RBWords - Volume 29 - Number 6: June 2016
Something to Think About
RBWORDS - VOLUME 29 - NUMBER 6 - JUNE 2017
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT - As I write this, I am in a suburb of Chicago called Lemont, at a retirement village sponsored by a Franciscan congregation of women. There are laity and sisters living here. I am here to preach two retreats for the Sisters of St. Casimir, a congregation founded early in the 20th century in this country to teach the children of Lithuanian immigrants. They eventually went into health care as well which expanded their boundaries but they suffered the same diminishment after Vatican II that other congregations did and now there are less than 60 of them (at their peak they were about 350) with no members younger than 60. In a graduated care retirement village one can see all the stages of advanced aging. The only younger people are staff or visitors.
The residents receive wonderful care. I am sure that it comes at a hefty cost. The current controversy over the health care legislation adds to the worries of residents and care-takers as well. I think of all those who could not possibly afford the kind of care given here at Franciscan Village and wonder what will happen to them under the new legislation (if it passes). Since my own religious order has us Friars go on Medicare/Medicaid at 66 years of age (I am 74), I cannot help but wonder how my own advancing age will be cared for. We all have a lot of praying to do since there are those whose concern for the financial cost (legitimate as it may be) may outweigh the human cost. Compassion appears to have a price in that kind of thinking. I am not alone in voicing this. A vast array of caregivers and care receivers is involved and worried. A vote in the Senate is coming soon. The House version is as difficult and it has already passed. Lots of prayers to be said. IT'S SOMETHING TO THINK (AND PRAY) ABOUT.
SCHEDULES AND EVENTS - June has been a very busy month. I had two parish missions near Lubbock in Woodrow and Littlefield, TX, followed by a trip to Houston for ordinations to diaconate and priesthood for our province (one each). I know both of those young brothers well. One of them did a pastoral year at Holy Rosary in Houston while I was prior of the house, and the other (Deacon) spent a pastoral year in Lubbock. I went from Houston up to Lufkin, TX, to the monastery of the cloistered Dominican nuns to take the place of the chaplain for three days and then returned to Lubbock in time to pack for my trip here to Illinois.
July will find me preaching the second retreat here in Lemont. I will return on July 8 to Lubbock and help cover our university parish while the pastor and associate will be both out of town. No further trips outside the diocese are anticipated until my annual pilgrimage to Oregon on August 28th.
IT HAS BEEN SAID - "Thus the task of the prophetic preacher and prophetic community is not only to give language to grief but also to rekindle hope. By retelling the gospel story in light of present conflicts, the prophetic preacher invites the community to reembrace the power and freedom of their baptism. If we are a culture that denies death, we are even more reluctant to believe in the power of resurrection: the power of God to bring life out of death. If the resurrection is possible, then all of reality holds a possibility beyond human control or imagination - God's possibility."
From: NAMING GRACE - PREACHING AND THE SACRAMENTAL IMAGINATION by Mary Catharine Hilkert, O.P.
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