Archive for June, 2011

Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16        1Cor. 10:16-17         John 6:51-58

This feast is a celebration of God’s love for us in that God not only cares for us but actually nourishes us with food for body and soul.  The Old Testament reading reminds us of the manna God provided for the people in the desert when they had nothing to eat. Like a mother and like a father God provides food for his children, all the while guiding them on the journey of life.

In the second reading we are reminded of Jesus giving us his body and blood as food and drink the night before he gave his life for our salvation. He also gave us the example of service and love by washing his disciples’ feet, the work of a servant. To both of these he said:  “Do this in memory of me.”

In the Gospel reading, Jesus proclaims that he is the Bread of Life and that whoever eats this bread will live forever.  What a thought and what a promise! He promises closeness, life and intimacy with God the Father and with Jesus himself. It is a promise and an assurance of food for the soul, of nourishment on the journey of life here on earth that will lead to everlasting life.

It’s hard to believe that many of us pass this up every week.  We are invited every Sunday to worship: to be nourished by the Word of God and by the Body and Blood of Jesus.  We do all sorts of things all week to support our families, to nourish our bodies and to stay healthy.  Yet when the weekend comes, many ignore the invitation to come together in a prayerful community to worship and to be nourished spiritually.  People have all kinds of excuses: time, boredom, sports, apathy, laziness, negative attitudes toward the church, etc.

When I did parish ministry in Skowhegan years ago, I used to encourage families to come and worship on the weekend in gratitude, if for no other reason, for all the blessings of the week. God provides us with shelter, food, a job and so much more.  How can we not give one hour to hear the Word, to find strength in a prayerful community and to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus as food for the journey? The word Eucharist means thanksgiving… Do we not recognize God’s gifts to us every day?  Do we not recognize God’s desire to feed us, his children?

In the Catholic tradition there are some people who have a great devotion to Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  It is a good thing for they spend time in quiet prayer connecting to God.  The primary purpose of having the Blessed Sacrament in our churches, however, is to bring this Bread of Life to the sick and the dying. We do that almost daily, bringing the Body of Christ to our sick and elderly here at the hospital and at d’Youville Pavilion. I thank all those Eucharistic Ministers who assist us in that service. 

My hope is that all of us will revisit our need to be grateful and to be nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ.  May that lead us back to our worshiping communities, no matter which denomination or which church we call our own.

Sr. Suzanne Beaudoin, SSCh
Director of Pastoral Care

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Trinity Sunday

Friday, June 17th, 2011

Sunday, June 19

Exodus: 34:4-6, 8-9           John 3:16-18 

Our parish in Waterville was the last parish to accept the new liturgy of Vatican II.  One day, I was trying to explain to my dad the reasons for the liturgical changes.  My point was the Tabernacle was on one side of the altar and the open Bible (Word of God) was on the other side and the middle altar, now facing the people, was where God’s presence happened.  My dad had a hard time understanding how God was genuinely present in His word.  In the course of that conversation I said to him:  “When you said ‘I do’ to mom on your wedding day didn’t those words change yours and mom’s lives?  You’re present and powerful in your words too!”  That did it.  He got it.  He understood that words can affect people.  When my dad said to me “I love you,” those words became my rock of belonging.  We continued on that level of discussion until we were able to say that our words were the fabric of our relationships.  What’s the point of words if we don’t build relationships with them?

One of the prayers of Trinity Sunday says: “you are children of God.”  So God has given you the Spirit of His Son to form your hearts and make you cry out “Abba, Father!” 

The Trinity is not catholic math.  The Trinity is celebrated to show that God is relationships . . . God, the Abba, loving His Son and that love is Spirit.  We just can’t believe in God and do nothing with that faith.

I just finished reading the book by Kirk Douglas, the actor.  The title of the book is “My Stroke of Luck” . . . which he wrote after he suffered a stroke.  Towards the end of the book he digs deeply into his Jewish tradition and imagines God saying:  “You can pray all you want.  I’m sick and tired of being told that I’m all powerful and all this and all that.  How about praying less and doing more!  More action, more loving your neighbor.”  Kirk Douglas goes on to say:  “I don’t know if God talks like that, but that’s what I’d say if I were God!”

That’s what relationships are.  It’s doing something for others.  It’s being active in developing bonds with someone you love.  God is not static but always active and we proclaim that when we say that God is Trinity.

Let it be our goal to treat patients and clients with an active faith that reaches the others in the depth of their needs.  If we are health care workers in any sense of the word, then we live our faith through our service, through our professions.  Through our work we enter into relationship with people who are in need, who are sick and who may be dying.  I can’t think of a better way to be alive!

