By Eric Sammons in The Divine Life: Why We Were Created. Eric began his study of the Catholic faith in 1991 as an Evangelical Protestant, converting to the Catholic Church in 1993. He serves as head of evangelization at St. John Neumann parish in Gaithersburg, MD, and is cofounder of Little Flowers Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to assist Catholic families seeking to adopt children with special-needs.
June 26th is the feast of St. Josemaría Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei. St. Josemaría died on June 26th, 1975 (thus making him the most recently deceased canonized saint) and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2002.
St. Josemaría is of course best known for founding Opus Dei, but paradoxically that fact has in some ways worked to make him less well-known among “ordinary” Catholics, the very people he was most trying to reach. In my experience, many Catholics seem to think that you have to be a member of Opus Dei to have a devotion to St. Josemaría, or that you have to support every single thing Opus Dei has ever done. But the truth is that St. Josemaría is a wonderful teacher for all Catholics, and his teachings and spirituality are perfectly suited for Catholics of all stripes.
The reason St. Josemaría is a great saint for today is that he calls us to strive for holiness in the midst of the modern world. Forty years before Vatican II declared a universal call to holiness, St. Josemaría was preaching this belief throughout Spain, insisting that every man and woman can become holy in – and through – everyday, ordinary life. I am not a member of Opus Dei, but I have found his teachings and spirituality to be quite helpful in my own pursuit of holiness and I encourage everyone to learn more about this great modern Saint.
I am currently in the preliminary stages of writing a book about St. Josemaría and his spirituality that is intended to be directed towards non-Opus Dei members.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Escriva's Legacy to Opus Dei and to the World
By Prof. Bro. Dave Ceasar Dela Cruz, CCS in νέος λειτουργοὺς.
Liturgy is the source and summit of Christian life, it also points to the life of the Church. Spirituality is always rooted in the liturgy.
Saint Josemaria, during his priestly ministry, celebrated the liturgy in the most perfect way he can. He believed that when we celebrate liturgy, the spirituality of a Christian is enriched so that his life may be patterned on how the Church worship... perfect, holy - just as our Father in heaven is perfect and holy.
Many criticized the liturgical celebrations of the prelature as if they are so conservative or traditional. I can say, "hahaha". They may be conservative to the point that they really follow the liturgical norms. Traditional because they do what they already practiced before in their own local Church.
Opus Dei preserved the beauty and sanctity of the liturgy in the very best way we can. This is a challenge for the local Church and in every parishes.
If you will attend liturgical celebrations of the prelature, you can say that Christ is present because the liturgy is so solemn and perfect because Christ himself solemnly work on our lives and makes perfect everything on earth for the glorification of the Father. How I wish that every liturgical celebration be like that in our diocese and in our country.
Another thing I want to point out is their love for the beauty of the vessels and vestments. Our professors in liturgy, my classmate priest during his homily on the 1st Mass of a new priest of their order, and even some liturgical authors professed that the beauty of the vessels and of the vestments reflects the dignity and beauty of the liturgy and of the sacraments which they received.
I remember one time in my former work place, I pity all the sacred vessels because they are rusted and dirty... Never ever I used such vessels. The vestments, Oh my! Horrible! In every major celebrations of the institute were I work before, I tried to brought out every collections of antique vestments and vessels in my house for the use of the celebration. In every liturgical celebration, you teach the people on the beauty of the liturgy on earth that reflects the liturgy in heaven! Much more with the kids, while they are young, let them see beauty of the liturgy for it is the foretaste of heaven on earth!
Now that I am moving to my new and own house, one room is dedicated to be an oratory for my private use and for visitors of the office of the Vice Postulation. I really made a point that everything in the oratory be perfect and beautiful. It doesn't only reflect my love for liturgy, being a liturgist, but the presence of the perfect and holy God when I pray the liturgical prayers...
The Prelature of the Opus Dei and of the Holy Cross and the whole Christendom will celebrate the feast of Saint Josemaria on Saturday, June 26. I am very grateful for the spirituality that El Padre taught me through my spiritual fathers of the prelature. Never ever will I abandoned the teachings of El Padre for I knew his great love for the Church, the love that led him to sufferings, trials, and misunderstanding as a way of purification.
May Saint Josemaria be an inspiration for us all!
Liturgy is the source and summit of Christian life, it also points to the life of the Church. Spirituality is always rooted in the liturgy.
Saint Josemaria, during his priestly ministry, celebrated the liturgy in the most perfect way he can. He believed that when we celebrate liturgy, the spirituality of a Christian is enriched so that his life may be patterned on how the Church worship... perfect, holy - just as our Father in heaven is perfect and holy.
Many criticized the liturgical celebrations of the prelature as if they are so conservative or traditional. I can say, "hahaha". They may be conservative to the point that they really follow the liturgical norms. Traditional because they do what they already practiced before in their own local Church.
Opus Dei preserved the beauty and sanctity of the liturgy in the very best way we can. This is a challenge for the local Church and in every parishes.
If you will attend liturgical celebrations of the prelature, you can say that Christ is present because the liturgy is so solemn and perfect because Christ himself solemnly work on our lives and makes perfect everything on earth for the glorification of the Father. How I wish that every liturgical celebration be like that in our diocese and in our country.
Another thing I want to point out is their love for the beauty of the vessels and vestments. Our professors in liturgy, my classmate priest during his homily on the 1st Mass of a new priest of their order, and even some liturgical authors professed that the beauty of the vessels and of the vestments reflects the dignity and beauty of the liturgy and of the sacraments which they received.
I remember one time in my former work place, I pity all the sacred vessels because they are rusted and dirty... Never ever I used such vessels. The vestments, Oh my! Horrible! In every major celebrations of the institute were I work before, I tried to brought out every collections of antique vestments and vessels in my house for the use of the celebration. In every liturgical celebration, you teach the people on the beauty of the liturgy on earth that reflects the liturgy in heaven! Much more with the kids, while they are young, let them see beauty of the liturgy for it is the foretaste of heaven on earth!
Now that I am moving to my new and own house, one room is dedicated to be an oratory for my private use and for visitors of the office of the Vice Postulation. I really made a point that everything in the oratory be perfect and beautiful. It doesn't only reflect my love for liturgy, being a liturgist, but the presence of the perfect and holy God when I pray the liturgical prayers...
The Prelature of the Opus Dei and of the Holy Cross and the whole Christendom will celebrate the feast of Saint Josemaria on Saturday, June 26. I am very grateful for the spirituality that El Padre taught me through my spiritual fathers of the prelature. Never ever will I abandoned the teachings of El Padre for I knew his great love for the Church, the love that led him to sufferings, trials, and misunderstanding as a way of purification.
May Saint Josemaria be an inspiration for us all!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Opus Dei has been very unfairly maligned over the years
By CV in Perspective. CV replies to accusations against Opus Dei.
For those who believe that Opus Dei is a "right wing cult," just a little reminder that St. Josemaria Escriva is a canonized saint.
I have more than 10 years of personal experience with this organization. I participate in occasional retreats and evenings of recollection and have benefited a great deal, although I feel no personal vocation to "join" by becoming a lay supernumerary.
I'm here to tell you that the only thing Opus Dei is concerned with is helping lay people pursue the universal call to holiness (that's straight out of Vatican II, and St. Josemaria was championing that notion several decades before VII). In the retreats and evenings of recollection, you'll be encouraged to pray more, receive the sacrament of confession, try to attend mass more often (beyond once a week that is), and say the rosary. That's it, and that's simple Catholicism.
For a fair and balanced look at Opus Dei through the eyes of an outsider, I recommend John Allen's recent book. He writes for the National Catholic Reporter, which can hardly be considered a "right wing" publication.
While I admire Fr. James Martin's writing and think he's done a great deal to communicate the faith well, I really think he did a disservice to Opus Dei with that article he write many moons ago for America.
And hey, for what it's worth, I'm a registered Democrat :-) Go figure.
----
Well, I'm no expert on the Spanish Civil War, which was the climate in which Opus Dei took root and grew, but I'll just point again to what reporter John Allen discovered. This is from America magazine's review of Allen's book:
"..An illustration of Mr. Allen’s technique can be seen in his examination of the charge that Opus Dei’s founder, St. Josemaría Escrivá, was a pro-Franco fascist. Mr. Allen describes the accusations and fills in the historical background. “[I]t’s worth noting that in the context of the Spanish Civil War, in which anticlerical Republican forces killed 13 bishops, 4,000 diocesan priests, 2,000 male religious, and 300 nuns, virtually every group and layer of life in the Catholic Church in Spain was ‘pro-Franco.’” The author goes on to note that despite this fact, “there is no instance in which [Escrivá] either praised or criticized the regime” throughout its long reign. “In the 1930s and 1940s, when the overwhelming sentiment in Catholic Spain was pro-Franco, Escrivá’s silence was therefore often read to betoken a hidden liberalism; by the 1960s and 1970s, when Catholic opinion had shifted, that same silence was interpreted as masking a pro-Franco conservatism,” he writes. While he concedes that Opus Dei members served in Franco’s ministry, he notes that this was unusual—only eight served over the course of 36 years, in Mr. Allen’s careful account. He also describes how many Opus Dei members joined the anti-Franco opposition. “The overall impression one gets is that Escrivá strove to maintain neutrality with respect to the Franco regime, even if privately he felt some sympathy for a leader trying by his lights to be an upright Christian,” Mr. Allen concludes. “A charge of ‘pro-Franco’ cannot be sustained, except in the generic sense that most Spanish Catholics were initially supportive of Franco.... The most one can say is that Escrivá was not ‘anti-Franco’ either.”
Here is a good Q & A with Allen regarding Opus Dei:
http://www.zenit.org/article-14916?l=english
Regarding the role of suffering, by which I presume you mean corporal mortification practices, in Opus Dei, it's worth noting that these practices have been part of Catholic tradition for about 2,000 years. Opus Dei didn't invent these practices, and very holy people such as Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta were also known to appreciate the value of corporal mortification.
That said, in a society like ours, most people are inclined to strenuously avoid suffering in any way shape or form (myself included). Unless of course, it is suffering for personal gain or development such as running a marathon, or denying oneself ice cream and carbs, or undergoing plastic surgery. Then it's considered to be the kind of self-sacrifice to be admired.
I guess people who see the value in corporal mortification (fasting, for example) would say that the value of "no pain, no gain" applies to the spiritual life also.
I am sure I sound like an apologist for Opus Dei, but I speak as someone who had serious reservations about this group early on when someone close to me became involved. Since then, I have read every scrap of information I could find, positive and negative. I've read the ODAN website and books by St. Josemaria. Most importantly, I've had close contact with many, many extraordinarily humble and holy Opus Dei people, from priests to lay people (and I should also mention I've never been pressured to join, give money, etc. Some cult.)
Bottom line, IMO, they have been very, VERY unfairly maligned over the years, especially St. Josemaria.
.02 from a former skeptic.
For those who believe that Opus Dei is a "right wing cult," just a little reminder that St. Josemaria Escriva is a canonized saint.
I have more than 10 years of personal experience with this organization. I participate in occasional retreats and evenings of recollection and have benefited a great deal, although I feel no personal vocation to "join" by becoming a lay supernumerary.
I'm here to tell you that the only thing Opus Dei is concerned with is helping lay people pursue the universal call to holiness (that's straight out of Vatican II, and St. Josemaria was championing that notion several decades before VII). In the retreats and evenings of recollection, you'll be encouraged to pray more, receive the sacrament of confession, try to attend mass more often (beyond once a week that is), and say the rosary. That's it, and that's simple Catholicism.
For a fair and balanced look at Opus Dei through the eyes of an outsider, I recommend John Allen's recent book. He writes for the National Catholic Reporter, which can hardly be considered a "right wing" publication.
While I admire Fr. James Martin's writing and think he's done a great deal to communicate the faith well, I really think he did a disservice to Opus Dei with that article he write many moons ago for America.
And hey, for what it's worth, I'm a registered Democrat :-) Go figure.
----
Well, I'm no expert on the Spanish Civil War, which was the climate in which Opus Dei took root and grew, but I'll just point again to what reporter John Allen discovered. This is from America magazine's review of Allen's book:
"..An illustration of Mr. Allen’s technique can be seen in his examination of the charge that Opus Dei’s founder, St. Josemaría Escrivá, was a pro-Franco fascist. Mr. Allen describes the accusations and fills in the historical background. “[I]t’s worth noting that in the context of the Spanish Civil War, in which anticlerical Republican forces killed 13 bishops, 4,000 diocesan priests, 2,000 male religious, and 300 nuns, virtually every group and layer of life in the Catholic Church in Spain was ‘pro-Franco.’” The author goes on to note that despite this fact, “there is no instance in which [Escrivá] either praised or criticized the regime” throughout its long reign. “In the 1930s and 1940s, when the overwhelming sentiment in Catholic Spain was pro-Franco, Escrivá’s silence was therefore often read to betoken a hidden liberalism; by the 1960s and 1970s, when Catholic opinion had shifted, that same silence was interpreted as masking a pro-Franco conservatism,” he writes. While he concedes that Opus Dei members served in Franco’s ministry, he notes that this was unusual—only eight served over the course of 36 years, in Mr. Allen’s careful account. He also describes how many Opus Dei members joined the anti-Franco opposition. “The overall impression one gets is that Escrivá strove to maintain neutrality with respect to the Franco regime, even if privately he felt some sympathy for a leader trying by his lights to be an upright Christian,” Mr. Allen concludes. “A charge of ‘pro-Franco’ cannot be sustained, except in the generic sense that most Spanish Catholics were initially supportive of Franco.... The most one can say is that Escrivá was not ‘anti-Franco’ either.”
