Saturday, September 25, 2010

A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum

September 25, 2010

Peace and Good,

My title signals something unusual that happened to me this week. I was preaching a mission at Sacred Heart Parish in Newburgh, NY (an Italian parish with about 2,000 families). On Tuesday I received a phone call from my Minister General (the big boss). He and the general counsel were meeting in Poland, and they had approved the suggestion of the English speaking provincials that I should be made an Assistant General of the order.

This had all started on September 1st when I received a call from my provincial, Fr. James. He was meeting with the other English speaking provincials in Montreal, and they had discussed the various candidates for this position. It was to fill out the six year term of Br. John Joseph Dolan, a very good and holy friar, who had passed away earlier this summer. There are another three years until the next general chapter. Fr. James asked me whether they might submit my name for this responsibility. I was all but speechless. I didn't expect it, I never even wanted it. I loved what I was doing, the preaching apostolate. But Fr. James said that he and the other provincials felt it was the call of the Holy Spirit. That was all I needed to hear. I had to say yes.

Right now I am preaching my last parish mission at St. John's parish in Kingston, Ontario. All the other missions on my schedule must now be cancelled. I feel bad about this, but when you're summoned to Rome, you don't say no.

My new responsibilities will be to participate in the general counsel, to be a liaison with the general government of the order for the English speaking jurisdictions, and whatever else the general assigns me. I will probably be travelling a little less, but the travel with be farther ranging.

For now, I will be keeping up this blog. We will see if that is possible in the future. I also intend to keep up the daily reflections, God willing.

I have finished a few works this week. One of them was an abridged book on tape called McNally's Dilemma by Lawrence Sanders. It takes place in Palm Beach, Florida, among the rich crowd that lives there. McNally is a type of detective who lived a devil make care life. It is just a loose, not too serious work.

A second work was Dracula by Bram Stoker. I have seen a million films about vampires. This is more or less the origin of all of them. It is really a masterpiece of Victorian horror. The book is so much better than any film I have ever seen. Much of the action is described in terms of diary entries of the main characters. If you have never read it, it is well worth reading.

The third book is Black Notice by Patricia Cornwall. I usually like her books about Kay Scarpetta, the medical examiner for the State of Virginia. This was not her best book. It is a little far fetched in spots, and it is a bit vindictive at times. She seems to like to portray women as scheming and jealous.

I won't give you my future calendar because, with my new assignment, that is changing by the day. I will be going over to Rome from October 26th to November 8th to begin to move in and for our first counsel meeting. Then I will come back to the States to finish off the arrangements. In early December, I will head over there for the next three years.

Please keep me in your prayers.

Shalom

fr. Jude

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Sacred Heart Parish, Newburgh, NY

September 19, 2010

Peace and Good,

Hope all is well! I finished up my mission in Iowa. Holy Rosary Cluster has five sites and one priest. A couple of the sites are relatively close, but a couple of them are over 20 miles from each other. It is a real challenge.

The people of Iowa are very much like all the people whom I have met in the mid-west. They are honest and friendly and straight forward. It was a pleasure working with them this past week. I had a morning and evening session at each of the sites, one of each of the Gospels and one on the Acts of the Apostles.

I flew back to Baltimore on Friday, and picked up the van and headed up 95. I drove as far as Trenton, NJ and stayed there for the night. Then I drove the rest of the way the next morning. The parish I am in now has about 2,000 families. It is called Sacred Heart, and it was originally an all Italian parish. They still have a Mass on Sunday morning with the readings and songs in Italian.

I finished a few works this week. One is a book by G.A. Henty called When London Burned. I had read a book by him earlier in the year about the battle of Agincourt. He wrote a large number of books about English history - historical fiction. He died around 1900, and his books are basically feel good stories of heroism. Once in a while it is good to read something simple like that.

The second book I finished was a biography of Kosciusko by Monica Gardner. K. was a Polish aristocrat who fought with the Americans during our revolution. When he returned to his native land, he fought the dismemberment of his own country by Russia, Prussia, and the Austrian empire (the partitions). He led a rebellion, and was eventually imprisoned by Catherine the Great. He was only liberated during the reign of her son.

