The Associates World: October 2021

October 4, 2021
Contents
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Vero Associates sponsor young adult Adoration

Submitted by Vero Beach Paulist Associates in Collaboration

The Paulist Associates and Paulist Priests of Vero Beach
The Paulist Associates and Paulist Priests of Vero Beach
Holy Cross Church, Vero Beach
Holy Cross Church, Vero Beach

The lay faithful can make a powerful contribution to the conversion of many who have turned away from their faith. Many in our society have regretfully turned their backs on Jesus, Our Lord, especially the Millennials, Generation Y. As Saint Augustine teaches, “I had my back to the light and my face was turned toward the things which it illumed. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself, but they are in darkness.” 

So it goes today, as people have found their light in the things of this world and not in the true Light of our life, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior.

This was the impetus for the Vero Beach Associates mission project. As in the mission of the disciples, “The harvest is rich but the laborers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers to his harvest.” (Lk 10:2) It is our belief that the most powerful gift that you can give a person is an encounter with Jesus. To bring individuals into a relationship with Jesus will allow Him to quiet all the storms of life. They will open their hearts to hear, “Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid.” (Mk 6:51)

The question we must answer, how can we reach out to the 18-45 year olds who have left the Church, do not want to go into a Church, and do not want the structure of an “institutional” mass? How do we reach out to the “NONES” in a way that is different than the approaches that have already been tried? 

Socialization is an important element to this age group. However, there is also a longing to find peace, comfort, and answers to a restless heart. Where can I step back from the hectic and chaotic pace of my life, being bombarded constantly with communication from all directions? All of this interaction lacks the only source of all peace, a personal encounter with the true presence of Jesus, which can be found in Eucharistic Adoration. 

To allow for a complimentary approach, we teamed with a local parish whose emphasis was socialization through monthly dinner/conversation, known as Theology on Tap, while we would focus on once weekly Adoration between the hours of 3:00-6:30 PM. This gave the young adults an opportunity to visit after work and step into an environment of quiet silent prayer, being drawn t o Jesus, truly and substantially present in the Eucharist.

To get the word out to the community, our outreach took on a multi-focused approach. An announcement, with a specific graphic Eucharistic theme, was posted in our local parish bulletin and continues to run weekly. The same announcement was placed on the parish Facebook, Instagram and App accounts. 

In addition, Facebook and Twitter (@verocatholics) accounts were created for the Paulist Associates group, as Vero Beach Adoration Ministry. For a personalized invitation, a simple business card was developed. This enables us to encounter individuals on a personal basis spontaneously throughout the day, those who may be struggling in life, weary from burdens, and in need of the consoling heart and healing power of Jesus in their lives.

As in any sort of evangelization effort, one must have patience. It is very much a planting of a seed and having God, Our Father, water, and nurture its growth. As Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman aptly wrote, “God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may  never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.” 

Our Adoration ministry is in its tenth week and the number of Adorers are growing, albeit a few each week, with new faces. We pray to Jesus for guidance in all we do and in each step going forward. This mission project is very much driven by the Holy Spirit. It is vital that our Apostolate invoke the Spirit continually for guidance. 

This is not taken lightly. 

We ask for your prayers in our ministry. 


Book Review: On Being Catholic by Thomas Hayward

Larry Schnebly
Larry Schnebly

356 pages Ignatius Press
reviewed by Larry Schnebly, Tucson Associate

On Being Catholic, by Thomas Howard shares insights on the meaning of Catholic beliefs and practices. An older book published in the 90’s, I found it on a stack of unfinished books (my eyes being bigger than my reading capacity!)…it is remarkably undated in its style and perspectives.” 

I recommend it highly. It’s impressive that Howard, a fellow convert, “seems to have a lot of near-indisputable thinking by someone who has followed in conversion’s footsteps!”

Written in a lay devotional style, the book is a “clear call to conversion while supporting the idea that other views are acceptable.” In the end, I could not decide whether the convert/writer is a conservative or liberal.

It frequently just “made sense” as a case for Catholicism.

We would welcome your book suggestions and – even more – your book reviews on what you or your group have read. Please contact Richard at [email protected] to share your recommendations and submit a short review. 