Here is a good Q & A with Allen regarding Opus Dei:
http://www.zenit.org/article-14916?l=english
Regarding the role of suffering, by which I presume you mean corporal mortification practices, in Opus Dei, it's worth noting that these practices have been part of Catholic tradition for about 2,000 years. Opus Dei didn't invent these practices, and very holy people such as Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta were also known to appreciate the value of corporal mortification.
That said, in a society like ours, most people are inclined to strenuously avoid suffering in any way shape or form (myself included). Unless of course, it is suffering for personal gain or development such as running a marathon, or denying oneself ice cream and carbs, or undergoing plastic surgery. Then it's considered to be the kind of self-sacrifice to be admired.
I guess people who see the value in corporal mortification (fasting, for example) would say that the value of "no pain, no gain" applies to the spiritual life also.
I am sure I sound like an apologist for Opus Dei, but I speak as someone who had serious reservations about this group early on when someone close to me became involved. Since then, I have read every scrap of information I could find, positive and negative. I've read the ODAN website and books by St. Josemaria. Most importantly, I've had close contact with many, many extraordinarily humble and holy Opus Dei people, from priests to lay people (and I should also mention I've never been pressured to join, give money, etc. Some cult.)
Bottom line, IMO, they have been very, VERY unfairly maligned over the years, especially St. Josemaria.
.02 from a former skeptic.
Thoughts on Fr. Willie Doyle, by Saint Josemaria Escriva
In Opus Dei Today
Today the Church celebrates the feast of St Josemaria Escriva. Instead of a message from Fr Doyle, we have a message from a saint, ABOUT Fr Doyle. From point 205 of St Josemaria’s The Way:
* We were reading — you and I — the heroically ordinary life of that man of God. And we saw him fight whole months and years (what ‘accounts’ he kept in his particular examination!) at breakfast time: today he won, tomorrow he was beaten… He noted: ‘Didn’t take butter…; did take butter!’
* May you and I too live our ‘butter tragedy’.
Yes, that’s right: the heroically ordinary “man of God” was none other than Fr Willie Doyle.
Alfred O’Rahilly’s biography caused something of a stir on its release, and all before the age of blogs and facebook and twitter and all the easy ways of manufacturing celebrity and hype that we have today. Within a few years the book had been translated into German, Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch and Polish (and perhaps translations I don’t know about?). This heroically ordinary Jesuit priest from Dublin seemed to have quite an appeal for people from very different cultures.
St Josemaria read a Spanish copy of the book and was obviously deeply impressed if he held up Fr Doyle as an example of holiness for members and friends of Opus Dei. St Josemaria’s The Way first appeared in 1934 under the title Consideraciones espirituales. Over the years, more than four and a half million copies have been sold, and it has been translated into 43 different languages. That’s an incredible level of popularity for this book, and, even though he is only a very small part of the book, it’s an incredibly powerful anonymous influence on the part of Fr Doyle. How many people have copied his example of small mortifications thanks to this reference from St Josemaria?
Perhaps this is a fitting place to include some references from O’Rahilly’s book on the matter of Fr Doyle and his diet. In all of this it is very clear that Fr Doyle didn’t find these mortifications easy; they were, as St Josemaria said, a tragedy:
* He was systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points; every day he did many things for no other reason than that he would rather not do them; so that, when the hour of need and big-scale heroism drew nigh, it did not find him unnerved and untrained to stand the test. For most assuredly he was a man who daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. “Other souls may travel by other roads,” he once wrote, “the road of pain is mine.” He developed a positive ingenuity in discovering possibilities of denying himself. Thus he was always striving to bear little sufferings and physical discomforts were it only the irritation of a gnat without seeking relief; he tried to imagine that his hands were nailed to the cross with Jesus. He gave up having a fire in his room and even avoided warming himself at one. Every day he wore a hair-shirt and one or two chains for some time; and he inflicted severe disciplines on himself. Moreover, between sugarless tea, butterless bread and saltless meat, he converted his meals into a continuous series of mortifications. Naturally he had, in fact, a very hearty appetite and a keen appreciation of sweets and delicacies; all of which he converted into an arena for self-denial…
* We find him pencilling this resolution on the first page of the little private notebook he kept with him at the Front: “No blackberries. Give away all chocolates. Give away box of biscuits. No jam, breakfast, lunch, dinner.”
* …Just after giving a retreat in a Carmelite convent, he records: “I felt urged in honour of St. Teresa to give myself absolutely no comfort at meals which I could possibly avoid. I found no difficulty in doing this for the nine days. I have begged very earnestly for the grace to continue this all my life and am determined to try to do so. For example, to take no butter, no sugar in coffee, no salt, etc. The wonderful mortified lives of these holy nuns have made me ashamed of my gratification of my appetite.” That he by no means found this mortification easy we have many indications. Thus on 5th Jan., 1912, he writes: “During Exposition Jesus asked me if I would give up taking second course at dinner. This would be a very great sacrifice; but I promised Him at least to try to do so and begged for grace and generosity.”
* “A fierce temptation during Mass and thanksgiving,” he records a year later (18th Sept., 1913), “to break my resolution and indulge my appetite at breakfast. The thought of a breakfast of dry bread and tea without sugar in future seemed intolerable. Jesus urged me to pray for strength though I could scarcely bring myself to do so. But the temptation left me in the refectory, and joy filled my heart with the victory. I see now that I need never yield if only I pray for strength.”
* On the subject of butter there are many resolutions in the diary. Materially the subject may seem trivial, but psychologically it represents a great struggle and victory…It is in such little acts that man rises above the beast and fosters his human heritage of a rational will. So Fr. Doyle’s butter-resolutions are not at all so unimportant or whimsical as they who have ever thoughtlessly eaten and drunk may be inclined to fancy. “God has been urging me strongly all during this retreat,” he writes in September 1913, “to give up butter entirely. I have done so at many meals without any serious inconvenience; but I am partly held back through human respect, fearing others may notice it. If they do, what harm? I have noticed that X takes none for lunch; that has helped me. Would not I help others if I did the same?” “One thing,” he continues, “I feel Jesus asks, which I have not the courage to give Him: the promise to give up butter entirely.” On 29th July, 1914, we find this resolution: “For the present I will take butter on two mouthfuls of bread at breakfast but none at other meals.” To this decision he seems to have adhered.
* …This relentless concentration of will on matters of food must not lead us to suppose that Fr. Doyle was in any way morbidly absorbed or morosely affected thereby. For one less trained in will or less sure in spiritual perspective there might easily be danger of entanglement in minutiae and over-attention to what is secondary. All this apparatus of mortification is but a means to an end, it should not be made an end in itself…This persistent and systematic thwarting of appetite helped Fr. Doyle to strengthen his will and to fix it on God. He never lost himself in a maze of petty resolutions, he never became anxious or distracted.
Alfred O’Rahilly concludes his discussion of Fr Doyle’s eating habits with some wise advice for the reader:
* The armour of Goliath would hamper David. There are those whom elaborate prescriptions and detailed regulations would only strain and worry. And these best find the peace of God in a childlike thankful acceptance of His gifts, without either careless indulgence or self-conscious artificiality.
One amusing concluding note: Some translations of The Way refer to sugar instead of butter because the original translator couldn’t understand how anyone would want to give up butter on their bread. It’s unclear whether he thought the matter too trivial or too hard. In any event both translations are correct – Fr Doyle fought, and won, his battle against both butter and sugar.
Today the Church celebrates the feast of St Josemaria Escriva. Instead of a message from Fr Doyle, we have a message from a saint, ABOUT Fr Doyle. From point 205 of St Josemaria’s The Way:
* We were reading — you and I — the heroically ordinary life of that man of God. And we saw him fight whole months and years (what ‘accounts’ he kept in his particular examination!) at breakfast time: today he won, tomorrow he was beaten… He noted: ‘Didn’t take butter…; did take butter!’
* May you and I too live our ‘butter tragedy’.
Yes, that’s right: the heroically ordinary “man of God” was none other than Fr Willie Doyle.
Alfred O’Rahilly’s biography caused something of a stir on its release, and all before the age of blogs and facebook and twitter and all the easy ways of manufacturing celebrity and hype that we have today. Within a few years the book had been translated into German, Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch and Polish (and perhaps translations I don’t know about?). This heroically ordinary Jesuit priest from Dublin seemed to have quite an appeal for people from very different cultures.
St Josemaria read a Spanish copy of the book and was obviously deeply impressed if he held up Fr Doyle as an example of holiness for members and friends of Opus Dei. St Josemaria’s The Way first appeared in 1934 under the title Consideraciones espirituales. Over the years, more than four and a half million copies have been sold, and it has been translated into 43 different languages. That’s an incredible level of popularity for this book, and, even though he is only a very small part of the book, it’s an incredibly powerful anonymous influence on the part of Fr Doyle. How many people have copied his example of small mortifications thanks to this reference from St Josemaria?
Perhaps this is a fitting place to include some references from O’Rahilly’s book on the matter of Fr Doyle and his diet. In all of this it is very clear that Fr Doyle didn’t find these mortifications easy; they were, as St Josemaria said, a tragedy:
* He was systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points; every day he did many things for no other reason than that he would rather not do them; so that, when the hour of need and big-scale heroism drew nigh, it did not find him unnerved and untrained to stand the test. For most assuredly he was a man who daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. “Other souls may travel by other roads,” he once wrote, “the road of pain is mine.” He developed a positive ingenuity in discovering possibilities of denying himself. Thus he was always striving to bear little sufferings and physical discomforts were it only the irritation of a gnat without seeking relief; he tried to imagine that his hands were nailed to the cross with Jesus. He gave up having a fire in his room and even avoided warming himself at one. Every day he wore a hair-shirt and one or two chains for some time; and he inflicted severe disciplines on himself. Moreover, between sugarless tea, butterless bread and saltless meat, he converted his meals into a continuous series of mortifications. Naturally he had, in fact, a very hearty appetite and a keen appreciation of sweets and delicacies; all of which he converted into an arena for self-denial…
* We find him pencilling this resolution on the first page of the little private notebook he kept with him at the Front: “No blackberries. Give away all chocolates. Give away box of biscuits. No jam, breakfast, lunch, dinner.”
* …Just after giving a retreat in a Carmelite convent, he records: “I felt urged in honour of St. Teresa to give myself absolutely no comfort at meals which I could possibly avoid. I found no difficulty in doing this for the nine days. I have begged very earnestly for the grace to continue this all my life and am determined to try to do so. For example, to take no butter, no sugar in coffee, no salt, etc. The wonderful mortified lives of these holy nuns have made me ashamed of my gratification of my appetite.” That he by no means found this mortification easy we have many indications. Thus on 5th Jan., 1912, he writes: “During Exposition Jesus asked me if I would give up taking second course at dinner. This would be a very great sacrifice; but I promised Him at least to try to do so and begged for grace and generosity.”
* “A fierce temptation during Mass and thanksgiving,” he records a year later (18th Sept., 1913), “to break my resolution and indulge my appetite at breakfast. The thought of a breakfast of dry bread and tea without sugar in future seemed intolerable. Jesus urged me to pray for strength though I could scarcely bring myself to do so. But the temptation left me in the refectory, and joy filled my heart with the victory. I see now that I need never yield if only I pray for strength.”
* On the subject of butter there are many resolutions in the diary. Materially the subject may seem trivial, but psychologically it represents a great struggle and victory…It is in such little acts that man rises above the beast and fosters his human heritage of a rational will. So Fr. Doyle’s butter-resolutions are not at all so unimportant or whimsical as they who have ever thoughtlessly eaten and drunk may be inclined to fancy. “God has been urging me strongly all during this retreat,” he writes in September 1913, “to give up butter entirely. I have done so at many meals without any serious inconvenience; but I am partly held back through human respect, fearing others may notice it. If they do, what harm? I have noticed that X takes none for lunch; that has helped me. Would not I help others if I did the same?” “One thing,” he continues, “I feel Jesus asks, which I have not the courage to give Him: the promise to give up butter entirely.” On 29th July, 1914, we find this resolution: “For the present I will take butter on two mouthfuls of bread at breakfast but none at other meals.” To this decision he seems to have adhered.
* …This relentless concentration of will on matters of food must not lead us to suppose that Fr. Doyle was in any way morbidly absorbed or morosely affected thereby. For one less trained in will or less sure in spiritual perspective there might easily be danger of entanglement in minutiae and over-attention to what is secondary. All this apparatus of mortification is but a means to an end, it should not be made an end in itself…This persistent and systematic thwarting of appetite helped Fr. Doyle to strengthen his will and to fix it on God. He never lost himself in a maze of petty resolutions, he never became anxious or distracted.
