UKRAINE JOURNALS - A PRIEST AND A CHILD

Two new books, which give new perspectives on the war in the Ukraine are by a young pre-teen who experienced invasion first-hand, and a priest who saw the Ukraine in peaceful times, but presaged what is happening today.  I highly recommend these thin journals, which will take no time to read, but will leave the reader with much to ponder.

“As we reflected on our experience in Ukraine, I felt a deep desire to stay faithful to the Ukrainian people and to keep choosing not just for the individual poor, who need support, but also for the country that is so clearly marginalized in the family of nations.”

In 1993-94, HENRI NOUWEN, the Dutch-born priest and spiritual writer, made two trips to recently-independent Ukraine. There he led retreats, observed the resurgence of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, and connected with local communities working with handicapped adults. These trips were deeply significant to Father Nouwen. And yet the full meaning of his observations may only now become clear. At the time of his sudden death in 1996, he was planning to spend a semester at the school now known as Ukrainian Catholic University.

With extraordinary insight, he identified in Ukraine certain spiritual and moral qualities struggling to assert themselves—exactly the qualities, almost thirty years later, that the Ukrainian people are displaying in their struggle for freedom and independence. He found a people hungry for hope and healing, in need of the life-giving message he most wanted to share: that we are all “beloved of God,” and that God’s love meets us where we are most hurt, weak, and vulnerable.

Read today, Father Nouwen’s previously unpublished work is like a time capsule, a message from the past with special meaning for today. In an introduction by Borys Gudziak, Archbishop-Metropolitan for the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, he notes: “This modest, seemingly simple book about a visit to a distant land is in fact a subtle tale of how encounter genuinely and radically changes the lives of people.” In his moving afterword, Nouwen’s brother Laurent Nouwen describes how for twenty-five years after Henri’s death he continued an outreach of solidarity and service to the people of Ukraine through the Henri Nouwen Foundation.

Father Henri J. M. Nouwen, who died in 1996, spent the last ten years of his life as the chaplain to the L’Arche Daybreak community in Ontario, Canada. The author of many spiritual classics, his Orbis books include Adam: God’s Beloved, With Burning Hearts: A Meditation on the Eucharistic Life, Peacework, The Selfless Way of Christ, ¡Gracias!, and Community.

The second journal is by a young survivor of the war in Ukraine, as told through her diary entries, which she started just days before her country’s invasion in February of 2022. It is an inspiring memoir of resilience, in face of war and is ultimately a story of survival and hope..

YEVA SKALIETSKA’s  story begins on her twelfth birthday in Kharkiv, where she has been living with her grandmother since she was a baby, when her parents separated. Ten days later, the only life she had ever known was shattered. Her city was suddenly under attack as Russia launched its  invasion of Ukraine. Yeva and her grandmother took shelter in a basement bunker, where she began writing this diary. 

She describes the bombings she endured while sheltering underground and her desperate journey west to escape the conflict raging around them. Learning that her childhood home was in tatters, she became depressed. The attack on her home was, for her, an attack on a piece of her.  As she writes: “There were such memories there! Our Italian furniture, our fancy dinner sets, the glass table. All those memories blown to bits. Tears are streaming down my face, and that’s only a fraction of my sorrow. I don’t care as much about the things themselves as much as I do the memories they held.”

Yeva also mourns the loss of her city. She writes that “Kharkiv has loads of beautiful places. The city center, the Shevchenko City Garden, the zoo, and Gorky Park… There is a beautifully paved street that leads up to Derzhprom, a group of tall buildings in Freedom Square. And whenever Granny and I need to soothe our souls, we visit the Svyato-Pokrovs’kyy Monastery.”

There is an endless train ride west across Ukraine, to the border city of Uzhorod. The frightening uncertainty of what is ahead is balanced by the kindness of strangers who help them along the way. 

By day nine of the war, as Yeva and her grandmother are leaving the train in Uzhorod trying to figure out what to do next, she encounters Flavian, a reporter from a British TV station. Flavian and Paraic, an Irish reporter working for Channel 4, undoubtedly picked Yeva out of the stream of arriving displaced persons because she is photogenic and can speak English. They feature her in a news story and then help Yeva and her grandmother on their way. Eventually, they will support Yeva in publishing her diary.

