Resurrecting Chicago

Why the Cross? (Cello5, image by Michal Lech)

We Americans observe a terrible memory today.  It’s the twenty-fifth anniversary of the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City. With visions of people leaping out of the upper floors of those towers as the conflagration raged up the stairwells of the buildings, our memories of that day haunt us these many years later. Too quickly, the images come of thousands of people fleeing through the streets as the acrid black smoke descended on the them.

How are Catholic Christians supposed to relive  this disaster? How could God who is Love have permitted this intentional holocaust?  Couldn’t He have heard the hearts of those who each day pray for peace?

This disaster did not have to happen.  God permitted it to happen.  Why? And, why all the rest of life’s sufferings?”  Why should a young woman beginning a career in medicine lose her life to a car accident in the Spring of her life?  Why a child’s cancer? Why did my life’s partner leave me? Why so often do our hopes drown in loss?

Why does God permit suffering.? It cripples our spirits and brings our bodies to weakness.  Our spirits are horrified.  Where is God in all this?

Archibald MaLeish ‘s poem captures the awful feeling that we have when we consider evil:

“If God is God, He is not good. If God is good, He is not God.”*

Yes, if God is the ultimate almighty one, then, he could have saved us from 9-11, but He didn’t. Some other influence was more powerful than His love. So, if you tell me that God is good, that’s fine.  but unfortunately, He is either not all-good or there’s another power to be dealt with and it is not love.

If God is really all-powerful He could have intervened and 9-11 would not have happened, but it did. Then, God must not be all-good because we have this memory of His absence during disaster.

Why do good people suffer? Logic offers no answer.

Twenty-five years ago today, I was just starting my day at the clinic. The T.V. was on at the desk. A plane hit one of the NYC Towers. It was awful.  Then some minutes later we watched as a second plane crashed into the other tower. I remember distinctly the moment I realized that the incidents were deliberate.   That increased the horror.

When Jesus the Christ felt the heavy wooden beam cut into his shoulder, when they whipped Him, mocked Him and impaled Him on His cross, what was He to think? Jesus own words echo in my heart today:  “Father, why have you abandoned me?” His voice thrust that first word out into the silent universe: Abba!

The darkness imposed by death and the tug of suffering felt in us leave us stunned and horrified. Our only hope is hope of Resurrection. That hope is a tiny whispering sound deep in our souls that says: “Trust me!”

*MacLeish, Archibald. From “J.B., a Play in Verse.”

Seminarian Paul Smolikowski,, circa 1871.

 This month the Congregation of the Resurrection honors the memory of a remarkable priest and Resurrectionist. Father Paul Smolikowski was a Resurrectionist priest whose life spanned the end of the nineteenth  century and the beginning of the twentieth.

Father Paul’s devotion to Christ and the Church is legendary.  Recently, he has been honored by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, a Vatican office which investigates the claims of those who advocate for Christians who have lived holy lives. That Congregation has determined after detailed investigation that Father Paul lived a life of joyful heroic virtue.  He has been listed among the “Servants of God” and can now be called “Venerable.”

In 1867, Paul Smolikowski  was 18 years old  and intending to become a Jesuit until he met the small group of Resurrectionists who were teaching at his seminary in Rome. He loved the idea of joining a new Congregation like the Resurrectionists because he felt the fire of God’s love kindled in the hearts of those dedicated priests and brothers. He felt that same enthusiasm in his own heart and was thrilled to join them in their proclamation of the hope of the Resurrection. 

He loved the vibrant men who taught him, especially one of the founders of the Resurrectionists who was still living: Father Peter Semenenko.  Paul learned the depth and the power of this new religious community from this man.

Some forty years before, Father Peter with several others had banded together to form a new movement in the Church. It’s purpose was to bring fresh hope to Church parishes. With the celebration of the Holy Eucharist as the center of the social life of parishes, the founding group intended to create associations and groups which would live the Gospel of Jesus in their daily lives. They called themselves “The Brothers of the Resurrection.”

 Paul saw in Father Peter Semenenko, C.R.  something of the fiery urgency of the Gospel which burned in his own heart.  Bright, and deeply spiritual, the old founder’s humility and theology made a deep impression on the young Paul and he made a decision to join this new community.

Thanks to men like Venerable Paul Smolikowski, C.R. the mission of  the Resurrectionists continues today in more than a dozen countries, including the latest, Tanzania in Africa.

We ask you to pray for vocations to the Resurrectionist Community so that many young men will see in our life and work, a sign of their own vocation. May Our Lady, Mother of Graces, inspire many young men to give their hearts in devotion to the Church, as Venerable Paul did when he eagerly answered God’s call.