Alfred O’Rahilly concludes his discussion of Fr Doyle’s eating habits with some wise advice for the reader:
* The armour of Goliath would hamper David. There are those whom elaborate prescriptions and detailed regulations would only strain and worry. And these best find the peace of God in a childlike thankful acceptance of His gifts, without either careless indulgence or self-conscious artificiality.
One amusing concluding note: Some translations of The Way refer to sugar instead of butter because the original translator couldn’t understand how anyone would want to give up butter on their bread. It’s unclear whether he thought the matter too trivial or too hard. In any event both translations are correct – Fr Doyle fought, and won, his battle against both butter and sugar.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Bo Sanchez: A story that inspired me so much
By Bo Sanchez
Let me tell you a story that inspired me so much.
One day, Lina wasn’t feeling well.
When she went to the doctor, they diagnosed her to have an acute rheumatic heart disease. Her heart valves were damaged so much, she needed an immediate heart surgery.
After what appeared to be a successful operation, she woke up with a terrible headache.
Thinking it was just an effect of the anesthesia, the doctors gave her oral pain killers. But the pain didn’t stop. The doctors gave her injectable pain relievers but they didn’t work too.
The headache persisted. This worried her doctors and ordered her to have a cranial MRI to find out what was causing the pain.
To the horror of her family, the doctors found a tumor in her brain.
Imagine this: After her open-heart surgery, Lina went home to prepare for a brain surgery!
Through all this time, Liza told me how much she prayed for her sister Lina. Her sister, Liza, texted all 500 names in her cell phone. She asked her friends in Opus Dei to ask for the intercession of Jose Maria Escriva.
Soon, Lina went back to the hospital to check if her heart was strong enough for a brain surgery. As she was being prepared for the operation, she noticed that she no longer had headaches.
On the day of the operation, doctors performed a few more tests and MRI’s. The operation was scheduled to start at 7am. But at 9am, the operation had not yet begun. “There are some complications,” the doctors explained to the family.
After lunch, the doctors called the family to tell them that all the tests showed that the tumor had disappeared! They couldn’t explain it. There was no need for an operation.
Let me tell you a story that inspired me so much.
One day, Lina wasn’t feeling well.
When she went to the doctor, they diagnosed her to have an acute rheumatic heart disease. Her heart valves were damaged so much, she needed an immediate heart surgery.
After what appeared to be a successful operation, she woke up with a terrible headache.
Thinking it was just an effect of the anesthesia, the doctors gave her oral pain killers. But the pain didn’t stop. The doctors gave her injectable pain relievers but they didn’t work too.
The headache persisted. This worried her doctors and ordered her to have a cranial MRI to find out what was causing the pain.
To the horror of her family, the doctors found a tumor in her brain.
Imagine this: After her open-heart surgery, Lina went home to prepare for a brain surgery!
Through all this time, Liza told me how much she prayed for her sister Lina. Her sister, Liza, texted all 500 names in her cell phone. She asked her friends in Opus Dei to ask for the intercession of Jose Maria Escriva.
Soon, Lina went back to the hospital to check if her heart was strong enough for a brain surgery. As she was being prepared for the operation, she noticed that she no longer had headaches.
On the day of the operation, doctors performed a few more tests and MRI’s. The operation was scheduled to start at 7am. But at 9am, the operation had not yet begun. “There are some complications,” the doctors explained to the family.
After lunch, the doctors called the family to tell them that all the tests showed that the tumor had disappeared! They couldn’t explain it. There was no need for an operation.
Ex-protestant ordained minister (a woman) attends Mass in honor of St. Josemaria
I read this post by Sandy Marshall, a convert to the Catholic Church, who was formerly an ordained minister in protestant churches. She converted along with her husband and daughter. She said that they "remain blissfully happy with our move."
The first paragraph of her post reads:
Read the rest of her blog here.
The first paragraph of her post reads:
On Saturday, we attended a Mass at Christ the King parish. The mass was offered in honor of Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei. Bishop Kevin Farrel presided and preached with a dignity that could not mask his passion for this remarkable man. The music was exquisite, the interior of the building lovely, and all told it was a glorious morning. Because it was the 5th anniversary of our coming into the church, the mass had a particular significance for us, which we later remarked upon around the dinner table with friends.
Read the rest of her blog here.
Friday, June 25, 2010
G-20’s promises and deficits
By Fr. Antonio Cecilio Pascual in Business Mirror
‘There is no room for complacency,” so reads the draft G-20 document, as reported by Reuters, as the global recovery is “uneven and fragile.” This weekend in Toronto, the leaders of the developed economies are expected to come to an agreement on, among other things, reducing huge government deficits.
The World Bank has urged them in no uncertain terms to focus on long-term growth, “to help developing countries which rely on revenues from commodity exports, worker remittances, foreign direct investments and aid.”
For a while there, it sounded like they were all aware of, and pondering about P-Noy’s foreboding inheritance of a deficit in millions of pesos. In fact, if P-Noy’s plan of unearthing the real costs of debt and aid that the Arroyo administration incurred in her nine years yields larger figures than the estimates he is getting now, our country rating will probably take a worse turn than the current BB, even before his first 100 days are over.
Traveling around the nation, visiting government projects to see for myself their impact on the lives of our poor prior to the “Pinoy Ako” informercial I taped as part also of my last few days as private-sector cochairman of the Flagship Programs Committee of the Arroyo administration, I couldn’t help but feel the restlessness in the countryside. Agricultural lands being converted for commercial uses, rivers reclaimed for condominiums. “Alam n’yo po, Father, mabuti pang mamatay kaming lumalaban kaysa mamatay sa gutom.”
It made me recall one of the most important G-20 promises last year that Caritas Internationalis documented: 0.7 percent of their incomes are to be spent on overseas aid. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been tracking this and had earlier reported that overseas aid was actually short of $21 billion in 2009 of pledges made. Estimates for additional public financing for food security that will be further affected by climate change—like Ondoy and Pepeng—is already at $195 billion a year by 2020 to support only the poor countries to mitigate food crises and to develop sustainably. And then what to do with the commitment to keep global warming to below 2 degrees Centigrade when, to shrink budget deficits, we will most likely see unbridled industrialization—the better and faster to sell commodities to rich nations, while paying higher taxes.
Executive director Michael Casey of the Development and Peace/Caritas Canada said, “Faced with hunger in many parts of the world, Caritas believes that agricultural policies must promote the small farmer and local food production. G-20 countries must show the necessary leadership to reverse disastrous food policies of the past. Aid commitments must also be met. We need more aid, better spent. And we need to see effective action on climate change.”
The credo of Robert K. Greenleaf, founder and advocate of servant leadership, comes to mind: “This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions—often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.”
We need not just servant leaders, but servant leaders who can turn institutions into institution-servants—neither institution-regulators who seek compliance at any cost, nor institution-witchhunters who ferret out culprits at any cost. Would a corrupt-free institution be possible? A deeper question: Would a corrupt-free institution be a caring institution, a true institution-servant?
Stephen Covey, sheds some light on how institutions can transform to institution-servants: “You’ve got to produce more for less, and with greater speed than you’ve ever done before. The only way you can do that in a sustained way is through the empowerment of people. And the only way you get empowerment is through high-trust cultures and through the empowerment philosophy of leaders that turns bosses into servants and coaches. Based on practice, not talk, [it] will be the deciding point between an organization’s enduring success or its eventual extinction.”
Today, as we also celebrate the feast of St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, I recall how in the 1950s, the Holy See approved the idea of the Opus Dei accepting non-Catholics and non-Christians as cooperators to assist in projects and programs without being members. For decades, we saw the mushrooming of agricultural-training centers, hospitals and clinics, primary, secondary and professional schools.
The deficit problem is really an attention-deficit disorder: we have not focused attention on the heart of the global recovery; we cannot let other countries and sectors of populations to grow at the cost of asking other nations and sectors to step on the brakes or tighten their belts to their bones. The truth of this path that St. Josemaria has lit up is the fact that we are all in this together—and because we are, more good becomes possible.
Let us reflect, with Pope Benedict XVI, as he calls attention to the chalice and paten in every Mass: “Understand what you do, imitate what you celebrate, and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s Cross.... As we proclaim the Cross of Christ, let us always strive to imitate the selfless love of the one who offered himself for us...the one in whose person we speak and act.”
‘There is no room for complacency,” so reads the draft G-20 document, as reported by Reuters, as the global recovery is “uneven and fragile.” This weekend in Toronto, the leaders of the developed economies are expected to come to an agreement on, among other things, reducing huge government deficits.
The World Bank has urged them in no uncertain terms to focus on long-term growth, “to help developing countries which rely on revenues from commodity exports, worker remittances, foreign direct investments and aid.”
For a while there, it sounded like they were all aware of, and pondering about P-Noy’s foreboding inheritance of a deficit in millions of pesos. In fact, if P-Noy’s plan of unearthing the real costs of debt and aid that the Arroyo administration incurred in her nine years yields larger figures than the estimates he is getting now, our country rating will probably take a worse turn than the current BB, even before his first 100 days are over.
Traveling around the nation, visiting government projects to see for myself their impact on the lives of our poor prior to the “Pinoy Ako” informercial I taped as part also of my last few days as private-sector cochairman of the Flagship Programs Committee of the Arroyo administration, I couldn’t help but feel the restlessness in the countryside. Agricultural lands being converted for commercial uses, rivers reclaimed for condominiums. “Alam n’yo po, Father, mabuti pang mamatay kaming lumalaban kaysa mamatay sa gutom.”
It made me recall one of the most important G-20 promises last year that Caritas Internationalis documented: 0.7 percent of their incomes are to be spent on overseas aid. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been tracking this and had earlier reported that overseas aid was actually short of $21 billion in 2009 of pledges made. Estimates for additional public financing for food security that will be further affected by climate change—like Ondoy and Pepeng—is already at $195 billion a year by 2020 to support only the poor countries to mitigate food crises and to develop sustainably. And then what to do with the commitment to keep global warming to below 2 degrees Centigrade when, to shrink budget deficits, we will most likely see unbridled industrialization—the better and faster to sell commodities to rich nations, while paying higher taxes.
Executive director Michael Casey of the Development and Peace/Caritas Canada said, “Faced with hunger in many parts of the world, Caritas believes that agricultural policies must promote the small farmer and local food production. G-20 countries must show the necessary leadership to reverse disastrous food policies of the past. Aid commitments must also be met. We need more aid, better spent. And we need to see effective action on climate change.”
The credo of Robert K. Greenleaf, founder and advocate of servant leadership, comes to mind: “This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions—often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.”
We need not just servant leaders, but servant leaders who can turn institutions into institution-servants—neither institution-regulators who seek compliance at any cost, nor institution-witchhunters who ferret out culprits at any cost. Would a corrupt-free institution be possible? A deeper question: Would a corrupt-free institution be a caring institution, a true institution-servant?
Stephen Covey, sheds some light on how institutions can transform to institution-servants: “You’ve got to produce more for less, and with greater speed than you’ve ever done before. The only way you can do that in a sustained way is through the empowerment of people. And the only way you get empowerment is through high-trust cultures and through the empowerment philosophy of leaders that turns bosses into servants and coaches. Based on practice, not talk, [it] will be the deciding point between an organization’s enduring success or its eventual extinction.”
Today, as we also celebrate the feast of St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, I recall how in the 1950s, the Holy See approved the idea of the Opus Dei accepting non-Catholics and non-Christians as cooperators to assist in projects and programs without being members. For decades, we saw the mushrooming of agricultural-training centers, hospitals and clinics, primary, secondary and professional schools.
The deficit problem is really an attention-deficit disorder: we have not focused attention on the heart of the global recovery; we cannot let other countries and sectors of populations to grow at the cost of asking other nations and sectors to step on the brakes or tighten their belts to their bones. The truth of this path that St. Josemaria has lit up is the fact that we are all in this together—and because we are, more good becomes possible.
Let us reflect, with Pope Benedict XVI, as he calls attention to the chalice and paten in every Mass: “Understand what you do, imitate what you celebrate, and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s Cross.... As we proclaim the Cross of Christ, let us always strive to imitate the selfless love of the one who offered himself for us...the one in whose person we speak and act.”
Friday, June 4, 2010
José Manuel Casas Torres, eldest member of Opus Dei, deceased
A translation and posting by Encarnita Ortega Pardo in Opus Dei Today.
Professor José Manuel Casas Torres, 93, creator of modern Spanish geography and a professor at the Universidad de Zaragoza and Universidad Complutense in Madrid, passed away on May 30, in Madrid. He was also a professor at the Universidad de Navarra. In his lectures he promoted the “region” as a space linking the State and the province, and had a key role in modernising Spanish cartography.
Casas Torres was born in Valencia on October 26, 1916. He dedicated most of his life to teaching and research, and many of his students consider him one of the masters of Spanish geography.
He was a Director at the Institute for Applied Geography [Instituto de Geografía Aplicada] of the Superior Council for Scientific Research [Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas] and also the Geography Departament at the Universidad Complutense, where he worked from 1965 to 1983. He combined his retirement with research and a generous availability to his students. He was a member of Opus Dei since 1939, and the eldest living member of the Work at the time of his death.
