An Exercise to Live the Salesian Now

I suggest this prayer exercise to help us live this Salesian Now. Each day make time to:

1. Use a comfortable space or go to your Prayer Place.

2. Light a candle or turn on a batteried candle.

3. Place your feet on the floor.

4. Become aware of your breathing:

• Breathing in God’s life-giving breath.

• Exhaling what is not of God: anxiety, stress, life-taking thoughts.

5. Think about where you’ve seen God.

• Picture that good and hold your heart to appreciate and thank God for it.

• Then place that thought in a gratitude bag or box, in your mind and heart, or in an actual bag or box that you create.

6. Think about any losses that you grieve.

• Picture that person or situation and hold your heart again, now for healing.

• Then honor each of these events and let them go.

• They will remain until you can honor them in new ways.

7. Now become aware of your breathing again.

• Thank God for your time together, or name whatever you are feeling.

• Ask God to help you live into each “Now” today.

Room for Improvement

Fr. Joe Newman, OSFS, preaching at Camp DeSales.

It takes time to become an effective preacher. I have been preaching weekly for 10 years, and I still consider myself a newbie! It is a great blessing to be part of a community with so many excellent preachers. I love listening to my fellow Oblates’ thoughts and reflections on the upcoming readings for Sunday, and I often steal their ideas to flavor my homilies. I once stole my brother’s Christmas homily. My brother, Michael, is also an Oblate priest. I told him my delivery was better.

I learned a great lesson following the first public homily I ever preached. I was a deacon at St. John Neumann (Reston, VA), and the parish had a bench full of Oblates who were excellent preachers. Right after mass, one of the parishioners came to me with a simple question, “Do you know what the largest room in the world is?” Honestly, I thought this was some church thing so I responded, “St. Peter’s?” With a smile, he looked at me, “No, it’s the room for improvement!” As I said before, it’s such a blessing to be part of a community with excellent preachers. (I did not steal this story, it really happened to me.)

Oblate Fathers Mike and Joe Newman celebrated their ordinations together earlier this year.

I love telling this story. I always recount it with a great smile and laugh. This wisdom was not an insult because it was full of optimism and hope!

In a letter of spiritual direction written by Francis de Sales, he captures the truth of the virtue of humility:

“The humility that does not produce generosity is undoubtedly false, for true humility, after it has said, ‘I can do nothing; I am only absolute nothingness,’ suddenly gives place to generosity of spirit, which says, ‘There is nothing and there can be nothing that I am unable to do, so long as I put all my confidence in God, who can do all things.’ And so, buoyed up by this confidence, it courageously undertakes to do all that is commanded.”

After a decade of preaching, I see God at work. Talk to any preacher and you will hear a common insight, “What I say is not what they hear.” After hours of preparation and prayer, it is an often occurrence for people to stop me after mass, tell me the message they heard and its impact on their lives. The thing is, it’s often not the message I preached, it is even better! God is at work, and I am in wonder when I witness His activity.

Francis has a wonderful way of combining our nothingness with our greatness. Stumbling into the “room for improvement” does not lead us to anxiety, despair, or bitterness; instead, the largest room is full of hope, courage, and generosity. We are confident that our God, who led us into that room, will not abandon us. No, with fresh courage, our stumbles gain us confidence in God.

Fr. Joe Newman, OSFS

Provincial

Toledo- Detroit Province

A Salesian Spirituality of Imperfection

As human beings we are more alike than we are different.  One characteristic we all share is that each of us, at some point in our lives, has made a mistake and, despite our good will and intentions, will probably continue to make them.

Saint Francis de Sales was aware of this.  In fact, he said that the spiritual life itself is comprised largely of mistakes because it is in our mistakes that we realize our own humanity, our own limits, and our need for God.  He writes, “We must never be astonished at finding ourselves imperfect…because there is no cure for it.”  Saint Francis asks us to acknowledge something we’d often rather avoid; namely, that as humans we are not, and will not be, perfect.  Instead, we must ask ourselves how we respond to our mistakes. 

Do we:

• Take the time to learn from them or dismiss them?

• Take responsibility when it is our fault or blame others?

• Do we work to correct it or resort to self-pity?

• Are we honest and accountable or do we play the victim?

