March 5, 2018
A Monthly Newsletter for Paulist Associates
The Associates World is the newsletter of the Paulist Associates. You can download a copy of this newsletter in PDF format (excellent for printing), or scroll down to read it in your Web browser.
- Paulist Associates Regional Retreat for 2018
- The Joy of the Gospel: Paulist Style
- Paulist Pilgrimages
- A Lenten Reflection
- St. Patrick, A Paulist Patron Saint
- Proposed Program for April
- Book Review
- Memorial Mass & Promises Highlight Fr. Desiderio’s visit to Tucson
- Renewing Promises and Updating Lists of Associates
- Prayer for the Intercession of Father Isaac T. Hecker
- Contacts
- Promise
From the afternoon of Friday, July 13th to Sunday afternoon, July 15th, Paulist Associates will gather for this year’s regional retreat, entitled The Role of the Holy Spirit in a Life of Joy, Prayer, and Gratitude.
This theme is in line with the expected focus of the Paulist General Assembly in May 2018, reflecting on how Paulists live and express “the joy of the Gospel” in their mission and community life. Pope Francis’s 2013 exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) serves as the background document. The retreat is also based on a passage of St. Paul’s first letter to Thessalonians: “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (I Thes 5:16-18).
Retreatants will consider the themes of joy, prayer, and gratitude in relation to the action of the Holy Spirit in three separate presentations/sessions.
In addition to the sessions, mealtime, and liturgy, there will be time for those Paulist Associates at the retreat to catch up with old friends and make new ones.
Preparations for this year’s regional retreat are well underway. Fr. Mike Kallock, CSP will be leading the retreat. The Associates in Chicago are assisting him as well as making arrangements with the retreat center and compiling any necessary materials
We have reserved spaces at the Cenacle Retreat and Conference Center in Chicago for Friday, July 13th through Sunday, July 15th. The Center is located at 513 West Fullerton Parkway. You may check in between 3 and 5 pm, and check is after lunch on Sunday.
Single rooms are $245 for the weekend; double rooms are $201 per person for the weekend. Meals are included.
The retreat center is nearby public transportation, and there is parking for 30 vehicles.
Registration began on Thursday, February 15th and registration remains open until March 28th. Each Associates should have received an email from Fr. Frank Desiderio with a link to the registration form. In addition, you may register for this time of prayer and fellowship, by visiting the Paulist Associates website to download the registration form.
When the form is complete, please send it with a deposit check to Dorothy O’Malley. Her contact information is on the registration form.
We are grateful to Fr. Mike Kallock and the Chicago Associates for all of their work to date (and the work that they will be doing over the next few months) to make this a fruitful and enjoyable retreat for all.
by Fr. Frank DeSiano, CSP
Not too long after Pope Francis was elected, he published his first major document, “The Joy of the Gospel.” In many ways, it harkened both the past and to the future. In all ways, it signaled the distinct approach of Pope Francis to his papacy.
This document did not come out of nowhere. Its immediate predecessor was the Synod on the New Evangelization, called in 2010 by Pope Benedict. In fact, Pope Benedict was able to preside over this Synod (October, 2012) just prior to his decision to resign. My own take on this was: Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams was at the synod and in the process of resigning himself. While making some outstanding contributions to the Synod (notably his speech on “Contemplation,” one of the most perceptive and challenging statements of the entire Synod), I think when he and Pope Benedict met, it dawned on the pope that he might be able to resign too! At any rate, the Synod of 2012 (I have a Paulist Press ebook on the synod if you are curious) produced dozens of “propositions” for the pope. These propositions, or conclusions, were passed to Pope Francis after his election in March, 2013. They became the immediate predecessor for “The Joy of the Gospel (Nov. 24, 2013).”
Even further back, we have the document of the Latin American bishops called “Aparecida (2007),” after the place in Brazil where the bishops met. This particular place also has importance as a location for Mary’s apparition, and so serves as an important shrine for Latin America. The bishops produced a rather long document, and the future Pope Francis was a key player in writing and editing it. This document contains many of the pastoral highlights of “The Joy of the Gospel,” particularly the idea that all the baptized are “missionary disciples,” and that we serve others from the position of service, not from arrogance or domination.
“The Joy of the Gospel” also harkens to the future. Pope Francis, living as he did in Argentina, does not have his head filled with visions of filling old European basilicas. Rather, he sees a world swimming with change, but also searching for a solid core. Faith in Jesus can fill the needs of today’s world, but it will not happen with a repetition of the past. Rather, new frameworks for interacting with people, engaging the world, and sharing the Gospel, will emerge if we renew ourselves as disciples, give ourselves to the Holy Spirit, and place Christ at the center of our lives. (Sounds a lot like Fr. Hecker to me!)
