Summer Updates

I am back in New Jersey! The travelling of summer is over & the work preparing for campus continues. We will start in just a few short weeks. I am excited for my third year on campus.

The team will move in by August 21st. We will spend the first week planning, praying, getting settled and unpacked both at home and on campus, and getting ready for yet another year of the Lord's mission at Montclair State University.

The team:
Patrick and Melissa Caskey: They were just married on July 30th! Patrick served at Montclair State last year. He is a native of Kansas City, KS and Melissa is from St. Louis, MO. Both attended Benedictine University in Kansas. They literally just pulled in the drive last night with a moving truck and are currently transforming the apartment above ours into their new home.

Elisabetta Anelli: It will be her first year on staff! She's from Vermont and just graduated from the University of Vermont in Burlington.

Mark Dundon: It will be his first year on staff. He is a George Mason University graduate (like me! Go Patriots!) and a native of Northern Virginia.

We will live in community and work together this upcoming year! Through God's grace and the generosity of several people, we are able to rent out a house/duplex at cost lower than what the NJ market demands. The Caskey family will live in an apartment on the 2nd floor of the house. Elisabetta and myself live in the first floor apartment with our roommate Annie (who works in the city). Mark, will live in the Newman Center, with our chaplain Fr. Jim and another student Glen.


We are so blessed to be surrounded by an amazing group of people and I am excited for everyone to arrive here in a few weeks. Please pray for us, as we continue to prepare!

In the meantime check out the newest FOCUS resource...for YOU to use!
http://www.focusonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=equip_homepage

Pope Benedict XVI & The New Evangelization

While on vacation the Holy Father will take time to teach. The topic will be: The New Evangelization...everything below is from the National Catholic Register....read it!

"....The dynamics of “adoration evangelization” is, in fact, “the only real way to be an authentic witness,” he added — a way that “knows how to overcome the world.” Moreover, he said that an evangelization “that is not born out of a genuine, prolonged, faithful and intimate relationship with God is unlikely to bear fruit and even more unlikely to captivate the people of our time.”

Cardinal Piacenza stressed that “not only strength and courage, but also the right creativity of evangelization, are derived by Eucharistic adoration” and that “any time spent with the Lord is, in fact, given to brothers and is itself evangelization.”

He went on to say that evangelization “is not something to ‘do’ after adoration; evangelization is already happening during adoration. To worship is already to evangelize. It’s not only the dimensions of a visible witness that worship always involves, but also, and above all, cooperation in the hidden work of God, to which, again, those who place themselves in adoration are called to participate.”

Noting that the Church has always tried to captivate the world, the cardinal said that that of course does not mean it tries to flatter it or acquiesce to worldliness. Rather, stressing the words of Matthew 22 and the absolute primacy of God (“Thou shalt love the Lord your God. ... This is the greatest and first commandment”), he said that effective evangelizers are those who show through their whole being and “with happy certainty, all the beauty, the novelty, of a life renewed and the reasonableness of Christianity, believing ‘that Jesus is the Son of God...."

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/pope-benedicts-r-r1/#ixzz1Tz3q7bzm

My friend Tala showed me this video a few years back...

In this place: heaven envelops one in its mystery and hours pass like moments and moments pass like hours.


http://www.time.com/time/audioslide/0,32187,1873724,00.html


I saw this video in college, and loved how beautiful the pictures were and how mysterious the life seemed. Now I live only a few short minutes from the place they were taken. I am able to go there for daily Mass and Prayer, the beauty is closer and yet the mystery remains. Even though I am able to witness where heaven touches earth in this place, it makes their choice to love, no less radical. It makes more radical, because it is simply, radically, mysteriously, and fully real.

The Hope of a Saint

"Hope, O my soul, hope... Dream that the more you struggle... the more you will rejoice one day with your Beloved, in a happiness and rapture that can never end." -St. Teresa of Avila  referenced in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. (CCC)

Marianne Lindsay  Dec. 6, 1929- May 30, 2011

 I've been waiting to find the perfect words, the perfect time, to sit, to think, to pray, and to write words that capture the love that Marianne Lindsay, our Grandma Moose, lived out so well. 

I have yet to find the perfect time. So now will do. 

 Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. (CCC 1817)

My Grandma is a woman who knew struggle, yet clung to the promise of heaven despite it all. When she was a young married woman, with three children (and my mother on the way) she lost her father, her son Donny, her husband, and her mother all within a two year span. She forged ahead, held onto hope, and lived her life with love. She cared for her children and her younger siblings. She did it all relying on the strength of Christ. 

A few years later, she met David E. Lindsay, our grandpa. 

Her struggle didn't end there. She endured health problems and complications and more loss.  But her life was full of beauty. Her six children Austin, Jeanne, Jamie, Cathy, Annie, and MaryBeth all speak of the love they encountered through their mother and their family. She built a house of love.  A house that her children and grandchildren could flee to at any moment, when we too encountered struggle, pain, and loss. We could flee there for love, for hope, and for her. She was always there. 

