Newness.
Nothing seems new as nothing changed after Newtown, CT., at the slaughter of my young sisters and brothers that still wrenches my heart and soul.
Immigration policy limps.
Nothing new.
Nothing.
Nada.
Bullying and discrimination with hate crimes still abound.
Jews and Catholics could lovingly rise up against so many Americans who have little regard for our Muslim sisters and brothers.
Deeper dialog.
Still, nothing.
No newness.
The sun will rise this dark and dreary Easter Sunday season through Pentecost's fire fueling strength to love God and neighbor.
To be on God's side as President Lincoln hoped.
To take God's side.
Newness.
A new, fresh sun, and darkness inevitably will come sooner or later.
Humble, simple surrendering before God is the NEWNESS I will encounter in the stranger, in washing the feet of inmates, including women, and Muslims.
Newness.
After a dry stream much of my years as a priest, a NEWNESS rises like the ON THE RISE BAKERY sponsored by the Capuchin Soup Kitchen. It is located on Gratiot at McClellan in Detroit.
On the rise.
Newness is also.
A blessed Easter.
Be in touch with newness this night and day and all the minutes in between.
Much like Aline Irvine, a wise elder who seems so full of newness each time I meet her.
Newness.
Be it.
We need it.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Sealed Tomb Recalling Rising of Jesus
South on Gratiot Avenue in Detroit, my aim was to make a pilgrimage to area churches, mosques and synagogues on Good Friday, the Christian observance that recalls the torture of Jesus, and his crucifixion, a horror we need to speak up against before inflicted upon any human being, let alone other creatures of the earth.
Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Catholic, Episcopal, and more edifices line the major thorough way.
Many were closed, however.
Others, like Assumption Grotto Catholic Church at McNichols had a parking lot full of cars this sunny afternoon when Spring broke forth wonderfully, it seems.
The sun felt so good.
It did on this day we shall never forget.
The final church on my pilgrimage was the Historic Trinity near downtown Detroit.
After animated preaching and praise, we assembled in front of the church to seal and shutter it for Saturday. A unique idea, I thought.
Now, we await Easter's rising of Jesus.
This revered custom at the city church is appreciated. It becomes the tomb of Jesus where he lay until the breaking forth, rising of new life.
What wondrous celebrations of 50 days of the Easter season.
Fully, actively and consciously festive until Pentecost.
When efforts are made to remove the word Easter and replace it with Spring, instead, Christians may want to rise up this Easter to be pro-active in spreading the Good News amid naysayers who want Christ out of the culture, let alone any semblance of God and God's reign.
Like torture, and all the horrific ways people are executed, we must rise up for life.
That is, to support life in and outside the womb!
And, the tomb.
A blessed Easter to you!
Let the Alleluia hymns resound with gusto, and may your heart swell with the call to live, TO LIVE, DON'T DIE!
LIVE!
Christ has died, Christ is Risen, and Christ will come again!
For sure.
Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Catholic, Episcopal, and more edifices line the major thorough way.
Many were closed, however.
Others, like Assumption Grotto Catholic Church at McNichols had a parking lot full of cars this sunny afternoon when Spring broke forth wonderfully, it seems.
The sun felt so good.
It did on this day we shall never forget.
The final church on my pilgrimage was the Historic Trinity near downtown Detroit.
After animated preaching and praise, we assembled in front of the church to seal and shutter it for Saturday. A unique idea, I thought.
Now, we await Easter's rising of Jesus.
This revered custom at the city church is appreciated. It becomes the tomb of Jesus where he lay until the breaking forth, rising of new life.
What wondrous celebrations of 50 days of the Easter season.
Fully, actively and consciously festive until Pentecost.
When efforts are made to remove the word Easter and replace it with Spring, instead, Christians may want to rise up this Easter to be pro-active in spreading the Good News amid naysayers who want Christ out of the culture, let alone any semblance of God and God's reign.
Like torture, and all the horrific ways people are executed, we must rise up for life.
That is, to support life in and outside the womb!
And, the tomb.
A blessed Easter to you!
Let the Alleluia hymns resound with gusto, and may your heart swell with the call to live, TO LIVE, DON'T DIE!
LIVE!
Christ has died, Christ is Risen, and Christ will come again!
