Anthony de Mello on Prayer and Waking Up to Reality - Part 2

Part two in a three-part series of the only conference Father Anthony de Mello SJ allowed to be video taped. He continues his examination of this idea of coming to awareness of the goodness God places in our lives right here an right now, a goodness and grace that continues to abide regardless of what current physical or emotional state happens to be passing through us.

While not explicit in his examination, the words of Jesus' sermon on the mount are echoed;

" ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today." Matthew 6:25-34

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I Am A Christian

It's not always easy to hold your head high in the world and proclaim with loud voice "I am a Christian!" We're told our faith is a private thing, we're made to feel overbearing, or fanatical if we announce that we follow Christ and allow His teaching, his Spirit, His love define what we do and how we do it in the world.

I can't begin to count how many times I hear people quote the venerable St. Francis of Assisi when speaking of evangelizing and sharing the Good News; "Preach the gospel always, If necessary use words." Wise words, and deeply true. Yet I sometimes have the feeling that the people quoting him are hiding the active, obvious living out of their faith behind the words.

It's true, Jesus DID a lot. It's true too that we will be judged not so much on how many times we cried out "Jesus is Lord" as we will on what we have actually done - “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:31-46) - yet, sometimes isn't it nice to actually name under whose reign we are acting? While Francis counsels against ALWAYS speaking about the gospel, ALWAYS telling people about the Good News and who it is that we have gotten this Good News from...doesn't he also say that sometimes it's okay...sometimes maybe it's even necessary?

This all came to mind today with an email I received from one of our parishioners. Her daughter, who is 12, came home with a poem written at school about her faith in Christ.

Did I mention she's 12?

Do you remember speaking up about any firmly held belief at 12 years old? It's not the easiest thing in the world to do. I know I struggled with it. I know my own kids struggled and I know most kids in elementary and high school would rather eat broken glass than proclaim so loudly whose child they are, and what faith lies at the root of all their deeds and thoughts, feelings and desires.

Yet here it is, at least one courageous voice made all the more meaningful because she's not aware of just how courageous it is to (sometimes) lift your voice and tell the world;

I Am A Christian - By Ruth O'Reilly

I am:

Cheerful, life in Christ is good

Helpful, never too busy to serve others

Respectful, considerate of other’s dignity

I am:

Interested in my faith, there is so much to learn

Satisfied, God’s grace is all I need

Truthful, always prepared to say what is right

I am:

Involved in the activities of my Parish

Awed by the beauty of God’s creation

Natural, I’m glad to be who I am

I am this and so much more

I am a Christian

Thank-you Ruth, and your mom for sharing this with me and with us today.

Peace and God Bless

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2 Weeks Only so Grabbit Fast! "What's Your Descision?" a FREE e-book from Ingnatian Spirituality.com

I found this offer in my email this morning. I've been subscribing to Ignatian Spirituality.com's e-newsletter for a few months now and the articles, links and information they send on have always been wonderful. This morning though, the offer of a limited time free e-book on discernment really caught my eye.

Ignatius' steps to decision making have been an invaluable tool for me in my life and in my ministry. It is a process which, as a spiritual director I have already helped a few others journey through in the process of making their own choices about the directions of their lives. This particular book has a lot to offer anyone in the process of making choices themselves, or for spiritual directors helping directees through the process of discernment.

Here's a exerpt from the first chapter. The download link follows;

When Wendy was a junior in high school, an epidemic of methamphetamine abuse swept through her small Ohio town. Several friends became addicted. One died in an auto accident caused by a driver high on meth. Many adults in the town became addicted and some lost their homes, businesses, and marriages. Several went to prison. Wendy knew people who tried and failed to break their addiction to this powerful drug. While still in high school, she resolved to do something about it. The desire to help drug addicts grew while Wendy was in college. She graduated with honors and went to medical school. Now she is a resident in internal medicine, specializing in substance abuse. She likes working with addicts. She’s impressed with new treatment approaches and wants to work as a physician in a drug and alcohol treatment facility. Such work doesn’t pay well, but Wendy doesn’t care about money. She wants to help addicts. Although she’s not a regular churchgoer, she does believe that there is inherent meaning to life—it’s not just a random set of circumstances. She has felt the stirring of a sense of purpose while working in her chosen field, and she has found that prayerful reflection helps a lot in the process of choosing that work. Wendy is in love with Robert, who is finishing his MBA. Robert wants to make money. He’s bright, energetic, and sought after by prospective employers. Now he is deciding among three attractive job offers: an analyst for a hedge fund, a position with a promising biotech start-up company, and a job with a multinational bank. Robert wants Wendy to marry him. He’s generous and kind, and Wendy feels deeply for him, but he doesn’t share her desire to help addicts. He’s tried to convince Wendy to go into a more lucrative branch of medicine. His philosophy is “Let’s get rich. Then we can do anything. We can start our own treatment clinic if that’s what you want.” Wendy is torn. Sometimes Robert’s attitude displeases her, but at other times, it makes sense. She loves Robert, but she realizes she would have to give up her vision of a future to marry him. What should she do? God Cares about Our Decisions How should Wendy go about making this decision? That’s what this book is about. Here we present a methodology for decision making that has helped millions of people make sound and satisfying choices.

