Pentecost

Pentecost, the birth of our Church, is a story of isolation and fear. The apostles, concerned for their personal safety were bewildered and frightened. They feared persecution, perceived to be lurking on the other side of the door. They knew what they were being called to do, but the sobering reality was it meant risking their lives. It meant owning their beliefs in the face of the unknown. It had to have been petrifying. I think it still is.

Jesus’ appearance, driving wind, tongues of fire, different languages…a maelstrom of wild, unfathomable and terrifying emotions and experiences happened all at once then, and still. There is still fear present in the change from what we have known. The genesis and implications of that beginning of our Church spans history, connecting vulnerable humans across the centuries…humans being invited into a deeper relationship.

This Pentecost we sit with fear and isolation, trying to imagine a rebirth of our Church in light of COVID-19. We are in the same proverbial room as the first apostles. A cacophony of voicing what is good or bad theology. We are trying to find spiritual solace and guidance in what is happening as we argue, discuss and discern what a return to communion and communal celebrations will look like, what it means to BE Church at a physical distance? We are experiencing the Body of Christ evolving through the grace of…you know it…the Holy Spirit.

The huddled apostles no doubt prayed and cried, were confused, humbled, and scared just like each of us. They probably felt they weren’t up to the task at hand. Which is why we find them locked in a room. Yet God has an incessant and unstoppable manner of getting into our hearts and our heads, seeking us out where we hide, wearing us down, and transforming us through the Spirit. We can lock ourselves in a room, hide under the covers, or walk across Spain, but we can’t escape God who crashes through the door, hounding us until we wave the white flag. God refuses to accept “not for me” “ask someone else,” insisting that our “no” means “yes.” We make plans, God hijacks them, frequently with realities that confound us or that we reject, until we finally relent.

This is the grace and joy of Pentecost. The first apostles, and each of us, hiding, fearful of what will happen. Not confident in the truth that God sees our gifts, our goodness, and our power to love despite our inability see all of it within ourselves. Pentecost honors our capability to proclaim.

What materialized for the apostles, and for us, is the invitation to live the truth of our faith, the truth of being followers of Jesus Christ. The comfort of the Holy Spirit isn’t always the truth that we believe we are living, but the truth to be open, to trust, to commit to embracing and embodying the Gospels. Sometimes that’s not very comfortable. We are confronted with truths that we don’t necessarily want to believe about ourselves, meaning that we can’t always be who we think we are meant to be. The truth of the Holy Spirit is the truth that pulled St. Francis of Assisi into a life that had nothing to do with the life he and his family envisioned for him. It’s the truth that invited St. Maximilian Kolbe to sacrifice his life for another. It’s the truth that beckoned St. Clare from her comfortable life of privilege to one of total dependence on God. It’s the truth that calls our healthcare personnel and essential workers to the hospitals and places of work throughout this pandemic. The realities of these truths are raw and frightening. They are laden with despair, despondency and death. Most of us (me) just don’t want to face these truths because we fear an unknown path that isn’t in our plan. Yet truth can also be found in our deeper connections with one another despite isolation; through shopping for elderly or vulnerable family members and neighbors, Zoom prayer gatherings, live streamed Masses or texts with friends. These truths are filled with hope, consolation and love.

God sent the Holy Spirit to strengthen and inspire the apostles out of their fears and render their lack of confidence into courage. These were people who didn’t have their acts or their resumes together, which makes them all the more relatable for me. God sends the Holy Spirit to steadily and lovingly pursue us, provoking us to face our fears and act, because God knows that we CAN and WILL respond to the challenge of proclaiming the Gospel in creative, dynamic and loving ways.

That terrifying night of Pentecost ignited our Church. It endures as a testament to the radical, enigmatic and transformative power of the Holy Spirit. A power that drags us kicking and screaming out of our comfort zones. God, in the person of Jesus and through the breath of the Spirit, liberates us with tender, firm and loving confidence to live our faith. God guides us to recognize ourselves as those apostles huddled together in that room commissioned to proclaim the Good News.

