Remaining Faithful

The Academic Year at Central Catholic comes to an end today and we send our students off to a summer of growth, work, rest, relaxation and preparation for the next  scholastic year.  Graduates of 2008, who have recently completed their college degrees have been stopping by, all of us incredulous that they are now moving ahead into the work force or to higher education.  We step back and ponder the goodness we see blooming in these young people...how they remain faithful to what they are learning or have learned here, how they have remained faithful to who they are, and how they are bringing their gifts to others.  There is no better means of encouragment for us to remain faithful to our mission than to see the fruits of our labors.  What a happy way to end the year and to use the next few months to rest as well as gear up for another go at our mission.  We are grateful for the opportunity to be the instruments in making Jesus known and loved by our students, and especially those most neglected.  We are grateful especially to all who are making it possible to reach out to this segment of our population and give them the same opportunities that others can afford.  We are grateful to those whose prayers and support stand beside us. It is humbling to realize that we are all remaining faithful to the vision of St. Marcellin. May God bless us, everyone!
Bro. Rene

The Word of God Unchained

With chains and shackles on his legs, St. Paul wrote to Timothy to keep spreading the Word, which cannot be chained.  So, through the centuries, the "unchained Word" has been spoke from generation to generation, sometimes with great efficacy and success, and at others, apparently ineffectively and unsuccessfully.  St. Marcellin took up the challenge to rectify the effects of the French Revolution and to bring the Word to a generation of unchurched and sorely uneducated youth and today's Marists keep chipping away at the effects materialism, indifference, and weak leadership have had on today's Catholics.
It's a slow, undramatic process; no bulldozers, just hand chisles, yet progress is being made.
Last night at St. Matthew's in Windham, NH, Bishop Peter A. Libasci of Manchester, confirmed 49 teenagers who received the sacrament with reverence and understanding of their commitment.  Confirmations abound in parishes around the country, a sign of hope for the future.  We prayed that these newly confirmed would use the gifts the Holy Spirit brings to them to make a better world.  Let us also pray that the fire enkindled in their hearts might grow in intensity and enable them to grow in their faith and  to bring others to a deeper appreciation of and more faithful practice of their faith.
Bro. Rene

Standing in for Champagnat

On this anniversary of the Death of St. Marcellin Champagnat in 1840, these thoughts from a circular letter written by Br. Charles Howard in 1989 still provide food for reflection.  Interestingly enough on this date in 1948, four brothers, Joe Teston, Peter Leonard, Herbert Daniel and Maurice James, arrived in the Phillipines to begin our mission there and carry out what we find below.

“I AM A CHAMPAGNAT”. This may sound cute...but for us Marists, it touches a profound truth. Each of us is a Champagnat, and we endeavor to bring to young people what Champagnat did: respect, encouragement, love, Christian truth, education in all its forms, and a concern about all facets of their lives In other words, we try to be BROTHERS for them.


--We are Champagnats for our own Brothers, with our concern, our encouragement, our support, our prayers, our love.

--We are Champagnats for a Church which is struggling to serve humankind. We follow Champagnat with his great love of the Church: the pilgrim people, the body of Christ.

--We are Champagnats for young people in need, for those in search of values, for those in search of credible witnesses to Christianity.

--We are Champagnats for young people in need of brothers, someone to listen to them, to encourage them, to love them.

--We are Champagnats for the poor, the dispossessed, the marginalized: we are Brothers for those most in need.