After many endless train rides and a prolonged stay in an overcrowded refugee center in Western Ukraine, Yeva and her beloved grandmother eventually find refuge in Ireland. There, she bravely begins to forge a new life, hoping she’ll be able to return home one day.

“My goal was to put my experiences into writing so that ten or twenty years from now, I could read this and remember how my childhood was destroyed." 

                                                        Photo: Ger Holland

CHANGE OF HEART - PADRE PIO

 

I remember years ago, when my brother was still alive, visiting their palatial home in Orange County (CA).  It was tastefully and expensively decorated.  In a niche in the great room, was a beautiful alabaster statue of Our Lady and next to her a smaller statue of Padre Pio. I remember thinking, he is not my kind of saint, but then I am not Italian like my sister-in-law.

 Many years down the line, I saw the movie "PADRE PIO”  which was made for Italian TV in two parts. When the film premiered on 17 April 2000, the film was watched by over 11 million people. The second episode was watched by over 12 million people, or about 45.63% of all television viewers in Italy.

Sergio Castellitto plays the saint and Jurgen Prochnow the Apostolate Visitator, who has been sent by the Pope to find the truth regarding the man of God.  The Cardinal is a taunting skeptic in the beginning but leaves with his life changed. 

Saturday is the feast of  this saint, so I highly recommend that you watch this movie. It is over three hours long, but worth every minute and maybe like this Anglo-Saxon, you too may have a change of heart!

                                       My favorite prayer of St. Padre Pio

Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need Your strength, that I may not fall so often. Stay with me, Lord, for You are my life, and without You, I am without meaning and hope.

Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light, and without You, I am in darkness.

Stay with me, Lord, to show me Your will.

Stay with me, Lord, so that I can hear Your voice and follow You.

Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love You ever more, and to be always in Your company.

Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be always faithful to You.

Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is, I wish it to be a place of consolation for You, a dwelling of Your love.

Stay with me, Jesus, for it is getting late; the days are coming to a close and life is passing. Death, judgement and eternity are drawing near. It is necessary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way, for that I need You. It is getting late and death approaches. I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows. O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile!

Stay with me, Jesus, because in the darkness of life, with all its dangers, I need You. Help me to recognize You as Your disciples did at the Breaking of the Bread, so that the Eucharist Communion be the light which disperses darkness, the power which sustains me, the  unique joy of my heart.

Stay with me, Lord, because at the hour of my death I want to be one with You, and if not by Communion, at least by Your grace and love.

Stay with me, Jesus, I do not ask for divine consolations because I do not deserve them, but I only ask for the gift of Your Presence. Oh yes! I ask this of You.

Stay with me, Lord, for I seek You alone, Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit, because I love You and I ask for no other reward but to love You more and more, with a strong active love.

Grant that I may love You with all my heart while on earth, so that I can continue to love you perfectly throughout all eternity, dear Jesus.  Amen

MONASTIC SPIRITUAL GRANDMOTHER

 

Although her contributions are often overlooked in most historical accounts of the liturgical movement, she  gave monastic life a distinctively contemplative and liturgical spirituality very relevant in today's world. She could be called our spiritual Grandmother!

MERE CECILE BRUYERE, OSB  was the first abbess of St. Cecilia's Abbey, Solesmes  and a follower of Dom Prosper Guéranger in the revival of Benedictine spirituality in 19th century France.

She was born in 1845 as Jeanne-Henriette Bruyère (Jenny),  into awell-to-do French bourgeoise family.

Her grandfathers were the architect and engineer Louis Bruyère and  the architect Jacques-Marie Huvé. Her family lived at Sablé-sur-Sarthe.

Her mother’s family owned a country house by the sea that they visited near the Abbey of Solesmes, and Dom Prosper Guéranger’s (founder of Solesmes Abbey and the reviver of the French Benedictine tradition) influence spread over the family as he converted and married many of its members and became pastorally involved in their lives.