The third book is actually a work in three volumes called Traditions of the North American Indians by James Athearn Jones. It was published in 1830, and purports to be a series of stories told by native Americans. I am not sure if all of the stories are authentic, but it was good reading and gave me a bit of insight into their culture.

My schedule for the next weeks is:

09/25/10 - 09/29/10 - St. John, the Apostle, Kingston, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. David Collins (Parish Mission)

10/02/10 - 10/06/10 - St. Raphael, Burlington, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. Maurice Richard (Parish Mission)

10/08/10 - 10/10/10 - Priestfield Retreat Center, Priestfield, WV p.o.c. Carolyn Protin (SFO Retreat)

10/14/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Evening for Married Couples)

10/15/10 - 10/17/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Men's Retreat)

10/22/10 - 10/26/10 - St. Julia Church, Siler City, NC 27344 p.o.c. Reverend James Fukes (Parish Mission)

11/06/10 - 11/11/10 - Sacred Heart, La Plata, MD 20646 p.o.c. Fr. Ron Potts (Parish Mission)

11/13/10 - 11/18/10 - St. Alphonsus, Wexford, PA 15090 p.o.c. Fr. Peter P. Murphy (Parish Mission)


God bless and
Shalom
fr. Jude

Saturday, September 11, 2010

In the Heart of Iowa

September 11, 2010

We pray today for those who died in 9/11, for their families and friends, and for those who caused those terrible events.

Peace and Good,

I spent the past week at home in Ellicott City catching up on a few things. I am home so rarely that my few days home are filled with doctor's and dentist appointments as well as meetings with either people for whom I am a spiritual director (which I love doing) or with others. I had to run up to Totowa, NJ, to pick up the freshly printed Lectors' Workbooks that I put together for this coming liturgical year. This week also included a meeting with my new provincial, Fr. James. The provincial is the boss for a group of friars in a geographic area (in our case Buffalo, Boston and Baltimore with friaries in the southeast). We both travel so much that this meeting had to be arranged a couple of months ago. Fr. James and I have lived together, so it is easy to discuss matters on many different levels.

Yesterday I flew out to a parish cluster in northern Iowa. This is a grouping of five different sites, each of which has a church. There is one priest who handles this arrangement very well. I heard yesterday that the average Sunday attendance at Mass is over 80% which is astounding. I will preach one night in each of the sites as well as having a morning session in four of them.

I finished a few works this week. One was Sunday's at Tiffaany by James Patterson. This books can best be described as cute. It is definitely a feel good book and it is quite funny. It was a nice book to relax.

A second book was Defenders of the Faith: Charles V, Suleyman the Magnificent, and the Battle for Europe: 1520-1536 by James Reston, Jr. This is a great history book about an incredibly traumatic period in European history. It concerns the moral decline in the papacy, the reformation of Martin Luther, the break of Henry VIII, the invasion of Europe by the Muslims, etc. If you like history, this is a great book. Not relaxing, but informative.

The third work was a rendition of the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain. I obtained this from librivox.org. They have taped books which can be downloaded for free. This is a typical Twain story. It is told in four parts (almost like four movements of a symphony). He tells the story of how a perpetual gambler is cheated, then he gives the story in French, then he gives the English translation of the French translation (which is very funny), and finally he speaks of how he was told that the story was actually an ancient Greek story (which it turns out not to have been).

My coming schedule is:

09/18/10 - 09/23/10 - Sacred Heart, Newburgh, NY 12550 p.o.c. Sr. Mary McCarthy/Most Reverend Dominick J. Lagonegro (Parish Mission)

09/25/10 - 09/29/10 - St. John, the Apostle, Kingston, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. David Collins (Parish Mission)

10/02/10 - 10/06/10 - St. Raphael, Burlington, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. Maurice Richard (Parish Mission)

10/08/10 - 10/10/10 - Priestfield Retreat Center, Priestfield, WV p.o.c. Carolyn Protin (SFO Retreat)

10/14/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Evening for Married Couples)

10/15/10 - 10/17/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Men's Retreat)

10/22/10 - 10/26/10 - St. Julia Church, Siler City, NC 27344 p.o.c. Reverend James Fukes (Parish Mission)

11/06/10 - 11/11/10 - Sacred Heart, La Plata, MD 20646 p.o.c. Fr. Ron Potts (Parish Mission)

11/13/10 - 11/18/10 - St. Alphonsus, Wexford, PA 15090 p.o.c. Fr. Peter P. Murphy (Parish Mission)

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

Friday, September 3, 2010

The Gospels and the psalms

September 3, 2010

Peace and Good,

This past week I have been in Mishawaka, Indiana. This is where we have our interprovince novitiate. The Conventual Franciscans have five provinces in the United States, and we collaborate on some levels of our formation of the new friars coming into the order.

