just be the same as it was before, the only difference being than now I'd go to Mass every Sunday. Yet I've slowly had this belief pulled out from under my feet. For His part, God has asked more and more of me. Sometimes I don't want to keep giving more and more, it's just too difficult sometimes. Yet, when God asks more of me, I can trust it's because I'm getting closer to Him and that He only wants what will bring me closer to Him, so all that He asks of me must be good because He is good and to draw nearer to Goodness is never a bad thing. So I take consolation in that reality and ease my nerves and relax my pain. Jesus is my companion, my guide, and my destination, for through Him I've drawn nearer to the City of God, the Eternal Jerusalem, to all of the angels in festal gathering and to the heart of God. In that heart I long to rest, yet I know I am far from worthy of such peace and joy and so I must keep working, I must keep striving, I must keep up the faith. I will never be perfect, at least not in this life, yet the promise drives me on. May God continue to bless me in this journey and give me the graces to follow him so that one day I can see His promise fulfilled.

Azariah stood up in the fire and prayed aloud:

“For your name’s sake, O Lord, do not deliver us up forever,

or make void your covenant.

Do not take away your mercy from us,

for the sake of Abraham, your beloved,

Isaac your servant, and Israel your holy one,

To whom you promised to multiply their offspring

like the stars of heaven,

or the sand on the shore of the sea.

For we are reduced, O Lord, beyond any other nation,

brought low everywhere in the world this day

because of our sins.

We have in our day no prince, prophet, or leader,

no burnt offering, sacrifice, oblation, or incense,

no place to offer first fruits, to find favor with you.

But with contrite heart and humble spirit

let us be received;

As though it were burnt offerings of rams and bullocks,

or thousands of fat lambs,

So let our sacrifice be in your presence today

as we follow you unreservedly;

for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame.

And now we follow you with our whole heart,

we fear you and we pray to you.

Do not let us be put to shame,

but deal with us in your kindness and great mercy.

Deliver us by your wonders,

and bring glory to your name, O Lord.”

(Dn 3:25, 34-43)

Pax.

"Train Through the Pain"

2011-03-24T10:38:00.000-04:00

As a bit of a joke for one of the other brother novices, I bought a shirt about a month ago that has "Train Through the Pain" written across the front of it in big bluish letters. I now wear it when I workout. You'd probably have to be a novice here at St. Conrad's to understand how funny that is or you'd at least have to know me a little bit better.

The "workout craze" broke out in the novitiate towards the end of last (calendar) year. For my own part, I started towards the end of the Fall and was at the beginning of the wave of guys who started working out more frequently. My own was prompted by a bit of a health scare the startled me into a change in lifestyle, but, being a man of routine, once a daily work-out became part of my routine it became easy enough to fall into the grove of it. For those who have tried to start out an exercise routine, you know just how hard and painful - literally - the process can be to get going. Yet I found that, once I could see the pounds coming off and once I could see the workouts getting a little easier, one at a time, it became easier. This morning, for example, I ran three miles in the time it used to take me to walk one and a half miles (about 35 minutes) and I've lost 35 pounds since I started.

This expedition in exercising and weight loss has taught me a lot about discipline and, in a lot of ways, it is similar to the spiritual life. The spiritual life requires a lot of discipline and dedication. At first, like exercising, you don't notice any change in yourself but notice the pain of having to give things up. Eventually, though, as you progress, you see changes, however small, and you see the value of giving up certain things for the good of something greater. There's a song I used to listen to a lot that goes, "I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all," and, although it sounds bad, in a way pain is a good thing. Pain reminds us of our humanity and our dependence on God and one another. Pain is also a good sign of progress and when we can work through our pain, we know that we come out on the other side much better for what we had suffered. Our suffering, our pain, unites us to the Cross of Christ and it is from there that we draw life.

Pax.

Thoughts on the Transfiguration

2011-03-20T20:03:00.000-04:00

I recall when I was a candidate and the vocation director used this Gospel to calm me down after a particularly rough day. I was seeing too much of a contrast between the life I saw in the Capuchins and the life I was living and I thought the only way I could reconcile it was to join the Order. He told me that, at that point in my life, God had called me forth to see this great glory in Capuchin life but that, after the Transfiguration, the disciples went back down the hill, which is what I was being called to do. Eventually I did enter the Order of course, but for the only thing I could think of when I read this Gospel was that story.

But this time, when I looked at it again, it was different. All I could see, on the other side of the mountain of the Transfiguration was Mount Calvary, the mountain of the Cross. Frankly, it scared me. I've been thinking about the Cross a lot lately, which is fitting I suppose, but I found myself being afraid of the Cross when I was praying over it. I was afraid of the pain but I think, more importantly, I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to carry the Cross, I wasn't sure I'd be able to bear the crucifixion and I'd just let the Lord down again. Sometimes the Cross just seems too hard and I don't think I can cut it.

But when I get the most down or frustrated with myself, there are always these Transfiguration moments, these moments of radically experiencing the glory and the goodness of God. These moments always stir the soul to its depths and give one the strength to go one. For Peter, James, and John the Transfiguration was a moment in which their discipleship was radically changed. They experienced an unequivocal moment of clarity in which Christ was revealed truly as divine. I think we all have these moments in our lives, moments when God suddenly becomes God and they really should startle or terrify us because the glory of God juxtaposed against our finite weakness can be too much to bear all at once. In those moments, our discipleship is changed and our motivations are realigned.

When I experience these moments in which Jesus truly becomes the Christ in my heart, those moments when I can really understand that glory beyond just the intellectual, I need not be afraid. Instead, I must look up to see Him there, glorified and transfigured, and see in that glorious Body not just the fullness of God but the wounds of the crucifixion and know that that is my fate: glory and shame. I must look up at see those wounds that He still bears for the world and for me and not be afraid because in those moments I can know, with inexpressible clarity, that not only has He walked the way - the via dolorosa - before me but he walks with me each step of the way and that He is waiting for me on Calvary, waiting to embrace me into the glory of Him who created me and in whom I ultimately find my true home.

God be praised.

Pax.

Good Advice

2011-03-17T07:05:00.000-04:00

From one of the in-residence priests:

Trust those who support you,

and to those who don't, ask them why.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Pax.

Self-Denial

2011-03-16T12:47:00.000-04:00

I got very accustomed to a life of independence before entering the Capuchins. This is a reality that has slowly dawned on me over the year as I more and more realize that the root of most of my troubles - in prayer, in community, in ministry - are centered around a self-centeredness that I've developed since my childhood. Although I thought I had adjusted well to the lack of independence in initial formation, I've realized that, although in some respects I have, in other ways I've tried to shift that independence to different areas of my life and I have gotten frustrated when I failed in my attempt.

Since Lent began, I've been doing my best to try to counter this attitude by being increasingly aware of what is happening around me and how and when I can practice self-denial. Yesterday, a perfect opportunity arose. Our neighbors needed help moving a mattress and the novice master asked for a couple of volunteers. Of course! I was excited: instead of doing what I wanted to do, I was choosing to do something else. I went over to main house after changing my clothes and was waiting in the kitchen area for the novice master to come so we could walk over and help the neighbors. I was really glad I was finally doing this. "Oh no, I can't do that now... I am going to help the neighbors!" I would say. Later I found out that the neighbors no longer needed help, so, satisfied I had done all I could to deny myself in this instance by even just volunteering to do it, I decided to go do what I had planned on.

It wasn't until later, while sitting in prayer, that I realized the folly of that whole incident. While I was standing there, waiting, I was standing right next to a sink full of dirty dishes and needed to be washed and a dishwasher that needed to be emptied and a brother novice who needed help cleaning up after lunch. But I did not help him, because I was so caught up in my self denial that I didn't have the attention span to notice there was a moment of denial right in front of me. What I had intended to be a moment of self-denial so as to break my selfish habits had actually morphed into a selfish act and my self-denial became more about me than about the Lord.

I was thoroughly annoyed with myself but I couldn't help but laugh when I realized it because the lunacy of whole scenario just seemed inescapably funny. As I was reflecting over my day before going to bed, which has been my custom since the start of novitiate, I realized that that whole scenario got to the very heart of the trouble with self-denial. How often is my "self-denial" really just a self-affirmation? Where does my motivation come from? Do I deny myself things for the glory of God or for the sake of my own ego?

I suppose that these questions are the root of the trouble with self-denial for a lot of Christians, especially now during Lent. For my own part, after reflecting on my failed attempt to deny myself, I trusted that my motivation had not necessarily been ego, but that I had gotten so caught up that I just failed to be attentive to the needs in front of me. Or at least I hope that's the case. But how many times in the past have my motivations been self-focused? It's something to really consider.

As my brother said in his recent post, it seems like, even when I fall short, this Lent is working. I can tell all sorts of - often comical - stories about mishaps with Lenten observance from my days in RCIA and yet the power of the season never effected me the way it has this year, and I can say the same for Advent and Christmas as well. As a novice, I have the unique opportunity to live the spiritual life more deeply and experience it on a whole deeper level but I pray that this kind of intensity does not die when I make my vows and move back to Boston. Though this intensity is painfully difficult at times, I would not be changing and growing and, in the end, I wouldn't be just a little bit closer to the Lord as a result.

Pax.

Thoughts From the Beginning of Lent

2011-03-12T19:23:00.000-05:00

Every morning, whether I like it or not, my alarm clock sounds at 4:50 a.m. I hit the snooze button once and get out of bed at 5:00 and head to the shower. There are any number of reasons why I get up as early as I do. Part of the reason is that I like to give myself a chance to wake up before going into prayer, because if I were to simply roll out of bed at 6:15, I wouldn't be nearly awake enough to have any idea what I was praying in the Office and I would nod off during morning meditation. I also like the quiet of the early morning, even if there is nothing else about the early morning that really thrills me, and I enjoy eating my breakfast in quiet.

Some mornings I want to say the heck with it and just sleep until I want to. Some days, too, I just say I want to do my own thing, do what I want to do and not have to do all that's required and asked of me. I'm sure that other people have these same feelings - I know that when I was out working and in school, there were days when I wanted to (and sometimes would) blow off all of my classes and spend the day doing whatever I wanted and there were days when I really just didn't want to work, so I would call in sick. I remember when I was a housekeeper at a hotel in my hometown when I was in high school and the boss would call me to come in and work because of an overload of guests. Usually, I would ignore the phone call and then call back and hour or so later and pretend like I had just gotten the message and lied that I was in some far away place and I couldn't get back for work. ("Oh, I'm sorry sir, I just got your message... I'm actually in New York City... what was that? Sorry, I'm having a hard time hearing you... I think my cell phone battery is dying....").

Christianity, unlike a lame job at a local hotel that paid $10 an hour but had extremely demanding hours and a lot of manual labor, is different, but not in too many ways. The obvious difference, of course, is that being loyal to a job isn't going to bring you eternal life, yet how many times in life has God called us and called upon us and we have waited or hesitated or even just ignored that call?

