Resurrecting Chicago

What is this?  It looks like a gathering of residents in a retirement center. Many are white-haired, not necessarily impaired men but certainly up there in years. The older ones are sagging in their chairs, canes and walkers at hand.  Not all are overweight, but to be honest, most, even the dark haired,  are out of shape.   Everyone is more or less focused on the head table where three leaders are facing the rest of us.  This morning’s discussion is what to do about the diminishing number of community members and the lack of younger members.

“We need to pray every day for more vocations,” one priest has risen to say. Another joins in saying “All religious communities are feeling the pinch these days.”

Another priest with dark hair offers: “I keep going to these vocation conferences and I meet quite a few young men who show some interest In our community but they don’t follow up with me. I think young people today are too distracted by trying to achieve the best social position that they can. They have so many job opportunities and possible adventures to think about, they just aren’t listening for a divine call.” We are being drowned out by the secular culture.”

One of the white-haired group, Father Gravitas who has no cane to be seen gets up: “I was talking to a member of the Passionists and they are diminishing in numbers, too.  And, no vocations!  Maybe we should join with them and form a new community.  We could call it the “Congregation of the Pascal Mystery!”  We would then proclaim the passion and death of Christ as the solid way to a Resurrected life.”

“Yes!” the dark-haired guy says, “then we could turn to the inquirer at a vocation conference and challenge them to join us: “Come, die with is!”

This brought a smile to the face of Father Gravitas who proposed it and chuckles from those who were listening.

“Mmm… Sounds interesting to me,” one of the head-table leaders says. “Maybe we should join forces and use the motto, “Let’s die to ourselves and rise with Christ!”

“O my gosh, who would want to join such a crazy group?” the oldest priest present said with wonder in his eyes. He grabbed hold of his walker as he leaned forward earnestly.

“Well, it is biblical.”  This comment is from one of the two men at the head-table.  “Remember when Our Lord waited until Lazarus died to announce his intention to go to visit the burial site? The apostles were aware the Sanhedrin had  decided that it was imperative that one man die for the sake of the people.  Thomas, one of the apostles, said, “Let us also go that we may die with him.” (John 11; 16).

Another response: “Some young people want to make their lives mean something.  They don’t want to join an organization but a movement, the more revolutionary the better. Remember, Jesus had told them all that he waited to go up to be with Lazarus and family because he said “It will be for your good and for the good of your faith.” (John 11; 15)

A few days later after Jesus’ death  and after their were rumors of his resurrection from the dead, it’s Thomas who refuses to believe in the resurrection until he traces with his finger the places where the nails went in and then touches the wound in Jesus’ side.

Paul would say later: If we have become united to Him in the likeness of his death, certainly we should also be with Him in the likeness of the resurrection.” And, the great St. Benedict, founder of religious community life said: Prefer nothing to the love of Christ.

Father Gravitas rises slowly and says slowly: Maybe this is the only thing we should be saying at vocation conferences.  With certainty in our voices, maybe we should stand in front of a huge, black banner that challenges passersby with the bright words: “Come Die with Us!”

I am still thinking of St. Benedict these days and his rule of life for religious. The basis of religious life is humility. Without humility you cannot seek His face. Life will be all about you. I remember one woman near the end of her life as she looked up from the stove where she was routinely frying two eggs, saying to me: “I wish I could stop thinking of myself.” And, I thought, “She is totally open to someone else, maybe even God himself.” A first step in religious awareness.

When I can be empty of myself, there will be room enough in my heart for Our Lord, and maybe even room for you. So, Benedict makes humility

The founders of the Resurrectionists learned humility from the Benedictines.

the founding virtue of the spiritual life in common.  In my community we put it this way: “You must die to self and rise with Christ.” Or, “We die to self and rise with Christ because we have loved the brethren.”

I’m still trying to remind myself of humility every day. In my seeking of Our Lord I pray for the grace of forgetting myself and experiencing life in the presence of Our Lord. It’s a matter of focus. If I am going to live up to my vows, I am going to have to keep Our Lord at the center of my life. I think that this is what love means.