Finally, Saint Francis also reminds us that after every mistake there is one thing we must do: pick ourselves up and continue moving forward as Jesus did when carrying the cross to Calvary.  During that walk Jesus was physically battered, emotionally drained, and going through physical upheaval.  Yet, after each fall, Jesus picked Himself up and continued going forward and persevered until He reached His destination.  How did He do it?  First, Jesus was supported through His prayer, His constant communication with the Father who loved Him and was with Him during His suffering.  Second, Jesus was supported by His friends who met Him on the way like His mother Mary, Mary Magdalene and the Beloved Disciple, John. 

Sometimes we can feel this way too: like we are carrying the weight of the world as we go through our days.  And the tools that Jesus used, prayer and friendship, we ought to use too.  By prayer we share our most intimate needs, desires, hopes, dreams and fears with God.  We ask God to be with us on the way.  And in friendship, we become closer to the people who will walk with us during our successes and our mistakes. 

When it comes to rising from our mistakes, let’s: 

• Recognize our mistakes (our imperfections)

• Take responsibility for their consequences

• Pray & patiently try to change ourselves to avoid making them

• Tell others what we are doing

• Persevere in making the needed adjustments as we try and try again

As Saint Francis advises, “Perfection consists in fighting against our imperfections…In this enterprise, we must have courage and patience…in this…we are always victorious provided we are willing to fight.”  In other words, we fail only when we fall and decide to remain down.  We are perfect when we fall and then rise again, trusting in God’s love and mercy, and determined to change and do better.

May God be praised!

Father Michael Newman, OSFS

Pastor

Holy Family Parish, Adrian, MI

Consider the Apodan

Even though I attended St. Francis de Sales High School in the late sixties, it wasn’t until I came under the warm magnetic field of the Oblates in the 1980s that I began to fall in love with the Saint Francis de Sales, the Gentleman Saint. 

I had always loved his famous quote, “There is nothing so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as true strength.”  It had hung in the music room of my grade school, named after another great saint, Saint Vincent de Paul.  But after working with the Oblates, who had blessedly come to Denver, CO for a decade, I could see how deeply true it is that true strength reveals itself in gentleness, forgiveness and, sometimes, laughter so uncontrollable you nearly fall off the table.

Decades later at our fiftieth high school reunion, several of us gathered our favorite quotes of Francis de Sales and read them together at our Mass.  I wasn’t the only one who had come to know and love him in the intervening years.

This past year has brought still more opportunities to know him.  With the Double Salesian Year, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the death of Saint Francis de Sales, and the 450th anniversary of the birth of Saint Jane de Chantal, came Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter, Totum Amoris Est.  Yes, even the most superficial dive into the life and writings of Saint Francis reveals a Christian for whom EVERYTHING pertains to love.

The section entitled “Wind and Wings,” right in the middle of the letter touched me to my toes.  I’d never heard of an “apodan,” apparently named by Aristotle, but that little short-legged bird owns my heart now.  These little birds, Saint Francis tells us, have such weak and short legs that “it’s as if they did not even have them.”  If they fall to the ground they have to stay there because their little legs don’t give them the traction they need to get a running start to take wing. 

So they’re completely dependent on a gust of wind to pick them up.  Once airborne, they must be ready to flap their wings so that the thrust of wind will continue to propel them higher and higher.  Eventually, they’ll be flying on their own but only because they’ve learned to surrender to being helpless on the ground until the wind finds them and sends them to the skies. 

I’ve given the word “surrender” a lot of thought these past many years.  None of us lives a long (and grateful) life without losing a lot.  One of the more intense losses for me was my generally good health, which tilted precariously in the wrong direction in 2007 when a staph infection tried to kill me.  Within the space of thirty minutes, I went from getting ready to go to lunch with a friend, to screaming my lungs out in the emergency room.

There began my descent into the valley of the shadow of death.  The infection had found its way into my prosthetic hip, which had to be removed, and replaced with a spacer until antibiotics cleared the infection.  Twice during those interminable months, the EMTs arrived at my house to pick me up and take me in the ambulance to the emergency room because the pain was more than I could stand.

Like the little apodan, I was utterly helpless to assist them in lifting me.  I learned to trust that I would be lifted carefully, with absolutely no help from me.  Likewise, in the months of my recovery, my life or death was completely out of my hands.  I was forced to surrender my life to God.