This is something that has come to the fore of my prayer lately and it has made me, in all honesty, very uncomfortable. This is due in part because I realize that I have fallen short, that I do make up excuses to shy away from my obligations or get bogged down the world of the theoretical and the haziness of doubt that I never actually end up doing what I ought to do in the first place. I find myself still caught in that rut of getting a call, waiting for the call to go to voicemail, then responding to it a little later on.

It seems all to fitting that these are my thoughts during Lent and I'm quite grateful God has given me the opportunity to ponder them as well as the grace to be willing to ponder them. It is always a rude reminder for a Christian to realize just how worldly they are. May God grant all of us the grace and courage to be transformed into His likeness!

Pax.

Prayer Request

2011-03-10T15:59:00.000-05:00

I tinker with the organ from time to time, even though I'm being trained on the piano more so. The Sisters of Divine Providence down the road have a nice - albeit small - organ in their main chapel that I usually play when I go over there for spiritual direction. Today is was a pleasant experience, since the chapel was dark and the only light was the dim light of the music stand and the across the keys and pedals.

I played for about an hour and then started to head back to the friary. I stood outside on the stoop for a moment, watching the rain, and a young woman came up to me crying, asking me to pray for her because she had just lost her job at the convent.

I'll write more on this encounter later, but in your charity, please remember to pray for her and that she may find a job, her name is Holly Murphy.

Pax.

What Retail Taught Me About Religious Life

2011-03-06T07:18:00.000-05:00

I had a lot of jobs as a teenager, everything from a TV cameraman to a housekeeper, yet the job that I had for the longest was that as a sales clerk for two large retail chain stores. These stores specialized in convenience items (basic hardware supplies, toiletries, some food, etc) and during the school year I worked the closing shift most nights and on weekends or summer vacations I would work day shifts from time to time. It was work that I disliked immensely but which I was relatively good at and, if nothing else, it gave me a source of conversation for my uncle, who himself was a manager at one of the chain stores.

Although I disliked the work immensely, in retrospect I realized that I've learned a certain number of skills that are valuable in religious life. (To which I respond: "Gee, Lord, you were preparing me the whole time!"). The first comes in handy in a large community during communal meditation periods:

A little known fact about most retail chains is that the music that is played in them is universal, that is to say, there is a corporate signal that is broadcast into whole regions and two stores down the street from each other would be playing the same music at the same time. This music is, somehow, specially chosen by retail outlets and, the theory is, that the music they chose facilitates browsing (I know, it sounds like such an absurd concept). After a while, you hear the same music over and over again and all of it is just terrible music: redoes of classics by one-hit wonders and all of it incredibly sappy and excessively catchy. The first few shifts I worked I was ready to go crazy having to listen to all of that music over and over with no control over it. Over time, however, you learn to cope with the music - even the horrible Christmas music that plays from Halloween until New Years' - and eventually you don't hear it anymore. As you can imagine, in a chapel filled with noisy brothers, this is a valuable skill.

Working in retail also puts you into contact with all sorts of people, some of whom are not very pleasant at all and learning to deal with them in a calm and fair manner is one of the cornerstones of being a cashier. In religious life, in both fraternal life and ministry, you encounter people who can be very rude or demanding and having some background on how to deal with these people in a calm way is incredibly valuable.

Retail work is also filled with many menial and seemingly useless tasks. Sometimes the same shelf needs to be reorganized - again - for the third time in a month. At the end of the night you need to go through each aisle and pull forward all of the products that have been pushed back and picked through during the day so that the shelves look full and dust out the empty areas. In religious life too, both in fraternity and in ministry, there are many seemingly pointless tasks that need to be done, yet, like those same tasks in my retail work, they are all important to keeping up the flow and good operation of the whole store, or, in my current situation, the whole fraternity.

Pax.

Bernard Smith, OFM Cap.

2011-03-01T06:10:00.000-05:00

Today is the one year anniversary of death of our brother Bernard Smith, OFM Cap., Capuchin priest.

One of the novices who left the novitiate a few months ago said to me, sarcastically, during the nightly reading of the necrology: "Well gee, maybe one day friars will be gathered around a table saying witty stories about you." My only response was, sincerely, "I could hope for nothing more."

There are many stories to be told about Bernie but on his anniversary of death I'm just reminded of what a blessing it is to be a Capuchin and I'm reminded of the great men who have come and gone before me to lay the road.

Rest in peace, brother.

Pax.

Learning to Pray in Common

2011-02-26T19:20:00.000-05:00

Everyone has their quirks, but rarely does this become more evident than in the chapel during common meditation. Some brothers can't stay awake to save their life and sometimes a not-so-gentle snore will echo through the silence. Coughs, sneezes, nose-blowing, throats being cleared, feet shuffling, pages being turned, Rosaries being fiddled with, knuckles being cracked, sighs: it's all a part of the ambient sound in the chapel during common meditation... and that's just inside the chapel. In places like Brooklyn, you need to add in police sirens, car horns, buses, ice cream trucks (in the warmer weather), the NYPD helicopter, the elevated train, and the general din of the inner city. The point is, it can sometimes seem like the time of common meditation is the noisiest part of the day.

This was a bit of an adjustment for me coming into the Order. I was used to praying alone and in relatively quiet places away from the realities of my first year in the inner city. Getting used to the noises of the brothers and the noises of the city was a real challenge for me at first and it caused the tumult of the first few weeks of religious life to be even more tumultuous. As a candidate I had a great prayer life, but when I entered the Order my prayer life was dry and boring and, I thought, cluttered with too much noise.

Some brothers are still not entirely used to all of the noises in the chapel. I can understand their frustration. I think that the temptation of common meditation periods is to make them exclusively our own, that is to say, we try to block out what is going on around us. I think this can be dangerous, because eventually it blocks out those who around us. This is true for me as a Capuchin, since those who are around me are my brothers and to block them out is to deny a part of myself and my vocation. This is true for us as Catholics, because those around us in church are those to whom we are bonded the Eucharist and mutual faith and to deny them is to deny our brothers and sisters and Christ, who is present among them.

As a Capuchin, I can say that the brothers are a part of my prayer. Brother So-and-So who always insists on blowing his nose very loud or that other brother who sits next to him who always cracks his knuckles are, admittedly, annoying. Those parents who refuse to take their screaming children outside during Mass are, let's face it, annoying. Those who answer cell phones during Mass are annoying, as are those brothers who just can't even seem to find the page they are looking for and are constantly flipping through pages, dropping books, and clicking pens are annoying. But I'm reminded of a couple of things.

The first is that God has given these people to us to pray with for a reason, and I doubt that that reason is because they are perfect pray-ers. They are part of a larger picture that can only be understood in light of our faith, which is ultimately communal and not entirely self-focused. The second thing I'm reminded of is that I probably make obnoxious noises during common prayer as well and that the other brothers are struggling to deal with me and my quirks as much as I'm trying to deal with theirs. The same goes for Mass at a parish, I'm sure the way that I handle myself in church can bother some people just as much as other people bother me at church.

In the end, if we allow ourselves to focus on these petty little differences then we distract ourselves from the most important thing, which is to draw ourselves into closer union with God. We are a chosen people, after all, and we can never change the world if we keep ourselves distant from God. If you look at the world today, it needs some changing. I also think that, by focusing on them, we can get too caught up in me and Jesus and that kind of narrowness of vision, though grounded in faith, excludes a whole other aspect of our relationship with God that necessarily draws us closer to others.

So, my advice from my experience would be to embrace, not reject, the noise and the personalities of others that are so prominently revealed in the silence. Let them become part of your prayer. Pray for them if you have to so that you can grow in love of them and, in so doing, grow in love of God who is

"Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces."

Pax.

Requiescant in Pace

2011-02-24T07:18:00.000-05:00

I would ask that you offer prayers for the repose of the soul of Fr. Ralph Zehe, OFM Cap. who passed to his eternal reward on Tuesday night. He was a member of our community here at St. Conrad's, although in practice he lived at the local nursing home. The Mass of Christian Burial will be on Saturday morning at the Church of Saint Augustine, the Capuchin church in Pittsburgh, in which I will be singing in the schola.

Requiescant in pace.

Thoughts After Confession

2011-02-19T19:41:00.000-05:00

This afternoon after bidding farewell to one of the friars from the home province who was visiting, I made my way over to Saint Sebastian's Church for Confession. I went alone, since most of the guys who wanted to go had already gone earlier in the day. Confession is always something that is a bit of a challenge for me.

First of all, I come from a mindset originally in which Confession doesn't make sense. As a pseudo-Protestant agnostic with some atheistic tendencies, I had no real concept of sin per se growing up, or, at the very least, I didn't care whether what I was doing was a sin or not. Then, upon entering the Church, there was such a tremendous focus in my catechumenate formation on the love of God, but His mercy for sinners was not as heavily stressed. At the time I was entering the Church, I needed to know God's love first, so I don't challenge my RCIA formation, but after entering the Church I missed that next step from love to mercy and the personal response to the mercy of God being sorrow for sin, penance, and reparation. I suppose I entered the Church with the mindset that I could live almost the same way as before, so many of my sins carried over into the beginning of my Catholic years, even though other parts of my life had changed.

Second, before stepping into that confessional I get a sharp pain of fear in my chest. Part of me isn't so sure that God will forgive me this time, because even after he forgave me last time, I still sinned again. Part of me isn't so sure the priest will be able to bring himself to forgive me, especially a priest who I may have seen several times, confessing the same sins. Maybe part of me is even afraid that there, in that dark little room, crouched behind a screen, the floor might just drop out and I will find myself in an empty void of a God-less living.

What is bizarre, is that my experience of confession proves the opposite. Indeed, I feel like a tremendous weight is pulled up off my shoulders when I confess my sins and when the priest raises his hand to bless me and absolve me, I find that I knew all along that God would forgive me. The trouble begins when I step out of the confessional, because I need to keep myself from falling into the trap of years past in which I take God's mercy for granted and just assume that the next time I sin, even if it is knowingly, I'll just be forgiven again with no consequences for my eternal life. God's forgiveness is unending, yes, but that forgiveness requires a response. Christ did not speak to the woman caught in adultery in the words, "Nor do I condemn you, go and keep sinning." Rather, He said, "Nor do I condemn you, go and sin no more." Our sinfulness is inescapable in some ways, as we are creatures, but my intention should never be to sin again.

My confessor reminded me of something important today. He reminded me that religious life is an eschatological model of the life to come, that we, as religious, are called upon to live the Gospel life not for its own sake alone but for the sake of witnessing to the whole world to the love and power of God to transform our nature through His grace. We're meant to be models of what has been revealed. Yet, he reminded me, we are still creatures and "the Lord must reveal to us our sins first," before He can lead us to holiness. I was struck by that and by his exhortation to me, which was understanding and compassionate yet firm.

Ultimately, sin is an act of selfishness: we supplant God's will for our own because we falsely believe that our way, the way of the flesh, is the better and more pleasurable way. On the surface, it would seem like that is true, as the will of God leads to self-denial, penance, and suffering while the will of self leads to indulgence, pleasure, and self-satisfaction. Yet underneath the austerity of following the will of God is an abundance. Underneath the desert we cross in our pilgrimage rushes a great river from which springs of grace gush forth to nourish us in our trials and temptations. Sometimes I forget that and chose a different option. Sometimes I get so trapped in this false mindset of my previous life that I forget that Jesus is calling me to live something new, to die and to rise with Him.