So when I envision the Holy Spirit descending, I’m not so motivated by an image of a peaceful, gentle, white dove. What inspires me is an audacious dynamic creative force, continually confronting and challenging me with hard truths about my faith. The Holy Spirit provoked those apostles into facing their fears and embrace Jesus’ mission to proclaim that the Kingdom of God is present in their mess, their fears, their joys. She is still at it.

Alexandria M. Egler, Ph.D.

Executive Director

Mission, Ministry & Interfaith Dialogue

Rise Up

Exhausted, the nurse takes off her mask,

decides, "This is hell." Head on the table,

for no apparent reason, she remembers a

speech she memorized in catechism class.

Jesus goes to hell, pulls Adam free saying

"I am your God. Out of love for you I order

you, O sleeper, to awake.

I did not create you to be held a prisoner.

Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.

Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created

in my image. Let us leave this place.

For you are in me and I am in you;

we cannot be separated."

She lifts her head. Checks her watch, stands.

Puts on her mask.

O, to enter that bright portal!

- The Psalter

Instagram

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We sincerely thank you for subscribing to the LaVerna Review.

The final reflection for our current season will be posted tomorrow for Pentecost.

We will be sending out a survey to all subscribers next week as we look to strengthen this reflection series.

Your feedback is highly important to us and greatly appreciated.

Our next season will begin around the time of Thanksgiving.

Peace and all good,

Alexandria & Tim

Office of Mission, Ministry & Interfaith Dialogue | St. Francis College

Tenderness & Compassion

There are times when the world stops.

Because the only good things that are happening are tenderness and compassion.

- The Psalter

Instagram

What's Around the Corner?

What's around the corner? Am I hopeful or doubtful? Why?

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Photograph by Alexander Kustanovich

Technical Services Librarian

Make Me a Channel of Your Peace

Feast of St. Philip Neri

The gift of a vocation is particular to each one of us. We are each called to be someone special and to do something unique in the time given to us by God in this world. And the fact that we're all called to be someone unique and to do some individual, particular good should be a cause for thanksgiving.

St. Philip Neri, whose feast day is today, was uniquely a person of joy, so much so that he has become known as the "Patron Saint of Joy." He was born in 1515 and grew up in Florence. When he was about eighteen, the age when many people today begin a college career, he moved to Rome with no specific plans except to try to do some good and he settled there for the rest of his life. Because he was such a joyful and encouraging personality, the people of that capital Catholic city of the world fell in love with him and so he also began to be known as the "Apostle of Rome."

Since Rome was the place he spent most of his life -- he died there in 1595, at the age of 80 -- he revealed his unique mixture of humor, seriousness, zeal, humility and warmth there. Those traits made him a trusted and revered friend to people of all backgrounds and religious persuasions. That was the uniqueness of the Rome of his day. All kinds of people and political and religious persuasions were to be found there. He encouraged the people who knew him to all forms of conversion of heart which invited them to pursue social change for the good of themselves and for others. And while encouraging conversion, Philip also respected how change for good would look and feel differently for each person according to their own personal and unique place in the community.

Even though St. Philip's life was centered in Rome his influence has spread far and wide. Today there are more than ninety separate communities in the world that attempt to live by the values of his life. They each call themselves "The Oratory." In fact, one of these communities is in Brooklyn and two of the parishes close to the college (Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Brooklyn Heights and St. Boniface in downtown Brooklyn) are served by priests and brothers who follow his example. Joy, Philip's special gift, is universally desired by all, and may be especially illusive in a time of pandemic. When hate and despair can seem to have the upper hand, joy is all the more passionately sought. Like conversion, joy is also a uniquely felt and experienced gift. My joy may be different than yours. It may come from a different source or be threatened by a different kind of fear. But in the end, if it leads me to seek the good and for you to seek the good as well, it's what binds us and helps us strive to make the world a better place for everyone.

Dr. Joel Warden

Catholic Scholar-in-Residence

For more info on St. Philip's life and times,
please click on the image above.

Reflection Questions

Why do I take time to reflect? Why do I not take time to reflect?