About the Book:
Where should I go to college? Whom should I marry? Should I change careers? When—and where—should I retire? All of us have important decisions to make throughout our lives. Yet without a sound process in place for making key decisions, we are likely to question whether or not our final decision was a good decision; more to the point, we will never feel fully confident that our decision was what God truly desired for us.

What’s Your Decision? is a spiritual approach to decision making based on the insights of St. Ignatius Loyola. With the guidance of J. Michael Sparough, SJ, and Tim Hipskind, SJ—both of them experienced counselors and spiritual directors—readers will learn how to apply tried-and-true Ignatian ideas to the decision-making process.

And for two weeks only, download the entire book for free!

What's Your Decision?

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Anthony de Mello on Prayer and Waking Up to Reality - Part 1

The Late Anthony de Mello SJ was a renowned spiritual writer, director, and therapist whose work continues to inspire people with new vision and renewed understanding of the kind of reality God invites us all to share. He speaks of the kind if Truth-filled vision required to fully appreciate this kingdom of God which Jesus assures us is 'at hand' and has indeed 'come near'.

The question of course is "If this kingdom is so close, why can't I see it? Why am I still unhappy, unsatisfied, depressed or angry? If the kingdom is in our midst, why does there remain so much suffering in my life and the world around me?"

In a three-part series filled with deep spiritual and therapeutic insight as well as thought-provoking and entertaining storytelling, de Mello offers a simple, yet extremely challenging answer to these questions. The answer to perceiving and living in the kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven"? Wake up...

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June 13, 2010 Intentions

 

PRAYERS OF THE FAITHFUL

ELEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

JUNE 13, 2010

1. Let us pray for the Church,

   open to the Holy Spirit's presence in the world,

   We pray to you Lord,

RESPONSE: Lord, hear our prayer.

2. Let us pray that our bishop, priests, deacons, sisters and brothers who serve

   in this Archdiocese, might experience fulfillment and joy in their ministries,

We pray to you Lord,

RESPONSE: Lord, hear our prayer.

3. Let us pray for all of us gathered here today

   called by our baptism to bring about Your reign on earth by serving the

   needs of others according to our own talents and abilities,

We pray to you, Lord,

RESPONSE: Lord, hear our prayer.

4. May we learn wise and simple living so that our natural resources

   will be able to provide for future generations.

   We pray to you Lord,

RESPONSE: Lord, hear our prayer.

5. Let us pray those who are ill,

   that they may feel the healing touch of God,

We pray to you Lord,

RESPONSE: Lord, hear our prayer.

6. Let us now pray in silence for our personal intentions,

(Pause 5-7 seconds)

We pray to you Lord,

RESPONSE: Lord, hear our prayer.

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Archdicoese of Regina Centenial Celebration

It's hard to believe that an entire year of preparations, recognitions, celebrations and feasting is over. It all started with our 'kick off' event, as the city deaneries of Regina invited everyone to Holy Rosary Cathedral for a city-wide picnic and vespers celebration in September of last year. We In our own parish we also began our 100th Anniversary celebrations at that time with a prayerful service centered around the Icon of Our Lady of the Rosary which had been commissioned by the Archdiocese CWL groups and created by Giselle Bauche.

We coordinated fundrasing through our LOOK project, Linking Orphan Outreach in Kenya. Together, we have forged a bond between our parish and the parish of Nyalienga, Kenya that will last well beyond this Centenial year. With the more than $10, 000 we raised, we have helped to create a fund for the School Sisters of Notre Dame so that they can begin helping orphan-run homes in that impoverished parish.

Through the course of the last year, we gathered on three separate occasions to celebrated 100 years of good works and the sharing of the Good News as several members of our parish were honored and received papal, diocesan and parish awards. These are men and women of our parish communities who have helped to build by stone and sweat the Church as it is now in the Archdiocese of Regina. Their selfless response to the Gospel led them to serve on building committees, volunteer boards, parish committees, visiting the sick, bringing communion to shut-ins, helping in our Catholic Schools and the myriad of other ways that Christ's presence has been brought to others.