When Jenny came down with a fever and was unable to make her First Communion (shades of my own First Communion), her aunt asked Dom Guéranger to personally prepare her, thus beginning a relationship of spiritual direction and  friendship that would continue for the rest of their lives. Jenny did not have a docile character, and was often described as proud, stubborn, and prone to bouts of anger and scrupulosity. Yet she changed when she came into contact as a young girl with Dom  Guéranger.

In 1866, with Dom Guéranger's support, she founded the first women's house within his French Benedictine Congregation (now the Solesmes Congregation). The new monastery was dedicated to Saint Cecilia because of Dom Guéranger's devotion to her. She took the name Cécile as her confirmation name in 1858, and kept the same name in religious life. Jenny as a child had always desired to be called by that name, after her maternal grandmother. 

Although Dom Guéranger never intended to initiate a women’s foundation to Solesmes, he perceived Mere Cecile's spiritual charism of leadership among a group of lay women involved in apostolic work called “The Great Catechism.” In 1866, these women gradually formed a sort of pre-novitiate under  Dom Guéranger’s direction.

Dom  Guéranger formed them in a liturgical spirituality that was largely absent in women’s cloistered  life at the time: how to pronounce the Latin well, sing Gregorian chant, and understand the rubrics of the Mass. He instructed them on how to live their monastic life with the Divine Office, the feasts of the liturgical year and the saints, and the Rule of Benedict. He also helped raise  funds to further develop the fledgling foundation on a more permanent structure on a hill a few minutes walk from Solesmes.

Although St. Cecilia's was still only a priory, Mere Cécile  was named abbess of the new foundation at the age of 24 by Pope Pius IX in June 1870. This may have been a gesture of thanks towards Dom Guéranger for his great support to the Pope at the First Vatican Council in favor of the recently proclaimed dogma of Papal infallibility.

Mere Cécile, with the support of Dom Guéranger, wrote the monastery's constitutions, which were influential even beyond her own monastery. Today we have some of these in our own traditions, such as the long-forgotten rite of the consecration of virgins (which had fallen into disuse by the 15th century),  the re-establishment of the office of abbess with its symbols (the ring, the pectoral cross and the crozier).

In reviving the rite of the consecration of virgins, the Abbey of St. Cecile started a precedent among monastic orders that spread and was later recommended by Pius XII’s apostolic constitution Sponsa Christi as “one of the most beautiful monuments of the ancient liturgy.”

Her nuns, in accordance with the thought of Dom Guéranger and the Congregation he established, learned Latin and Gregorian chant, which was exceptional at that time. This remains the practice of the abbey and of the Solesmes Congregation and within our own congregation.

Mere Cecile  had a dynamism, liveliness, humor, simplicity, and attentiveness to details. She gave pride of place to the Office and joyful recreation, always reminding the nuns of the essentials in the spiritual life: “If you are in need of a good word, open your breviary, your Old Testament, your psalms; therein is our spiritual direction, and it is guaranteed by the Holy Spirit; we do not have need, as elsewhere, of so many spiritual directors.” 

Rueing that Catholics viewed scripture as a remote “museum-piece”, she revived the ancient monastic practice of lectio divina, a meditative, prayerful “chewing” on the Word of God which sees the Word as a profound source of spiritual nourishment. 

In reading her life, I am so often reminded of our own foundress, Lady Abbess Benedicta Duss, OSB, who obviously learned at the feet of this great woman, through her own early years in the ancient French monastery of Jouarre.

Under Mere Cecile's direction, the abbey grew in influence and was viewed as a model of Benedictine life, leading to the establishment of two other foundations in her lifetime.

Sadly, the French anti-religious laws of the early 20th century forced the whole community into exile in England, to the forerunner of the present St. Cecilia's Abbey, Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, where on 18 March 1909 Mere Cécile died.

When the community was at last able to return to Solesmes, in 1921, her body was also transported and re-buried there.

Mere Cécile's spiritual thought and teaching, entirely inherited from Dom Guéranger but presented with the benefit of many years' experience in Benedictine life and meditation, is well summarised in her book La vie spirituelle et l'oraison, d'après la Sainte Ecriture et la tradition monastique, reprinted many times and translated into several languages. In this she explains the primary importance of the liturgy in the religious life in developing the specific grace arising from the sacrament of baptism. In 2019, an English translation of this work was available.

