Vocations

Here is another nice article concerning Belmont Abbey.

A burning sensation started in Anthony
Swoffords chest.

It felt like my whole chest was on fire, Swofford said. I was at my
house in my driveway. I felt like somebody reached inside my chest and
was holding on to my heart.

That was the day Swofford promised God he would not drink or take drugs
again.

Swofford was born and raised Catholic. He grew up in Chesnee, SC, where
his Catholic family was the only one in town.

I had very good parents that had very good ethics and morals,
Swofford said.

He struggled with drugs and alcohol for about 20 years.

I kind of got angry with God, Swofford said.

Eight years ago he went to rehab and started praying.

Ive been praying ever since, Swofford said. 

…After visiting the Benedictine monastery at Belmont Abbey, he knew
hed found the right place.

Ive always said that for 27 years, I did everything that I wanted to
do, Swofford said. I decided I was going to do whatever he (God)
wanted me to do.

Most of the article is pretty good as it
discusses monastic life, but I
found this a little off.

Whats the difference between priests
and monks?
The priest celebrates mass and administers the sacrament, said Father
John Oetgen. A monk doesnt.

Well not quite.  Correct me if I
am wrong but isn’t a monk someone who lives within a community of men
within a monastery and are normally made up of both priests and
brothers. I think many monks that are priests would be a little
surprised to find out that they don’t celebrate Mass or administer the
sacraments.  I bet this is a misquote.

SACRAMENTO, CA (CNS) – Rosalind Moss,
an author who is an Eternal Word Television Network TV host and one of
the network’s radio hosts, announced Feb. 13 that she is starting a new
community of sisters in the Archdiocese of St. Louis with the
permission of Archbishop Raymond L. Burke.

The new group will be called the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel’s
Hope, she told an audience of more than 200 at the Catholic Breakfast
Club of Sacramento.

Moss, 65, said she hopes to move to St. Louis within a few months,
intends to fulfill as many of her scheduled speaking engagements in the
coming year as possible, and plans to continue her radio program from
St. Louis.

She is working now on designing a floor-length habit, along with a
basket to hold religious articles which sisters will distribute both in
the poorest areas of the city and the richest.

“The purpose of this religious community is to flood the world with
holy habits as signs to God,” said Moss, who is also a staff apologist
with Catholic Answers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting
the Catholic faith through all forms of media.

…”I want to tell the world that God hasn’t left. He is still here. We
are loved by the God who made us for himself. I want to show there is
no such thing as secular and religious. There is no division. All is
from God,” she said.

Moss said her group will be an evangelistic, teaching community
following in the spiritual tradition of St. Francis de Sales, whose
writings and sermons inspired many to convert to Catholicism. She
already has a few women who plan to join her, she added.

“I’ll come back to Sacramento one day in a habit,” said Moss. “Hold
nothing back from God.”

This is great news.  I often
listen to Rosalind Moss on Catholics Answers and she has such a deep
spirituality and a great empathy for others in being able to give them
spiritual direction.

Rich Leonardi posts on a Cincinnati
television station which reports on
the diocese there uptick in vocations.  He has links to a
video and a transcript which are well done and quite positive.
 The Archdiocese has really put a lot of emphasis on their
vocations program and Fr. Kyle Schnippel is an excellent vocations
director.

Fr. Kyle Schnippel also has a blog which I
follow called Called by Name.

John Allen Jr. in today’s daily column.

As part of a broad initiative to promote Eucharistic adoration, the Vaticans Congregation for Clergy is proposing that religious women spiritually adopt priests through prayer before the Eucharist, and, more generally, that Catholics from every corner of the world spend time before the Eucharist to pray for vocations to the priesthood in an era of priest shortages.

Concretely, the Congregation for Clergy is proposing that each diocese appoint a priest whose full-time job would be to promote Eucharistic adoration, and that special Eucharistic shrines be created that would resemble the well-known Marian shrines that dot the Catholic world.

Eucharistic adoration is a practice in which the Blessed Sacrament, meaning a consecrated host believed to be the Body of Christ, is exposed publicly for prayer and adoration. When this adoration is carried out continuously 24 hours a day, the practice is known as perpetual adoration.

The congregation also suggests that parishes, dioceses and religious orders seek donors to fund the construction of these shrines, as well as to pay for monstrances (a decorated vessel containing the consecrated host), liturgical vestments, and educational materials explaining the purpose of the devotion.

The congregation asks that Eucharistic adoration be introduced in parishes, seminaries, religious houses and other Catholic facilities. Bishops are requested to fill out a form indicating their intention to cooperate.

Consecrated women in particular are urged to “spiritually adopt priests in order to help them with their self-offering, prayer and penance” by engaging in Eucharistic adoration, following the example, Vatican officials say, of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The proposals come in a letter to all the bishops of the world, along with an accompanying leaflet outlining the project, to be released tomorrow, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The letter is signed by Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, and Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, the congregations secretary.

Hummes says the idea is to stress the ontological link between the Eucharist and the priesthood, as well as the special maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary for each priest. The initiative is styled as a response to a call from Pope Benedict XVI in his apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, released last February as the concluding document from the October 2005 Synod on the Eucharist. In that text, Benedict urged wider practice of Eucharistic adoration.