It's surrender that saves us.  Surrender - kenosis - takes an immense amount of grace.  But consider the apodan, says Saint Francis de Sales.  It has the grace to wait for the wind (and we would say Spirit) to lift it up.  It’s in surrender that we learn to Live Jesus.

Kathy McGovern

Kathy McGovern is a well-known scripture teacher in the Denver area. She publishes a weekly scripture column for parish bulletins. Subscribe at www.thestoryandyou.com

She has also authored a new Stations of the Cross book for Twenty-Third Publications, Walking with Jesus on the Way to Calvary: Praying the Stations of the Cross with Perseverance, available here.

How to Live Jesus!

Artwork by Brother Mickey McGrath, OSFS

I write this reflection from Baton Rouge, LA where I am preaching a Parish Mission at St. George Parish.  The parish Music Director, Joseph Smaldino, worked with the parish Director of Adult Faith Formation, Karen Fawley, Pastor Father Paul Yi and the Parish Staff to develop the Mission Theme.  We are reflecting on Making Ordinary Time Extraordinary by Living Jesus.  It is always a great gift to discover how many people have been touched by Salesian Spirituality.  I even met a couple, the Daigles, who belonged to Our Lady of Good Counsel, an Oblate parish in Vienna, VA, before moving to Baton Rouge.

Saint Francis de Sales said, “Many are satisfied with carrying the Lord on their tongue, recounting His marvels and praising Him with great ardor; others carry Him in their hearts with tender and loving affection, which becomes part and parcel of their lives, thinking of Him and speaking to Him. But these two ways of carrying the Lord do not amount to much if the third element of carrying Him in their arms by good works is missing.” (Sermons 2; O. IX, p. 22)  As much as we might love the Lord or speak about Jesus, it is by good works, carrying the Lord in our arms, that He is known. It is by Living Jesus that He is known and seen.  I like to put it this way: Love is known when it is shown.  Jesus is known when He is shown by our words, deeds and attitudes.

My mother’s version of this was, “Don’t tell me you love me. Clean the toilet. Do the dishes. Give me flowers that you pick from our garden or buy from the store. Tell me you’re sorry and show me that you mean it.”  In other words, show me that you love me.  I believe that is the message that de Sales conveys by telling us that we must carry the Lord in our arms by good works.  Mother Frances de Sales de Chappuis, the Good Mother, said it this way, “Imprint the Gospel in your flesh and blood.”  So I ask, “Do we? Do I?”

I see it in little and big ways.  A wife walks by the side of her husband who uses a walker, ready to assist him if necessary but supporting his independence as much as possible.  A couple holds hands while sitting together or walking down the street.  On the day of my writing this reflection, a man fell before our session and people immediately got up to see if he was alright and to offer a hand to help him stand up.  People volunteer to assist others in need, like one of our confreres who has gone to Florida twice to help with hurricane relief.  Students go on mission trips during their breaks, like the students I would take to Appalachia when I was a University Chaplain,  the students from Salesianum who recently served in Central America, or the people who volunteer at De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ. Love is shown when people stop to visit with or eat with one of our sisters and brothers who are homeless.  People bring meals to assist a family in need, drive others to appointments or offer to sit with a spouse suffering from dementia or on hospice so that the caregiver can have some relief.  Where do you see someone carrying the Lord in their hands?  Where do you help Jesus be known because He is shown in your good works?

A number of years ago I worked with a man whose daughter went to Bishop Ireton High School, a high school in Alexandria, VA that was administrated by the Oblates for many years.  He and his wife went to a Live Jesus! event.  While they were registering, they heard a woman behind them read one of the banners.  Instead of “Live Jesus” she read “Jesus, Live!”  She saw that sign and proclaimed that the day would be better than she had thought it would be.  She was going to see Jesus alive that day.  Well, after we laughed, our conversation reflected on the fact that when we carry the Lord in our arms by our actions, our words of support, our prayers, an email or a phone call and….you fill in the blank, we live Jesus in ways that help Him to come alive.  Our Salesian Spirituality makes a real and practical difference in people’s lives. 

I find this both comforting and challenging.  The comfort comes from the fact that Jesus is as near as our hearts, our minds and our very bodies.  The challenge comes from the fact that living Jesus, carrying Him in my arms by doing good works, stretches me to look and see where those works are needed and then to actually do them.  And so I ask myself:

•  “How can I carry Jesus in my arms by good works?” 

•  “Where do I see Jesus?”  

