Sunday, July 27, 2014
Hello, Everybody,
It is Sunday evening here, July 27. I have had a memorable week. Let me tell you about it.
I have enjoyed some time off from the routine of leading others through retreats. I requested such, saying I did not want to work 12 months out of the year. With the extra time I talked two other Jesuits into going with me last Thursday, the 24th, on a hike to an extinct volcano about 60 miles west of here. I took us one hour and 40 minutes to drive that distance, some of it through mountainous roads, others through towns and villages that make one go so slow, then too some road construction etc. The last three to four miles were through a sandy, dusty road. Two sections were so loose that we nearly got stuck in sand. The site where we were going to climb is called Mount Longonut and has been quiet since 1867. It is a national park as well, and there were a number of other hikers and campers present on the grounds or climbing ahead or behind us that day.
The climb was rather challenging, some of it steep, like a 45 degree grade as we approached the top, and then the trail was not that well kept. Much of the footing was on trails with volcanic ash everywhere, very fine, dusty stuff, light grey in color. Thankfully it was overcast during the whole day; otherwise we would have baked in the sun. As it was we still worked up a good sweat. Halfway up we rested and looked back in the direction from where we had come. What a treat for what we saw: two herds of zebras, two herds of water buffalo, one lone giraffe munching leaves from the tops of the trees, and then one herd of white antelope. They were all grazing, so there had to be a water source somewhere in their chosen area. I did not anticipate seeing all of this. For me it was such a bonus to see all these animals. I wish we had had binoculars. Unfortunately, we did not.
We drank our water and ate our chocolate during the climb. When we got to the top we had a grand view--7600-7700 feet above sea level--in the famous Rift Valley, with a range of impressive mountains across the valley. In the valley is much farming and grazing. When we left I saw two typical scenes of rural Kenya: a father and daughter walking on opposite sides of a wooden flatbed drawn by two donkeys. It look as though they had a load of maze stalks or maybe sugar cane and were taking it to store or be processed. The other scene was that of a woman with a babushka and her head and then strapped to her back, resting laterally across her shoulders, was a bundle of long sticks, maybe kindling for all her cooking needs.
Anyway, when we got to the top of the volcano, we saw an impressive scene, a rim that is 5 miles around and a crater that dropped down maybe 1500-2000 feet below. At the bottom is a forest of trees wo thick that people cannot walk in there. Halfway up on one side of the volcano's inner wall there was a small flow of steam constantly moving upward, geothermal steam from the belly of the volcano. We met numerous hikers up there while many of us huddled under a gazebo for a midday lunch of sandwiches, water, and more chocolate. They were from Holland, Austria, Mexico and about 25 spirited school children from Kenya. So typical of many German-speaking people, one father of an Austrian family had a garage bag with him and was picking up debris and empty plastic water bottles in an effort to clean up the site. Later, we took lots of photos with each other's cameras and chatted some. It was a nice addition to the awesome view and a time to congratulate each other in making it to the top. We spent maybe 45 minutes up there and then began the descent, what turned out to be much more difficult than the climb up.
It took me as much time to go down as I spent going up: one hour and 45 minutes! I had to stop often and rest my legs, which were working very hard to brake the momentum downward and not give out and leave me hurt. As I said, the trail was quite poorly kept in numerous places, with dropoffs and ankle twisting surfaces in some parts. Numerous times I simply sat down and slid along on all fours, moving myself by my hands planted behind me. Of course, the dust I was collecting and dirt on my skin, in my backpack, and in my shoes was something else! (I ended up looking as though I had been in a dirt-throwing fight with a number of others in a big free-for-all! Pictures were taken of me in this mess! Lots of laughter!) My main concern was to guard against my thighs and the muscles on the outer sides of my upper legs collapsing out of fatigue. Should that happen I anticipated a broken shoulder or arm or worse. That is why I rested often and made sure I did not do something foolish or hasty. This made for more than one hour of the most difficult hiking I have ever done. Eventually I made it to the bottom and was so glad to see our car. I got in so thankfully and said to myself that I was glad I did the climb but I am sure it will remain a once-only-in-a-lifetime experience. Never again that climb!! One of the Jesuits made the whole trek as well up and down while the other one, an 80 year old man, cancelled out about a third of the way up. He had had carotid artery surgery once in his life and should not have said 'yes' to this adventure. He was gasping for air at one point and lay out on the ground for 20 minutes before wisely going back to the camping grounds and waiting there for the two of us to finish. Our car-driver stayed with him just in case he needed immediate help.
