Category: Franciscan

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Home Again

This afternoon I returned to Mount Irenaeus for the first time in over three months. It’s been the longest absence in the past twenty plus years of my life. It was Sunday March 8, 2020 when I last walked the grounds here. That Sunday was the first time that we didn’t share a hug at the sign of peace and when we began social distancing. How quickly the pandemic progressed as quickly moved into shelter in place and then life as we knew it began to recede. Today fully three months later I was able to return to one of my favorite haunts as a I walked the Mountain Road.

Three months ago the ground was covered with snow. Today the snow is gone and I was surrounded by green grass and a forest canopy of leaves. There was a quickness in my step as I moved along the trail praying the Franciscan Crown Rosary that I had begun this morning at home in Franklinville. A deer darted out of the woods to my right as I walked this familiar trail that took me eventually to a clearing and the hermitage of La Posada.

Much has changed in three months besides the beautiful flora. We’ve lost over one hundred sixteen thousand of our fellow citizens to the ravages of Covid-19. I’ve emerged from an episode of depression in the early days of the pandemic. There was a time I had given up hope. Despair tugged at me. From early March until now there is one constant and that is the daily recitation of the Franciscan Crown Rosary. The daily rhythm of this mantric prayer sustained me and kept just enough hope in me to press on. There were times when I doubted it was doing any good and questioned my recitation. Along the way I’ve come to believe that there is power in recitation of the prayers and an effect on my world and the world around me that I’m frequently unable to fathom.

Today while I walked along this trail in the woods I thought of the words of Thomas Merton. “My Lord God I do not see the road ahead.” Along the road there has been the deadly pestilence that has not come near me. Globally there have been the ugly horror of racism and and a reaction to it that seems to be bringing change. Just yesterday the United States Supreme Court ruled that LGBTQ Americans can not be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation. That’s a huge win for many folks. In the midst of this pandemic there has been light and hope. For that I’m grateful.

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I continue to pray

I was up early this morning and following a shower I dressed and went for a walk. I carry the rosary while I walk and begin each day saying at least one complete Franciscan Crown Rosary. Today I prayed for peace and healing for our torn land. I prayed for our president and other leaders. I prayed for those protesting and those suppressing the protesters. Our country is fractured and it has been for a long time. The problem didn’t begin with the election of Donald Trump nor with Barack Obama. Maybe it began in 1619 when the first Africans were brought to our shores to work on plantations. Maybe it began before then when these men and women were sold into slavery.

Lately the popular refrain is “the killing of Mr. Floyd is terrible but what about the looting.” Most folks can understand the brutality of the murder of Mr. Floyd but they see a disconnect with the looting, arson and other carnage. Some of my social media friends lump the looters and arsonists in with the peaceful protesters. There is ample evidence that the two are not related.

How will this end? Is this the end of the United States? In the past few days there have been disturbing scenes of unidentified riot police in our nation’s capitol. Photos of National Guardsmen standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. This is in response to Americans exercising their first amendment rights.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

First Amendment United States Constitution

Today an eight foot high fence is being erected around the White House. This has never happened before. Not even during the Civil War. The root of the problem lies with fear and ignorance. How can we end the fear and ignorance which spawned the racism and authoritarianism? I’ll keep praying.

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Military Aligned Service Award

When I joined the United States Naval Reserve in June of 1972 I could never have imagined how that would change my life. I was a draftee who was looking for a better option than going in the Army and possibly going to Vietnam. I had just finished my first year of college and being drafted was at once frightening and also a disruption to my plans. I remember well the day of my enlistment. My grandmother accompanied me to the Naval Reserve Center in Jamestown, New York. My decision to become a Navy Hospital Corpsman could well have sent me to Vietnam but that was not my fate. Instead I served at a dispensary at Naval Air Station Albany GA and later at the Naval Submarine Medical Center New London which was actually in Groton CT.

