Today has been beautiful, a bit breezy but sunny and with a high in the mid-70s. Later in the week will not be so good, but I am enjoying it today. One advantage to the end of Daylight Savings is that I am really awake even early in the morning. I will look down at my watch after getting all sorts of things done, and it will still be only 8:45. The down side, of course, is that I start fading before 8:00 P.M.Back in 2000, when I was Vocation Director for the friars, I set up a vocations website. I did it using a very simple program that cost me about ten bucks, but until very recently, that was the website they were still using. Unfortunately, when I turned over all that to someone else, he neglected to get all the paperwork updated, and so the right to that particular site recently expired. The new Director contacted me on Friday, and we managed to get it reinstated today. If you want to see it -- updated a number of times since I set it up, but still pretty simple, click here. I see that some of the information is still out of date. For example, one page tells you to write to the Vocation Director at the house in Chicago, a monastery that the friars no longer have.
See what happens when I'm not there to take care of things?
4 comments:
And it's still out of date: see contact box under News Update (bottom of page).
Seems like there might have been a small group of PP's (potential postulants) at HH last week. Each weekday, around 8:00 a.m., a different young man was stationed either in the Sacred Heart alcove, in front of the St. Teresa mosiac or in the Shrine.
In the case of the SH altar and mosiac positionings, these young men appeared to be yearning/petrified and-or stupified and generally clutching a book.
In the case of the shrine fellow, I observed him staggering/floating/smiling/careening out of the shrine doors toward the pew placed horizontally along the windows on the St. John of the Cross side. Plopping down, he simply stared into space. The only car in the parking lot was mine. I assume it was a vocational live-in retreat.
Found this online and sent it to Fr. Michael. Once a Carmelite (you)...always .....
Fr. Denis Read, OCD, was inspired to write this for all Carmelites while celebrating
the 50th Jubilee of Fr. Michael Griffin. He graciously offered to share it here with us.
Brotherhood
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How beautiful, how noble is a band of brothers, friends...
Friendship for a lifetime, for a life that never ends,
Dedicated to a much, much larger life than theirs,
To a world-Church that's open to everyone who shares
In the mystery of Communion, built on faith and always open
To the healing of whatever tears the fabric of our peace:
Peace transcendent! overcoming human failings and the hurts
That our kind cannot escape;
Brothers find a strategy to put things back in place,
In a band of honest brothers, a noble band of friends.
A brother you can go to when your heart is broken up
By the darkness of the conflicts that are mankind's sorry lot;
For counsel, and the quieting of passions surging up
Into jealousy or anger, which can only call us back
To the mercy of the Christ, and all that He has taught.
Brothers, friends to share your thoughts with, however late the day,
Mentors, soothers, insight-givers to guide you on the way.
How blest the man with brothers who can give you what you need!
A brotherhood of noble men and noble women too,
Grouped around a Virgin Mother, with sisters, fathers,
Sons and daughters, cousins, all who grew
Into the Vine of Jesus Christ, now risen from the dead,
Fathered in a Upper Room, all wrapped in silent prayer
For a "Paraclete" He promised--to watching, waiting trust
Until His living Spirit overcame them in a gust
Of wind and flame, and Gospel fervor, turning into faith and love,
Making that noble band into the Kingdom from above
Of light most blessed, love most simple,
Koinonia once and always for the ages that are coming...
That noble band of brothers bearing fruit of apostolic charity,
Springing from the root of Jesus, seed of Mary, shoot of Jesse;
Source of gifts that ever flow from the Pentecostal brotherhood,
That noble band of friends.
Ah brothers, how we miss you in our far-off mission land,
Your gifts of understanding, your hearty grasp of hand--
True brotherhood is precious, much more precious than it seems.
Thank you for your brotherhood, today and yesterday
And celebrate it always,
For the Son of God is Brother to us all along the way.
Love, Maureen
Last week there seemed a daily early morning 'positioning' of young, solitary men in the upper church, either at the SH altar, in front of the mosiac of Teresa of Jesus or in the shrine chapel. In the case of the SH altar or TJ mosiac, each book-clutching (not necessarily white-knuckling)fellow seemed in a yearning/petrified/stupified fugue.
I observed the shrine fellow careening unsteadily out of the shrine and plopping in the pew under the stained glass windows in the back, apparently struck between the eyes with a spiritual tire iron! Gazing/smiling.
The lack of cars in the parking lot leads me to believe they were a live-in vocational retreat group. I know you to be a praying man. Once a Carmelite (you).....
__________
I found this online and sent it to Fr. Michael Griffin:
Fr. Denis Read, OCD, was inspired to write this for all Carmelites while celebrating
the 50th Jubilee of Fr. Michael Griffin. He graciously offered to share it here with us.
Brotherhood
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How beautiful, how noble is a band of brothers, friends...
Friendship for a lifetime, for a life that never ends,
Dedicated to a much, much larger life than theirs,
To a world-Church that's open to everyone who shares
In the mystery of Communion, built on faith and always open
To the healing of whatever tears the fabric of our peace:
Peace transcendent! overcoming human failings and the hurts
That our kind cannot escape;
Brothers find a strategy to put things back in place,
In a band of honest brothers, a noble band of friends.
A brother you can go to when your heart is broken up
By the darkness of the conflicts that are mankind's sorry lot;
For counsel, and the quieting of passions surging up
Into jealousy or anger, which can only call us back
To the mercy of the Christ, and all that He has taught.
Brothers, friends to share your thoughts with, however late the day,
Mentors, soothers, insight-givers to guide you on the way.
How blest the man with brothers who can give you what you need!
A brotherhood of noble men and noble women too,
Grouped around a Virgin Mother, with sisters, fathers,
Sons and daughters, cousins, all who grew
Into the Vine of Jesus Christ, now risen from the dead,
Fathered in a Upper Room, all wrapped in silent prayer
For a "Paraclete" He promised--to watching, waiting trust
Until His living Spirit overcame them in a gust
Of wind and flame, and Gospel fervor, turning into faith and love,
Making that noble band into the Kingdom from above
Of light most blessed, love most simple,
Koinonia once and always for the ages that are coming...
That noble band of brothers bearing fruit of apostolic charity,
Springing from the root of Jesus, seed of Mary, shoot of Jesse;
Source of gifts that ever flow from the Pentecostal brotherhood,
That noble band of friends.
Ah brothers, how we miss you in our far-off mission land,
Your gifts of understanding, your hearty grasp of hand--
True brotherhood is precious, much more precious than it seems.
Thank you for your brotherhood, today and yesterday
And celebrate it always,
For the Son of God is Brother to us all along the way.
Love, Maureen
Post a Comment