Myrrh Bearing Women

"The priest is God saying, "I'm here and I'm not leaving you." ~Jacob Boddicker, SJ

Myrrh Bearing Women by Christi Jentz

I've had the great honor of organizing the Monthly Prayer Request for Priests calendar for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee since September 2010.  The calendars are arranged in alphabetical order, listing all of the active and retired priests of the Archdiocese as well as requesting prayer for the Archbishop, bishops, religious order priests, seminarians and those in discernment for the priesthood on days that are fitting to their particular vocation.

During the past four years I've taken occasional phone calls from priests and lay faithful with questions about how the calendar is organized.  One such phone call was from Fr. Paul Weishar, a retired priest who, at the time of the phone call, was coming upon his 92nd birthday.  He was wondering why his name wasn't listed on his birthday and when I explained the alphabetical listing of the calendars he remarked that retired priests are often forgotten and nobody seems to care about them anymore.  How terribly heartbreaking!  Since that phone call, I exchanged a few more phone calls and letters with Fr. Paul and forwarded his name to our Archdiocesan priest who ministers to the retired priests asking him to contact Fr. Paul and to pray for him.

Earlier this month, I heard that Fr. Paul had passed away.  I was grateful that my supervisor allowed me to adjust my work schedule so that I could attend his funeral.  When I arrived at the quaint, little church, I was so happy to see my friend, September S. and her lovely daughter, Lauren, already there.  Like me, September feels it deeply in her heart to pray for deceased priests, whether she knew them well or not.  And, it wasn't long afterward that our friend, Erin Berghouse, the founder of Ahava Productions, joined us in prayer as well.  Sweet Erin had stopped at the parish to drop something off for the pastor, Fr. John Burns, who told her that a funeral was just about to begin for a priest.  She said that as she was walking back to her car, she was struck by the fact that she just happened to stop at the parish immediately before a priest's funeral and decided that the Holy Spirit must have had something to do with that timing and she decided to stay and pray for him.

Following communion as we were kneeling in thanksgiving, I was overcome with the image of the Myrrh Bearing Women in my heart.  I felt that here we were, modern-day Myrrh Bearing Women, offering the myrrh of our prayers at the tomb of an alter-Christus, Fr. Paul Weishar.  My hope is that in the final years of his life, Fr. Paul could feel the prayers that were offered for him and that now, in his death, the prayers for his soul will continue.  May we all offer the myrrh of our prayers for our priests both living and dead, for what would we be without them and the sacraments they so lovingly and willingly bring to us?

Eternal rest grant unto Fr. Paul Weishar, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.  May his soul, and all of the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.

Secret Sorrows/Prayers for Priests

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."  ~Ian MacLaren

Each day on my lunch break, I walk a few short blocks from the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) Clinic where I work, to the Marquette University Campus, while praying the rosary.  The campus setting is so park-like and beautiful, and as I pass all of the college students cheerfully talking to each other, or texting on their cell phones, or slumped under the weight of their backpacks, it occurs to me that despite their carefree outward appearance, each and every person I pass is carrying a hidden sorrow in their heart.  I pray the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary and I think about how each of these students re-live our Lord's sorrows in their own mysterious ways of which others may never know.  We all have our secret sorrow.

Today I was carrying my own sorrow, deep within my heart.  It was announced at Sunday Mass that a local priest, Fr. Quintin Heck, had taken his own life.  My heart broke right open upon hearing this tragic news, and I could not keep from crying during the remainder of the Mass no matter how much I tried to remain stoic.  I didn't know Fr. Quintin, but my heart grieves for him as if he were my closest friend.

"In strengthening the priest, you strengthen the whole Church...Strengthen the priest and you strengthen the whole foundation, you strengthen everything in the Church."  
~Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, sP, Founder of the Handmaids of the Precious Blood

It's unfathomable to me how a priest, beloved by God and by the Church, his family, a man who promotes the Catholic value of dignity and sanctity for all life, a man who transforms an ordinary piece of bread into the very Body of our Lord within his very hands, a man whose life is committed to saving souls, could take his very own life, that indescribably precious gift from God. Depression is a dark, tormenting and deadly disease, to be sure, and it does not care whose life it takes.  But it seems that beyond the disease of depression, there is an evil that is lurking within the Church, wreaking havoc and causing distress beyond measure.  Considering that Fr. Quintin is the second priest in Milwaukee who has taken his own life in the past month, it appears that our Church, and especially our priests, are under attack and we are all suffering victims in this battle.

