FYI

I'll be on Christmas Break until January 12th. I hope to be back soon and share stories from my adventures in Kentucky.
Until then,
Peace,
P~

Retreat at King's House

Here are some pictures I took while on retreat with the brothers at King's House Retreat and Renewal Center, Belleville, IL. To learn more, see:

http://www.kingsretreatcenter.org/

Tomorrow's Jane Austen Day!

Since I am going on retreat today, I thought I would post something about Jane Austen. Tomorrow, I and Jane Austen fans around the world, mark the Birthday of this incredible literary genius. I was first introduced to the world of Jane Austen through the BBC's production of Emma. The very next day I went in search of the novel at the public library. I had read all of the novels, I believe, by the time I graduated high school, and reread basically one a year. I think I'm going to reread Northanger Abbey, next.
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Here is a selection from one of Jane Austen's prayers:
"Above all other blessings O God, for ourselves, and our fellow-creatures, we implore thee to quicken our sense of thy Mercy in the redemption of the world, of the value of that Holy Religion in which we have been brought up, that we may not, by our own neglect, throw away the salvation thou hast given us, nor be Christians only in name. Hear us Almighty God, for His sake who has redeemed us, and taught us thus to pray...[The Our Father follows]"
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May everyone's Jane Austen Day (December 16th) be full of blessings. Thanks be to God.
P~

The St. Luke Book Club meets English Living

Once again the St. Luke Book Club gathered at the wonderful London Tea Room on Washington St. in downtown St. Louis. We were a divided group, somewhat, over Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

When Nick heard the premise of the story--a story about a middle school teacher in Scotland during the late thirties--he thought for sure the novel would be a dud. Instead, he enjoyed it a lot, and was one of the most animate speakers during the meeting.

Luke, on the other hand, did not enjoy the novel, and found that he couldn't finish it.

Just as with Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray we were confronted with characters that were all rather dysfunctional. The novel was distinctly modern in design, flashing back and forth in time, focusing on this character, then anther. This put some readers off.

During our meeting, we enjoyed the Tea Room's great selection of teas, sandwiches, and pastries. John-Paul, Jen, and I shared a pot of plumb flavored tea. I had a golden raisin scone, as well.

Then after the meeting, we took time to explore the English Living furniture store that's attached to the Tea Room. We found some great items. I think we would all agree that the expandable table was the coolest thing in the store. I have two pictures of it above, showing the two sizes. It's designed so that which ever size that it's folded to, the pattern of the wood matches perfectly.

I highly recommend the London Tea Room and the English Living furniture store to local St. Louisans or tourists to the area. The websites are:
http://www.englishliving.com/

http://www.thelondontearoom.com/

They're both located at 1520 Washington Ave.

***

This last picture is taken from just down the street. I was told it's part of the children's museum.

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Anyway, I'm finally done with all of my exams and papers! I feel alive again.

Thanks for the prayers,

your brother,

P~
PS: The next book on the book club reading list is Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood. (Can't we read something a little more normal, like Sense and Sensibility?

Pray for me!

As you can tell from the picture above, I'm swimming in words. I think I am ready to finally start planning what I'm going to write, tonight. Six pages today, six tomorrow, and I should be finished with the last project of the semester.
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As a break, I'll be returning to the London Tea Room for the December book club meeting. We're discussion Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I'll be sure to fill everyone in on the insights that we come up with.
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Peace,
Br. Paul, OP~

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Many blessings, today, as we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. God is glorious in his saints, especially the Virgin Mary who, now that she is in heaven, has not forgotten the needs of God's children on earth.
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Please pray for me as I try to finish my last paper. This one is on the Spiritual Autobiography of St. Ignatius of Loyola. It's for my Ignatian Spirituality class. I hope to show how Ignatius tried to imitate St. Francis and St. Dominic, based on what he knew about them from The Golden Legend.
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Peace,
Br. Paul, OP~

Etty Hillesum

I've been really fortunate this semester to have read works by a wide-range of thinkers. One of the most touching and insightful of these writers has been Etty Hillesum. Etty Hillesum lived in the Netherlands, and was eventually murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, because of her Jewish ancestry. During the last two years of her life, she kept a journal of her thoughts, particularly about her relationship with a man named Julius Spier, a mentor, friend, and lover, and her developing relationship with God. Etty was influenced by Spier and her reading of works such as the poetry of Rilke, the novels of Dostoevsky, and the Gospels. In the face of the very worst of human hatred, Etty was able to find inner peace through a refusal to reciprocate that hate. As such, her work, entitled An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork deserve our attention. Below are some of my favorite quotes from her work. I hope you enjoy.

"Unless every smallest detail in your daily life is in harmony with the high ideals you profess, then those ideals have no meaning." (p114)

"I imagine that there are people who pray with their eyes turned heavenward. They seek God outside themselves. And there are those who bow their head and bury it in their hands. I think that these seek God inside." (p44)

"Perhaps my purpose in life is to come to grips with myself, properly to grips with myself, with everything that bothers and tortures me and clamors for inner solution and formulation. For these problems are not just mine alone. And if at the end of a long life I am able to give some form to the chaos inside me, I may well have fulfilled my own small purpose." (p36)

"What needs eradicating is the evil in man, not man himself." (p86)

"God, do not let me dissipate my strength, not the least little bit of strength, on useless hatred against these soldiers. Let me save my strength for better things." (p109)

"God, I try to look things straight in the face, even the worst crimes, and to discover the small, naked human being amid the monstrous wreckage caused by man's senseless deeds." (p134)

"I love people so terribly, because in every human being I love something of You [God]. And I seek you everywhere in them and often do find something of You." (p198)