For sure.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Lent Ends With Mass of the Lord's Supper, Triduum's Highest Holy Days Start for Christians
Engaging in the life of the community of the beloved disciples these high holy days is central to Christians.
If any days depict inhumanity of man and woman it is this week's holy week trek of Jesus.
There's betrayal, denial, ridicule, rejection, and more.
It all boils within me as I witness the life of the Risen One who suffered, died and overcame the world.
For us.
For you.
For me.
For all as a shining example of what love does.
How people want to kill Love.
It reflects too brightly on how I need to live each day.
Life's dark hates Light and love.
Another way is possible. Violence is not the way. Jesus showed the Way, Life and Truth these days.
Charged with inciting a riot, blasphemy, and rebellion, Jesus was far from these condemnations in the dark of night.
Jesus may have disturbed the conscience of the leaders who led him to the slaughter. Like the Lamb he was and is for us today.
We need disturbers of our ways to set us on a path of morphing and more.
Good Friday.
So good.
How will I make it better before Easter's 50 day season?
How?
Enter and engage with Mass this evening, the stations of the Cross tomorrow, the Easter Vigil and Sunday with the season of hope that follow.
Enter fully.
And, feel all the feelings Jesus felt.
If any days depict inhumanity of man and woman it is this week's holy week trek of Jesus.
There's betrayal, denial, ridicule, rejection, and more.
It all boils within me as I witness the life of the Risen One who suffered, died and overcame the world.
For us.
For you.
For me.
For all as a shining example of what love does.
How people want to kill Love.
It reflects too brightly on how I need to live each day.
Life's dark hates Light and love.
Another way is possible. Violence is not the way. Jesus showed the Way, Life and Truth these days.
Charged with inciting a riot, blasphemy, and rebellion, Jesus was far from these condemnations in the dark of night.
Jesus may have disturbed the conscience of the leaders who led him to the slaughter. Like the Lamb he was and is for us today.
We need disturbers of our ways to set us on a path of morphing and more.
Good Friday.
So good.
How will I make it better before Easter's 50 day season?
How?
Enter and engage with Mass this evening, the stations of the Cross tomorrow, the Easter Vigil and Sunday with the season of hope that follow.
Enter fully.
And, feel all the feelings Jesus felt.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
How They Personally Pray: Jewish and Christian
An intimate telling of how they pray.
Up close and personal.
Personally, that is.
Jewish and Christian clergy, among others, teach others how to pray, Monday, April 29, 2013, at 11:45 am until 1:30 pm at the distinguished Focus:HOPE, founded by the late Father William Cunningham and Eleanor Josaitis. The event with tours of the sprawling service campus are available at 1300 Oakman Boulevard, Detroit.
In a session called, "Powerful Praying, Prophets and Politics: Leaders Step Up to the Plate," each clergy will take about five minutes to tell how their prayer informs and leads to community involvement, even prophetic action.
Devotional books for daily praying, and the Psalms of the Bible are most popular.
A Lutheran minister told me at my Foam Factory office in Clinton Township, MI., that when one neglects thee devotionals, his or her life declines.
How true in my own experience of the Liturgy of the Hours, comprised largely of Psalms to be recited multiple times a day.
When I neglect my prayers, life is also neglected.
Rabbi Dorit Edut of Hungtington Woods, MI., with ties to the Downtown Detroit Isaac Agree Synagogue, notes:
"Every morning and evening I take time for personal prayer, usually after a short session of the daily prayers which are part of the Jewish tradition. In the morning, I center myself and connect to my inner being, thanking the Divine God for life and for restoring my soul. Then, I pray for health, prosperity, strength, and love for the members of my immediate and extended families. I pray that God sends physical and emotional and spiritual healing to all those I know are in need of this. I also pray for the leaders of our world to be guided to making good decisions and to work together. At night, I take time to thank God for the many individual blessings I experienced this day and ask for God's protection and peace for my family and myself during this night."
Oak Park resident, Rabbi Morehai Waldman spends time reciting Psalm 23, among others, he admits.
"That Psalm, among others, helped me through my bout with cancer," he confides.
What impressed me about the late Father William Cunnigham and Eleanor Josaitis, founders of Focus:HOPE in 1968, after the riots, was how they both pressed pennies in the palms of the hands of people they met, saying, "Remember in whom we trust."
Josaitis was a devotee of the twelve step spirituality. I know that she rose early each day to connect with the Creator.