At any rate, I have been reflecting on how some of the themes of “The Joy of the Gospel” might resonate with Paulist ministry—the ministry of Paulists members, and also the ministry of Paulist Associates. I am hoping that our upcoming Assembly will use the framework of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation to buttress and expand some of our own ministry outreaches into the future. I am thinking that Paulist Associates can look at some of these directions for their own outreach and initiative.
I find these emphases to be particularly fruitful for Paulist reflection:
- “Personal Encounter with Jesus” — how we think of preaching, sacraments, spiritual renewal, media, and catechesis from a mission point of view; strategies for campus ministry outreach to younger generations.
- “Personal Witness, Church Proclamation” — how we shape “kerygma” for modern society, mission preaching, publications, year-round inquiry resources, Information Center offerings, evangelization training, street preaching. campus outreach, outreach around the arts.
- “Mission-Oriented Parishes” — consulting with dioceses and parishes, training of evangelization teams, clergy and catechetical presentations, reviewing our own initiatives in our Paulist parishes; parish renewal programs.
- “Non-practicing Catholics, both those who have faith, and those whose faith is cold” — renewed programming for inactive Catholics, dialogues with culture, Young Adult ministry, resources for young parents, media and publishing.
- “Christian brothers/sisters, people of other faiths”—ecumenical and interfaith outreach, parish dialogues with “the other”; joint service projects; common justice and peace initiatives; models for shared prayer.
- “Accompaniment”—training for styles of outreach, pastoral flexibility, reconciliation and inquiry initiatives, involvement with twelve-step and other healing processes.
- Homiletics: resources for preaching with an emphasis on Good News; clergy training; deacon initiatives; homiletic resources for publication; online training for seminarians and clergy; mission training and preaching.
These and other emphases fit perfectly with that really wonderful statement on mission that the 2014 Paulist Assembly developed: Led by the Holy Spirit, the Paulists are a missionary community that forms Catholics for mission, giving particular attention to those beyond the Catholic community.
Paulist Associates can spend valuable time on three points:
1. What does the Paulist Statement on mission of 2014 have to say to each Associate group?
2. What directions of “The Joy of the Gospel” might be most relevant to Paulist Associates?
3. Would Associates benefit from reading “The Joy of the Gospel” as a group?
It is clear that the church family of the future will not look like anything we have seen in the past, that we are shaping faith for modern and post-modern culture. This is both exciting and daunting. Paulists and Paulist Associates can give Hecker’s optimistic vision to the shaping of faith in decades to come.
by Fr. Michael Everden, CSP — Paulist in residence in San Francisco
As part of the Community of Saints, you are invited to join The Saints of England, a ten-day pilgrimage to London and Canterbury, Lindisfarne (Holy Island), Hexham, Durham and York on June 3-14, 2018. Paulist Father Thomas A. Kane has personally organized this journey, gathering the finest guides to enhance our pilgrim experience.
For full itinerary, visit paulist.org/pilgrimages or call Fr Thomas at 617-793-7360.
by Jane Kelsey — Paulist Associate from Columbus
[Jesus] saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth;
and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up, left everything,
and followed him.Luke 5:27-28
You looked me in the eye,
and I beheld a truth I’d never known.
Then you said, “Come…”They laughed – thought it just a mid-life crisis.
But I knew otherwise.
Fr. Joe Scott, CSP — member of the Paulist Associates Board
March 17, the feast of St. Patrick, has for many years been a time of celebration for Irish Americans and those who want to be, at least one day of the year. Behind the shamrocks and green beer lies the pride of a people who within a few generations rose from living in tenements to residing in the White House. These days America as well as Ireland feels comfortable claiming Patrick.
This was not always the case. America’s relationship to its immigrants has often been a troubled one, yet at our best we have found ways to triumph over our fears and prejudices to welcome “the troubled masses yearning to breathe free.” March 17 reminds us of this good news more than almost any other day.
St. Patrick is also one of the patrons of the Paulist Fathers. This is not difficult to understand. Fr. Hecker wanted the Paulists to be missionaries to America just as Patrick was missionary to Ireland. And although the early Paulists were converts from Protestantism (perhaps a few bearing traces of Scots-Irish blood) the first and for many years the only Paulist parish ministered to refugees of the Irish famine. St. Paul the Apostle and later Good Shepherd parish provided a steady stream of New York Irish immigrant vocations that enabled this young, small religious society to grow and flourish.
Even now, I find St. Patrick an apt patron for the Paulist Fathers:
First, for his love of a good story. One of the first things that attracted me to the Paulist Fathers was that nearly all the Paulists were great story tellers and seemed to love to hear a story well told.
Do you remember any Saints a wise elder told you stories about when you were a child?