On our way home, while still in the mountains we stopped briefly at a little church/chapel beautifully constructed by Italian POWs during World War II. They had also done much of the work in carving out from the sides of the mountain what ended up being the main road through the mountains. I am also told that during that time there were wild animals in the forests, including lions, and some of these POWs while working on this road died from attacks by these animals. How awful! Such animals have been hunted out by now.
W came home, I ate a great dinner, and with it drank an ice cold beer that tasted SO good, then showered and collapsed in bed for 10.5 hours. My thighs and legs on the outer sides were so very sore and have been so up to this afternoon, 72 hours later. For the first two days I did not want to walk up to my office since to return I would have to walk down and that would be difficult on my thighs and muscles at the knees. No problem now. There is minor soreness now but nothing like on Friday and Saturday. Still, this morning, after a sleep last night for about 7.5 hours, I slept two more hours. It helped to have it drizzling outside and overcast with temps around the mid to low 50s. Good sleeping weather, and a good way to spend some of my Sunday!!
The newspapers here in Nairobi are always reporting front page news on the local fighting between the two major political parties. It could be compared to Mitt Romney still being very prominently in the public eye and forming a big rally of Republicans near the Washington Monument to challenge Barack Obama and his present policies and then setting forth an agenda of 13 points on what needs to be done to turn around the USA. It would all be very public, not in the Congress, but in public. This is what has happened here in the last three weeks with the head of the party that lost the national election last year. Unfortunately, the parties are identified largely with the two largest tribes in the nation. Tribalism so influences where people stand politically. At the same time both parties admit that probably the #1 challenge to this nation is the internal corruption of bribery as a way of procedure. There is so much of this and it is compromising the security of Kenya's citizens. There seems to be little national loyalty on the part of the police and even the military; when people can be given a bribe, they will look the other way at the expense of the safety of its citizens. If this issue is not faced squarely and sanctions effectively brought against violaters, this nation is going to get isolated and largely ignored by the international community. No one is going to want to visit here or do business. It is sad in light of the potential this part of the world has!
Last Tuesday was the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene. I was asked about an hour before mass time to lead the mass for someone who gotten caught in traffic and was supposed to lead the 5:15 PM mass for the retreatants. So, prepare quickly I did! I did get into the theme, that of the gospel reading (John 20:11-18) in which the risen Jesus meets a distraught Mary Magdalene next to the tomb on Easter morning. She thinks he is the gardener and wants him to tell him where the body of Jesus is, but once she hears Him call her by her name, she recognizes Him and knows Him to be alive and risen. It is then that her most important moment comes. He gives her the focus of the rest of her life. It will define her forever. She has seen Him and so He tells her, missions her, to go forth and tell His brothers (the world) that she has seen the Lord. She has seen Him alive and no longer dead. And the gospel writer implies, of course, that this is what she did for the rest of her life as the early church began to form. And, as I emphasized in the homily, we are a resurrection people, meant to recognize in our daily experience where the risen Christ has shown up, to recognize His presence and realize we too have seen Him, and we are supposed to make it a point to do what she did: to tell others in whatever way we can the ways in which we have SEEN Him in and around us, in our lives and in the lives of others. We are to gain our spiritual eye-sight and spread the good news as she did that we have seen the Lord. The problem is: we are so often suffering from spiritual near-sightedness, focused on our fears and concerns, on trivia, idle curiosities, and future goals that we are largely blind and out of touch with the way God's gifts are right there in front of us. We are blinded by so much instead of seeing the risen Savior right there in our daily experience. For many of us we don't know how to see nor are we free enough, spiritually alert enough to see this reality "behind the veil" of our daily routine. But when we are blessed in the Spirit with a growing awareness of our name as called by Him, we, like Mary Magdalene, awaken to the meaning of our day, of our life, and so in the midst of our jobs and caring for our families, we see the meaning of it all and make sure that we witness, that we share with others th ways He came to us during our day and gave us His peace, "broke bread with us", and consoled and encouraged us to live well our day and the life the Father is giving us.
Three days ago the publisher of my book sent me three possible front cover designs. All three had merit but one was especially fitting. I like my choice! Then too, another employee of the company asked me to help her finalize the short statement that goes on the book jacket and gives the reader a very quick sense of what the book is about. Also, I had to write an updated short bio that tells the reader who I, the author, am. This too will be printed on the back cover. Lastly, I am preparing five names and addresses of published authors who might be willing to read the final version of the text and give a formal recommendation that can be quoted on the back cover. Details, details! See how involved it is to publish a book! I am still on schedule to have it available for sale come next January.