"This kind can only come out by prayer and fasting."  Mark 9:29

For me, as an Oblate of the Precious Blood and the organizer of the Monthly Prayer Request for Priests calendar for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, I take this tragic news very personally and easily become discouraged, as if the many hours I spend in prayer for priests has been for naught.  But deep down I know that all prayer is fruitful, that my words uttered to the Lord within the silence of my heart on behalf of the priests of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee do somehow help them to cope and to thrive, as they tremulously balance upon the straight and narrow path, duty-bound to God despite the tremendous difficulties that they may encounter in the spiritual battle for heaven.  God always wins, after all, and the demons of depression and suicide are not the end of the story.  It's vital that we remain strong, especially on behalf of our priests whose shoulders are burdened with not only their own crosses, but also those of all the Catholics who depend upon them to be a witness of strong faith, as well as the source of the Sacraments in which we meet Christ.

Handmaid of the Precious Blood

Today I implore you to please visit the Monthly Prayer Request for Priests website and bookmark the page or print out the calendars, keeping our Milwaukee priests in your daily prayers.  If you do not have a Monthly Prayer Request for Priests within your own diocese, please consider starting one.  I will gladly help you get started-it's not terribly difficult or time-consuming.  If you feel called to do even more, visit the Handmaids of the Precious Blood and spiritually adopt a priest, or prayerfully consider whether or not God might be calling you to look into becoming an Oblate of the Precious Blood, or to a religious vocation as a Handmaid of the Precious Blood.

"Be close to your priests with your affection and with your prayers that they may always be shepherds according to God's heart."  ~Pope Francis

Our priests deserve our attention, encouragement, gratitude, support, love and prayers.  Let's give them our heartfelt and faithful daily prayers which, through the grace of God, will hold them up when they grow weak and weary.  And please, remember the souls of our deceased priests within your prayers as well.

Eternal rest grant unto Fr. Quintin Heck, and all of our deceased priests, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.

A PRAYER FOR PRIESTS

By the late John J Cardinal Carberry

Keep them; I pray Thee, dearest Lord.

Keep them, for they are Thine 

The priests whose lives burn out before

Thy consecrated shrine.

Keep them, for they are in the world,

Though from the world apart.

When earthly pleasures tempt, allure --

Shelter them in Thy heart.

Keep them and comfort them in hours

Of loneliness and pain,

When all their life of sacrifice

For souls seems but in vain.

Keep them and  remember, Lord,

they have no one but Thee.

Yet, they have only human hearts,

With human frailty.

Keep them as spotless as the Host,

That daily they caress;

Their every thought and word and deed,

Deign, dearest Lord, to bless.

Daily Prayer For Priests (St. Therese of Lisieux)

O Jesus,
I pray for your faithful and fervent priests;
for your unfaithful and tepid priests;
for your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields.
for your tempted priests;
for your lonely and desolate priests;
For your young priests;
for your dying priests;
for the souls of your priests in Purgatory.
But above all, I recommend to you the priests dearest to me:
the priest who baptized me;
the priests who absolved me from my sins;
the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion;
the priests who taught and instructed me;
all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way
(especially …).
O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart,
and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity.
Amen

Fr. Jan Kieliszewski-Rest in Peace

Last week, on a day with particularly beautiful weather, I decided to hang the wash on the line in the backyard.  For some reason, as I was pinning the clothes to the line, I was overcome with melancholy, a deep sadness that was very familiar to me from my past experience with depression.  The sorrow seared deep within me and I had no idea where it came from or what it was about.  There was absolutely no reason on earth why I should be feeling so down at that particular moment.  I went inside and wrote an email to a friend asking for prayers.

As I hit the "send" button, my daughter Mary came downstairs, and with her 12 years of sweetness, she threw her arms around my neck and embraced me for the longest time.  I asked her how she knew that I needed a hug at that particular moment and she simply said, "I could just feel it."  I knew that my daughter and her loving, impulsive action was an immediate answer to that prayer request I sent out.  My daughter is a joyful Godsend in my life.  But not everyone is blessed with a daughter who intuitively knows when they are needing a little extra love.

Last year in my candidacy for the Oblates of the Precious Blood, I corresponded monthly with Mother Marietta from the Handmaids of the Precious Blood.  In one particular letter she told me that if I ever feel tempted to something that was very unusual for me, I could know that at that particular moment, a priest somewhere in the world was being tempted with the same thing, and I should pray for him.  My struggling to overcome the things that tempt me can help priests in their temptations.  That's a powerful thought; that I could help a priest that I may never know to grow in holiness by offering up my sacrifices for him.

