I have a new job that I am excited about! I have just begun my commitment to journey along with the men in the Pre-Theology program of Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio as they pray, study, and try to discern if God is calling them to priesthood or perhaps to religious life. There are currently 57 young men in the program and the campus has about 2,500 young people all here because of their love for Jesus and the Catholic faith.

Please keep us in your prayers!

Sing a New Song!

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, known as the Little Flower, was a girl who was attracted to Jesus at a young age, fell completely in love with Him during her days as a Carmelite sister, and lived her short life of 24 years only to love Him and serve Him. Early on, Thérèse got discouraged whenever she read long treatises or complicated spiritual documents that promised a plan for getting closer to Christ.

Paraphrasing her words, she said: “I’m too little for any of those fancy ideas. I’m like a little toddler just starting to take her first steps. I look up and there I see my Mommy at the top of a large staircase. I want nothing more than to run to Mommy but I can’t even walk yet. So I try to lift my little leg to climb the first step and I fall back down and cry. But Jesus (who is my Mommy at the top of the stairs) sees me trying to lift my little leg and comes running down the stairs to pick me up and take me to Himself. He comes, picks me up in His arms, and dries my tears. All I have to do is try to take a step and He comes to me out of love, He does all the rest.”

Once as a little girl, Thérèse found a finch, a tiny bird that had fallen from its nest and couldn’t fly. She took it home and placed it in the same cage as her pet canary. As the new bird got stronger and stronger, she tried to sing. But the finch’s song is not like the canary’s, and so just a few peeps came out. Each day the canary would sing her beautiful song and the young finch would listen and then try to imitate it. Eventually, to Thérèse’s surprise, the finch succeeded! She learned to sing like the canary. She had listened and tried to imitate the other bird’s song for so long, that it became her song too.

Thérèse would say, this is what we must do with Jesus. Just stay close to Jesus each day, listen closely to the music He makes, and try to imitate it. In time we’ll find that the song of His heart has become our song as well.

Wow...this is the Truth!

Love Anyway

Mother Teresa said:
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway!
If you are kind, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway!
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and real enemies.
Succeed anyway!
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway!
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway!
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway!
People really need help but may attack you if you try to help them.
Help them anyway!
Give the world your best and it will hurt you.
Give your best anyway!

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

Hey Baby!

Christmas past: As I was coming home by plane one December, I settled in my seat and was praying. I had my eyes closed and was lost in thoughts of God. At one point, I got the strange sensation that God was watching me pray. The thought made my smile, God felt so close.

Eventually, I opened my eyes and was startled to see a baby there! There she was, little one year old Victoria, in her mother’s arms in the seat in front of me, resting on her mother’s shoulder, and staring right at me with a tiny smile. With a big pink ribbon in the few strands of hair she had and an adorably chubby face looking up at me, Victoria made me wonder:

Does God look at us through the eyes of others? Does God do that? If He wanted an unclouded vision of world, would God find one by looking around at the world through the eyes of a baby? I’d never had a reflection like that before, God peeking out at me, delighting in me, through a child.

It was a reflection that led me to think about Christmas. Why does God choose Incarnation? Why does He choose to enter our world in little Jesus, a flesh and blood, tiny baby?

As I thought about it, I imagined that at least part of the reason is to reveal what His love for us is really all about. When you think about it, God’s love really is, in a sense, very child-like. It is undiscriminating. It is for everybody. A little baby, like Victoria, loves you no matter what you do, and just thinks you’re wonderful.

A baby doesn’t judge. Leaning over the crib of a new baby, we can do no wrong. Their innocence inspires us to do silly things, make goofy faces and noises because we know that they will love every minute of it, they will never reject us, they will see only good in us, and delight in us.

Kind of like God does.

God delights in us. He chooses to look at us even now with the eyes of child. He never gets cynical, never gives up on us. He chooses to see the best, to hope for the best, to call us to the best and He invites us to do the same with others.

May God give us all the eyes of a child, to look for and to delight in the good that surrounds us each day. Have a blessed Advent and Christmas season!

"Listen" by Michelle Tumes

What was Saint Francis all about?

Here are a few talks I've given on Franciscan Spirituality. Click on the link once then wait a few seconds:
A Story Spirituality

Love for the Cross

Franciscan Discernment

Saint Bonaventure

photo of St. Bonaventure (standing) and St. Francis