Leap of Faith

 
It's always hard to blog after a break. So, I tried to find pleasant news to post today. Here's a cool story to share with you:

KITTERY, Maine - The first time Barbara MacLeod visited St. Charles Children’s Home, she knew it was a story that needed to be told. So she told it: the story of six Catholic nuns in Rochester, who live with and care for 20 of New Hampshire’s most abused and neglected children.

She asked the questions: "What does it take for a wounded child to trust again; how strong is the healing power of love; and what does it take to save a ministry in peril?"

The answer MacLeod discovered: "A Leap of Faith," the title of the documentary that was recently awarded the 2005 Gracie Allen Award by Women in Radio & Television.

The award is one of a thousand different responses to the documentary.

According to Mother Paul Marie, a sister at St. Charles Children’s Home, more than 3,000 pieces of mail were sent to the home following the documentary. They stopped counting the number of calls they received after 800.

Not one call, letter or visitor had a negative response to the documentary or to the work done at the home, which MacCleod captured beautifully, Marie said.

"It was just so overwhelming," she said. "The secretaries and I sat with a Kleenex box between us, because we’d open the letters and just start crying."

Read more...

Click here to read more about "St. Charles Children's Home."
 

Easter Prayer

 
I received the following Easter prayer from my friend:

I pray that through out the Easter holiday
God fills your heart with love and he may,
In his great vast reach from heaven above,
Flow the wonderful Easter Spirit, of Jesus above,

I pray he grant, truly sweet and Angelic care,
That you may know, he is always there.
I pray within God's great vast Love for you,
In life, daily onward, In all that you may do.

You feel his love, His Strength, His Peace,
This Easter you find a spiritual release.
I know God will grant this, sooner than then
As in Jesus name, for Easter, I ask this, Amen

Happy Easter everyone.
 

Baby Body Found Outside a Church

 
The Associated Press reported the following sad story:

KEARNY, N.J. -- Hudson County authorities said a newborn girl was found partially buried outside a church in Kearny.

A priest planting flowers made the discovery outside Saint Cecelia's Roman Catholic Church on Tuesday.

The body was wrapped in a cloth blanket and dressed in a one-piece jumpsuit with booties.

...

Anyone with information should contact the Hudson County prosecutor.

For more details check this report.
 

Christmas and Easter of Peace

 
I received the following good news from The Archdiocese of Turin, Italy:

The Archdiocese of Turin, Italy aiming at strengthening the relation of support and cooperation between our church and the Chaldean Catholic Church of Iraq that began in 2004 with the plan "I have a new friend, an Iraqi Chaldean priest" which is still going on for the second year, announces another plan of mutual knowledge between the two communities:

Christmas and Easter of Peace.

By the end of the last year some primary school students of Turin and its province (aged 6-13) realized some drawings of Christmas and Peace subject to be sent to children of their same age of three parish churches in Baghdad. The drawings, showing the peaceful and friendly feelings of the children towards their new Iraqi friends were given to the Iraqi children on Christmas days as a little present by their three parish priests.

After Christmas the Iraqi children showed that notwithstanding the difficult situation they are unfortunately living the desire of peace, normality and friendship always wins: they drew for their Italian friends drawings having for subject the Easter and the Peace.

The Italian children were very happy and excited when they knew that the drawings from Iraq had reached Turin via Jordan and so were their teachers who admitted the values of the plan. From the educational point of view it permitted to their students to go deep into the knowledge of the historical and geographical reality of Iraq according to the classes attended by them and to their age. From the human point of view it permitted to the Italian children to think of the Iraqi children not more only as far television figures but as real new friends, with names, faces, dreams and hopes like every child in the world. Finally, the plan permitted to the Italian children to "live" Iraq and its situation not more only as passive TV consumers but as active actors of a little piece of that reality, and this stimulated discussions and debates about what’s going on in that country in the classes but also in the families of the children.