I need to hold fast to the learned knowledge of the endlessness of God's mercy, I need to reflect lovingly on God's unfolding presence in my life over the years, and, in the tumultuous seas, I need to cast aside my own will and set a course toward Christ, the Unfading Star that leads me home to where I will be a pilgrim and a stranger no longer.

Pax.

Massachusetts Bishops and the Economy

2011-02-19T16:09:00.000-05:00

Click Here to read a pastoral letter written by the Bishops of Massachusetts regarding the economic crisis in my home state.

Pax.

On Suffering from Ministry

2011-02-11T19:15:00.001-05:00

I noticed one of the residents at the nursing home was leaning over in her chair. Earlier in the day she had been complaining about her back pain and so we had put a pillow on her side to prop her up so that she could get around and do things. During a prayer service for the World Day of the Sick at which I was presiding I noticed that she was leaning heavily, so I crouched down beside her.

Me: "N.___ are you okay?"

Resident: "I'm fair."

Me: "Is it your back? Do you want to go back to your room?"

Resident: "No, I can manage. I offer it up for the Poor Souls."

It is in these moments that I realize just how much I complain about my difficulties and feel ashamed that I do.

--
Below is a written version of a "ferverino" that I gave in honor of the World Day of the Sick at ministry this afternoon. When preaching or speaking, I tend to add things spontaneously, so there are some additions that aren't included in the text, but overall I was quite faithful to what is written below. (Forgive typos!)

When I was 11, my grandmother got sick. I remember coming home the day before Christmas even from school and my mom standing there telling me. The following day, my grandmother died. The illness was short and sudden, but by the end she couldn't even breathe on her own. She and I were very close and her death really struck me. Up until then, sickness and death happened on to others, but now they had come close to me.

Finding a reason for sickness, and for the suffering that comes with it, is never a satisfactory venture, because so long as we search from answers the only one that we will find is that there is no answer. It is one of the central mysteries of human life and we may never find an answer that is good enough to justify the sickness we see in one another or, even more, the sickness we see and feel in ourselves. It is easy to ask God: Why me? Why now? Why this? Am I being punished for some past sin? Or simply we turn to God and ask Why?

Saint Paul in his letter to the Corinthians is writing to a community of persecuted Christians. They, won over by Paul's teaching, have given up all to follow Jesus. They were God's chosen people, those chosen to lead the world to salvation. So why were they being persecuted? We, as the ancient Christians, are God's chosen people and yet why are we reduced to suck weakness?

Unless we look to Jesus, unless we see what He sees, we can never know the answer. Look at Him there, on that cross. In that moment of crucifixion, Jesus felt the full weight of sickness and pain as His human life slowly slipped away. He knows our pain and there on that Cross he saw it all! He saw you, here, now - sick and in pain - and he opened his arms for you so that you might know the love of God and that none of his beloved will suffer in vain. he opened His arms to reveal the promise fulfilled of a life lived in God, free of all sickness.

When we look at Jesus, we see God's love flowing over. He loves you and yearns to take away all that separates you from Him. Let Him! Feel the cool waters of salvation flow through you and know His peace.

When we see as Jesus saw we also know that He never leaves us alone in our affliction. When He saw you in His dying moments, he also saw the person sitting next to you and HE gave you to each other, just as He gave His mother to John, sot hat you might share in one another's pain.

Trust Him, by brothers and sisters. We are all sick, but we are children of the light. Nothing of the promise is hidden from us. Do not be afraid, for God is ready to reach out to you and touch you, that you may be healed. The Lord is trustworthy. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the God of all comfort. Amen.

Pax.

Sleep

2011-02-10T07:27:00.000-05:00

Some days, the weight of the monsters that haunt your dreams bears too much against your soul. The whole host of the enemy seems to march against you in your citadel. Rain of fire falls, tearing through your defenses, your best defenders fall at their place and you stand, vulnerable, in your Keep, seemingly undefended. In those days, it is only in sleep that we find our refreshment and our victory. There, in sleep, we rest in the arms of Christ who soothes the wounds from our battle with a fragrant balm. There, in sleep, Christ, our Keep, stands firm against the assailing night, against the barbs and the arrows, and casts away the enemy back to the foul depths of darkness from which they dared venture to cause the ruin of good men. There, in sleep, the gentle hand of God rebuilds our defenses in Himself to make of it an indestructible fortress. Blessed be God who does not forsake us to our enemies.

Pax.

A Little Morning Humor

2011-02-09T06:03:00.002-05:00

In this case, I am most like the Rat.

Pax.

Overheard at Dinner

2011-02-05T18:43:00.000-05:00

Senior priest: As I recall, when I was ordained to the minor orders, there was one that, after you received it, you were allowed to give blessings - but only to fruits and nuts.

Me: Really? That seems a bit strange.

Senior priest: Well, at least you could bless the Brothers.

Pax.

Only at the Capuchin Novitiate

2011-02-02T12:18:00.000-05:00

Today being the Feast of the Presentation, we also celebrated Candlemas this morning at the opening of Mass. For those unfamiliar, Candlemas is a celebration of blessing of candles that will be used in liturgy through the year. In this case, we blessed about six sanctuary lamps and the remainder of our altar candles. We also each had a lit candle that was blessed and we processed into the chapel chanting an entrance psalm. But only at the Capuchin novitiate could the liturgy have gone the way it did. I emphasis Capuchin to underscore the fact that this probably wouldn't have happened in, say, a Dominican novitiate.

First off, our chapel was an add-on to the building, as when the novitiate first moved here classes were smaller and thus a pre-existing room was turned into a chapel. (The building had originally been a private residence that had been transferred to this property). As such, the chapel can be accessed either from outside or through the sacristy. The sacristy is attached to the main house through a "solarium," we we jokingly call it, that is attached to the kitchen. The sacristy is little more than a closet (a poorly designed sacristy indeed) and should the priest and the sacristan be in there at the same time, they run into each other. So you can imagine 11 novices, 3 formation directors, 2 priests-in-residence, and 1 guest trying to squeeze through it to enter the chapel.

The "solarium," so called, is an unheated room, also an add-on to the original building. As we were standing there for the opening of Mass, water was dripping through several holes in the roof. The candles were set up on a card table, with the sanctuary lamps and the altar candles being in their respective boxes, and the votive candles we processed with were $1 candles from a local thrift store. You can imagine the scene - rain dripping through the ceiling in a room carpeted with something like astroturf onto the heads of chilly friars while they tried to squeeze through a tiny sacristy into our (admittedly very beautiful) chapel.

Blessed be God for the gift of poverty!

Pax.

Church Design (Reduex)

2011-01-31T21:34:00.000-05:00

Let me begin this new "treatise" on contemporary Catholic church designs by declaring my bias. My favorite church in Pittsburgh is - besides the cathedral - is, by far, Sacred Heart Church in Shadyside, seen below.

You'll notice the Gothic influences. It is both stark and magnificent and this photo doesn't do it justice. Above the central part of the church, where the two transcepts cross, is a highly vaulted ceiling, above which is the bell-tower. To the left of this image is the Blessed Sacrament chapel. It's more modern in appearance, but still maintains the feel of the main worship space. To the right is the Lady Chapel. The organ pipes are hidden to the right and the left of the altar, above the choir stalls that still stand between the old Communion rail and the altar steps. This would be, for me, an ideal place for prayer and worship. The style calls out to me and speaks to my own thoughts and prayer life.

Below is an example of a similar style Anglican church, which is just across the street from Sacred Heart.

The rood screen still stands between the people and the altar and the altar is very heavily ornamented. The organ, which is in the back of the church, is equally impressive in its beauty. Although I am not Anglican, this church too expresses a style of church design that I am more comfortable with and which I think, in certain ways, captures a sense of the ancient and the mysterious that is always at play in our sacramental life as Catholics.

Saint Vincent Ferrer Church, the Domincan Provincial house in Manhattan (below) is also a splendid example of "my style" of church architecture that I think is lost in newer styles of church design, at least in Catholic circles (I, obviously, can't speak for churches of other denominations).

These churches bear in their very structure to the Cross of Christ and I think express a kind of mysterious grandeur that is one one level earthy - as evidenced by the strong stone and wood features - and glorious - as evidenced by vaulted ceilings, brilliant stained glass, and awe-inspiring reredos. I like the darkness of them too, in a certain way, that creates a privacy and an intimacy with God.

All of that said, I don't really see these things in new churches. What I would call the art of liturgical design seems to me to be somewhat cheapened by images or designs that seem almost silly. Stained glass, for example, that previously strove for a more realistic rendering of images (even if the setting isn't necessarily accurate, like Mary receiving the Archangel's greeting in a marble sitting room), seems now to tend for blob-like designs that don't look like what they are supposed to and tend to just be a series of images or symbols in different, sometimes clashing, colors. Though these can be beautiful in their own right, I'm not so sure I like them in a worship space. In some cases, I would rather prefer pane glass over more modern attempts at stained glass.

In general, I enjoy what has been the trend in sanctuary design for a couple of reasons. First, I like that altars and lecterns have been given places of prominence, usually on elevated platforms. Though I doubt it's ever the intention, altars seem to be placed at the top of three of four steps, making both forms - EF and OF - of Mass possible, though the EF seems rare in these parts.

I generally dislike the trend toward not having permanent crucifixes above or near the altar, but rather congregations are depending more on the processional cross. I think that keeping a stationary crucifix from the space cuts out a whole element of meaning to the celebration of Eucharist and for those who may come to the church between Masses to pray. I think we can never lose sight of the shame and glory of the crucified savior and I would prefer to have a stationary crucifix.

While on this topic, I like that music and especially choirs have seen a rise in importance in new churches. Organs seem to be the instrument of choice, even if they are electric. (Though, electric organs leave one with the question of how to hide a series of ugly speakers). However, sometimes the placement of the organ can be awkward or distracting. As well, cantor stands, when placed too close to the lectern, can tend to overshadow the lectern, which I think can visually diminish the importance of the Liturgy of the Word and thereby Scripture.

I've seen both decent and poor attempts at reredos in new churches. A good example is Saint Bonaventure Church here in the North Hills (no bias just because its named after a great Franciscan saint!).

Though I'm not too thrilled with the interior of the church, you'll note that it has a permanent crucifix and you can (barely) make out the reredos behind the altar. It is more or less a screen and it lacks a lot of decoration - I guess keeping true to Bonaventure's simplicity. This, however, is a better example than others I have seen, which have settled on awkward, out-of-place structures that look like something between a jungle gym and a large speaker. Sometimes I think that sanctuaries are left too open and so to fill the void, reredos are hastily conceived and constructed.