This morning, I was reading “The Christian Century,” a protestant journal. The cover of the September 2026 issue depicts Christ Pantocreator because the “Feast of Creation in Christ,” is observed by some liturgical churches on September first. This was a decision of the World Council of Churches which is on a mission to make us Christians aware of our responsibility to value all that God has made, the vast universe of his creation.

The official date is September 1.  I checked the Catholic  “Ordo,” the guide that priests use to observe liturgical feasts and memorials. Although we Catholics have not yet embraced this feast officially, we are reminded in our guide for today that Pope Francis was all for this kind of a celebration. There’s  a note in the Ordo meant for the preparation for today’s Mass. 

In fact at Castel Gondolfo, Our Holy Father, Pope Leo celebrated the Mass of Creation on September 1 and stressed the beauty of creation and our responsibility to it. In his homily he reminds us to take to heart the words of Pope Francis’s encyclical “Laudate Si.”

In the spirit of the old idea of celebration as continuing a whole week, I invite you to take seriously this new awareness of the sanctity of creation to freshen-up  September-time. 

It seems to me that we can show our  respect for the Lord’s creation by doing little things that – if everyone observed them – would help us revere what the Creator has supplied for our own wellbeing.  Yes, I know we are not the only living things here, but we are the conservers of our world.  So, I’m suggesting the following:

Conserve Water!  Don’t run the water from your faucet as if there is an infinite supply of it out there. Brush your teeth but turn off the tap while you do it. At the kitchen sink, don’t let fresh water pour out of the faucet and down the drain needlessly.  I think life is pretty-much a daily affair and made up of small things. Remember the countries with limited sources of water. Act like they do to use each drop of water with gratitude.

Salvage trash, carefully dispose of refuse and don’t litter the world with garbage! 

Pray for good stewardship of food.  Do not waste His bounty.

Feed the birds!

These are just a few practices that I thought of.  You can find many of your own opportunities each day to find ways to conserve creation.

Just look over your own life and how you relate to the rest of creation.  Choose one or two things where you can show more reverence to what the creator has provided. 

Put your phone away and pause to thank God for what you see and hear and experience each day.

The Great Books (Wikepedia illust.)

Sauntering through a local flea market with a friend, I noticed, for sale, a few books from a collection of volumes called “The Great Books of the Western World.” The vendor had one table set-up with some figurines, costume jewelry and four or five random volumes of the set of fifty-four published in 1952.

I’d wanted the set for years, but the cost had been prohibitive.

“Do you have any more from this set?” I asked the guy selling.

“Yeah, the rest are in the trunk of my car. I got ’em all!”

“There are fifty-four volumes to the set,” I said.

“They’re all there. I’ll take fifteen dollars for the whole thing,” he said.

“Sold!” yelled my friend immediately.

I brought the set home and arranged them in my bookcase: Fifty-four volumes of   works by classic Greek philosophers (Aristotle, Plato, etc.), Cervantes, Hugo, Jane Austen, Freud –to name a few– and St. Augustine’s “Confessions,” his famous auto-biography. 

I read that book and a few other from the set.  For the next 25 years I lugged them from one pastoral site to the next. Just having them there made me feel content. Most of the volumes remained unread but I studied St. Augustine’s “Confessions” and it’s one of the greatest books that I have ever read. Nothing compares to it.

Bishop Augustine, showing compassion. (Wikipedia photo)

Augustine leads the reader through his search for God in his experiences from infancy to adulthood.  He meditates on the vastness of the exterior universe seeking evidence of a supreme being but he also seeks God in his own soul.  He finds in his heart an endless interior depth which he says was opened to him by an incomprehensible  light.  It was not the light of day but an interior experience which revealed to him what he had long been searching for.  He found, then, that there was an inexhaustible light which he reckoned with as God.

Still he couldn’t encounter this light fully until he discovered through revelation, Jesus Christ, the Mediator between God and man.

Then he speaks directly to God: “Late have I loved you., O Beauty ever ancient, ever new… You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you.  You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.”

I wonder at the God Who arranged for me to find the writings of His witness, St. Augustine, in a open-air stall on a sunny day in Las Vegas where I was serving the Church. Each day, I expect to experience Divine Light. I’m still searching, still seeking His presence. Sometimes, He flashes in me.

You, too, might find the Divine Presence that you seek in some obscure place.   St. Augustine teaches us to never, never, give up that search.

(Bride by lotta4ever)

Some of you who read the title of this post will be thinking, “What’s he talking about?

OK.  Here it is: Back in the day, traditional weddings had all kinds of customs, some of them plainly curious.  For example, on her wedding day, the bride was expected to fulfill this precept in regard to her attire or risk bad luck:

“Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.”