What do I reflect on? What do I not reflect on?

What does my life reflect to others? What do I want my life to reflect to others?

Photograph by Alexander Kustanovich

Technical Services Librarian

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Happy Memorial Day

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Does Easter Ask Too Much of Us…….?

The Easter Season will conclude in about 11 days (depending on whether or not you count today – what should be Ascension Thursday in all parts of the Christian world and not just a few, but that is a story for another day!). It has been a compelling Easter, there is no doubt about that. What with a pandemic and the restrictions on participation in any of the sacraments, let alone stay-at-home orders, and predictions and warnings that run the gamut from instant cures and vaccines to death tolls in the millions. If it is not enough to make us forget that it is still Easter, it’s enough to make us think that Easter is some cruel joke. How can we talk about life after death, when there only seems to be death and sorrow and despair……everywhere?

And yet, it is still Easter. As difficult as it might seem to remember and to continue to embrace that truth and that reality. And even with the coming of Pentecost, Easter does not end as if we can place it up on a shelf to forgot about it until next March or April. It is always Easter, because if Christ has not risen, then, as St. Paul cautions, our faith and everything we have or whatever destiny we might want for ourselves is all in vain.

Is this too much to believe in? Yes, probably for most if not all of us. But it still does not negate the truth that Easter is and what Easter means for us. Proclaiming new life and new hope against the background of anxiety and despair is not easy, and yet this is where the core of our witness belongs. Aidan Kavanaugh, the late Benedictine liturgical theologian, said it best when he described the Resurrection as THE event that jerked the world onto new courses it would have been incapable of achieving on its own. He goes on to remind us, though, that these are courses that death, darkness, and sin do not like and will do their best to make us believe that nothing has changed, nothing has been transformed because Christ is risen.

Does Easter ask too much of us? Definitely! Because it is a dare, simple as that. A dare to believe and trust that God knows what God is doing in all times and places. Our challenge is take God up on this dare; never to give up or give in to the easier course of despair and doubt. We are called, as we always are, to confront darkness, death, and sin and proclaim to their face, even with a shaky confidence, that the God whom we say we believe in is always and everywhere bringing life from all that stands against us. The question that now stands before us is, will we venture to do so?

Fr. Jim Sabak, OFM, Ph.D.

Chair of the American Franciscan Liturgical Commission

Laudato Si' Week 2020

Common Prayer for the 5th Anniversary of Laudato Si'

Loving God,

Creator of heaven and earth and all that is in them,

You created us in your own image and made us stewards of all your creation.

You blessed us with the sun, water and bountiful land so that all might be nourished.

Open our minds and touch our hearts,

so that we may attend to your gift of creation.

Help us to be conscious that our common home belongs not only to us,

but to all of your creatures and to all future generations,

and that it is our responsibility to preserve it. 

May we help each person secure the food and resources that they need.

Be present to those in need in these trying times, 

especially the poorest and those most at risk of being left behind.

Transform our fear and feelings of isolation into hope and fraternity 

so that we may experience a true conversion of heart.

Help us to show creative solidarity in addressing the consequences of this global pandemic. 

Make us courageous to embrace the changes that are needed in search of the common good.

Now more than ever may we feel that we are all interconnected and interdependent.

Enable us to listen & respond to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

May the present sufferings be the birth pangs of a more fraternal and sustainable world.

Under the loving gaze of Mary, Help of Christians,

we make this prayer through Christ, the Risen One.

AMEN.

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Memories of Ramadan

As I hear the Adhan, I turn on the water and begin my wudu. The ice cold water that washes my face, hands and feet have cleansed me. My sajjadat as-salat (prayer rug) perfectly placed on the wooden floor as I cover myself from head to toe and face the direction of the Kaaba. Right then and there I say the words that have been bestowed upon me during this lifetime; Allahu-Akbar (God is the Greatest) and just like that, I begin my prayer.

This has been my routine, 5 times a day, everyday.

The beauty of this time is that it is always my alone time (mentally). A time where I can stop my thoughts and recite the words of my creator. Of course, the beauty of prayer for me has always been the communal aspect.