I would hazard a guess that the names of St. Nicholas and St. Patrick come to mind. The Church always remembered stories to pass on about these two. But the legends of snakes and shamrocks formed over the centuries about St. Patrick take a back seat to the story he told about himself. We know much more true history about St. Patrick than we do about St. Nicholas, and it all came from Patrick’s own hand. We are not indebted to Patrick for dry tracts of theology but for the living manuscript of his own story.
A Roman boy captured by pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland, who eventually escaped and returned to his home, only to answer the call of a dream to return to land of his captivity not as an avenger, but as a bearer of the glad tidings of Jesus—isn’t this a tale worth telling?
My second reason for finding a patron in St. Patrick is his love of nature. Ireland is a breath-taking land. As an enslaved shepherd, Patrick knew its harshest realities of frost and biting wind. Yet he also observed the glory of the rising sun and the tranquil beauty of a haloed moon. Catholics in Ireland have found the seeds of poetry in the earth, and wind, and the stars, and didn’t that begin with Patrick?
In his encyclical Laudato Si’ Pope Francis calls us to “care for our common home.” No doubt the Holy Father looks to his namesake who spoke of “Brother Sun and Sister Moon.” But we can also draw inspiration in St. Patrick who made use of the green glory of his adopted land to evoke the presence of a creator God who fathered Jesus to be our Savior.
And then there is love of freedom. He knew what it was like to be a slave. In his writings he enslaved him so that they would never again oppress another human being. consistently opposed slavery in all its forms. He wanted to bring the gospel of Christ to those who had once
Fr. Hecker also loved freedom. In his perhaps most widely quoted remark (at least among Paulists) he argued that “…one of the natural signs of the true Paulist must be that he would prefer to suffer from the excesses of liberty rather than from the arbitrary actions of tyranny!”
Irish stock can make for free-spirited companions, and during the first hundred years or so of Paulist history, priests with the familiar names of Cunningham and Barry, Reynolds and Murphy answered Hecker’s call and preached the gospel in the heart of rural Protestant Tennessee and Mormon Utah.
The Paulists are a richer and more diverse community today. Dwyer and Tully pray and minister with Tou and Zamora and Novak and Tran and Desiderio. Other feast days have become as important to us as March 17. Yet we haven’t given up St. Patrick. Our newest parish is dedicated to the great missionary and to the Irish and American communities residing in, of all places, Rome! I’m grateful (with my one quarter of Irish blood!) that St. Patrick is still a companion on our adventure.
NOTE:
You may wish to read more about St. Patrick in the chapter entitled “Patrick in Ireland: Missionary to the Irish,” by John E. Collins, CSP, found in All Holy Men and Women: A Paulist Litany of Saints edited by Thomas A. Kane, CSP. (pages 43-49).
In addition, you will find the prayer for the feast day in The Paulist Prayer Book on pages 355-358.
(This is a suggested format; each group may select another outline or topic.)
Theme: Mary of Magdala, first witness to the Resurrection
Opening Prayer: Taken from The Paulist Prayer Book, select from the Easter section for the day on which you meet.
Reading (in advance of the meeting)
“Mary of Magdala” by Mary Rose D’Angelo
in All Holy Men and Women: A Paulist Litany of Saints
edited by Thomas A, Kane, CSP
pages 91-98
John 20:1-9
On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.
Conversation Catalyst
- Share a story of a woman whose witness to the Christian faith inspires you.
- How do you remain steadfast in faith when you are facing difficulties, including the death of a loved one?
- If someone tells you a story that sounds “unbelievable,” how do you discern if the story is true or not?
News/Announcements
Closing Prayer
Mary of Magdala,
woman at the foot of the Cross, first witness of the Resurrection,
pray for us as we strive to be devoted disciples of Christ Jesus as you were
and share the good news of the Risen Savior with all we meet as you did.
Guide us all through your story, and
teach us to live always in the light of the Resurrection.
AMEN.
by Fr. Michael Kallock, CSP — member of the Paulist Associates Board
Recently published by the Paulist Press, THE HOLY SPIRIT: Setting the World on Fire is an excellent resource for Paulist Associates.
It consists of 16 articles on the Holy Spirit by faculty members of the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College. The book is divided into three parts: Experiencing the Holy Spirit, Tracing the Movement of the Holy Spirit, and Embracing the Holy Spirit.
Each article is about 8 – 10 pages. They are not written only for the “in house” scholarly, academic community. They are intended to deepen and broaden all Christians appreciation, understanding, and experience of the Holy Spirit. I can honestly say it really did all that for me.
There is much here for all of us to enrich our Paulist SPIRITuality. Many of the articles would make for a good discussion.
