Author: Paul Zalonski

Spiritual Motherhood for Priests takes off

OL Seven Sorrows.jpg

Since last year I’ve been thinking of the role spiritual
mothers, in the example of Our Lady, play in the lives of Catholic priests. I am thinking in particular of Our Lady of Sorrows for this type of spiritual maternity. In the past I mentioned this idea here and here at the beginning of 2009 (perhaps I should do it more). The
call to be a priest’s spiritual mother includes a woman’s offering herself to
God, praying in intercession and reparation for the priest, spending time in
Eucharistic Adoration and becoming a point for God’s grace to work in the life
of a priest. A woman of any age can do this work of intercession; she can be single, married, or widowed. This spiritual work is hidden and contemplative, sacrificial and
silent. It is in this special work that the reparation for the sins of priests
might happen for as the Holy Father said, “nothing makes the Church, the Body
of Christ, suffer more than the sins of her pastors.”

My interest has been sparked by two people, Franciscan
Cardinal Claudio Hummes and Benedictine Father Mark Kirby, the latter drawing
on 

Adoration & Spiritual Maternity.pdf to ask the Divine Majesty to renew priesthood
through a special devotion to the Eucharist. But there’s been other work done by
people such as Catherine Dougherty, Mother Marie des Douleurs and Maria Sieler as well as the countless laity and consecrated men and women of the Church.

In October 2008 Tulsa, OK, Bishop Edward Slattery started a
process of formation for women to dedicate their prayer for the needs of the
priesthood. I am told that there are some women in the Bridgeport Diocese that there
are women who dedicate their lives as a spiritual mother for priests but they
are so hidden no one knows them. Something has to be done in the manner in
which Bishop Slattery is doing this holy work! 

More recently Jane, living in France, has begun some work
and prayer on spiritual maternity for priests. Her blog, Spiritual Mothers of
Priests, is a good personal initiative to assist priests (and I presume
seminarians) with prayer and sacrifice during this Year of the Priest. Ladies,
visit and follow the work of Jane and join other women to this special work for
priests.

Rimini Meeting 2009 get the diplomats thumbs up


meeting Rimini 2009 logo.jpg

The Meeting for Friendship Among the Peoples is about start in Rimini, Italy. Since 1980 there has been a meeting of friends and interested peoples gathered together to understand the various points of contact in knowledge, faith, culture and human experience. There’s been an average of 700,000 people attending this week long event. The Rimini Meeting is influenced by the thought of the founder of Communion and Liberation, Msgr. Luigi Giussani. 

The cultural and interreligious dialogue at the 2009 Rimini Meeting will be happening 23-29 August 2009. The theme for this year’s meeting is “Knowledge is Always an Event.”

Watch the video clip on the diplomats’ preview of the meeting.

The Crossroad Cultural Center did a Washington, DC presentation on this year’s Meeting. See the transcript of the event.

Various pieces of info on the work of the meeting:

+ 30 years of the meeting

+ The Rimini Meeting: 30 years of dialogue

+ The exhibitions at the meeting

Synod of Bishops on the Word of God was truly ecumenical

Last week you might remember a note on the secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, addressing the American Bible Society and friends in NYC on Tuesday, 28 July.

Here are two news clips about yesterday’s event and a forthcoming meeting at University of Notre Dame.
And…the archbishop looking at historic bibles.

Saints Martha, Mary & Lazarus

Martha Mary & Lazarus.jpgWith the Church we pray:

Heavenly Father, your son was received as an honored
and welcome guest in the home of Bethany. Keep us close to the Master in our prayer and work that, blameless in his sight, he may welcome us into our eternal home, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

(Today, the Roman Missal observes the feast of Saint Martha and the Benedictine Missal supplement observes together the memorial of all three saints, Martha, Mary & Lazarus. Since it’s the preference of this blog writer to follow a diversity of Missals, I am using the collect found in the Benedictine missal supplement because the collect there gives the feast a slightly different sense in our liturgical monastic sensibility today. Of prime concern is the remembrance of monastic hospitality and these saints are known to be hosts of the Lord. Our work today, then, is look at those areas in our life where hospitality exists and where it is unfortunately restrained or non-existent.)