Last weekend, just before Sunday Mass was to begin, Fr. Jan Kieliszewski, a priest whom I did not know here in Milwaukee, committed suicide in his church.  No one in the Archdiocese can offer any explanation as to why this man, in his mid-sixties, who gave his life over to the service of the Lord and His Church, would have taken his life.  It was shocking and deeply sad news that has rocked our already distressed Archdiocese.

I can't help but wonder if I had offered up my melancholy on that recent laundry day if it would it have helped this priest in some way?  What if, in that moment when sorrow hit me hard, I would have remembered to tell God, "I give you this pain for the priest who most needs your help at this moment, for a priest who is feeling the pangs of despair" if that might have prompted Fr. Jan to reach out for help and thereby find a way to stay alive until God naturally called him home?

Of course, I'll never know the answer to that question.  But as an Oblate of the Precious Blood, I am committed to praying for priests, to offering all that I am for their sanctity, and if I didn't pray enough for priests before Fr. Jan's suicide, I am committed to praying for them more than ever now.  And I am committed to lightening their load by offering them loving encouragement and gratitude, and helping them in their valuable and necessary work in any small or large way that I can.

Fr. Jan's name was on the Monthly Prayer Request for Priests calendar on June 18th, and all of Milwaukee was asked to pray for him on that day.  My family and I did our part and we prayed for him, as we pray daily for every priest on the calendar when we gather as a family for dinner.  And now, I will be praying for Fr. Jan's soul every day for the rest of my life, as well as for the souls of all priests, those living, as well as those deceased.  Will you join me, and pray for priests as well?  May Fr. Jan, through the mercy of God, rest in peace, eternally embraced in the ever-loving arms of his Father.

Gleaming Dust or Gleaming Divinity?

The world of the internet can be so amazing, can't it?  What I love best about the internet is all of the wonderful people I've met online through common interests such as praying for priests.  One such special person that I met online and fervently hope to meet and pray with in person some day soon, is Dawn Meyer.  Through this blog and facebook and the Monthly Prayer Request for Priests, Dawn and I have struck up a lovely friendship.  Dawn, knowing that I am an Oblate of the Precious Blood and with that have a special interest in the founder, Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, recently sent me this profound email which she has graciously allowed me to share here.  I know that she and I are not the only ones who struggle with detachment from material goods and other things which keep us from a closer union with God alone and I felt that her words would touch many hearts.

Dawn writes:

Remember the 30 pieces of silver that Judas accepted in return for handing Jesus over to the chief priests?

(Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, "What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?" And they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him. Matthew 26:14-15)

Consider this....

Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald

"The silver had done no evil, the silver had not enticed of its own, if the silver could have spoken, it would have said, 'O Judas, do not take us for our Creator; we are only gleaming dust, He is gleaming Divinity.'

All sin is the choosing of the dust. Even when it is the choosing of a living creature, what are we but animated dust? And what is the source of our animation? All the beauty of human love, all the beauty and tenderness that is in honest human love, is only a fraction, a faint shadow of the tenderness of God's love." -Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald

It is a powerful image to be mindful of, this "choosing of the dust". In the midst of temptations, the sinful thought, word, or deed looks so enticing, so captivating, so irresistible that we lose sight of the fact that we're really succumbing to a heap of "gleaming dust"! When you look at it that way, it seems preposterous to even contemplate choosing to sin, yes?

The other day I was out shopping and as my eyes did a 360 around the store, taking in all of the colorful items that surrounded me, it occurred to me that every single thing there was all just dust. Flowery wreath for the front door...dust. Mango-colored pillow that would look great on my gray couch...dust. Cute Easter table decorations....dust. You get the idea. Not to say that buying any of these items would be a sin, in and of itself. But in the end, we know that nothing material lasts forever, and the "joy" we feel when taking possession of any material good, pales in comparison to the joy of knowing and loving our Creator.

Hmmmm....gleaming dust or gleaming Divinity? Seems like such an obvious choice, doesn't it?

Mary Immaculate,
help me in my weakness
to resist the tempting heaps of gleaming dust
that present themselves to me every day.
Be my guide, my constant help.
Lead me to always choose your Beloved Son
in His gleaming Divinity, so as to please Him
and merit eternal life with you and the Blessed Trinity.

Amen.

A Solemn Resolution of Love

"Christ lives in a special way in His Priests in whom He has engraved, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, a special likeness of Himself. Any time you strengthen a Priest, you strengthen the very Hand of Christ, the Heart of Christ, the Lips of Christ, the Eyes of Christ.  And in strengthening the Priest you strengthen the whole Church and everything in the Church.