All of these prayers, celebrations and recognitions moved us inexorably to the year's climatic event, an amazing faith-filled celebration of the Mass at the Brandt Centre in Regina where thousands upon thousands of the faithful from all over southern Saskatchewan gathered to give thanks and offer praise to God for supporting and building this Church on the prairies.

Of note to me were Canadian Primate, Archbishop Oulette's words at the end of the celebration. In Part, he spoke of the need for us to work closely with the media in partnership and embrace the new means and methods of communication afforded to us in our modern age. He spoke also about not endeavoring to criticism popular media for getting our Christian message wrong, or misrepresenting our Church, it's leaders or our faith. Rather, we ought to be more critical of ourselves and strive to more clearly represent the Gospel in our words and our actions to that there can be no misunderstanding what we are about.

This is a great challenge to all of us today and it struck me after the fact in connection with a question Fred Anderson asked me as we waited for the live broadcast to start. His question was with respect to the dwindling attendance of the youth and young adults in our churches and it is something that has been on my mind since.

At the time Fred had remarked that there are so many other distractions around, and he commented that it must be hard to keep young people wanting to be involved. On one level he's right, there are a lot of directions to be pulled in today and our kids and young adults feel the pressure very acutely.

I can't help but wonder at Archbishop Oulette's words though, and ask whether we have been as clear as we could be in presenting to our young people...heck, to the grown ups too, just what this Way of Christ is all about?

Peter summed up the Truth of the gospel when Christ asked him," ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.' " (Mk 8:29) a passage Archbishop Daniel addressed in his homily and later Peter speaks in John's gospel when Christ asks pointedly "‘Do you also wish to go away?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life." (John 6:68)

Do we show this? Really show this, speak this and live this? Do we live it in such a way that our young people see clearly that we together are showing Christ to the world, that our Jesus and we, his Church indeed "have the words of eternal life"? I'm not talking here about the massive Institution of the Church that we point to more often and not when things are going wrong in the Body of Christ as a means of placing blame. Archbishop Oulette's words were not directed at Rome, they were directed at us, personally.

Am I clear in what I believe. Am I clear when I am living my faith?

Are you?

Is it obvious that we are Christian, that we know Christ and love him, that we have been given a share in his Word of eternal life?

Do I show this in the moments of my day?

Do you?

The Celebration on Sunday was momentous, extravagant, triumphant...and a challenge. The slogan for the year has been "Celebrating our past, hope for our future". We are the hope for our own futures, the future of this church...my church and yours and for our young people.

It's true, there are a lot of distractions in our lives today, a lot of 'glamor' and glitz to draw the eye and grasp our attention, but I have met Christ...we all did together this past Sunday and will again every time we gather to celebrate the Mass. I don't know a single person in the gospels who met Christ and did not have their lives deeply and irrevocably transformed.

The challenge of our celebration is this very thing; go into the world, into every facet of it's life and yours and show this transformation.

Peace and God Bless

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Looking for Some Good News Today? God is Madly in Love With You!

Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati speaks about the Good News and makes the claim that we can share the authentic message of Christ in less than five minutes...Then he goes on to prove it!

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Big Parish News!

The impending 100th Anniversary celebration isn't the only thing that our parish is abuzz with this week. Many will have noticed that the priest moves were issued this past weekend, and at the top of the list was Christ the King Parish. Rumor no more, it is true that after 13 years of service to our community, Father Tonny Dizy will be leaving us this summer.

As he is heading out, an old friend will be heading in, Fr. Sathiadus Antony will be taking over as shepherd of our community as of August 1, 2010. Many of you will recall that Fr. Antony spent a couple of years with us between 2003 and 2005. Fr. Antony hales from Kerala India and was a much appreciated part of our pastoral team during his stay here at CTK.

Over the past few years he has been pastor of Christ the Redeemer Parish in Swift Current and has successfully lead that community through a very exciting period of parish mergers, and the building on an entirely new Church to house the community that formed as two former parishes in Swift Current were brought together under one roof.

Over the last few days we have been fielding many questions about Fr. Antony, Fr. Tonny and the Move in general some of which I will try to address here;

1)Is this the same Antony we had before?

Yes, as indicated above, Fr. Antony was with us for a two year period from 2003-2005. And yes, it is very exciting to have him back!


2)Is it Antony or Anthony?

His proper name is Sathiadus Antony. During his stay back in 2003 he came to be known as Fr. Antony. Occasionally some will miss-hear and add the 'H' but this is not correct.


3) On the insert in the bulletin he is listed as "Administrator of Christ the King Parish"? Isn't he going to be our new pastor?

