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First, Christopher Altieri ably summarizes another week of wretched/stupid Church news here.
In response to the news and the situation, our Cathedral is doing this:
Also, take a look at this from Fr. Joe Wilson – a priest from Brooklyn. He’s an old friend of Rod Dreher’s, who introduced us long-distance years back and enabled a wonderful dinner evening with him in NYC when the boys were little and Mike was still alive – whose link led me to this post at, ironically, an Anglican blog (one which I used to read years back when I was intrigued by all the Anglican goings-on and working hard to sort through all their acronyms). It might help you or someone you know:
Now, you asked how I personally move forward?
It really is not very difficult. I bless God for a solid Catholic upbringing thanks to good parents and really, really wonderful priest mentors when I was young. I was fortunate to grow up in a house of three Teachers (parents and grandmother), which was like growing up in a library, and encountering and reading Chesterton and Belloc and Mauriac and Cardinal Gibbons and Monsignor Knox as a youth, even before high school. Most importantly, to be raised to live in a relationship with the Lord Jesus, to glimpse the nature of His Church despite the Puff the Magic Dragon spirituality I encountered, to be devoted to His Mother. If you’ve encountered the spiritual works of Dom Columba Marmion, you’re not likely to be too impressed by a paperback about butterflies coming out of cocoons.
Over this past Summer I began with great profit to read systematically through the wonderful writings of Saint Teresa of Avila, a great Doctor of the Church on the sixteenth century. We have spiritual works and many letters of hers, suffused with her lively personality. She founded a reformed branch of the Carmelite Order; her nuns would live very simply in small convents and focus on prayer behind their cloister walls.
She wrote a book on prayer for them called “The Way of Perfection”, and at the beginning of it she says something so pertinent to our situation today that it startled me. Right at the start of the treatise she says to her sisters, Why do you think I founded the Reform? It is because of the state of the Church, those dreadful Lutherans up there in the North who are rejecting the Mass and the authority of the Church, the people who are confused, the courageous priests who are attacking the heresies… Women like us cannot go to the front of the battle lines, but we can found oases where Jesus can find welcome and rest and home in a world which has forgotten Him. And that is what our convents shall be, where we dwell with Him. This from a cloistered nun!
Now – how about some good news?
A new religious order ministering to the homeless in LA:
Friar Benjamin of the Most Holy Trinity walked down Towne Avenue in Skid Row, one hand wheeling an ice chest filled with oranges and bottled water, the other clutching plastic bags of peanut butter and ham and cheese sandwiches, chips and fruit snacks.
Dressed in a full habit, a straw hat and brown flip-flops, Friar Benjamin, 42, along with a group of three other friars, one nun and three volunteers, shouted, “Cold water! Free food!” as they made their way along the tent-lined streets in the 90-degree summer heat.
Friar Benjamin is a member of the Friars and Sisters of the Poor Jesus, a religious order founded in Brazil whose mission is to minister to the neediest and most marginalized members of society.
After Archbishop José H. Gomez invited the order to Los Angeles earlier this year, a band of four friars and four sisters have set out for Skid Row every weekend, in hopes that free sandwiches and bottled water will be the first step in lifting the city’s growing homeless population out of poverty and despair.
“We’re trying to address not only the homeless situation, but also the problems we have as a society when we neglect the spiritual side,” said Friar Benjamin, who is from the southern state of Santa Catarina in Brazil. “We have no illusions that we’re going to solve it completely, but this is what we need to rediscover, if you will, Jesus’ message.”
The religious order was founded in 2001 by a Brazilian priest named Father Gilson Sobreiro. Troubled by the violence, gang activity, addiction and poverty that he saw around him in the city of Sao Paulo, Father Sobreiro rented a house where drug addicted youths could live and recover.
From this, the religious order spread to 12 countries, including Paraguay, Argentina, Nicaragua, El Salvador, France and Canada. In 2012, they expanded to Kansas City, its first ministry in the United States.
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Midway between Alabama and California: Michigan priests pays the homeless for a day’s work:
Since May, Fr. Marko Djonovic of the Oratory-in-Formation at Our Lady of the Rosary Parish in Detroit has been leading “Better Way Detroit,” a startup ministry offering homeless men a chance to earn a wage by cleaning up parks in the city.
“One of St. Philip Neri’s chief charisms is outreach to the community and helping those in need,” Fr. Djonovic told The Michigan Catholic. “This project offers homeless men and women the opportunity to work for pay.”
Fr. Djonovic and Our Lady of the Rosary parishioner Marcus Cobb drive around the city in the aforementioned Excursion, visiting locations where the homeless can often be found. Fr. Djonovic then engages them in conversation, explaining who he is and offering work in exchange for a day’s wage.
