December 6, 2021
- Associate adds voice to Virtual Pre-Assembly
- New from Paulist Press: Little Owl in the Big City
- New from Paulist Press: St. Joseph, Pray for Us: Meditations and Prayers, by Pope Francis
- Popular virtual family Christmas special returns
- Paulist Pilgrimages: The splendors of Eastern Europe: Budapest, Prague, Vienna, & Oberammergau
- Question Box
- Tell us about your life as an Associate
- Hecker: 19th-Century Pastor, 21st-Century Saint
- Proposed Program for December
- Proposed Program for January
- Contacts
- Paulist Associates Promise
- Prayer for the Intercession of Fr. Isaac T. Hecker
By Rae DelVecchio, Vero Beach Associate
The Paulist Fathers held their East Coast Pre-Assembly meeting virtually on November 9-11. I had the privilege of being invited to attend as a Paulist Associate. This was truly an exciting experience.
The Pre-Assembly is held once every four years and for me this was an opportunity of a lifetime. It was a time to allow those present to voice what they saw as the current challenges in our church and society and to put forth perspectives and concerns. In addition, we gave input into what we considered to be the top priorities for the Paulist leadership in the next four years.
As a representative of the lay community, I was able to share ideas with our Paulist Fathers and Novices in an open and candid manner. The three days flew by with much discussion and exchange, sharing and agreement, saying hello to people I knew and meeting others for the first time. I developed new friendships and felt we were all a part of the Paulist family at large.
My love for the Paulists has deepened even more after the pre-assembly. They are every bit of what we know them to be: welcomers, listeners, humorous, friends, our brothers. I know I speak for everyone when I say we are honored to be a part of the Paulist family community.
Rae Del Vecchio helps coordinate the Vero Beach Associates’ Adoration Ministry
Story by Marcia Mogelonsky; Illustrated by Jill Alexander
Little Owl in the Big City is based on the true story of a Northern Saw-Whet owl found in the boughs of the Christmas tree transported from upstate New York to Rockefeller Center in 2020. According to the author, “When I first heard about the little owl hidden in the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, I was convinced that this was no accident. Little Owl intended to get to the Big City to see the lights, hear the noise, and experience the excitement. I wanted to share Little Owl’s adventures with the children who are also thrilled by the wonder of the season.”
Marcia Mogelonsky lives in upstate New York, not far from where Little Owl began its adventure to the Big City. Jill Alexander enjoys painting and traveling. She lives in Wall Township, New Jersey.
See this and other titles from Paulist Press at paulistpress.com.
By Pope Francis
Pope Francis captures the spiritual lessons of one of our most beloved saints in St. Joseph, Pray for Us: Meditations and Prayers. With these meditations from his Apostolic Letter, Patris Corde, Francis seeks “to increase our love for this great saint, to encourage us to implore his intercession and to imitate his virtues and his zeal.” Alongside many beautiful images of St. Joseph, readers can prayerfully reflect on these meditations and consider how to apply them in their daily lives.
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.
Streaming on YouTube, Facebook, and paulist.org/christmas.
ALMOST SOLD OUT
The splendors of Eastern Europe: Budapest, Prague, Vienna, & Oberammergau
September 17-September 27, 2022
$3799 from New York
An 11-day pilgrimage with Paulist Fr. Thomas A. Kane on an unforgettable pilgrimage to Eastern Europe. See the once-a-decade performance of the world-famous Oberammergau passion play and explore the breathtaking cities of Budapest, Prague, and Vienna.
This is the first of our monthly “Question Box” series in which we ask you to reply to a question in about 50 words. You
can send your replies to [email protected] by the 15th of the month. They should be about 50 (or fewer) words. We’ve hoping to get several responses to each question and to publish them in the following issue.
December / January’s question is:
Fr. Ron Franco, CSP, recently discussed the U.S. Bishop’s document on the Eucharist on his blog (November 15, 2021): rfrancocsp.blogspot.com
How do you view the Eucharist and what does in mean in your life and the life of your Paulist community?
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
By Fr. Ronald Franco, C.S.P.
The following selection is from the preliminary lengthy presentation of the case for Isaac Hecker’s sainthood. Further segments of the document will be published in future issues of Associates World.
