Thank You, Papa

Edwin Cardinal O’Brien, the archbishop-emeritus of Baltimore, said he “was privileged to be with the Holy Father this morning when he announced that he would resign as Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter.” The news, he said in a statement, presented an opportunity to reflect on the Pope’s distinctive role in global affairs. “A staunch defender of human rights and those religiously persecuted and a champion for the dignity of all people, the Holy Father has offered a much-needed voice for morality and good in a world where both are far too scarce.” - Edwin Cardinal O’Brien, National Catholic Register, 2-12-13

Thank you Pope Benedict

"Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation is a selfless and noble act done for the good of the church that he has loved and served for decades. It also shows his great spiritual freedom; rare indeed is the person who can, and will, relinquish such immense power voluntarily. Pope Benedict likely will be remembered as a pope who, in his relatively short pontificate, sought primarily to strengthen the orthodoxy of the church by a variety of means, who authored several important encyclicals notable for their theological depth and appeal and who continued an active schedule of public appearances. He also, despite his full calendar, published three well-received books on the life of Jesus. Never the media superstar that his predecessor was, Pope Benedict, a lifelong scholar, exuded his own brand of charisma, which came from his profound theological acumen and his personal relationship with Jesus. Perhaps his most often neglected contribution to the church was his series of superb Angelus messages, delivered regularly during his public appearances in St. Peter’s Square. His books on Jesus. Far more people will most likely read those moving testaments to the person whose vicar he was—Jesus of Nazareth—than may read all of his encyclicals combined. Others may disagree about my emphasis on this aspect of his pontificate, but in these books, the pope brought to bear decades of scholarship and prayer to the most important question that a Christian can ask: Who is Jesus? This is the pope’s primary job—to preach the Gospel and to introduce people to Jesus—and Pope Benedict did that exceedingly well".

- Fr. James Martin S.J.

Lifeteen - Beyond Words

Marianist Monday

All our Marianist schools return from Winter Recess today. There will be many opportunities to discuss the upcoming retirement of  our current Pope Benedict in our classrooms.

It will also be a great "teaching moment," an opportunity to discuss the election of the new Pope.

As the Cardinals enter into the Sistine Chapel the Litany of the Saints is going to be chanted. As the Cardinals enter into that sacred place, looking upon the scene of the Last Judgment, they will be calling upon the help of all God’s holy Angels and Saints.

Let’s all join in prayer with them, in anticipation of one of the most moving scenes of our lifetime. Watch the Cardinals enter into the conclave that elected Benedict XVI:

O Lord Jesus Christ , Supreme Pastor of Your Church,
we thank you for the ministry of Pope Benedict XVI
and the selfless care with which he has led us

as Successor of Peter, and Your Vicar on earth.

Good Shepherd, who founded Your Church
on the rock of Peter’s faith and have never left Your flock untended,
look with love upon us now, and sustain Your Church in faith, hope, and charity.

Grant, Lord Jesus, in Your boundless love for us,
a new Pope for Your Church who will please You
by his holiness and lead us faithfully to You,
who are the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Amen.

Sunday's Word

No one really knows what happened during the days Jesus shared with the trio of disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. All we really know is that Jesus and his three closest friends climbed a mountain of prayer and entered the presence of God. Something wondrous and miraculous happened to them, something so radiant and mystical that the afterglow never left Peter. Years later, Peter remembered this day, different from all other days, and wrote, still in a kind of holy hush: "We had been eyewitnesses of his majesty."

The Transfiguration took place during an experience of private meditation and prayer - not during a public speech or one of Jesus' tutorials to his disciples. It was an intensely personal experience. While words may fail us after such a profound event, a genuine, spiritual experience can easily withstand our own inability to understand it. We need not "talk an experience out" in order to make it real.

"They saw his glory." High mountains stand in Scripture as places of revelation, glimpses of glory, experiences of revitalization, times of transfiguration. Why has God been so grudging and sparing with holy places where the Divine is manifested?

We don't know. It remains a mystery. There are times when God has nothing to say, when God is silent -either waiting for us to speak or waiting for us to grow in wisdom.

But when God answers by saying nothing, it is still an answer.

St. Joseph Mission 3

The point of serving is to offer yourself without counting the cost or tallying the results. In Jesus' "parable of the sower," he speaks only about our responsibility to sow, to be out there spreading the news. It is God's responsibility to reap. We are called to plant the seed, but we cannot guarantee the harvest. As mere humans we cannot possibly know the results of our sowing until the eternal harvest, which is brought about by God. We will be judged, not by the results of that harvest, but on the sincerity of our sowing.