Tell us about your life as an Associate

From the Paulist Associates Handbook:

“Paulist Associates find opportunities in their daily lives, through their various vocations, to exemplify the mission commitments of the Paulists in the charism of Fr. Isaac Hecker. His charism specified that, in modern American/Canadian culture, the Holy Spirit was at work, making it conducive to invite people to faith, and helping the Church understand its role in modern, democratic societies. His charism was marked by openness to others and a particular welcome to outsiders.”

In the months ahead, we’d like to ask you to share ways in which you live that model in your daily lives, in your families, in your parishes or schools…any way that you bring the Paulist charism to the wider world. 

Submissions of any length are welcome. And pictures are a great addition.

Email them to Denis Hurley at [email protected].

Thank you. 

— Denis Hurley, Editor


Book Review: Thomas Aquinas: A Historical, Theological, and Environmental Portrait by Donald Prudlo
Denis M. Hurley
Denis M. Hurley

486 pages, Paulist Press
reviewed by Denis M. Hurley, Boston Associate

In the long-ago days when I was a student at Fordham University, we were required to take 24 credits of Philosophy, along with 21 credits of Theology.

For me that meant an hour-long subway ride from Brooklyn to the Bronx for a five-day-per-week schedule of 8 a.m. philosophy classes.

And that also meant that my early mornings were often spent in the company of Thomas Aquinas, about whom some weary and befuddled student predecessors had composed a song parody titled, “There’s No Ism Like Thomism” :

“There’s no -ism like Thomism,
Like no -ism I know…
Plato was a very fuzzy thinker;
Descartes was an ordinary clod.
Thomas drags you up the steps of Wisdom,
And leaves you sprawled out
In front of God!”

And, after four years, that’s pretty much where I ended up … sprawled out. I’d read the words but, as was common for my literal mind in those days, missed the context.

Sometime later, I remembered my dad reading Chesterton on Aquinas and tried him. But G.K. was far smarter than I was, even decades after college, and he wrote as if his readers were as familiar with the subject as he was.

Once again, perhaps not sprawled, but certainly baffled.

Then, with the help of Paulist Press I encountered Donald Prudlo, a chaired professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa. He wrote, no doubt with me specifically in mind, Thomas Aquinas: A Historical, Theological and Environmental Portrait.

That sounds like a mouthful, but, in truth, the book is much more than that: It’s essentially a straightforwardly told mise en scène for a tumultuous era of Christian development with Thomas, via Prudlo, guiding readers, in and out of 13th century political and religious struggles, intellectual struggles in the company of Ancient Greeks and contemporary Muslims, battles within the scholarly world of Paris and beyond, and doctrinal conflicts between the two mendicant orders, Dominicans and Franciscans.

We meet Thomas and Bonaventure, of course, but also Plato and Aristotle and Averroes and Al Ghazali — Islamic scholars who saw (as did the Christian and Jewish sages — particularly Maimonides) food for thought and for debate in the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.

Prudlo lives up to his title in providing detailed yet easily readable historical and contextual/environmental background for Aquinas and his work. And he paints a sympathetic portrait of the man who may seem to many to be a detached and frighteningly imposing figure.

It took me a year to read from beginning to end, largely because every page is so full of information that even a short reading session prompted deep thought and lots of external investigation. My Kindle is now full of the works of Islamic and Jewish sages, and I will have to make a large contribution of Wikipedia this year for bringing me up to speed on historical dates and significant figures who were only vague names up till now.

But the most interesting insight Dr. Prudlo inspired was the realization that most Catholics (and other Christians) including “educated” ones, have very little idea of how the “faith” we know today came to be and how much discussion and debate, even outright conflict, has gone into its codification.

Prudlo — and the readings associated with his book — have led me to further depths of investigation, starting with Boniface Ramsey’s Beginning to Read the Fathers, a compendium of thought and debate by Eastern and Western Christian thinkers from the time of the Gospel writers to the eighth century BCE.

Wish me luck.


