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Sunday February 5, 2023

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

For people who share a bright light of leadership in the Church. May they focus their light on relieving poverty, hunger, and homelessness for the survival of our families.

We pray to the Lord.

For people who shiver under bushel baskets and who hide their lives in fear. May we realize our lives are true gifts from the joy and light of Jesus Christ.

We pray to the Lord.

For people who stumble in the dark of loneliness, depression, and destructive addictions. May they spark an inner light of compassion and self-care.

We pray to the Lord.

For people who face the dark times of unemployment, cancer detection, and physical hardships. May we shed light on restoring dignity and healing to all people.

We pray to the Lord.

For people lost in the dark shadows of war. May we bring supplies for survival and negations for peace along all the perimeters of despair and violence.  

We pray to the Lord.

For people who have lost family businesses, farmlands, water-rights, and employment. May dark greed not overwhelm our livelihoods. May our futures reside in the light of concern for the basics of life and family survival.

We pray to the Lord.

For people lost in the past. May the dark memories of abuse, neglect, grief, and inner hatred not destroy the beauty of our gifts or our children’s futures.

We pray to the Lord.

For people who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. May our loved ones find the light and joy of heaven.

We pray to the Lord.

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Sunday January 29, 2023 Cycle A

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

For people who struggle to be Church leaders. May our trailblazers surrender to God’s compassion in times of division and uncertainty.

We pray to the Lord.

For people threatened by the violence of grief. May those who have lost employment, family relationships, and even courage, discover the healing presence of Jesus Christ.

We pray to the Lord.

For people tethered to past accomplishments so to make their appearance shine falsely bright. May Christ cut our ties to pride and selfishness.  

We pray to the Lord. 

For people living under the siege of war, mass shootings, and utter violence and chaos. May we work diligently for justice across every nation under heaven.

We pray to the Lord.

For people who will never believe their own worth. May we surrender to the beauty of life even when the shroud of depression and mental illness covers our perspectives, decisions, and our faith.

We pray to the Lord.

For people who have lost the security of home. May we build a network of hope for those who survive outside with not only boards and nails but with lives of courage.

We pray to the Lord.

For people who hang their heads in shame. May they finally stand on solid ground of love and forgiveness where they will inherit inner joy.

We pray to the Lord.

For our loved ones who have died. May our beloved find home and eternal gladness in the face of Jesus Christ. May we rejoice with them here on earth.

We pray to the Lord.

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Sunday January 22, 2023 Cycle A

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

For people striving to follow Christ in unity.  May the Holy Spirit lead us in harmony no matter the spiritual cost.

We pray to the Lord.

For people who hear the call to leave everything and follow unknown paths. May Christ Jesus lead us all to surrender our hearts to love under heaven.

We pray to the Lord.

For people who live in tangled nets of selfishness and hopelessness. May Christ’s voice free us to walk on shores of love and vibrant hope.

We pray to the Lord.

For people netted in fear and self-doubt and who keep the risk of faith at bay. May Christ call us all to discipleship of courageous action.  

We pray to the Lord.

For people lost upon landscapes of mistrust and hardship where their hearts remain baron and anxious. May Christ speak hope in every despairing life.  

We pray to the Lord.

For people who have burned their feet upon the shores of hatred and greed. May Christ carry us along the paths of respect for all humanity.

We pray to the Lord.

For people who carry personal burdens and family secrets. May Christ unleash mercy upon those who needlessly bear on their shoulders the burdens of the world.

We pray to the Lord.

For people who long to reach the eternal shore. May Christ lead our beloved dead safely home to the promises of heaven.

We pray to the Lord.

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Art: Saint John the Baptist as he cries, “Behold, the Lamb of God”

Sunday January 15, 2023 Cycle A

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

For the health and wellbeing of Francis, our Pope, and all who shepherd us toward honesty and integrity. May we not stumble on false pride and entitlement.

We pray to the Lord.

For a loving remembrance of our common baptism. May we learn with childlike awe to claim our authority of faith from the healing voice of God. May our waters of baptism break into new life of healing and hope for all people on earth.

We pray to the Lord.

For a vital listening to God’s voice in days of thunderous echoes of hatred and violence. May our hearts be attuned to the subtle sounds of love upon the earth.

We pray to the Lord.

For nations plagued with uprisings, conflicts, and wars. May God’s authority of peace be entrusted to us in liberating our people from corruption.

We pray to the Lord.

For people blanketed in self-doubt and mental fatigue. May we warm those suffering from emotional disorders with words of hope and actions of friendship.