I did well on active duty and in less than two years time I became a Petty Officer 3rd Class after having started out as an E-1. I learned a lot about labor and delivery and neonatal care in the newborn nursery. In New London I worked in the surgery clinic and assisted with minor surgery. Leaving active duty in early 1975 I returned to civilian life and eventually married and later finished college. I was never active in the American Legion and was very low key about my involvement with the military. Then a couple of years ago i got the chance to go to Rome and Assisi as part of the Franciscan Pilgrimages Program for veterans. On the pilgrimage I met other veterans. Some older, some younger but we all had one thing in common, we had served our country in time of war. After returning from the first pilgrimage I was determined to help other veterans have this pilgrimage experience. I contacted Francisco Morales who is the Director of Veterans Services at St. Bonaventure University and expressed my willingness to help. Frank who is a retired US Army combat veteran accepted my offer and gave me some swag to take home.

St. Bonaventure University’s Office of Veterans Services has teamed up with the PFC Joseph P. Dwyer Veteran Peer Support Program on the Food4Vets program. I’ve been a volunteer in that program. The past couple of weeks Frank has invited me to have a free meal and today I couldn’t say no. I joined another veteran volunteer at one of the local restaurants involved with the program. We each received a fish fry with the trimmings. Shortly after we put our food in the car Frank arrived to present each of us with a “Military Aligned Service Award” from St. Bonaventure University. I was very moved by the experience. Frank had personally designed the medallions that include an image of St. Francis astride a horse as he returns from battle. In the background of the medallion you can see the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi as it appears and then the back of a contemporary soldier.

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The Franciscan Crown

I have been praying the Franciscan Crown Rosary almost everyday since the quarantine began. I have not missed a day in the month of May trying my best to follow the example of Pope Francis. I use a five decade rosary which is the one most folks are familiar with and then after the fifth decade I go back and pray the last two decades again. This brings me to a total of seven decades. There have been days and times when I have questioned the effectiveness of my prayers and whether there were any results.

Today I received some good news about our family and I knew immediately that my prayers are being answered. I gave thanks for the good news and tomorrow when I’m walking I’ll be praying the Franciscan Crown again. Hail Mary is a metaphor for a desperate pass to win a game. I don’t know how that came to be but I do believe that Mary does intercede for us.

One of the reasons I like the Franciscan Crown is that it’s easier for me to remember the mysteries that I’m supposed to meditate on. Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Visit of the Magi, finding Jesus in the Temple, the appearance to Mary after the Resurrection and the Assumption.

I can’t remember the Pope’s prayers each day so I substitute my own. Each day my prayer focus changes and I continue pray for leadership in this pandemic and for the people and patients on the front lines.

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The Blessings of Solitude

There’s a difference between loneliness and solitude. In this time of social distancing it is easy to become lonely and there are many folks who no doubt are starved for human contact. Fortunately I am not alone in this time. I am walking four or five miles each day and frequently praying the rosary during those walks. I’ve long been a person drawn to contemplation and this is a time that can foster that. The rosary aids my contemplation and so does the silence that surrounds me on most of these walks. My life has become almost monastic. The following quote by Thomas Merton invited me to think about the gift of life and the gift of solitude and how during this time of social distancing and quarantine we are moving closer to contemplative life.

“When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority. But when men are violently deprived of the solitude and freedom which are their due, then society in which they live becomes putrid, it festers with servility, resentment and hate.”

― Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Maybe we’ll emerge from this pandemic a changed society. At least we can hope so.

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I get it now

“What Christianity requires now, especially in view of developments in science, is not “no God,” as scientific naturalists propose, but a “new God,” as Teilhard provocatively announces”

— From Teilhard to Omega: Co-creating an Unfinished Universe by Ilia Delio, OSF

Up until now I’ve been trying to reconcile what Teilhard and Ilia have written with the old cosmology. But today the scales fell from my eyes. God is evolving and so is the universe. It makes perfect sense. The Garden of Eden never existed or not as the idyllic we have made it. I’ve known for some time that the Bible is full of wisdom stories. I’ve heard fundamentalists exclaim that the word of God is inerrant and that the Bible is to be taken literally. But after reading Leviticus one soon realizes that no one in their right mind would dream of observing some of what is written there. The dietary laws may have made perfect sense when they were written but not anymore.

