Fr. JC Maximilian

Since this encyclical is commemorating the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Populorum Progressio, this chapter basically summarizes the main points of that encyclical. Pope Benedict XVI discusses how while, Populorum Progressio was certainly a fruit of the Second Vatican Council, it would be wrong to see it as a “break” from the Church’s social teaching prior to the Council. In fact, he clearly disagrees with the whole attitude that the Council marked a radical change in the Church. Rather he sees it as flowing from the “Tradition of the apostolic faith,” to address the issues of our times. “The Church’s social doctrine illuminates with an unchanging light the new problems that are constantly emerging” (#12; picking up a theme from John Paul II’s encyclical, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #3).

From the vision of the Council, Pope Paul VI set out to convey two important truths. First, the whole Church, in all her being and action (whether she is proclaiming, celebrating, or performing acts of charity), is engaged in promoting integral human development. However, the Church needs a climate of freedom in order to bring all this energy to the advancement of humanity and the promotion of universal fraternity. Unfortunately the Church’s freedom is often impeded; whether through persecution or even simply reducing her public presence to just her charitable activities.

The second truth that Pope Paul VI conveyed is that “authentic human development concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension” (#11). This includes the spiritual/religious dimension which gives us the perspective of eternal life. We must recognize that Man does not develop through his own powers, nor can development be simply handed to him. Even the institutions that we create are not enough, because integral human development is primarily a vocation. As such, it involves the free assumption of responsibilities in solidarity with everyone else. It requires the recognition that human development NEEDS God, because we cannot bring about our own salvation. Without this recognition, any attempt of development dehumanizes the human person.

The Holy Father then demonstrates how these themes are also picked up, and developed in different ways, in other writings of Paul VI. Importantly, Paul VI recognized that all these social questions had really become worldwide. He also saw that technology, while bringing the possibility of much good in promoting human development, had serious limitations; it should be viewed as an ambivalent tool, at the service of the human striving for truth and meaning, but incapable of providing that truth and meaning in itself.

Even Man himself cannot, on his own, supply the ultimate meaning of his existence. That is only possible through the transcendent call, vocation, from the Mystery. The Mystery provides Man with responsible freedom, with is presupposed in integral human development. In addition to freedom, integral human develop also requires a respect for its truth. It is a call to seek the “more.” The essential quality of ‘authentic’ development is that it must be ‘integral.’ In other words it “has to promote the good of every man and of the whole man” (Populorum Progressio #14).

Lastly, the view of development as vocation brings charity into the central place of that development. “As society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbors, but does not make us brothers. Reason, by itself, is capable of grasping the equality between men and of giving stability to their civic coexistence, but it cannot establish fraternity. This originates in a transcendent vocation from God the Father, who loved us first, teaching us through the Son what fraternal charity is” (#19).

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[“The Last Judgement” by Fra Angelico]

The Gospel is always so very rich, so there are always so many things one can reflect on. This weekend’s Gospel reading is no exception. It seems that Jesus is talking about evangelization, sin and scandal, and even hell. All in one very brief passage. How do we make sense of all of it? Or should we just focus on one aspect at a time?

I think that there is a reason for these themes to be together in this passage from St. Mark’s Gospel. First we have the disciples concern about someone using Jesus’ name to drive out demons. Jesus tells the disciples to do nothing to prevent him. Why? Because “whoever is not against us is for us.” Jesus was warning the disciples against developing an attitude of exclusiveness.

Christianity is not a club that one joins. It is a life. It is a recognition that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and a conscious choice to unite ourselves to Christ Jesus so to share in His life. Jesus is pointing out to the disciples that no one could work good works in His name if they did not have real faith in Him as the Messiah, as the Son of God. Our desire should be to share the Good News that we have recognized in Jesus with everyone, and we should recognize anyone who is proclaiming that Good News as a brother or sister in Christ Jesus. This is especially true today as it is very common for us to interact with people of other Christian denominations. While we should not ignore the real doctrinal differences that exist between our Protestant and Orthodox brothers and sisters and we of the Catholic Faith, at the same time we should respect the lively faith that they have, and rejoice in the grace of God that is at work among them. And, of course, we should pray, as Christ Himself did on the night before His death, that we may all be one.