I miss bumping into my friends as we all head to prayer. I miss being able to call a friend to come and prayer besides me. I miss having someone lead a prayer. Yet, I have seen the same wall that surrounds my room. No one to enter it.

All that I have left during my prayers are just the memories. The memories of hugging my friends after we have finished, the memories of the life talks, as we sit in a masjid or a prayer room and only so much more. We’re all left with memories from a time that was once part of a routine.

This year, Ramadan was filled of memories of what once was. Planning iftar with friends, going to the masjid after hours for taraweeh, drinking hot tea and enjoying the night, only until it’s time to fast again. Now we enter Eid Al-Fitar, putting a close to the Holy month of Ramadan. This year, we’re filled with the memories of the large gatherings at the masjid, wearing our best “Eid outfits”, making a large meal to share with friends and family, and my all-time favorite, the Eid prayer.

Yet, for me, the memories have always been a part of my routine.

The summers, up to 2011, were where my favorite memories come from: Damascus, Syria.

The Umayyad Mosque, probably one of the largest Mosque in the old, beautiful City of Damascus. There was excitement that came over me each time I knew where we were going. My favorite part of the mosque was the huge opening that exposed the tile floors to the blazing hot sun. In the middle of the whole tile floor was this beautiful fountain. As I take off my shoes, I run by the other children around me, the sound of the Adhan as loud as it can be, with the bottom of my feet exposed to the heat of the blazing hot tile floor, to only reach the fountain with the ice cold water. And I would do it again, and again and again because all my eyes could see was the fountain. Now the fountain and the tile floors of the Mosque are just a memory of what was once part of a routine.

We’re now all surrounded with memories, memories that become bittersweet, memories of routines that we only can hope we can recreate soon. Maybe for me, the fountain was something to look forward to. It was an attachment that I had, because the same fountain I ran to, was the same fountain that my Father once ran to. His memories of a Ramadan that once was, all came from Al-Umayyad Mosque. A place where after Maghrib, my father would go, to listen to a Sheikh tell stories about Hajj and the Islamic Faith. His memories only to embrace mine. To remember a time of what once was.

We may be hurting, we may be adjusting, but think of the memories of what once was and hopefully the ones that will be.

Remember: “We made the [Kaaba] a place of return for the people and a place of security.” (Quran 2:125)

Maxine Lahoumh, SFC '20

Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria

Feast of the Ascension

Ascension

We saw his light break through the cloud of glory

Whilst we were rooted still in time and place

As earth became a part of Heaven’s story

And heaven opened to his human face.

We saw him go and yet we were not parted

He took us with him to the heart of things

The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted

Is whole and Heaven-centred now, and sings,

Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness,

Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight,

Whilst we our selves become his clouds of witness

And sing the waning darkness into light,

His light in us, and ours in him concealed,

Which all creation waits to see revealed.

By Malcolm Guite

Bridges

What bridges am I building? What bridges am I repairing? What bridges am I crossing?

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Photograph by Alexander Kustanovich

Technical Services Librarian

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter

In today’s reading, Paul and Silas are still in Philippi when they are approached by a crowd. This crowd attacks them with insults along with accusing them of disturbing the peace and breaking Roman laws. As we learned previously, Paul performed an exorcism on a slave girl who had the gift of fortune-telling. As a result of the exorcism, the girl lost her ability to tell people’s fortunes. The crowd was not happy with the events that transpired and dragged both Paul and Silas to court.

From the court’s ruling, Paul and Silas are sentenced to be inflected by rods and thrown into jail. In the middle of the night, while the guard was overlooking their cell Paul and Silas prayed and praised God for suffering in the name of Jesus Christ. During this time, an earthquake occurred, causing damage to the prison and leaving the gates ajar for Paul and Silas to escape.

After the earthquake, the guard woke up and noticed the gate was open. Fearing that they escaped along with the shame and humiliation of dealing with the consequences, the jailer was prepared to take his own life. Immediately, Paul shouted out “Do no harm to yourself; we are all here.”

