Hello everyone,
Here is the reflection that I will be giving at the nursing home tomorrow. As normal I have attached the readings for tomorrow after the reflection so that you can see what I am talking about if you wish.
I know that I haven't put up a post in two weeks. Sorry, but I was very busy last week with Holy Week stuff. I will try to write about that soon.
Peace,
Adam
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Although these readings are obviously great stories of joy I always find them a bit of a downer during this Octave of Easter. While they both have great results they also both contain some quite disturbing and sad pieces. The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles has a man who has suffered his whole life with a crippling disease. For this whole time he has had to be carried by his friends, probably not a joyful task for them, so that he could beg for the meager gifts from those going to pray.
Jesus, rather than simply talking to the disciples on the road to Emmaus about the glory of God and the meaning behind the resurrection points first to the suffering that He had to endure.
There is an old saying that we wouldn’t enjoy the beautiful weather if not for the cold, the snow, and the rain. But the good days don’t come about because of the bad, they are good in themselves.
The crowds in the first reason weren’t amazed just because of seeing a crippled man; this is an all too common occurrence in our world. They were amazed to see him walking.
In the case of Jesus, we don’t gain our salvation through His suffering; we are given this wonderful gift because of His resurrection.
This is true, but He did have to suffer, because we have earned this suffering through our sins and He wanted to pay this price for us.
The glory of Easter is in the rising, but it follows closely from the suffering. We can do this too. There is a theological understanding that we are able to offer our pains and sufferings for others. When we are in pain, yes, we want to get rid of it. However, while it is there you can ask God to show you the Grace to suffer with dignity. You can ask Him to use the Grace from suffering with dignity to open the hearts of others to His love.
Our suffering isn’t the cause of this joy; we can do this same thing through our prayers. Our suffering isn’t the cause, but it can be turned into a good, just as the resurrection of Jesus or the crippled man’s ability to walk.
We are still in Easter time, let us celebrate that, and if we are suffering we can offer it for the salvation of all the souls.
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Wednesday in the Octave of Easter
Reading 1
Acts 3:1-10
Peter and John were going up to the temple area
for the three o’clock hour of prayer.
And a man crippled from birth was carried
and placed at the gate of the temple called “the Beautiful Gate” every day
to beg for alms from the people who entered the temple.
When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple,
he asked for alms.
But Peter looked intently at him, as did John,
and said, “Look at us.”
He paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them.
Peter said, “I have neither silver nor gold,
but what I do have I give you:
in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.”
Then Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up,
and immediately his feet and ankles grew strong.
He leaped up, stood, and walked around,
and went into the temple with them,
walking and jumping and praising God.
When all the people saw him walking and praising God,
they recognized him as the one
who used to sit begging at the Beautiful Gate of the temple,
and they were filled with amazement and astonishment
at what had happened to him.
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Lk 24:13-35
Gospel
That very day, the first day of the week,
two of Jesus’ disciples were going
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,
and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.
He asked them,
“What are you discussing as you walk along?”
They stopped, looking downcast.
One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply,
“Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem
who does not know of the things
that have taken place there in these days?”
And he replied to them, “What sort of things?”
They said to him,
“The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene,
who was a prophet mighty in deed and word
before God and all the people,
how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over
to a sentence of death and crucified him.
But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel;
and besides all this,
it is now the third day since this took place.
Some women from our group, however, have astounded us:
they were at the tomb early in the morning
and did not find his Body;
they came back and reported
that they had indeed seen a vision of angels
who announced that he was alive.
Then some of those with us went to the tomb
and found things just as the women had described,
but him they did not see.”
And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things
and enter into his glory?”
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
he interpreted to them what referred to him
in all the Scriptures.
As they approached the village to which they were going,
he gave the impression that he was going on farther.
But they urged him, “Stay with us,
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”
So he went in to stay with them.
And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other,
“Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”
So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem
where they found gathered together
the Eleven and those with them who were saying,
“The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!”
Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way
and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Praying for Matt
Wow, what a week.
Last week started out as normal as can be. I was writing papers and preparing for and taking midterm exams.