And she loved Jesus, a lot. And He loved her. One of her many joys was bringing the Eucharist to the Nursing Homes and Hospitals. That was a role she was protective of..."You can come visit me, but I have to take communion on Saturday." There was no compromise there.   She showed Jesus such great love by the way she cared for Him, held Him, and brought Him to others.  


When I became a missionary, she told me to go out on campus... because she couldn't...but only because she was on oxygen.  


I thought of her when I wanted to quit.
I thought of her when it was hard.


And when I thought of  her, I thought of her love of Jesus Christ; one that endured struggle, full of hope...and I held on.

My grandma was a missionary to us all. She taught us what it means to know Christ, to cling to the Cross, and to trust in the promise of eternal happiness of heaven. 


I had the chance to visit her before she passed away. She slept most of the day, and simple tasks like having someone else put on her shoes winded her. We prayed the Rosary together. She was barely conscious...yet her fingers kept up the pace on her Rosary beads. And even though she could barely speak, her voice would chime in loudly with a bit of a Hail Mary or Our Father. She fought to pray, just like she did her whole life. Even in the end, our grandma has the soul of a giant.  

My cousins, a few aunts, and I were in the room when her breathing slowed down. We were able to gather the family, her children, grandchildren, sister, and nephew into her room. She died surrounded by love and prayer. We prayed a Hail Mary and a Memorare. Our Holy Mother Mary welcomed our holy mother Marianne Lindsay into heaven that day.

And I know it in the very depths of my soul, Jesus was excited to welcome her to heaven. She held Him with such tenderness on Earth and now it is finally His turn to hold her with that same tenderness in Heaven. 

__________________________________ 
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided.
Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me.
Amen.

A Summer of Saints

It has been forever since I posted. I want to do one quick update, just in case my plans to do a good update don't come through on Sunday.

1. I went to Denver. I'm officially in love. I will live in Colorado someday. It has to happen. It is so beautiful out there.

2. My family and I lost our dear sweet and fearless leader: Grandma Moose. She passed away. It was difficult and beautiful all at the same time. Just like her life. She was a rock. and a saint. And she passed away surrounded by family, truly the grace of a happy death. She loved God with a fierce courageous love, and I have no hesitation when I call her by her new title "saint".

3. This is the summer of learning things. I will study. Be productive. Learn new things. Try new things. I want to read more from the saints. Go on new adventures in Illinois, Ohio and New Jersey. I want to pursue excellence in all that I do.

4. Spending this summer, praying for campus in a whole new way...with an awesome team of missionaries.
Join us in praying:

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided.Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me.
Amen.

Blessed John Paul the II, father of the New Evangelization, pray for us!

I love love love it.

OK Holy Week....Here we go.

It's 11:27 p.m. and I am sitting at my kitchen counter sipping a cider and trying to wind down after another Sunday night on campus. On any other day of the week, I'd be in bed by 11p.m. and if it is a night off, I'm in bed by 9p.m. Never Sundays though, Mass on campus wakes my body up at 8:30p.m. and its hard for me to shut my eyes before midnight.But this Sunday is even better, it is the Sunday of Holy Week, Praise God. I don't have much to say but my mom said I should write more often, and this is a first attempt at "more often". Hi mom. (love you).

I guess all I can say is, I love Holy Week. Seriously. I love love love it. I didn't start loving it until I got to college, but I didn't really start loving the Church until then and even though I secretly loved Jesus a little bit longer than that.

What do I like about it? No love about it?

1. The Passion Reading at Palm Sunday: Not just because I like stories. But because it is THE story. It is the story where life began, ended, and began again. And it is never the lectors and priest who proclaim the story, but the voice of the Holy Spirit, God Himself, is audible, clear and thunderous as it rings out words of the Ultimate Love Story. Whenever I hear it (and even proclaim it as a lector) I hear God whisper to me and invite me into His loving embrace. I hear His voice say, "Come, Hear, and Experience the story of what I did for you". I hear Christ beckon.... and so begins my Holy Week wrapped in the loving embrace of His Passion Story.

2. Each day of this week:  ....each day is like a prayerful, quiet, reverent step to the Summit, the crux...it is a build to a cliffhanger, it is the cliffhanger, it is the fall after the cliffhanger....Everything we need to know about being human is contained within the days of this week. This week is the holiest of holies. Every other week of the year pales in comparison and every other week participates in a countdown to THIS week. This week is the center of the universe that the world revolves around. Every day of my life...every moment of our lives contain traces of the moments in the Last Supper, Good Friday, and the Resurrection.