“People prefer to work for pay over handouts,” Fr. Djonovic said. “As we’ve done this, we engage with them and get to know their life situation. Many times, we can help them. Last week, I helped a guy going through the housing process, setting him up with the resources he needed to find a place.”
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Fr. Jones said Our Lady of the Rosary has increased Mass times from two Masses a week to nine. The parish, which used to be clustered with the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament and St. Moses the Black, has Mass at 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 5:15 p.m. on Saturday, and 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Sundays, with a full hour of confessions before the Sunday evening Mass.
“One of the things St. Philip was known for was hearing confessions,” Fr. Jones said. “The oratory has been known for offering sacramental services for the surrounding community, especially the Eucharist and confessions, so that’s something we want to major in.”
On May 26, the Detroit Oratory-in-Formation celebrated the feast of St. Philip Neri with a special Mass in which parishioners had the chance to adore the Blessed Sacrament and venerate a relic of St. Philip Neri.
It was also a chance for visitors to the parish to learn more about the saint and the work of the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, a pontifical society of apostolic life of Catholic priests and lay brothers, commonly known as “Oratorians,” who do not take formal vows.
“St. Philip Neri is not well known in the United States, but in other parts of the world he is greatly revered,” Fr. Adams said during the homily on May 26. “He is known as the ‘Apostle of Rome.’ He was canonized by Pope Gregory XV on March 12, along with Spaniards Francis Xavier, Ignatius of Loyola, Isidore the Laborer and Teresa of Avila. The Italians said, ‘the pope just canonized four Spaniards and one saint.’”
At the Detroit Oratory-in-Formation, the laity are encouraged to come and go throughout the week and take up tasks the church needs, Fr. Adams said.
“We want Our Lady of the Rosary to be a mission church to evangelize those who are moving to the area and just have moved away from the faith,” Fr. Adams told The Michigan Catholic. “A lot of people are moving into the city, and the church is at a prime location to encounter people and be an outreach. Fr. Marko was sitting in a coffee shop once, and someone overheard him talking about the faith and sat down and had all these questions. We’re here to be a presence.”
With Our Lady of the Rosary situated across from the College of Creative Studies and down the road from Wayne State University, Fr. Jones is encouraging all artists, builders, painters and just about anyone who can swing a hammer to come volunteer at the parish for much-needed repairs and maintenance.
“The oratory is known as a lay movement; St. Philip had prayer meetings with the laity where they would sit, pray, converse with one another and find out what was needed in the community,” Fr. Jones said. “We could use help of all kinds, so (people can) feel free to contact us. For people who work strange hours at the hospital or were never comfortable in the traditional parish setting, we’re here for you. We want to connect with the area, to be that opening invitation to the Church.”
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In my mind, this is good news: earlier this summer, several private high schools in DC dropped out of the College Board’s AP program.
Yes, they are elite schools and yes, they have the resources to provide and create their own courses, but I rejoice at any sign that the College Board is losing its hypnotic hold on education and that anyone is putting into practice the intuition that AP classes are mostly wrong-headed (not to speak of often politically problematic – although I’m sure that’s not an issue with these schools.)
The school leaders say AP training doesn’t foster the kind of thinking they would like their students to do. The courses “often stress speed of assimilation and memorization” at the expense of in-depth inquiry. “Moving away from AP courses will allow us to offer a wider variety of courses that are more rigorous and enriching, provide opportunities for authentic engagement with the world, and demonstrate respect for students’ intellectual curiosity and interests,” the heads of the schools wrote in a statement.
The eight private schools also point out that the promise of AP classes, which were introduced in the early 1950s to allow ambitious students the opportunity to earn college credits and possibly even nab a degree earlier and at a lower cost, has never been fulfilled. The fact is that graduating from college in fewer than four years doesn’t happen often, according to the schools’ statement. What’s more, each college handles the awarding of credits for AP tests differently, with some top schools opting out altogether, according to the schools’ statement.
For more of my…”thoughts” on education, go to this page on which I’m gathering up the more substantive posts I’ve written on education. Over the next week, I’ll do another page on travel posts.
Don’t forget – The Loyola Kids Book of Signs and Symbols.
NOTE: If you really want a copy soon – I have them for sale at my online bookstore (price includes shipping) Email me at amywelborn60 AT gmail if you have a question or want to work out a deal of some sort. I have many copies of this, the Loyola Kids Book of Bible Stories, the Prove It Bible and the Catholic Woman’s Book of Days on hand at the moment.
Also – my son has been releasing collections of short stories over the summer. He’s currently prepping his first (published) novel, The Battle of Lake Erie: One Young American’s Adventure in the War of 1812. Check it out!
For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!
somewhere. Finally did it, though, started it last week, with some fits and starts, and ended up reading most of it this evening.
Charlotte was Both 