The Holy Spirit was huge for Josaitis who moved with her husband, Don, and five children, from Taylor to Detroit, MI., after Cunningham hatched the need for a civil and human rights organization after the Detroit riot . It would be based on the prophet Isaiah, and Matthew's Gospel, Ch. 25.
Like the Trappist Thomas Merton of Gethsemane, Kentucky, the activist writer, urged people to find a garden to spend time with prayer. Cunningham enjoyed a long run at Detroit's Belle Isle Park, a jewel of an isle near downtown Detroit. After that, the buoyant and charismatic pastor would drive over to the Bonaventure Center on Mt. Elliott where Father Solanus Casey was a porter who answered the front door.
"Take a half hour a day," Merton advised those who wrote him, "and just walk up and down the flowerbeds with the intention of offering this walk up as a meditation and prayer."
JoAnn Loria Briffa of Clinton Township, Michigan, notes that prayer evolves over time for her.
"I find less need for books, words and images at this time as prayer evolves over the years if we continue to be faithful to the times given to prayer. Just sitting quietly by myself and being in touch with the God within. God is ever close and when silent and attentive I can feel His presence. I talk to God as I would an intimate friend. Practice often and talk to God as if He is in front of you."
A young attorney from Troy, MI., Sadeer Farjo, says:
"I like to sit before the Blessed Sacrament to pray."
I am increasingly convinced that some sense of a prayer beyond words is the deepest meaning of it, and why Saint Paul tells us that we can pray 'always' in I Thes., Ch. 5:18, and Eph.. 5:20.
Centering on "You are my beloved," is a favorite litany or mantra phrase that I repeat often when distractions come my way during two 20-minute segments daily. All of the stuff of the 'ego' begins to fall a way, and, a glimmer of God and union with God may occur momentarily at the very end of the session.
Devotional books like the very popular Lenten, Easter, and Stewardship themes for each day, among others, crafted by the late Kenneth Untener, a bishop of Saginaw, MI., are favorites to augment my connection with the Maker.
"I thirst," among the 7 last words of Jesus on the cross, recorded in the Gospel, are another preferred phrase to center on daily for myself.
Aim of prayer seems to make us all one with God and all of the world.
In fact, Edut, concludes:
"I always open and close with the words of the Jewish affirmation: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One."
To round off this entry, I would savor noting how Imams, and religious leaders from the Buddhist, among other faith traditions, personally pray.
Up close and personal.
Personally, that is.
Jewish and Christian clergy, among others, teach others how to pray, Monday, April 29, 2013, at 11:45 am until 1:30 pm at the distinguished Focus:HOPE, founded by the late Father William Cunningham and Eleanor Josaitis. The event with tours of the sprawling service campus are available at 1300 Oakman Boulevard, Detroit.
In a session called, "Powerful Praying, Prophets and Politics: Leaders Step Up to the Plate," each clergy will take about five minutes to tell how their prayer informs and leads to community involvement, even prophetic action.
Devotional books for daily praying, and the Psalms of the Bible are most popular.
A Lutheran minister told me at my Foam Factory office in Clinton Township, MI., that when one neglects thee devotionals, his or her life declines.
How true in my own experience of the Liturgy of the Hours, comprised largely of Psalms to be recited multiple times a day.
When I neglect my prayers, life is also neglected.
Rabbi Dorit Edut of Hungtington Woods, MI., with ties to the Downtown Detroit Isaac Agree Synagogue, notes:
"Every morning and evening I take time for personal prayer, usually after a short session of the daily prayers which are part of the Jewish tradition. In the morning, I center myself and connect to my inner being, thanking the Divine God for life and for restoring my soul. Then, I pray for health, prosperity, strength, and love for the members of my immediate and extended families. I pray that God sends physical and emotional and spiritual healing to all those I know are in need of this. I also pray for the leaders of our world to be guided to making good decisions and to work together. At night, I take time to thank God for the many individual blessings I experienced this day and ask for God's protection and peace for my family and myself during this night."
Oak Park resident, Rabbi Morehai Waldman spends time reciting Psalm 23, among others, he admits.
"That Psalm, among others, helped me through my bout with cancer," he confides.
What impressed me about the late Father William Cunnigham and Eleanor Josaitis, founders of Focus:HOPE in 1968, after the riots, was how they both pressed pennies in the palms of the hands of people they met, saying, "Remember in whom we trust."