This is a great initiative and the obvious one, but it seems so often in diocesan vocations programs one that is missing. I love the idea of having someone dedicated to the promotion of Eucharistic Adoration in a diocese. Eucharistic Adoration is back on the rise, though it would be great for more parishes to offer it more frequently or even to have perpetual adoration especially under the guiding connection of the Eucharist in the priesthood. The spiritual adoption of priests by women’s religious is also nothing new as is evident by the practice of the Missionaries of Charity, Saint Therese, and many others throughout history, but it is something that needs once again to be emphasized and to be put back into wider practice. I think we should also spiritually adopt seminarians within our diocese.

One thing I find odd about John Allen’s Jr. column this time is his thinking that he has to explain Eucharist Adoration and what a monstrance is. This isn’t exactly an obscure part of Catholic teaching or practice. Though I guess maybe he knows better the audience of the National Catholic Reporter.

There is a new Norbertine Vocations blog run by the Canons Regular of Prémontré in the Canonry of Corpus Christi.

By Rebecca Howerton

One of the Catholic clergy’s newest members, Michael Cassabon of Simpsonville, said he looks forward to serving joyfully, following the example of his parents, Michael and Mary Cassabon, as well as others such as Mother Teresa, who have given their lives in service to others.

Cassabon, who was ordained July 27 in Columbia and celebrated his first mass July 29 at his home parish, St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church in Simpsonville, said he first felt the call to the priesthood during confession while he was a senior at St. Joseph’s High School.

“It was in that sacrament that I really experienced God, not as a concept but as someone who was in love with me and had a plan for me,” he said.

After studying political science at Furman for two years, Cassabon transferred to the Pontifical College Josephinum to study philosophy. He taught religion and led a campus ministry at Bishop England High School in Charleston before continuing his studies in Rome at the suggestion of the Bishop of the Diocese of Charleston, the Most Rev. Robert Baker.

Cassabon lives at the Pontifical North American College, the national American seminary in Rome, which was established in 1855 and is considered an extra-territorial part of Vatican City. He attends classes at the Pontifical Gregorian University, a Jesuit University founded in 1551 by St. Ignatius of Loyola. He received a degree in theology in 2006, and will complete another graduate degree in canon law in 2009. All of his classes — except Greek — have been taught in Italian.

“Being a priest for me means preaching the truth of God’s mercy and the reality of the resurrection in people’s lives that are so often marked by heartbreak and disappointment,” he said. “Letting them know God is there, and that He loves them, that’s where my heart is.”

…Cassabon said he and other young priests feel that by living lives of honesty and integrity they can facilitate healing in the wake of abuse scandals, while helping parishioners find the path to true fulfillment.

“We’re scandalized by it, too,” he said. “The hearts and minds of my peers are on restoring the hope, faith and trust among people. We’re also very concerned about bringing people back to the church. People are trying to fill an emptiness in their hearts with consumerism, with a frenzied search for more and more, with relationship after relationship. Nothing can bring peace and make them joyful and happy but God himself.

As for the shortage of priests, Cassabon related it to a societal fear of commitment, including reluctance to commit to a spouse.

“We also need men and women to commit to good marriages,” he said. “There’s no shortage of vocations, just a shortage of responses.”

Cassabon said that while giving up the chance to marry and have children to become a priest can be seen as a loss, it can also be viewed as a gift and gain, as the desire for family is filled in many ways by the parish family.

“It’s a timeless Christian paradox that to find life, you have to first lose it,” he said. “The responsibility and burdens are huge, but the honor of sharing in people’s lives at births, funerals, weddings, at confession, just being there for them; these are moments of extraordinary intimacy.”

Fr. Powell, OP posts on The Mistakes We Make with Priestly Vocations and what he sees of the problem of appointing Parish Life Coordinator (PLC). I think he makes some great points in that as a stop gap measure this will become something much more permanent and will do little to spur vocations. I think the danger he speaks of when priests start becoming "traveling Sacrament Machines" is not to be taken lightly.

Shouts in the Piazza displays an ad in my diocesan magazine St. Augustine Catholic.

It takes a community to raise a priest; from families who talk about vocations, to parishioners who pray for and champion religious life, to priests themselves, who through their lives of compassion and sacrice, reveal Christ’s abundant love. If you know somebody who would make a good priest, tell him. And ask him to call our Vocations Office. Your encouragement could make all the difference.

(904) 262-3200, ext 101 wwww.dosafl.com email: vocations@dosafl.com

This is a great ad. In other news my diocese is ordaining three men this month.

There is a pretty cool news story on two Palm Beach County residents choosing the monastic life via Moniales OP.

…At the same time, one of those worldly distractions – the Internet – has become a prime recruiting tool for religious orders, with Web sites for religious orders, FAQs, vocation blogs and “come see” weekends for the curious.

Sister Diana Marie gravitated toward the religious groups that had Web sites and away from those with no online presence.

“One convent, it took up to a month for the novice mistress to contact me. It was just too slow,” she said.

Many of Angela Rivieccio’s belongings still reside in her mother’s Boynton Beach house, in suspended animation until the day when she takes her final vows as a Dominican nun.

Angela Rivieccio became a novice, Sister Diana Marie of the Most Blessed Sacrament, on Feb. 11, joining the 801-year-old religious order called the Nuns of the Order of Preachers, founded by St. Dominic.

Among the abandoned belongings is her collection of “Star Trek” books, a remnant of her childhood.

“That’s like a whole lifetime ago,” she said with a laugh. “It’s dropped off my radar screen.”

The other story is about a retired parish priest Seamus Malvey (sounds like a character name in a Flannery O’Connor novel) who entered the Cistertian Abbey of Gethsemani made famous by Fr. Thomas Merton.

A friend of a reader made this remix using a song from Kutless. For myself I prefer the original, but making it into a music video works pretty well also.