Meanwhile, those interested can read the statement in its entirety at paulist.org/hecker21
Isaac Hecker never wavered in his conviction that what he had found in Catholicism – and what he had been able to find only in Catholicism – could and would be America’s answer as well. He was confident “that neither Calvinism nor Unitarianism or Transcendentalism would ultimately have much appeal to the moderate American mind.” For Hecker, “Catholicism presented a fundamentally balanced religious option,” which “asserted the necessity of revelation and grace while insisting upon the permanence and value of nature and reason.”
Hecker combined Catholic universalism and a distinctly American self-understanding of the relationship between religion and society in a providential perspective, which could work politically within the framework bequeathed by Lockean liberalism’s separation of society and state and the priority liberalism accords the former while limiting the latter. Hence, Hecker could prudentially judge the American arrangement of Church and State as more beneficial than problematic. He was“content with the organic law of the republic as it stands” and opposed those who “under the plea of ‘christianizing’ the constitution,” would “make it sectarian.”
(Continued in a future issue)
Submitted by Louis Ceppi, on behalf of the Los Angeles Associates
L. Come Holy Spirit
R. Fill the Hearts of the faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.
L. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created.
R. And you shall renew the face of the earth.
L. O God who by the light of the Holy Spirit instructed the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Spirit we may know what is right and always rejoice in his consolation, through Christ our Lord.
R. Amen.
THE PAULIST VOCATION, Chapter 20: The Spiritual Life
Male and Female Complementary in Incarnation
The subject of the difference of sexes has of late been a subject which has occupied my attention very much. I differ in my opinions and sentiments very widely with him (Dr. Vethaker, a correspondent). He holds man is to be more of a man and woman is to be more of a woman so that the two may form a whole. Man is Truth. Woman is Love; and marriage is the union of Truth or Wisdom and Love. (He has studied Swedenborg deeply although he does not speak of him. ) The delight of marriage consists in the communion of the two natures. Now I am inclined to think the two sexes should be in the same individual being. That the same individual should unite in his own being both sexes. He should be full of grace and truth the same as Jesus Christ. Whose life it was to do the work of His Father. Who had united in him the perfect lovefullness and tenderness of woman with the wisdom and strength of man. The manner of his birth has often struck me as a secret mystery. A male being born of a virgin! What could he be but filled with femality with love such as no other being had ever been. He was without spot or wrinkle a perfect pattern of a divine being. The second Adam. The manifestation of the holy, (whole) being. (Diary, August 26, 1843).
Background
On August 26, 1843 Fr. Hecker wrote in his Diary, “Woman was an afterthought with God. An after thought but a divine after thought.” He then wrote the above selection we just read. Then he continued with the following. “A heretick of the 13teenth century I have just read after the above paragraph maintained, ‘That at the end of the World both sexes shall be re-united together in one person and that re-union began with Jesus Christ, and that if Man had continued in the State wherein God had produced him, there would not have been any distinction of sex’ (See Bayles article Adam). The unity of both sexes originally, was believed by the Jewish Rabbis. The Revelations of Antionette Bourigon, 1679, is to the same purpose. She says ‘Men think to have been created by God as they are at present, altho it is not true, seeing Sin has disfigured the work of God in them, and instead of Men as they ought to be, they are become Monsters in Nature, divided in two imperfect Sexes, unable to produce their like alone, as trees and plants do, which in that point have more perfection than Man and Woman, incapable to produce themselves, but in conjunction with each other and with Pains and misery’ etc. (See Bayles art on Adam). ‘Christ the second founder of Humanity without sin’ having both natures re-united in him or never having sinned they were never dis-united. Hence he is the giver of true divine life. We find not the slightest trace of any sexual thought or feeling in all the history that is given of Christ. Light and Warmth should be one in the same being. Head and Heart; Understanding and Impulse; must be oned. ‘Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.’ God is one from whom procedeth Love and Wisdom. Adam was before the Woman was formed from his rib in the image of God.”
On August 13, 1843 Fr. Hecker wrote in his Diary, “This is the last day that I remain at Brook Farm. It is with no little emotion that I leave. Since I have been here I have become acquainted with some of the best minds of New England. Much very much has my character grown and been influenced in the period I have been here since last January. Many of my dreams and earnest aspirations have been met here.”