Benedict leads his monks through twelve steps to this virtue. I am not sure which rung of the ladder it is –maybe it’s the first– but Benedict says that God’s will must be my will. It is complete surrender to the Father’s will.  This is not a secret known only to monks. When we pray the only prayer Jesus taught us to pray, the first thing we pray after hallowing his presence is “Thy will be done.”

Many of these twelve steps are simple and practical. For example: Don’t talk unless necessary. I think you and I would have to agree that when we talk it is usually in some way about ourselves. Instead, we should communicate by listening.  The psychologist Carl Rogers called it “active listening,” the kind of listening where we confirm what we thought we heard a person say: “I think I hear you saying….” Another step in the ladder is avoiding levity. That simply means giddiness and continually goofing around trivializes your life and those around you. However, Benedict wasn’t so serious that he didn’t see the humor in life. Remember this story?  His twin sister and he visited outside the monastery. When Benedict felt it was time to go, St. Scholastica wanted him to stay a bit longer. He insisted that he was ready to leave when his sister inclined her head in prayer and suddenly a great storm with angry winds and pelting rain made it impossible for him to leave. His sister said something like, “Listen to me next time.” Benedict with good cheer understood the sign and stayed the night.

“Keep your head down” is another, I think, the last step. There are a dozen sermons here including themes like “Don’t look for trouble,” “Avoid demeaning people by your haughtiness,” “Looking around, distracts you from looking inward.”

Religious community living can make you crazy or foolish.  It can also toughen you up for humble service  as you seek to live what God wills for you.

One of my priest friends has a pit-bull named Elijah.   What has this pooch got to do with the prophet who will return before the day of the Lord in his fiery chariot with flaming steeds whirling like the fire he is? Maybe my friend likes the idea of calling out the name “Elijah” several times each day. That way, the priest can recall Elijah, the fierce hound of God, leaping out of the pages of biblical prophesy, all-the-while- baying and growling the word of the Lord.

The bible recalls the scene of Elijah, the astonishing prophet of Israel who is walking with his protege Elisha when Elisha asks the Lord for a double portion of the spirit of his mentor.  Suddenly Elijah is on fire and his chariot and horses are blazing as a strong whirlwind snatches him — chariot, horses and all– and Elijah is taken up into heaven. Elisha puts on Elijah’s mantle and assumes the prophetic vocation.

In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke relates the first Pentecost when the Lord’s spirit comes upon the assembly and each of them receives a portion of the fiery spirit which comes rushing into the room and into their hearts. The fire is like Jeremiah’s fire, a sizzling spirit settles in their bones. Christ’s followers are compelled to express this experience as they rush out of the house and into the streets of Jerusalem singing the praises of God in all tongues.

Jesus had commanded them to pray for what John had clearly promised: “I baptize with water for repentance but the one who comes after me, whose sandals I am not worthy to loosen; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” On Pentecost,  the Holy Spirit pours Himself into each follower and inflames them with the spirit of Jesus. This Spirit moves the believer to announce the Gospel.

When the breath of the Holy Spirit starts like a whirlwind in your soul you find out what God is. John the evangelist says “God is love.” These words surely are the source for the ancient Christian prayer which begins: “Come, Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful people and enkindle within them the fire of your divine love.”

OMG! I haven’t posted here in months! And, how those months have changed us all because of the contagion of Covid-19! Who would have thunk it?

Abstaining from one another and fasting from the Holy Eucharist has become part of a new society filled with businesses that closed and will n

ever open again, like the fancy restaurant I saw in Westmont, IL with a big sign announcing “We are permanently closed.” People having leisure to take a walk with their families through the neighborhood. It looks like a good thing for families. But, lets just talk about Sunday church for a moment.

Churches are allowed to be open but with more or less 25% capacity congregations with non-pods sitting six feet from one another with masks hiding their identities and emotions.

The sign reads “Closed Covid 19.” Where are our roads to community now?