I knew one bride whose dress was the one her mother wore at her own wedding — something old. Her white shoes were brand new.  She wore her aunt’s ruby neckless.  Her blue eyes were a slight departure from the usual blue handkerchief, but they were a definite fulfillment of the last requirement for good luck. Something blue.

I think Catholics should have a similar adage in the liturgy of life.  We need substantive things which water the roots of our Faith, otherwise that Faith dries up. 

How about this:

Something old –  It could simply be your memory of the sign of the cross that your mother taught you or the ritual of getting down on your knees when you pray the rosary. I remember my father on his knees after supper as we prayed the family rosary. Maybe a material thing like a cherished rosary or a treasured bible would work best.

Something new – It could be a holy-card of St. Carlo Acutis, our most recent saint, or a new book on the Catholic faith or Bishop Barron’s latest homily or, even the memory of your most recent reception of the Holy Eucharist. What have you done recently to refresh your Faith? How can you experience its newness?

Something borrowed – This is something that’s with you for a while but that you have to return because it puts a religious obligation on you. Faith is a gift you received and you must return it refreshed to someone who needs it. Don’t bury that Faith. You borrowed it, now you should return the favor to someone else. Actually, this is the way Our lord designed so that His Church would never fade away.

Sea and Sky (Enriqueseask)

 Something blue: Think of the skies, the color of the vast expanse of the heavens on a bright cloudless day. It could be the sea, dark blue and limitless until it recognizes a shore, then it becomes a warmer blue.  Lit by the lighthouse of your Faith, there is always something blue, if no more than a violet lifting its head in the Spring.

Always, and I mean always, have something holy with you.  Whether it’s a blessed rosary around your neck, a holy card in your wallet  or a small crucifix that you can feel in your pocket. Whatever it is, whether old, or new or borrowed, or blue, it will remind you of your commitment to Christ Jesus.

St. Ignatius says “Hi!” Holding a book with the Latin message: “All for the glory of God.”

The Congregation of the Resurrection has it’s international center in Rome adjacent to the famous “Spanish Steps”  where a grand bifurcated stairway leads up to the French church of the Holy Trinity at the top of the steps. Other than the images of St. Peter’s square at the Vatican. the Piazza d’ Espana is one of the most photographed places in Rome.

When St. Ignatius of Loyola first came to Rome to seek papal approval for his new Society of Jesus, he entered through the gate that leads into the huge expanse of the Piazza del Populo and then walked down  the street a short way to the Spanish Steps.  There he decided to stay at a hostel on the grounds of what is now a three-story complex with offices for the central administration of the Congregation of the Resurrection. 

If you come to the CR’s center and ask to see where St. Ignatius lodged, you will be welcomed at our little piazza  which leads to our main house and then shown a simple sheltered  cave-like space along the wall which parallels the Spanish Steps. It’s marked by a simple cross and a humble shrine.

St. Ignatius is revered by CRs in the US  because we were trained in the basics of classical education by Jesuits. So, we are happy to show pilgrims St. Ignatius’s first stopping place in Rome.

In the fourth week of St. Ignatius’s  thirty-day retreat, he speaks of the glory of being a Christian.  He asks the retreatant to imagine himself as seeing the Risen Christ and enjoying the glory of it all. That encounter should form the foundation for an authentic Christian life, according to Ignatius.

Too many times, Catholics seem to miss this all-important aspect of being a Christian.  We are not supposed to be depressing or depressed.  We should not be dour and sour.  This kind of spirituality misses the point.  The joy of the Resurrection has to energize our lives!

Run away from those Christian leaders who are always negative! Skirt the devotions which focus on the crippling sadness of being a Christian!  This is not Gospel teaching.  The bible never tells us to be sad and anxious about our redemption, in fact, it insists on the opposite.  “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” Paul lists all the difficult situations: sicknesses, bearing of crosses,  crushing disappointments. But, that suffering does not extinguish the power of the Resurrection. The tough stuff leads us to that life-changing miracle which Jesus promised to those who trust Him. (Romans 8:38-39)

The Jesuits help us remember that all things must be done for the “Glory of God” and Resurrectionists find that glory in the Resurrection of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

“Jesus, Our Life and Resurrection, have mercy on us!”

Lazarus at the Entrance of the Tomb (detail).

Resurrectionists from the USA are meeting on retreat this coming week in Woodstock, Illinois. Each year we meet to renew our commitment to Christ and the Church by gathering as a body.   It’s providential that this Wednesday’s gospel relates the story of  Lazarus rising from the dead. We will welcome that day as we deepen our understanding of what “resurrection” means.