On Thursday that all changed. When I got done at the library a little before 4:30 I was looking forward to a night of cramming for my medieval philosophy exam when I got a phone call. I answered it and was surprised that the first words out of the guys mouth were, “Adam, have you heard the news?” Needless to say, that got my attention. When my friend on the phone told me that another of my close friends had been working out and had a heart attack I think I swore at him that you shouldn’t kid about something like that… sadly he wasn’t.
Matt, one of my Diocesan Brothers (what we call others from the same diocese) had been working out on the exercise bike when he just fell over with no pulse and no breathing. He doesn’t work out real, hard, he even reads while working out so it seemed particularly odd. Thank God that there were others down in the workout room while he was there, we have all been talking about how often we are alone down there, depending on our schedules.
One guy immediately started CPR while another ran to get help, from the school nurse and calling 911. As Grace would have it the one going to get help ran into a seminarian who had been a doctor before starting here, and he grabbed the AED off the wall and went down. The doctor had just happened to get out of class early at that time. Matt had to be shocked twice with the seminaries AED and once with the paramedic’s AED here and then twice again at the hospital. The paramedics were here very quickly since the fire station is close by.
In addition to immediately starting CPR and sending the doctor down a priest was sent down to perform Anointing of the Sick, one of the sacraments of the Church. This sacrament is often called “Last Rites” but that is a secular misnomer. Anointing of the Sick is for healing as well as a blessing at the time of death, whichever way God wills it. It is simply a sacrament of God’s Grace. This would have been a part of a total of last rites given at the bedside of a dying person, along with a final sacrament of Reconciliation and a final reception of the Eucharist. That is why society misunderstands this sacrament.
Prayers for Matt started immediately, a group of seminarians were praying the rosary in the hallway as the paramedics were working on Matt. All of us took a break from whatever we were doing to say a prayer for him. We were all calling people, e-mailing people, and posting to our Facebook pages asking for prayers for Matt. Through connections that I’m not sure that I follow how they all happened Matt was an intention in the Mass offered by the Pope on Friday morning. Matt has been in seminary at various levels for a long time, so he has many connections. A Cardinal from the Vatican called the hospital to get an update on Matt, so prayers were very abundant.
I went over to the hospital at about 6:30 Thursday evening and was able to see Matt in his room in the ICU at about 8:40. He had been put into an induced coma so that his body wouldn’t be straining while trying to recover.
I saw him a couple of more times on Friday while trying to also go about a somewhat normal day. Friday evening we had a special holy hour for praying for Matt. The vocation director, Fr. Hirsch, from the La Crosse Diocese came down to lead that. We were told on Friday that at about midnight they would start trying to bring Matt out of the coma.
On Saturday morning I went over to the hospital and while pulling up in my truck I saw Matt’s mom walking in. I asked her how he was doing and immediately knew that it hadn’t gone well. The doctors hadn’t liked what they saw in Matt’s numbers so they put him back into the coma. I didn’t go see him then because I figured it was best for just his family to be with him. The same thing happened once more on Saturday. Sunday morning they were able to bring Matt out of the coma.
When I went over on Sunday I was told that he had been able to flutter open his eyes, but not keep them open. Another La Crosse seminarian and I went into the room and talked to Matt a bit, but he didn’t wake up so we went to just praying silently. After a while he opened his eyes. We talked to him for a minute about how well he was doing before telling him to go back to sleep and rest. A while later one of Matt’s good friends came in and woke Matt up on purpose. He had him try to squeeze his hand, and he could do it!! He could only do it with one hand due to swelling, but it was very exciting. The next thing he asked Matt to try was to wiggle the toes on one food. He could do that, and even follow directions of right and left. I was so overjoyed to see that.
After that it has been a steady rise up for Matt. They pulled out the ventilator tube and the first question out of his mouth was, “Can I still be a priest?” Because he is more alert now, but still weak they are asking for no visitors. Matt is the kind of guy that won’t rest when people are there because he wants to entertain them… so it is good to avoid it and let him rest.