Proposed Program for October
Theme: On Faith, Fortitude, Patience and Courage of Fr. Isaac Hecker and the first Paulist missionarie

Submitted by the Paulist Associates of Rome, Italy

Paulist Associates of Rome, Italy at the renewal of vows, Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, 27 Jan 2018 days after the feast day of St. Paul’s conversion, 25 Jan. 2018
Paulist Associates of Rome, Italy at the renewal of vows, Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, 27 Jan 2018 days after the feast day of St. Paul’s conversion, 25 Jan. 2018
Opening Prayer: 

Oh Heavenly Father
Wilt Thou give me grace and strength to keep getting better
To overcome all temptations that may beset my path. 

Oh Lord
Awaken me more to the divine capacities Thou hast endowed Man with
And wilt Thou make my sight clearer
And my hearing delicate that I may see more and more of thy law
And hear more and more of thy divine voice
of love. 

(From “Isaac Hecker for Every Day — Daily Thoughts from the founder of the Paulists” Edited by Rev. Ronald A. Franco, CSP — a prayer under the month of February— Hecker’s Search for God).

Reading (in advance of the meeting)

Hecker’s spiritual quest which led to his joining the Catholic Church, was ordained at a young age of 25 with the Redemptorists. His fortitude and God’s grace shows him surpassing life’s early setbacks at an early age as we learn further from this link. Even as he transitions to a richer life, as he and his brothers become bakers and eventually owning four shops and their own flour mill, he gives these up to fulfil his call to a spiritual life and the eventual founding of the Missionaries of the Society of St. Paul. 

  • From The Paulist Vocation; Excerpts from Chapter 3 Hecker’s Mission and from Chapter 5 The View from Rome.
  • From Chapter 3 Hecker’s Mission


From a letter to the American Fathers, Rome, September, 1857:

If God wishes to make use of us as instruments in such a design, and I can be assured of this on competent authority, with His grace, whatever it may cost, I will not shrink from it. I call competent authority the approbation of good and holy men, and one like the Cardinal, who knows the country, knows all our affairs now, and who has every quality of mind and heart to be a competent judge in this important affair. 

Though you made me your minister plenipotentiary, yet this is an individual affair; one we did not contemplate; one of the highest import to our salvation and sanctification, and must depend on God and our individual conscience.

Even before making this proposition to you, I asked advice from my spiritual director, and he approved of it. You may be confident that in every step that I take I endeavor to be actuated only by the Spirit of God, and take every means to assure myself of it; so that hereafter no scruples may trouble my conscience, and God’s blessing be with me and with you also.

  • From Chapter 5 The View from Rome:


From a letter to George V. Hecker, dated Rome, February 13, 1858:

… If God blesses our personal affairs with success, then the opportunity may be given to me to express these views, and perhaps to the Pope. On leaving our shores I had the presentiment that God’s Providence was about to employ me in just such a work as now seems before me. Of course, how, I did not know, but the moment my expulsion was being read, this thought flashed again across my mind, and led me to say interiorly to God, fiat voluntas tua. Not only the expulsion, but the delays and difficulties, the misrepresentations and calumnies which I have had to bear, all are regarded by me as providential means of placing me finally in the position here to further the work of God. The Pope begins to think now that we are good fellows, and by and by he may regard us as zealous missionaries, devoted to God and His Church, and called to a special and providential work, and hence take a special interest in our regard. If this happens, it will give me the occasion of expressing and explaining my views to him … My views on these subjects are becoming daily more clear, just, and practical; and I imagine that if the Holy Father should place any confidence in me, which I trust my conduct in these troubles may merit, he will listen to them, and be guided in a measure by them. But the future is in the dark, and it is the intimate conviction of the guidance of Divine Providence in this whole affair, and the promise of triumph [given me by] all who are cognizant of its nature, which gives me hope and fortitude.


From a letter to the American Fathers, dated Rome, March 27, 1858:

The seven months passed here in Rome seem to me an age, and have taxed me to that extent that I look forward to home as a place of rest and repose. When I think of the fears, anxieties, and labors under — gone I say to myself, boys that’s fun enough for this time. On the other hand, when I remember the warm and disinterested friends God has given us on 

account of these difficulties, and the happy issue to which His providence has conducted them, my heart is full of gratitude and joy. To me the future looks bright, hopeful, full of promise, and I feel confident in God’s providence, and assured of His grace in our regard. I feel like raising up the cross as our standard and adopting one word as our motto—CONQUER.  