Sometimes the emphasis on the communal takes away from the emphasis on Sacrament or the Mass itself. The open spaces sometimes tend toward the mega-church feel, lacking in ornamentation and tending toward sterility and, with that, an emphasis on preaching seems to be rising as well which, though important, is not the center of the Eucharistic celebration. These new churches express simplicity in a way that doesn't fit with my understandings per se. Sometimes influences from other cultural styles in design, I think, take away a model traditional to the American Church and the Church in the Western experience. I am not saying all churches need to look the same all over the world, but I am saying that the American Church, as it is intimately tied with the whole Western experience of the Church, holds onto that tradition of dusty Gothic churches that dot the European countryside. It moving away from that, I think we can sometimes lose sight of things that are important just because we think them no longer fitting with modern thought, that they - like the grand cathedrals of old Europe - are just dusty relics of a Church that has faded to give way to a new style of Church and worship. In this, I think we are denying our roots as undeniably Western, Catholic Christians. Ultimately I think that church design should reflect the present as well as the past so as to capture the reality of God's interaction with us through our Sacramental life which is both ancient and new.

Pax.

A Comment on Yesterday's Post on Church Design

2011-01-31T06:09:00.000-05:00

It's become my custom every night, before going to bed, to run through the day, beg pardon for my offenses, offer praise for what went right, and to offer the day for a particular intention. Last night, while running through this process as usual, I realized that the post I posted yesterday about church design was not such a good one. Not only do I think it was poorly written (as it was written in haste) but I realized that I used the term "Protestant" in an almost derogatory way, or that is how it seemed to me. I sometimes forget people don't understand that word in the same context that I do, and what I meant by "Protestant" church design was more in line with with the mega churches that essentially large arenas with pulpits but that lack any fundamental feel of a church. I decided that I would rewrite the post sometime soon.

I had planned on pulling the entry last night, but I get to a point each night where the habit comes off and the sweatpants and old t-shirt go on and, after that, this is no motivating me to do anything beyond walking the few feet to the bathroom down the hall to brush my teeth. So I apologize for anyone who read it last night or this morning before I yanked it who was offended or disappointed in the post. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Pax.

Humanity and Religious LIfe

2011-01-28T19:45:00.000-05:00

The humanity of religious life is both endearing and destructive. On the one hand, the fact that those in religious life retain their humanity, their struggles and their personalities, makes them closer to the people that they ultimately serve and to one another. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies and the God of all consolation, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction." Yet at the same time, our raw humanity can harm those with whom we share religious life and even those outside of religious life.

This is something that I've become keenly aware of during the past eight months of religious life, both in myself and in others. Anger and frustration at those around us can creep in and become like a disease, something that violently tears apart the soul. That anger and that frustration can and does poison everything we see and do, everything we see and touch burns with the sin. We can convince ourselves easily of why we are justified in our sentiments and this is the scariest place of all to be. When I've found myself there, I've justified some really awful and downright sinful behavior. Yet it is so easy to get there!

I remember when I was a candidate, I experienced a particularly difficult series of interpersonal interactions at a friary that I frequently went to. It was never the friar's intention that I saw what I did and the details of what happened and when are irrelevant at this point. I remember, however, sitting with my now classmate and explaining my frustration at how the friars were acting toward one another. We there resolved to not behave that way, that we would pave a different way of living that would not fall into the trap of gossip and slander. And yet we both failed, myself especially, and fell into the trap we said we wouldn't.

I think it's easy to do that, though, not just because of human weakness but because the realities of living with someone are often far different than just knowing them at a safe distance. For men who are accustomed to a certain degree of independence, we become the centers of our own world and when people conflict with that, even men that we call brothers, they are just wrong, they are anathema. When confronted with a challenge to what we want, we evaluate the man standing across from us and make the decision either to be his brother or not and our answer to that question reflects the way we will interact not just with him but with every other brother.

It's a shame really, yet it is a reality of the human experience. As I've learned over my time as a novice, however, prayer is always a good option. If, after a period of prayer over a particular difficulty with a brother, I can still find anger in myself then I need to keep praying. The more I pray for the brothers I struggle with the most, the easier it becomes to work with him and live with him, but when I refuse to even acknowledge him, my life becomes a living hell until I step out of my arrogance.

It seems to me that, as religious, we should be in the business of supporting one another, especially if the ultimate goal of the religious life is to live the Gospel more perfectly. What is the point, after all, of living together in a community - or even joining into a large community - if we are not to support one another? When I fall short of supporting and encouraging my brothers to grow, to be better, and when I stop listening to their encouragement and exhortations to me, those are the days that I've really missed the point, the days when I let the vision of eternity slip out of sight and replaced that vision with a vision of myself.

Pax.

Learning More About Vocation

2011-01-26T20:25:00.000-05:00

I was never a "ladies man" by any stretch of the imagination. Everyone in the family told me that I was going to be a "lady killer" when I got older. Although a part of me thinks they were just trying to reassure a young boy who had self-confidence issues, their predictions were, in light of the life I live now, strangely ironic. Although my experience is limited, one of the things I learned a lot about growing up as something that's popularly known as "the friend zone." There have been quite a few funny movies made about the subject, my favorite being Just Friends starring Ryan Reynolds. Inevitably I was the butt end of the sentence, "You're a nice guy and all, but...."

Growing up, being the nice guy didn't always pay off. Looking back, it always seemed to be the guys who treated others poorly, who had the better cars and more money were the ones who all of the girls flocked after and who seemed to have the far better life. For that reason, being a "nice guy" was sometimes to be avoided and I don't think I ever really appreciated the value of being a "nice guy" for people.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, my spiritual director asked me to look back on my vocation history and to talk to Jesus about the whole experience. It has been a tumultuous one, plagued with seemingly insurmountable hurdles. During my prayer this evening, I remembered two years ago when I was volunteering with the Sisters of Saint Joseph in Boston before entering postulancy. One of the women who worked in the kitchen preparing food for the infirmed sisters was also one of the "lunch ladies" in my high school. I remembered when she started to work in the school kitchen, as she hadn't been there all four years, she had come in about mid-way through and started off in the kitchen, then became one of the regular cashiers. The former lunch lady - I wish I could remember her name - said of me, "He was always such a nice young man."

If I had stayed in college instead of entering religious life, I would be 100 days away from my graduation. In my prayer I asked Jesus why He had called me, and why then? Why did He call me when I was two years into school instead of after my senior year? Was I just some young upstart convert who was overly eager and headstrong and determined to do something for Jesus? Why, Jesus, did you call me when you did?

It struck me that there must have been something unique about my call. Surely, God could have called me at any time, but something about that time that He called was important. I'm still not sure why that is, yet through my prayer it became clearer where the call came from. God saw something good in me. He say that "nice guy," that gentle innocence of a heart that has always wanted to love Him and to be loved by Him but just never had the chance. He saw a spark, something warm and glowing my soul, something that He could use for others to bring them into the light. The pain and the troubles I've had to endure make my vocation all the more special, my suffering gives me more to share with my God and His people. Even now, my suffering gives me more to share as it purifies me and strengthens me to serve Him all my days. May I always remain faithful to seeing and believing in that goodness in myself that God sought and always know that His call was for a deeper purpose. The details of when and where are, in light of that reality, just trivialities.

My we all, indeed, be true to that call of God that calls out to our goodness, to our talents and our love, to draw all that we have into Him so that He might share with all in His endless goodness.

Pax.

A Prayer After Communion

2011-01-24T15:12:00.000-05:00

O tongue, you taste the sweetness of the Lord,
   clothed in His humility
O lips, you feel the rush of salvation's spilled Blood,
pass like honey over you.
Together
   you, o tongue
   and you, o lips,
have the blessed joy of pronouncing His Name,
   of invoking that sweet name
   JESUS
   that is above any other.
Why then
   you who receive such abundant blessings
   do you blaspheme?
   curse?
   revile?
   slander?
   gossip?
O soul,
   who has its home and source in Him
why stay from the hearth
   that warms and satisfies you?
O heart, why can you not forgive?
O eyes, how can you look on that Heart
   inflamed with love for you
   and overflowing with blood and water
and not know
   His mercy?
Be at rest, my soul,
for He,
   Jesus
is ready to give Himself to you.
Embrace him. Do not be afraid.
   Be at peace.

Morning Mistake

2011-01-21T09:11:00.000-05:00

In the mornings, I've taken to exercising en lieu of breakfast. I usually rise about 5:00 am and eat breakfast then, about an hour before prayer begins, then enjoy the early morning quiet of the friary. After Mass I usually have a morning run on the treadmill. Since the friary is actually several different buildings spread out over a large property, going to the exercise room requires that I first walk from the chapel building to my dorm building to change, then from my dorm building to another nearby dorm building where the workout room is. After a good, long run, stepping out of the workout room into the cold Pittsburgh air is usually shocking but thrilling sensation. Usually it doesn't bother me - in fact some days, after the harder work-outs, it feels good to jump out into the cold.

This morning however, with single-digit temperatures, high wind, and whipping snow, it was not such a good idea.

Pax.

In Memoriam

2011-01-19T18:50:00.000-05:00

Today is the anniversary of death of a friar by the name of Edmund Walker. He has gained fame among many friars who were recently in formation as he staffed our formation program in Kansas for a number of years. My classmate and I were the last two people to meet Edmund Walker. The friars of the New Jersey Province have a retreat center attached to their infirmary in Beacon, NY and it was there that my classmate and I went on retreat in January of last year. After praying Vespers with the friars, Edmund introduced himself to us. He was noticeably frail and a little weak, but in very good spirits. After we spoke briefly, my classmate and I went into the retreat center refectory off of the chapel. Shortly after we had left the chapel, Edmund collapsed and died before the altar in the chapel.

Though I didn't know him, I still remember the gentleness of him and his joy at seeing us and in knowing that there are still men coming into the Order. A Benedictine monk who lived among the friars there in Beacon noted the day after Edmund's death, perhaps a bit tongue-in-cheek, that, after seeing that there are still men coming into the Order, he knew he could die happily, and so he did.

Requiescant in pace.

The Story So Far

2011-01-15T19:47:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite songs begins:

I can't remember the time or place,

or what you were wearing,
it's unclear about how we met,

all I know it was the best conversation that I've ever had

The Gospel for this Sunday brought me back to a time when, "I did not know him," as John the Baptist testifies. I thought back to just before I entered the Catechumenate, a time that I look on both with a thoughtful nostalgia but which always conjures up memories of deep emptiness and bitter pain. In the months leading up to my decision to enter RCIA, I could not remember feeling more empty, vulnerable, and abandoned in my life. When I walked out of the Congregationalist church when I was 17, I knew I wouldn't ever go back because, whatever it was that I was looking for, whatever it was that I was restless for, was not there. I didn't know that the decision to return to church would cause such tumult in my life, a tumult that I was not well-equipped to deal with after years of isolating myself from difficulty and subduing my pain through vices of various varieties.

Fast-forward a few months from when I walked out of the Congregationalist church for the last time, I found myself at a Catholic Mass, even though I still identified myself as virally anti-Catholic. I was confused and not all that interested either, yet something in me was stirred and I went back again. Then I went back again. And then I went back again. And so the cycle continued until one day everything seemed to fall into place. The priest intoned, Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.... Something called to me then from the Eternity, a voice calling out through the ages, speaking of something that had been testified to for all time, something that was interwoven into the very fabric of life. It sent a chill down my spine. Thus began a love affair that will never end.

