Friday, June 27, 2014

Dear Friends,

  Here it is, Friday, the 27th, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  It is a feast day that means so much to me.  It sums up everything the Good News of Jesus contains in the scriptures and in church history. . . all that is meant to ponder at Advent and Christmas, Good Friday and Easter, Pentecost too.  It contains far more than words can capture.  It is so good that we have symbols like the pierced heart of Christ to capture all of this when words can fail us so often!  It allows us like Moses before the burning bush to "remove our sandals," put our faces to the ground, and utter "holy, holy, holy."  What a blessing when the eye of our heart opens and we "see" this reality beyond all the distractions and superficial things that are often sold to us with the promise that they will makes us really happy.  "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as entered into the hearts of people what God has prepared for those who love Him."  I Corinthians 2:9

  Today my memory goes back to 11 years ago this very day when I was leading 38 pilgrims through France and we spent two days at a relatively small village in rural northeastern France, wheat farming country.  The village is Paray-le-Monial,  about 15,000 in population, pretty, quaint, with a river running through the town and a monastery that was founded in the year 998. . . yes, more than a thousand years ago.  What put this small town "on the map" was a set of experiences a nun by the name of Margaret Mary Alacoque had from 1673-75 while living in a convent there in that town.  Over two years she had four intense encounters with the risen Christ in which He "showed" her His heart and encouraged people to discover in His Heart, in the depths of His person the riches of God, the greatest treasures of joy and love, meaning and hope that could be found in their life .  With the help of a young Jesuit spiritual guide, Claude la Colombiere, Margaret Mary gained the courage and insight to form and promote deep commitment and devotion to Christ whose love was symbolized by drawings and later pictures of His Heart, surrounded with the crow of thorns and pierced, with water and blood coming out, the ultimate act of God's love for us, of God's saving action.

   What was so special for me was to pray the Sacred Heart mass on that feast day in the chapel where Christ came to her and engaged her so intensely, so personally.  He said to her that He was bequeathing His Heart to her as her personal heritage and that He wanted her to share this "inheritance" with everyone she could.  She also said that He asked that the Jesuit fathers join with her and her sisters (of the Visitation) to encourage among all the people they met this same love and attachment to Christ as their friend of all friends, their first love and deepest truth.  That was really a special day for me.  I will never forget being there and participating in an afternoon procession of the Blessed Sacrament with many hundreds of pilgrims walking in silence and sometimes in song  through the sisters' cloister and then out beyond the cloister.

   The next day something quite unexpected happened for me.  Our group was going for the day to visit Cluny, a famous medieval fort/city that the Benedictine monks had built as a refuge from marauding Norsemen and  Teutonic fights, and Taize, a modern ecumenical monastery that is open to visitors from around the world and is quite famous for its music.  A few minutes before our leaving on the bus I went back to the chapel and went up into the choir loft for a short "visit."  While there in came a group of about 25 German visitors who had driven over from Germany a day or two before and were getting ready to celebrate mass.  All these men and women were in the thirties or even younger.  As they began the mass and were singing beautifully, I was so moved by what was happening.  In 1944 Nazi troops, men of their grandfathers' generation, came into Paray and carried away hundreds of men from the town.  These people were never heard from after that.  Obviously they had died in the camps or were shot.  A large monument in the center of town has been erected to remember these citizens.  And now here were members of the same nation who had brought so much hell to them worshipping the Lord on the day after the feast of the Sacred Heart.  I was so struck that this is how God heals, how God makes whole that which has been broken and wounded.  This was a most memorable example of "reparation" to God for the hatred and violence that people bring upon each other, especially through war.  That moment that day I will never forget.  Seeing those young Germans in that French chapel celebrating Eucharist must have pleased the Lord very much. It certainly moved me!

  Good news:  I finally got my "entry visa" yesterday.  Now I go to Immigration on Monday morning and get it stamped and then I am "official."  I have been  here ten months as of last Monday and only now am I getting my papers!  Soon I will get my driver's license.  I never expected such a hassle and wait!

  It has been really cold here lately.  Winter has set in.  Since our rooms are not heated, it can get nippy at night in our rooms.  So extra blankets, flannel runner's suit or PJs are what we grab for.