The guard took his light and trembling with fear, fell to his knees in front of Paul and Silas. It is here that the guard realized that both Paul and Silas were preachers of God. He then asked them “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Paul and Silas said in reply “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved.” The guard then took Paul and Silas into his home, cleaned up their wounds, and allowed them to preach to his family.

In this reading, we see two powerful messages that we can learn from during these difficult times. The first thing we can relate to is the suffering of Paul and Silas as they are beaten and tormented because of their faith. In the last couple of months, our lives have changed drastically. A lot of us are suffering in different ways from this pandemic, whether it would be from the loss of a loved one, losing our source of income, or even suffering from the feeling of the unknown or what lies ahead. We can all turn to God during our suffering and pray to him.

This leads me to the second message in which Paul and Silas are still praying and singing praise to God even after they have been beaten and locked away in a cell fearing the uncertainty. However, the most important thing they did not lose is their faith in God, as a result, God saved them. During this difficult time, let us keep our faith and belief in God as things will get better. We should also be strengthening our faith by helping those who have suffered a loss as a result of this pandemic. Help them believe that we will come out of this as one.

Jonathan LaCovara

Network Technician

Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter

In this time of pandemic, we are reminded that the little things matter. With the departure of life being so frequent around us, we reach for those we care about the most, whether in person or virtually. Love and support for one another as humans has an increased emphasis as we focus on our basic needs.

The reading from today speaks to the community we feel as God’s people. This is all-inclusive, as we are all God’s children – regardless of religious beliefs, background, etc. Lydia is a worshiper of God who I believe was a welcoming person and opened her heart and her home to those who needed help. She was blessed (literally and figuratively) to have this visit from Paul, be baptized, and have the opportunity to host.

We thrive on connections to one another, the similarities that we have on a variety of levels. It’s the spark you feel when meeting someone who you discover has something in common with you – your neighborhood, mutual friend, or sports team, for example. The whole world is experiencing something similar right now. For the rest of our lives, we will remember our friends, co-workers, family members, and others who went through Covid-19 with us. While we have different challenges based on our individual circumstances, we are one people, God’s children, and dare I say, #OneSFC.

Let us go forth each and every day, remembering that we are all in this together, with one another, looking forward to welcoming friends into our homes to break bread as we are meant to do.

Benjamin Ciesinski

Assistant Director of Annual Giving

Radical Purity & Utter Simplicity

Last year I had the opportunity to make a retreat in Assisi, the home of course of St. Francis. (Given the Coronavirus, I wonder if I will be able to do that again.)

As part of the retreat I read a life of Saint Francis by New Yorker, Donald Spoto :“The Reluctant Saint”. It was inspiring to read the stories in the very place they occurred. But what I recall most was being awed by the radical purity and utter simplicity of Francis’ converted life.

Francis took Jesus at his word and lived it thoroughly.

From the moment he took off his clothes in the Basilica square, he cast himself totally on the providence of God: he wore only a beggars robe. He ate no food except what he could beg. He (and eventually his first followers) lived in the simplest of dwellings, the open air or in caves. He worked for no one except God and his people; he was especially devoted to the poor among whom he proudly numbered himself.

Francis embraced a simple and at times solitary life not in order to meet some prescription but because for him it was the surest way to a deeper, fuller and richer life. It was the path to life that Jesus had lived and preached.

Francis was free because he had no attachments, material or otherwise. He was joyful because he had no fixed expectations. He was at peace because he had no possessions.

In these days many of us feel stripped bare of much we may have taken for granted: visiting with family and friends, going out to restaurants and shows, and even church. We have been forced into isolation or confinement like Francis. Unlike Francis much of this is not of our making. But like Francis we have the choice how to respond to our circumstances, whatever they are. Perhaps Francis suggests a way for us to access new-found peace, joy and freedom. And maybe we will begin to see the wisdom of those lines attributed to him:

“For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

Fr. Mark J. Lane, c.o.

