Vocation Awareness -- Quote of the Day

Saint Damien of Moloka'i

Leper Priest of Hawai'i

Stutue at St. Augustine Church in Waikiki

"Each person must discover his or her own personal vocation and respond to it with generosity.”
— Pope John Paul II

Fr. C. John McCloskey, III on Cardinal Newman

Cardinal Henry Newman

Source of pic: Wikipedia

Fr. C. John McCloskey, III, discloses to us the amazing personality of Cardinal Newman. Here is a portion of what he wrote about this clergy whose beatification was first celebrated on the 8th of this month.

That Newman was profoundly religious by temperament is quite clear from his autobiography, in which he speaks of his religious sense from a very early age. Unlike a goodly number of his contemporaries of the Oxford Movement he did not come from a long line of clergymen. During his university years he felt a call to the clerical life and even to celibacy, not common at that time. Yet, in many other ways he was a man of the world. He drank deeply of the study of the classics and history during his undergraduate years, formed many deep friendships, and had a keen interest in the world of music, literature, and politics, as is evidenced by his letters and diaries. Indeed, he even chose the wine for his college. He played the violin, a hobby to which he returned in later life. He exercised vigorously by frighteningly long walks and enjoyed the fresh air of the sea while sailing with his close friend, Hurrell Froude. He was a poet, a novelist and a Latinist of the highest order. (The curia officials of the Vatican were astonished at the level of his classical Latin in their correspondence with him. He was able to express in a paragraph what took them a page!) He was also, arguably, the greatest master of English prose style of the nineteenth century.5 This emphasizes that while Newman was eminently religious, he was not monastic. He had a keen appreciation for the world in all its positive aspects and enjoyed the company and friendship of many laymen, as is evidenced particularly by his letters and diaries.

Read here.

Thanks to Sr. Margaret Kerry, fsp, for this info!

Sr. Margaret Kerry, fsp
50 St Paul’s Ave
Boston, MA 02130
617-510-5409

Association of Pauline Cooperators

Living the gospel in every dimension of life in a world of communication.

Keep our Priests in Mind

It was easy during the old times: families have given priests a special place in their homes. Now, however, as more and more marriages and families are breaking up, priests have not been given that same special place.

Here is a an article about a sad story that, perhaps, can help us to remember our priests. In our homes and in our hearts we welcome and treat them as a dear friend.

OPINION: It is hardly fair to sneer at a new association of Irish priests as a mere clerical trade union, writes DAVID RICE

THE ITALIAN alpine village of Villaretto was drowsing under its blanket of snow when, on January 26th, 1985, the parish priest hanged himself, just before the Saturday evening Mass. He left three farewell letters, one addressed to the altar servers. It read: “Be more friendly and generous with your next priest: do not leave him alone at the altar.”

Those words have haunted me for years, for we do leave our priests alone at the altar and the loneliness of many a priest is a crucifixion.

I know, for I once was one. I left and am no longer lonely, but many truly heroic men have stayed and live their crucifixion daily, a far worse one than I ever had to endure.

The loneliness of many priests today is infinitely crueller than anything I experienced 30 years ago. Just to give one example: last month a priest friend of mine in Dublin was talking to a boy after Sunday Mass, when the boy’s father came up to him and said: “Father, I’d rather you stayed away from my son.”

The rest of the article is found here.

Thanks to Esther G., who first shared this article with us.

Meet Fr. Francis Ferry

Saturday, September 4, 2010. Father Francis Ferry of Donegal, Ireland gave a homily in Medjugorje at St. James Church. Before Mass, he attended a talk given by the visionary Ivan and he spoke about the messages that Ivan had stressed in his testimony.

Father Ferry said, ‘We need to change ourselves first and experience peace through prayer. We need to witness this peace to our families, in our villages and cities, and then the world will change.’ He received his vocation to the priesthood here in Medjugorje while on pilgrimage to this Holy place. He had been away from the Sacraments of the Church for many years.

Father Ferry’s first pilgrimage to Medjugorje was not planned. He had become lost while traveling and ended up here. He knew Our Lady had planned it that way. He was ordained a priest three years ago. Father gave the pilgrims attending Holy Mass some good advice.

Father Francis Ferry, one of many vocations received through a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. “It is good being in Medjugorje again. This is my twenty-eighth time. My first trip was in 1995. You that have been here fifty times, it means nothing, if you do not listen and put into action Our Lady’s words. It would be better to come once and hear Her message and respond to Her call. Remember, She thanks us for responding to Her call.”

Father was asking the pilgrims to respond concretely to Our Lady. Father Ferry is one of many vocations birthed through Medjugorje. We believe one of thousands; the actual number of vocations that began in Medjugorje may never be known.

Cardinal Schönborn, from Austria once stated, ‘If I was an opponent of Medjugorje, I’d have to close down my seminary, since almost all the candidates have received their call to the priesthood through Medjugorje.’ Yet another testament of the power of what God is doing through Our Lady, here in Medjugorje. Source-Medjugorje Com
Posted by Ed Sousa, Sr. at 2:23 PM

Thank you to my good friend, Ed Sousa of In God's Company 2! He is the father of Fr. Ed Sousa, Jr.

Archbishop Chaput Speaks Up

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput @Catholic Online

Proud to be a Catholic? If it means having to boast because Christ is one who establihed the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church then so be it.

He warned of the rise of 'inhuman humanism' and called for a Catholicism of Resistance

"We live in a time when the Church is called to be a believing community of resistance. We need to call things by their true names. We need to fight the evils we see. And most importantly, we must not delude ourselves into thinking that by going along with the voices of secularism and de-Christianization we can somehow mitigate or change things." -Archbishop Charles J. Chaput.

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - I have long believed that Archbishop Charles J. Chaput is one of the preeminent Churchmen of our age. He calls all Catholics to live with what Pope Benedict XVI refers to as "moral coherence". This is not easy under the oppressive boot of what the same Pope called "the Dictatorship of Relativism." He challenges us to avoid what the Second Vatican Council called the "greatest error of our age...the separation between faith and life". His book "Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by living our Catholic beliefs in Political Life" is already a classic. It succinctly addresses the vital obligation of integrating our Catholic faith into our obligations of citizenship.

-Article written by Deacon Keith Fournier.

Read more on Catholic Online.