He met St Josemaría Escrivá in July 1939 and became a member of Opus Dei on July 14, 1939. St Josemaría’s teachings about the universal call to sanctity, the consideration of work as a means of service to society and of helping people reached him, and he felt the call to this endeavour in Opus Dei.
At the Universidad de Zaragoza he created the studies in Geography, and was the founder of the Geographica review, at the same time heading the Department of Applied Geography and being the Vice-Director of the Institute for Pirenaic Studies [Instituto de Estudios Pirenáicos].
He specialised in applied Geography, and in local, urban and population Geography, and occupied the first tenured position in that speciality. Manuel Ferrer Regales, who was one of his students at the Universidad de Navarra, stressed “the generosity of his teaching and research, and his concern for the anthropological and doctrinal content of his topics, which led him to concentrate his studies in population and demographics”.
Professor José Manuel Casas Torres, 93, creator of modern Spanish geography and a professor at the Universidad de Zaragoza and Universidad Complutense in Madrid, passed away on May 30, in Madrid. He was also a professor at the Universidad de Navarra. In his lectures he promoted the “region” as a space linking the State and the province, and had a key role in modernising Spanish cartography.
Casas Torres was born in Valencia on October 26, 1916. He dedicated most of his life to teaching and research, and many of his students consider him one of the masters of Spanish geography.
He was a Director at the Institute for Applied Geography [Instituto de Geografía Aplicada] of the Superior Council for Scientific Research [Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas] and also the Geography Departament at the Universidad Complutense, where he worked from 1965 to 1983. He combined his retirement with research and a generous availability to his students. He was a member of Opus Dei since 1939, and the eldest living member of the Work at the time of his death.
He met St Josemaría Escrivá in July 1939 and became a member of Opus Dei on July 14, 1939. St Josemaría’s teachings about the universal call to sanctity, the consideration of work as a means of service to society and of helping people reached him, and he felt the call to this endeavour in Opus Dei.
At the Universidad de Zaragoza he created the studies in Geography, and was the founder of the Geographica review, at the same time heading the Department of Applied Geography and being the Vice-Director of the Institute for Pirenaic Studies [Instituto de Estudios Pirenáicos].
He specialised in applied Geography, and in local, urban and population Geography, and occupied the first tenured position in that speciality. Manuel Ferrer Regales, who was one of his students at the Universidad de Navarra, stressed “the generosity of his teaching and research, and his concern for the anthropological and doctrinal content of his topics, which led him to concentrate his studies in population and demographics”.
I'm not a member of Opus Dei but I know many people who are
Comments on the article titled "Gilles Duceppe owes an apology to Catholics" in the National Post.
I find it interesting that those who are ignorant of the facts are also the most intolerant of those who have different views. Perhaps if they did their research and met with members of Opus Dei, they would find them to be very hardworking, generous and happy people, who are trying to live their Christian faith in the ordinary circumstances of their family, social and professional lives.
I look at all the wonderful work that the Catholic Church, of which Opus Dei is one of many lay movements, is doing around the world and in Canada and I say "THANK GOD!!" (By Jo K)
I'm not a member of Opus Dei but I know many people who are. I'm always impressed by their devotion to their faith, family, work and society in general. They have an energy and a willingness to put themselves at the service of others which is remarkable. I also think that many people comment about Opus Dei in ignorance. They really know nothing about it except what they have heard in the media or read in third rate fiction. (By Rachel Clare)
I have known Opus Dei for the better of part of my whole life (now 41 y.o. age). I once thought I was being called to be a celibate member of Opus Dei, but was told that that way was not for me (which my husband and my now 5 kids would agree with). It is rare indeed to find people who truly wish to help each individual find God in their own circumstances and help them courageously give meaning to all they do while rendering service to all those whom they come into contact within their daily lives. (by Anonymous)
I find it interesting that those who are ignorant of the facts are also the most intolerant of those who have different views. Perhaps if they did their research and met with members of Opus Dei, they would find them to be very hardworking, generous and happy people, who are trying to live their Christian faith in the ordinary circumstances of their family, social and professional lives.
I look at all the wonderful work that the Catholic Church, of which Opus Dei is one of many lay movements, is doing around the world and in Canada and I say "THANK GOD!!" (By Jo K)
I'm not a member of Opus Dei but I know many people who are. I'm always impressed by their devotion to their faith, family, work and society in general. They have an energy and a willingness to put themselves at the service of others which is remarkable. I also think that many people comment about Opus Dei in ignorance. They really know nothing about it except what they have heard in the media or read in third rate fiction. (By Rachel Clare)
I have known Opus Dei for the better of part of my whole life (now 41 y.o. age). I once thought I was being called to be a celibate member of Opus Dei, but was told that that way was not for me (which my husband and my now 5 kids would agree with). It is rare indeed to find people who truly wish to help each individual find God in their own circumstances and help them courageously give meaning to all they do while rendering service to all those whom they come into contact within their daily lives. (by Anonymous)
Why is it OK to pick on Christians?
By Ezra Levant, National Post. He has been described here as "one of the foremost fighters on the Canadian scene for recovering fundamental civil rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. When publisher of the now defunct Western Standard, he was one of the few in North America who had the courage to reprint the famous Mohammed cartoons. For his trouble, he faced human rights complaints from a Calgary imam that he fought and won, but not without it costing about $100,000. Ezra is also quick to defend Christians who have been taking a beating in the public square, most recently the Catholic lay movement Opus Dei."
I have never told him this, but I was tremendously disappointed when I first met Monsignor Fred Dolan, the Canadian vicar of Opus Dei.
It was about six or seven years ago, around the time The Da Vinci Code was published, and frankly I was hoping that he would be a dark and conspiratorial figure -- someone who would fit the words "ultraconservative" and "shadowy." I didn't quite want him to be an assassin, like the Opus Dei priest was in the book and film, but I surely wanted someone who was mysterious and secretive and powerful.
Like if the Pope had a CIA agent.
I admit it: I wanted an Opus Dei friend so I could shock the liberals in my life, and perhaps seem like I had a few exotic secrets of my own. And I thought it would be nice to have a friend who was more right wing than me.
To my regret, Msgr. Dolan is just a mild-mannered priest and worse, Opus Dei doesn't have any secret handshakes or midnight meetings. I don't want to sound lazy or selfish, but joining Opus Dei sure looks like a lot of do-goodery and just plain work (I asked Msgr. Dolan for a brochure and I read it carefully, even looking for hidden clues). I already had enough pro bono commitments and I didn't need any more. (As a Jew, I could join Opus Dei as an associate member).
I've stayed in touch with Msgr. Dolan since then and we're friendly. I admire his charity and his ecumenicalism. He sends me notes from time to time, about Passover or Holocaust remembrance, and he always asks when I'll be in Montreal again. In seven years, he's never tried to put the shadowy moves on me, and I'm starting to worry that he never will.
Pat Martin worries, too. Oh, does he worry.
Mr. Martin is the NDP MP for Winnipeg Centre. And his secret sources told him that Msgr. Dolan met with a dozen or so MPs in the Parliamentary dining room last week. (Actually, every MP received an invitation, and not even in invisible ink.)
Mr. Martin didn't attend. But he sought out reporters to tell them that Opus Dei members "give me the creeps."
That's fine, if rude. Though someone ought to tell Martin that The Da Vinci Code is not a documentary.
But then Mr. Martin went further: he criticized MPs for even meeting with Msgr. Dolan. "I can't imagine why a member of parliament would invite [Opus Dei] for a meeting on Parliament Hill," he said. "I certainly wouldn't attend anything associated with them."
Mr. Martin wasn't the only one worried that Msgr. Dolan might wave a wand and turn him into a newt. Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois, actually asked about it in Question Period. Duceppe named two Conservative party volunteers who apparently are members of Opus Dei, noted that "a Conservative" invited Msgr. Dolan to the dining room and demanded that the Prime Minister "admit that his policy is influenced" by such people.
Neither of the women named by Mr. Duceppe works for the government in any way, and neither was known for their religious views-- until Mr. Duceppe took it upon himself to discuss their private lives in Parliament.
A reporter asked Mr. Duceppe if he wasn't being "a little Mc-Carthyite"; Mr. Duceppe brushed off the accusation and went further: Opus Dei members should not be allowed to participate in political life--even as volunteers --if they identify "as a group."
Stop for a moment and try that sentence out again, substituting the words "gay" or "Jewish" for "Opus Dei members." Jews shouldn't be allowed in politics if they "identify as a group." Sikhs shouldn't be allowed in politics "if they identify as a group." How does it feel?
Mr. Duceppe then went a little Dan Brown himself, claiming Opus Dei "have people in place ... so a lot of things prove that something's going on." He really said that.
Try our substitution experiment again. Gays "have people in place." Gays have "something going on." How does that sound?
Sounds to me like Mr. Duceppe is channelling a bit of Jacques Parizeau's "money and the ethnic vote" xenophobia again.
So what do we have here?
The obvious: Anti-Christian bigotry remains an acceptable form of intolerance in Canadian politics, and this bigotry has infected the parties of the left.
The mainstream media, and indeed the rest of the political establishment, ignores or even approves of this (CBC's Evan Solomon being a noteworthy exception).
Like Marci McDonald's book about Christians, Mr. Duceppe's comments are error-ridden and hysterical. For example, Duceppe implied that the meeting was for Conservatives only. But one of the MPs who attended is Mario Silva -- a Liberal MP who just happens to be gay. Lemme guess: That just proves how diabolical Opus Dei's master plan must be!
It's one thing for Messrs. Martin and Duceppe and Ms. Mc-Donald to dislike Christians. But what's new -- and disturbing -- is that this once-passive intolerance is becoming active: There is a concerted effort to name Christians and drive them out of office, to delegitimize the very idea of Christians participating in public life.
It's an attack on Canada's pluralism and religious freedom. It's unfair and it's un-Canadian. We'd never accept it if it were targeting any other religious group. So why is it OK to pick on Christians?
I have never told him this, but I was tremendously disappointed when I first met Monsignor Fred Dolan, the Canadian vicar of Opus Dei.
It was about six or seven years ago, around the time The Da Vinci Code was published, and frankly I was hoping that he would be a dark and conspiratorial figure -- someone who would fit the words "ultraconservative" and "shadowy." I didn't quite want him to be an assassin, like the Opus Dei priest was in the book and film, but I surely wanted someone who was mysterious and secretive and powerful.
Like if the Pope had a CIA agent.
I admit it: I wanted an Opus Dei friend so I could shock the liberals in my life, and perhaps seem like I had a few exotic secrets of my own. And I thought it would be nice to have a friend who was more right wing than me.
To my regret, Msgr. Dolan is just a mild-mannered priest and worse, Opus Dei doesn't have any secret handshakes or midnight meetings. I don't want to sound lazy or selfish, but joining Opus Dei sure looks like a lot of do-goodery and just plain work (I asked Msgr. Dolan for a brochure and I read it carefully, even looking for hidden clues). I already had enough pro bono commitments and I didn't need any more. (As a Jew, I could join Opus Dei as an associate member).
I've stayed in touch with Msgr. Dolan since then and we're friendly. I admire his charity and his ecumenicalism. He sends me notes from time to time, about Passover or Holocaust remembrance, and he always asks when I'll be in Montreal again. In seven years, he's never tried to put the shadowy moves on me, and I'm starting to worry that he never will.
Pat Martin worries, too. Oh, does he worry.
Mr. Martin is the NDP MP for Winnipeg Centre. And his secret sources told him that Msgr. Dolan met with a dozen or so MPs in the Parliamentary dining room last week. (Actually, every MP received an invitation, and not even in invisible ink.)
Mr. Martin didn't attend. But he sought out reporters to tell them that Opus Dei members "give me the creeps."
That's fine, if rude. Though someone ought to tell Martin that The Da Vinci Code is not a documentary.
But then Mr. Martin went further: he criticized MPs for even meeting with Msgr. Dolan. "I can't imagine why a member of parliament would invite [Opus Dei] for a meeting on Parliament Hill," he said. "I certainly wouldn't attend anything associated with them."
Mr. Martin wasn't the only one worried that Msgr. Dolan might wave a wand and turn him into a newt. Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois, actually asked about it in Question Period. Duceppe named two Conservative party volunteers who apparently are members of Opus Dei, noted that "a Conservative" invited Msgr. Dolan to the dining room and demanded that the Prime Minister "admit that his policy is influenced" by such people.
Neither of the women named by Mr. Duceppe works for the government in any way, and neither was known for their religious views-- until Mr. Duceppe took it upon himself to discuss their private lives in Parliament.
A reporter asked Mr. Duceppe if he wasn't being "a little Mc-Carthyite"; Mr. Duceppe brushed off the accusation and went further: Opus Dei members should not be allowed to participate in political life--even as volunteers --if they identify "as a group."
Stop for a moment and try that sentence out again, substituting the words "gay" or "Jewish" for "Opus Dei members." Jews shouldn't be allowed in politics if they "identify as a group." Sikhs shouldn't be allowed in politics "if they identify as a group." How does it feel?
Mr. Duceppe then went a little Dan Brown himself, claiming Opus Dei "have people in place ... so a lot of things prove that something's going on." He really said that.