Capuchin life was far from my mind when I first started out on this journey, in fact I had no idea who the Capuchins were. The story up to this point in my life has been so fraught with pain and difficulty, so loaded with tears and anxieties, that it hardly seems imaginable that I arrived to this point. Indeed, when the decision to apply to the Order did not go over well with the family, I recall standing over the trashcan, application in hand, ready to throw it all away and just go back to the way things were ante bellum (not such an exaggeration!). Yet to have turned back at that moment would have been the biggest mistake of my life, one which may have cost me Eternity, that is, my Beloved.

When God calls, when we come to know Him, there must always be a response. To simply brush off an encounter with the Divine is to deny one's very self. If I had turned back at that moment, I would have been denying my soul its very life, its love, and its food. To do so today would be to deny myself yet again, though I know I do it, sometimes not willingly or knowingly, but I still deny my Christ when He calls me.

I've learned much recently about the life of a Christian. So often, I think, I - and indeed all of us - can fall into the trap of thinking we can live the same way we always did once we encounter Christ, yet He calls us to a radically new life, one dedicated fully to Him, one of unity and of purpose. We cannot keep up the life we did before without denying the new life of freedom that Jesus offers. Our lives, so consumed by Him, should proclaim the greatness of the Lord to let the whole world know that He has come to the help of his servant, Israel, for he has remembered His promise of mercy. We preach not in words alone and if our words to not reflect our lives, we preach in vain.

It is difficult indeed to be called to the Christian life, the Christ-centered life, but the deeper into it you plunge, the cooler the balm that heals the wounds of self-denial, penance, persecution. The more we drink of the cup of salvation, the sweeter it tastes and the more we eat of the bread of life, the more satisfying it becomes. Let us persevere in love of God.

Pax.

Jesus and the Mop

2011-01-15T15:20:00.000-05:00

I think it is fair to say that I was not too well-accustomed to manual labor when I entered the Capuchins. The snow these days reminds me of how little I had to actually shovel as a kid and even as a teenager - either the town took care of it or the landlord took care of it, but little more needed to be done on my part. Mowing the lawn never needed to be done since we lived in an apartment, so the landlord took care of it. Much the same with raking leaves, gardening, etc. Although I did get an introduction to the common ritual of dish washing and cooking, I think it's fair to say that, for the most part, my hands did not see much manual work.

Now, this is not to say that I never worked. Actually, I've had a steady job since I was 14, working long hours or closing shifts in the many jobs that I've had. Looking back, though, they required little manual labor from me, but I did learn about the value of a good day's work. But for me, that value was the paycheck that was given to me at the end of every week - a tangible offering for work done, even if not done well or to the best of my ability.

In religious life, I've noticed, it has been hard to make the transition for working for a paycheck to working for eternity. The ideals are all there in my head about doing work, it's what Francis wanted and it's what is expected of me, yet when it comes down to doing the work I find myself struggling with apathy and selfishness. This came to me shockingly yesterday while at ministry. While I was complaining about the excessive snow removal I've had to do, one of the residents at the nursing home responded bluntly, "Offer it up." Her blunt response is characteristic of her, she is often known for her brisk and sometimes rude honesty, yet she made me realize that I was just complaining. Me, the Brother, the one who is supposed to be the hard-working "monk" was - for lack of a better word - bitching about having to shovel for thirty minutes a few times a day. God was very honesty and upfront with me on this issue too.

Yet, at other times, I find myself enjoying my labors. For example, I take great joy in my work as sacristan, which does require a certain amount of manual labor with the washing, polishing, ironing, folding, scrubbing, etc. My favorite job around the house is to mop the kitchen floor after dinner. After the rest of the cleaning crew is finished up and heading out their separate ways, there is something special about mopping that floor. By the time you're ready to mop, almost everyone else is gone from the kitchen and the evening silence has begun, so the house is quiet. Eventually you find yourself as the only one there, just you, your mop, and Jesus. It becomes a moment of great peace and prayer.

I think my struggle with work is something common to most people in my generation and perhaps even common to many in religious life. We, as Americans, become so accustomed to having someone else do all of the harder work and so we lose touch with the value of it and our bodies no longer know the strength that they need to get the job done. Yet, work is at the core of our life, I think, work and prayer. I don't necessarily mean manual house chores, yet I've noticed that a community that takes responsibility for its own work - cooking, cleaning, repair jobs, etc - takes greater efforts to building a better community. But when a friar simply can't be so inconvenienced as to wash the dishes, mop the floor, fix the leaky faucet, or repair the broken door latch, somehow community - and the upkeep it requires - seems less important. I don't know if this is true in all cases, but in my limited experience I've seen this to be true, not just in my community but in other religious communities.

I am taking this to prayer again and again and more and more I come back to the need for work, but I always need to pray for the graces and the strength and selflessness that I need to get the work done not because it needs to get done, but for love of my brothers and love the Good Lord Who lives among them.

Pax.

To Live the Gospel

2011-01-12T21:50:00.000-05:00

One of the brothers here is a little under the weather and one of his fellow novices has undertaken the responsibility to caring for him. The other novices have become slightly frustrated or annoyed over this, some thinking of it has preferential treatment (since many will say that, while they were sick, this particular novice did not show such courtesy to them) and others believing it not necessary to fulfill each one of the ill brother's desires (some say he's asking for too much). Although I have been tending to draw from both opinions on the issue, as I was washing dishes this evening after dinner I started to think more about it.

The novice caring for the sick one is, after all, only observing a demand of the Constitutions, and who are we to deny our brothers their needs, especially in a time of illness? Is it fair of us to count the cost when it comes to fraternal charity? That indeed has been a question in my mind for some time, as to where - if anywhere - to draw the line of charity when it starts to turn into manipulation or an impingement on my own dignity as a brother in this community.

That said, I thought of the wonderful line that opens up the Regla Bullata, or the Rule of Saint Francis. "The Rule and life of the Friars Minor is this: to observe the Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ." The Constitutions of the Capuchin Friars Minor says, in its opening chapter, "In all circumstances of our life, let us follow the Gospel as the supreme law...." In my wanderings I harkened back to something a friar had said to me once, that the Capuchin Franciscan life is really about two things: Scripture and Baptism. I didn't understand what he meant, but now I think I'm beginning to understand.

It is a tremendous shock to suddenly realize that the intention of my life in the Capuchins is not a particular apostolate but rather it is to be conformed to the Gospel. The early Capuchins understood this well, I think, and so modeled their lives on prayer and work, yet it was this prayer and this work that drove them out of their hermitages and into the cities to serve the people, which endeared them to the people.

Our goal as baptized Christians is to live the Gospel, but in living this life, the Capuchin life, I am saying that this particular style of living is what will bring me closest to that perfection that is asked of me in love from Christ Himself. The command of Christ to love one another, or indeed any command of Christ, is not a motivation of punishment or a desire for power on the part of God but rather a desire and prompting of love. Gods wants us to be holy as I am holy and all that he asks of us is meant to turn us toward Him and His holiness. Even hardship - that is, the Cross - drives us deeper into His embrace and thus conforms us even closer to Him, like wax in the hands of a candle-maker or clay in the hands of a potter.

To return to my original point, I guess what my conclusion from this has been that, even when a brother seems to be demanding a lot or when a brother seems to be particularly difficult to deal with, is it not my call to give unceasingly in charity to him, as Christ has given in charity to me in my faults, and to never count the cost but to remind myself that Christ is in that brother. "Let each brother," says the Constitutions, "reflecting that the person of Christ is hidden in the sick, consider what he would wish to be done for him in case of sickness and recall what Saint Francis wrote in the Rule: no mother is as tender and caring toward her son, as each one of us should be toward our spiritual brother."

I'll admit, it all seems like a bit of a slap in the face. It is a slap in the face in part because I know how bad I can be at following the Gospel in my daily living. As well, it is a slap in the face because I realize that I am at all times called to live the Gospel in all circumstances of living, even with those I dislike, and even at every moment of the day for I know not the day nor the hour and I must live in such a way that I will always be prepared to welcome Him when he comes again with shouts of Hosanna to the Son of David!

A monumental task. Off hand, I'd say that I'm not up to the challenge, but thankfully it is not by my strength but by His strength that I am to live. Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war; / My safe guard and my fortress, my stronghold, my deliverer, My shield, in whom I trust. Blessed is the one who can persevere unto the end. And O what their joy and their glory must be, Those endless Sabbaths the blessèd ones see; Crown for the valiant, to weary ones, rest; God shall be all, and in all ever blessed.

On Capuchin Life

2011-01-10T21:17:00.001-05:00

From a book on the history of the Capuchin Order:

"So utterly had the life and thought of the time lost the very isntinct of religion, that a new beginning - or an abrupt breaking away from the present - seemed to many the only sure road to reform. It was that which led to the widepsread revivial of the eremetical and contemplative forms of the religious life. Salvation lay in discarding the secularizing developments which had overgrown the fair garden of religion like luxuriant weends, and in a return to the almost forogtten but essential spiritual content of the Christian faith and practice.... They [the first Capuchins] were in revolt against the worldliness and unreality which reigned in the high places of Christendom and amongst Christians at large.... Not that the friars assembled in that rude hermitage in the Marches of Ancona had any world-wide scheme in their mind's vision: they were but seeking to be true to themselves and to the ideal life which held their desire. But then it is mostly in this wise that the vital streams of life take their rise."

The question is, does that description of the world and religion sound so different from our own day? If we were to take this as something written to us today, we Capuchins have quite a challenge for ourselves.

Pax.

Roots

2011-01-08T20:55:00.000-05:00

I'm currently in Brooklyn after a one-night stay at our friary on Pitt Street in Manhattan and my flight leaves tomorrow. It's been a total whirlwind since I landed yesterday at the airport. When I stepped out onto the curb outside the terminal at JFK I realized what an isolated world I have been living in lately, as I was shocked at how busy the whole terminal was and how angry the drivers were.

I visited the children at the school from last year as well as the teachers. My stroll through the neighborhood found me seeing all that I wanted to see before leaving. I got to see a good amount of the friars and got to talk and to laugh and to be with them. What a wonderful blessing.

O Lord, I am not worthy.....

Pax.

Some Thoughts on the Our Father

2011-01-01T20:15:00.000-05:00

I was the prayer leader today, which meant I was responsible for leading all of the prayers during the day. At morning prayer, being that today was a Solemnity, I intoned the chant for the Lord's Prayer and we chanted it in unison. As we were doing so, I realized that, throughout the day, I pray that prayer at least - at the bare minimum - three times a day: once at Lauds, once at Mass, and once at Vespers. This doesn't include extra times it might be said, like while praying the Rosary or the Chaplet of Divine Mercy or any other number of devotions. To pray something three times a day seemed like a lot to me at that moment and I wondered to myself how often I simply breezed through the prayer without thinking about it, so during our meditation period this morning I started to meditate on the prayer a little bit, and here's what came of it.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done...