  I am officially on vacation till July 9 when I begin leading a "preached" or conference style retreat:  8-day long, two talks a day, 16 in all.  I have led in times past four day retreats of this kind  but never 8 days.  My theme is who is the Holy Spirit, what does the Holy Spirit do, how do we experience the Spirit.  After that retreat is over, I get two weeks off.  During that second vacation period I plan to do some sightseeing and prepare projects I will be leading starting in late August.  These include 8 Monday mornings starting in mid-September when I prepare six teachers of the famous St. Aloysius High School in Nairobi on how to pray Ignatian style so that in January they will be ready to have the school president lead them through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.  On September 3, I begin for 7 weeks weekly classes on St. Teresa of Avila's best book, The Interior Castle.  I will do this at the Jesuit seminary called Hekima College in Nairobi.  This is where future Jesuit priests study to prepare for their ordination and priestly lives.  Then on Tuesday afternoons, once a month, I will meet with the teachers of the seminary and lead them through discussions on some articles they are to read regarding "mission consciousness" in the ministry of teaching at a university level.  There will be about 15 of them, mostly African Jesuit priests but also a few lay men and women.

   All in all, I am loving the variety of things I am being asked to lead.  I did not get such opportunities when at Manresa, except in the early years of the time I was there and then each year in the biweekly reading seminar and the pilgrimages I organized.  Leading the internship for 19 years was very fulfilling but after some years I really think it no longer drew from me my "creative" side.  I was most ready for a change but did not realize that at the time this strong nudge from God came to me.

   So, this is all that comes to mind right now.  If I knew how to send an attachment with a posting, I would send you a homily I did last Sunday on the Eucharist.  It turned out pretty well and I wish I could share it but I don't know how or whether one can attach to a blog posting an attachment.  Anyway . . .  some other day!

   Lots of interest in this house in the World Cup.  One person from Chile and one from Colombia keep interest high.  I saw the US play Germany last night and I was quite disappointed in the manner and lack of energy in their style.  I hope they change for Belgium on Tuesday or they will exit quickly from the  tournament.

    The killings that have been going on here in Kenya lately are more related to farmers and grazers fighting over land.  The tribal killings are just awful, so many people fighting over cattle and land.  Lots of widows and orphans or fatherless children.  So tragic!  They have AK-47 machine guns to kill each other, machetes to slit one another's throats.  They do no kid around when they go after each other!

God bless!

Bernie Owens

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Dear Friends,

  I am writing to you at the close of a day (Sunday, June 15, 9 PM)that has turned out to be quite, quite blessed for me.  I hope you bear with me in what I  say here.  Some of you may think I have gone "off the edge".  I cannot help it.  And I really want to say what I am going to say, it has so grabbed me.  I am not losing it, I know who I am and what I will share is real and authentic.  I hope it invites you, the reader, to your own experience and to a renewed or new sense of how rich is this life going on in our own depths.

  My effort to pray this morning was in and out of attention to God, somewhat distracted and not all that "satisfying."  After I came back from breakfast, I got taken by a strong sense of how precious God is, how utterly precious Christ is.  It so hit me that I began to feel tears welling up inside me.  I had to sit down and just let this surprising awareness "run its course".  I am reminded of the words in a psalm, "taste and see how God is the Lord."  Later in the morning, while I had a break between my second and third retreatants, I took a walk over to the Stations of the Cross and was walking through a section of our grounds where we are extending the stations to make for a wider walk.  In the new section someone planted lots of sunflowers and they have grown up so fast, as they usually do.  Two were in blossom and standing about 7.5 feet tall, about a foot or more above my face.  They were turned to the sun, which we have had little off during these cold days that anticipate the start of winter.  It felt so good to feel the sun on my back, so I stopped and stood there to admire these sunflowers in bloom, remembering all the times I grew them myself in my garden at Manresa.  Immediately I associated them with ourselves seeking the love and warmth and security that only God is capable of giving us to the depths we have been made for.  I felt these same tears rush up inside me, just overwhelm me with a strong sense of the unqualified, unlimited love of God for each and all of us.  I had heard the day before so many sad stories of violence and death to many people in this part of the world and recently in Iraq and Syria too, a fresh reminder of how broken are so many parts of the world.  This sudden awareness was very strong  and helped me immediately see everything in perspective:  that this love is stronger than all the hate and violence humans can do to each other; that it will prevail, because it is so very strong and cannot be killed.  The gift of Jesus, especially of His 'yes' at Calvary on that sad day of His being rejected and His unqualified, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" came to mind.  I am so taken by this kind of response!  It is just astounding!  It is so unexpected and undeserved, some say stupid and idiotic, yet it is there all the time for us to accept and reverence, or rationalize away or simply ignore.  It is never forced upon us.