The number of drawings sent to Baghdad and arrived to Turin reporting the peace flag, the Iraqi and Italian flags together, and the words Peace, Pace, Salam and Shlama leave non doubts about the thoughts of the children of both nations: they, like every other child in the world want and deserve peace and all the world should take care of this request.

The drawings will be showed for the first time on Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 of April in Turin in San Giulio d'Orta Church, Corso Cadore 17/3. The Italian drawings will be shown by computer as the original copies are in Baghdad, while the Iraqi drawings will be in the original form. The exhibition will see also two particular moments: on Saturday and Sunday afternoon some Iraqi tales will be read to all the children attending the exhibition to let them know another little piece of the great Iraqi culture and history.

The participants to the plan Christmas and Easter of Peace in Italy were schools and associations in Torino and its province and in Palermo and its province. In Turin they were coordinated by the Pastoral Migrants Office lead by Don Fredo Olivero, in charge also of the plan "I have a new friend: an Iraqi Chaldean priest" in Palermo they were coordinated by the local secretary of the MIR.

Thank you to Archdiocese of Turin, Italy for helping the Iraqi Children. I really appreciate it.
 

Be Like Leaven

 
Zenit published a good article on its Web site regarding Iraqi Christians:

Chaldean Archbishop Gabriel Kassab of Basra says that the Christians in Iraq must be "like leaven" in changing their society.

On a visit to London, Archbishop Kassab, 65, explained to the international charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that the help provided through the Church in Iraq was widely appreciated by various communities.

As an example, the prelate reported that the Church in Basra now runs three kindergartens, where 90% of the pupils are Muslim.

The archbishop added that although some Christian families fled during the insurgency, a number have since returned since the January elections. He estimated that there are now about 1,000 Christian families in his archdiocese.

Read more...

Archbishop Kassab was the pastor of my church in Baghdad while he was still a priest. He is a remarkable person. He had and still has a lot of energy. He works very hard for his community and his achievements are countless.
 

The Purpose Driven Life

 
Last week, the book "The Purpose Driven Life"was mentioned any time Ashley Smith's name was on the news. The book definitely saved her life and turned a fugitive to the cops without much resistance:

The power of a religious appeal was displayed vividly recently in Atlanta, as the gutsy hostage of Brian Nichols, the accused courthouse killer, appeared to calm him down by reading a passage from a spiritual bestseller.

It was no ordinary book, but Southern Baptist minister Rick Warren's "The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?" The book of Christian spiritual exercises, employing verses from the Bible and meant to be read over 40 days, has sold more than 21 million copies since October 2002. Since the dramatic events of last Friday, sales have leaped again.

In interviews, the hostage, Ashley Smith, has said she read aloud from Warren's book to Nichols, who had taken her captive after allegedly killing a judge and three others.

Smith said Nichols had asked her to repeat a passage about service to others, and she said she suggested to him that his acts might have a purpose -- that by disseminating God's word in prison, "you can go to jail and save more people than you killed."

Read more...

I salute Ashley for her calmness while being in a very difficult situation. I'm certainly going to read this book.
 

Welcoming People Into Your Life

 
I don't know who wrote the following words. But, they're very powerful:

So much of our lives are spent in keeping people out.

We have private rooms,
private houses,
private clubs and so on.

Of course there are times when everybody needs to be alone. Yet there is a sense in which our size as human beings can be measured by the circles we draw to take other people in.

The smaller the circle,
the smaller the person.

A strong person is not afraid of people who are different. A wise person welcomes them. By shutting others out, a person denies the riches of other people's experience. They starve their minds, and harden their hearts.

When a wise person names his brothers and sisters, he draws no circle smaller than the first one ever drawn on this earth.

In the beginning God gave the earth its shape. God made it round. God includes everyone. So should we!

Have a nice day everyone.
 