Try our substitution experiment again. Gays "have people in place." Gays have "something going on." How does that sound?
Sounds to me like Mr. Duceppe is channelling a bit of Jacques Parizeau's "money and the ethnic vote" xenophobia again.
So what do we have here?
The obvious: Anti-Christian bigotry remains an acceptable form of intolerance in Canadian politics, and this bigotry has infected the parties of the left.
The mainstream media, and indeed the rest of the political establishment, ignores or even approves of this (CBC's Evan Solomon being a noteworthy exception).
Like Marci McDonald's book about Christians, Mr. Duceppe's comments are error-ridden and hysterical. For example, Duceppe implied that the meeting was for Conservatives only. But one of the MPs who attended is Mario Silva -- a Liberal MP who just happens to be gay. Lemme guess: That just proves how diabolical Opus Dei's master plan must be!
It's one thing for Messrs. Martin and Duceppe and Ms. Mc-Donald to dislike Christians. But what's new -- and disturbing -- is that this once-passive intolerance is becoming active: There is a concerted effort to name Christians and drive them out of office, to delegitimize the very idea of Christians participating in public life.
It's an attack on Canada's pluralism and religious freedom. It's unfair and it's un-Canadian. We'd never accept it if it were targeting any other religious group. So why is it OK to pick on Christians?
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The Little Football Team that Could
In News Today
“I-think-I can, I-think-I-can,” puffed the little train as it labored with all its might, pulling up a mountain the load that other, bigger engines had refused. We all know the happy ending to the popular children’s tale, “The Little Engine that Could,” a story often used to teach the virtues of hard work and optimism in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. A similar story with a modern twist might be called “The Little Football Team that Could.”
On April 17, 2010, the Western Visayas Elementary Football squad led by Westbridge players RR Portigo – Team Captain, Carlo Dalisay, Lord Irvin Jimena, Migui Chavez, Paolo Divinagracia, John Palacios, Michael Inocencio and Andro Untal, together with Jekar Sullano, Jesse Dianala and Exiamirum Sierra, Jonas Oren, Paul Bernil, Charlone Lapating and Robert Supremo from various schools in the region, won the coveted Palarong Pambansa Championship in Tarlac, beating out NCR 3-0 in the finals.
The victory becomes even sweeter when one realizes that Westbridge is a school with only 147 students in its elementary department, has no athletic scholarships, and runs a very limited budget for its football team. The championship comes at the end of a long road of dedicated practice by the students, determined support by the parents, incessant value-formation by the school, and relentless training by Westbridge Coach Armand Heria.
Even more notable is the team’s composition, which includes several honor students, some student government officers, and a multi-awarded singer in interschool events. Academic and extra-curricular demands did not stop them from attending arduous practice rain or shine, vacation or no vacation. As the students gave their all in practice, the championship caravan of supportive parents followed with food, energy drinks and even tents to out-of-town games, and raising funds for tournaments in Manila and Bacolod.
Team Captain Renz Richard Portigo with his proud parents, Dr. Ric and Tina.
Team Captain Renz Richard Portigo with his proud parents, Dr. Ric and Tina.
The school, too, living up to its motto, “Duc in Altum” – Launch Out into the Deep”, entered its fledgling footballers in tournaments with soccer powerhouses like Barotac-Tamasak and the Makati Football Club.
Never mind the losses, the team was told, the important thing was to try hard and do your best, echoing the sporting determination encouraged by St. Josemaria Escriva, patron of Paref-Westbridge. At the same time they were reminded to give due importance to academics and other pursuits that would further develop their personalities. Recognizing the valuable attitudes of the boys, their parents, and the school, Coach Armand was confident in setting high standards of discipline and training, standards high enough to extract the team’s potential and win them a championship.
And win they did. The team, composed first won the Mayor’s Cup trophies. Next came the PRISAA wins: three in a row. Their wins against Barotac, something unthinkable a few years ago were followed by the Mizuno Cup top spot. Their quest led to the Palarong Pambansa Championship, and ultimately the gold.
Perhaps the Westbridge victory can be best described in the words of Italian soccer coach Giovanni Trapattoni: “Josemaria Escriva has taught many athletes that their efforts in training and in competition, their companionship with team-mates, their esteem for their opponents, their humility in victory and good spirit in defeat, are a specific path for reaching God and for serving others.”
Well done.
“I-think-I can, I-think-I-can,” puffed the little train as it labored with all its might, pulling up a mountain the load that other, bigger engines had refused. We all know the happy ending to the popular children’s tale, “The Little Engine that Could,” a story often used to teach the virtues of hard work and optimism in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. A similar story with a modern twist might be called “The Little Football Team that Could.”
On April 17, 2010, the Western Visayas Elementary Football squad led by Westbridge players RR Portigo – Team Captain, Carlo Dalisay, Lord Irvin Jimena, Migui Chavez, Paolo Divinagracia, John Palacios, Michael Inocencio and Andro Untal, together with Jekar Sullano, Jesse Dianala and Exiamirum Sierra, Jonas Oren, Paul Bernil, Charlone Lapating and Robert Supremo from various schools in the region, won the coveted Palarong Pambansa Championship in Tarlac, beating out NCR 3-0 in the finals.
The victory becomes even sweeter when one realizes that Westbridge is a school with only 147 students in its elementary department, has no athletic scholarships, and runs a very limited budget for its football team. The championship comes at the end of a long road of dedicated practice by the students, determined support by the parents, incessant value-formation by the school, and relentless training by Westbridge Coach Armand Heria.
Even more notable is the team’s composition, which includes several honor students, some student government officers, and a multi-awarded singer in interschool events. Academic and extra-curricular demands did not stop them from attending arduous practice rain or shine, vacation or no vacation. As the students gave their all in practice, the championship caravan of supportive parents followed with food, energy drinks and even tents to out-of-town games, and raising funds for tournaments in Manila and Bacolod.
Team Captain Renz Richard Portigo with his proud parents, Dr. Ric and Tina.
Team Captain Renz Richard Portigo with his proud parents, Dr. Ric and Tina.
The school, too, living up to its motto, “Duc in Altum” – Launch Out into the Deep”, entered its fledgling footballers in tournaments with soccer powerhouses like Barotac-Tamasak and the Makati Football Club.
Never mind the losses, the team was told, the important thing was to try hard and do your best, echoing the sporting determination encouraged by St. Josemaria Escriva, patron of Paref-Westbridge. At the same time they were reminded to give due importance to academics and other pursuits that would further develop their personalities. Recognizing the valuable attitudes of the boys, their parents, and the school, Coach Armand was confident in setting high standards of discipline and training, standards high enough to extract the team’s potential and win them a championship.
And win they did. The team, composed first won the Mayor’s Cup trophies. Next came the PRISAA wins: three in a row. Their wins against Barotac, something unthinkable a few years ago were followed by the Mizuno Cup top spot. Their quest led to the Palarong Pambansa Championship, and ultimately the gold.
Perhaps the Westbridge victory can be best described in the words of Italian soccer coach Giovanni Trapattoni: “Josemaria Escriva has taught many athletes that their efforts in training and in competition, their companionship with team-mates, their esteem for their opponents, their humility in victory and good spirit in defeat, are a specific path for reaching God and for serving others.”
Well done.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
If Mass is boring
Interview with the Prelate of Opus Dei by Jesus Colina of Zenit
Holy Mass is about love, reminds Bishop Javier Echevarría Rodríguez, prelate of Opus Dei, when asked for advice for those who are sometimes bored by the Eucharistic celebration.
Bishop Echevarría, who together with Bishop Alvaro del Portillo was the person closest to St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, has dedicated his latest book, "Living the Holy Mass," to this sacrament.
Bishop Echevarría is a member of the Vatican's Congregation for Saints' Causes and the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature; he is a consultor for the Congregation for the Clergy and an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. His book is an attempt to rediscover love for the Eucharist, "which must be the center of our life," he explains in this interview with ZENIT.
ZENIT: What would you recommend to Catholics who say they are bored at Mass?
Bishop Echevarría: I would recommend that they participate with sincerity in the Mass, seeking and loving Jesus. In "The Way," St. Josemaría wrote: "You say the Mass is long and, I add, because your love is short."
Feelings must not be given too much importance: enthusiasm or apathy, desire or lack of it. The Mass is sacrifice: Christ gives himself out of love. It is an action of God and we cannot fully understand its grandeur, because of our limited condition as creatures. But we must make the effort, not only to be at Mass, but to live it in union with Christ and the Church.
ZENIT: When did you discover the mystery that the Eucharist conceals and reveals?
Bishop Echevarría: Thank God, I try to rediscover it every day: in the Liturgy of the Word -- which helps to maintain conversation with God during the day -- and in the Eucharistic liturgy. We should always be ever more astonished before this reality that surpasses us, but in which the Lord allows us to participate, better said, invites us to participate.
In the Mass, not only is a descendent communication of the redeeming gift of God fulfilled, but also an ascendant mediation, man's offering of himself to God: his work, his sufferings, his griefs and his joys, everything is united to Christ -- through him, with him and in him. I cannot be silent about the deep impact that St. Josemaría made on me when he celebrated the Holy Sacrifice, on contemplating his daily Eucharistic devotion.
It profoundly moves us to think that in the presentation of the gifts, the priest asks God to accept the bread and wine, which are "fruit of the earth (or of the vine) and the work of men." Man can offer his work in any circumstance to God, but in the Mass, that offer reaches its full meaning and value, because Christ unites it to his sacrifice, which he offers to the Father for the salvation of men.
When the Mass is the center and root of the Christian's day, when all his tasks are oriented to the Eucharistic sacrifice, it can be affirmed that his whole day is a Mass and that his place of work is an altar, where he gives himself fully to God as his beloved son.
ZENIT: In his pontificate, Benedict XVI is stimulating a rediscovery of the enormity of this sacrament. What has most caught your attention in the words and gestures of the Pope on the Eucharist?
Bishop Echevarría: Especially important, it seems to me at this time, is his insistence that the liturgy is God's action and, as such, it is received in the continuity of the Church.
The Pope has written that the best catechesis on the Eucharist is the Eucharist itself well celebrated. Therefore, the first duty of piety for the priest that celebrates or for the faithful that participate in the Mass is the attentive, devout observance of the liturgical prescriptions: the obedience of pietas.
Moreover, the Pope also insists that the Eucharist is the heart of the Church: God present on the altar, the close God, builds the Church, congregates the faithful and sends them to all men.
ZENIT: Something more personal. According to your memories, what was the Eucharist for St. Josemaría? What role did it have in his day?
Bishop Echevarría: I served Mass many times for St. Josemaría. At these times he would ask me to pray so that he would not get used to celebrating that very sublime and sacred act. In effect, I was able to verify something he once said: that he experienced the Mass as work -- at times an extenuating effort, such was the intensity with which he lived it.
Throughout the day, he would recall the texts he had read, in particular the Gospel, and many times he commented on it, in a perfectly ordinary tone, as food for his spiritual and human life.
He was conscious of the fact that in the Mass the protagonist is Jesus Christ, not the minister, and that the faithful fulfillment of the prescriptions enables the priest to "disappear," so that Jesus alone shines. Many people who attended his Mass -- also in the difficult circumstances of the Spanish Civil War -- commented later that his way of celebrating Mass had something that moved them profoundly, and that they felt invited to grow in their devotion to the Holy Sacrifice. I am convinced that what moved those who participated -- those of us who participated -- in his Mass was precisely that: that he let Christ appear and not his person.
Holy Mass is about love, reminds Bishop Javier Echevarría Rodríguez, prelate of Opus Dei, when asked for advice for those who are sometimes bored by the Eucharistic celebration.
Bishop Echevarría, who together with Bishop Alvaro del Portillo was the person closest to St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, has dedicated his latest book, "Living the Holy Mass," to this sacrament.
Bishop Echevarría is a member of the Vatican's Congregation for Saints' Causes and the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature; he is a consultor for the Congregation for the Clergy and an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. His book is an attempt to rediscover love for the Eucharist, "which must be the center of our life," he explains in this interview with ZENIT.
ZENIT: What would you recommend to Catholics who say they are bored at Mass?
Bishop Echevarría: I would recommend that they participate with sincerity in the Mass, seeking and loving Jesus. In "The Way," St. Josemaría wrote: "You say the Mass is long and, I add, because your love is short."
Feelings must not be given too much importance: enthusiasm or apathy, desire or lack of it. The Mass is sacrifice: Christ gives himself out of love. It is an action of God and we cannot fully understand its grandeur, because of our limited condition as creatures. But we must make the effort, not only to be at Mass, but to live it in union with Christ and the Church.
ZENIT: When did you discover the mystery that the Eucharist conceals and reveals?
Bishop Echevarría: Thank God, I try to rediscover it every day: in the Liturgy of the Word -- which helps to maintain conversation with God during the day -- and in the Eucharistic liturgy. We should always be ever more astonished before this reality that surpasses us, but in which the Lord allows us to participate, better said, invites us to participate.
In the Mass, not only is a descendent communication of the redeeming gift of God fulfilled, but also an ascendant mediation, man's offering of himself to God: his work, his sufferings, his griefs and his joys, everything is united to Christ -- through him, with him and in him. I cannot be silent about the deep impact that St. Josemaría made on me when he celebrated the Holy Sacrifice, on contemplating his daily Eucharistic devotion.