I thought back to a time when I went over this particular part of the prayer in a class I was taking in college. One of the Holy Cross priests at the college was teaching it. He said that, in his opinion, when we pray "Thy Kingdom come," we mean now. This idea struck me as very real and meaningful. When I pray that God's Kingdom come, shouldn't I mean now? How can I mean anything else? If God's Kingdom is the fulfillment of all life and all creation, if it is what my soul yearns for, why should I not pray that it come now? Am I really asking God to bring His Kingdom now?

The answer: no. The reason: selfishness. I do want God's Kingdom to come, but I want it to come tomorrow because I'm not ready today. I want to be able to know the hour so that I can be ready to meet Jesus when he comes. I want to tidy up a few things in my own life, get my soul in a little bit better order, make amends with a few people, and polish off my tarnished interior. But the reality is, if I'm not ready now, then I'm just not ready and I will be caught off guard and I will have found myself focusing so much on waiting for tomorrow to take care of everything that, when the time really comes, I'll be lost for sure.

To add a taste of Christmas to this, Mary and Joseph did not have any idea when they were married what kind of things would transpire in their lives. I doubt that Joseph, when he first saw Mary, would have thought that anything like what happened would have come to be through her. How could he have known, the simple man that he was? How could Mary have known that she, of all people - a young and poor Jewish girl in first century Israel - would have been chosen to bear the Son of God? She couldn't have known. Joseph couldn't have known. Yet God came and found them prepared for Him, ready to fulfill His every desire to bring about the salvation long sought after. When He comes, will I be ready like Mary or Joseph?

Along those same lines, what about God's will? When I pray "Thy will be done," am I, in reality, praying, "God, may your will be done so long as your will is in accordance with my own and beneficial to me"? Is God's will some sort of distant reality, something that happens to other people but that doesn't happen to me? When I ask for God's will to be done, I must leave myself vulnerable and weak to accept that will that I have prayed for, whatever it may be and however painful it may be.

In reality, I'm not so sure I can ever be certain I am praying these in sincerity and humility, my selfishness always takes the bite out of the prayer. If that's the case, then, why do I pray it at all? My answer must be that the fullness of my desire, that desire of the soul that is untarnished by the desires of the flesh, is that these things be done as I have prayed and as I pray them, I can only hope that God, through my words, will fill me with the grace and humility necessary to pray to him in all sincerity.

Our meditation prayer this morning seemed too short to finish any more thoughts or meditations on this particular prayer, but perhaps it shall be the focus of meditation in the future.

Pax.

Luchamos, caemos, levantamos y segimos luchando

2010-12-31T21:33:00.003-05:00

Here are some important lessons (among many) that I learned this year.

1. The Christian - and not just the Capuchin - life requires far more than we give it credit for. I think oftentimes we (Christians) are seen as following blindly, not doing anything difficult but just falling in line. But to truly live out, to the best of your ability, the Christian life requires a lot of yourself.

2. The sign of an effective prayer life is an affective response to the Gospel. If you still hate your brother after you pray, or find it easy to condemn him through the day, you need to pray more.

3. Itinerancy is one of the hardest parts of Capuchin life, but the prospect of moving should never prevent a whole-hearted dedication to one's ministry in and out of community.

4. Francis was given brothers, he did not choose them. Much is the same for me, in formation especially. The fact that I may not live with a man again does not excuse me from loving him as a brother. To deny him is to deny the very heart of my vocation and the goal of my prayer: universal fraternity of creation. This does not mean, however, that I need to like this brother because the demands of Christian love go beyond surface affection (or lack there of).

5. The self can't be used to justify un-Christian behavior.

6. Anger festers and boils over. Peaceful and effective means of releasing it are important to learn.

7. Silence really is golden.

8. In the arms of your vocation are cradled the hearts and souls of God's flock. To be called to serve them must not be taken lightly. But, we are "prophets, not messiahs," we cannot change everything, but we can change something and leave the rest in God's hands. The extent to which the world is changed is directly dependent on our "fiat," our willingness to embrace God's will. All creation moves back toward the center in God, saying "yes" to this movement of divinization changes you and the world.

9. Be careful what you ask God for, you just might get it, but in a way you don't expect. A prayer for purity and sanctification will be the impetus of great suffering.

10. Humility is one of the hardest virtues to attain. I still don't know how to be humble.

Pax.

Back to the Routine

2010-12-31T06:09:00.000-05:00

After a relaxed week with a lighter schedule, it's back to the usual grind today with ministry.

On the other hand, I've completed half of my novitiate year. Where has the time gone? Wasn't I Brooklyn just a short time ago? Wasn't I living at college not that long ago? It seems like forever ago. I've only been wearing the habit six months, but it feels like I've been wearing it forever.

Pax.

Thoughts on Advent

2010-12-24T07:26:00.000-05:00

It started with reading the newspaper. It happens so frequently when reading the newspaper that there is bad news: news of violence and oppression. As I was reading, I started to ask God to deliver us all from this violence and oppression, all of this war and endless violations of human dignity, and so my prayer was heavily focused on this for the first week of Advent. These lines of thought and prayer continued to spur further thoughts and prayers and brought me deeper into the mystery that I was trying to contemplate.

I started to wonder about freedom and oppression. The Incarnation was such a momentous occasion in the history of humanity and divinity, yet Christ's coming into the fold of time has not removed the oppression that so grips us today. Let me clarify that we are not just oppressed politically the world over - and by "we" I mean all of humanity - but there are so many things in the world that oppress us in that they keep us from God. So then the question arises, does God really destroy our oppression or does He live in solidarity with us in our oppression?

Guided by my meditations on the Magnificat, I said that surely God is meant to destroy our oppression. Is that not what the prophecies all seem to say? Is that not what the Israelites hoped for? Did not Mary, a woman in first century Israel, feel the bitter pain of Roman oppression in her day and want freedom from them for her and for her people?

The focus of all of these prayers and meditations came down to this one thought: God is the master of all of history. All of creation is moving toward its center in God; all that He has created is yearning to return to Him and so the world turns back toward Him. The world is changed in accordance with our willingness to embrace this unending tide or to resist it. If we, like Mary, offer our fiat to the will of God then we embrace a world in which violence and oppression of every kind, in which all of those things that keep us as individuals and us as members of a community faith and trust in God, will be shattered. In this way, those who are "rich," those who do not believe they need the embrace of God, will always go away empty for to deny this movement is to deny our very soul, as it yearns to return to God.

When we embrace God's will, God's goodness, and God's desire for relationship with us then great miracles happen and Christ is conceived in our hearts and brought forth in all of His splendor upon time so that it might be conformed to God's designs.

In all of this, I realized my own need for liberation from all that keeps me from God. As the birth of so wonderful a Christ commemorated again this year, I place myself - humbly as I am able - before Him in the poverty of His humanity to love Him and to trust Him and so to be all that He wants me to be.

Rejoice, rejoice, for to you shall come Emmanuel, God-is-with-us.

Be ready.

Pax.

Coming Soon...

2010-12-21T06:11:00.002-05:00

Some closing thoughts of Advent as we near Christmas. Stay tuned.

Pax.

Adventures in Latin Pronunciation

2010-12-18T14:57:00.000-05:00

My community here has proved itself to have terrible Latin pronunciation. We don't sing in Latin very often, but occasionally our Communion songs - which we sing a week at a time - will be Taize-style Latin chants. I joke with one of the brothers here about what I think some of our Latin chants sound like. Here is a sampling.

Original: "Confitemini Domino, quoniam bonus. Confitemini Domino, alleluia."
What I hear: "Contaminate my Dominoes, where's my freakin' bonus?, Contaminate my Dominoes, alleluia."

Original: "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, misere nobis."
What I hear: "Agnes Day, quit hollis piccata mundi, misery no bees."
(I said to this brother once, "I'm not sure who this woman Agnes is, but we seem to sing about her a lot!")

Original: "Magnificat."
What I hear: "Magnify cat."

Original: "Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus sabaoth."
What I hear: "Sink toss, sink toss, sink toss, Domin us dee us sabbath."

As a way to wrapping up this post, Latin scholars please excuse any misspellings of my Latin because, of course, I realize the irony of making fun of how other pronounce Latin when I myself can't even spell Latin.

Pax.

Kneeling

2010-12-16T21:22:00.000-05:00

On Sundays, the community is divided into three groups, all of which go out to different parishes for Sunday Mass. Now that we've settled into the year, we tend to be seeing the same parishes more and more often, since the people get to know us and the initial thrill of seeing us fades and so we can more or less blend in (as well as you can blend in as a Capuchin friar). This past Sunday, we went to a nearby parish and before Mass, I knelt down and prayed.

When I was a catachumen, I used to wonder what people were saying when they knelt down before Mass. Some people didn't seem to even be all that interested in what they were saying, if anything at all. Sometimes even I found myself on my knees but, not knowing what to say, I would just look around the church until finally I figured enough time had passed to sit back down.

While I was meditating this evening, the moment of kneeling in that church on Sunday came back to me and it reminded me of all those Thursday mornings in Brooklyn when I would serve Mass at one of the local parishes. The pastor was usually the celebrant and, although eccentric, I have little doubt of his sanctity.

I remembered those bitter cold mornings when the church was still cold and I would kneel beside the altar, trying not to think about how cold my fingers were. The people would be all bundled up and huddled together in their usual places. Outside, the city was beginning to stir and the elevated train would shatter through the early morning calm as it ground to a halt at the Euclid Avenue stop before carrying on toward Queens. Cars could be heard, even police and fire truck sirens. Yet whenever it came time for the consecration, the whole world seemed to fall silent and everything seemed to get warm. I clutched the bells in my hand and rang them as the pastor elevated the Host. The way the chasibule fell off his shoulders during the elevation, he seemed to be veiled, as if he was trapped in a moment of pure adoration: faithful priest and faithful Lord. Then again the chalice. Then the din would again arise and the world would keep on moving.

Sometimes, I wondered to myself as I closed my meditation, maybe the world needs to learn to kneel a little bit more. Maybe I need to learn to kneel a little bit more.

Pax.

More Lessons in Fraternity

2010-12-16T07:24:00.001-05:00

Another one of the novices is leaving this morning. His departure puts an end to a long and oftentimes volatile story within the novitiate context, at least for me. This particular novice I found exceptionally difficult to live with and we were often at odds with one another. The truth was I did not like him and he did not like me and we were both aware of that. More than once we are caught in tense arguments or disagreements and, until the day he announced he was leaving, we had not so much as shared a glance with each other.

Although part of me is glad to see him go, another part of me is disappointed that I could not have been a better Christian to him in our time together over the past seven or eight months. Despite my disagreements with him and the difficulties I had in living with him, in retrospect I think that having to live with him for as long as I did was a blessing indeed.

Our Minister General, Br. Mauro Johri, in a letter regarding initial formation spoke of instilling a value of fraternity that instilled a genuine sense of fraternity with those who God gives to us, not those we would want to be given. That is to say, we need to foster a spirit of brotherhood even with those who we would prefer not to live with. It's a reality that is difficult to understand in anything but the intellect until you live it. It sounds like a wonderful thing on paper, but it is an exceptionally hard thing to do in reality. This does not, of course, diminish the necessity of it but it tempers the ideal with the realities of human frailty.