Remember a couple of months ago I preached a retreat to the new novices. This week I gave them and a group of five sisters from the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist a workshop on the four Gospels (for our Franciscan life is based upon those Gospels) and the Psalms (which we pray throughout the day in our recitation of the Divine Office. The psalms especially can be difficult to understand, for they were written between two and three thousand years ago, and their symbolism can be very foreign to us today. Yet, as a Church, we are praying these psalms throughout the world. There is not a minute throughout the day or night that someone is not praying for the Church and for us. That can be a real consolation, especially for those who are in difficulty and for some reason cannot seem to pray for themselves (e.g. when they are depressed).

Tomorrow I head back to Ellicott City. I have a couple of days off, and then a series of meetings with various people and various medical and dental appointments (have to get them in while I am home).

I have finished a few works. The first was a book on tape called Simple Genius by David Baldacci. I like his writing, but this probably is not his best work. It is a story of the murder of a genius at a research center which lie next door to a CIA training facility. Not a bad read, just not the best.

The second book was a taped version of the Matarese Countdown. This is by Robert Ludlum. Normally, I love his writing, but once again, this was not his best work. I just had the feeling that he "phoned it in," giving a substandard performance because he knew that he could sell books just by his name being on the cover.

A third book, a history, was excellent. It is called Operation Mincemeat by7 Ben Macintyre. It is the story of a hoax which the British Secret Service put over on the Nazi's during World War II. The allies were getting ready to invade Sicily, and everyone knew it. They were afraid that the opposition of the Italians and Germans would be too intense. Someone came up with the idea of dropping a dead body in the sea with false documents that implied that the allies intended to invade Greece and Sardinia instead. They dropped the body off of Spain, knowing that even though Spain was neutral, they were really secretly collaborating with the Nazi's. There is a nerve wracking section where the Spanish find the body, but refuse to turn the documents over to the Nazi's. The British don't know what to do, because the last thing that they could do is apply too much pressure or the Spanish and Germans might think that the documents are false. Fortunately, they eventually turn them over and the Germans fall for the trick.

The following is my schedule for the next few weeks:

09/11/10 - 09/16/10 - Holy Rosary Cluster, Elma, IA 50628 p.o.c. Fr. Ray Atwood (Parish Mission)

09/18/10 - 09/23/10 - Sacred Heart, Newburgh, NY 12550 p.o.c. Sr. Mary McCarthy/Most Reverend Dominick J. Lagonegro (Parish Mission)

09/25/10 - 09/29/10 - St. John, the Apostle, Kingston, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. David Collins (Parish Mission)

10/02/10 - 10/06/10 - St. Raphael, Burlington, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. Maurice Richard (Parish Mission)

10/08/10 - 10/10/10 - Priestfield Retreat Center, Priestfield, WV p.o.c. Carolyn Protin (SFO Retreat)

10/14/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Evening for Married Couples)

10/15/10 - 10/17/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Men's Retreat)

10/22/10 - 10/26/10 - St. Julia Church, Siler City, NC 27344 p.o.c. Reverend James Fukes (Parish Mission)

11/06/10 - 11/11/10 - Sacred Heart, La Plata, MD 20646 p.o.c. Fr. Ron Potts (Parish Mission)

11/13/10 - 11/18/10 - St. Alphonsus, Wexford, PA 15090 p.o.c. Fr. Peter P. Murphy (Parish Mission)

God bless and Shalom,

fr. Jude

PS Please remember that we are seeking some money to print a translation of my articles as a book in India (in the native language of Kerala, the region where kthe friars are located). We need $3,000. If you can help in any way, please send your donation to Evangelization Office; 12290 Folly Quarter Rd; Ellicott City, MD 21042.