God bless. I am off to bed. Have a great week. Enjoy your summer. Happy St. Ignatius feast day next Thursday (the 31st) to all you who consider yourselves sons and daughters of St. Ignatius and his spiritual vision!
By the way, last Wednesday, the 23rd, I marked 11 months since I came to Kenya. Wow, almost a full year!
Bernie
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Hello to everyone on this sunny, beautiful day in Nairobi. It is a welcomed weather scene after some recent really cold mornings and nights. Yes, we are in winter, and at 6,000 feet above sea level it gets down into the 40s at nights. With no heat in our rooms the floors are so cold and lots of blankets and thick PJs are the order of the night! Thank God we have plenty of hot water for shaving and showering! One benefit of this winter weather: no mosquitos, or very few of them. They move rather slowly, thanks to the cold, and so are easy to kill. One evening it rained a lot around dinner time and out of their holes came dozens and dozens of flying termites. They are attracted by the lights and so come under our door into the dining area. So one night we had so many of these termites with their long wings fluttering around us looking for a mate, some being caught by geckos who made a qiuck meal of them, the others finding a mate, doing their thing, and then dying. What a mess to clean up. Their bodies are three times the size of an ant, their wings from one end to the other are as long as your index finger. I am told they are high in protein. The birds have a feast when eating them, and some people of this area like to eat them too, fried. Ugh!
It has been three weeks since I posted a letter here on this blog. The long gap has been due to the preparations I had to make for a preached, conference-style retreat I led on July 10-17. It took much more time to prepare the talks than I had anticipated. So once I got into the preparation, there was no time for writing on this site. The theme of the retreat was on the Holy Spirit, how this Spirit is immediately available in our daily experience, and then what this Spirit does for us, to us, and in society. So we got into discernment and how to do it daily, the Kingdom of God theme, the beatitudes of Jesus, the Our Father prayer, themes of reconciliation and healing, kinds and stages of prayer as we mature, and the Sacred Heart devotion: its biblical origins, its development over the centuries, and its practical applications in our daily lives, especially in terms of giving our hearts to Him through a commitment to live more intentionally a non-violent way of life. I asked for an evaluation and suggestions for improvement. Everyone seemed to get a lot out of the retreat. Some said they did not want to stop. They did not want to go home. Two made helpful suggestions: they wanted more time on the theme of self-acceptance and how to grow in that attitude; another person said there is need for an entire 8-day retreat on the theme of peace and reconciliation among tribes and clans in this nation, since there is much conflict and sometimes violence as well. It is clear to me that these two suggestions are greatly connected with each other since peace and reconciliation begin with peace with and mercy toward your own self. I had four come to me for personal one-on-one conferences to talk about conflict in their own religious communities and the harshness of some leaders, how difficult it is for some to forgive and move on. 17 started the retreat, one had to leave after the 6th day due to the death of a friend. Of the 16 in all who made it: most were Kenyans, one from the Congo, one from Rwanda (she lost many family members during the genocide in 1994!), two from India, one from Mexico, one from Poland.
Toward the end of this retreat I was inspired to start organizing another 8-day preached retreat around the theme of the Eucharist and to use the structure of the mass for organizing the talks and interconnecting them. This interests me a lot!
I now have two weeks away from giving any retreats. I want to use some of the time for hiking, seeing some of the beautiful surroundings, then too to prepare my one-class-a-week course (starting on Sept. 3, going through mid-December) on Teresa of Avila's The Interior Castle for the seminarians at the Jesuit college called Hekima College.
Starting on Sept 8 I will go for eight straight Mondays to lead two groups, three in each, in how to do Ignatian style meditation in preparation for their making the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius beginning in January. (Someone else will guide them through that. I won't have the time for doing that!) I have also been asked to lead a monthly two hour discussion on articles regarding teaching as a mission of Christ for the teachers (15 or so) of the Jesuit seminary, also on the methods of Jesuit teaching. This is what I did for the teachers of St. Aloysius High School back in mid-May. For them, however, it was all packed into two and a half days. In short, I am being asked to lead many things here, and I really enjoy this. It brings much new energy forward in me. I feel I am truly contributing, more than I was able to do at Manresa in my latter, years there. I did not think of coming to Africa or leaving Manresa for anywhere. I always expected my prodctive years to end there and thought that if my life ended there, I would be happy and be so grateful for many happy, fruitful years. But now it is like I have been given a second life with the chance for so much creativity. God saw possibilities I did not see and so invited me to this place. I continue to be amazed at how this transition came about. As I have said many times to myself and to others, "this was not my idea, but it has turned out so far to be a great, great idea." I truly feel God is leading in my life much more than I am leading, and that is wonderful. Of course, many my age have retired and have gone to live at our Jesuit retirement/nursing care center, Colombiere, in Clarkston, MI. Not me. I will be 75 in three weeks and feel very alive, thanks to the great genetic package I inherited from my mother who lived till 95.
