Holidays: The best and worst of times

By Mary Erickson

As we progress in the anticipation of one of the holiest seasons of the liturgical year, we are reminded daily of the joy and angst this time of year brings to all of us. The media constantly bombards us with the realities of broken relationships, depressed people led to violent acts against themselves or others and the knowledge of those people who don’t have enough food to eat or shelter from the winter cold. This year the economic woes throughout the world have brought the stark reality of having to do with less and, in many cases, having to do without completely.

All of this should be enough to deal with but too often we have the struggles that occur within families throughout the year, and the holidays seem to magnify troubled relationships in the context of our expectations. Don’t all of us look back fondly on a Christmas scene from our childhood and wish we could recreate the warmth, happiness and loving spirit that we felt as children? I can remember being four years old and peeking out and watching my father put together a rocking horse for me, wondering why my dad was doing that because Santa was coming that night! Alas, my reverie was soon broken when my older brother, nine years old, told me that Daddy was Santa. That revelation was probably my first and most memorable disappointment in the holiday season.

Five decades have passed and with each passing year it is more apparent that those good old days that seem so precious really were elusive and a projection of all my desires for tightly-knit and happy family. For me, the vision of a Norman Rockwell family scene didn’t exist and all my wishing for it simply didn’t produce the image. What I had was a family of people who loved each other but couldn’t always get along very well and for whom the holidays only seemed to exacerbate our dysfunctional relationships.

Advent is a season of hope that encourages each of us to trust in the goodness of each other and to see that through our humanity we have the potential to bring about positive change if only we try. The good news of the coming of the Christ child symbolizes the opportunity to begin again in spite of the challenges and hardships we face. If there is one thing that I have learned it is that my vision of a perfect and loving family is probably not very realistic. What I know for sure is that I have a family of strong-willed individuals who at this point are blessed with good jobs, good health and each other. For that I am immensely grateful and I pray that our time spent together will be loving and a reflection of caring and kindness towards each other. If it doesn’t pass the Norman Rockwell family scene test, I am fine with it. I will know that we tried and there is always hope for next year. Blessings for a happy and holy holiday season!!

Flu Season Allows Time To Be, To Reflect

By Sister Guadalupe Medina
I used to think we had only four seasons: fall, winter, spring and summer. But I realize now that we have a new season called the Flu Season, and its exact date for starting has not been established or put on the calendar.

Recently I entered into the Flu season and had unexpected days off. During those days I did not find myself wanting to go shopping, or prepare anything special. I simply just wanted to get better.

Much to my surprise I found myself enjoying the days off more than when I get holiday days off. Perhaps it was because these days were not planned, they just happened. I found myself spending more time in silence and wondering hmmmm . . . did Jesus ever get the flu?

I don’t know how many of you ever wondered that, but I found myself asking over and over again “If we say Jesus was human in every way but sin, does that mean he never got ill? If he did get ill, how did Mary as mother deal with it. Did she make him a nice cup or bowl of soup? Did she take him to the doctor for a check up to make sure it wasn’t anything serious? Did she rely on her mother’s healing remedies? How did Jesus manage to give so many talks and not lose his voice, which is what happened to me?

I realize the questions might seems silly to some people, but seriously, have any of you ever wondered whether Jesus got sick and, if so, how it was dealt with? Let’s face it, in his time period they did not have the advanced medical technology and specialized doctors and medicine advertisements, etc. like we do today. So what do you suppose they did?

As I used the days to enter into the silence of my being, I found myself recalling the home remedies my parents used on us kids when we were growing up and how miraculously it seemed we were healed. My dad was a simple man of deep faith who, I recalled, said that the ideas he received came to him while in prayer. He trusted and followed what he heard, and mother trusted him, and together they administered the remedies to us and we got healed. Each time, I recalled, they said a prayer. A simple prayer which I must admit I say each time I take medication: “En el nombre de Dios” (In the name of God).