My living with this particular brother forced me into a spiritual corner. In context of our dislike for each other, I could no longer hide behind rationalizations and false justifications before God, who very quickly and sometimes painfully reminded me of just how poorly I was following Christ's admonitions. In this way, our interactions forced me to look not just at his behavior (which is often the easiest thing to do) but my own as well, to see how my lifestyle and manner of living in community was conflicting with his and therefore I needed to share in the blame for our struggles. Although the realities of this brother's difficulties with communal living remain a reality, Christ's admonitions tempers frustration or anger with the gentle reality of Franciscan brotherhood.

This incident will by no means be an isolated one in my life as a friar. For, although I have gotten to know most of the friars in the Province, except for those overseas in the missions, and find myself fitting well among them, it is always a far different reality when one needs to live with another brother and encounter him everyday. This experience will remind me in the future of both the realities of my humanity but also the strength of God's grace, which elevates our nature and allows us to do the seemingly impossible.

Pax.

Mass at the Cathedral

2010-12-11T07:09:00.000-05:00

Last night I went to a Mass in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Saint Paul Cathedral in the city. Bishop Zubik was the principal celebrant and he celebrated the Mass in a broken - but well-practiced - Spanish and even preached in Spanish, although officially the Mass was bilingual. (As an aside, bilingual Masses are always punishment for those who can speak both languages). There was a social in the parish hall afterward with authentic Mexican food, which was wonderful. I felt like I was back in Brooklyn for a brief moment. I leaned over to the Australian brother who was sitting next to me (and who was obviously a little bit lost and confused with all of the Spanish) and said, "Can you imagine was the original German settlers here would have thought if you told them that one day we would be singing in Spanish in the Cathedral?"

After the Mass, a woman came up to me and introduced herself as a Sister of Saint Joseph and as a reader of my blog. I felt flabbergasted that even here, so far from home, I would find someone who knew about my blog. What is even more strange to me is that isn't the first time that's happened to me. In a way it's cool and in a way it's strange.

One of the things about the night that bothered me - and still does - is that, like everyone else, we all walked out the door after greeting the bishop and then down the stairs to the parish hall and waited, as one would expect, in line like everyone else. One of the women in charge of the food saw us and quickly yanked us out of line, pulled us up to the front of the room and sat us at a special table set aside for the concelebrants. Then, she insisted on serving us. I tend to be of the mindset that we shouldn't be served, but that we should have to wait in line like everyone else, but can we refuse the hospitality of a culture that is oftentimes so doting on priests and religious? I have yet to think through the whole series of events that led up to our sitting at the front of the room, but more on that subject later, once I've had time to chew on it some more.

Pax.

Being Sick at Novitiate

2010-12-06T14:55:00.000-05:00

While laying in bed, your stomach tied in knots, your body so cold that all the blankets in the world don't seem like they'd be enough to keep you warm, it's easy to get a bit pessimistic. Then you hear a knock at the door and the shuffling of feet. Two brothers are standing outside, worried that you didn't come to prayer and wondering if they can get you anything. You tell them know, but the fact that they care about you enough to trek through the cold and the snow to your bedroom door is enough to keep away the chill that rakes your body.

Pax.

2010-12-05T07:33:00.000-05:00

It has snowed here every day since Thursday and it looks as if it will continue to snow every day into next week. It's very beautiful, but we have a heck of a large property to shovel. Below, our Australian brother enjoys his first snowfall.

Winters in Australia apparently tend to be in the mid- to low-60's Fahrenheit. With average daytime temperatures here not reaching out of the low 30's, it's a bit of a shock for our brothers from warmer climates.

Pax.

Advent/Novitiate Experience

2010-11-30T15:11:00.000-05:00

My provincial is in from New York for a day of recollection coupled with a visitation. It is always a joy for me to have friars visit from New York. When I was speaking with him, he asked me about the transition from postulancy to novitiate and what that all seemed to mean for me. I told him that the transition has been difficult for a number of reasons, notably some difficulties with community living in such a large and diverse community. I told him that - without idealizing or romanticizing the experience of postulancy - for me it seemed as if that period expressed my potential in terms of effectiveness in ministry, in community, in prayer, and in my personal life. Novitiate, on the other hand, is a pulling back, it is a reminding of the realities of self that lurk beneath the surface that will keep such potential from being realized.

In reflecting on my comments, I can't help but think of the parallels between that and Advent. Indeed, that is the purpose of Advent, I think. Christmas expresses the fullness of possibility for us and Advent is a time during which we can address those things in ourselves that will keep us from celebrating the great joy of the Incarnation.

Pax.

A New Record....

2010-11-28T12:03:00.000-05:00

Today I ran 2 miles in 32 minutes at a maximum speed of 4.4 miles per hour.

Okay, so maybe this brother won't be competing in any marathons or the Olympics anytime soon, but it's quite an improvement for me, considering a month and a half ago I could only do a mile in 40 minutes - walking.

Pax.

Lessons in Confrontation

2010-11-22T12:36:00.000-05:00

By my own admission, I am not good at confronting anyone, nor do I really look for any sort of confrontation. It's a bit of a paradox, because on the one had confrontation - when done well - can be a healthy way of setting appropriate boundaries between people, especially people who live together, yet on the other hand, as people called to peace, it is sometimes hard to justify. This is the especially the case when confrontations can tend toward arguments.

The trouble with arguments, as I see it, is that arguments are all about superiority. Discussions can be forums of equality, in which things are shared equally and criticized equally, yet arguments always seem to center on which person is correct. In that sense, I think they should be avoided, although I know that at times they can clear out tension and establish a new ground for a relationship to continue.

Confrontations in community have been difficult for me. I have often avoided them, in fact, but I find myself in a place where I can no longer avoid them and, indeed, I am being encouraged not to. As someone who struggled with bullying growing up, it is hard for me not to take a more passive stance. Although being peaceable is a Gospel value, I also can't allow my own dignity be violated, harassed, or beat down by someone else. I am often afraid that I can concern myself too much with my own dignity and therefore forget the dignity of the other brother and leave him feeling empty, abandoned, or rejected by me. As a man following Christ and Francis, there is a very high standard set. I need to defend my own dignity as a person from the verbal assaults of others while maintaining a profound respect for the person I feel is attacking me.

It's not a science that can be learned overnight (though I wish it could be!) and I often find myself leaning into Christ to guide and support me, especially when things don't resolve themselves as I would hope they would and I find myself locked in a bitterness and despair for ever having confronted someone else. But at the same time, confrontation is a service to both brothers, as it reminds each one of their frailty and their need to change and grow. It also reminds them of their call to humility and service to one another and the ultimate goal of peace and reconciliation.

Pax.

Gratitude

2010-11-17T15:53:00.000-05:00

One of the many things that I'm grateful for in religious life is the community. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort for me to say that, because so often community is also the greatest struggle of the religious life. So often, it seems, we are frustrated or upset with our brothers for this or for that, for doing this or not doing that. Our minds can get so resoundingly negative in their approach that we can shut ourselves off from our brothers.

Of course, men are a challenging group to deal with as there tends to be very natural competition among them. As I noted in a class discussion the other day, sometimes we take our struggles with community to be a direct challenge and we stop living day to day for Christ and start living for ourselves and our own personal achievement. Then, as "Lesser Brothers" we try to compete to see who can be the lesser of the Lesser Brothers, which sort of defeats the purpose.

Coming face to face with the realization of ones imperfections is difficult, especially when those imperfections are brought out in community. However I have realized over the past few days that I am immensely grateful for these challenges to my self. In my previous life, there never seemed to be any challenges made to me, or, at least, if there were, I didn't notice them or think they were all that relevant. If someone didn't like me, that was their problem, not mine, there wasn't anything wrong me with - only them. But religious life challenges you - oftentimes against your will - to care for the people you live with, even those you can't stand. The question of change no longer focuses on you, but rather on the other. When you realize they way your actions affect your brothers, the question becomes: "Do you care enough about your brothers to make the effort to change for them, as reflections of Christ?" Are you going to embrace your brother or turn your back on him?

I'm grateful that God forces me to care about those who I can't stand in my religious life, because it challenges me to be a better person not for myself but for God and for my brothers.

Pax.

Lessons in Silence

2010-11-13T20:39:00.000-05:00

Prayer begins at 6:30 in the morning. It's an ungodly hour for some. Indeed, usually it is still dark when prayer begins. Only now is the sun beginning to rise a little bit earlier, so the first glimmer of sunlight does appear about half-way through our morning prayer period. Although more sleep would be preferable, I've gotten myself into the habit of waking up at 5:00 in the morning. At that hour it is still quite dark, dark enough to see the stars, and sunrise seems very far off. It's usually cold these days. Most mornings the lights are on in the driveway as I walk across the main house but some mornings they aren't.

At that hour, very few are awake. The novice master is awake, although he keeps to himself in his room, rarely venturing out before prayer begins. I find myself alone in the house, which is silent and dark, and I flip on a few lights. I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning: a bowl of cold cereal and two slices of toast with peanut butter. The only variation is usually the drink, which can be either water or juice. I sit quietly and eat. Usually one of the other formation directors comes in to make some coffee, but otherwise I'm alone most of the morning until prayer begins at 6:30.

Yesterday, I was going to get up at my usual time. As usual, I hit the snooze button once, then pulled myself up out of bed and turned on the light. I staggered in a haze to gather my shower supplies and glanced at the clock. I realized that I had overslept by an hour and it was actually now ten minutes past six. I hastily brushed my teeth and pulled on my habit, not having the time for a shower, and hurried over the prayer, flustered. The rest of the day felt unsettled.

It was then that I realized just how important those silent moments had become in the forming of my day. Although it would seem arbitrary, that silent morning sets a certain tone for my day, gives me a chance to wake up and open myself up to God walking through the hazy shadows of morning. It gives me the time to build up the strength and determination I need to live out the day as best as my fragile nature will allow me to and, without it, I'm distracted, passive-aggressive, and lazy.

Praise the Lord for those little silent moments that make religious life possible.

Pax.

Liturgical Slips of the Tongue

2010-11-03T14:31:00.000-04:00

Mistakes in liturgy are a natural thing, but here are a few of my favorites:

While serving Mass for a Cardinal Archbishop who was not too familiar with English:
"We give praise to you, Jesus our Sailor...."

From a friend, while she was reading the prayers of the faithful at Mass:
"We pray for elected officials, that God might guide them. [Meaningful pause, then, with great emphasis:] the Word of the Lord!
The congregation responded: "Thanks be to God," without missing a beat, even though it was the incorrect response.

A brother, reading from the prophet Jeremiah:
"And thus says the LORD, away with your noisy pigs!"
(What he meant to say was, "And thus says the LORD, away with your noisy trumpets!")

While attending a Mass celebrated by the local bishop, at the final blessing:
Bishop: The Lord be with you.
People: And also with you.
Bishop: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
People: [Silence, except for from the concelebrants]
Bishop: Our help is in the name of the Lord.
People: [Silence, except for from the concelebrants]

I guess the people weren't familiar with the episcopal blessing.

Debut...