In the last month or so you have read, I trust, about many killings here in Kenya. It has been largely a fight among people who have grievances over land ownership and resent people who moved by the government from other parts of Kenya to these places. Those who lost land or access to land for grazing animals want compensation, have gone to court about it, and have resented a lack of justice. These disputes have poured over into horrible slaughters. And the Islamist group Al Shabaab in nearby Somalia has capitalized on this. They murdered just men by gunshot or throat-slitting, after subjecting their victims to a "sermon" about the superiority of Islam. Finally, the nation's army has intervened and arrested some 40-60 people on charges of murder because they engineered this revenge movement and encouraged the Somali Al Shabaab types to do their ugly stuff. High drama!
Then too we have had a recent bout of dramatic deaths thanks to the drinking of some home brew, cheap alcoholic drink many times laced with methane. This time the liquor was imported from Uganda, the nation to our west. The attraction is always cheap cost and gathering with others to socialize while getting "loose". Those who survive often go blind, or have major liver failure for the rest of their lives. It is really terrible and can wipe out many from a village.
I have been reading on my computer the extensive reporting from CNN International about the tragic crash of the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine. What I find so heartbreaking are the pictures of some of the 80 children who were on that flight. What a crime!! When will we, the world, get sick enough of war and renounce it?? When will we refrain from pointing fingers at the guilty and look at ourselves and recognize inside ourselves, personally and as a nation, the roots of war. At various times we have all been involved in this unGodly way of relating. The roots of this are as old as the human race. It is a great day when people wake up to this and in God's name renounce violence in their hearts and speech and beg God's pardon and protection from violent, dominant ways of relating, and refuse to be part of "patriotic talk" that sympathizes with such ways of relating. The hardest thing to do is to forgive, yet it is what Jesus insisted on and made the most distinctive trait of His followers. I pray that I may more and more grow into this kind of freedom and courage of His.
May your summer be wonderful and give you many good memories before the leaves fall and the white stuff starts collecting on the ground again!
Bernie Owens
It has been three weeks since I posted a letter here on this blog. The long gap has been due to the preparations I had to make for a preached, conference-style retreat I led on July 10-17. It took much more time to prepare the talks than I had anticipated. So once I got into the preparation, there was no time for writing on this site. The theme of the retreat was on the Holy Spirit, how this Spirit is immediately available in our daily experience, and then what this Spirit does for us, to us, and in society. So we got into discernment and how to do it daily, the Kingdom of God theme, the beatitudes of Jesus, the Our Father prayer, themes of reconciliation and healing, kinds and stages of prayer as we mature, and the Sacred Heart devotion: its biblical origins, its development over the centuries, and its practical applications in our daily lives, especially in terms of giving our hearts to Him through a commitment to live more intentionally a non-violent way of life. I asked for an evaluation and suggestions for improvement. Everyone seemed to get a lot out of the retreat. Some said they did not want to stop. They did not want to go home. Two made helpful suggestions: they wanted more time on the theme of self-acceptance and how to grow in that attitude; another person said there is need for an entire 8-day retreat on the theme of peace and reconciliation among tribes and clans in this nation, since there is much conflict and sometimes violence as well. It is clear to me that these two suggestions are greatly connected with each other since peace and reconciliation begin with peace with and mercy toward your own self. I had four come to me for personal one-on-one conferences to talk about conflict in their own religious communities and the harshness of some leaders, how difficult it is for some to forgive and move on. 17 started the retreat, one had to leave after the 6th day due to the death of a friend. Of the 16 in all who made it: most were Kenyans, one from the Congo, one from Rwanda (she lost many family members during the genocide in 1994!), two from India, one from Mexico, one from Poland.
Toward the end of this retreat I was inspired to start organizing another 8-day preached retreat around the theme of the Eucharist and to use the structure of the mass for organizing the talks and interconnecting them. This interests me a lot!