Faith roots the relationship with God

Never a day goes by that I don’t ask the question about my faith and my life of faith. I doubt any serious Christian would go through life without asking the same: How does my faith impact my relationship with God and vice verse? Do I live in certain intimacy with the divine nature? Do others see God in me as I relate to them? How credible a witness am I of Jesus Christ and His Good News?


Without faith it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews
11:6). Faith is the foundation of our relations with God. For the man without
faith, God has no meaning, no value, no place in his life. On the contrary, the
more lively our faith is, the more God enters into our life, until finally he
becomes our all, the one great reality for; which we live, and the One for whom
we courageously face sorrow and death. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if
we die, we die to the Lord (Romans 14:8). Those who dedicate themselves to the
spiritual life do not lack faith; but often our faith is not alive and concrete
enough to make us always see God in everything, which would give us the sense
of his fundamental, transcendent and eternal reality that infinitely surpasses
all earthly realities. In practice we do not reflect sufficiently on the truth
that to be a believer is a pure gift of God, not due to any personal merit. God
is both the object of faith and the giver of faith; it is he who infuses into
us the desire to know him and to believe in him and who makes us capable of the
act of believing.

Divine Intimacy, Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD

Love for Christ reawakened thru Luigi Giussani, Benedict XVI recalls

Luigi Giussani 1965 circa Raggio.jpgMy first thought goes — it’s obvious — to your
founder Monsignor Luigi Giussani, to whom many memories tie me, since he had
become a true friend to me. Our last meeting, as Father Carrón mentioned, took
place in Milan Cathedral two years ago, when our beloved Pope John Paul II sent
me to preside at his solemn funeral. 


Through him the Holy Spirit aroused in the
Church a movement — yours — that would witness the beauty of being Christians
in an epoch in which the opinion was spreading that Christianity was something
tiresome and oppressive to live. Father Giussani, then, set himself to reawaken
in the youth the love for Christ, the way, the truth and the life, repeating
that only he is the road toward the realization of the deepest desires of man’s
heart; and that Christ saves us not despite our humanity, but through it. 

Pope
Benedict XVI, address to Communion and Liberation, March 25, 2007

Medjugorje apparitions of Mary a hoax???

20090724-vlasic-letter.jpgA CNA article today announces the priest who identified the alleged apparitions of the BVM is now leaving the priesthood and his religious order. The authorized his defrocking in March. Also disturbing are the reports that some of the seers are living in wealthy conditions, presumably derived from monies given by pilgrims. See the brief Mail Online article. The Telegraph tells more…

The blog Te Deum laudamus has lots of pertinent information.

Capuchins reflect on their work in the Amazon

cap friar.jpgThe Capuchins in Italy are taking time to reflect on
the greatest God-given gift they’ve received: work of 100 years among the native Brasilian
peoples. What really struck me was the Provincial’s comment: “And we truly lived it as
a gift: participating in His mission, that is to say, the mission of Jesus
Christ.” 


Why is this info newsworthy? Last week the parishes of the Bridgeport Diocese had World Mission Sunday (early, I know) where all the parishes had missionary priests preach on their efforts to bring the Gospel to their respective people. Where I am we had Father Anand, a priest from India. Catholics think and act in an outward direction (or at least they’re supposed to) because of their Baptism in Christ and Saint Matthew saying: “Go make disciples of all nations.” All this got me thinking and remembering that Blessed Pope John XXIII asked religious orders to devote 10% of their membership to the missions. Even the US diocesan priests formed associations to work in mission countries trying to respond to the Holy Father’s request. So I ask myself: In what ways will I be a missionary? Are Catholics missionary today? Do we believe that the mission of Jesus Christ is our great gift? How do we intend to collaborate with Jesus and the Church (& the Capuchins)?


Watch the news clip from H2O News here.


Also worth noting is the statement that Franciscan mysticism (a deeper form of spirituality) engages the person affectively. The spiritual life is not an intellectual exercise!!!!!   I wish we can here more about this topic.

Note, too, the Capuchin commitment to technology for the sharing of the faith!!! This is taking Saint Paul seriously. I look forward to seeing the good work in Assisi.