No singing.  It took  years of encouragement to have our people, at first reluctantly but later with some enthusiasm sing at Mass.  It was great to hear them sing like Baptists but now it is forbidden because nearly everyone sings when we do sing. So more people, more contamination of the ambient air.

It took us years to get people to share the greeting of peace.  Now it is to be omitted. We haven’t even yet considered the sharing of the cup. This is forbidden, now.

We built better and bigger foyers to encourage people to congregate before and after Mass. Now we just encourage them to go home.

You have to receive the Body of Christ in your extended hand. I watched one priest in a “streaming” Mass who stood in front of the altar in his church distributing communion in that way but he also had, at the side aisles, ministers of communion for those who wanted to receive on the tongue. He actually said that if anyone comes to him and wants to receive on the tongue “I will refuse you.”

Alright. Too much to talk about.  From this terrible pandemic we will eventually have to pick up the pieces of our society and our church.  Rebuilding community has always been a huge task of those who minster to the Mystical Body of Christ. Trusting God and one another, we will get through this.

Real Presence.

These days, actual community is out, virtual togetherness is in.  So, we have the LGBTQ+ community which lives everywhere and no place, at least no place like home, where the members can go to socialize. O.K., I know bars and cafes are notable for being just such places for gatherings of like-minded individuals. But, is that all there is? Community should involve a sense of belonging, an actual diversity of age, for example. From youth to adults, from kids to the ancients, where does the LGBTQ+ community exist? Mostly, on-line. Is that real?

What about the young adults who stand or sit with eyes glued to their cell phones? The screens are lit-up with twitters and faces and instant telegrams full of digital info.  Mental health workers tell us that our kids and young people are starving out there. They are consuming info that does nothing to nourish their inner lives. Its not more info that we need, we need recognition, companionship, encounter.

The psychologist Erica Komisar in a piece written for the Wall-Street Journal (12/1/19) tells parents to lie to their children if they themselves have no belief in God. Tell them, she says, that there is a God and that when we die our remains do not simply decompose into dust. Go ahead, Lie, if you have to, because our kids’ mental health is deteriorating. Our virtual communities do not fill deeper hungers for closeness and personal recognition. Church does.

People used to get a sense of importance and closeness from attending Church and participating in works of service. Now, with a 20% drop in attendance in the last twenty-years, we are seeing anxiety and depression rapidly increase among our children.

Digital counts pointing to scores of “friends” is not the same thing as sharing a camping experience or lunch with someone who you can see and touch.  With people who seem to have an interest in you, people who you like, too — and not just digitally. People who you want to see in person.

Our Catholic faith teaches us to love God and one another, not just virtually, or kind-of.  Isn’t it amazing that we can find the living presence of God, the “Real Presence” in the eucharist? I confess that a bright hand-held image will not take the place of the people who when I see them in person warm my heart like a sacrament. People are sacred, as God is sacred and we should not forget that reality itself has immense power to sustain the human spirit, something that no virtual reality can match.

“A few of the exiles live in a house which is organized like a monastery…a house of great value by the very fact that it exists and gives good example….

Even the wisest words eventually evaporate
and a book once read is forgotten
but a living institution exerts an influence
that is constant and effective.”

(Adam Micewski, the great Romantic poet, commenting on the
“House of Janski” in 1836.)

It was Ash Wednesday in 1836 when five young men sat down together for their first meeting as a community in an unheated, unfurnished house in Paris. They were exiles from their homeland and had recently rediscovered their Catholic faith. Bogdan Janski was their leader and Peter Semenenko, Jerome Kajsiewicz and two
other converts completed the group.

After giving some introductory words about their new community, Bogdan led the group in a meditation. During their first supper together, Bogdan read aloud these words from the first letter of John. “Let us love one another because love is from God…. Though God has never been seen by any man, God himself dwells in us if we love one another.” (I John, 4:7,12)

For months, Bogdan had been promising the eager young men that he would find a house where they could move in together and live a common christian life. They could then live like the early Christians who had all things in common and were of one mind and one heart. Now they had the house. The christian community was taking shape.