It profoundly moves us to think that in the presentation of the gifts, the priest asks God to accept the bread and wine, which are "fruit of the earth (or of the vine) and the work of men." Man can offer his work in any circumstance to God, but in the Mass, that offer reaches its full meaning and value, because Christ unites it to his sacrifice, which he offers to the Father for the salvation of men.
When the Mass is the center and root of the Christian's day, when all his tasks are oriented to the Eucharistic sacrifice, it can be affirmed that his whole day is a Mass and that his place of work is an altar, where he gives himself fully to God as his beloved son.
ZENIT: In his pontificate, Benedict XVI is stimulating a rediscovery of the enormity of this sacrament. What has most caught your attention in the words and gestures of the Pope on the Eucharist?
Bishop Echevarría: Especially important, it seems to me at this time, is his insistence that the liturgy is God's action and, as such, it is received in the continuity of the Church.
The Pope has written that the best catechesis on the Eucharist is the Eucharist itself well celebrated. Therefore, the first duty of piety for the priest that celebrates or for the faithful that participate in the Mass is the attentive, devout observance of the liturgical prescriptions: the obedience of pietas.
Moreover, the Pope also insists that the Eucharist is the heart of the Church: God present on the altar, the close God, builds the Church, congregates the faithful and sends them to all men.
ZENIT: Something more personal. According to your memories, what was the Eucharist for St. Josemaría? What role did it have in his day?
Bishop Echevarría: I served Mass many times for St. Josemaría. At these times he would ask me to pray so that he would not get used to celebrating that very sublime and sacred act. In effect, I was able to verify something he once said: that he experienced the Mass as work -- at times an extenuating effort, such was the intensity with which he lived it.
Throughout the day, he would recall the texts he had read, in particular the Gospel, and many times he commented on it, in a perfectly ordinary tone, as food for his spiritual and human life.
He was conscious of the fact that in the Mass the protagonist is Jesus Christ, not the minister, and that the faithful fulfillment of the prescriptions enables the priest to "disappear," so that Jesus alone shines. Many people who attended his Mass -- also in the difficult circumstances of the Spanish Civil War -- commented later that his way of celebrating Mass had something that moved them profoundly, and that they felt invited to grow in their devotion to the Holy Sacrifice. I am convinced that what moved those who participated -- those of us who participated -- in his Mass was precisely that: that he let Christ appear and not his person.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
You're a murderer. (No offense intended.)
By Diogenes in Catholic Culture. April 07, 2010 9:53 AM
In a "news" story greeting the appointment of the city's coadjutor, Archbishop José Goméz, the Los Angeles Times provides some background on the prelate's membership in Opus Dei:
Superficial, but you don't expect profound spiritual reading in a daily newspaper. Let it pass. The story continues:
There are only two possibilities here. Either Opus Dei is a murderous cult, or Dan Brown's portrayal is defamatory. To say that "Opus members and the Vatican" object to the portrayal is to suggest that other people-- more objective people-- don't see a problem with the depiction.
Just a bit of harmless entertainment: I'm going to tell the world that you belong to a murderous cult. You won't object, will you? C'mon, be a sport! Where's your sense of humor?
In a "news" story greeting the appointment of the city's coadjutor, Archbishop José Goméz, the Los Angeles Times provides some background on the prelate's membership in Opus Dei:
Opus Dei was founded by Saint Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer in Spain in 1928. Escriva held that sainthood could be achieved by anyone by carrying out everyday tasks extraordinarily well.
Superficial, but you don't expect profound spiritual reading in a daily newspaper. Let it pass. The story continues:
The movement, which enjoys a unique status at the Vatican, was depicted as a murderous cult in Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," which Opus members and the Vatican have denounced as defaming the church.
There are only two possibilities here. Either Opus Dei is a murderous cult, or Dan Brown's portrayal is defamatory. To say that "Opus members and the Vatican" object to the portrayal is to suggest that other people-- more objective people-- don't see a problem with the depiction.
Just a bit of harmless entertainment: I'm going to tell the world that you belong to a murderous cult. You won't object, will you? C'mon, be a sport! Where's your sense of humor?
Saturday, April 10, 2010
St. Josemaria: Fight social injustice
Easter Homily of St. Josemaria: "Christ's Presence in Christians" found in the collection of homilies titled Christ is Passing By. He said that "it is not only a matter of being a considerate, loving person, but of making the Love of God known through human love."
It is easy to understand the impatience, anxiety and uneasiness of people whose naturally christian soul stimulates them to fight the personal and social injustice which the human heart can create. So many centuries of men living side by side and still so much hate, so much destruction, so much fanaticism stored up in eyes that do not want to see and in hearts that do not want to love!
The good things of the earth, monopolized by a handful of people; the culture of the world, confined to cliques. And, on the outside, hunger for bread and education. Human lives — holy, because they come from God — treated as mere things, as statistics. I understand and share this impatience. It stirs me to look at Christ, who is continually inviting us to put his new commandment of love into practice.
All the circumstances in which life places us bring a divine message, asking us to respond with love and service to others. "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left.
"Then the King will say to those at his right hand, Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the King will answer them, Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."
We must learn to recognize Christ when he comes out to meet us in our brothers, the people around us. No human life is ever isolated. It is bound up with other lives. No man or woman is a single verse; we all make up one divine poem which God writes with the cooperation of our freedom. (...)
When a Christian makes Christ present among men by being Christ himself, it is not only a matter of being a considerate, loving person, but of making the Love of God known through his human love. Jesus saw all his life as a revelation of this love. As he said to one of his disciples, "He who has seen me has seen the Father."
St John applies this teaching when he tells Christians that, since they have come to know the love of God, they should show it in their deeds: "Beloved, let us love one another since love comes from God, and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
"He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we love God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."
It is easy to understand the impatience, anxiety and uneasiness of people whose naturally christian soul stimulates them to fight the personal and social injustice which the human heart can create. So many centuries of men living side by side and still so much hate, so much destruction, so much fanaticism stored up in eyes that do not want to see and in hearts that do not want to love!
The good things of the earth, monopolized by a handful of people; the culture of the world, confined to cliques. And, on the outside, hunger for bread and education. Human lives — holy, because they come from God — treated as mere things, as statistics. I understand and share this impatience. It stirs me to look at Christ, who is continually inviting us to put his new commandment of love into practice.
All the circumstances in which life places us bring a divine message, asking us to respond with love and service to others. "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left.
"Then the King will say to those at his right hand, Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the King will answer them, Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."
We must learn to recognize Christ when he comes out to meet us in our brothers, the people around us. No human life is ever isolated. It is bound up with other lives. No man or woman is a single verse; we all make up one divine poem which God writes with the cooperation of our freedom. (...)
When a Christian makes Christ present among men by being Christ himself, it is not only a matter of being a considerate, loving person, but of making the Love of God known through his human love. Jesus saw all his life as a revelation of this love. As he said to one of his disciples, "He who has seen me has seen the Father."
St John applies this teaching when he tells Christians that, since they have come to know the love of God, they should show it in their deeds: "Beloved, let us love one another since love comes from God, and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
"He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we love God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."
Friday, April 9, 2010
Opus Dei seeks to make everyday life holier
Members attend daily Mass and set aside prayer time. Not all engage in corporal mortification, and those who do say it's nothing like in 'The Da Vinci Code.'
April 06, 2010|By Carla Hall in Los Angeles Times
Julia Boles, 46, lives in Arcadia with her lawyer husband and their nine children, ages 5 to 20. She also manages to attend Mass daily, set aside two times a day for prayer and, with her children, pray the rosary.
"People say, 'Nine kids? How do you handle that and go to Mass?' I say, 'How could I do this without the Mass?' "
Boles is a member of one of the most talked about, least understood Catholic organizations in the world: Opus Dei, which means "work of God" in Latin.
Although the face of Opus Dei in "The Da Vinci Code" is a murderous masochistic monk -- a fiction, the group's members say -- it is Boles who typifies the group's American demographic: She's a woman. The majority of the 190 members in L.A. are women, as are slightly more than half of the 3,000 members in the U.S.
There are no monks. And only 2% of the organization's nearly 90,000 members worldwide are priests, one of whom was Jose Gomez, the newly named successor as archbishop to Cardinal Roger Mahony. Gomez is the only priest to come up through Opus Dei who has been made a U.S. bishop.
Seton Hall law professor John Coverdale said the organization's goal is to offer lay Christians a path toward a holier life, without becoming a priest or a nun. "People would see their work as a professor or a journalist or mother or whatever they are as something to offer to God and something that they need to try to do well," said Coverdale, 69, a lay member of Opus Dei.
"It's not a bunch of pious things," said Boles, whose husband and two eldest children (UCLA students John and Ginny) are members too. "I'm chasing after kids, I'm trying to get meals on the table. . . . All of those things are precious in God's eyes if they are done with love. If you try to do it as well as you can, for God's glory, with concern for your neighbor and mine, it's wonderful."
To read the entire article see Los Angeles Times
April 06, 2010|By Carla Hall in Los Angeles Times
Julia Boles, 46, lives in Arcadia with her lawyer husband and their nine children, ages 5 to 20. She also manages to attend Mass daily, set aside two times a day for prayer and, with her children, pray the rosary.
"People say, 'Nine kids? How do you handle that and go to Mass?' I say, 'How could I do this without the Mass?' "
Boles is a member of one of the most talked about, least understood Catholic organizations in the world: Opus Dei, which means "work of God" in Latin.
Although the face of Opus Dei in "The Da Vinci Code" is a murderous masochistic monk -- a fiction, the group's members say -- it is Boles who typifies the group's American demographic: She's a woman. The majority of the 190 members in L.A. are women, as are slightly more than half of the 3,000 members in the U.S.
There are no monks. And only 2% of the organization's nearly 90,000 members worldwide are priests, one of whom was Jose Gomez, the newly named successor as archbishop to Cardinal Roger Mahony. Gomez is the only priest to come up through Opus Dei who has been made a U.S. bishop.
Seton Hall law professor John Coverdale said the organization's goal is to offer lay Christians a path toward a holier life, without becoming a priest or a nun. "People would see their work as a professor or a journalist or mother or whatever they are as something to offer to God and something that they need to try to do well," said Coverdale, 69, a lay member of Opus Dei.
"It's not a bunch of pious things," said Boles, whose husband and two eldest children (UCLA students John and Ginny) are members too. "I'm chasing after kids, I'm trying to get meals on the table. . . . All of those things are precious in God's eyes if they are done with love. If you try to do it as well as you can, for God's glory, with concern for your neighbor and mine, it's wonderful."
To read the entire article see Los Angeles Times
Bishop Jose Gomez: You will be my witnesses
On Archbishop Jose Gomez's pastoral letter, You will be my witnesses. From Catholic Online.
Archbishop José H. Gomez of San Antonio issued his third pastoral letter, urging the laity to embrace the task of evangelization, calling it "the duty of every believer." The task of evangelization is all the more necessary because of the "de-Christianized" American culture, he said.
"We have a duty," stated Archbishop Gomez, "to bear witness to God. It is a duty of delight, a duty we carry out with joy and thanksgiving. We want the world beginning with those nearest to us, to share in what we have been given – the free gift of God's grace and the joy that comes with knowing the truth that sets us free."
Marking his fifth anniversary as Archbishop of San Antonio, the prelate said that he wanted his letter to continue the archdiocese's "reflection on the Christian life by talking about our duty as disciples to bear witness to Christ and his Gospel."
Recognizing that this is the Year for Priests, Archbishop Gomez said he intentionally wanted his pastoral letter to focus on the laity and "the priestly soul of the lay apostolate." Evangelization, he wrote, "is not an option or obligation reserved for priests, religious and bishops. It is the duty of every believer."
Moreover, the archbishop explained, every person in the Church "shares in Christ's priesthood" and everyone who has been baptized "has a priestly soul."
"As lay people, you are called to offer your daily work and prayer as a spiritual sacrifice of praise to God. You are called to live and work for God in a spirit of love, with a desire to serve him in all things and to do everything you can to help the souls around you."
When it comes to evangelizing, the San Antonio archbishop said it begins "in the heart," and that the experience of knowing "God's mercy and love" is what prompts the faithful to "testify to the great difference that Jesus Christ has made in our lives."
Arcbishop Gomez explained that he is issuing the call to evangelize because our culture is "de-Christianized," since "powerful interests have been at work for some decades now, patiently erasing the influence and memory of our nation's Christian heritage from our laws and public policies, from our arts and literature, from our schools and media, our language and customs, from our entire way of life."
"The result of this deliberate strategy of secularization is that more and more of our brothers and sisters today live without any awareness of their need for God," the archbishop said, noting that even "believers face the stark reality that in order to participate in the economic, political, and social life of our country, we are increasingly compelled to conduct ourselves as if God does not exist."
In light of this, evangelization is ever more imminent, Archbishop Gomez insisted.
"My brothers and sisters, I urge you: we need Catholics who are living their faith and proclaiming it in every profession and walk of life. Through you we can take the truths of the Gospel to every corner of our culture – to the world of arts, politics, and media; to the areas of business, science, and technological research; even to the fields of sports and popular entertainment," he wrote.