In the gospel for Wednesday (July 29), Jesus receives word that Lazarus is dying.  His sisters ask Him  to come quickly. After all, Jesus of Nazareth is a renowned healer. His apostles get ready to leave with him for the village where his friends live, but Jesus delays leaving.  He confounds his disciples by telling them that He will go later to wake him.

Jesus does not show up, not even for Lazarus’s burial.  Martha and Mary can’t understand why Jesus did not come to help when Lazarus fell seriously ill. Instead, He arrives three days after Lazarus is placed in tomb. Then, Jesus asks Mary if she believes in eternal life. She does believe in it but expects that it will happen “on the last day.” He tells the sisters to lead Him to the tomb.

Jesus, weeping, stands before the crypt where Lazarus has lain for three days. The sisters plead with Him to not even think about removing the stone from the entrance to the tomb. They remind Him that by now Lazarus is decaying. 

Nevertheless, Jesus commands that the heavy stone be rolled aside from the entrance.  He calls Lazarus to come out of the tomb.  Lazarus appears at the rocky entrance and slowly walks out. He stands before the astonished crowd with his hands still bound in the burial wrappings. Jesus welcomes Lazarus by telling the bystanders to help remove the bindings from His friend.

We Resurrectionists believe that as His disciples and by God’s grace, we must call people out of the darkness of their sinfulness to the light of the new life that Jesus promised. Even those long dead in sin can hear the voice of the Lord through us,  and come out of the darkness to the light of the new life. This is what our Resurrection charism urges us to do.  By our calling, we bring the hope of Jesus to a needy world.

We ask you to pray for us who are on retreat this week. Call on the Lord to help us have the courage that we need to proclaim this gospel of dying to selfishness and rising with Christ. It’s a ministry of hope which we Resurrectionists are called upon to offer to a needy world. 

Resurrectionists at Prayer. (photo credit, U.S. Province)

 At the end of this July 2026,  Resurrectionists from across the country will be meeting in Woodstock, Illinois for their annual retreat. A retreat is a time of prayerful renewal in Jesus and a re-awakening of  community life, a time away from work and ministerial service, a time for rest, prayer, renewal and enjoyment.

I think that the hardest part about a retreat is to stop working and to stop thinking about and planning  work. There should be no calls home; no computer work on schedules or other ministerial tasks.  Definitely no chit-chat on cell phones. We are retreating from all that tedious and unending concern that occupies our daily lives. We religious have to let go of our over-concern with work and rest in Him.

We are asking you who read this to pray for us that our minds and hearts are ready for renewal, recalling the charism of the Resurrection. A retreat is not so much what you do for the Lord it’s what he has planned for you. Help us discover that plan, that blessing. This retreat is God’s gift to us.  He holds out the blessing of a few days of complete trust in Him.  .  

Please pray for us Resurrectionists during the time we are on retreat.  Pray that we may be graced with a new spirit of dedication. Pray, also, that our vows of poverty, chastity and obedience grace our lives with generosity, warm love, and trust in the Father’s plans.

Resurrection is a dying to self an rising with Christ. There’s a wonderful story about St. Julian of Norwich that expresses this mystery. One day she decided to meditate before the image of the crucified Christ.  As she began to feel a strong emotion of sadness, the face of Christ suffering on the cross began  to change and the pain in it went away.  That pain was replaced by features of strength and joy.  She began to feel the power and grace of Christ Resurrrected.

She famously understood that Christ’s redeeming love rendered the suffering inherently purposeful, leading to her central, comforting assurance that “all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well”.

Please remember to pray for Resurrections this week as we seek the Lord’s grace during this retreat.

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by Freecliparts

On this 250^th anniversary of our Independence, we Catholics ought to bring to mind a prayer composed for George Washington’s inauguration by the first American archbishop, Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore, Maryland.

I’ve rearranged a few paragraphs from this extended prayer. I hope that it will serve as an intercession in which we can find solace as we Americans face the very deep divisions burdening our right to seek life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Photo by LAWJR

“(O Lord), let the light of your divine wisdom direct the deliberations of Congress, and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed for our rule and government, so that they may tend to the preservation of peace, the promotion of national happiness, the increase of industry, sobriety and useful knowledge; and may perpetuate to us the blessing of equal liberty

We pray O God of might, wisdom and justice, through whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment decreed, assist with your Holy Spirit of counsel and fortitude the president of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness and be eminently useful to your people over whom he presides; by encouraging due respect for virtue and religion; by a faithful execution of the laws in justice and mercy; and by restraining vice and immorality.

. We recommend likewise, to your unbounded mercy, all our brethren and fellow citizens throughout the United States, that they may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of your most holy law; that they may be preserved in union, and in that peace which the world cannot give; and after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal.

Amen