I now have two weeks away from giving any retreats. I want to use some of the time for hiking, seeing some of the beautiful surroundings, then too to prepare my one-class-a-week course (starting on Sept. 3, going through mid-December) on Teresa of Avila's The Interior Castle for the seminarians at the Jesuit college called Hekima College.
Starting on Sept 8 I will go for eight straight Mondays to lead two groups, three in each, in how to do Ignatian style meditation in preparation for their making the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius beginning in January. (Someone else will guide them through that. I won't have the time for doing that!) I have also been asked to lead a monthly two hour discussion on articles regarding teaching as a mission of Christ for the teachers (15 or so) of the Jesuit seminary, also on the methods of Jesuit teaching. This is what I did for the teachers of St. Aloysius High School back in mid-May. For them, however, it was all packed into two and a half days. In short, I am being asked to lead many things here, and I really enjoy this. It brings much new energy forward in me. I feel I am truly contributing, more than I was able to do at Manresa in my latter, years there. I did not think of coming to Africa or leaving Manresa for anywhere. I always expected my prodctive years to end there and thought that if my life ended there, I would be happy and be so grateful for many happy, fruitful years. But now it is like I have been given a second life with the chance for so much creativity. God saw possibilities I did not see and so invited me to this place. I continue to be amazed at how this transition came about. As I have said many times to myself and to others, "this was not my idea, but it has turned out so far to be a great, great idea." I truly feel God is leading in my life much more than I am leading, and that is wonderful. Of course, many my age have retired and have gone to live at our Jesuit retirement/nursing care center, Colombiere, in Clarkston, MI. Not me. I will be 75 in three weeks and feel very alive, thanks to the great genetic package I inherited from my mother who lived till 95.
In the last month or so you have read, I trust, about many killings here in Kenya. It has been largely a fight among people who have grievances over land ownership and resent people who moved by the government from other parts of Kenya to these places. Those who lost land or access to land for grazing animals want compensation, have gone to court about it, and have resented a lack of justice. These disputes have poured over into horrible slaughters. And the Islamist group Al Shabaab in nearby Somalia has capitalized on this. They murdered just men by gunshot or throat-slitting, after subjecting their victims to a "sermon" about the superiority of Islam. Finally, the nation's army has intervened and arrested some 40-60 people on charges of murder because they engineered this revenge movement and encouraged the Somali Al Shabaab types to do their ugly stuff. High drama!
Then too we have had a recent bout of dramatic deaths thanks to the drinking of some home brew, cheap alcoholic drink many times laced with methane. This time the liquor was imported from Uganda, the nation to our west. The attraction is always cheap cost and gathering with others to socialize while getting "loose". Those who survive often go blind, or have major liver failure for the rest of their lives. It is really terrible and can wipe out many from a village.
I have been reading on my computer the extensive reporting from CNN International about the tragic crash of the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine. What I find so heartbreaking are the pictures of some of the 80 children who were on that flight. What a crime!! When will we, the world, get sick enough of war and renounce it?? When will we refrain from pointing fingers at the guilty and look at ourselves and recognize inside ourselves, personally and as a nation, the roots of war. At various times we have all been involved in this unGodly way of relating. The roots of this are as old as the human race. It is a great day when people wake up to this and in God's name renounce violence in their hearts and speech and beg God's pardon and protection from violent, dominant ways of relating, and refuse to be part of "patriotic talk" that sympathizes with such ways of relating. The hardest thing to do is to forgive, yet it is what Jesus insisted on and made the most distinctive trait of His followers. I pray that I may more and more grow into this kind of freedom and courage of His.
May your summer be wonderful and give you many good memories before the leaves fall and the white stuff starts collecting on the ground again!
Bernie Owens
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
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
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
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
Friday, May 30, 2014
Dear Friends,
Friday evening here, and I will not be long. But I want to say "thank you" to any and all who are praying for me and the four people (three seminarians and one nun) I am now guiding through their 30-day retreat. I have one other nun for 8 days and she finishes on Tuesday morning. There are times I am so, so moved by what is happening in these people and the stories they tell me of their own encounters with death, with struggles, with their thirst for God. I feel so, so close to God as I listen to their stories and how God has and is moving in them. I wish I could package such and show the world. This makes me think of the prophet Isaiah who describes in chapter 40 his going up to the top of the mountains and shouting to the world, "Here is your God!" while he tries to lead God's lambs and sheep to safety, to life.