2010-11-03T06:02:00.000-04:00

Well, it's happening. I have played the piano with the community before at various prayer times, but now it's the big time: I'll be playing the Mass parts at Mass this morning. Hopefully I do well. But, knowing I'm playing for the Holy Sacrifice, I think I'll be more likely to watch my fingers and my pacing.

Pax.

PS: More thoughts to come, there's a lot rolling around in my head, but none of it has any good form just yet. Soon!

Sometimes You Can't Win....

2010-10-25T15:36:00.000-04:00

I was called upon to play the accompaniment of the hymn this afternoon at midday prayer. I had not known that I would need to play, so I was already a little stressed when my fingers first hit the keys. But I managed to play the whole thing through with only one small mistake (one wrong note in the right hand) and almost completely in time with everyone singing. I was a bit proud of myself, but as I went to close my music folder, it slid off the stand and landed on the piano keys, raising a horrid dissonance through the chapel during the first prayerful moments of the recitation of the psalter.

Oh well, such is life.

Pax.

Novitiate Crucifix

2010-10-24T07:33:00.000-04:00

I finally came across a photo of our novitiate crucifix. The photo doesn't quite give it justice....

Pax.

Gospel of 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

2010-10-24T07:30:00.000-04:00

When I read the Gospel for this morning, the first thing that came to my mind was that there were plenty of people I knew who I thought should be hearing this Gospel! The list seemed endless. As I thought about this, suddenly the hypocricy of my thoughts dawned upon me: I was getting caught up in my own self-righteousness. Thinking myself more humble than these others, I had lost my own humility and replaced it with self-righteousness.

I am reading a book about childlikeness (note the difference between childlikeness and childishness) in prayer and action before God. The author emphasizes that God is Father in essense and in action, that is to say, God's very nature is Father and God's actions express this fatherliness. One phrase the author uses that I enjoy a lot is God the "Father-educator." I like this image because thinking of God as an educator keeps us always open to learn and adjust to the will of God in a loving and obedient way.

As I meditated further on the Gospel, I realized that if I could ever truly believe that I am the child of God, that God is Father and I am child, I am created, and that my "exaltation" will not (and should not) come from people but from God, I could be perfectly humble, or, at least, far more humble than I am now.

Pax.

Reclaiming One's Spiritual Life

2010-10-22T20:29:00.000-04:00

It's easy to settle into complacency in spiritual life. Sometimes one slips into spiritual desolation and gets caught up in the doldrums of it and slowly but surely settles oneself into a rut, thereby perpetuating their own desolation and isolation from God.

I've found myself in that position more than once. One of the best things for me to do is to stop and look around in my bedroom. If it is a disaster, with a mess on the floor and the desk all thrown asunder, then I realize I've lost control of myself and my prayer life. It is then that I must reclaim it. The first thing I usually do is clean my room, but sometimes even that doesn't work.

I found myself in a place recently in which I had been trying over and over again to pull myself from spiritual enuii, getting down on myself and feeling that I was no good, not worth God's love, not worth my vocation. Then one morning during prayer, I paused, realized what a rut I'd put myself into and made a bold proclaimation that I intended to reclaim my life from evil influences and put it back on the track toward God.

It's hard to keep such a resolution, but I've found it to be working just the same, pushing myself daily. I was and am encouraged by some of the tenants of Ignatian discernment of spirits, of understanding influences work in my prayer and in my life. If I find myself getting upset with a brother, getting angry with a brother, and engaging in this endless negative dialogue in my head over a particular flaw of his, I feel unsettled and uneasy and therefore I must know that these feelings are not coming from God. How could they be? God loves that brother as He loves me, so why would He spur such anger and resentment in me? If I find myself saying, "You can't do it, you aren't good enough or strong enough or smart enough," I have to force myself to say, "I am all things through God who strengthens me."

All this serves to say that, as Oscar Romero once said, it helps to take the "long view," at times, to stop and to think and to look at where you were and where you are going and where you are. We fool ourselves so often into thinking we are in a place that we are truly not. Yet, God always is calling us and leading us.

There will be more development on this later....

Pax.

2010-10-21T11:52:00.002-04:00

(Courtesy of Bizarro Comics)

And Then There Were 13....

2010-10-21T07:22:00.000-04:00

One of the novices has decided to go home - the first in the class to leave. There's been a bit of a staggering surprise that has gripped the community as everyone tries to come to terms with it and figure it all out. For my own part, I didn't think I was going to be affected very much because I didn't know the guy very well nor am I from his province. Though I did enjoy his presence here, I didn't think it would matter too much to me that he was departing.

Last night we had a special sending-off for him and he'll be leaving this morning after Mass to go home. It's been a bit strange having him here since he announced his departure, since he's turned his habit over to the novice master, cleared out his room, and has just sort of been wandering around, trying up the loose ends. After my music lesson was over last night I washed my habit, sat for a few minutes with some of the guys in the recreation room, then went back to my house, pulled the habit out the dryer, and hung it in its usual place. Then I laid out on my bed for a little while, listening to the small clock radio in my room.

I got to wondering why I kept thinking about this guy leaving. I thought it didn't really matter that much to me? Slowly I started to think about the whole community, the people I get along with and the ones I don't. It's fascinating to think about the community because at some point you realize that you learn so much about other people by living with them. For example, each guy here has a different way of coming into chapel. Each one has a different way of eating, walking, talking, drinking coffee. When one doesn't think beyond what is seen, it is easy to get annoyed and frustrated with these little quirks. I can't stand that so-and-so drinks his coffee with so much sugar! I can't stand that so-and-so slams the door when he comes in the chapel in the morning! I can't stand that so-and-so never cleans the dishes properly! Yes, these little things are annoying, but at some point you become comfortable with all of them. Then you realize that you can tell when someone isn't in chapel in the morning and his absence makes a notable difference in the way we pray. You realize that when so-and-so doesn't show up and do the same thing he always does during recreation, you wonder if there is anything wrong with him - if he's sick or feeling down. You realize that, love them or hate them, these guys have become your brothers.

This process happens entirely without your permission, I assure you. You get so caught up in flaws sometimes that you don't look to see the good things. Then suddenly that person isn't there anymore and you notice it and it is a little bit difficult to deal with. Whether I knew this guy very well or not, somehow over the past five months he has become my brother, but now he's leaving. It feels a little bit like I imagine seeing someone off to war must feel like: you know that, with you, they are safe and protected and that beyond you there is danger, injury, or worse waiting. I'm certain he'll be fine, but it will be strange to see him gone.

I think that's one of the strange and beautiful things about fraternity: sometimes when you work at it, it doesn't happen and sometimes when you don't work at it, it happens. It survives beneath a surface of turbulence and extends beyond the understandings of the human mind and heart. It's a lovely thing, it's a painful thing, it's a difficult thing, yet could there really be anything better than Capuchin fraternity? For me, I don't think there could be anything more one could ask for.

(Of course, when one asks for fraternity, one asks for the cross too!)

So farewell, my Pittsburgh brother, be good and be safe.

Pax.

Day at the Doctor

2010-10-19T06:05:00.000-04:00

I had to go to the doctor yesterday at a local hospital for a physical and for some tests. Since I had been seeing the same doctor since I was a little boy, this was a bit of a change for me. First of all, the hospital was huge and I had forgotten the little piece of paper that had all of the information on it as to where the office was, so when I crossed over from the parking garage I had no idea where I was going. Luckily, I found an information desk that directed me to the right place: four floors above me.

This was also only the second time I'd gone to a doctor using my Provincial medical insurance and the last time I had gone I had another friar with me. I was anticipating the awkward questions. I didn't get any questions from the secretary, but she paused and looked at the insurance card, undoubtedly wondering "What is Province of Saint Mary of the Capuchin Order?" She didn't ask.

Then came the question I was fully anticipating. The doctor asks, "So, what do you do? Are you a student?"

After trying to explain it a little bit, I just settled on, "I'm a monk."

He didn't seem to believe me at first, noting my casual attire.

"So, are you a student?"

"Sort of," I replied.

He just sort of accepted it and moved on, but it's experiences like this that always push me to figure out how to best describe my vocation to someone unfamiliar with the whole concept.

Pax.

Crucifix

2010-10-13T06:10:00.000-04:00

The crucifix in our chapel here at the novitiate has been dated to the early 17th century, perhaps as early as the year 1600. The story our novice master told us was that the corpus was probably brought by Hyacinth Epp, the founder of the Capuchin Province of Saint Augustine (Pittsburgh-area), from a novitiate in his native Bavaria and has passed from novitiate to novitiate around the Province until now, where it resides in the interprovincial novitiate here in Pittsburgh. It is a bit sad to think the crucifix will not travel with the novitiate again, but remain here in that quiet little chapel.

The age of the crucifix makes it a thing of powerful importance to a novice, I think. When one gazes on the subtle wooden muscles rippling underneath the glossy skin of Christ as he twists his body in agony, when one gazes on his eyes that was fixed pleadingly on heaven, or when one sees the wound in his side, pouring forth the Church, one can help but think that, for centuries, Capuchin novices have gazed on this twisted and broken body. All of them, just like me, have probably looked at that crucifix and seen themselves in it or have seen their struggles reflected in the agony of Christ. It is possible, even, that Saint Conrad of Parzham, patron of our friary, gazed upon it himself.

And now I gaze upon it, seeing in Him crucified my life and my future.

Pax.

Be Thou my Vision

The End

QOTD

9/11

A Few Thoughts

Quote of the Day

Transition

Praying for the Pope

Jesus on the Subway

Religious Life: 2 Years Later

Two Years

East - West Liturgy

Vacation Silence

Witness

Profession II

Profession

Vows Tomorrow

The Tappan Zee Bridge Pledge

The Paradox of Brotherhood

Boston

A Capuchin Birthday Celebration

Nota Bene

Reflecting on the Novitiate (Part 2)

Reflecting on the Novitiate (Part 1)

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Accepted

Silence

Death

Proof

Change

Updates

Memorial Day

Chapter

Life Continues

Novitiate Lessons in the Meaning of Fraternity

A Letter to my Friends of the Class of 2011

A Modest Proposal

Witness to Holiness

Response to Osama bin Laden's Death

Easter Thoughts

Coming Soon...

Early Musings

Return

Carthusian Wisdom

Church Anniversary

"Train Through the Pain"

Thoughts on the Transfiguration

Good Advice

Self-Denial

Thoughts From the Beginning of Lent

Prayer Request

What Retail Taught Me About Religious Life

Bernard Smith, OFM Cap.

Learning to Pray in Common

Requiescant in Pace

Thoughts After Confession

Massachusetts Bishops and the Economy

On Suffering from Ministry

Sleep

A Little Morning Humor

Overheard at Dinner

Only at the Capuchin Novitiate

Church Design (Reduex)

A Comment on Yesterday's Post on Church Design

Humanity and Religious LIfe

Learning More About Vocation

A Prayer After Communion

Morning Mistake

In Memoriam

The Story So Far

Jesus and the Mop

To Live the Gospel

On Capuchin Life

Roots

Some Thoughts on the Our Father

Luchamos, caemos, levantamos y segimos luchando

Back to the Routine

Thoughts on Advent

Coming Soon...

Adventures in Latin Pronunciation