Tag Archives: Plainville

Is It All Worthwhile?

Leave a reply

“Is it all worthwhile, we ask in worldly wise?” A question asked in an old novena prayer.

I woke up today asking that question about the mission at Plainville.

The number of people who came to the services wasn’t impressive. Maybe 200 for the two services in the morning and evening. It was good to see the young people preparing for confirmation there in the evening. The priests of the parish were there too.

What surprised me was the number of visits to this blog during the mission, over 500 for the 4 days. I invited the people on Sunday to visit the blog, to invite others to follow it as a way of making the mission, and they evidently responded. How can I expand that part of the mission I wonder now?

I’m convinced  missions should be more catechetical and scriptural in nature. People need to reflect on their faith and they can do this by reflecting on the scriptures that communicate faith. So much of this is done through the liturgy; yet as people stop going to church they miss out on this vital communication. This is especially true of young people.

I thought our services were beautiful this week. Simple, prayerful, with beautiful music .

I had an interesting talk after the mission with Jean, the catechist at Our Lady of Mercy. They use the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd for their very young children and an intergenerational approach for the rest of their program. They bring old and young together to learn. After a number of years, this program using the scriptures as its base seems to be gaining acceptance.

Jean thinks the lack of religion in the home has a lot to do with the drift of young people away from the church. You don’t talk about Jesus Christ, the gospels, the issues of life that faith raises, at home. Our people are confused by the times and by the scandals in the church.

Yet, as the readings from John remind us in these last weeks of Lent, Jesus Christ is the  source of life for us and for our world. We cannot ignore him.

During this mission I became more convinced that the traditional goal of the Passionists is still vital: to preach the Passion of Jesus Christ. He is there on the Cross of Confusion and the Cross of Uncertainty and the Cross of Diminishment we are experiencing in our world. Our dreams of success are bursting. We need to put ourselves into the hands of a mysterious God as Jesus did.

How shall we fulfill that goal today? I wish I knew. But it will come to us.

“Is it all worthwhile, we ask in worldly wise? Yes!”

 

The Passion of Jesus

Leave a reply

Wednesday evening: Mission at Plainville, CT

The writers of the gospels are like painters, not photographers. They tell stories of Jesus with their own purposes in mind. They tell them with great artistry and beauty. Even though they spoke languages that we may not understand, and their world is so different, we are moved when we hear them today.

Last Sunday we heard the story of the blind man given the gift of sight by Jesus, a dramatic story that involved the blind man’s parents, his neighbors, the pharisees and Jesus and his disciples, all interacting with one another. The story is told in John’s gospel with great skill.

The greatest story in the gospels is the story of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. That story would never have been written if Jesus had not recalled it to his disciples after his resurrection. When he appeared to them on Easter Sunday, “he showed them his hands and his side.” It was a story they wanted to forget.

But he reminded them of what happened to him, even though they want to forget it. The story was not to be forgotten; it was to be remembered. It was the first story of the gospels to be written. It’s a book of many lessons. The rest of the stories of the gospel cluster around this one.

At this evening’s service we listen together to the Passion of our Lord according to St. Mark.

Then we pray that the Lord whose presence continues in Bread and in us will show us his hands and his side and, like the disciples, we will  rejoice.

Mission: Plainville, Ct April 4

2 Replies

Learning from Jesus Christ

We know Jesus Christ through the scriptures, and one goal of the Second Vatican Council was to promote the reading of scripture in the liturgy and catechesis of the church.

Scholars and believers have brought new insights from the scriptures into our faith and our church.  Our task now is to let the scriptures nourish our prayer and our reflections on our faith.

That’s a goal of our mission this week.

In the morning Masses we are going to reflect on the daily readings for Lent.

In the evening services for Monday and Tuesday we are going to reflect on the part of the Gospel of Matthew called the Sermon on the Mount which is read in the first part of lent. Jesus, our Teacher, tells us how to live and how to pray.

On Wednesday, we will go to another mountain, Mount Calvary, to learn from Jesus how to love.

This morning, the story of the official who approaches Jesus asking that he heal his son who is dying draws our attention to the mystery of death. Why does it happen? What does Jesus teach us about death?

He came to conquer death. “Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life, Lord Jesus come in glory.”

The two most important moments of our life are now and at the hour of our death.

Holy Mary, mother of God,

pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

Mission: Plainville,Ct April 3,2011

Leave a reply

Sunday evening, April 3rd

Learning from Holy People

“We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day.

Night is coming when no one can work.

While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  John 9

In the gospel for today, Jesus gives the blind man– blind from birth– sight he never had. Jesus is the light of the world.

But we share in his work. “We” have to help people to see. It’s our mission to  light up the world with our love and our lives. “You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world,” Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew.

The new US Catholic Catechism for Adults offers short biographies of holy people, many of them from our own time and country, to exemplify different aspects of our faith. So, St Elizabeth Ann Seton demonstrates  the search for God that goes on, uniquely, in all of us.  Faith doesn’t exist in the abstract.  The profiles of holy people in the new catechism say that you don’t find faith in a book, or in a list of propositions, you find it in people.

Growing in faith means growing in the knowledge of God, but it also means growing to appreciate people, made in the image of God.

I offer two examples at our mission service tonight  of people who have helped me to see.  One of them is Father Theodore Foley, a Passionist priest from Springfield, Ma, who is a candidate for canonization.

Read about him at http://www.theodorefoley.org/

There’s a video at  http://vimeo.com/20519385

And                          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrqTClkJidk

 

How about those who help you to see? Can you name one or two?

 

Lord Jesus Christ,

I am blind to so much,

help me to see.

Some other web resources you may be interested in:

The Passionists:   www.thepassionists.org

St. Paul of the Cross:   https://vhoagland.wordpress.com/st-paul-of-the-cross/

 

Victor’s Place: https://vhoagland.wordpress.com/

 

A Mission in Plainville, CT

1 Reply

I’m beginning a mission at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Plainville, Ct today and I’ll be preaching at all the Masses over the weekend. We will have a mission service each evening at 7 o’clock from tomorrow evening till Wednesday. I’ll be preaching at the morning Masses at 8 o’clock  too. Confessions after each service.

John’s gospel for Sunday about the blind man receiving his sight is a wonderful gospel with which to begin a mission: a dramatic story, involving Jesus and his disciples, the blind beggar, his parents, the neighbors, the Pharisees, and of course ourselves.

I like especially the way John’s Gospel links the disciples with Jesus.

“We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day.

Night is coming when no one can work.

While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  John 9

We receive light from Jesus, but also from his disciples who share his mission to be light  for the world. So besides Peter and James and John and the others, we have a mission too. I’m going to speak about that at the mission tomorrow night.

We also are there in the blind man, who can do nothing for himself. Like him, we wait for God, like beggars with empty hands and no eyes.

We are there too in the blind man’s parents who don’t want to get involved in all of this, even if he is their son. We don’t like involvement.

We’re there in the curious neighbors, like a Greek chorus chiming in as the events unfold.

Then, there are the Pharisees, blind in a different way but convinced they see. We can find ourselves in them too.

I’ll be posting blogs during the mission for those who can’t make it, or would like to follow it from a distance. I’ve done this before and it seems to work.

A mission is like the spit and clay Jesus used to heal. Doesn’t look like much, but it can bring some to see again. Please God, this one will do it also.