Now this is your vocation, this is your contribution-and it is impossible for one human mind to visualize its ramifications, for when you strengthen a Priest then you share in all the good that he does for the rest of his life."

~Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, sP

It was a little over a year ago when I found the website of the Handmaids of the Precious Blood through a fellow blogger, Joe, at Defend Us In Battle.  The Handmaids of the Precious Blood are cloistered nuns who offer all of their prayers and sacrifices for the sanctity of priests.  As someone who had already been committed to praying for priests and had established the Monthly Prayer Request for Priests in Milwaukee, I was immediately convinced that God was calling me to further my prayer by joining in the prayers of the Handmaids, so I applied to become an Oblate of the Precious Blood.  The application process included answering several questions about my faith and family life and obtaining references from three people who knew me through my parish, my family and my work. Upon acceptance for the year of formation, I began my candidacy with an enrollment ceremony within a Mass which was presided over by my friend Fr. Jim Kubicki, SJ and was held in the intimacy of my living room with my immediate family and a close friend in attendance.

Following the enrollment ceremony I began to receive monthly lessons from Mother Marietta, HPB, from which I gained a deeper knowledge for the Catholic faith, the spirituality of Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, sP, the founder of the Handmaids of the Precious Blood, and the importance of prayer for priests.  Each month I would eagerly read through the lessons from Mother Marietta and then re-read them prayerfully to garner a deeper understanding of their meaning in my life.  Then I would answer a few questions which concluded each lesson and send my response to Mother Marietta.  She, in turn, would respond to my reflection and then send the next lesson to me.  It was a time of great spiritual growth.  Finally, this past August, I completed my final lesson and then asked for Mother Marietta's permission to become an Oblate of the Precious Blood.  Mother Marietta approved of my request.

the ceremony

On Saturday, October 6th, in the presence of my husband and our five children, as well as several close friends and family members, Bishop Donald Hying received my Solemn Resolution of Love.  I chose the Day Chapel of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in downtown Milwaukee because it is my favorite place to pray, and I have enjoyed attending an early morning daily Mass there with Bishop Hying for the past six months.  Bishop Hying had been the first person I told of my desire to begin the Monthly Prayer Request for Priests apostolate and to apply to become an Oblate of the Precious Blood and he had been very helpful and supportive to me throughout my religious endeavors, so I was very pleased that he was able to take some time out of his busy schedule to receive my Solemn Resolution of Love. 

Signing the Certificate

The ceremony was very simple, yet deeply beautiful and moving.  Bishop Hying said Mass, and immediately following the homily, I knelt before him and prayed the words that would forever unite me to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood and all of their prayers and sacrifices.  The Bishop presented me with the Oblates insignia and the Handmaids prayer book and then we both signed a Certificate which states that I am now an Oblate of the Precious Blood.

As Bishop Hying handed me the insignia and prayer book of the Oblates of the Precious Blood he said:

"Recall Fr. Gerald's words, "What a privilege it is to be dedicated to the Blood of Jesus!  Try never to get accustomed to the beautiful grace of being dedicated to Jesus Christ, to the Blood of His Heart."

insignia

I am filled with peace and joy to be an Oblate of the Precious Blood and to offer all of my prayers and sacrifices for the sanctification of priests.  I am so grateful that the Lord has called me to this vocation.

You can read some of my previous posts about the Oblates of the Precious Blood here.  For more information about the Handmaids of the Precious Blood and to learn how you can join them in praying for priests, click here.

congratulations

My family and I with Bishop Hying

Between two Pauls!  My husband is on the right and Friar Paul Schneider, OFM, Conv. who is also an Oblate of the Precious Blood, is on my left.  Friar Paul will be ordained to the priesthood this May.  Please hold him in your prayers.

Prayer of the Oblate:  O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I thank You for the desire to make my life a total return of love to the Adorable Trinity.  I wish to be united with You always in Your love.  Thank You for the graces of my time in formation, for its lights, and its insights.  Above all, thank You for Your Presence in the Holy Eucharist and for Your Priests who bring You to me.

Thank You for every Mass, every Holy Communion from the Last Supper until the end of time.  Thank You for Your availability in the Tabernacles of the whole world, for all the Sacraments made fruitful by Your Precious Blood, for Your friendship and companionship to all who seek You, and for Mary, Mother of the Church.

O Mary, my Mother, I ask and I trust that you will take all I do for the love of God and will improve each action with your Motherly touch and make it more acceptable, more beautiful, for the glory of the Blessed Trinity.  Amen.  ~from the Ceremony of Solemn Resolution as an Oblate of the Precious Blood