Tonight we had a scheduled address by the formation dean here. Instead of that he brought in the chief nurse from the ICU to talk about Matt (with the family’s permission). She said that his recovery so far has been the best she’s seen in 34 years of nursing and truly gives the prayer credit for that. She was very excited at the way that this all is going. Tonight Matt is scheduled to be moved from ICU to a regular room. They will see where it goes from there if he can go home or has to go to a rehab center.
Matt is by no means fully recovered yet so any prayers are appreciated. But at the greatness of his recovery we can sure see that the prayers so far are being answered.
Peace,
Adam
Last week started out as normal as can be. I was writing papers and preparing for and taking midterm exams.
On Thursday that all changed. When I got done at the library a little before 4:30 I was looking forward to a night of cramming for my medieval philosophy exam when I got a phone call. I answered it and was surprised that the first words out of the guys mouth were, “Adam, have you heard the news?” Needless to say, that got my attention. When my friend on the phone told me that another of my close friends had been working out and had a heart attack I think I swore at him that you shouldn’t kid about something like that… sadly he wasn’t.
Matt, one of my Diocesan Brothers (what we call others from the same diocese) had been working out on the exercise bike when he just fell over with no pulse and no breathing. He doesn’t work out real, hard, he even reads while working out so it seemed particularly odd. Thank God that there were others down in the workout room while he was there, we have all been talking about how often we are alone down there, depending on our schedules.
One guy immediately started CPR while another ran to get help, from the school nurse and calling 911. As Grace would have it the one going to get help ran into a seminarian who had been a doctor before starting here, and he grabbed the AED off the wall and went down. The doctor had just happened to get out of class early at that time. Matt had to be shocked twice with the seminaries AED and once with the paramedic’s AED here and then twice again at the hospital. The paramedics were here very quickly since the fire station is close by.
In addition to immediately starting CPR and sending the doctor down a priest was sent down to perform Anointing of the Sick, one of the sacraments of the Church. This sacrament is often called “Last Rites” but that is a secular misnomer. Anointing of the Sick is for healing as well as a blessing at the time of death, whichever way God wills it. It is simply a sacrament of God’s Grace. This would have been a part of a total of last rites given at the bedside of a dying person, along with a final sacrament of Reconciliation and a final reception of the Eucharist. That is why society misunderstands this sacrament.
Prayers for Matt started immediately, a group of seminarians were praying the rosary in the hallway as the paramedics were working on Matt. All of us took a break from whatever we were doing to say a prayer for him. We were all calling people, e-mailing people, and posting to our Facebook pages asking for prayers for Matt. Through connections that I’m not sure that I follow how they all happened Matt was an intention in the Mass offered by the Pope on Friday morning. Matt has been in seminary at various levels for a long time, so he has many connections. A Cardinal from the Vatican called the hospital to get an update on Matt, so prayers were very abundant.
I went over to the hospital at about 6:30 Thursday evening and was able to see Matt in his room in the ICU at about 8:40. He had been put into an induced coma so that his body wouldn’t be straining while trying to recover.
I saw him a couple of more times on Friday while trying to also go about a somewhat normal day. Friday evening we had a special holy hour for praying for Matt. The vocation director, Fr. Hirsch, from the La Crosse Diocese came down to lead that. We were told on Friday that at about midnight they would start trying to bring Matt out of the coma.
On Saturday morning I went over to the hospital and while pulling up in my truck I saw Matt’s mom walking in. I asked her how he was doing and immediately knew that it hadn’t gone well. The doctors hadn’t liked what they saw in Matt’s numbers so they put him back into the coma. I didn’t go see him then because I figured it was best for just his family to be with him. The same thing happened once more on Saturday. Sunday morning they were able to bring Matt out of the coma.
When I went over on Sunday I was told that he had been able to flutter open his eyes, but not keep them open. Another La Crosse seminarian and I went into the room and talked to Matt a bit, but he didn’t wake up so we went to just praying silently. After a while he opened his eyes. We talked to him for a minute about how well he was doing before telling him to go back to sleep and rest. A while later one of Matt’s good friends came in and woke Matt up on purpose. He had him try to squeeze his hand, and he could do it!! He could only do it with one hand due to swelling, but it was very exciting. The next thing he asked Matt to try was to wiggle the toes on one food. He could do that, and even follow directions of right and left. I was so overjoyed to see that.