This broadmindedness, however, is not unlimited. Just as Jesus wants to emphasize the generosity of God’s love in rewarding those who serve Him, Jesus also wants us to take sin very seriously. That is why in St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says the opposite of what He said in today’s reading from St. Mark’s Gospel, “Whoever is not with me is against me” (Matt. 12:30). In the end there is no neutral ground in relation to Jesus: sooner or later we all must make a choice either to be on His side or to oppose Him.

It is to provide this balance that we have the second group of sayings in today’s Gospel. If God graciously rewards small acts of kindness, He will also severely punish acts of evil. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor’s tempter” (CCC #2284). People who are in positions of authority take on a particular gravity of scandal because their bad example can have a greater influence on others. We are all sinners in need of redemption, and God offers His mercy to all people. As Christians we should be quick to offer forgiveness to those who sin and seek forgiveness. Scandal is not simply the fact that someone does something sinful. Scandal is when the person says, through their words or actions, that their sinful behavior is not really bad, thus encouraging others to do the same thing.

Jesus mixes no words in condemning scandal. For the Jewish people at that time, drowning a person was the most cruel way of killing someone, so to fix a “great millstone,” literally meaning one that only a donkey could turn, around someone’s neck and then casting them into the sea was a most horrible punishment.

Then there are all those sayings about Gehenna. Gehenna was a valley to the southeast of Jerusalem. It was a place where some Israelites gravely turned their backs on God, by burning their children to death as a sacrifice to the pagan god Moloch. Due to the horrible nature of this sin, one of Israel’s good kings desecrated the valley by turning it into a garbage dump. By the time of Jesus, the place reeked and there were constant fires. Also by that time, Gehenna had become a visible symbol for hell, the place of eternal punishment for those who oppose God.

Hell is not a popular subject today. When I was in the seminary I heard a priest tell a group of parishioners that we need to remember that there are two options after death – heaven and purgatory. He thought he was being so very “traditional” by mentioning purgatory. When I asked him later about hell, he told me, “no one believes in hell any more.” So, just to be clear – hell is real. Jesus plainly teaches that there are two possible destinations for us after death – heaven or hell (purgatory is a prelude to heaven, a final cleansing for make us ready for heaven). Heaven is the eternal joy of union with God, and hell is the eternal misery of separation from God. We might not feel comfortable talking about hell, but it is a most necessary fact. We would have no freedom if we did not have the option of saying “no” to God.

The truth that Jesus conveys in today’s Gospel reading is that we choose our own destiny. With every decision we make, with every action we take over the course of our lifetime we are orientating ourselves either to heaven or to hell, and at the moment of death we embrace what has truly become our choice. As C.S. Lewis put it, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell” (C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, pp. 72-73).

Jesus’ warning should arouse a healthy hatred for sin within us. We must be willing to make the changes in our lives so to choose eternal salvation. While Jesus does not want us to really start cutting off body parts, He does really want us to make really changes in our lives. Are we willing to give up HBO or Showtime if they lead us into temptation? What about a job or an unhealthy relationship? Maybe it is an unhealthy pleasure or entertainment. We need to take our eternal destination seriously. Do we want to make ourselves fit for heaven or for hell? The choice is up to us.

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Now that I have finished Is it Possible to Live this Way? Vol. 1: Faith by Msgr. Luigi Giussani, I am turned my attention to Pope Benedict XVI’s most recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate or in English, Charity in Truth. I am reading the edition put out by Ignatius Press, as pictured above, however since there are several editions of the encyclical (including just downloading the PDF), I will use the paragraph numbers which will remain the same across editions, instead of the page numbers when making references to the text.

Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has been one of my favorite writers in theology for a long time. While most certainly a scholar, I find his writing very easy to understand. I believe it is because he does not just caught up in his head, but he writes from his heart: from the unity of his person. He writes from his experience. Now, while I do not know if he is a member of Communion and Liberation, I do know that he has been very close to the Movement for quite some time. He preached at Msgr. Guissani’s funeral Mass, and shortly after he was elected Pope he asked for members of Memores Domini, basically the secular institute of the Movement (they are lay men and women who live in community after making promises of chastity, obedience and poverty, while working in the world), to move into the Apostolic Palace to do the housekeeping, but mostly so he could join them for “School of Community” as often as his schedule would allow. I believe it is his living the Method of CL that allows him to write so well from his own experience so that we can see what he is talking about in our own experience.