   I have been feeling quite tired these last two days, have gotten a lot of extra sleep, and feel better for it.  I napped about 1.5 hours after lunch today (2.5 hours yesterday morning after breakfast!!) and then got ready for leading today's 5:15 PM mass celebrating the Holy Trinity, the essence of the God Jesus reveals.  So many have no sense of the richness of this statement about what God and God's life are like.  Only if we have had a great friendship or love in our life can we appreciate something of what is celebrated on this feast day; that is, that God is a trinity of persons relating in total mutuality.  Only if we are moved by a great relationship to give and receive everything with another person can we begin to appreciate what is the centerpiece of this feast: total gift of one's own self and great patience and care to listen to and receive all that the other person is and communicates.  Not many people, it seems to me, are capable of that deep a friendship or quality of presence to another person, nor desire to give such time to a relationship.  Its beauty and the joy that wells up because of such a discovery in one's life escapes so many people.  Our capacity for appreciating this divine mystery of God's inner life and joy, of its immense beauty is pretty limited as a result.
 
   Anyway, the "visitations" of God this morning as I walked back from breakfast and then later in the area of the Stations of Cross where I enjoyed  those sunflowers in bloom and was strongly moved when I was there were a remote prep for me to lead today's liturgy with energy and great enjoyment.  For communion I played a CD version of the song "Everyday God."  Many of you have heard it and like it alot.  Its lyrics reflect each person of the triune God in the everyday aspects of our life: a God who is very "down-to-earth" while at the same time transcending so much our abilities to understand or explain this God of unbounded love.

   Like last Sunday, the music during the other parts of the liturgy were amazing:  drums, tongue trilling cries, clapping in rhythm and  bodies moving in sync with the music.  From what I could see, all of us had a good experience of praying and honoring God on this beautiful feast day.  I even had two pictures, one of the trinity in the manner of the Good Samaritan kneeling, hovering, and praying over a beaten person (representing humanity) and showing such compassion and care; another picture of the apostle Thomas putting his finger in the open side of the risen Jesus and being visibly shocked at the reality of such love--these two pictures as the ultimate expression of love of this triune God.  I placed them on the altar at the end of my homily and let everyone come up in silence to view these pictures.   Something only I could see during the mass was a gecko clinging upside down to the ceiling of the chapel all during the mass.  For me this little lizard represented all of creation coming to honor in its own way its Creator on such a great day.

   It is 10 PM and I am off to bed.  Have a great week.  Summer starts for you on Saturday, winter for us, longest day of the year for you, shortest day of the year for us.  Have you seen the full moon last night and the night before?  Incredible its size and fullness!

Bernie Owens

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Dear Friends,

  Happy Pentecost!    What an awesome feast!  What great meaning in it for the whole world.  This afternoon I led the mass for it with about 60 people in attendance.  It was very African in spirit and manner: drums, tongue-trilling with the music, singing and clapping of hands, the rhythmic swaying of bodies--all in celebration of this feast that marks the birth of the church and the overflow of God's joy and Spirit on the world.  It was a great joy for me to lead this and to give the homily on it.  What a topic to reflect on! (Across the valley we could hear some preacher shouting something about the Gospel--it must take days for his vocal chords to recover!!--and then recorded, festive music on a loudspeaker from a local Pentecostal gathering. In short, this part of God's earth was rocking!  Come, Holy Spirit!