In the Notes section of Isaac T. Hecker: The Diary, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) is described as “… a Swedish scientist whose work in geology as his country’s assessor of mines was coupled with some important achievements in anatomy. His greatest notoriety, however, came from his spiritual writings which told of fantastic visions of the spirit world. His Doctrine of Correspondences argued that all material things corresponded in some precise fashion to things in the spiritual world. In the greatest detail he told of the nature of the spiritual realm, explicating it with the same cool, empirical tone that he used in his scientific writings.” It was noted that “ … the influence of Swedenborg in antebellum America was tremendously widespread. Certainly the Transcendentalists were among his greatest fans.”
A Wikipedia entry on Swedenborg’s ideas on marriage state that “Swedenborg saw creation as a series of pairings, descending from the Divine love and wisdom that define God and are the basis of creation. This duality can be seen in the pairings of good and truth, charity and faith, God and the church, and husband and wife. In each case, the goal for these pairs is to achieve conjunction between the two component parts. In the case of marriage, the object is to bring about the joining together of the two partners at the spiritual and physical levels, and the happiness that comes as a consequence.”
Brad Stulberg wrote in A New Way of Thinking: Not Either/Or But Both/And that “The Western mind is highly trained in rational, dualistic thinking, a lineage that traces itself all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Dualistic thinking is about comparison, differentiation, and splitting apart; in essence, it views the world as either this or that. It is an extremely important quality-one that underlies modern science and all the awesome, life-enhancing discoveries it has bequeathed us. But dualistic thinking is not the only way to make sense of the world. And when it is applied to everything, we tend to run into problems. Some things in life truly are either-or, but many are both-and.”
Fr. Felix Just, SJ wrote in The Essential Key to Christian Theology: BOTH/AND, not either/or that “Rather than overemphasizing one pole and neglecting the other, the challenge in Christian theology is always to hold the two poles together, to maintain a proper balance between both seemingly opposite sides of the truth. Another way of phrasing the ‘catholic’ (‘all-encompassing’ or ’universal’) position would be to say, ‘Not Only…, But Also…’. “ Here are a few examples Fr. Just gives: “Jesus is both fully human and fully divine; As human beings we are both individual persons and social beings in families and communities; We can know God through both Faith and Reason; Our religious lives embrace both Theology (the mind) and Spirituality (the heart).”
In The Catholic Prayer Bible, Lectio Divina Edition Fr. Lawrence Boadt, CSP wrote a reflection on Genesis 2:4-25 stating that “Humans were created as man and woman so that they would need one another, love one another, and be equal to one another. The story tells us that man and woman are of the same flesh and made by God with the same loving care.”
On Genesis 1 and 2 the Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph 372 states that “Man and woman were made ‘for each other’- not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be ‘helpmate’ to the other, for they are equal as persons (‘bone of my bones’) and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming ‘one flesh,’ they can transmit human life: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.’ By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents cooperate in a unique way in the Creator’s work.”
In an article Male and Female He Created Them-Gender and the Catholic Difference Rachael and Gregory Popcak wrote that Pope John II in his book The Theology of the Body presents the idea “…that men and women have both masculine and feminine dimensions to their personalities.” And “…what differentiates men from women is not traits, preferences, work, or habits, but their bodies and how those bodies allow them to express-in complementary ways-the virtues and qualities that evidence their shared humanity.” And “…being made in the image and likeness of God means that God takes all the virtues (i.e. all the qualities that make men and women human) from his own heart and shares them equally with men and women. But he creates men and women’s bodies to be different and complementary to each other so that when they live out those human virtues through the bodies God gave them, they can emphasize different and complementary aspects of those virtues and, by doing so, present a more complete image of that virtue that reflects God’s face to the world.”
Robert A. Krieg, CSC in the Encyclopedia of Catholicism wrote the Incarnation is “… the assuming of a human nature by God, specifically by the Logos, the divine word.” And “While the Incarnation pertains specifically to Jesus Christ, it does shed light both on the mystery of God and also on the mystery of human life. In the Incarnation God is shown to be so devoted to creation and humankind as to enter completely into the human situation, knowing first hand its joys, limitations, and burdens. Simultaneously, the Incarnation discloses the essence of being human, namely, openness to God and longing to enter into relationship with God.”