Right from the start, His Holiness points out that Charity in truth is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity. For each of us, truth is God’s plan, and we find our good by adhering closely to God’s plan in our lives. It is only through adherence to God’s plan that we can experience real freedom, which is of course, our destiny. Jesus, through His Incarnation, purifies our search for love and truth, and liberates both from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it.

In his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, the Holy Father started from the truth revealed through St. John, that “God is Love” (1 Jn 4:8), and that everything has its origin in God’s love, everything is shaped by His love, and everything is directed towards God’s love. That charity, our participation in God’s love, is at the very heart of the Church’s social teaching. Charity is what gives this teaching life, for it gives it real substance to the relationship with God and neighbor.

Unfortunately, charity is often misconstrued in modern society is such a way as to empty it of any real meaning. When this happens there is the risk that charity will become detached from ethical living. Charity must remain rooted in the real; it must remain rooted in truth. St. Paul writes, in his Letter to the Ephesians, to speak “the truth in charity” (Eph. 4:15), and this is very important. Truth must be sought, found and expressed in charity. I am sure we have all experienced people being “brutally honest” with us. It is not so much the truth but the way it is expressed to us that can be so painful when done with little concern for our feelings. Or, scientific research, which is a seeking of the truth, most certainly can be so very good in promoting human development, but not when that research is done in a way that does not respect the dignity of the human person (this is why the Church is opposed to embryonic stem cell research; not to stand in the way of the benefits that might come from that research, but because of the truth of the dignity of the human life that is destroyed in that research). However, in this encyclical, Pope Benedict is turning St. Paul’s expression around to emphasize that charity also needs to be understood, confirmed, and practiced in the light of truth. “Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity” (#3). Without this foundation in truth, charity “degenerates” into mere emotionalism. This foundation gives charity freedom from the constraints of emotionalism that takes away charity’s social and relational content, and from the constraints of fideism that deprives charity of its human and universal breathing space.

When we fill charity with truth we can communicate and share it with others. The word “dialogue” comes from two Greek words, dia which means “through” and logos which means “word or reason”. Thus truth allows us to let go of our subjective opinions and impressions, to move beyond our cultural and historical limitations, so that we can come together in the assessment of the value and substance of things. “In the present social and cultural context, where there is a widespread tendency to relativize truth, practicing charity in truth helps people to understand that adherence to the values of Christianity is not merely useful but essential for building a good society and for true integral human development” (#4).

Charity is both received and given. Of course it is first received by us from God, but then we are called to give it to others. The Church’s social teaching is “the proclamation of the truth of Christ’s love in society. This doctrine is a service to charity, but its locus is truth” (#5). As we are first the objects of God’s love, we should then become the subjects of charity by allowing ourselves to become instruments of God’s grace, His charity, so that we can form a network of charity.

This encyclical is marking the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Populorum Progressio (“The Development of Peoples”), and so it picks up and extends many of the themes of that monumental encyclical. Two of the most important being justice and the common good.

Simply, justice is giving another person what is due them. Every society develops its own system of justice. Charity, however, goes beyond justice while never lacking justice. In justice I give to the other person what is due them. I call the plumber to fix my sink, in justice I pay him for his services. Charity goes beyond justice because in charity I offer what is mine to the other. “I cannot ‘give’ what is mine to the other without first giving him what pertains to him in justice” (#6). So using our plumber analogy, I cannot give him a tip if I have not first paid him the bill I owe him. The tip would be charity, a giving of something that is mine to him. Paying his bill is justice. “On the one hand, charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples. . . . On the other hand, charity transcends justice and completes it in the logic of giving and forgiving” (#6).

All this is a good thing for us. If God was merely just, we would all be in trouble. We are all sinners, and if God treated us merely in justice, according to what we deserve, we would have no chance of heaven. But God is Love/Charity, so He goes beyond justice, offering Himself, quite literally by becoming Flesh and still offering Himself in the Eucharist, for the forgiveness of our sins. Yet, God does not contradict justice; He will judge us. If we are in mortal sin, we will end up in hell, if we still have the stains of our venial sins we will spend time in Purgatory making amends for the effects of our sins (which God has forgiven), and once free from all stain of sin God will bring us into communion with Him in heaven. As God deals with us (both just, but goes beyond justice to be charitable in giving and forgiving us), so we must we deal with one another.