Yesterday was the final day of the St. Joseph's Mission during the Winter Recess. Much has been accomplished. Many blessings received. May God bless the work that has been accomplished.

Christian Music Tour

50 Marianist high school students and four moderators traveled to hear Chris Tomlin's latest concert tour at Madison Square Garden last evening. The "Burning Lights" Tour marks Tomlin’s success of his latest 12 tracks. 

The "Burning Lights" album received acclaim from national media including The New York Times, USA Today and Billboard, among many others. As one of the most acclaimed worship leaders of our time, critics have applauded Tomlin's “solid songwriting” and “stirring melodies,” underscoring his efforts of crafting songs for the church that cross cultures and generations.

The internationally renowned GRAMMY winner, whose career has yielded widely known worship anthems such as “How Great Is Our God,” “Holy Is the Lord” and “Jesus Messiah,” has given voice to the Church and millions of people around the world as they worship Jesus.

The Burning Light Tour features the powerful single "Whom Shall I Fear [God Of Angel Armies]” and an all-new studio recording of the radio hit "White Flag," "Burning Lights" is the follow up to 2011’s Grammy winner for Best Christian or Gospel Album, "And If Our God Is For Us…"

Friend and pastor of Passion City Church/Communicator/Passion founder, Louie Giglio joined Tomlin, with Sparrow Records' Kari Jobe as well.

St. Joseph's Mission 2

The theme for the Marianist Saint Joseph's Mission is taken from Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. In her simple yet profound way she tells us, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” 


And so, the volunteers gathered today for another experience in doing some "great things."  For those participating in the Freeport and Bellmore home repairs sheet rocking was part of today's experience. Over fifty volunteers worked over the past three days and tomorrow proves to bring a similar number of generous volunteers. Many thanks from the home owners.

St. Joseph's Mission

This week the Province of Meribah has sponsored its annual Saint Joseph's Mission whereby we travel to rebuild and repair homes devastated by hurricanes. For the past several years the Mission has traveled to the New Orleans area to repair hurricane damaged homes. This week the Marianists with the aid of faculty, alumni parents and their high school students travel to Freeport each day to assist in rebuilding one home.

At the end of a long day of sheetrock, insulation, etc. the high school students gathers for meditation, evening prayer and dinner with the Marianist Community. After dinner all watched the film Invictus.

Invictus means 'unconquered'. However, the film's title comes from a poem of 1975 by William Ernest Henley, a poem Nelson Mandela relied on during his 27 years internment on Robben Island, especially its final lines, 'master of my fate, captain of my soul'. Mandela was certainly invictus in his surviving prison and invictus in his election as president of South Africa.

The poem reveals the experience of Mandela on Robben Island.

Invictus 

Out of the night that covers me, 
Black as the Pit from pole to pole, 
I thanks whatever gods may be 
For my unconquerable soul. 
In the fell clutch of circumstances 
I have not winced or cried aloud. 
Under the bludgeonings of chance 
My head is bloody but unbowed. 
Beyond this place of wrath and tears 
Looms but the Horror of the shade, 
And yet the menace of the years 
Finds and shall find me unafraid. 
It matters not how straight the gate, 
How charged with punishments the scroll, 
I am the master of my fate: 
I am the captain of my soul.

Tuesday Tunes

With ten No. 1 radio singles, three GRAMMY nominations, 18 Dove Awards, one platinum and three gold albums to his credit, it might be easy for some to look at Chris Tomlin’s music in the context of earthly accomplishments. However, when Tomlin himself reflects on such acclaimed worship anthems as “Forever,” “Indescribable” and “How Great is Our God,” it’s not in terms of music industry statistics, but lives impacted. Each song on How Great Is Our God: The Essential Collection serves as a reminder of how powerfully music can connect us with our heavenly Father. “As you look over the past 10 years and think about the journey of these songs, it’s just incredible to see how God has used them in the church,” muses Tomlin. “To get to be a part of a couple of them would be enough, but to sing all of them year after year is pretty special.”