Above photo- Mere Cecile Bruyere (on right)  with Mere Cecile de Hemptinne, first abbess of St. Scholastica’s Abbey at Maredret, Belgium, a few miles from the Abbey of Maredsous.  She was the aunt of Dom Pius de Hemptinne (see Blog  10/13/2017)

DRESSED IN GREEN

More and more the Church is taking a strong stance on stewardship of our earth. Our past three popes have had much to say in this.  Pope Francis is generally regarded as a pope who has made great strides in promoting environmental stewardship writing the encyclical, “Laudato Si” which states that a paradigm shift is needed as we must be neither exploiters of nature, nor worshipers of it. We need to change structures as well as a change hearts with a return to ethics and moral realism, seeing a connection between social issues and environmental issues. 

“In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of God’s gifts! Whenever human beings fail to live up to this responsibility, whenever we fail to care for creation and for our brothers and sisters, the way is opened to destruction and hearts are hardened.” 

But his predecessor, Pope Benedict, has been called the “Green Pope”  as he was the one who laid the groundwork and was extremely vocal on the importance of being a faithful steward of creation.

 “The deterioration of nature is in fact closely connected to the culture that shapes human coexistence: when ‘human ecology’ is respected within society, environmental ecology also benefits.” Pope Benedict XVI

We must also remember  Pope Saint John Paul II had much to say on this issue: “The earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.”    

We all know how much the outdoors and nature meant to this saintly pope and throughout his 27-year papacy he was very vocal in this urgent matter. Speaking in 2001, he said: “If we scan the regions of our planet, we immediately see that humanity has disappointed God’s expectations. Man, especially in our time, has without hesitation devastated wooded plains and valleys, polluted waters, disfigured the earth’s habitat, made the air unbreathable . . . We must therefore encourage and support the ‘ecological conversion’ which in recent decades has made humanity more sensitive to the catastrophe to which it has been heading.”

For the feast of ST. HILDEGARD this year- not liturgically celebrated due to being on Sunday- I want to give some more of her insights in our care of land and nature, which she gave us over 900 years ago.

St. Hildegard’s passion for the natural world and her cognisance of our place in it, makes her so relevant in our crises today. She felt an understanding of nature, helped us better understand ourselves and the planet which has been given to us. She saw the spiritual kinship between us and the earth: “The soul is a breath of the living spirit, and with excellent sensitivity, permeates the entire body to give it life. Just so, the breath of the air makes the earth fruitful. Thus the air is the soul of the earth, moistening it, greening it.”

She made it clear that we are not separate from nature, but an intimate part of it. She saw God in all creation. “Every creature is a glittering, glistening mirror of divinity.”

 For St. Hildegard the earth was sacred. “The Earth sweats geminating power from its very pores,” she told her nuns. She asked them to pay close attention to the rhythms of nature, because it holds the secret to our physical well-being and to the vitality of our inner life. She urged the community to become partners with the natural world, saying: “Humankind is called to co-create, so that we might cultivate the earthly, and thereby create the heavenly.” 

St. Hildegard saw the necessity of working cooperatively with nature to create heaven on earth, a concenpt in direct opposition to our present dilemma of climate change, failing ecosystems and extinctions of species, all of which has put us on a path of destruction.

God desires
that all the world
be pure in his sight.
The earth should not be injured.
The earth should not be destroyed.

From St. Hildegard, 900 years ago to our modern Popes we have been shown the way.  God help us to act on it!

From the artist Daniel Mitsui:

Here, I drew the saint wearing a golden crown adorned with an Agnus Dei and three crosses; rings; and a white veil. These items were worn on feast days by the sisters at Rupertsberg, a realization of one of Hildegard’s visions recorded in Scivias.

I drew her wearing a green habit; this refers to the concept of viriditas, a spiritual greenness that she constantly evoked in both her theological and scientific writings.

The inscription in my drawing includes several words in her invented language (lingua ignota): it reads Ziuienz Hildegardis Vrizoil Falschin, or Saint Hildegard, Virgin and Seer.