This brings us to the consideration of the common good. If I say that I love someone, then naturally I desire the good for the person I love, and I will even take steps to help secure for them the good. We are all called to love not just this person and that one, but all people. Therefore there is a good that is linked to living in society, and we call that the common good. To both desire and strive for the common good is a requirement of both justice and charity. “The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbors, the more effectively we love them” (#7).

“The Church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim ‘to interfere in any way in the politics of States’. She does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance, for a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his vocation. Without truth, it is easy to fall into an empiricist and skeptical view of life, incapable of rising to the level of praxis because of a lack of interest in grasping the values — sometimes even the meanings — with which to judge and direct it. Fidelity to man requires fidelity to the truth, which alone is the guarantee of freedom (cf. Jn 8:32) and of the possibility of integral human development” (#9).

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With this post, I finish my reading and reflection of this book by Msgr. Giussani. Since it is an “Assembly” there is a bit of a mishmash of themes. Others reading these pages will undoubtedly be drawn to different things than I was; that is why it is best to discuss these books in a School of Community, so that we can learn from each other. Of course please feel free to make comments on this post, and if you have read the book, share your own insights.
One of the first things that struck me was Giussani’s statement of the necessity of hell. When I was a seminarian, a priest I knew gave a talk to a group of parishioners and he seemed honestly pleased with himself because he reminded the people that there was another place in which one might find oneself after death besides heaven — purgatory. Later when I pointed out that he forgot to mention hell, he told me that no one believes in hell anymore. Wow! That might explain a lot about our modern society.

Msgr. Giussani reminds us that “the ultimate idea of man is that man is a freedom, that is, something made for happiness” (p. 141). He then points out it is in this that hell is born, for without hell there would be no freedom. Why? Because freedom requires both the possibility to say “yes” and the possibility to say “no.” As Milton put it in Paradise Lost, Man was created, “sufficient to have stood, though free to fall” (Book III). Hell is the BIG NO. It is where we go when we have made a definitive choice to say “no” to God. Mortal Sin is such a saying of “no” to God, and as a result the Divine Life dies within us. Of course, in His great Mercy, God gives us opportunities to turn away from our “no” and say “yes” to His will. Through the sacrament of Reconciliation, the Divine Life is restored to us. What makes it definitive for us is the state we are in when we die. No more choices after death.
Giussani points out that we need this ability to choose, otherwise the happiness that we would reach in heaven would not be our own. That choice must be the object of my freedom.

Giussani also addresses a concern that his idea of authority, the following of another, might seem to be the fostering of a dependency on the other. But if you and I are both seeking Truth, Happiness, Beauty, and those things have a real meaning (so an objective reality), we would be journeying together. Would I be depending on you, or would you be depending on me? I guess we could say we are both dependent on the one we are following, but by our free choice to follow that authority (Christ) we are making that way our own. As St. Paul says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.”

Finally, Giussani has a beautiful reflection on friendship. Friendship is not just a nicety, it is a necessity. It is an encounter with another person who desires my life (welfare) more than they desire their own. They want us to reach our destiny, and are willing to make self-sacrifices so that we can achieve our destiny. It again reminds me of St. Paul, when he is saying that as much as he would like to be finished with this life so that he can share the life of Christ in Heaven, he is willing to continue in his mission so that others might come to Christ. When you desire my destiny and I desire your destiny we have a companionship. A healthy companionship is NEVER exclusive, it never views other people as extraneous. In our companionship we want others to join us, because we want them to share the same freedom and happiness that we have discovered. It a way, we can see how the Church’s teaching on contraception flows from this; if my marriage is truly a healthy companionship, I would never want to exclude the possibility of children.

This friendship, this companionship, is a guided one. We do not set our own way. We help each other along the way, even correcting each other when we start to wander off the way. Our companionship is guide by Christ, the Mystery in whom we recognize the deepest desires of our hearts.

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I am going to need help from some of you parents, since I do not have children of my own, but what is the age when small children seem to never stop asking questions? Is that the so-called “terrible 2s”? It seems that they are always asking “Why?” – “Why is the sky blue?”, “Why do I have to brush my teeth?”, “Why do have have to go to bed now?” I am sure it can make a parent or grandparent weary, but it really is a sign of the child’s growing up, trying to learn about the world around them.
        