News/Announcements

Questions to ponder with your Associate Group

1. The excerpt above illustrates the challenges and struggles that Fr. Hecker faced in his time in Rome, such as his expulsion from the Redemptorists. It is just a drop in the bucket of his life’s story of faith, fortitude, and persistence to answer to the call of creating another mission that can bring the Americans and non-believers to the Catholic Faith. How do his challenges resonate with us today?

At a time when many among us struggle with loneliness, illness and perhaps helplessness, please share how you take inspiration in Fr. Hecker’s actions of taking courage and placing his confidence for the future in God’s grace?

2. Have you experienced lately some crosses individually or as a Paulist Associates fellowship group similar to what Father Isaac Hecker and his group of expelled Redemtorists noted and thus, adopted his motto to CONQUER?  What are the ways you have lived his motto?

3. His strong faith is encapsulated in a Latin phrase, fiat voluntas tua, Your will be done, when he states that the Spirit of God moves him.  Do share with each other the times when you had a dilemma and learned to listen to the Holy Spirit, or learned to accept that His will be done, and not your own desires.

News/Announcements/Prayers for Others
Closing Prayer:

 

Come Holy Spirit, come! 

send us a ray of your light from Heaven.

Come Father of the poor, come giver of all gifts, 

come light of all hearts.

Perfect consoler, sweet guest of our souls, 

most sweet help.

In our tiredness give us rest, in the heat give us shade, 

in our tears give us solace.

Oh most blessed light; invade the hearts 

of all the faithful.

Without your strength, nothing is good in us,

nothing is without fault.

Wash what is dirty, bathe what is arid, 

heal what is hurting.

Make soft what is rigid, warm what is cold, 

straighten what is crooked.

Give to all who trust in You, 

your holy gifts.

Give virtue and all good. 

Give a holy death, give eternal joy. 

Amen

 

(A Prayer to the Holy Spirit inviting him to  to come — Veni Sancte Spiritus. Also known and beloved as the “Golden Sequence,” the Veni Sancte Spiritus is a beautiful, powerful prayer to the Holy Spirit that dates back to the thirteenth century. More at catholic-link.org. 


Contacts

PAULIST ASSOCIATES NATIONAL DIRECTOR

  • Mike Kallock, C.S.P.
    Paulist General Office, P.O. Box 20606, New York, NY 10023, [email protected]

BOARD MEMBERS

ASSOCIATES WORLD STAFF

  • Publisher: Fr. Mike Kallock, C.S.P.
  • Editor: Denis M. Hurley 
  • Design Coordinator: Ellie Murphy
  • Staff Writer: Richard Allegra

Prayer for the Intercession of Father Isaac T. Hecker, Servant of God

Heavenly Father, you called your servant Isaac Thomas Hecker to preach the Gospel to the people of North America and through his teaching, to know the peace and the power of your indwelling Spirit. He walked in the footsteps of Saint Paul the Apostle, and like Paul spoke your Word with a zeal for souls and a burning love for all who came to him in need.

Look upon us this day, with compassion and hope. Hear our prayer. We ask that through the intercession of Father Hecker your servant, you might grant us (state the request). 

We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, Your Son, Our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit. One God, forever and ever. Amen.

When you pray this prayer, and if you believe that you have received any favors through Hecker’s intercession, please contact the Office of the Cause for Canonization of Servant of God, Isaac Hecker at [email protected]. Visit paulist.org/hecker to learn more about his life and the cause for his canonization. 


Paulist Associates Promise

I believe that I am drawn by the Holy Spirit to the spirituality and qualities of the Paulist Community.

I have discerned both by prayer and study that God calls me to become associated with the Paulists.

I promise that I will pray for the works of the Paulist Society, meet with others, who are also members of the Paulist Associates, for spiritual sharing and formation; and I seek to embody the apostolic qualities of the Paulists in my daily life.

Attentive to the Holy Spirit and faithful to the example of St. Paul and the charism of Father Isaac Hecker, I commit myself for one year of membership in the Paulist Associates.