Sister M. Rose Therese Lange

 
I always say nuns are the invisible heroes of the Catholic church. They work hard with the least recognition from their communities. Sister M. Rose was one of those heroes:

Sister M. Rose Therese Lange, 79, who by force of will and personality - and through hard work - opened one of the first long-term shelters in Toledo for abused women, died Tuesday in the Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Francis, Sylvania.

The cause of death was not known. She had been in failing health.

Sister Rose Therese helped start Bethany House in 1984 after she learned that abused women could not stay at other shelters longer than 60 days. Bethany House allowed women and their children to stay for up to a year, during which they'd prepare for a job or further education.

She was director of the house for six years and development director an additional five years. "Domestic violence" then was not even a household term, said Sister Faith Cosky, Bethany House director from 1990 to 1997. "She started on practically nothing," Sister Faith said. "She had to beg for every penny. She was a visionary for the cause."

Read more...

May her soul rest in peace. She was a great nun.
 

More Virgin Mary Items

 
I believe in miracles. But, the latest wave of Virgin Mary appearances on bread and other items have turned commercial. The latest was reported by The Associated Press a few days ago:

LINCOLN, Neb. - An Internet casino that previously bought a partially eaten grilled cheese sandwich now has a pretzel that some believe is shaped like the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus.

Antigua-based Golden Palace Casino swooped in about 30 seconds before bidding closed Wednesday evening on the Internet auction site eBay.

The winning bid: $10,600.

"What it says to me is that this pretzel is so much more than an edible item. We only paid $3.29 for the whole bag," said Machelle Naylor, who sold the snack from her home in St. Paul.

The likeness of the Virgin Mary also was seen in the grilled cheese sandwich for which the Golden Palace paid $28,000 to a Florida woman in November.

Read more...

Yes, that was definitely a good investment.
 

Finding Common Grounds

 
It's always good when people of different faiths can find a common ground to better understand each other. A Rabbi and a priest were able to achieve that successfully.

The Register-Guard reported:

Jonathan Seidel and Tom Yurchak sometimes like to share jokes with each other. Rabbi-priest jokes, to be precise.
They probably can be forgiven, since Seidel is rabbi of Eugene's fledgling Or Hagan Light of the Garden minyan, and Yurchak is the parish priest at St. Jude Catholic Church. But the two men's shared passions go far beyond a good punch line.

When Seidel decided last year to start a new, conservative Jewish congregation, he knew he needed to find a worship space to rent. So he went to St. Jude, widely regarded as Eugene's most liberal Catholic parish, to inquire about the availability of its chapel sanctuary - on Saturdays, the Jewish sabbath, not Sundays.

That's when he first met Yurchak, who had arrived at St. Jude only months earlier after serving St. Patrick Catholic Church in Canby for 10 years.

"We just really hit it off right away," said Seidel. "He has a good sense of humor, and we recognized right away that we both had an interest in scholarship and religious studies. I'd studied Christian thought and he'd studied Judaism. We had a language to speak to each other."

And so speak they did. Yurchak learned that Seidel had written articles and part of his doctoral dissertation on amulets - religious icons worn on the body because of their supposed power to protect against harm.

Seidel, in turn, learned about Yurchak's remarkable personal library -25,000 volumes, on virtually all aspects of religious history and church law, not to mention a Yiddish Bible - and his collection of nearly 100 crosses, amulets and other religious icons.

Read more...

Adopt an Iraqi Priest

 
I meant to publish this earlier. But, it's never too late to thank the Diocese of Turin in Italy for their support of the Iraqi Catholic priests.

Zenit reported:

Plan to Promote Long-Distance "Adoption" of Priests in Iraq

Initiative of Archdiocese of Turin

TURIN, Italy, SEPT. 22, 2004 (Zenit.org).- In the wake of attacks on churches in Iraq that prompted some Christians to emigrate, the Archdiocese of Turin has launched a plan to "adopt" Catholic priests in that country.

The project, entitled "I Have a New Friend: An Iraqi Chaldean Priest," is beginning with the objective to help 10 young parish priests of Baghdad.