--We are Champagnats for those who do not know Mary, who do not understand her love for them, her presence to them."
Bro. Rene

Fulfilling Our Ministry

St. Paul wisely counseled his young protege bishop, Timothy, with advice that has served bishops, teachers, and anyone seriously committed to follow Jesus:  "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingly power:  proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient of inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.  Be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardships; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry." (2 Tim 4: 1-2,5).  How aptly this describes not only our mission, but the actual circumstnaces in which we often find ourselves.  When things are not going our way, when our words seem to fall on deaf ears, when our energy is low through fatigue or discouragement, when we'd rather just succumb to our feelings and try to escape our mission, BAM, St. Paul's words hit home.  He lived this advice and evidently so did Timothy, and millions of others, sung and unsung.  May we resolve to join them, knowing that God will give us strength for every step of the way.
Bro. Rene

The Holy Eucharist

On this day in 1840, Father Champagnat received the Holy Eucharist for the last time, as his illness progressed.  In two days he would be dead.  He loved the Eucharist and even when so ill, received it as often as he could.  With the Solmenity of the Body and Blood of Jesus coming up next Sunday, this might be a good week to reflect on what the Eucharist means to us.  Is it the highlight of our Sunday, or of our day?
How well do we prepare for it?  how do we express our gratitude for it?  How do we live it in being "bread for one another"?  CCHS students love to sing the communion hymn written by Dana for the Denver World Youth Day in  1993:  We are one Body, which reminds us not only of a chance for intimate union with Jesus, but with the entire Body of Christ around the world.  "We do not stand alone."  And so the victims of the plane crash in Lagos, or the deaths of the Brunswick High School seniors killed in a car crash just north of Cincinnati just before their graduation, are our loss as well.  The pain and joy that is part of the human family come together in the Eucharist, in the Body of Christ given for many.  May we come to a deeper appreciation of what it means to partake of the most excellent gift.
Bro. Rene

The Holy Trinity

Trinity Sunday.  The word, Trinity, sometimes can be foreboding and complicated, but it simply is a shorter word for Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We use that combination each time we make the sign of the cross or pray the "Glory Be"; it is part of the baptismal formula and the subject of many of our favorite hymns.  The complication comes in tying to explain how three distinct persons can be ONE God.  It's beyond our human comprehension, but what we can try to do is to understand how God the Father is part of our lives, keeping us in his thoughts and thus keeping us alive.  If we slipped out of his mind for even a second, we'd be annihilated.  Jesus, Son of the Father, our Savior and our brother through baptism when we are made sons of God, lives in us and makes us holy through the Holy Spirit, his Spirit whose presence also came us in baptism.  Thus, our lives are totally immersed in the Holy Trinity despite the little attention we pay to the Three in One.  In contemplating, simply sitting in the Presence of the Holy Trinity, and in our acts of patience, gentleness, charity, joy and peace we can make God more present to ourselves and to others. That's what the Sabbath is for.  We can see God and ourselves in a new light, and sing with Louis Armstrong, "What a Wonderful World" with new meaning.
Bro. Rene

The Month of the Sacred Heart

At the half-way mark of the year (already!!!) June is fittingly dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  We have just completed the Easter Season and now during Ordinary Time, we travel with Jesus during his public life, listen to his teachings, and take time just to BE with him.  The image of the Sacred Heart underscores the great love Jesus has for each of us and tries to share with us.  The flame eminating from his exposed heart is as direct as one can get in trying to express a deep love.  Surrounding the heart is a crown of thorns reminding us of how Jesus' love endured excruciating pain to fully express itself and bring about our salvation through his death and resurrection.  A noted speaker, Fr. Martin Lucia, also notes that it is a sign of the pain that Jesus continues to endure as a result of our indifference to his proffers of love:  his presence in the Eucharist at Mass and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  We are always too busy to spend some time with this Friend, this Friend of Friends...yet he continues to long and thirst for a few moments of our attention.  Most likely we cannot be popping into a Blessed Sacrament Chapel or even a church (almost always locked), but we can "adore" by recalling his love, offering ours, and just by saying a thank you frequently during the day.  His love knows no bounds, but it is ours that needs to expand.  The exuberance of popular Rogers and Hammerstein song, "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" might lead us to a slight modification:  "Love Is Bustin" Out All Over"...Jesus love for us and ours for him.
Bro. Rene
I will be on a mini-retreat with some faculty members tonight and tomorrow and will not be able to provide a slice of bread until Sunday.