As I spent the days recovering, I began to see them in a positive way -- positive in the sense the days allowed me to “just be.” They reminded me of the need for taking care of one’s body and how precious and fragile life is. They reminded me of the need to trust and not lose hope, and how, despite all the medical advanced technology and medicine on the market, the flu season -- like the other seasons -- has a beauty and purpose that perhaps we may not fully ever understand.

Simplifly for a Better Life, Better World

by Joy Wallace

For the past six weeks, I have been meeting with a class on Voluntary Simplicity and want to share some thoughts based on that experience. We used an excellent publication with the same title from the Northwest Earth Institute, which is full of thought-provoking articles.

Each chapter in Voluntary Simplicity deals with something in our lives where deliberate thoughtfulness and consideration can reduce stress and complexity. The key to all voluntary simplicity is mindfulness . . . actually making a conscious choice to change some behavior. As we read and discussed over the six weeks, we also came up with action plans to implement in our lives.

One area of discussion was to develop more awareness of the effect on our lives of our consumer-oriented culture. We considered how material abundance relates to actual quality of life and happiness. We discussed how many commercials wash over us as we listen to the radio, use the Internet and watch television, and how they influence our lives. We all considered cutting back on our spending, reducing waste, focusing more on personal values and getting rid of “stuff."

Another topic was “making a living.” In this chapter our discussions revolved around the long-range effects of working for a living . . . use of time and energy, relationships, and finding our passions. Too many times “we aren’t making a living, we are making a dying” because we expend our energy doing things that do not renew and nurture ourselves and end up with little energy left for relationships and things we value. Because of this, “life outside the workplace has lost vitality and meaning” and leisure time often leads to loneliness and boredom. We agreed that “making money is such hard work that it changes you” and that we want to develop new attitudes about our work lives and find more joy in leisure time.

The third topic was time -– how we use time and how nurtured we feel about the choices we make to “spend” time. One article states, “Be sure you tithe your time to something that genuinely moves you, and say no without guilt to anything that doesn’t. This way it will be easy to remember that you’re giving a gift, not serving a sentence.” Everyone in the group decided to be more deliberate about how time is spent and to increase peace in our lives.

Finally we discussed how to live more lightly on the Earth. Basically, we agreed that each individual must do something to decrease our impact on the earth. That something might be conserving water daily, composting, growing more food, turning off electric switches, recycling more, considering where food comes from and how it’s produced, or to simplify ones needs. Each person doing one thing, as well as increasing the awareness of others so they too will do one thing, can create changes.

We concluded some sessions with the following reading:
From Singing in the Living Tradition by William Henry Channing
To live content with small means;
To seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion;
To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;
To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages with an open heart;
To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry, never.
To let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.


I look forward to future conversations with this group of people to see how we are all doing with our attempts to live more simply. I’m hoping to re-attend the same class at the next session.

God's Extravagant Love

By Sr. Mary Jo Chaves

I have just recently returned from giving a retreat at San Damiano Retreat Center in Danville, California with Sr. Celeste Clavel, another member of our staff at the Franciscan Spiritual Center. It is a retreat that we have given many times across the country. The official title of the retreat is: God’s Extravagant Love: Reclaiming the Franciscan Theological Tradition.” It is indeed an experience of God’s extravagant love!

When we arrived on Friday October 2 we were greeted warmly by the Franciscan staff at the Center. We spent the afternoon preparing our room for our presentation. Franciscan hospitality surrounded us with abundance. One of our own sisters, Sr. Kathleen Moffatt, from Philadelphia was there to make the retreat and she immediately jumped in to help us set up.

It was quite an honor to have Kathleen with us since she is the general coordinator of this particular retreat. At the invitation of Sr. Kathleen eighteen Sisters from our own community as well as from our heritage communities gathered in Philadelphia in 2004 to create this experience. After three years of study and meetings we launched the program, expecting it to end after 12 presentations. Much to our delight it was enthusiastically received by Franciscan participants all around the world. Sr. Celeste and I found ourselves in Danville to share once more the treasure that this retreat is.

