The Fourth Station

Yesterday I had a choice. I could stay home and help my family paint the staircase and kitchen walls, partaking in a little spring cleaning and spiffing up of the house for my son's upcoming Confirmation party, or I could sneak away to the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist for the Ordination to the Transitional Diaconate of five worthy young men. Well, just try to keep me away from Church, especially when it allows me the opportunity to pray for men who are on the journey to priesthood! I am so grateful that I chose the latter because if I hadn't been there, I would have missed an impromptu resemblance to the Fourth Station of the Cross.

Yesterday's beautiful Ordination Mass saw five fine young men take one step closer on their journey to the cross, the complete and total laying down of their lives for the Lord and His Church. At that Mass, hundreds of people welcomed Yamid Jose Blanco, Juan Manuel Comacho, Brad Alan Krawczyk, Ryan Joseph Preuss, and Hans Flondor of the Conventual Franciscan order, to the transitional diaconate and their final year of study and preparation for the priesthood.

Yamid is originally from Columbia, South America and his family traveled a great distance to be with him on this most special and important date. At the ordination Mass, the mothers of those receiving the Sacrament are asked to carry the gifts to the altar. After presenting the gifts, the mothers each had an opportunity to embrace their sons before once again taking their seats. From my vantage point far in the back of the church, I could sense that something was slightly amiss from the plan, things seemed to be taking longer than they should. As I strained to catch a better look I saw a touching moment of deep holiness that brought tears to my eyes and I'm sure to the eyes of many others who witnessed that scene. Long after all of the other mothers had taken their seats, one remained standing. Yamid's mother lingered, embracing her son while Archbishop Listecki patiently and lovingly looked on.

On Jesus' long and tortuous walk to his death, that same scene played out. Mary, after many years of only seeing her beloved son from a crowded and distant vantage point, who was often denied the close contact with her son to which she was so accustomed from His days of youth, was finally standing right in front of Him. Here at the Fourth Station, she could only embrace Him with her eyes, but oh, how her arms and heart must have ached to physically embrace him, to hold him up if only for a moment, to take some of his pain away. It was her moment of complete misery, to love Him so much but to have no choice other than to let Him go.

And here was Yamid's mother, at last after many years apart, able to reach out and hold her son. She knows that from now on, with each day that draws him closer to the priesthood, she will only see him from a crowded and distant vantage point. But at this moment when she met her son at the altar, her heart bursting with pride and joy and sorrow and love and every possible human emotion that a mother can have for her son, she held him long and close, knowing that beyond this Fourth Station he will be out of her hands and his life will no longer belong to her, but to God alone.

(picture source: The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Milwaukee)

My Heroes! Ordination 2010

This short yet powerful video highlights the very best of the 2010 ordinations to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. You will be moved! Keep an eye out for my heroes, my spiritual director and friend, Fr. Don Hying, Deacon Christopher Klusman (incensing Archbishop Listecki), you can read more about his fabulous and fascinating story here, Fr. Matthew Widder, the youngest of the ordained priests and sponsor for my son John's confirmation this year-(his picture is the last one at the end of the video,) Fr. Carl Last, the priest that married Paul and I and he also baptized our first three sons, (kissing the altar towards the end of the video-he is by himself,) Bishop William Callahan who is deeply missed in Milwaukee as he has journeyed on to Bishop of La Crosse, WI, and finally, if you look very closely around 26 seconds into the video, towards the back on the right hand side, you will see my son, John, and his friend, Jerry praying in the seminary chapel.

2010 Ordinations-click here to view

Please keep all of these newly ordained priests in your prayers as well as the thirty-six men who are currently enrolled in St. Francis de Sales Seminary this year, and those who are discerning a call to the priesthood, because after all, every man who hears and answers the call to the priesthood is a hero to many, sacrificing his life for the good of God's people everywhere.

The Papists vs. the Anglicans

I am not a football fan; professional football, anyway. I cannot stand to waste a Sunday afternoon watching grossly over-paid men whose behavior off-field is often extremely juvenile, play a game. More than this, those players are often worshiped as if they were God, a most recent example being Brett Favre who was a hero in Wisconsin until he left the Green Bay Packers for the Minnesota Vikings. Now our new favorite past-time is to criticize him and scorn him. Even the Catholic Press fawns all over these sports celebrities and praises them simply because they are Catholic football players, regardless of how they fail to live their Catholic life.