Bogdan thought the house he had rented, though small, would be big enough to accommodate twelve people. It had no furniture and no bedding. Of course, everything was handmade in the early nineteenth century, including Bogdan’s hand-sewn coat. He took it off at that first meeting and gave it to Peter to hock so that he could buy a mattress, pillow, some bedding and a table for the house. That was one way to begin furnishing the house. Bogdan had already pawned his watch. Now the others would bring in whatever they could contribute to create their new home.

Bogdan Janski was a twenty-nine year old academic who, after years of denial and disbelief had been led to rediscover Christ and the Church. The year before, a small group of older men had been meeting for Mass regularly and had invited the bright and gifted young man to join them for scripture reading and discussion at Adam Mickiewicz’ home. It was this group that showed Bogdan a path back to the Catholic Church. It was this group who funded what came to be called “The House of Janski.”

On the following Sunday, the first Sunday of Lent, the little group of five attended Mass and received communion together in the chapel of Our Lady at the majestic St. Sulpice Church, the second largest church in Paris. There they vowed to live community life together because they knew that the only way they could begin restoring the church was to start with themselves.

It was a religious association that they began but not a monastic society. Mickiewicz had “counseled that for the time being,we (should) abandon notions of social reform and concentrate on refo

photo by Todd G Patton, fittoembark@gmail.com

rming ourselves, by rekindling in our hearts a faith, a hope and a love that had grown cold.” Bogdan dreamed that his new brotherhood would spark in the hearts of those who had lost hope a re-born Christian society.

In his diary, Bogdan sketches his dream of a Christian society organized with many branches which would be more or less loosely united to his new core group. Parishes, for example, were to be spiritual families after the example of the primitive Christian community. But, there would be associates, too, who would live with the brothers at the House. External brethren, too, would be a leaven in all areas of society and be a cherished part of the movement. And Bogdan knew with his new community that he was, indeed starting a movement.

After that Mass, they walked back to their house and then lit a fire in the fireplace, taking the edge off the Paris chill. The group leaned in toward the heat of the fire and basked in its warmth. By the light of that fire, they met for a conversation that lasted two hours with Bogdan encouraging them, and recalling their purpose and explaining to them some of the duties of housekeeping. Each of them had to learn to think of his brother first as they cleaned the house, cooked and transacted business with those who came to visit the House of Janski.

Soon, Bogdan was assigning ministries which included outreach to the most needy among the exiles. There was desperate need everywhere he turned. Poverty. Joblessness. Hunger. Homelessness. Feelings of abandonment and loss of family connections among the exiles were especially painful. Where was the mercy of the Lord in all this misery? Bogdan instructed his group to bring hope and Christian example into their despair.
Acute needs arose, too. Later in 1836, the men responded to a terrible epidemic that rushed through Paris. Each of them did what they could for the sick. Bogdan took a few of the sick into the house but he saw the need for much more. Opportunity to serve Christ in the poor was often simply dumped on their doorstep.

All in Janski’s House were involved in ministry but Jerome was especially urged by grace in his ministry:

“One cannot fall in love with the Lord, taste how sweet He is, and not at the same time be inflamed with holy desire to see that others share that same happiness. Thus we tried to help others to know and love Jesus.”

There was a freshness and warmth to their spirituality which caught fire from Bogdan himself: Bogdan had brought something new to the emigres of Paris. Speaking about him, Peter had this to say about Bogdan and his remarkable ministry in Paris:

“He shown like the star that heralds the break of day…what a beautiful and attractive figure he was, there in the midst of all the poverty, misery, deterioration and darkness! A great spirit….”

On this Founder’s Day we should remember the charism, a gift of hope that Bogdan and hundreds of men have cherished during nearly two hundred years of our existence as a religious community.

The street is still there but Janski’s house is not.

We here in the USA province are a small group these days trying to huddle close to one another as our numbers diminish. We know our purpose is to take care of one another’s need for continuing conversion and to carry the fire of Christ to wherever we are sent. We pray that young men will somehow find us living our charism and will want to share in the dream of Bogdan Janski. They can find us here waiting at the hearth.