Creating a project like How Great Is Our God: The Essential Collection would, in typical music industry parlance, be considered a greatest hits package, but for Tomlin it was a labor of love that represents something much more important. “It goes beyond just a radio hit. We’re looking at the impact of these songs around the world,” he says. “You are looking at songs that for the most part aren’t really attached to me as a person. They’ve just become songs people have sung in their church in whatever country or language and that’s so powerful. It’s been awesome to be able to have success at radio as well, but it goes way deeper than that. There’s another level of measuring when you are thinking of the kind of impact these songs have had in the church. I really just stand in awe of it and I know that it’s just God’s favor, blessing and His hand upon these songs. It’s His touch. I always say that He is the greatest publisher, the greatest agent, the greatest manager of the Holy Spirit because He puts the songs in the church. He is the wind in the sails. It’s really, really humbling.”

You Don't Know Jack?

February 14th — why is it known as Valentine’s Day? Why do those in love send each other valentines? And what feast does the Catholic Church celebrate on this day? Think you know the answers? Think again, because the truth is a lot more surprising than you’d imagine. Watch friend of Busted Halo, Fr. Jack Collins, CSP, wander the streets of New York asking the city’s star-crossed lovers if they know why we celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Originally published February 13, 2012.

Lenten Sunday 1

The second reading this Sunday may have originated in the early church’s instruction for Baptism. Baptism was then, as it is now, a moment of birth, widening the circle of the family or the church. Those who were once orphans or estranged are now legitimately at home.

As Paul wrote: “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same God is God of all.” Paul has already written an expanded form of this statement in his letter to the Galatians:

All of you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:27-28)

The new family life, which we celebrate in Lent, cannot tolerate pride or exclusiveness. “You are all one (family) in Christ Jesus.”

A family of strong unity and love holds everything in common. Whatever is mine is yours! Such is the bond reflected in another liturgical ceremony, described in the first reading from Deuteronomy. While offering the first fruits of the land to God, some of the food is consumed by fire on the altar to signify that everything comes from God and returns to God, some is given to the priest to support his family, the major part returns to the offerer for a family banquet. The head of the household is told to invite the Levite and the aliens who live among you, that together you may “make merry over all these good things which God has given you.”

The family life which God is holding up for our admiration and imitation this Lent has no trace of selfishness or greed. The Levites who had no property in Israel and the aliens who possessed no legal rights shared equally in the family merriment.

These ideals are not easily attained. Family and its outreach of new life do not simply happen. We must work at it against difficulties and temptations.

Jesus too was tempted, a fact reiterated in the Epistle to the Hebrews (4:13). The gospel pulls aside the veil from this mysterious aspect of Jesus’ life. Luke’s gospel accentuates two aspects: Jesus’ submission to the Holy Spirit, just received in his baptism (Luke 4:21-22), and Jesus’ serious temptation by the devil.

It seems that the more delicately we are attuned to the Spirit of generosity and gentleness (these are among the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23), the more we are tempted to be greedy, turning stones into a desert covered with bread, to exert selfish control over every part of our petty kingdom, to make a god out of each desire.

Lent casts out from the family of new life the demons of pride, greed and selfishness.

This reflection was written by Rev. Carroll Stuhlmueller, Scripture scholar and author. It is taken from New Life: Lent 1989, published by Pax Christi USA.

New Evangelization

Take a look at the recent trailer of the new series of Fr. Robert Barron's Catholicism: The New Evangelization.

It is worth the view!

Sunday's Word

Jesus certainly understood the connection between personal habits and quality of life, which is why he watched his behavior closely during his 40 days in the desert. He made a set of choices that can become habits for us and change our lives for the better. Although Jesus didn't write a program for our smartphones, he did give guidelines and social support for resisting temptation.

Luke tells us that Jesus was tempted for 40 days by the devil, and during that period Jesus ate nothing. When those days were over, "he was famished."

The devil says to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." Notice that the devil is making a reasonable request here: Jesus is, in fact, the Son of God. He certainly has the power to turn stones into bread. He is famished, and a loaf of bread would give him energy to keep on serving God.

But Jesus says no, because he is in the habit of trusting God, not himself. If he performs this miracle, he will be serving his own needs instead of allowing God to provide for him. And so he responds to the devil by quoting a line from the book of Deuteronomy, the same verse that reminds the Israelites that God provided them with bread in the wilderness: "One does not live by bread alone." Instead, we are to live by trusting what God says and does.