Their inquisitiveness stands in contrast to the “silence” of the disciples in today’s Gospel reading. In St. Mark’s Gospel, after St. Peter’s confession of faith, there is a shift in the tone of the Gospel. It is often called the journey on the road, for the events in this section of the Gospel are described as being on a journey. Unlike His preaching tour, on this journey Jesus did not want anyone to know about it; only His disciples. It marks Jesus’ final instruction to His disciples as He draws closer to Calvary and His Passion.
        
For the second time Jesus very clearly tells His disciples that He will be handed over and killed, and on the third day rise from dead. And for the second time, the disciples’ response is shockingly inappropriate. After His first prediction of His Passion, Death and Resurrection, St. Peter takes Jesus aside and argues with Him, saying that it cannot be so. This time, even though they do not understand what Jesus is talking about, “they were afraid to question him.” Instead of asking questions to gain understanding, the disciples decide to allow their fear to keep them in ignorance.
        
Then, to make matters worse, during this journey with Jesus on the road, the disciples begin “discussing among themselves . . . who was the greatest.” Not only are the disciples choosing to say ignorant about what Jesus is trying to teach them, they are not even sensitive to how Jesus might be feeling about His impending Passion and Death. No, they seem to be more concerned about themselves, and their own status. When Jesus asks them about what they were arguing about on the way, once again the disciples decide to “remain silent.”
        
Silence is certainly an important part of our spiritual life; in fact we are suppose to encourage sacred silence during the Mass, for example after each reading and after reception of Holy Communion. However, sacred silence arises out of reverence for God and our own humility; not out of regret over our failures and fears. Sacred silence allows us to contemplate the opportunities we have for giving service to others as an outward expression of our loving union with Jesus. This kind of silence is the source of all Christians’ greatness.
        
The silence of the disciples in today’s Gospel reading, however, arises out of their fear and their self-centeredness. This fear and self-centeredness causes them to have a lack of receptivity to Jesus’ message. This is why Jesus places a child in their midst, for He wants them to learn to have the disposition of a child. A child has an innate love and trust of their parent. They want to understand what their parent is saying to them. That’s the reason behind all those “why” questions.
        
Jesus is reminding the disciples, which includes all of us today, that through our baptism we have become the adopted sons and daughters of God. As such, we should foster a disposition of love and trust in God, so that we will be responsive to God’s Word in our midst. This is the essence of our parish’s patron, St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, “little way.” It is a littleness so that we can respond to the vulnerability and neediness of others, because we first recognize our own vulnerability and need for our Heavenly Father.
        
From the sacred silence that allows us to recognize the Word of God present among us, we will have the courage to ask God to better understand His will for us. Then, after journeying, after following Jesus along the way – the way that includes the Cross – we will arise to be embraced in the arms of God, our loving Father.

[Sorry, I could not find out who was the artist of this painting of Jesus healing the deaf-mute man]

Jesus receives a very different reception today, as He and his disciples arrive in the region of the Decapolis, than they did the last time they were there. The Decapolis was a region of ten cities (which is what the word “decapolis” means) which were established by the soldiers of Alexander the Great. They were not Jewish cities, but rather Greek cities. This was evident in the account of Jesus’ first visit to the Decapolis, which is described in the fifth chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel. It was then that Jesus encountered the man possessed by many demons, and sent the demons into a herd of swine which then went and drowned themselves. Since Jews do not eat pork, thus they would not have had a herd of swine. At that time, when the people had seen what Jesus had done, they begged Him to leave their region. Basically they were scared of Him.

Apparently the man who had been set free from the “Legion” of demons had been busy telling people about the miracle that he had experienced and the goodness of Jesus. Now the people of the Decapolis recognize Jesus as a worker of mighty deeds who has compassion on those suffering from afflictions. Instead of “being seized with fear” (Mark 5:20), like during His first visit, the inhabitants bring to Jesus a man who is deaf and mute. “Previously deaf to God and mute concerning his saving deeds, now, in response to his mighty works of healing, they are able to hear his voice and sing his praises” (Healy, The Gospel of Mark: Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, location # 2872 on the Kindle version).