Equally bothersome to me, after the game is over and I try to watch the nightly news to catch up on the local happenings, the first twenty minutes are filled with coverage of that game that I refused to watch, as if nothing else in the world happened that day but a football game. I'm sure that a lot of my strong feelings have to do with the fact that I grew up in a house where we were not allowed to speak during the Green Bay Packer game, and couldn't speak even if we wanted to because the volume was always turned up to full blast while the green and gold tromped all over the field. And now, I live in a house where men are the majority and once again, Sunday afternoons are filled with a blaring loud football game on the television, so I usually choose to leave the house and spend some time at a Holy Hour, or out in the backyard with a book. My husband often teases me about my lack of love for the game. He says, "I suppose the only way you will watch a football game is if it is between the priests and the seminarians!" Well now, yesterday, he got his wish!

It was a lovely, warm, Sunday afternoon, and the smell of incense from the thurible next to the stands hung heavy in the air. According to St. Francis de Sales Assistant Vocations Director, Fr. Peter Berger, "With regard to the incense, the Episcopalian minister incensed the Nashotah House team prior to the game (clearly it didn't work :)" Every now and then the breeze brought a whiff of the heavenly perfume past the fans whose cheers roared from the stands as the football fans supported their respective teams in the third annual flag football game between the Seminarians of St. Francis de Sales (known as the Shoremen) and the Seminarians of Nashotah House Episcopal Seminary (known as the Black Monks.) The announcer called out the match between the Catholics and the Protestants that was met with groans from the crowd, so it was replaced with the match between the Papists and the Anglicans. The coveted St. Lawrence Cup went to the Shoremen with a 32-19 victory! After the game, both teams united in faith to celebrate Vespers together.

I was curious to find out the meanings behind the team names, and although all of my searches have come up empty for the Shoremen, I am left to speculate that they chose this name because their lovely Seminary sits on the shores of Lake Michigan and it is from this location that they are trained to be fishers of men. With a little snooping around, I was able to discover this fascinating tale about the Black Monks...

There is a legend that states that the Nashotah House Seminary is haunted. Apparently, before the building was an Episcopal Seminary, it was a Monastery and there is a legend that one of the Monks killed another Monk, perhaps over a woman, but made it look like a suicide. Since suicide is a mortal sin, his body was buried in a cornfield instead of in the Consecrated Cemetery grounds. Twenty years later, when the murderous monk confessed to his crime, the grave of the murdered monk was exhumed but found empty. Apparently the "Black Monk" Ghost is often found roaming the scenic grounds and buildings at the Seminary, and everyone steps aside to let him pass. This legend is how the name "Black Monks" came about.

I'm such a skeptic about the paranormal, especially because I tend to think it goes against Catholic teaching, so I was surprised to find this post this morning at Badger Catholic which lead me to this excerpt about ghosts by Peter Kreeft from his book "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven, but Never Dreamed of Asking."

And now that I have veered off about as far from football as I can get, it must be clear to you, dear reader, that my attention span for sports is truly very short!

Seminary Summer Camp

It’s time once again for Seminary Summer Camp. This year three of my sons with be spending a few days and nights at the Seminary of St. Francis de Sales to pray and play with other boys and to get a feel for daily life at the Seminary in an effort to help them discern whether or not God may be calling them to a priestly vocation. My son Jack is participating in the camp for Junior High boys in the early part of the week, and John and Justin will spend the latter part of the week at the camp for High School boys. John has participated in the camps for the past two years and enjoyed it so much that Justin and Jack thought that they might like it as well and decided to participate this year.

This is Jack’s first time away from home with the exception of few sleepovers with friends. He and his little sister Mary are very close. After I had left Jack at the Seminary and returned home, Mary started to cry profusely. “I miss Jacky!” she cried, and the tears just fell and fell. I suggested that she get her pet guinea pig, Benny, and play with him for a while until she felt better. I promised her that Jack was probably missing her just as much, but he would only be gone for two nights and the time would go fast. Still, when bedtime came around, she decided to sleep in Jack’s bed instead of her own so that she would feel close to him.

At 11:00, several hours after I had gone to bed, I heard the phone faintly ringing and I heard my husband ask, “What’s wrong? Do you want to talk to Mom?” It was Jack. He was crying and said he wanted to come home. Without pressing him further, I told him that I would be there within thirty minutes. Paul asked our son Joe to go along with me, since he was still up and I was grateful for the company on the long drive.