• “Where can I live Jesus so that He is seen by others?” 

When we do these things, the ordinary becomes extraordinary because the One whose name is engraved on our hearts, Jesus, is made visible for others to know and see Him.  Live Jesus and make Him alive in our midst so that His love can be known by being shown.  May God be praised!

Father Paul Colloton, OSFS

Superior, De Sales Centre Oblate Residence

Childs, MD

Advent Love

When thinking about joy, I distinguish it from happiness.  Here, too, I want to distinguish love from like.   Because of my own human frailty and temperament, there are some people who I struggle to like.  The situation usually has more to do with me than the other person.  A dear friend once told me that if I like someone, that person can do anything, and it would be fine with me.  But, if I dislike someone, the smallest thing she/he did that I find unacceptable would be catastrophic.  I want to believe that I have improved upon this significantly.  It has often been said that we don’t have to like everyone, but we are called to love everyone.  I think this has something to do with the fact that “love is of God.”

In his remarkable 10-DVD series Catholicism, Robert Barron defines love as “willing the good of the other as other.”  That is wanting what is best for another simple because they are other and not for what it could do for me.  The “good” that I will for him would be to know God more fully, so that his heart would change and the violence cease.  Whether we can see the image and likeness of God in others does not take away this presence within another.  Perhaps our love for another can make this clearer, more recognizable.

We must love because it has been mandated by Jesus.  Further, he takes this love to the highest level, “Love one another as I have loved you.”  This is a love that is total, complete, infinite, without merit, always on display, non-judgmental and a free gift.   We get a clear glimpse of this in spousal love, in parental love, and in the love shared between the best of friends.  Perhaps the best manifestation of this love is in prayer where we sit in total acceptance of the One who smiles on us, seeing us as so deserving of God’s infinite love even when this utterly amazes us.   Richard Rohr wrote, “Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change.  In fact, God loves you so that you can change.  What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love.  It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change.”  We must love because love is of God.  To love as God loves is indeed a very tall order.  We need great patience in this task for we are of God but not God.  So, our love is a process and somewhat imperfect.  Thus, Saint Francis de Sales often reminded people that perfection consists not in being perfect but in trying to be perfect.  It’s all in the trying.  What makes this doable speaks to Rohr’s point by letting God love us first.   For de Sales, this was a no-brainer, especially recognizing his favorite scripture was the Song of Songs, one great love song where the lover woos the beloved.  God takes the initiative because God wants to be with us, embracing us, holding and kissing us, the beloved.  We read in scripture, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.  Yet so we are.  The reason the world does not recognize us is that it did not know Him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed.  We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3: 1-2).

Advent love reminds us of this promise yearly that we may fortify our efforts to love others as Christ has loved us.  It enables us to be loved fully and completely, warts and all.  It grounds us in a place of humility before God, so that in Salesian thought, we may be gentle toward others.  We are loved infinitely, so that we may, in turn, wish this for all others.  To love another is to will the good of the other as other.  “To love another person is to see the face of God,” as proclaimed in the epilogue of Les Misérables.

Advent love is a beautiful baby, born homeless in a manger, who shepherds and kings traveled to worship in awe but selected a different way home.  So too, our lives must change direction once we have met the Savior, the Prince of Peace, the author and sustainer of love.  It’s now a life of love.

Father John Fisher, OSFS

Pastor

Our Mother of Consolation Parish

Philadelphia, PA

Final Preparations

Immaculate Conception Church, Wilmington, NC. Photo by Justine Deitz, 2021.

This week many students are wrapping up their semester with projects, papers, and final exams. There are websites and media posts dedicated to helping students successfully “cram” for the final weeks of school.  The internet offers various ways to help a student navigate these stressful final days before Christmas Break.

As a faith community, we are moving into the final week of the Advent season and our preparations for the fullness of the Christmas season.  Like a student in December, we may feel worried, stressed, and overwhelmed that Christmas is almost here.  We may feel that we have not done enough on our Advent journey to prepare our homes and our hearts for the season of the Nativity.   

Perhaps we have not prayed as much as we had hoped. Maybe we did not light our Advent wreath as faithfully as we had wanted or maybe we did not get to Church as frequently as we had desired.  Our inaction may lead us to believe that it is too late to ignite the spirit of the Advent season or we may be tempted to “cram” the final week of Advent with extra prayers, devotions and services to somehow “make-up” for our late start of the Christmas cycle.  This does not always turn out well.  We wind up replacing the stress of shopping and decorating with the stress of praying and spiritually preparing. Either way, we are overwhelmed. 