Jesus’ healing of the deaf mute has two rather unusual features. First, most of the time Jesus performed His miraculous healings in very public settings. Here, however, Jesus takes the man off by himself. Why? Because Jesus understood the unique needs of the man, as He understands our unique needs. Jesus recognized that the deaf-mute man needed a private encounter with Him.

The other rather interesting thing about this miracle, is the very physical nature of it. For many of Jesus’ other healings He just says, “Rise, and get up,” or “I do will it, open your eyes.” It is His words alone which cause the miraculous healings. In this case Jesus takes about six steps in performing the miracle: He puts His finger in the man’s ears, He spits, He touches the man’s tongue, He looks up to Heaven, He groans, and then He says “Ephphatha!” Why all these steps? Surely all Jesus needed to do was say “Ephphatha!” that is “Be open!” First, again, I think it was Jesus being sensitive to the man’s special needs. I have done some work with the deaf and hearing impaired; I have even studied ASL some. Physical contact is a big part of the culture of the deaf. They are used to being touched to get their attention. So again, Jesus was meeting the man where he was at.

There is, however, a more significant reason for all these actions in this miracle. Jesus is illustrating “once again the sacramental quality of the body – its ability to be a visible sign and instrument of divine grace” (Healy, The Gospel of Mark: Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, Kindle location #2892-97). Jesus’ work of salvation involves all of us; both our bodies and our souls.

This has often been a confusing issue in the Church. There have been many who have seen the body as pretty much all bad, even an prison for the spirit or soul. The third-century Church Father, Tertullian, wrote so beautifully about how Christ mediates His grace in each of the sacraments through our bodies, so let me quote him:

“The flesh is the hinge of salvation . . . . The flesh is washed so that the soul may be made clean. The flesh is anointed so that the soul may be consecrated. The flesh is signed so that the soul my be protected. The flesh is overshadowed by the laying on of hands so that the soul may be illumined by the Spirit. The flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ so that the soul too may be filled with God. [Flesh and spirit] cannot, then be separated in their reward, when they are united in their works. (Tertullian, The Resurrection of the Flesh #8.”

Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man, in today’s Gospel reading, was a very real healing, but it has a deeper spiritual significance too. God has given us not only our physical senses, but He has also endowed each of us with marvelous spiritual faculties that give us the ability to see, hear and relate to Him. These interior faculties were disabled by Original Sin – not only were our physical senses, which include our emotions, made disordered, but our intellects were dimmed, and our wills were weakened. All of this created a very serious communication block between God and us. In healing people of their deafness, blindness, and physical disabilities, Jesus is providing us with a sign that He is also restoring our interior faculties. Jesus restores humanity to the fullness of life and of communion with God our Creator. Yes, even after baptism we suffer from concupiscence – that means that our physical senses can still be somewhat disordered (we want the wrong things), our intellects are still somewhat dimmed, and our wills have some weakness (recall how St. Paul groans about not doing the good he wants to do, but does the evil he does not want to do). Now, however, through the grace of Jesus Christ we are able to hear God’s voice in our hearts, sing His praises, and proclaim His mighty works. As another early Church Father, St. Irenaeus, once said, “The Glory of God is man fully alive.”

As many of the readers of this blog know, for the past several years I have been very involved in the ecclesial movement, Communion and Liberation.  For the past three years I have attended their CL Priest Retreat, and this year’s was at Malvern Retreat House which is just outside of Philadelphia.  In fact, one of my seminary classmates, Fr. Phillip Forlano, who is also involved in Communion and Liberation was one of the organizers of the retreat (and he and the rest of the team did a great job).  In June, the US Editor of Traces: Communion and Liberation International Magazine asked me to write an article about the Priests Retreat.  Since it was several months after the retreat (which has always been the week after Easter, so in April this year), I decided to spend some of the article on how the retreat has borne fruit in the lives of the priests who attended.  Well, the article is out, in issue #7, and I have attached it below as a PDF file.  It is mostly readable (though my byline is not clear).

http://frjcmaximilian.stblogs.com/files/2009/09/Garrett-Cont emplateandSharetheFruit2.pdf

Here is a link to the flier for the 2010 CL Priest Retreat; share it with your favorite priests, 2010 Priests Retreat Click to download invitation