Pastor

The Brooklyn Oratory

St. Boniface

Congratulations to the SFC Class of 2020!

A Blessing for College Graduates

May your post-college life excite your heart,
Kindle in your mind creativity
To journey beyond the old limits
Of all that has become wearisome.

May this season challenge you toward
New frontiers that will emerge
As you begin to approach them,
Calling forth from you the full force
And depth of your undiscovered gifts.

May this next chapter fit the rhythms of your soul,
Enabling you to draw from the invisible
New ideas and a vision that will inspire.

Remember to be kind
To those who work with you,
Endeavor to remain aware
Of the quiet world
That lives behind each face.

Be fair in your expectations,
Compassionate in your criticism.
May you have the grace of encouragement
To awaken the gift in the other’s heart,
Building in them the confidence
To follow the call of the gift.

May you come to know that your responsibilities
Which emerge from the mind of love
Will have beauty and form.

May this time be worthy
Of the energy of your heart
And the light of your thought.

May your new roles assume proper spaces in your life;
Instead of owning or using you,
May they challenge and refine you,
Bringing you every day further
Into the wonder of your heart.

[Adapted from John O’Donohue, “Blessings for a New Position,” To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings (2008)]

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Congratulations to the SFC Class of 2020!

Ramadan 2020 & Covid-19

When Allah created the nafs, it refused to come to Allah. The nafs means the self literally, and it is translated as soul, ego, and psyche. Allah did not give up on the nafs and asked, "Who am I and who are you?", nafs answered, "I am who I am, and you are who you are. Nafs did not accept themself as a servant of Allah. As a consequence, Allah ordered 1000 years of hellfire. When the time passed, Allah asked again, "Who am I and who are you." To our surprise, nafs gave the same answer "I am who I am, and you are who you are." This time, Allah ordered 1000 years of cold hell for the nafs. When the heat did not help, the cold might help the nafs to admit the truth. After spending 1000 years in the cold, Allah asked again, and the nafs said: "I am who I am and you are who you are." This time Allah ordered not to give any food or water for 1000 years. One by one, the years passed, and Allah asked the nafs to face Allah and asked the question once again, "Who am I and who are you." Finally, the nafs answered, "You are my Lord, and I am your servant." 

When I was a child, this story was told to me to explain how fasting Muslims discipline their ego and to remember people in need. Fasting was a way to remember one's own limits and appreciated not only having food but also being physical and mentally healthy. Spending Ramadan under quarantine made me rethink this story of the nafs. As in every Ramadan in my adult life, I am fasting, praying, reading Qur'an, and donating to local food pantries. I am grateful for the food I have and for my mental and physical well being. But on a spiritual level, this Ramadan helped me realize that we have to give thanks to much more than food, physical, and mental health. This Ramadan, I realized that I took it for granted my community and my freedom.

We are fasting from being isolated from our family and friends. For the nafs, spending 1000 years in hell and cold places did not make a difference to change their standpoint; only obtaining food made them realize their limits. Yes, I liked going to the masjid, inviting people for iftar, going to my classes, and teaching my students in the classroom, but all of this was not "special." It was ordinary.

On the other hand, doing grocery shopping and moving freely in public spaces, taking my children to playgrounds, movie theaters, ice cream treats was ordinary as well. Now, when I make one step, I am scared to get sick, when I come to close with someone, I move away. I feel like danger but also dangerous, a thread, but also threatened. The land of the free does not feel free anymore.

Knowledge is a fact and only becomes a purpose with action. Nafs knew who they were, but only through hunger, it realized and accepted their purpose. Covid-19 helped me to appreciate not only food, mental and physical health, but also community. I am grateful that I got the chance to go through this experience and I hope that my knowledge becomes an action to follow the advice from the Qur’an: 

You are the best nation produced for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah. 

Qur’an 3:110

Ayse Keskin-Saglam

Adjunct Lecturer

Religious Studies

We Have Been Told

This passage from John’s Gospel embodies the quintessential Christian theme: Love One Another. It includes several familiar phrases and is part of what’s known as the Farewell Discourses, as Jesus was about to depart from his disciples.