Josaitis was a devotee of the twelve step spirituality. I know that she rose early each day to connect with the Creator.
The Holy Spirit was huge for Josaitis who moved with her husband, Don, and five children, from Taylor to Detroit, MI., after Cunningham hatched the need for a civil and human rights organization after the Detroit riot . It would be based on the prophet Isaiah, and Matthew's Gospel, Ch. 25.
Like the Trappist Thomas Merton of Gethsemane, Kentucky, the activist writer, urged people to find a garden to spend time with prayer. Cunningham enjoyed a long run at Detroit's Belle Isle Park, a jewel of an isle near downtown Detroit. After that, the buoyant and charismatic pastor would drive over to the Bonaventure Center on Mt. Elliott where Father Solanus Casey was a porter who answered the front door.
"Take a half hour a day," Merton advised those who wrote him, "and just walk up and down the flowerbeds with the intention of offering this walk up as a meditation and prayer."
JoAnn Loria Briffa of Clinton Township, Michigan, notes that prayer evolves over time for her.
"I find less need for books, words and images at this time as prayer evolves over the years if we continue to be faithful to the times given to prayer. Just sitting quietly by myself and being in touch with the God within. God is ever close and when silent and attentive I can feel His presence. I talk to God as I would an intimate friend. Practice often and talk to God as if He is in front of you."
A young attorney from Troy, MI., Sadeer Farjo, says:
"I like to sit before the Blessed Sacrament to pray."
I am increasingly convinced that some sense of a prayer beyond words is the deepest meaning of it, and why Saint Paul tells us that we can pray 'always' in I Thes., Ch. 5:18, and Eph.. 5:20.
Centering on "You are my beloved," is a favorite litany or mantra phrase that I repeat often when distractions come my way during two 20-minute segments daily. All of the stuff of the 'ego' begins to fall a way, and, a glimmer of God and union with God may occur momentarily at the very end of the session.
Devotional books like the very popular Lenten, Easter, and Stewardship themes for each day, among others, crafted by the late Kenneth Untener, a bishop of Saginaw, MI., are favorites to augment my connection with the Maker.
"I thirst," among the 7 last words of Jesus on the cross, recorded in the Gospel, are another preferred phrase to center on daily for myself.
Aim of prayer seems to make us all one with God and all of the world.
In fact, Edut, concludes:
"I always open and close with the words of the Jewish affirmation: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One."
To round off this entry, I would savor noting how Imams, and religious leaders from the Buddhist, among other faith traditions, personally pray.
Monday, March 25, 2013
MCHR Annual Dinner April 7 at Maryrove Alumnae Hall, 5 pm
Back in the 80s when the Moral Majority was in need of dialog, the late Bishop Coleman McGehee, Jr.,Thomas Gumbleton and Rabbi Richard were among the founders if the ecumenical Michigan Coalition for Human Rights who asked my own bishop if I could spend a year organizing it at St. Paul Cathedral on Woodward and Warren in Detroit's downtown area.
Sunday, April 7th the MCHR's annual dinner will be held at Marygrove College Alumnae Hall, 8425 W. McNichols, Detroit 48221. Tickets can be obtained from Marge at (313) 579 9071, or, visit www.mchr.org. Amy Lange of Channel 2 is emcee. Diane Nash addresses, "The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s: A Legacy for Today."
Also, "Collateral Damage in the War on Drugs: 40 Years of Failed Policy," will be addressed Thursday, April 25 in Hope Unied Methodist Church, 26275 Northwestern Highway, in Southfield with Joesef White of the Michigan Justice Commission.
Contribution to support the outstanding work of the MCHR may be sent to the MCHR, 9200 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, 48213.
A passage that prompted the "Reign of God" urgency in Coleman McGehee, is the prophet, Isaiah, chapter 61:1-3. . ."bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners. . ."
Join me.
Sunday, April 7th the MCHR's annual dinner will be held at Marygrove College Alumnae Hall, 8425 W. McNichols, Detroit 48221. Tickets can be obtained from Marge at (313) 579 9071, or, visit www.mchr.org. Amy Lange of Channel 2 is emcee. Diane Nash addresses, "The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s: A Legacy for Today."