One of the nuns is such a "tough" character, born the third of triplets, nearly dying as an infant, being carried in her first months in a little sack or small pouch on the belly of her mother wherever her mother went; then at the age of 18 she tells her mother she wants to become a nun, to which her mother picks up a stool or chair and throws it at her. For three days this future nun hid under a desk, slept there overnight to avoid the wrath of her mother. Only the word of her father, separated from her mother and living in another village, could spare her and manage to calm down the mother. Today, 25 years later, her mother is proud of her as a nun. (This is the same person who was part of a small group of nuns who 8 yeas ago went into a part of Ethiopia where only Muslims live. The Muslims burned down all their housing on Good Friday, would not sell food to them nor let them ride their buses, and they were saved from violence and harm thanks to a 4-5 year old Muslim boy who instinctively (providentially??) came to their protection one day when these nuns were walking in a dangerous, threatening area of the village and insisted on their being taken to his home and fed. The boy's father followed the wishes of his son and from that point on the town tolerated the nuns. The nuns are still there to this day and witness to Christ by their living among these Muslims and loving them as best they know how with the kindness and welcome of Christ. Tough heh!!?? Persistent, tough faith in Christ!! It makes one really proud to be Christian and challenged to live one's own faith in Christ's love without any shame or apology.)
Today is the first of nine days leading up to Pentecost, June 8. The significance of Pentecost has grown and grown on me through the years. It really is the climax of the church's life that we celebrate from the beginning of Advent, through Christmas and the Epiphany, through Lent and then Easter. Easter is Jesus' great day but Pentecost is our great day when the Spirit of Christ comes with such power and changes confused, fear-based people into daring apostles who go to the stretches of the known world, as far as India in the east and Spain in the west to plant the seeds of the Gospel and invite people into life in Christ. The same need is there in every generation. I see the need so strongly in our own USA where so many seem confused, don't know who they are, are spiritually comotose, some feeding on drugs or what amounts to quasi-spiritual junk food because they can't stand the emptiness of their lives and the surrounding culture and what it offers them for meaning and purpose. So many adopt pop culture, sports, and feel-good psychology in the place of the wonderfully good news of Christ and the challenge of His Gospel. They end up being spiritually anemic, even anorexic in some cases . . . like they forget to eat nutritious food and slowly waste away! And yet I have met so many really people in the Sates who are so alive, so full of hope and joy and have a clear sense of what life can be because they have experienced and live in fidelity to the love they have experienced from Christ for themselves. They really do believe and radiate His Presence. Pentecost has happened in their lives and they are wonderful to be around.
It is bedtime here. I pray for all you who read my postings. Let us, please, join in prayer Pope Francis this coming Pentecost Sunday, June 8, when he receives in Rome the president of Israel and the head of the Palestinian Authority where the three of them will pray for peace in the Holy Land. What a worthy cause!
Oh, last Monday at 5:45 AM there was a huge boom here at the retreat house. A hotwater tank exploded , rocketed into the air while landing 300' away,and tore a large hole in the roof of the retreat house's administration center, knocked down a number of walls inside as well as some of the outer walls, destroyed the kitchen and ovens, and cracked the walls and ceiling of the chief administrator's office. People outside our walls started the rumors that Al Shabaab had bombed us. Even local news stations began to report this and TV cameras came to our front gate in hopes of a sensational story. (They were ushered away quickly!!) So right now we are feeding 50 retreatants from emergency, cramped kitchen quarters while constructing an emergency food-preparation area to give our heroic cooking crew a little more room for their much appreciated work. In the meantime, 50 retreatants are in absolute silence and getting good meals on time, but it is really tough on the kitchen crew. They are our heroes and heroines right now!!
Bernie Owens
Friday evening here, and I will not be long. But I want to say "thank you" to any and all who are praying for me and the four people (three seminarians and one nun) I am now guiding through their 30-day retreat. I have one other nun for 8 days and she finishes on Tuesday morning. There are times I am so, so moved by what is happening in these people and the stories they tell me of their own encounters with death, with struggles, with their thirst for God. I feel so, so close to God as I listen to their stories and how God has and is moving in them. I wish I could package such and show the world. This makes me think of the prophet Isaiah who describes in chapter 40 his going up to the top of the mountains and shouting to the world, "Here is your God!" while he tries to lead God's lambs and sheep to safety, to life.