A spirit of hospitality

From the Canonization Homily of Benedict XVI

By her admirable work at the service of the most deprived elderly, Saint Mary of the Cross is also like a beacon to guide our societies which must always rediscover the place and the unique contribution of this period of life. Born in 1792 at Cancale in Brittany, Jeanne Jugan was concerned with the dignity of her brothers and sisters in humanity whom age had made more vulnerable, recognizing in them the Person of Christ himself. “Look upon the poor with compassion,” she would say, “and Jesus will look kindly upon you on your last day.” Jeanne Jugan focused upon the elderly a compassionate gaze drawn from her profound communion with God in her joyful, disinterested service, which she carried out with gentleness and humility of heart, desiring herself to be poor among the poor. Jeanne lived the mystery of love, peacefully accepting obscurity and self-emptying until her death. Her charism is ever timely while so many elderly people are suffering from numerous forms of poverty and solitude and are sometimes also abandoned by their families. In the Beatitudes Jeanne Jugan found the source of the spirit of hospitality and fraternal love, founded on unlimited trust in Providence, which illuminated her whole life. This evangelical dynamism is continued today across the world in the Congregation of Little Sisters of the Poor, which she founded and which testifies, after her example, to the mercy of God and the compassionate love of the Heart of Jesus for the lowliest. May Saint Jeanne Jugan be for elderly people a living source of hope and for those who generously commit themselves to serving them, a powerful incentive to pursue and develop her work!

Growing old "grace-fully"

Growing old "grace-fully" does not mean losing touch with the sensual world. Instead, it means taking the time to celebrate all the physical and spiritual gifts God provides, and relishing them.

Growing old "grace-fully" does not mean caving in to limitations. Instead, it means giving God the opportunity to strengthen your weaknesses--no matter how long-lived they may be.

Growing old "grace-fully" does not mean rattling around in an "empty nest." Instead, it means opening the doors of your mind, heart and home to new ideas, new feelings and new people God sends your way.

Post Prom Blues!

It is time to celebrate the positive dimensions of growing old "grace-fully." 

Growing old "grace-fully" does not mean winding down. Instead, it means learning to shift gears, sometimes into overdrive, sometimes into four-wheel drive.

Growing old "grace-fully" does not mean letting others take over the reins and settling back. Instead, it means letting God direct your course.

Our friends at Queen of Peace Residence operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor proved that to us last weekend at the Junior-Senior Prom on February 2nd. We all enjoyed the energy the elderly provided for us.

Thanks for making us feel welcome!

Marianist Monday

Yearly the youth of the Marianist high schools on Long Island visit and sponsor a Junior -Senior Prom at the home operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor. This year the Marianist high school students sponsored their 24th Annual Junior-Senior Prom at Queen of Peace Residence on Saturday, February 2nd. Over one-hundred high school students traveled to Queens Village to decorate, talk, relate and dance.

Enjoy the pictures this week. I will share the pictures throughout the week for your enjoyment!

Youth may be a gift of nature, but age is a mark of art. 

The LIfe of Dorothy Day

Watch The Life of Dorothy Day on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

Sunday's Word

In the fifth chapter of Luke, Jesus is standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd is pressing in on Him to hear the word of God. At the shore of the lake, he sees two boats — empty because the fishermen had left them to wash their nets. Jesus gets into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asks him to push the boat away from the shore. There Jesus keeps a safe distance from the smothering press of the crowd and is able to teach them.

When Jesus finishes, he decides to extend his lesson with a dramatic illustration. He challenges Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."

Put out into the deep water, says Jesus. Jesus doesn’t say, "Hey, it’s shallow over here, try this." He’s saying that the real possibilities exist where life gets deep and risky. He invites us to venture out, take a chance, be active and adventurous.

"Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing," laments Simon. He sounds like he wants to stay close to shore, safe and comfortable because his time on the water hasn’t yielded any fish. But Simon isn’t going to be stubborn about this. "Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets," he offers. And he does.

The result? Simon and his fellow fishermen catch so many fish that their nets are beginning to break. They call for their partners in the other boat to come and help, and they end up filling both boats to the point that they’re beginning to sink.

It’s an unexpected, amazing and overwhelmingly abundant catch. All because they’re willing to follow Jesus’ words and scout the deep water.

That’s the challenge for us today: to venture beyond our comfort zones and put out into the deep water in lives of discipleship. Too often we stay close to shore, safe and comfortable, when Jesus is calling us to be active, adventurous and willing to explore new territory. That’s where the fish are. That’s where the growth happens. That’s where we can make surprising discoveries about ourselves and the world around us.