Organizers of the initiative told ZENIT that the financial aid sent to these priests will be used "to improve the conditions of life of the communities themselves, by committing themselves to invest it, in the measure allowed by the situation."

The founders and directors of the project are Italian Father Fredo Olivero, who heads the archdiocesan Office of Pastoral Care for Emigrants; and Iraqi Father Douglas Shamshoon Al Bazi, parish priest of the Chaldean churches of Mar Mari and Mar Ephrem in Baghdad, and director of the Baghdad Catechesis Center.

The initiative has the approval of Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Isaac Jacques.

Father Olivero referred to the Chaldean priests the program aims to help.

"Each one of them knows his community and its needs, and each one is aware that material aid is useful if it is accompanied by the cultural growth that the aid can promote," the Italian priest said. "A growth that, although addressed to all, is oriented in particular to children, who need to be able to count on the hope of a better future."

The organizers stipulate that whoever commits himself to adopt an Iraqi priest must do so for at least one year.

The amount established "for the year 2004 is 1,000 euros" which "corresponds to the total annual figure that Iraqi young priests receive," Father Olivero added.

The project provides for direct contact between the priest and those who adopt it, which can be one person or a group.

Prayers For Priests

 
Fr. Edward A. Sousa Jr. has asked the readers to pray for priests. He directed us to a beautiful Web site called "Prayers For Priests." I chose two prayers to share with you:

The first prayer is by St. Theresa of Lisieux

O Jesus, eternal Priest,
keep your priests within
the shelter of Your Sacred Heart,
where none may touch them.

Keep unstained their anointed hands,
which daily touch Your Sacred Body.

Keep unsullied their lips,
daily purpled with your Precious Blood.

Keep pure and unearthly their hearts,
sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.

Let Your holy love surround them and
shield them from the world's contagion.

Bless their labors with abundant fruit and
may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and
consolation here and in heaven their beautiful
and everlasting crown.

Amen.

The second prayer is by the late John J. Cardinal Carberry:

Keep them; I pray Thee, dearest Lord.

Keep them, for they are Thine
The priests whose lives burn out before
Thy consecrated shrine.

Keep them, for they are in the world,
Though from the world apart.

When earthly pleasures tempt, allure --
Shelter them in Thy heart.

Keep them and comfort them in hours
Of loneliness and pain,

When all their life of sacrifice
For souls seems but in vain.

Keep them and remember, Lord,
they have no one but Thee.

Yet, they have only human hearts,
With human frailty.

Keep them as spotless as the Host,
That daily they caress;

Their every thought and word and deed,
Deign, dearest Lord, to bless.

Please keep priests in your prayers.
 

An Interview With an Iraqi Friar

 
Sheila Provencher interviewed fr. Yousif Thomas, an Iraqi friar, while in Baghdad. The interview was published in America magazine and Electronic Iraq. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Yousif Thomas Mirkis, O.P., is an Iraqi Roman Catholic priest. He recently welcomed me to his community home in Baghdad, the convent of the Dominican friars. In the courtyard, he pointed to the ground. "Look," he said. A cross lay molded into the tiles. "This is to remind us that the cross is down here, with us. The cross is in the mud." At 55, Father Yousif has spent most of his life working "in the mud," striving to heal his society's wounds and build healthy communities. He teaches theology and ethnology at Babel College in Baghdad and is the chief editor of Christian Thought, Iraq's oldest theological journal. Amid the current strife, Father Yousif works to foster peace through understanding. He views education as the best way to respond to the poverty, illiteracy and subsequent violence created by years of war and sanctions. His current projects include a popular university for the working poor, an online distance-learning program for foreign languages and numerous dialogues with Muslim and Christian leaders.

"I have no fear," he says. "I am prudent, I try to seek wisdom. But I am not afraid." The following interview was conducted in Baghdad last November.

Read more...

I hope you enjoy reading the interview.