It is an introduction to three major themes from the Franciscan Theological Tradition:
• The Primacy of Christ and the Mystery of Love
• Creation
• Dignity of the Human Person

In Danville, 30 participants listened, reflected and shared their own experiences of what it means to be loved extravagantly by our God. Their faces were filled with light at the conclusion of the retreat. They packed their bags to return home with a “new lens” on their lives, one that enabled them to see with new eyes their own value and worth as well as the value and worth of all of creation.

Sr. Celeste and I intend to give this retreat at the Center here in Milwaukie in the spring. You might want to consider it for yourself. We can promise you that you will leave the retreat feeling very Franciscan and even more convinced that the Franciscan movement has a very significant role to play in redeeming and healing our 21st century world through living and sharing the abundance of God’s extravagant love.

Poets, Prophets and Mystics in an Era of Crisis

By Sr. Mary Lonergan


We live our lives between moonlight and sunlight, midnight and noon, darkness and light, ignorance and knowledge, loneliness and love, oppression and freedom. Christian mystics down through the centuries have used the term “bright darkness” to describe their inner experience with God in their hunger to meet him in quiet prayer.

The poet T.S. Eliot, looking down the dark tunnel of Europe’s postwar pessimism, prophesied that the mystic, the contemplative was “our only hope, or else despair.” In our equally critical era we need prophets to awaken us to the ills of our society, contemplatives to ground our actions for justice, and writers who can wean us away from war, letting us see again the power of the pen over the bomb and the bullet.

Thomas Merton, modern mystic and prophet, continually reminded us that proclamation of Gospel values and social activism has to be grounded in faith and contemplative prayer to be authentic and effective. That to appropriate and live the vision of Christ we must regularly leave behind “business as usual” and flee routinely to the “reality of the desert” -- to meet God and find grace, to be transformed for service.

Our lives are forever blest if we encounter someone who has been changed by this personal experience of God’s abiding grace. Recently, I have been grieving and celebrating one who would not have dreamed of calling himself a mystic. He was -- in its true and faithful meaning.

Some weeks ago, Ron Rolheiser headlined his column in the Catholic Sentinel: ON A ROAD IN GUATEMALA THIS SPRING, THE CHURCH LOST A PROPHET. Rolheiser tells the story of Larry (Lorenzo) Rosebaugh, an American priest, assassinated while driving with Oblate companions from Guatemala City to a meeting in Playa Grande where the missionary had worked with civil war survivors in the rain forests of the northern El Quiché. Lorenzo was no ordinary man and no ordinary priest. He was a special gift to the world. He was a special grace in my world.

A prophet, a mystic activist, he walked always in the muddy footsteps of Francis and the dusty desert footprints of Jesus. For some brief memorable years he was a companion and guide, inspiring and illuminating my own feeble footsteps, brightening the grim darkness of war-weary and downtrodden poorest of the poor. He lived daily in the hope of miracles for his people. In truth, he was the miracle.

Lorenzo’s life, rooted in faith, powered by prayer, was a kaleidoscope of loving service., an adventure in compassion culminating in the extreme sacrifice- martyrdom in the cause of justice, advocating and agitating for those on the margins. A gentle, unassuming, non-violent man, Lorenzo lived the paradoxical life of Priest, Peacemaker and Prophet. He went to prison as a Vietnam protestor, hitchhiked to Brazil and lived on the streets of Recife, homeless and celebrating Eucharist with those whose food generally came from garbage cans. He fasted at Fort Benning, volunteered at the Catholic Worker in New York and ministered to military and freedom fighters in El Salvador.

He was caregiver for his elderly mother and protector of children surviving in the garbage dumps of Guatemala’s capital city. He lived simply, loved mightily, walked humbly, disturbed corrupt politicians and annoyed more than a few prelates. He lived the title of his brief memoir: Journey of Compassion, Resistence and Hope.

Lorenzo made a vow of love, a vow that took him over some pretty rough roads, mostly alone, often on foot. For him the Gate of Heaven was everywhere. He lived in hope. He died with hope. Because of him I think I know better what a poet, prophet and mystic can do.