Nourish the Flame

'Nourish the flame' of consecrated life, Pope exhorts religious

“Do not fall in with the prophets of doom who proclaim the end or the non-sense of consecrated life in the Church in our days,” Pope Benedict XVI urged religious men and women in his homily at a February 2 Mass in St. Peter’s basilica.

Celebrating the Day of Consecrated Life, which coincides with the feast of the Presentation, the Pope remarked that the day’s traditional candlelight procession in the Vatican basilica, led by superiors of religious orders, was a reminder of “the beauty and the value of consecrated life as the reflection of Christ's light.” The Pope went on to say that the theme of light in the evening ceremony “recalls Mary’s entrance into the Temple: the Virgin Mary, consecrated woman par excellence, carried Light itself in her arms, the incarnate Word who had come to dispel the darkness of the world with God's love."

Pope Benedict encouraged the religious in attendance to “nourish the flame” of their “first love” for Christ. He also suggested that they appreciate the “wisdom of weakness” that is a part of their vocation. The Pope explained that the silence of consecrated life, “by its empathy with those who have no voice, becomes an evangelic sign of contradiction.”

CWN - February 04, 2013

Your vocation starts today

I feel like this year’s Super Bowl was just too soon.

I realize that there was a lot of excitement about brother-coaches, deer antler spray, and a quarterback covered in Biblical tattoos, but I just couldn’t get into it. Let’s face it: most decent people in America are still mourning the Steelers’ loss to the Packers in the Super Bowl two years ago.

I remember watching a post-game interview with Packers’ quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, where he was asked about one of his touchdown passes. The reporter remarked that Rodgers’ accuracy that night was phenomenal and proceeded to ask him how he was able to make such a clutch play. Without any hesitation, Rodgers just explained that the pass was easy to throw because he and his receivers had practiced it hundreds of times throughout the season.

Though Aaron Rodgers and his teammates are the source of such a deep wound in my life, I’ve thought about his answer a lot since then.

As Catholics we believe that everyone has a vocation from God, a divine calling and a specific path to holiness that each of us is made for. Because God made our hearts, He calls each of us to the vocation that makes our hearts the most fully alive. All vocations will come with their own share of suffering and challenges, but we believe that embracing God’s call to holiness is also embracing God’s call to joy and peace.

You’ve probably heard this before. I remember hearing plenty of people talk about vocations when I was in high school, but I tuned most of them out. I knew that I wouldn’t be ready for any sort of long term commitment for awhile, so I thought I’d just figure it out later. I didn’t realize that my actions, my habits, and my choices would be preparing me for my vocation.

I was shocked to find out that my selfishness, my insensitivity, and a host of other shortcomings didn’t magically disappear once I got married.

When we hear the stories of the saints, the men and women who loved with all their hearts and responded to God’s call with everything they had, it’s like watching a touchdown pass in the Super Bowl. The heroic examples of the saints are not some random occurrences that just kind of happen; they are the products of lives spent learning to say “yes” to God’s call in a thousand small ways. Before Saint Agnes or Saint Maximilian Kolbe ultimately gave their lives as martyrs, they had been practicing sacrifice and learning to trust God in the small things of daily life.

How are you preparing for your vocation? No matter which vocation you’re called to, it’s going to require selflessness, sacrifice, and a strong prayer life.

What you do today actually matters because God is calling you to greatness. He’s not just going to call you to something years from now, He’s calling you today to practice and prepare so that you can be ready to respond with love when the pressure’s on. When we learn to say “yes” to God, we find that His grace really is enough and that He can do the impossible in our lives.

“For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope. When you call me, when you go to pray to me, I will listen to you. When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me with you, says the Lord, and I will change your lot; I will gather you together from all the nations and all the places to which I have banished you, says the Lord, and bring you back to the place from which I have exiled you."

By Brian Kissinger

Lifeteen 

St Paul Miki and his companions

St. Paul Miki (1562-1597) was converted to Christianity by St. Francis Xavier and, feeling a call to religious life, became a Jesuit.