Also, "Collateral Damage in the War on Drugs: 40 Years of Failed Policy," will be addressed Thursday, April 25 in Hope Unied Methodist Church, 26275 Northwestern Highway, in Southfield with Joesef White of the Michigan Justice Commission.
Contribution to support the outstanding work of the MCHR may be sent to the MCHR, 9200 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, 48213.
A passage that prompted the "Reign of God" urgency in Coleman McGehee, is the prophet, Isaiah, chapter 61:1-3. . ."bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners. . ."
Join me.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Passover, Christian Holy Week
Why is this night different than all others nights?
That's the question youngsters will ask of their parent Monday as the Jewish community observes Passover.
And, Christians mark Holy Week into Thursday, a day of festive jubilation at the Eucharist. The Triduum, the highest three holy days of the Christian calendar begin, followed by Good Friday and the Eater Vigil/Sunday.
For fifty days, the Easter season is filled with celebration after a forty-day penitential trek of intense praying, fasting and charity for billions who claim they follow Jesus.
The Reign/rule of God theology aims at the prophet Isaiah, among others, calling the faithful to live lives that free captives, help the blind see, and debut love as the lone way to overcome violence in and outside the womb and world.
All of the feelings of betrayal, denial, rejection, ridicule, of mad, sad, scared, and more, surface these days.
Grief is felt by participants at the loss of an innocent man, as bystanders claimed after Jesus was condemned as one subverting the system.
Christians will flock to their edifices this week to fully enter into the suffering, dying and rising of Jesus the Christ.
They will.
They're invited to come out opposing violent ways that are replaced with the love of God and God's reign.
Why is this day different than other days?
It is the profound and greatest story ever told of one man, of Jesus, the Lord, who goes to the cross to rise from it and save the people from their sins of missing the mark of God's reign.
It is the story of love.
That's the question youngsters will ask of their parent Monday as the Jewish community observes Passover.
And, Christians mark Holy Week into Thursday, a day of festive jubilation at the Eucharist. The Triduum, the highest three holy days of the Christian calendar begin, followed by Good Friday and the Eater Vigil/Sunday.
For fifty days, the Easter season is filled with celebration after a forty-day penitential trek of intense praying, fasting and charity for billions who claim they follow Jesus.
The Reign/rule of God theology aims at the prophet Isaiah, among others, calling the faithful to live lives that free captives, help the blind see, and debut love as the lone way to overcome violence in and outside the womb and world.
All of the feelings of betrayal, denial, rejection, ridicule, of mad, sad, scared, and more, surface these days.
Grief is felt by participants at the loss of an innocent man, as bystanders claimed after Jesus was condemned as one subverting the system.
Christians will flock to their edifices this week to fully enter into the suffering, dying and rising of Jesus the Christ.
They will.
They're invited to come out opposing violent ways that are replaced with the love of God and God's reign.
Why is this day different than other days?
It is the profound and greatest story ever told of one man, of Jesus, the Lord, who goes to the cross to rise from it and save the people from their sins of missing the mark of God's reign.
It is the story of love.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
FIRST MONDAY, WEDNESDAY OF MONTH MORPHING, MENDING
Morphing and mending.
Life is full of it.
That's what people work at the first Monday and Wednesday of each month (April 1 & 3 next ones)
from 5:30-6:30 pm in Big Jack's Bar-B-Q Grill in Roseville, MI.
They morph.
They mend.
With issues raises and discussed with input from me, others, the participants eat, meet others, grieve, laugh, enjoy and savor life fully.
Participants unburden from problems carried often and too long in living the full life as Jesus invites in the Sacred Scriptures.
Join us.
Morph. Men.
And, be all you can be this Easter season through Pentecost.
Call me at (586) 777 9116, or, write, sacredheartroseville@saintly.com
Life is full of it.
That's what people work at the first Monday and Wednesday of each month (April 1 & 3 next ones)
from 5:30-6:30 pm in Big Jack's Bar-B-Q Grill in Roseville, MI.
They morph.
They mend.
With issues raises and discussed with input from me, others, the participants eat, meet others, grieve, laugh, enjoy and savor life fully.
Participants unburden from problems carried often and too long in living the full life as Jesus invites in the Sacred Scriptures.
Join us.
Morph. Men.
And, be all you can be this Easter season through Pentecost.
Call me at (586) 777 9116, or, write, sacredheartroseville@saintly.com
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