3. The Celebration of the Institution of the Eucharist: Which gives us Christ Himself. Amen.

4. Good Friday: He suffered because we suffered. He died because we died. We live because He Lived. Why?

5. The Reproaches: People suck. The world sucks. That person...sucks. Turns out that attitude is a heresy. The world is good.  People are very good. Sin...well, sin sucks. But people were created good, no very good.  (see the Book of Genesis, chapter 1). What does this have to do with Holy Week? Let me introduce you to the prayers that changed my life: The Reproaches (part of the Good Friday Veneration of the Cross). Sometimes it is chanted as the priests lay prostrate before the Cross in veneration on Good Friday. The priests are laying down their lives for their Church, following in Christ's footsteps. We, as a Church, mourn the death of our bridegroom. Remember the opportunity to be wrapped in Christ's embrace during Holy Week? Yeah, this is another time that embrace is felt. Sometimes, when I want to complain, I now realize more than anything I just want to mourn the death of Christ, our bridegroom...in His Death lies true pain, a death I caused. And the only appropriate response to that reality, to all reality, is praise: Holy is God! Holy and Strong! Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us!  


6. Easter Vigil Mass: 7 glorious readings that walk us through Salvation History, from darkness to light, from death to life, from earth to heaven, from separation to union with God. This is the best Mass of the year, EVER.


7. Hope: John 20: 11-18


Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping.
And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb

and saw two angels in white sitting there,
one at the head and one at the feet
where the Body of Jesus had been.
And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
She said to them, “They have taken my Lord,
and I don’t know where they laid him.”
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there,
but did not know it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?
Whom are you looking for?”
She thought it was the gardener and said to him,
“Sir, if you carried him away,
tell me where you laid him,
and I will take him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,”
which means Teacher.
Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me,
for I have not yet ascended to the Father.
But go to my brothers and tell them,
‘I am going to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God.’”
Mary went and announced to the disciples,
“I have seen the Lord,”
and then reported what he had told her.

Amen. May God Bless you and pull you into His loving embrace during this Holy Week.

I dedicate this post to Alexander Hamilton....

I love all forms of history. I would swallow up dates, names of battles, historical conflicts in strange places and memorize them as if my life depended on it. I had such a passion to know the world, the people in it, and most importantly their stories. I loved any kind of story that told me about somebody else who lived in the same world as me. Would we have gotten along, been friends? What was their life like? How is their life different from mine?

Recently someone brought up the name of Alexander Hamilton, and I could only think of two things the founding of the country and $$$. Wikipedia confirmed my old faded memories by explaining, he was the first US Secretary of of Treasury ever and he founded the US Mint which operated as the 1st national bank. His picture is on our $10 dollar bill.

Do you know why someone recently brought up his name in conversation?

It's because my team and I went on a "day of recollection" with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in NYC. We went in Thursday night and stayed through Friday afternoon. It was an opportunity to retreat in prayer, silence, community, and share a little life with a community that truly knows how to practice "the art of living". The reason his name came up is because their friary, the St. Joseph Friary, is actually an old house of Alexander Hamilton. How cool is that? The man who's face is on a $10 bill is connected to the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFRs).

One important note, one of the many things that sets the CFRs apart from others is that they don;'t just take a vow of poverty, chastity, obedience. They take a vow of poverty without property. The don't own anything. Not even the friary, the just borrow it from the Archdiocese. A strong part of their apostolate is their poverty and they specifically seek to serve those who live in poverty.

And they live in the house of the man who founded the U.S. Mint.

Is that ironic? I don't think so. I think its more than that. I think God's trying to tell us something. I'm not sure. But I can at least share with you what I think God is telling me.

The true richness in life, doesn't come from Alexander Hamilton or the U.S. Mint. It comes from Jesus Christ. And man, let me tell you, these friars...they know Jesus Christ. I mean they KNOW Him. As I was falling asleep on Thursday night, I truly felt like a guest at the Taj Mahal or the NYC version, The Plaza hotel. The Franciscan life is rich and getting a taste of it for just a moment creates a lifelong addiction.

Fr. Gabriel, CFR in Eucharistic Adoration at FOCUS Conference 2011.

They wear long gray habits and sandals year round. They tie a real rope around their waste with three knots to represent their vows of Poverty, Chastity, Obedience. They wear a Rosary on their life side, always ready to call upon heaven in prayer. They pray barefoot letting the feeling of the cold hardwood floor underneath their feet ground their prayer in simplistic beauty. The have little flickering red candles strewn throughout the friary, near holy images of Christ and saints, simply to show the world that behind every image is a prayer to Jesus Christ. The screams of NYC taxis and passerby's fade away at the sound of the friars singing "Oh Come Let Us Adore Him" as they expose Christ in the Eucharist. Prayer is weaved throughout their day with the Office of the Readings, Mass, Morning Prayer, Midday Prayer, Evening Prayer, Night Prayer, and simple silent prayer  in Eucharistic Adoration. They give love to everyone they encounter, and never fall short of laughter. There is no greater beauty than this, true love of Christ. And man, it is true, it is real, and more than anything it is rich. I'm not sure what Alexander Hamilton had in mind for his house, but I have to say it being doused in poverty is probably the best thing that ever happened to it. Because the house is no longer poor, but it is spiritually rich.

CFRs taking final vows.

“The spiritual poverty of the Western world is much greater than the physical poverty of our people. . . . Often among the rich are very spiritually poor people. They know they need something more than money, yet they don’t know what it is. . . . What they are missing, really, is a living relationship with God.”- Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta