The Catholic News Agency ran this brief article yesterday (11/19/2009). It captured my mind and heart, like it did for others, because I know two people with Lou Gehrig's disease (and one is also a priest) and another priest who's living with MS. The courage, love and patience these men have witnessed is incredible. At least I think so.

Father Luigi Squarcia, a pastor in the Italian town of Acquapendente who has suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease for the last four years, met with Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday and offered his "sufferings for the good of the Church."

After the meeting with the Holy Father in Paul VI Hall, Father Squarcia said, "I came to offer the Pope my sufferings for the good of the Church. I am here, for the first time, after years of working with the parishioners and the children at our school."

Now, he told L'Osservatore Romano, "I can no longer move my arms or legs and I know I will lose my speech and later maybe the ability to breathe."  He noted that more people than ever are coming to him for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Lou Gehrig's disease is a serious neuromuscular disorder that causes muscle weakness, disability and eventually death.

*Father Luigi in a 2004 photo.

If you want a keener sense of what Father Luigi is speaking of when he says I am came offer my sufferings for the Church, then I would suggest you read Pope John Paul II's 1984 encyclical, Salvifici Doloris, where he deals with notions of suffering and how it can be redemptive. That is, how suffering can be useful for the salvation of the work if we unite our suffering to that of Christ's. Putting suffering to good use otherwise it will eat you alive and deaden you affectively and spiritually. If not redemptive then it's all-consuming and verging on nihilistic.

"Then shall I leap into love"

I cannot dance, Lord, unless you lead me.

If you want me to leap with abandon,

You must intone the song.

Then I shall leap into love, From love into knowledge,

From knowledge into enjoyment,

And from enjoyment beyond all human sensations.

There I want to remain, yet want also to circle higher still.

According to some scholars, this Cistercian-Benedictine nun and poet, theologian and mystic was the inspiration of Dante's Divine Comedy. Interesting that her liturgical memorial comes at the end of the liturgical calendar given her visions of heaven, hell and purgatory! Some people register a doubt about her status as a canonized saint in the Church but she is remembered in the Roman Martyrology (2004) and venerated as such by many, including the Cistercian-Benedictines and that's good enough for me. The Martyrology speaks of Saint Mechtild as a woman of exquiste doctrine and humility, and supernatural gifts of mystical contemplation.

The prayer for Saint Mechtild may be found here and her biography here.

From a recent Zenit news article, I learned something that I never knew before: "It is estimated that there are 1.3 million deaf Catholics, and the Vatican is intent on ensuring that they can fully participate in the Church." Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, gave this statistic at his department's 24th international conference meeting this week in Rome. The conference's theme is "Ephphata: the Deaf Person in the Life of the Church."

"The prelate," according to Zenit said, "estimated that in developed countries, one child out of 1,000 is deaf, but the problem is more serious in poor countries, where 80% of the world's deaf live. In these cases, deafness is often the result of insufficient medical care and lack of medication." He indicated "the need to help people with this impairment, precisely as 'the world has begun to overcome the prejudices and superstitions linked to physical disability.'"

A liturgical resource for helping the deaf is Joan Blake's Signing the Scriptures:

Year A, Year B, Year C

Plus, there's the DVD Tips and Techniques for Signing the Scriptures.

"Go forth to the world and proclaim the Good News!"

Thus sent forth, the Church has, with no time to lose,

Sent missioners brave to the ends of the earth,

That souls thralled in darkness may come to new birth.

With charity filled and heart burning with zeal,

Saint Rose sought to serve God, and sent her appeal,

Which brought her companions who caught her delight

And went to Missouri to spread Jesus' light.

In hardship and hunger, she forged on with strength;

For girls' education, she struggled at length.

And then, when her work and her harvest was nigh,

She turned to the missions for natives nearby.

O praise God the Father, O praise God the Son,

And praise God the Spirit, the great Three-in-One.

We ask through Saint Rose for strong faith, hope, and love,

As we praise the One who is reigning above.

Read Father John Zuhlsdorf's perspective on the liturgical translation issue passed today. As Father Z said, it's over!