One of the nuns is such a "tough" character, born the third of triplets, nearly dying as an infant, being carried in her first months in a little sack or small pouch on the belly of her mother wherever her mother went; then at the age of 18 she tells her mother she wants to become a nun, to which her mother picks up a stool or chair and throws it at her. For three days this future nun hid under a desk, slept there overnight to avoid the wrath of her mother. Only the word of her father, separated from her mother and living in another village, could spare her and manage to calm down the mother. Today, 25 years later, her mother is proud of her as a nun. (This is the same person who was part of a small group of nuns who 8 yeas ago went into a part of Ethiopia where only Muslims live. The Muslims burned down all their housing on Good Friday, would not sell food to them nor let them ride their buses, and they were saved from violence and harm thanks to a 4-5 year old Muslim boy who instinctively (providentially??) came to their protection one day when these nuns were walking in a dangerous, threatening area of the village and insisted on their being taken to his home and fed. The boy's father followed the wishes of his son and from that point on the town tolerated the nuns. The nuns are still there to this day and witness to Christ by their living among these Muslims and loving them as best they know how with the kindness and welcome of Christ. Tough heh!!?? Persistent, tough faith in Christ!! It makes one really proud to be Christian and challenged to live one's own faith in Christ's love without any shame or apology.)
Today is the first of nine days leading up to Pentecost, June 8. The significance of Pentecost has grown and grown on me through the years. It really is the climax of the church's life that we celebrate from the beginning of Advent, through Christmas and the Epiphany, through Lent and then Easter. Easter is Jesus' great day but Pentecost is our great day when the Spirit of Christ comes with such power and changes confused, fear-based people into daring apostles who go to the stretches of the known world, as far as India in the east and Spain in the west to plant the seeds of the Gospel and invite people into life in Christ. The same need is there in every generation. I see the need so strongly in our own USA where so many seem confused, don't know who they are, are spiritually comotose, some feeding on drugs or what amounts to quasi-spiritual junk food because they can't stand the emptiness of their lives and the surrounding culture and what it offers them for meaning and purpose. So many adopt pop culture, sports, and feel-good psychology in the place of the wonderfully good news of Christ and the challenge of His Gospel. They end up being spiritually anemic, even anorexic in some cases . . . like they forget to eat nutritious food and slowly waste away! And yet I have met so many really people in the Sates who are so alive, so full of hope and joy and have a clear sense of what life can be because they have experienced and live in fidelity to the love they have experienced from Christ for themselves. They really do believe and radiate His Presence. Pentecost has happened in their lives and they are wonderful to be around.
It is bedtime here. I pray for all you who read my postings. Let us, please, join in prayer Pope Francis this coming Pentecost Sunday, June 8, when he receives in Rome the president of Israel and the head of the Palestinian Authority where the three of them will pray for peace in the Holy Land. What a worthy cause!
Oh, last Monday at 5:45 AM there was a huge boom here at the retreat house. A hotwater tank exploded , rocketed into the air while landing 300' away,and tore a large hole in the roof of the retreat house's administration center, knocked down a number of walls inside as well as some of the outer walls, destroyed the kitchen and ovens, and cracked the walls and ceiling of the chief administrator's office. People outside our walls started the rumors that Al Shabaab had bombed us. Even local news stations began to report this and TV cameras came to our front gate in hopes of a sensational story. (They were ushered away quickly!!) So right now we are feeding 50 retreatants from emergency, cramped kitchen quarters while constructing an emergency food-preparation area to give our heroic cooking crew a little more room for their much appreciated work. In the meantime, 50 retreatants are in absolute silence and getting good meals on time, but it is really tough on the kitchen crew. They are our heroes and heroines right now!!
Bernie Owens
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Dear Friends,
Here I am Tuesday, just before lunch. I have come from some truly amazing conversations with the retreatants I am working with now. Their stories and sharings make God seem so close, so active, so real, as if much of what passes for daily living is by comparison rather unreal and matters much less than what is contained in these stories.
One fellow tells about how he spent a summer helping some missionary priest here in Kenya with service to really poor people in villages nearby, even building homes with him. He described this priest as given to the poor and the oppressed and pressing for their rights. Eventually he was martyred, murdered by someone who did not like what he was doing to "upset" the status quo. It was from knowing and working closely for those few months that this one retreatant experienced God inviting him to be a priest. I had a lump in my throat listening to this and imagining what it must be like to experience God's call coming through the example of a martyr.