Classes Offer Opportunity to Explore Ignatian Spirituality

By Marilyn Kirvin

Over the course of my adult life I have been moved and “formed” by the experiences of two different Catholic spiritual paths: as a student at a Franciscan college, a volunteer at a Franciscan friary, and a member of two Franciscan parishes; and then a student at a Jesuit theology school, a campus minister at a Jesuit university, director of two Jesuit spirituality ministries and member of a Jesuit parish.

I think of these spiritualities as, in a sense, two different keys in which the music of the Gospel can be played . . . each has its own particular emphasis, and yet at the center of each is Christ, calling people to radical trust, to give all, to embrace the Cross, to obedience to the call of God as it comes to each person. Both of these spiritualities are very accessible for lay men and women in the midst of their everyday lives, both speak to, and at times critique, our culture. And both spiritualities appeal to people from a variety of faith traditions who have found their messages to be widely applicable.

Francis of Assisi, in the 12th century, fell ill in battle and was taken home for a long recuperation, which led him to notice a restlessness in his heart that became the opening for God’s presence and call. Ignatius of Loyola, in the 16th century, was injured in battle and spent many months recuperating, during which his reading of spiritual texts led him to realize that his own deepest desires could only be met by God. Each of their journeys started with great enthusiasm, both made some false turns as they became more knowledgeable about the way the Spirit’s voice was guiding them, and each found their ways to lives of service, poverty, and obedience. There are many similarities in their storie . . . as well as differences that remind us that God comes to each of us as the people we are, with great respect for our individual personalities, cultures, strengths and weaknesses . . . calling us each to our own particular way of service in the world.

On September 15 the Franciscan Spiritual Center will begin a four-week series designed to introduce participants to Ignatian spirituality – the spirituality that says that God may be found in all things, all places, all relationships, if we learn how to see. Each session explores different Ignatian prayer forms, and gives participants an opportunity to share their faith journeys with others.

Then, on the five Monday evenings in November, we will also offer a series entitled, Prayerful Discernment for Life Choices, in which participants will gather with a small group to learn and practice a prayerful process of listening for God’s presence in making life decisions, large and small. Using the guidelines for discernment from the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, this will be an experiential process, with time for quiet and prayer, to learn by bringing this method to our real questions and decisions.

The life stories of both Francis and Ignatius remind us that we have a God who desires to be part of our lives and our daily choices, and who speaks to each one of us in our prayer and service. They offer all of us the opportunity to come to know more deeply some of the many facets of our loving God.

Preserving Spirituality

By Michelle Dority Kroll


You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them. Genesis 6:21

Time for more of crafting as a spiritual practice. This time we will explore the craft of food preservation. Food preservation is another practice that has been passed down through the generations. I most definitely got the knack of it from my mother. She and I would often seek out the berries of the season and make them into jam. For most people, picking berries is worse than having to pick the seeds out of your teeth! For us, picking berries is meditative. (We had an opportunity to experience this together again recently.) We can and have picked berries for hours until our fingers were stained that bluey-purple-ish red that can only be achieved by berry picking. The most recent time it ended up with about 2.5 pounds of blueberries. Blueberries are small folks, that was a lot of picking! There is only one thing to do with that many berries…JAM! These in particular were made into a Spiced Blueberry Jam and Blue Blue Strawberry Jam (2 parts blueberry and one part strawberry). Both superbly delicious!









Since then, this wonderfully meditative preserving has turned into six batches of jam and a large batch of pickled goodies (beans, cukes and garlic). One of the best things about the items being preserved is that they are wonderful treasures to share with family and friends.

To me, each jar is like a handmade gem. I loved to mix and match flavors. To create something new and exciting, that you won’t find on the grocery store shelf. I love the process of stirring and seeing it transform into its own gem. Some “gems” are purple, some are pinkish-red, some are orangey-red. To me it is the equivalent to having jars of amethyst and rubies in my pantry. Better still because I made them. Each made them with the wonderful fruits of the season. And what a blessing that we can live in an area so abundant with this goodness!

Some years ago now, I signed up for the Master Food Preserving program. Should any of you have questions about canning, feel free to leave a comment, I’ll do my best to answer them. Happy canning!