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Paulist Associates Issue No. 50, April 2020 A Monthly Newsletter for Paulist Associates Index Contacts page 11 Paulist Associates Promise page 11 The Desert of Social Distancing page 2 Prayer for the Intercession of Fr. Isaac T. Hecker page 11 Lent in the Time of Coronavirus page 3 Proposed Program for April page 9 Looking for Input page 7 Reaching Out/Deepening Faith During the Pandemic page 1 Our Monthly Programs for Our 15 Paulist Patrons page 8 Renewing Promises and Updating Lists page 5 Paulist Associate News page 5 Reaching Out and Deepening Our Faith During the Pandemic Submitted by Mike Kallock, C.S.P. As our April Newsletter goes online, the coronavirus pandemic obviously preoccupies most of our lives. As director of the Paulist Associates, I have been asked to write about this crisis. I initially resisted this because the crisis is rapidly spreading and changing. What one may say now may well be outdated in a few days. Also, I humbly submit there are so many much more authoritative persons with much bigger microphones than I, who need to be listened to and heeded. So, to the question: What would I like to tell our Associates during this crisis. First, follow the CDC guidelines of keeping our physical distance. But at the same time, now more than ever, reach out to Fr. Mike Kallock, C.S.P. others in whatever way you can by phone, text, ZOOM, Skype, and so on. Many of you are more creative than I am in ways of connecting to others from a physical distance. It initially upset me when the prescription to protect ourselves, slow down the spread of the virus, and flatten the curve so as not to exhaust our medical community, was spoken of as “self-isolating.” I wish from the very start they would have said that the prescription is physical distancing and connecting to others by other means. Isolating is unhealthy at any time. It is the last thing we should be doing now. What I have been doing, e.g. is making a point every day calling at least three different people. Never the same ones again for several days. I say this as someone who does not do much phone calling. Second, a crisis is always a challenge and opportunity to deepen and grow in our faith. This crisis can easily shake a fragile faith. That is what is behind Jesus telling his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane to, “Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test.” The test being that which can Page 1 of 11 Paulist Associates destroy their faith in Jesus. Same for Matthew and Luke’s “...do not subject us to the final test,” in their versions of the Our Father. The final test as the Crisis, the Cross that breaks us. A Crisis is a now moment. So now is the time to strengthen and deepen our faith. We now have more time and less distractions to really pray, meditate, read spiritually, and be still in the presence of God. Just before this crisis kicked-in I started reading The Recovery of Love by Jeffrey D. Imbach published in 1992. Imbach writes of our time as time of a loss of an intimate, passionate love for God and for one another. He feels the answer is found in the wisdom of four Christian Mystics of the fourteenth century. Why is this relevant? Because they lived in the time of the Black Plague which killed over 50 million people, over 60% of Europe. I just want to single out Julian of Norwich. Her famous lines are often quoted today: “…all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.” During the Black Plague, Julian of Norwich reached deep within her faith and found and experienced, that God like our clothing “wraps and enfolds us for love, embraces us and shelters us, surrounds us for love.” During this crisis may you reach out more to others and may this crisis compel you to deepen your faith so that you experience the love of God and the love of others in a more loving, intimate way, than ever before. The Desert of Social Distancing By Jacqueline Toepfer, Chicago Associate "On a morning in mid-March, I participated in Mass at Old St. Mary’s in Chicago by live-streaming via the internet—a necessity after the Archdiocese suspended all public Masses due to the coronavirus. As usual, it was a beautiful service, with beautiful music, and a wonderful homily (which we have come to expect from the Paulist Fathers). But following the service, I found myself reflecting on the strangeness of this time. A time when I cannot freely engage with my Jacqueline Toepfer fellow Catholics or Paulists. A time when I cannot participate in the Eucharist. I wondered if this experience was like that of the early Catholic church in Rome. During the time when these early Catholics were being persecuted, these first Catholics must have known that to spread the good news, to invite another to the Eucharist, also meant that one was inviting another into a dangerous situation. Having been a persecutor, St. Paul knew what he was calling others to when he evangelized the Good News. St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy tells us that he knew of the peril of such times and that he would face his own persecution. The uncertainty of our current times, when even a handshake could put oneself or someone else in peril, calls into question our own mortality. “Am I ready”? Have I “competed well” and “kept the faith” as St. Paul did? Page 2 of 11 Paulist Associates As each of us try to go about doing what we must to care for our families, to shepherd our Catholic family, or to serve the most vulnerable in our communities, we do so knowing that we could be putting ourselves or someone we love in danger. The social distancing to which we are now subject to brings into focus what is most important in our lives. Each human interaction raises uncertainty about the spread of the virus. It forces us to consider who we most want to protect and who, by our actions, we may be putting in harm’s way. Suddenly, family near and far seem so much more important, especially our elders who are among the most vulnerable. Things that once seemed important, now seem silly. Is that gym workout really that important? Do I really need a manicure? Is the recognition obtained from a job that keeps me away from those I love truly worth it? Are we focusing on the things that God is calling us to do? How can we protect the people we love while also distancing ourselves from the very people who make life worth living? We are called to action but must sit in wait. This realization can lead to a sense of helplessness. It is here that I find the words of St. Paul in his letter to Timothy encouraging. His words provide hope that if we remain faithful to God’s word, we will have the strength to bear all. I find that I am drawn to prayer—calling upon St. Joseph the Protector to protect my home, my family, our Holy Father Pope Francis and the Universal Church. This Lenten season, already a time for prayer, fasting and good works, seems heightened by this period of social distancing as we “go into the desert” of isolation. I find myself looking forward to Easter joy, when, God willing, we will be able to celebrate the Eucharist as a Catholic community with the people we love. Even if that does not happen on April 12, it will have special meaning this year. Once again, I am reminded of the joy the early Christians must have felt when they could steal away to celebrate the Eucharist, and I thank God for the gift of the Eucharist and our Catholic family. Lent in the Time of Coronavirus By Denis Hurley, a Boston Paulist Associate I never really got to know my dad in my adult years. He had a stroke when I was a senior in high school and died eight years later, three months after my mother, who had also been ill for years, died. That was 52 years ago when I was 23. I actually knew my mom better in those years because my dad was paralyzed on one side and without much speech, so our interactions then were mostly about the brand-new N.Y. Mets, who essentially gave him a life, and what contributions I could make to his care. But this Lent, I’ve been re-forging a relationship with him based on my Lenten journey having pointed me to a book that was on his chairside table through all the years that I knew him as healthy: Chesterton’s semi-biography of St. Thomas Aquinas. How, you may wonder, does this relate to Lent 2020 and, even more so, to coronavirus? Page 3 of 11 Paulist Associates It probably began in late 2001, after 9/11, when I started a practice I’ve continued since of reading portions of and commentaries on the Qu’ran every night during the month of Ramadan. That led to an interest in Islamic thinking and how it was similar to and different from the other two Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity. That, in turn, led to stumbling on a book by a Notre Dame academician about the similarities in thinking and method among three great medieval scholars: Ibn Sina (an Islamic scholar sometime called the Father of Modern Medicine,) Maimonides (the 12th century Jewish explainer of the Torah,) and Thomas Aquinas (the 13th century Doctor of the Church.) I knew something about Aquinas because I went to Fordham in the early ’60s and you couldn’t slip through those hallowed Jesuit halls without becoming at least passingly familiar with the Dominican giant.