A core message of the Christian faith is that it is never too late.  At the birth of His Son, God gave the world a second chance.  The Nativity of Our Lord is a new beginning for all of creation.  In his message at the Angelus in early December, Pope Francis reminded us, “Let us remember one thing:  with Jesus, there is always the possibility of beginning again.  It is never too late.  And let us not let this Advent go by like days on the calendar, because this is a moment of grace, a grace for us too, here and now.  There is always the possibility to begin again.  Be courageous.  Jesus is near to us.” 

Since Christmas Day falls on a Sunday this year, the Fourth Week of Advent gives us a full seven days to prepare our homes and our hearts.  Saint Francis de Sales tells us that “God will lead us to perfection one step at a time.”   During these final days of Advent, we are aware of how much we still must do to welcome Christ more completely into our lives.  We are acutely aware of our struggles, our stresses and our lack of perfection.  Let us follow the advice of Saint Francis and take things one day at a time, one step at a time.  

Christmas comes, ready or not.  The celebration of the birth of Jesus comes, no matter the season or state of our hearts, even when we are not always ready to receive him.  The Christmas song “O Little Town of Bethlehem” reminds us that, “No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.”  Christmas comes amid the darkness, the grief and the sins of this life. Christ is born for all of us. Christ is reborn in all of us.  May our preparations, no matter how much or how little, lead us to open our hearts and let the Lord enter into our lives.

Reverend Jack Kolodziej, OSFS

Provincial

Wilmington-Philadelphia Providence

Gentleness

Recently I read the Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on Saint Francis de Sales presented following the 300th anniversary of his death on January 26, 1923.  Pope Francis is to issue a letter to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Saint Francis on December 28.  

In his encyclical, Pope Pius XI declared Saint Francis the Patron Saint of all Writers.  Pius XI began this work by stating, “The great need of our day is to curb the unmeasured desires of humankind, desires which are the fundamental cause of wars and dissensions, which act, too, as a dissolving force in social life and international relations.”

Don't you find these words strikingly relevant for our world in our day? I won't provide a grocery list of all that makes our world seem at least mildly crazy.  For many of us, finding a way to cope with our world's situation is overwhelming, leaving many with a sense of helplessness and even hopelessness.  

Pius XI identifies a remedy to this heavy burden in the beauty and grace found in the writings and life of Saint Francis de Sales.  The remedy is the virtue of meekness (gentleness), which Francis held as essential for imitating Christ.  By his admission, Francis found this virtue challenging, especially since he admits to a quick temper and ready anger.  Turning our hearts from anger, frustration and annoyance, to gentleness toward our neighbor and ourselves is a tough road.   

Pope Pius XI writes:

“The meekness (gentleness) of Saint Francis should be held up to the faithful in a very special way for their imitation, for this virtue recalls to our minds so well and expresses so truly the kindness of Jesus Christ.  It possesses, too, in a remarkable degree, the power to bind souls one to another.  This virtue, wherever it is practiced among men, tends primarily to settle the differences, both public and private, which so often separate us.  Likewise, can we not hope that, through the practice of this virtue which we rightly call the external sign of the inner possession of divine love, there will result in perfect peace and concord both in family life and among nations?”

Advent leads us to consider the meekness (gentleness) of the Holy Family, so well reflected in every manger scene this season.  Lowly animals, simple shepherds, a manger, and the Prince of Peace can lead us to rest in the gentleness of Christ and bring to our world the hope expressed by Pius XI in promoting the spirit of Saint Francis de Sales.

Here are some maxims from Francis de Sales that may help us model the gentleness of Christ and the Gentleman Saint.                                                                                 

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness— nothing so loving and gentle as strength.”  The Spirit of Saint  François de Sales, IV, 9

“It takes more oil than vinegar to make a good salad.”  The Spirit of Saint François de Sales, II, 13

“When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time.”  Letters to Persons in Religion, I, 6

“He who can preserve gentleness amid pains, and peace amid the worry and multitude of affairs, is almost perfect.”  Letters to Persons in Religion, II, 25

Father Jack Loughran, OSFS

Provincial

Toledo-Detroit Province