After that it has been a steady rise up for Matt. They pulled out the ventilator tube and the first question out of his mouth was, “Can I still be a priest?” Because he is more alert now, but still weak they are asking for no visitors. Matt is the kind of guy that won’t rest when people are there because he wants to entertain them… so it is good to avoid it and let him rest.
Tonight we had a scheduled address by the formation dean here. Instead of that he brought in the chief nurse from the ICU to talk about Matt (with the family’s permission). She said that his recovery so far has been the best she’s seen in 34 years of nursing and truly gives the prayer credit for that. She was very excited at the way that this all is going. Tonight Matt is scheduled to be moved from ICU to a regular room. They will see where it goes from there if he can go home or has to go to a rehab center.
Matt is by no means fully recovered yet so any prayers are appreciated. But at the greatness of his recovery we can sure see that the prayers so far are being answered.
Peace,
Adam
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Class retreat
Hi everyone,
It is midterm week, and I have exams in three of my five classes and another exam next week. So, needless to say my nose is in a book most of my free time.
Last Friday my class went to a convent in Racine, WI for a short retreat. Most of the seminarians here have a cam retreat (remember, a cam is the hallway that people live on). Since the first year Pre-Theology guys like me all live on two cams, and some years one, ours is done as a class retreat. It was a very, very short retreat. From the time that we left until the time that most guys got back was only a bit over 21 hours… and two of those hours were driving, plus sleep time.
The convent that we went to is called the Siena Center, at least on the side that is open for retreats, other than that it is the motherhouse of the Racine Dominican Sisters. It is a very nice set up for a retreat.
We ate supper and prayed evening prayer together at the seminary before heading out. When we got to the convent we took a little bit of time to organize our rooms and then met for a talk by a couple of my classmates. The theme of the retreat was “Who do you say that I am?” which is a quote from Jesus talking to St. Peter. The first talk was on the biblical images of Jesus.
After that we had a bit of free time and then prayed night prayer together. After night prayer I was leading Taize prayer. This is a musical prayer in which a simple verse of prayer is repeatedly sung as a guide towards meditation. Some of the guys had never prayed using Taize prayer, they seemed to like it. Taize is one of my favorite forms of prayer so I was glad that I could lead that.
Some guys went to bed, while some took a walk down to Lake Michigan which the convent’s property touches. A few of us just sat around playing cards and relaxing in each other’s company without school or obligation time immediately hanging over our heads.
In the morning we prayed Morning Prayer and had Mass before going to breakfast. After breakfast was another talk, this one on the priestly image of Jesus. We followed that by a break for relaxation and games. I went and sat by the lake for a bit in prayer before returning to the group room and joining in a game of charades. We all gathered together and prayed a rosary together while going for a walk outdoors. The rosary ended right about the time for lunch. After lunch was one more talk on where we are going in our growth towards trying to be as much like Christ as we are able. The retreat ended with a short closing prayer.
Since I was in Wisconsin already I had decided that I would go and visit one of my good friends for a bit after the retreat. I went over and had some homemade chili and watched a bit of the semi-final game before heading back to the seminary to study.
Sunday I was visited by a good friend. She had been not too far away visiting some family so decided to stop in at the seminary for Mass on her way through. We also went to breakfast at the refectory and I gave her a tour of the campus before she headed home and I went back to my studies.
Aside from prayer time, class time, work at the library, and studies the only other thing that I give quite a bit of time to is working out. We have a nice little weight room on campus and a gym with an indoor pool too. In addition to that the loop around the lake on campus can be either 2.5 or 3 miles depending on if you go the outer loop or not. As I have said I had gained quite a bit of weight with the thyroid cancer a couple of years ago. I am happy to say that I had lost 10 pounds from my peak before coming here and as of this morning I have lost 30 pounds since being here. I had hoped for a bit more, but at least it is going in the right direction.
Well, back to the books.
Peace,
Adam
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