The treatment of women is just plain backward and fundamentalists today perpetuate such practices because they are looking backward and trying to put new wine in old wineskins. We live in an evolving world where the role of women and men are changing. Religion and in my own case Roman Catholicism is too rigid. It must be redefined or it will become a minor sect. Priests must be allowed to marry. Women must be ordained. I am reminded frequently of Karl Rahner’s quote, “In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic or nothing at all.”

What does this new God look like? How are we called to live?

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Blessed by design

“He did not hold to original sin by a single couple and instead opted for the notion of the primacy of Christ formed by the Franciscan theologian Duns Scotus. Scotus held that God’s love could not be undermined by a defect in creation such as original sin. Rather, from all eternity, God willed a creature to grace and glory so that whether or not sin ever entered into creation, Christ would have come. God is love and Christ is first in God’s intention to love; the whole creation is structured on the incarnation.”

— A Hunger for Wholeness, A: Soul, Space, and Transcendence by Delio, Ilia, OSF
https://a.co/imHKkhr

I’m enjoying another book by Ilia Delio and the quote which was about Teilhard de Chardin, succinctly explains something I heard Fr. Lou McCormick, OFM say in a homily nearly twenty years ago. I remember sitting in the chapel at Mt. Irenaeus at the time I heard it. It just made sense. The idea that God would create a universe with an intentional flaw that would require the death of his son to redeem never made any sense as an adult. Many years later I learned that the doctrine of original sin was a creation of St. Augustine. How many times have you heard well meaning religious folks tell you that you were damned if you didn’t accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. I remember a discussion with a local pastor about that topic. I said to the guy, “What about the apostles? What about the unborn?” The chap made an exception for the unborn and infants and that’s when I knew that the doctrine was flawed.

Most of my adult life I’ve thought that the reason for the incarnation was to show us how to live. Love your neighbor. Do good to those who harm you. Take care of the poor and the rest of the gospel message should be the real focus. Reducing Jesus to merely a sacrificial atonement for sin is a disservice to his earthly ministry. The Sermon on the Mount, The Beatitudes and Matthew 25:31-46 are the most meaningful for me and always have been.

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Ilia Delio’s powerful vision of creation for the 21st century

Birth of a Dancing Star: My Journey from Cradle Catholic to Cyborg ChristianBirth of a Dancing Star: My Journey from Cradle Catholic to Cyborg Christian by Ilia Delio
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’ve read a number of Ilia Delio’s books and this is great. It’s more from the heart than any of her previous books. She had a remarkable transformation in her life and beliefs and she does a great job of telling that story. I found this book easy to read and difficult to put down. She gave me insights into my own journey of the soul that I had not found elsewhere. She is a prophetic voice for our time. This book belongs with the classics like Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain.

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Dynamic Energy Transforms

“Without the dynamic energy of transcendence by which consciousness rises and relationships deepen, religion grows old and weary; it becomes rote, a mechanistic repetition of old ideas. To function out of an old cosmology with old ideas of matter and form, to think that God does not do new things, is to make an idol out of Jesus and to ignore the power of the Spirit.”

— Making All Things New: Catholicity, Cosmology, Consciousness by Ilia Delio
http://a.co/2HloqrF

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A journey toward healing

Beyond PTSD: A Spiritual Journey into Wholeness and LoveBeyond PTSD: A Spiritual Journey into Wholeness and Love by Gregory J. Masiello
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderfully insightful book which I read in less than a day. I simply could not put it down. There are many great insights about healing and wholeness for anyone who has experienced PTSD or trauma in their lives. This author uses personal experiences and everyday language to deliver keen insights and hope for recovery from traumatic stress and depression. Having just spent five days in Assisi with Greg and the staff of Franciscan Pilgrimages made the book all the more meaningful.