Another retreatant shared the question about why he felt so struck by two scenes in two different movies: one at the end of the movie entitled the "Mission" where the Jesuit priest, head of the Paraguyan mission, while carrying the Eucharist in a monstrance, is shot dead by Spanish or Portugese explorers looking for gold; and the other scene was from the movie "Romero" (featuring Archbishop Romero of El Salvador) when at the end of the movie while saying mass and at the moment he lifts the bread and wine to offer it to God is shot to death by an assassin standing at the back of the chapel. This young seminarian, to be ordained a priest in about two years from now, said to me with great intent, "Why did God come to me so meaningfully in those two scenes, which bear significant similarity? What does this mean for my life?"
A third retreatant shared about how two years spent in a part of Africa with defenseless people with no medical help and living in great poverty he was touched in his spirit so deeply and this left him at the same time with great joy, great gratitude for all he had been allowed to know and experience. This mystery of how God speaks especially through the poor.
Then another retreatant telling about how her group went to a part of Ethiopia, which is largely Orthodox Christian, to a Muslim village, very primitive. They built some humble dwelling places there and then on Good Friday, while they were away, everything was burned down by these Muslims. These Muslims would not sell groceries to them, would not let them ride on their buses. (Sounds like the South of the USA in the 1940s-60s!!) But one day as these Christian missionaries were walking along a road not far from the village a boy 4-5 years old came forward to protect them, lead them back to his house, and gave them some food. Somehow, in that gesture the attitude of the village changed toward these nuns. As Isaiah says, "A little child shall lead them."
I am very blessed to hear these stories. I pass on to you the gist of them.
Yesterday morning we had a very dangerous thing happen here at the retreat center. A hot water tank exploded, rocketed in the air and landed some 200' away from the building on the back lawn, tore a big hole in the roof of the kitchen area, blew out glass and concrete walls. Fortunately the morning cook was a little late in getting to the kitchen and so was spared her life.
I have to go!
Bernie Owens
Here I am Tuesday, just before lunch. I have come from some truly amazing conversations with the retreatants I am working with now. Their stories and sharings make God seem so close, so active, so real, as if much of what passes for daily living is by comparison rather unreal and matters much less than what is contained in these stories.
One fellow tells about how he spent a summer helping some missionary priest here in Kenya with service to really poor people in villages nearby, even building homes with him. He described this priest as given to the poor and the oppressed and pressing for their rights. Eventually he was martyred, murdered by someone who did not like what he was doing to "upset" the status quo. It was from knowing and working closely for those few months that this one retreatant experienced God inviting him to be a priest. I had a lump in my throat listening to this and imagining what it must be like to experience God's call coming through the example of a martyr.
Another retreatant shared the question about why he felt so struck by two scenes in two different movies: one at the end of the movie entitled the "Mission" where the Jesuit priest, head of the Paraguyan mission, while carrying the Eucharist in a monstrance, is shot dead by Spanish or Portugese explorers looking for gold; and the other scene was from the movie "Romero" (featuring Archbishop Romero of El Salvador) when at the end of the movie while saying mass and at the moment he lifts the bread and wine to offer it to God is shot to death by an assassin standing at the back of the chapel. This young seminarian, to be ordained a priest in about two years from now, said to me with great intent, "Why did God come to me so meaningfully in those two scenes, which bear significant similarity? What does this mean for my life?"
A third retreatant shared about how two years spent in a part of Africa with defenseless people with no medical help and living in great poverty he was touched in his spirit so deeply and this left him at the same time with great joy, great gratitude for all he had been allowed to know and experience. This mystery of how God speaks especially through the poor.
Then another retreatant telling about how her group went to a part of Ethiopia, which is largely Orthodox Christian, to a Muslim village, very primitive. They built some humble dwelling places there and then on Good Friday, while they were away, everything was burned down by these Muslims. These Muslims would not sell groceries to them, would not let them ride on their buses. (Sounds like the South of the USA in the 1940s-60s!!) But one day as these Christian missionaries were walking along a road not far from the village a boy 4-5 years old came forward to protect them, lead them back to his house, and gave them some food. Somehow, in that gesture the attitude of the village changed toward these nuns. As Isaiah says, "A little child shall lead them."
I am very blessed to hear these stories. I pass on to you the gist of them.
Yesterday morning we had a very dangerous thing happen here at the retreat center. A hot water tank exploded, rocketed in the air and landed some 200' away from the building on the back lawn, tore a big hole in the roof of the kitchen area, blew out glass and concrete walls. Fortunately the morning cook was a little late in getting to the kitchen and so was spared her life.
I have to go!
Bernie Owens
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