When we reached the Seminary, we found Jack and a chaperone standing in the doorway, waiting for me. Homesick. Jack had his bag packed and was ready to return to family and house full of the comfort of the known. Susi, the chaperone, said that Jack was welcome to come back the next day for Morning Prayer followed by Mass and breakfast with the Archbishop, and then a day filled with games, sports, work and prayer. She also mentioned that Jack had signed up to serve at Tuesday morning’s Mass, so she was really hoping that he would be there for that.

I knew that serving at Mass was something that Jack would not want to miss. Ever since he was trained as an acolyte earlier this year, assisting at Mass has been one of his favorite things to do. In fact, one of our sweet, elderly parishioners has been serving at the daily Mass three days a week. It’s getting to be a bit much for her, and she asked if one of my boys might take one day a week during the summer months. That night at dinner, I mentioned this to the boys and asked if any of them might like to help sweet Mrs. B out. Joe said he prefers to sleep late in the summer months. John and Justin who have both served at the daily Mass in the past, complained that serving at daily Mass is much harder than at Sunday Mass as the daily server is required to set up the altar and has more responsibilities. Jack piped up that he would like to take a weekly Mass to relieve Mrs. B from some of her work. Both John and Justin told Jack that he couldn’t handle it. In their wiser big brother ways, they told Jack that if they found it to be too hard, Jack certainly would not be able to manage it. But Jack firmly insisted that he wanted to serve and he would do just fine. Sure enough, that smart little boy took notes when Mrs. B trained him and he is confidently doing just fine serving at the Morning Mass. It is a treat to watch him grinning that huge smile of his the entire time he serves. And his delight is not lost on the elderly parishioners who are regulars at the morning Mass; his joy spreads to their hearts as well leaving everyone with a warm and loving feeling as morning Mass is over. I was certain that he would want to be there on Tuesday for the honor of serving at the Seminary.

As Jack and I climbed into the van and drove down the Seminary’s long tree-lined drive and back home, Joe asked Jack what it was that upset him so much that he didn’t want to stay at the Seminary.

“Well,” Jack replied, “during Benediction I started to miss my family and it made me sad.” Fr. Peter asked me why I was crying and when I told him, he said that he knows what that’s like to miss somebody that you love. And Susi told Jack about how much she misses her cat when she is away from him. Still, their words were not able to offer him the comfort of a night at home. He said he definitely wanted to go back in the morning for Mass and to spend the day, but he wasn’t sure that he would want to stay overnight the following night, either.

When we got home, exhausted Jack found Mary sleeping soundly in his bed, so he curled up on the floor next to his bed with a pillow and a few blankets and instantly drifted off to sleep. I thought of how much Mary had missed Jack, and here he was, right beside her and she didn’t even know it. Isn’t that just like God? When we really feel lonely for Him and need Him the most, He is right there beside us but we rarely realize it. And maybe, when we miss the people we love the most, they are also right beside us in spirit, missing us as just as much as we miss them. I prayed that Mary would feel comforted by Jack’s presence in her sleep, even if she wasn’t aware of how close he was to her.

Early the next morning, I woke Jack and we returned to the Seminary, while Mary continued to slumber in his bed. When we arrived in the chapel, I was feeling a bit intimidated and uncomfortable. I wondered if the other kids would look down on him for having left and if the staff were worried that he wasn’t quite ready for this experience.

My worries were soon allayed as Deacon Kevin greeted me and said “I heard you had a rough night last night. Thanks for bringing Jack back today!” I realized that this warm and welcoming group would do their best to make Jack feel as if the Seminary were his home away from home. I stayed for Morning Prayer and Mass and was so grateful to be part of such an intimate group in the Seminary Chapel. There were 21 boys staying at the camp, three Seminarians who were helping, Susi, the Rector and his assistant, the Vocations Director and his assistant, and the Archbishop, who said Mass. For me it was a real pleasure to be at that very special morning Mass, and as I quickly whispered goodbye to Jack after Mass, he smiled and said, “I think I’ll stay all night tonight,” and I left for work, tired, but joyful and confident that Jack would have a wonderful experience for the remainder of his time at Seminary Summer Camp.