“In order to accomplish a complete spiritual renewal, Christian love needs to be nourished at the table of the Lamb, where all are of one heart and one soul…under the banner of the Risen Lord.”

“They’re taking down my old church!  I was baptized in that church,” said the young girl as she looked up at me with tears in her eyes.  She watched the crane swing up towards the steeple and then turned away. I don’t hear much from any of the other observers. They seem to be accepting the inevitable.

The old Immaculate Conception Church

We’re talking about Immaculate Conception Church in Morris, Illinois built 166 years ago. The roof had begun to leak badly and some of the bricks were beginning to crumble especially near the foundation of the church, and no services had been held in the building since the new church was built nine years ago.

People have been driving up in their pickups just to watch silently as the skillful workers bring down the old church.  For these on-lookers some of whom are parishioners, memories of weddings and funerals flood their hearts as the old church comes down. A few people bring lawn chairs to watch. Most just stand around or sit in their trucks observing the demolition from the schoolyard across the street.

It is interesting to see how carefully the old church comes down. There’s a chain-link fence erected around the perimeter to protect the site and keep the on-lookers out. I live across the street from the church and am listening to the creaky squeals of the crane as the operator lifts it’s jaws high above the steeple and slowly tears the exterior away to reveal the skeleton of where the bells were at one time. The staccato whine of the backup-signals of the trucks carrying the debris away continues throughout the next three days.

The workers carefully dump a half-ton of bricks outside the fence and men and women drift over and carefully select a brick or two that they want to keep as a tangible memory of what once was their church home.  Not everyone needs one, but some do. As soon as the bricks are dumped, one old guy who had been sitting on the hood of his pick-up slides down and walks slowly toward the pile.  He stands there a moment and then selects his brick, a dark red one, well-worn. I wonder what he was thinking as he salvaged the brick? Others come and take a brick or two as a remembrance.

The church is first in ruins and now in piles of broken brick, fractured wood joists and wall-rubble.   Plaster fragments from the roof and walls flutter down and are met by a worker aiming a stream of water that dampens the material as it comes down.  There is very little dust.

The Catholic Church in the U.S. is decommissioning and taking down old churches like this one. But, just down Jackson street, less than a block from the old site, the new IC church, much bigger than the old testifies to the vitality of the current members of the parish. The bells that were heard on the hour and on the quarter-hour from the old church tower are now announcing time and calling people to Mass from a hidden speaker above the main entrance to the new church.

There is something sad about this demolition. It’s a kind of death where the old structure is torn apart, falls and becomes a pile of rubble. The workers undertaking the clean up remove the remains and bury them in some landfill while the onlookers stand by silently and respectfully.

Could he be praying for his Church?

Why are there no young men asking to join the Congregation of the Resurrection? We have had a few older men join us in the last decade but that’s it. Our province has lost 2/3rds of its members in the last 25 years and these members are not being replaced. Other religious communities, both men and women, are faced with the same problem.

We’ve been aware of this condition for a long time.  A parade of vocation directors and animators has bitten the dust and we are still looking for the tactic that will bless our recruitment efforts.  We have sent two or three men to represent our charism at national conventions where college-age young men attend. It’s exciting to see them stop to visit our booth but then that’s pretty much the end of the relationship. Why?

I didn’t join my religious community because I was recruited but because I saw men serving Our Lord in ministry and wanted the joy and commitment that they had.  That was yesterday. Why aren’t men coming to us today?  Is it because a vocation to the priesthood is not attractive to young men today?  I was attracted to the priesthood because I wanted to be closer to God and it was the priest presiding at the Eucharist that grabbed me by the soul.

The second reason that we as a religious community are not attracting new members is that we really don’t work together much anymore.  There is no reality to the idea that individuals going off to work in the morning to serve in schools or parishes or hospitals equals community ministry just as there is little to commend the practice of praying public prayer alone, though it is sometimes necessary. Individual apostolates lead to divisions in community life and in the heart of he who serves.