"Proclaiming Christ in these areas does not mean 'proselytizing,'" clarified the prelate."It means performing your work in these fields to the highest possible standards and with a Christian perspective. It means demonstrating, through your work and friendships with your colleagues, the harmony between faith and reason, and the new insights that are possible if we think of creation and discovery as something we do in partnership with our Creator."
Archbishop Gomez also reiterated that "all of us in the Church are called to testify to the God-given sanctity and dignity of the human person from conception to natural death. In our evangelization efforts as individuals and as institutions, we must defend the family, the vital cell of society, and the divine institution of marriage as between one man and one woman, which is under attack in our culture and legal system."
Among those who have a special need for evangelization, the San Antonio archbishop addressed the "millions of Hispanic immigrants in our midst" who are "in danger of drifting away from the Catholic faith to other religions or to know religion at all." Archbishop Gomez also stated his concern regarding "baptized Catholics who have fallen away from the practice of their faith and from the sacraments of the Church."
Pointing out that Catholics "cannot preach the Gospel to others unless we have first experienced its good news in our own lives," he wrote that "evangelization flows from our love of Christ" and that "proclaiming Christ is more than handing on a set of doctrines or a philosophy of life."
"Proclaiming Christ means bringing men and women into a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. It means bringing people to Jesus and Jesus to people. It means telling people who Christ is, what he teaches, and how we can come to know him better in our lives."
Archbishop Gomez concluded by saying that "Only the heart that has been converted can lead other hearts to conversion. So we need to pray always for the grace of a new, deepened, life-changing conversion. Conversion is not something that happens only once in our lives. Every day, we have to make a new effort to turn our hearts once more to the Lord."
---
Bishop Gomez also said: "My approach and understanding of these matters owes a great deal to my appreciation of the spirituality of St. Josemaría Escrivá. I continue to find St. Josemaría’s teachings on sanctity and apostolate to be both profound and practical" (no. 33).
He quotes Friends of God:
Don't take the easy way out. Don't say, 'I'm no good at this sort of thing; there are others who can do it; it isn't my line'. No, for this sort of thing, there is no one else: if you could get away with that argument, so could everyone else. Christ's plea is addressed to each and every Christian. No one can consider himself excused, for whatever reason: age, health or occupation. There are no excuses whatsoever. Either we carry out a fruitful apostolate, or our faith will prove barren.
Besides, who ever said that to speak about Christ and to spread his doctrine, you need to do anything unusual or remarkable? Just live your ordinary life; work at your job, trying to fulfil the duties of your state in life, doing your job, your professional work properly, improving, getting better each day. Be loyal; be understanding with others and demanding on yourself. Be mortified and cheerful. This will be your apostolate. Then, though you won't see why, because you're very aware of your own wretchedness, you will find that people come to you. Then you can talk to them, quite simply and naturally — on your way home from work for instance, or in a family gathering, on a bus, walking down the street, anywhere. You will chat about the sort of longings that everyone feels deep down in his soul, even though some people may not want to pay attention to them: they will come to understand them better, when they begin to look for God in earnest.
Archbishop José H. Gomez of San Antonio issued his third pastoral letter, urging the laity to embrace the task of evangelization, calling it "the duty of every believer." The task of evangelization is all the more necessary because of the "de-Christianized" American culture, he said.
"We have a duty," stated Archbishop Gomez, "to bear witness to God. It is a duty of delight, a duty we carry out with joy and thanksgiving. We want the world beginning with those nearest to us, to share in what we have been given – the free gift of God's grace and the joy that comes with knowing the truth that sets us free."
Marking his fifth anniversary as Archbishop of San Antonio, the prelate said that he wanted his letter to continue the archdiocese's "reflection on the Christian life by talking about our duty as disciples to bear witness to Christ and his Gospel."
Recognizing that this is the Year for Priests, Archbishop Gomez said he intentionally wanted his pastoral letter to focus on the laity and "the priestly soul of the lay apostolate." Evangelization, he wrote, "is not an option or obligation reserved for priests, religious and bishops. It is the duty of every believer."
Moreover, the archbishop explained, every person in the Church "shares in Christ's priesthood" and everyone who has been baptized "has a priestly soul."
"As lay people, you are called to offer your daily work and prayer as a spiritual sacrifice of praise to God. You are called to live and work for God in a spirit of love, with a desire to serve him in all things and to do everything you can to help the souls around you."
When it comes to evangelizing, the San Antonio archbishop said it begins "in the heart," and that the experience of knowing "God's mercy and love" is what prompts the faithful to "testify to the great difference that Jesus Christ has made in our lives."
Arcbishop Gomez explained that he is issuing the call to evangelize because our culture is "de-Christianized," since "powerful interests have been at work for some decades now, patiently erasing the influence and memory of our nation's Christian heritage from our laws and public policies, from our arts and literature, from our schools and media, our language and customs, from our entire way of life."
"The result of this deliberate strategy of secularization is that more and more of our brothers and sisters today live without any awareness of their need for God," the archbishop said, noting that even "believers face the stark reality that in order to participate in the economic, political, and social life of our country, we are increasingly compelled to conduct ourselves as if God does not exist."
In light of this, evangelization is ever more imminent, Archbishop Gomez insisted.
"My brothers and sisters, I urge you: we need Catholics who are living their faith and proclaiming it in every profession and walk of life. Through you we can take the truths of the Gospel to every corner of our culture – to the world of arts, politics, and media; to the areas of business, science, and technological research; even to the fields of sports and popular entertainment," he wrote.
"Proclaiming Christ in these areas does not mean 'proselytizing,'" clarified the prelate."It means performing your work in these fields to the highest possible standards and with a Christian perspective. It means demonstrating, through your work and friendships with your colleagues, the harmony between faith and reason, and the new insights that are possible if we think of creation and discovery as something we do in partnership with our Creator."
Archbishop Gomez also reiterated that "all of us in the Church are called to testify to the God-given sanctity and dignity of the human person from conception to natural death. In our evangelization efforts as individuals and as institutions, we must defend the family, the vital cell of society, and the divine institution of marriage as between one man and one woman, which is under attack in our culture and legal system."
Among those who have a special need for evangelization, the San Antonio archbishop addressed the "millions of Hispanic immigrants in our midst" who are "in danger of drifting away from the Catholic faith to other religions or to know religion at all." Archbishop Gomez also stated his concern regarding "baptized Catholics who have fallen away from the practice of their faith and from the sacraments of the Church."
Pointing out that Catholics "cannot preach the Gospel to others unless we have first experienced its good news in our own lives," he wrote that "evangelization flows from our love of Christ" and that "proclaiming Christ is more than handing on a set of doctrines or a philosophy of life."
"Proclaiming Christ means bringing men and women into a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. It means bringing people to Jesus and Jesus to people. It means telling people who Christ is, what he teaches, and how we can come to know him better in our lives."
Archbishop Gomez concluded by saying that "Only the heart that has been converted can lead other hearts to conversion. So we need to pray always for the grace of a new, deepened, life-changing conversion. Conversion is not something that happens only once in our lives. Every day, we have to make a new effort to turn our hearts once more to the Lord."
---
Bishop Gomez also said: "My approach and understanding of these matters owes a great deal to my appreciation of the spirituality of St. Josemaría Escrivá. I continue to find St. Josemaría’s teachings on sanctity and apostolate to be both profound and practical" (no. 33).
He quotes Friends of God:
Don't take the easy way out. Don't say, 'I'm no good at this sort of thing; there are others who can do it; it isn't my line'. No, for this sort of thing, there is no one else: if you could get away with that argument, so could everyone else. Christ's plea is addressed to each and every Christian. No one can consider himself excused, for whatever reason: age, health or occupation. There are no excuses whatsoever. Either we carry out a fruitful apostolate, or our faith will prove barren.
Besides, who ever said that to speak about Christ and to spread his doctrine, you need to do anything unusual or remarkable? Just live your ordinary life; work at your job, trying to fulfil the duties of your state in life, doing your job, your professional work properly, improving, getting better each day. Be loyal; be understanding with others and demanding on yourself. Be mortified and cheerful. This will be your apostolate. Then, though you won't see why, because you're very aware of your own wretchedness, you will find that people come to you. Then you can talk to them, quite simply and naturally — on your way home from work for instance, or in a family gathering, on a bus, walking down the street, anywhere. You will chat about the sort of longings that everyone feels deep down in his soul, even though some people may not want to pay attention to them: they will come to understand them better, when they begin to look for God in earnest.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Adventure in Korea
By Mercé. Mercé is a nurse, although at present her full-time occupation is learning Korean. Along with other women of Opus Dei, she recently moved to Korea to help begin the apostolic work there.
Eighty years ago St. Josemaría unfolded a piece of paper and showed it to the first women of Opus Dei. It contained examples of the projects they would soon be beginning throughout the world: university residences, fashion courses, centers for professional formation….
Today that dream is becoming a reality also in Korea.
A few months ago, I came to help start Opus Dei in Daejeon, one of the Korean cities where the Christian presence is strongest. The first Korean-born priest, St. Andrew Kim Dae Gon, who died a martyr for his faith in 1846, came from Daejeon.
Four other women arrived with me, from Brazil, the Philippines, Argentina, and Australia. Two of them are from Korean families, something very helpful for the rest of us, since they have an acquaintance with the traditions and culture of a country none of us had been to before.
Thankfully, we haven’t had to start from scratch, for a member of the Work has been making occasional trips ever since 1988 to begin spreading the message about sanctifying ordinary life.
LEARNING KOREAN…WITH OUR NEIGHBORS’ HELP
With the assistance of a cooperator who met Opus Dei in Peru, we acquired an apartment in September 2009 and began to set up the oratory and find the furnishings we needed. To pay for all this, one of us is now working, and we also received contributions from people in several countries.
Most of us are devoting ourselves full-time to learning Korean because we want to speak it as soon as possible and begin to share in the concerns, interests and joys of the people we are getting to know.
We have received quite a warm welcome here. Someone always seems ready to lend a hand: to find a bookstore, a dentist, or a store that sells goods at a reasonable price.
I must especially thank our neighbors for their help. Among other favors, this past week they came over every day to help me practice my spoken Korean. Thanks to the help of so many people, I am amazed that after only five months I can now read and understand what a short time ago was nothing but an indecipherable puzzle.
Korea is said to resemble a small village that all of a sudden became a large country. Maybe that’s why I feel at home, even though I’m immersed in a new culture with customs and ways of doing things so different from what I’ve previously known. It’s easy to start a conversation with anyone. More than once people have stopped us on the street to ask us if we were speaking Russian!
I’m learning a lot besides the language: to eat "kimchi" with chopsticks, to bow respectfully, to set the table Korean style, to find my way out of the Metro among the eight possible exits…. It’s all a great adventure!
We arrived in Korea in time for the snowiest winter in a century. For some of us, it’s the first time we’ve seen snow. We’ve learned how to unblock the washing machine when the pipes freeze. And how loudly we laughed when a sweater that had been put outside to dry ended up frozen like cardboard: a true work of art!
SOLVING A PUZZLE
Korea is a land of religious diversity, where it’s common to talk about topics of faith. It’s wonderful to see people who are sincerely seeking the truth. In a short time a sizeable group of women has begun attending the classes we give on Catholic doctrine. They take note of points of special interest to pass along to their families and friends. One woman told me: "Faith is like a big puzzle that I’m finally starting to figure out."
Some of these women are beginning to appreciate the spirit of Opus Dei—offering up their work and doing it for love of God. For example, a voice teacher told me that even before hearing of the Work she had already discovered that teaching singing to her students could be a path to God. She had "understood" Opus Dei without having met it.
A few days ago I spoke with a student of English literature while on the bus to the university. When I explained to her that an hour of study well done is, as St. Josemaría taught, an hour of prayer, her eyes opened wide and she kept repeating: "Chincha? Chincha?" (which means, Really? Is that so?)
We go often to Seoul, the capital, where some women have begun helping out in various ways in the Christian activities the Work is organizing, and who attend the means of formation. In December we had a retreat that some of them attended with their friends.
On our way to Korea we stopped in Hong Kong. There I met one of the first three women who brought the Work to the Philippines. Among other things, she told us: "You’ll see that God is the one who will do it all." And that’s already becoming a reality!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Nurse in Haiti: work as an opportunity to serve others
2010/03/08
http://www.opusdei.ca/art.php?p=37877
This was my fourth trip to Haiti to run a small mountain clinic for a week with four other nurse practitioners, most of them from the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC). These trips are also service-learning experiences for nurse practitioner students from UIC, whom we team up with and teach as we see patients. Our entire team is part of Little by Little, a non-for-profit organization that focuses on improving the health of children and families in Haiti. Through Opus Dei I have learned to always see my work in health care as an opportunity to serve others. Being able to use my work to serve the poor in Haiti has been a special privilege for me.
This year, we saw over 1,000 patients in five days from January 7-12 in the little village of Gramothe on the side of a mountain just outside Port-au-Prince. Many Haitians we saw walked over a day’s distance and spent the night in the open air waiting for us to see them.
Our final day for the clinic was January 12. We saw our last patients by 4pm, cleaned up and left. Most of us decided to walk home, relax in the sun, stop to see some children from the village one last time and just enjoy our final day before our flight Wednesday morning. We made it down the mountain, walked some distance along the dry riverbed filled with white rocks and boulders, and started trekking up the winding road on the next mountain past some very simple homes and several long cinder block walls. At 4:53, just after passing one of the walls, the ground starting shaking, almost knocking us down, and a very loud rumble started.
At first we didn’t know what was happening. Once we realized it was an earthquake, we ran back to the house as fast as we could. Everyone was outside, safe but very scared. Our immediate thought was for the people in Gramothe. Six of us hopped on three all-terrain-vehicles (ATVs) and headed down our mountain, across the riverbed, and back up the other mountain towards the village and clinic. Most of the people in the village were outside; no one was seriously hurt, and although their homes were damaged, the damage was not severe.
Willem from our group took a little girl we found injured from a falling rock to a small nearby hospital. He discovered the hospital had just one doctor and several nurses. By that time, over a hundred injured people were starting to fill the hall and spilling out onto the parking lot. He rushed back to bring us to the hospital to start helping in any way we could.
It was not until this moment that the magnitude of what had happened started to sink in. Two people took a truck up to our own little Gramothe clinic to pack whatever supplies we had left up there. The rest of us hopped on a second truck and someone suggested we start praying. We prayed most of the way to the hospital. I had a prayer card of St. Josemaría with me and through his intercession I asked God many times to give us the strength we needed to handle whatever faced us that night. At the hospital we formed a human chain to be able to get in the doors and down to a room at the far end. It was shocking to walk past so many injured people, most of whom had had some part of a building fall on them.
We saw and stabilized more than one hundred severely wounded patients that night, working well past midnight. The injuries are indescribable but I will never forget the faces of the patients and families we saw. They were faces searching for hope – any kind of hope – and help for themselves and their loved ones. We were very short on supplies but used anything we had: cut-up scrubs were used as bandages, tourniquets and slings, pipes were used to splint fractures, and pieces of T-shirts were used to wash wounds. After we saw everyone who had been waiting, the first large aftershock rocked the building and we left and went home. The church in Gramothe was still lit up and singing voices could be heard in the dark, praising God in the midst of the tragedy.
Over the next two days, we set up a mini-clinic in the yard of our host family and continued to treat many wounded Haitians who walked to us or were carried into the yard on old mattresses. Many of these wounds needed to be treated in an operating room in the United States, but we did the best we could. On Thursday as we saw patients, we could hear songs from the Gramothe village church: it was the funeral of the first little girl we helped in the riverbed after the earthquake.
We returned to the States on January 16. I have settled back into life in Chicago and am back at work as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I continue to pray for the people in Haiti in such desperate need, and thank God for giving us the opportunity to help them as much as we could both before and after the earthquake.
http://www.opusdei.ca/art.php?p=37877
This was my fourth trip to Haiti to run a small mountain clinic for a week with four other nurse practitioners, most of them from the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC). These trips are also service-learning experiences for nurse practitioner students from UIC, whom we team up with and teach as we see patients. Our entire team is part of Little by Little, a non-for-profit organization that focuses on improving the health of children and families in Haiti. Through Opus Dei I have learned to always see my work in health care as an opportunity to serve others. Being able to use my work to serve the poor in Haiti has been a special privilege for me.
This year, we saw over 1,000 patients in five days from January 7-12 in the little village of Gramothe on the side of a mountain just outside Port-au-Prince. Many Haitians we saw walked over a day’s distance and spent the night in the open air waiting for us to see them.
Our final day for the clinic was January 12. We saw our last patients by 4pm, cleaned up and left. Most of us decided to walk home, relax in the sun, stop to see some children from the village one last time and just enjoy our final day before our flight Wednesday morning. We made it down the mountain, walked some distance along the dry riverbed filled with white rocks and boulders, and started trekking up the winding road on the next mountain past some very simple homes and several long cinder block walls. At 4:53, just after passing one of the walls, the ground starting shaking, almost knocking us down, and a very loud rumble started.
At first we didn’t know what was happening. Once we realized it was an earthquake, we ran back to the house as fast as we could. Everyone was outside, safe but very scared. Our immediate thought was for the people in Gramothe. Six of us hopped on three all-terrain-vehicles (ATVs) and headed down our mountain, across the riverbed, and back up the other mountain towards the village and clinic. Most of the people in the village were outside; no one was seriously hurt, and although their homes were damaged, the damage was not severe.
Willem from our group took a little girl we found injured from a falling rock to a small nearby hospital. He discovered the hospital had just one doctor and several nurses. By that time, over a hundred injured people were starting to fill the hall and spilling out onto the parking lot. He rushed back to bring us to the hospital to start helping in any way we could.
It was not until this moment that the magnitude of what had happened started to sink in. Two people took a truck up to our own little Gramothe clinic to pack whatever supplies we had left up there. The rest of us hopped on a second truck and someone suggested we start praying. We prayed most of the way to the hospital. I had a prayer card of St. Josemaría with me and through his intercession I asked God many times to give us the strength we needed to handle whatever faced us that night. At the hospital we formed a human chain to be able to get in the doors and down to a room at the far end. It was shocking to walk past so many injured people, most of whom had had some part of a building fall on them.
We saw and stabilized more than one hundred severely wounded patients that night, working well past midnight. The injuries are indescribable but I will never forget the faces of the patients and families we saw. They were faces searching for hope – any kind of hope – and help for themselves and their loved ones. We were very short on supplies but used anything we had: cut-up scrubs were used as bandages, tourniquets and slings, pipes were used to splint fractures, and pieces of T-shirts were used to wash wounds. After we saw everyone who had been waiting, the first large aftershock rocked the building and we left and went home. The church in Gramothe was still lit up and singing voices could be heard in the dark, praising God in the midst of the tragedy.
Over the next two days, we set up a mini-clinic in the yard of our host family and continued to treat many wounded Haitians who walked to us or were carried into the yard on old mattresses. Many of these wounds needed to be treated in an operating room in the United States, but we did the best we could. On Thursday as we saw patients, we could hear songs from the Gramothe village church: it was the funeral of the first little girl we helped in the riverbed after the earthquake.
We returned to the States on January 16. I have settled back into life in Chicago and am back at work as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I continue to pray for the people in Haiti in such desperate need, and thank God for giving us the opportunity to help them as much as we could both before and after the earthquake.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Oscar Romero on Opus Dei: a secure orientation for living as sons of God in the midst of daily family and social obligations
A letter written to the Pope by El Salvadorean Bishop Oscar Romero on July 12, 1975, requesting the opening of a cause for St Josemaria’s canonization. Bishop Romero was killed while celebrating Holy Mass on 24 March 1980, 30 years ago.
"Most Blessed Father,
I regard the still-recent day of the death of Monsignor Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer as contributing to the greater glory of God and to the well-being of souls, and I am requesting of Your Holiness the quick opening of the cause for beatification and canonization of such an eminent priest.
"I had the good fortune of knowing Monsignor Escriva de Balaguer personally and of receiving from him support and fortitude to be faithful to the inalterable doctrine of Christ and to serve with apostolic zeal the Holy Roman Church and this land of Santiago de Maria, which Your Holiness has entrusted to me.
"I have known, for several years now, the work of Opus Dei here in El Salvador, and I can testify to the supernatural sense that animates it and to the fidelity to the ecclesiastical magisterium that characterizes the work.
"Personally, I owe deep gratitude to the priests involved with the Work, to whom I have trusted with much satisfaction the spiritual direction of my life and that of other priests.
"People from all social classes find in Opus Dei a secure orientation for living as sons of God in the midst of their daily family and social obligations. And this is doubtless due to the life and doctrine of its founder.
"In this stormy world overrun by insecurity and doubt, the superb doctrinal fidelity that characterizes Opus Dei is a sign of special grace from God.
"Monsignor Escriva de Balaguer was able to unite in his life a continuous dialogue with Our Lord and a great humanity; one could tell he was a man of God, and his manner was full of sensitivity, kindness, and good humor.
"There are many people who since the moment of his death are privately entrusting him with their needs.
"Most Blessed Father, I humbly repeat my petition for a quick opening of the cause for the beatification and canonization of Monsignor Escriva de Balaguer, for the greater glory of God and for the edification of the Church.
"With filial affection and submission, I kiss Your Ring."
A parish priest of the Adur Valley in West Sussex also reported in a blog that "I was told by an Opus Dei priest that on the very day he was shot, Romero had been spending a day of recollection with them."
James R. Brockman, S.J., in "The Spiritual Journey of Oscar Romero", writes:
Romero remained an auxiliary bishop of San Salvador until October of 1974, when he was named bishop of Santiago de Maria, a rural diocese. He remained in Santiago until named archbishop of San Salvador in February of 1977, at the age of fifty-nine. During these five years, his retreat notes show him continuing to work on the problems of getting along with others and trying to organize his life better, as he had in earlier retreats. At least two of the retreats he made were preached by priests of the secular institute Opus Dei, and during these years and perhaps earlier his ordinary confessor and spiritual director was one or another priest of Opus Dei. While he was bishop of Santiago de Maria, he wrote to Pope Paul VI to appeal for the beatification of [Escriva].
"Most Blessed Father,
I regard the still-recent day of the death of Monsignor Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer as contributing to the greater glory of God and to the well-being of souls, and I am requesting of Your Holiness the quick opening of the cause for beatification and canonization of such an eminent priest.
"I had the good fortune of knowing Monsignor Escriva de Balaguer personally and of receiving from him support and fortitude to be faithful to the inalterable doctrine of Christ and to serve with apostolic zeal the Holy Roman Church and this land of Santiago de Maria, which Your Holiness has entrusted to me.
"I have known, for several years now, the work of Opus Dei here in El Salvador, and I can testify to the supernatural sense that animates it and to the fidelity to the ecclesiastical magisterium that characterizes the work.
"Personally, I owe deep gratitude to the priests involved with the Work, to whom I have trusted with much satisfaction the spiritual direction of my life and that of other priests.
"People from all social classes find in Opus Dei a secure orientation for living as sons of God in the midst of their daily family and social obligations. And this is doubtless due to the life and doctrine of its founder.
"In this stormy world overrun by insecurity and doubt, the superb doctrinal fidelity that characterizes Opus Dei is a sign of special grace from God.
"Monsignor Escriva de Balaguer was able to unite in his life a continuous dialogue with Our Lord and a great humanity; one could tell he was a man of God, and his manner was full of sensitivity, kindness, and good humor.
"There are many people who since the moment of his death are privately entrusting him with their needs.
"Most Blessed Father, I humbly repeat my petition for a quick opening of the cause for the beatification and canonization of Monsignor Escriva de Balaguer, for the greater glory of God and for the edification of the Church.
"With filial affection and submission, I kiss Your Ring."
A parish priest of the Adur Valley in West Sussex also reported in a blog that "I was told by an Opus Dei priest that on the very day he was shot, Romero had been spending a day of recollection with them."
James R. Brockman, S.J., in "The Spiritual Journey of Oscar Romero", writes:
Romero remained an auxiliary bishop of San Salvador until October of 1974, when he was named bishop of Santiago de Maria, a rural diocese. He remained in Santiago until named archbishop of San Salvador in February of 1977, at the age of fifty-nine. During these five years, his retreat notes show him continuing to work on the problems of getting along with others and trying to organize his life better, as he had in earlier retreats. At least two of the retreats he made were preached by priests of the secular institute Opus Dei, and during these years and perhaps earlier his ordinary confessor and spiritual director was one or another priest of Opus Dei. While he was bishop of Santiago de Maria, he wrote to Pope Paul VI to appeal for the beatification of [Escriva].
Making Space for God in a Communication World
Zenit
Father Manuel Tamayo admits that being on Facebook means he sometimes has to endure "rather irreverent jokes." But he says the most gratifying part of evangelizing through the media is hearing someone say they've converted or found clarity reading his words.
The Peruvian priest said this in an interview in which he reflected on Benedict XVI's message for this year's World Day of Social Communications, which focuses on priests' use of the media.
Father Tamayo says he remembers being a student when he heard that St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, encouraged youth to study journalism.
"He encouraged young people to follow this career, because he wanted young people with a Christian concept of life to [...] be able to spread Christian doctrine through every means," Father Tamayo recalled. "The Church cannot stay behind and must use these means to reach the people. Hence the Holy Father's concern in encouraging priests."
Father Manuel Tamayo admits that being on Facebook means he sometimes has to endure "rather irreverent jokes." But he says the most gratifying part of evangelizing through the media is hearing someone say they've converted or found clarity reading his words.
The Peruvian priest said this in an interview in which he reflected on Benedict XVI's message for this year's World Day of Social Communications, which focuses on priests' use of the media.
Father Tamayo says he remembers being a student when he heard that St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, encouraged youth to study journalism.
"He encouraged young people to follow this career, because he wanted young people with a Christian concept of life to [...] be able to spread Christian doctrine through every means," Father Tamayo recalled. "The Church cannot stay behind and must use these means to reach the people. Hence the Holy Father's concern in encouraging priests."
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