Kenn Rancourt
Pastoral Care

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Feast of Pentecost

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

Sunday, June 12

When my parents traveled to Italy on their honeymoon they took time out to visit my grandfather’s family in Rome. My grandfather was a quiet, patient, kind man of few words. My grandmother was a very passionate, expressive woman who usually dominated the conversation. She was from Calabria, in southern Italy and the Italian spoken in that region is a very different dialect than in Rome. So while my mother spoke and understood Italian, it was from hearing my grandmother’s Calabrian dialect. She had difficulty communicating with her aunt in Rome but kept trying to find different ways to say the words. At one point my father said to her, “Grace, I don’t really know Italian but I know at this point you’re speaking French, not Italian!” Finally her aunt simply said, “We don’t need to talk; just to have you here with me and see your face is enough.”

At the feast of Pentecost (celebrated 50 days after Easter) Jesus’ followers were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to proclaim the Good News. Amazingly those gathered could understand the apostles even though the crowd spoke many different languages and were from many different cultures. They gathered as one to hear the mighty acts of God.

Paul’s letter in the second reading emphasizes that while the Holy Spirit is sent to confer different gifts, it is into the one Spirit that we are all baptized. And when Jesus breathes on the disciples to give them the Holy Spirit in John’s Gospel, his message is one of peace and forgiveness. How do we welcome people of different cultures and people who bring different gifts? How do we extend peace and forgiveness at home, school, work, or church?

Spiritual writer Henri Nouwen notes that throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, God is revealed more fully. In the Exodus story, the revelation is of God-for-us as the Israelites are led out of slavery into freedom. In the person of Jesus, God is revealed as God-with-us, the God who takes on flesh to stand in solidarity with us. And at Pentecost, God is revealed as God-within-us because, as Nouwen writes in The Fullness of the Divine Life, through the sending of the Holy Spirit, we are “enabled to breathe the divine life ourselves.” That is the grace that makes peace and forgiveness possible.

It’s a wonderful image for the feast of Pentecost and for our healing mission at St. Mary’s. All people gathered as one body. One Spirit to bring peace, forgiveness and healing. And sometimes no words are necessary; just being present is enough.

Elizabeth Keene
VP, Mission Effectiveness

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Seventh Sunday of Easter

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Acts of the Apostles 1:12-14               1 Peter 4:13-16           John 17:1-11a

This 7th week of Easter marks the last week in Eastertime. It is followed by Ascension Thursday when Jesus goes back home to His Father with the promise that He will not leave us orphaned. Before ascending into heaven, Jesus promised over and over again to be with us always, even to the end of time. He also promised to send us the Paraclete – the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

The readings this week set the scene with Jesus’ disciples gathered in the “upper room” along with Mary the Mother of Jesus and other devoted men and women. I can just imagine some of their conversations. “Remember when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes and fed the multitude how much food we had left over? It was incredible.” “Remember how Jesus cried when His friend Lazarus died and how He raised him from the dead?” Peter recounted how he felt when he walked on water at Jesus’ invitation and then began sinking when he started doubting and thinking he was doing this on his own power. And, oh yes, Peter reiterated his shame and his remorse for having denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed that fatal day. Mary, Jesus’ mother, spoke of her great joy at her son’s birth – her confusion when at the age of 12 Jesus stayed behind in the temple and she and Joseph were so very worried, and finally she shared her deep, deep sorrow as she followed Jesus to Calvary where she watched her son suffer and die.

“Remember the Last Supper? Remember Jesus’ agony in the Garden? Remember when Jesus ascended to Heaven right before our eyes?” Each memory seemed more vivid than the next, and with each memory were not their hearts burning with love!

Hopefully everyone has found their own “upper room” – this sacred place within, where one retreats to meet the Lord and to remember and savor the very personal and unconditional love God has for you. Remember and give thanks for God’s special blessings – health, family, friends – to name but a few. Give thanks to God for sustaining you on the personal journey God has chosen for you and, with each memory, “may your heart also burn with love.”

This Sunday’s gospel recalls Jesus’ prayer to His Father for His disciples, and in it Jesus says, “I have shown your glory on earth; I have finished the work you gave me to do.” I immediately thought of St. Marguerite d’Youville and how she could easily have prayed these same words. Jesus passed on His mission to His disciples and St. Marguerite, in turn, passed on her mission to us. We are to feed the hungry, heal the sick, comfort the dying, take in the homeless and the orphans, and care for the elderly. Doesn’t that sound like what we do here everyday? I see it played out all the time as I roam the halls. I hear it over and over again from the patients and visitors how caring and compassionate everyone is. Whatever part each one plays in this whole organization, let us remember to do what we do with love so that at the end of each day we may say like Jesus, “I have finished the work you gave me to do today”.

Sr. Madeleine Normand
Chaplain

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