  Right now we are in Day 13 of our 30 day retreat.  Today retreatants were praying on the incident in the temple when Jesus, 12 years old, gets caught up in a Q & A session with teachers of the Jewish Law who live at the temple, while his parents are frantic about trying to find him.  Also, the retreatants are praying on the period of Jesus from the time He was 12 to 30.  Four different people, four different approaches and personality styles, great for me to guide them each through this.

 I mentioned in an earlier posting that one of the retreatants I am guiding was inspired to become a priest  thanks to his associating with an American priest who worked here in Kenya for many years, especially working with the poorest of the poor and pleading their cause with the government.   This priest had invited this retreatant when he was a teenager to work during the summer with him and others on projects for really poor people.   The priest got significant backlash from the Kenyan government because he would challenge those with power and political/moneyed control by what he was doing and calling them to do for these very poor citizens.  The government grew to dislike him a lot.  In the year 2000 he publicly denounced one elected governor of the western part of Kenya for his philandering, for taking a number of young women, having a brief sexual orgy with them, then dispose of them like garbage.  This priest whose last name is Kaiser documented these crimes and publicly denounced this elected official, who arranged to have the priest murdered but failed in trying to make it look like a suicide.  (It sounds to me a lot like John the Baptist confronting Herod, whose new "wife" got revenge and had John imprisoned and beheaded.) While the US government has much interest in this part of the world vis-a-vis terrorism, it pursued the case of this American citizen to a point and stopped short of  demanding the prosecution of this governmental murderer only because to press it fully would harm the US cause here with the government of Kenya.  This murderer was given some ambassadorship in another country to get him out of the limelight.  Now he is back and running for some new political office in Kenya.  Much bribery here, lots of control by those with tremendous wealth and political power.  Some answer to no one. They are "gods," a law unto themselves. There is so much of this, it seems especially in the Third World.   What will happen to these "gods" when they meet their Maker??!!  May they seek God's mercy before such a horrible moment!

  The weather here is getting colder as we get closer to the start of winter (less than two weeks from now).  Lots of rain last night, damp and heavily overcast, but at the same time you should see the roses we have in our yard.  The pinks, the deep reds, and the occasional yellow are stunning.  Two bushes of roses are about 6.5 feet tall, one loaded with about 15 gorgeous rose blossoms, the other loaded with about 20 deep red blossoms or buds.  I think the secret is the cow manure, extensive mulching, and the rich red clay soil!!  I walk from my domicile in the morning past these bushes while on my way to the dining room and shake my head at how much beauty surrounds me on the way.

   The staff that produces the meals for the retreatants is doing very well considering the circumstances they have to work with since the explosion of a large hotwater tank and damage of the kitchen area here two weeks ago tomorrow morning.  The retreatants tell me the meals are fine and served on time.   What more can one ask?!  One section of the building is still a terrible mess.  It looks like some of the photos taken of Syrian towns after the jets of Assad bomb these villages:  walls knocked down, roofs extensively damaged, outside cement-block walls knocked down or their joints cracked, debris on top of stoves and counters, dust and glass pieces everywhere.  We are so, so fortunate no one got hit by the debris flying from the explosion. The morning cook missed getting hit (maybe killed?) by a half minute. This incident underscores how badly we need a new kitchen and dining area, really a new building.  The food-prep men and women are my heroes and heroines.

  On Tuesday I mark 42 years since I was ordained.  (Bishop Tom Gumbleton at Gesu Church in Detroit on a sunny spring day did the honors!)You have to be old to mark that many years as a priest.  So I guess I am now an old man, yet I still have lots of energy for what I am doing.   God knew what He was doing when He invited me to come here.  What a surprise that invitation!!  Never did I anticipate it.  It was certainly not my idea to begin with.  I feel that gives me lots of leverage with God when I need something.  I just say, "This was your idea and you invited me here.  I have come here for you and now I need you to do this or provide that for me/us."

   I am presently working on preparing 16 presentations for an 8-day preached retreat, July 10-17.  Two presentations a day, then being available for one-on-one conversations with those making the retreat.  The theme is on the Holy Spirit as Friend, Guide, and Giver of gifts for the life journey.Thanks for any prayers you would send my way!!

   I need to say 'goodbye' and head off to bed.  The peace of Christ be with you!

Bernie Owens