In a book review September 10, 2021 in the Angelus a publication of the archdiocese of Los Angeles, Christopher Kaczor comments on a recent book by Fr. David Vincent Meconi, SJ Christ Alive in Me: Living as a Member of the Mystical Body. He quotes Fr. Meconi, “I want a relationship. But with Jesus Christ, I want something else. I do not want a relationship, I want something more. I want a union. I want his words to become my words, the way he looks at people to become the way I look at people. I want his incarnation to continue in me.”
1. If men and women are both endowed with truth, wisdom, strength, and love and tenderness, the dynamics between themselves and others can change and evolve. Therefore how do gender identifications and relationships shift, change, and rearrange in the manifestation of uniting together as one while remaining true to their own selves?
2. How do you as a man or woman experience Jesus Christ’s Incarnation continuing in your life? How could that experience impact your relationships with others regardless of gender identification?
3. For many experiencing difficult relationships, the holy season of Christmas can be a time of enhanced stress or sadness. How could Fr. Hecker’s thoughts on complementarity of men and women aid in a process of reconciliation?
God of goodness and love,
we rejoice in your Word made flesh among us.
May we be filled with zeal
to bring your love
to a world longing
for your good news.
Amen
Submitted by Jane Kelsey on behalf of the Columbus Paulist Associates.
Come Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful,
and enkindle in them the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created,
and you shall renew the face of the earth.
O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit
instructed the hearts of the faithful,
grant that by the same Spirit
we may know what is right
and always rejoice in his consolation,
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
(Paulist Prayer Book, page 11)
Selections from Chapter 19: The Holy Spirit and the Paulists
A. The Holy Spirit pp. 163-167
…there is no virtue which the spirit does not teach if we would hear its whispering voice in our hearts.
It is the life that flows through us that refines elevates & ennobles our being…
He who is spirit-born quickens the spirit birth in those who meet him.
He who is spirit-led has all things needful….
We learn the Scriptures not by reading them but by the Holy Ghost in us.
We shall know more, love more to , & do more, if we be more.
It is Being which will give us knowing, loving, & doing….
The spirit craves for love as the soul craves for the spirit. Spirit enlightens; Love enlivens.
What would the spirit have me to do? To say?…
What is the work that the spirit is doing now within me?
The Spirit draws me ever inward and will not permit me to read, think, or do anything else but attend to it. No other being had ever been. He was without spot or wrinkle a perfect pattern of a divine being. The second Adam. The manifestation of the holy, (whole) being.(Diary, August 26, 1843).
Reading from St. Paul
…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
(Galatians 5:22, NRSV)
1. How might I/we stay attentive to the Spirit’s “whispering voice in our hearts”?
2. What would the Holy Spirit have me/us to do? To say?
3. What is the Spirit doing now within me/us?
4. In what ways do you see the fruits of the Spirit manifesting themselves in your life / your community?
Suggested format for discussion:
Spend 15 minutes in silence, reflecting on the prayers, readings, and the questions. Then allow each person a chance to speak briefly, with the others listening in reverent silence. After all have had an opportunity to speak, you may add further reflections or respond to what someone else has said.
O Holy Spirit of God, take me as your disciple;
guide me, enlighten me, sanctify me.
Bind my hands, that they may do no evil,
cover my eyes, that they may see it no more.
Sanctify my heart, that evil may not dwell within me.
Be my God; be my guide.
Wherever you lead me, I will go.
Whatever you forbid me, I will renounce.
Whatever you command me, in your strength I will do.
Lead me, then, to the fullness of your truth.
(Cardinal Manning, Paulist Prayer Book, page 396)
PAULIST ASSOCIATES NATIONAL DIRECTOR
- Mike Kallock, C.S.P.
Paulist General Office, P.O. Box 20606, New York, NY 10023, [email protected]
BOARD MEMBERS
- David Rooney, Diaspora Group, [email protected]
- Mary Sullivan, Boston, MA, [email protected]
- Richard Allegra, Diaspora Group, [email protected]
- Heather McClory, Toronto, Canada, [email protected]
- Fr. Frank Desiderio, C.S.P., [email protected]
- Fr. Joe Scott, C.S.P., [email protected]
ASSOCIATES WORLD STAFF
- Publisher: Fr. Mike Kallock, C.S.P.
- Editor: Denis M. Hurley
- Design Coordinator: Ellie Murphy
- Staff Writer: Richard Allegra
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.
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.