I highly recommend this book. I can’t think of a better book to give to someone today about the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life!
by Carol Wagner Williams – Paulist Associate from Tucson
At the end of January, Fr. Frank Desiderio, CSP, visited with the Associates in Tucson. He began with a Memorial Mass for Vivian [Conley] Moore, a former Tucson Associate who died just prior to her 102nd birthday. Vivian was one of the original Paulist Associates in Tucson and had been very active in her ministries until one week before her death.
Vivian adopted Joe Fimbres and Deanna, his wife, when Deanna was going through RCIA. Their wedding was at St. Cyril of Alexander, (a former Paulist Parish.) Many of the family members and Paulist Associates remember the Frimbres and their son, Matthew. Subsequently they moved to Vail, AZ and are now members of St Rita in the Desert, where I have had the privilege of meeting the Frimbres family and their two sons, Matthew and Mark.
Joe said a few words about Aunt Vivian prior to Mass. He told us that she was the type of person that took people under her wing and helped them further their religious convictions. She was the kind of person that if she met you and said you were in need of something, the following week she would get it and bring it to you. Her love and generosity can be identified as part of the evangelization and social justice mission advocated by the Paulists. In addition to doing many thing for her church, Aunt Vivian also enjoyed traveling and took many trips with the Frimbres.
During this wonderful Memorial Mass, 20 Associates renewed their promises. Following the promises, a brunch was held in the Dougherty Center. Fr. Frank also gave a presentation and stated that Associates need to be collaborators as St. Paul was during his tenure. None of us can be our best or do things unless we do them in collaboration with the Paulist or our peers/fellow Associates. In order to do things, we must keep God as one of our collaborators. As a child, Fr. Frank thought of God as someone who caught him doing something wrong when making career decisions, HE was the Holy Spirit who helped find a Good Orderly Direction [G. O. D.];and now as an adult,
Fr. Frank realized that HE is a merciful friend, who wants the best for him. This is what God wants for all of us.
Fr. Frank suggested many resources Associates could use as part of their continued faith formation and study.
We also learned that the national Paulist Associates Board has been working on revising the formation booklet by transcribing the podcasts and adding reflection questions, which are tools to use in formation of new Associates. He suggested that Tucson Associates consider the regional retreat being held in Chicago this coming July and also the Lake George retreat in 2019.
We appreciated having time with Fr. Frank, and through his presentation and news, connecting with the larger Paulist Associates community.
We are always happy to hear about new Associates taking promises as well as current Paulists renewing theirs. Please post notices and photos on Facebook and let us know so we can add the information in this newsletter.
The Paulist Associates in Boston and in Columbus renewed their promises on the weekend following the Feast of the Conversion of st. Paul, one of major feast days of the Paulists. The Paulist Associates in Knoxville renewed their annual promises on February 16.
When these renewals take place, it would be helpful to all if the local coordinator would send an updated list of Associates to Paula Cuozzo so she can keep our contact list current. Please email contact information for those taking first promises and those renewing promises as well as a list of those who have opted not to renewing promises to [email protected].
Heavenly Father, you called your servant Isaac Thomas Hecker to preach the Gospel to the people of North America and through his teaching, to know the peace and the power of your indwelling Spirit. He walked in the footsteps of Saint Paul the Apostle, and like Paul spoke your Word with a zeal for souls and a burning love for all who came to him in need.
Look upon us this day, with compassion and hope. Hear our prayer. We ask that through the intercession of Father Hecker your servant, you might grant us (state the request).
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, Your Son, Our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit. One God, forever and ever. Amen.
When you pray this prayer, and if you believe that you have received any favors through Hecker’s intercession, please contact the Office of the Cause for Canonization of Servant of God, Isaac Hecker at [email protected]. Visit the web site: isaachecker.org to learn more about his life and the cause for his canonization.
Paulist Associates National Director
Frank Desiderio, C.S.P.
Paulist General Office
New York, NY 10023
Board Members
Angie Barbieri
Toronto, ON, Canada
Paula Cuozzo
Boston, MA
Cathy Hoekstra
Grand Rapids, MI
Mike Kallock, C.S.P.
Katherine Murphy Mertzlufft
Columbus, OH
Joe Scott, C.S.P.
I believe that I am drawn by the Holy Spirit to the spirituality and qualities of the Paulist Community. I have discerned both by prayer and study that God calls me to become associated with the Paulists. I promise that I will pray for the works of the Paulist Society, meet with others, who are also members of the Paulist Associates, for spiritual sharing and formation; and I seek to embody the apostolic qualities of the Paulists in my daily life.
Attentive to the Holy Spirit and faithful to the example of St. Paul and the charism of Father Isaac Hecker, I commit myself for one year of membership in the Paulist Associates.