Miki preached the Gospel throughout Japan and for that he was condemned to death. He and his companions were marched 600 miles so they could be abused along the way. His preaching lead to many converts to Christianity; his last sermon, from the Cross on which he was crucified, is described in this account of his martyrdom:

The crosses were set in place. Father Pasio and Father Rodriguez took turns encouraging the victims. Their steadfast behaviour was wonderful to see. The Father Bursar stood motionless, his eyes turned heavenward. Brother Martin gave thanks to God’s goodness by singing psalms. Again and again he repeated: “Into your hands, Lord, I entrust my life”. Brother Francis Branco also thanked God in a loud voice. Brother Gonsalvo in a very loud voice kept saying the Our Father and Hail Mary.

Our brother, Paul Miki, saw himself standing now in the noblest pulpit he had ever filled. To his "congregation" he began by proclaiming himself a Japanese and a Jesuit. He was dying for the Gospel he preached. He gave thanks to God for this wonderful blessing and he ended his “sermon” with these words: “As I come to this supreme moment of my life, I am sure none of you would suppose I want to deceive you. And so I tell you plainly: there is no way to be saved except the Christian way. My religion teaches me to pardon my enemies and all who have offended me. I do gladly pardon the Emperor and all who have sought my death. I beg them to seek baptism and be Christians themselves."

Then he looked at his comrades and began to encourage them in their final struggle. Joy glowed in all their faces. When a Christian in the crowd cried out to him that he would soon be in heaven, his hands, his whole body strained upward with such joy that every eye was fixed on him.

Anthony, hanging at Louis’ side, looked toward heaven and called upon the holy names – “Jesus, Mary!” He began to sing a psalm: “Praise the Lord, you children!” (He learned it in catechism class in Nagasaki. They take care there to teach the children some psalms to help them learn their catechism).

Others kept repeating “Jesus, Mary!” Their faces were serene. Some of them even took to urging the people standing by to live worthy Christian lives. In these and other ways they showed their readiness to die.

Then, according to Japanese custom, the four executioners began to unsheathe their spears. At this dreadful sight, all the Christians cried out, “Jesus, Mary!” And the storm of anguished weeping then rose to batter the very skies. The executioners killed them one by one. One thrust of the spear, then a second blow. It was over in a very short time.

"The only reason for my being killed is that I have taught the doctrine of Christ. I thank God it is for this reason that I die. I believe that I am telling the truth before I die. I know you believe me and I want to say to you all once again: Ask Christ to help you become happy. I obey Christ. After Christ's example, I forgive my persecutors. I do not hate them. I ask God to have pity on all, and I hope my blood will fall on my fellow men as a fruitful rain." - Saint Paul Miki

Tuesday Tunes

Marianist Monday

Blessed William Joseph Chaminade's burial site

All our efforts, all our trials and all

our struggles must be directed

toward the purification of the heart 

through faith. This is really the 

whole purpose of Christianisty. For, 

to have a pure heart is to love God

alone, seek him alone, and to

strive towards him with all our 

energies. It is to avoid sin and even

the semblance of sin. It is to 

observe the laws of God, to fear his 

justice and to adore his sovereign 

will. To have a pure heart is, in a 

word, to practice faith and to profit 

from the lessons which faith teaches.

Clearly therefore, the faith 

which is God-revealing is

necessarily on which purifies the

heart.

Blessed William Joseph Chaminade

Method of Prayer on the Creed

Sunday's Word

Teachers are always on the move to make spelling lessons interesting and engaging. One recent piece of advice is to stop teaching the “i before e except after c” convention because it’s confusing. In short, there are so many exceptions that it isn’t really a rule. While other spelling conventions are useful, this rule has to go.

Not everyone agrees with the advice. Some people point out that the phrase does enable teachers to start a discussion about the peculiarities of the English language. But many others think the rule needs to be ditched.

Spelling conventions are a useful way to approach today's second reading. In fact, that chapter could be thought of as the answer to the question “How do you spell love?” The apostle Paul gives several rules for spelling it:

• Love is patient.

• Love is kind.

• Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

• Love does not insist on its own way.

• Love is not irritable or resentful.

• Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.

• Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Paul’s rules are far more poetic than the sing-songy chant of “i before e except after c,” but clearly, in spelling love, I doesn’t come before anything. When you love someone, U always comes before I.

Marianists - March for Life

The Marianists of the Province of Meribah travelled to the 40th Annual March for Life this year in Washington, DC. Over 150 high school students travelled with the Marianists to stand up for life.

 Take a glimpse at what happened during these two days with the Marianists.


 
March For Life 2013 from Kellenberg Memorial Video Produc on Vimeo.

LOVE LIFE

LOVE LIFE from Journey Box Media on Vimeo.