If you don’t need a team to accomplish a ministry then it simply is not  community ministry.  One tradesman cannot build a house alone.  You need an architect, carpenters, masons, electricians, plumbers. masons and others to look at the bluprints and then following that plan, construct a building. Each trade has its place in the finished product. A new business has to have a business plan, too and that takes cooperating people.

We have individuals who no doubt love the Lord and the charism of the Congregation but they don’t work together or even live together. That’s a fact. One-man parishes and individual apostolates have us working for other organizations.

A third reason: The Catholic Church has moved from being perceived as something sacred to being numbingly pedestrian, and in some cases criminal, especially with priests involved in predatory sex.. Who wants to belong to an outfit of fruitcakes and sleazy sociopaths who prey upon children or dependent adults? Yes, I know: Only a small percentage of priests betray their vocations in that way. But, we’ve hidden these men for so long that we’ve become co-conspirators in these horrors.

A fourth reason: Catholic hospitals, nursing homes and schools now exist as secular organizations with little evidence of the practice of Christianity. I’m not saying these institutions are bad, they just aren’t holy anymore.

Let’s look at Catholic schools, for example.  Often, it’s difficult to tell a Catholic elementary School from a public elementary school, except for an occasional “all school Mass.”

I have been pastor in three parishes, each of which had its own elementary school. Each of the principals of those schools actively worked to separate their purpose from the mission of the parish. I had to let go from two of the schools, two long-time principals and the third should have been fired the first week I was there. In one case, it took me three years to accumulate enough evidence to remove the principal, an individual who had been fired by the pastor who preceded me but had been re-instated because of lack of due process.  Another, put twenty thousand dollars of tuition for safe-keeping under her bed. When I refused to offer her a new contract because of similar behaviors, I was forced to resign.

As pastor, I was not welcome in any of these schools. The school was the territory of the principal, each with a coterie of  secretaries, lunch-room personnel and teachers who upheld the principal’s territory with grim defiance. The mission of the parish of which the school was a part was an article of rejection in the creed of the educators.

In each of these schools, I tried to force the issue of priestly presence in the school.  It didn’t work. I can’t remember a time when I was asked to visit a classroom or engage with the children as pastor, as priest. No, not at any of those three parishes.

I’m not likely to pastor a parish again but I  can tell you I would never take one that had a school. I know other priests who feel the same way.

At one time the USA province of the Congregation of the Resurrection ministered and ran three high schools.  Now, we have none –they really don’t need us anymore.  I say: Let them go.

Father Norb, in his ’70s, continues to pastor a large church in Woodridge, IL.

A fifth reason? A priest, especially a religious, has no standing in what Francis calls “the throw-away culture.”  Priests are not respected as revered elders any more. The only position for a priest is as a reactionary and not all men are called to that cross.

Our elders –senior priests included — who are weakened by infirmity and age are told they can live in a pretty warehouse. Each must wear a life-line and refrain from taking a walk because of the possibility of a fall. Food is processed so that it is easily consumed with little chewing.  No one is encouraged to leave their cell unless absolutely necessary.   Two hundred old human beings just expected to maintain themselves until they die.

The throw-away culture lists abortions as the number one subject. Embryos, fetuses, and viable babies are discarded when defective or just not wanted.  Why should some priest interfere in a woman’s right to control her own body?

Many of the immigrants among us are simply a drain on our health-care system and contribute little to our culture.  Send the illegals back and make the legal immigrants abandon  their home country’s culture and embrace the American Way. These are not, of course, my opinions, but I have to listen to these arguments. I counter with “I was a stranger and you took me in.” (MT 25:35)  My religious community was called to America to assist immigrants with everything. We are no longer working with immigrants though the needs are great.  We aren’t seen helping Spanish speaking immigrants so that attraction is not present to young men looking for a challenging life in the priesthood.

So, these days the calling to be a priest in the Catholic Church is hard for a young man to hear.  There is so much noise in our culture against the priesthood that we can’t just turn up the the volume of our vocation work and expect young men to listen and join us.

The Church has gone through droughts before.  We just need to keep building up the kingdom and hope that young men will come.

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