Yes, and yes. Father Antony will indeed be our new pastor with all of the faculties and authority of our previous pastors. The reason for the difference in designation comes from the fact that, for whatever reasons, Fr. Antony has not yet been 'incarnated' into the diocese. What is 'Incardination' you ask lets turn to Wikipedia for that;

Incardination and excardination - http://bit.ly/9KPbkT ;
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the Roman Catholic Church, incardination refers to the situation of a member of the clergy being placed under the jurisdiction of a particular bishop or other religious superior. Its antonym, excardination, denotes that a member of the clergy has been freed from one jurisdiction and is transferred to another.

Both terms are derived from the Latin cardo (pivot, socket, or hinge), from which the word cardinal is also derived - hence the Latin verbs incardinare (to hang on a hinge or fix) and excardinare (to unhinge or set free).

The purpose of incardination is to ensure that no cleric, whether deacon or priest, is "freelance," without a clear ecclesiastical superior to whom he is responsible.

In the Church, a man is incardinated as the clerical subject of a diocesan bishop or his equivalent (a vicar apostolic, territorial abbot, territorial prelate, superior of a personal prelature, etc.) or of a religious order upon ordination to the diaconate: within the ordination ceremony prior to the actual sacrament of Holy Orders itself, the man places himself under a promise of obedience to his bishop or other superior within a particular church, or makes an acknowledgment of a pre-existing vow of obedience to a prior, abbot or other superior in a religious order.

Once incardinated, the cleric remains the subject of these same superiors even when ordained a priest. This incardination does not cease until the moment when that cleric is incardinated as a subject of another superior. An excardination from one diocese, for instance, does not become effective until the moment of incardination to another, so there is no gap during which the clergyman is not clearly answerable to a definitely determined superior. Incardination is dealt with in Canons 265-272 of the Code of Canon Law.

For whatever reason Fr. Antony has not had this official transfer of jurisdiction made. It does not really affect his authority in the parish or what he is or is not capable of doing. Presumably his bishop back in Kerala has no problem with Bishop Daniel putting him in charge of any parish over here and the two bishops have made their own arrangements between themselves.

4)I didn't see a parish listed for Fr. Tonny. Is he retiring?

Father Tonny is not retiring, but he will not be appointed to another parish at this time. I'm sure many of you have noticed how much work he has needed to put into his additional duties as Chancellor of the diocese. For the coming year at least he will be working exclusively as Chancellor in the diocesan office. I'm certain that Bishop Daniel will find plenty to keep him occupied.

5)Are there any other changes in the pastoral team or office staff?

At this time no. Both office staff and pastoral team are very much looking forward to working alongside Fr. Antony. Having ministered together in the past, we are confident and excited to be sharing our mutual callings to ministry starting this Fall.

6)When will be be able to say an official 'good-bye' to Fr. Tonny?

We have already been looking for dates on which to have an official 'Bon Voyage' for Fr. Tonny. Watch the parish website, blog, bulletin, these updates and our twitter account to stay up to date on what is happening, where and when. (hint - you may want to make sure you're around near the end of June). You can always take some time over the next 8 weeks or so to speak with Fr. Tonny personally after Mass. I know it would greatly appreciated.

7)What about an official Welcome for Fr. Antony?

Again, we're already looking at dates and times in the Fall sometime after the long weekend. Of course, he will be here this weekend for the 100th Anniversary celebration and the post-celebration feast in the parish Hall. What a perfect time to personally welcome him, perhaps meet him for the first time, and let him know how excited you are to welcome him home. As for a more 'official' welcome, as with Fr. Tonny's Good-Bye, watch the parish website, blog, bulletin, these updates and our twitter account to stay up to date on what is happening, where and when.


Comings and Goings - A Prayer Before Moving

Almighty God,
you constantly surprise your people
with new beginnings;
yet each beginning means a farewell
to all that is familiar and sure.

Let us rejoice in the blessings of our time together
our friendships and camaraderie
and never let us forget the good times we had.

Give us the courage and will
to embrace this new beginning
in the life of our parish family.
Let us be a consolation and strength
to each other as we face the uncertainty of the future;
and give us true friends and good neighbors along the way.
Be with us as we learn to do new things together.
Bring growth out of the challenges that lie ahead,
and open our eyes to your presence
in the others we will meet along the way.

May we bless you in good times and in bad,
in sorrows and in joys,
for you are the God who promises that Christ
will always be with us.

We make this prayer in the power of the Holy Spirit,
who inspires us to sing your praises for ever and ever.

Amen.


Saying good-bye to one beloved friend, and welcome home to another, isn't that exactly what this Christ the King family is all about?

Peace and God Bless

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