John’s is the last of the Gospels, written well after the other three; it focuses on Christ’s ministry in Jerusalem, rather than Galilee.

John’s riff on the Great Commandment, to love one another, is all about encouragement for the disciples as they prepare to go forth to spread the Good News. He makes them aware that God the Father is always backing them up and that they can ask and will receive what they need – reminders we all can use.

For me, though, this passage had me humming (I really can’t sing) a familiar hymn called “We Have Been Told.” It’s by a prolific contemporary Catholic songwriter, David Haas, whose other liturgical hits include “You Are Mine” and “Blest Are They.”

Mary Pradt
Librarian

We Have Been Told

by David Haas

Refrain

We have been told. We've seen his face And heard his voice alive in our hearts. 

"Live in my love with all your heart. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you."

Verses

1. "I am the vine; you are the branches, And all who live in me will bear great fruit."

2. "You are my friends, if you keep my commands, No longer slaves; I call you friends."

3. "No greater love is there than this: to lay down one's life for a friend."

Patient Trust

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Be Not Afraid

Clare, COVID-19 and the Communion of Saints

Clare, COVID-19 and the Communion of Saints

“He died alone!” “We were not with her!” These lamentations are heard daily as people recount the most bitter experience of losing a loved one to COVID-19. This cry from the heart expresses the deep suffering the crisis creates. But dare we ask the question: Did they really die alone?

Do we not say when we pray the Apostle’s Creed that we believe “in the communion of saints?” What does that expression mean? Is it just a bit of ancient poetry preserved in the amber of our prayed formulas over the centuries?

In the biography of St. Clare of Assisi, we read a powerful description of the vigil preceding her death. As her end approaches, she speaks words of confidence and says to one of the sisters keeping watch: “Do you see, O child, the King of glory Whom I see?”.…. And behold a multitude of virgins in white garment entered, all of whom wore gold garlands on their heads. One more splendid than the others walked among them and from her crown…such a splendor came forth that it turned the night within the house into daylight. She moved toward the bed…and bending over her most lovingly gave her a most tender embrace.” (Legend of St. Clare, 46.)

Here we have a testimony that Clare—at the hour of her death—was surrounded by holy women who were already in the “communion of saints” and that the Queen of Heaven herself was with them. Do we think such death bed favors are only for saints? Can we take some comfort in the hope that our loved ones also experience this final act of favor, a presence from beyond that brings assistance to cross that mysterious threshold?

The Irish believe in the reality of what they call “thin places,” places where the veil between earth and heaven is so porous that we may experience the “other side” clearly. The moment of death is the ultimate thin place. There, beyond our ability to see or to imagine, those whom we love and honor who “have gone before us in faith” move toward us in joyful welcome.

These countless COVID-19 victims were not alone. In that final hour, the veil fell away and they moved forward surrounded by ancestors of their family and of their faith. God has wiped away their tears. Can this faith also help to dry ours?

Sister Margaret Carney, OSF, STD

President Emeritus, St. Bonaventure University

Reprinted with permission.

This piece was originally published on April 29, 2020 by Franciscan Media on their website.

Fifth Sunday of Easter & Mother's Day

As we find ourselves in the midst of the pandemic, let us begin with today’s Psalm:
“Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.”

I have selected several quotes from the Readings for today. These are the reassuring and comforting words of Jesus himself.

They don’t need a lot of commentary. They offer the opportunity for reflection on God’s own words of loving concern for us.

In the Gospel for today Jesus offers us words of comfort:
“Do not let your heart be troubled.”

Jesus assures us: “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

And Jesus continues: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”
How reassuring!
With God there is always enough – and actually more than enough!

Today, of course, is also Mothers Day.

We remember, pray for and are grateful for our mothers who have comforted and assured us over the years – from the moment they first held us.

Thank you, Mom. I love you!

Bro. William Boslet, OSF

SFC Board of Trustees

Up or Down?

Am I looking up or down?

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Photograph by Alexander Kustanovich

Technical Services Librarian