We pray to the Lord.

For children pushed into corners of neglect and abuse. May the true authority of love shelter the most vulnerable in our world. May the next generation find within us a desire for peace and security.

We pray to the Lord.

For our elderly ambushed by loneliness and insufficient healthcare. May we open our eyes to those who weep in the nighttime. May the Holy Spirit reveal hope to all marginalized people.

We pray to the Lord.

For people shivering in grief. May those who have lost love on earth find hope in the promise of heaven for their families and friends who have died.

We pray to the Lord.

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Our world-wide Congregation of Holy Cross celebrates Saint Andre on January 7 because so many countries celebrate Epiphany on January 6. Here is a reblog of my article published in US Catholic Magazine in 2010.

Brother André Bessette didn’t need fancy degrees to know how to welcome the sick who came to the Holy Cross community. Now, he’s the order of educators’ first saint.

My path to the priesthood, as with all priests in the United States, involved many years of higher education. I earned two degrees from the University of Notre Dame before being ordained a priest in the Congregation of Holy Cross in 1983. Later I received yet another master’s degree from Notre Dame. I learned all the appropriate professional skills. I studied the correct rubrics from scholars of liturgical history. The vision of the Second Vatican Council prepared me for what I thought my work would entail.

The education that truly formed me, however, has been learning to pray through my own suffering and the inconsolable pain of others. I am now a student of an uneducated orphan and sickly man, Brother André (Alfred) Bessette, C.S.C., born 30 miles from Montreal in 1845. Ironically, the frail, illiterate brother is our first saint in the Congregation of Holy Cross, a religious order that is best known for our achievements in education.

Brother André dedicated his life to St. Joseph and to people suffering from spiritual and physical illness. He convinced the Holy Cross community in Montreal in the early 1900s to build St. Joseph’s Oratory. Today, the oratory houses the many crutches, canes, and wheelchairs left behind by healed pilgrims who prayed to St. Joseph upon Brother André’s request.

Because of his ill health, members of Holy Cross did not initially want Brother André as a member of the Congregation. His novice master begged the community to allow him to stay because of his intense prayer. He professed vows and was assigned as porter at Notre Dame College in Montreal, the only formal ministry he held his entire life. He began to welcome the sick and the fragile, the ill and the outcast. His door became his entry into people’s deep suffering and isolation. André’s formally educated confreres quickly became displeased with so many sick people congregating around the schoolyard.

Brother André persevered in his devotions. He told people who were ill to pray to St. Joseph, to rub oil on their wounds, to believe in the miracles of Christ Jesus. He experienced God’s healing of thousands of people. He became known as the “miracle worker of Mount Royal.”

Now that I have come to the doors of the Downtown Chapel in Portland, Oregon, I have learned to pray and serve from Brother André’s example. These red steel doors open every day to hundreds of people who cry for help dealing with mental illness or who are consumed with unending loneliness.

Our parish staff and volunteers welcome to our daily hospitality center people struggling to get off drugs, the recently unemployed, and those who have spent their entire adult lives living outside. We welcome people who lash out at others because they cannot heal from their own sexual abuse. We welcome people with gangrene and people who have just been released from jail. Every day we are confronted with our insufficient answers to unsolvable problems.

I arrived here at the red doors of the Downtown Chapel more than eight years ago disillusioned with many aspects of the church. I arrived here in great need of spiritual healing. I turned to Brother André to welcome me, just as he welcomed others in need of healing and consolation in Montreal. Now I experience what André encountered, the inconsolable pain of people. People living in poverty are now my teachers.

Because he could not read, André memorized the Beatitudes and other passages of scripture that offer hope to people in pain. He believed that faith alone was the answer to real human suffering. Confronted with hundreds of people each day waiting to speak with him, André often lost his patience. He was often rude and curt with people who did not want to pray. His curmudgeonly style did not deter people from wanting to be physically touched and emotionally affirmed by God.

I lose my patience as well when I realize in recent years the church has moved away from its healing mission, relinquishing many hospitals, nursing homes, and orphanages. The personal touch of healing has been replaced by large corporations and impersonal technology. At our parish doors, I realize that faith alone can motivate people to give of themselves when other people hurt in so many ways.

Brother André died on January 6, 1937. More than a million pilgrims streamed to Montreal for his funeral. In those days before jet planes, the Internet, and cell phones, the real communication of faith and gratitude spread rapidly among believers.

The Catholic Church canonized Brother André Bessette in Rome on Sunday, October 17, 2010. On that day, I unlocked our red doors in Portland and praised God for André’s example.