"You have placed me before Your ultimate mystery [death], oh God. I am grateful to You for that, I even have the strength to accept it and to know there is no answer. That we must be able to bear Your mysteries." (p199)

"'After this war, two torrents will be unleashed on the world: a torrent of loving-kindness and a torrent of hatred.' And then I knew: I should take the field against hatred." (p208)

"Klaas, all I really wanted to say is this: we have so much work to do on ourselves that we shouldn't even be thinking of hating our so-called enemies. We are hurtful enough to one another as it is...It is the only thing we can do, Klaas, I see no alternative, each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others. And remember that every atom of hate we add to this world makes it still more inhospitable." When Klaas makes the objection that this sounds like Christianity, Etty says: "Yes, Christianity, and why ever not?" (pp211-212)

"And I also believe, childishly perhaps but stubbornly, that the earth will become more habitable again only through the love that the Jew Paul described to the citizens of Corinth in the thirteenth chapter of his first letter." (p256)

"I have broken my body like bread and shared it out among men. And why not, they were hungry and had gone without for so long." (p230)

I have presented here a very lopsided, perhaps pious selection from Etty Hillesum's work. The truth is, she, like all saints, was complicated. She was only twenty-seven when the journal begins, and we get to see her work out her confusion, anxiety, etc. in the course of her writing. Her relationships with men are passionate, but confused. She, in short, is not perfect. At the same time, we get to see her come to know God---truly know his truth, and we hear her preach it (as above), and live it. She died in Auschwitz on November 30th, 1943, a year after St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (a Jewish-Catholic), and two years after St. Maximillian Kolbe.

May we learn from Jesus Christ and his saints---Love at all costs.
Br. Paul, OP

New Miracles, New Saints

Once again, I'm happy to report that the Vatican has approved of miracles that will clear the way for a number of blesseds to be canonized as saints. Two of them of particular interest for me are Blessed Francis Coll Guitart, OP, and Bl. Jeanne Jugan (Marie of the Cross).

Bl. Francis single-handedly kept the Dominican Order going during the late 19th Century in areas of France and Spain (due to wars, religious orders had been suppressed). Bl. Francis had also founded a group of Dominican teaching sisters.

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As for Bl. Jeanne Jugan, I cannot say enough. She is the foundress of that wonderful congregation, the Little Sisters of the Poor. Despite being pushed aside as recognized foundress and leader of the congregation, Bl. Jeanne persevered in her vocation, humbly living among the other sisters at the mother house. The novice sisters, if I remember correctly, had no idea that it was Jeanne (Sr. Marie of the Cross) who had founded the congregation. Fr. La Pailleur, who was supposed to be a help to Bl. Jeanne, betrayed her, and took over the leadership for himself, and took all the credit for the good work the congregation was doing.

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Fortunately, the truth came to light, and Bl. Jeanne has been beloved ever since, as a woman of heroic virtues, especially charity and humility. Having worked with the Little Sisters during my own novitiate in Denver, I celebrate the Vatican's approval of the needed miracle, and look forward to Mother Jugan's canonization.

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As for me? I am currently working on the second to last paper. This one is on gender and God. Can Christians call God she and mother? I look at texts from scripture that support feminine imagery for God, then move into feminist theology and the dangers of deconstructing traditional images, but resolve the issue with looking at Bl. Julian of Norwich's writings, which happily marry the traditional images of God with the concept of God, namely Jesus, as mother.

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All for now,

Br. Paul, OP~

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas, one of the most beloved of all the saints. This morning, we friars woke up to find little stockings on our doors filled with candy. The tradition of getting gifts on this day was new to me when I joined the Order. Coming from a Pentecostal family, we did not have this custom.
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In the preaching for this day, Fr. Dominic related some terrific stories of St. Nicholas. Two related to Nicholas's love and protection of children. One, however, came from the Council of Nicaea. According to the story, Arius was addressing the assembly. Apparently, he was speaking his typical heresy, part of which related to the relationship of the persons of the Holy Trinity. For example, Arius believed there was a time was Jesus, the Divine Logos, did not exist, and that Jesus and the Father were not "one in being". As St. Nicholas listened to Arius speaking, he grew piously indignant, and crossed the room to slap Arius across the face. There was a law, unfortunately, that said that no one may strike another in the presence of the emperor, so St. Nicholas was taken away. The guards stripped him of his bishop's clothes and put him in chains. Sure enough, however, Our Lord and his Blessed Mother came to visit him, asking wherefore he was in chains and without his proper episcopal garb. Nicholas explained, and at that, Christ gave to him a copy of the Holy Gospels, and Our Lady gave him new vestments. If you look at the icon above, you will see this represented.
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We pray, today, especially for children, that they will be safe and delivered from all harm, especially the sin of sexual exploitation and abuse.
St. Nicholas, pray for us!
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Br. Paul, OP~

Almost There

I can finally take a breath and write for fun again! I have been in the thick of the end of the semester, and so have had to stop doing many of the little things in order to focus on meeting deadlines. Yesterday alone I had to turn in two papers, which came to 27 pages. 10 of those pages were on Jihad and Islamic Just War Policy. The remainder were on Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas's theories on the possibility that world is eternal. (Avicenna thought that it was eternal [which upset other Muslim thinkers], while Aquinas argued reason alone could not prove that it wasn't [which upset other Christian thinkers].) Last night was the first in a very long time that I actually got 8 full hours of sleep. I still have two papers to go, along with take-home exams, but at least I've gotten some things out of the way. Three of my classes are actually over now, so I'll have more time to work on the other things, as well.

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I just really liked the picture to the above. I think the title is "the Pelt Merchant of Cairo." It's by Jean-Leon Gerome.

~I hope to write more soon.

Br. Paul, OP~