MADRE of HONDURAS

For years, one of our Benedictine Oblates has traveled to Honduras with a mission group to minister to the poor in remote areas of that country.  Due to the political situation, which has dragged on for many years, the trip can be dangerous and often soldiers have to escort the group.  Sometimes they encounter revoltutionaries, yet all they have to do is mention the name of one nun and they have free passage.

 Lorene Ivanca has on several occasions worked with this holy nun and always had great stories of the encounters in her native land and the many children she was helping.  Having only died last year, she is already being considered for canonization.

"I began going to Honduras in about 2002-2003. I have been going every year, except for the COVID pandemic. (Missed 3 years?)

We work with Sister Maria Rosa and SAN. We help out with building projects, working with the children in the orphanages, water projects in the villages, and medical brigades out in the remote areas. 

Teams come from St. Charles Borromeo in Tacoma (medical brigades) and St. Stephens Parish in Renton, teams from Cleveland (Water Brigade).

We take doctors, nurses, lab technician, and worker bees with us to San Pedro Azulu. We go out to five different villages, one per day, during the week that we are there for the medical brigades. We have been trying to go to the same villages each trip, as conditions allow. We have been keeping medical records on the villagers and have been able to see that our brigades have made a difference.

We work with Friends of Honduran Children and Hope for Honduran Children.

Several years ago, Dr. Bill and five others, decided to go to another part of Honduras up on the NW coast, where we felt there was a greater need for the mountain people." (Lorene Ivanka)

SISTER MARIA ROSA LEGGOL, O.S.F., was a Franciscan sister who has been called the "Mother Teresa of Honduras", which she hated. In the 1960s, she organized a group of homes to care for the abandoned and deprived children of that nation, which became organized as the Sociedad Amigos de los Niños (SAN). Through the organization, she educated over 80,000 orphans across fifty years.

 María Rosa Leggol was born in 1926 in Puerto Cortés, Honduras, a major port of Central America. After her French Canadian father abandoned her family before her first birthday, her native mother placed her in an orphanage, where she spent her childhood. At the age of six, she encountered two School Sisters of St. Francis,  the congregation which she would later join. Having never seen religious sisters before, she asked a local Catholic priest about the women. Once he had explained the idea of consecrated life to her, Maria Rosa immediately determined that it was the life she wished to follow. Later, at the age of nine, she prayed to the Blessed Virgin Mary to help her locate those sisters so she could begin her new life. As she left the church, she spotted a train arriving with two School Sisters of St. Francis on board.

Maria Rosa grew to know the School Sisters of St. Francis, who had come from Germany to serve in Honduras, and repeatedly sought to enter the congregation. However, because she only had five years of formal education, the sisters were hesitant to accept her. After much effort and perseverance, she was accepted in 1948 at the age of 21. They brought her to the United States to begin her formation in the novitiate of their American province, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

After her profession, Sister María Rosa was sent back to Honduras and assigned to work in a hospital in the capital, Tegucigalpa. Assigned as the night shift supervisor,  she developed a reputation as a committed caregiver. As a former orphan, she was especially concerned for the city's poorest children, many of whom had jailed parents. Since entire families were frequently imprisoned, children would be left without education and exposed to potential abuse.

By the early 1960s, Sister María Rosa decided that she would need to start a movement that could effectively aid local children. While still working at night, she began using her daytime hours to seek locations for a home for the children. After identifying a neighborhood designated as low-income housing, she registered for 10 homes without any personal assets. She obtained the permission of the Provincial Superior in Milwaukee to proceed with the project, but failed to advise the Mother Superior of her convent about it. Only when the developer called the convent, seeking the down payment for the houses, did the Superior learn about the plan, at which point she made it clear to Sister Maria Rosa that she would have to find the funding entirely on her own.

Through the tip of a grateful patient, she learned of grants being made available by President John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, established to help the people of Latin America. After gaining sponsorships from many business leaders, she earned enough grant funds and purchased the homes. Even though  these homes reached their initial capacity, she continued to take in children from a local penitentiary, receiving beds from a local sponsor and food from the United States Air Force.

Sister María Rosa took in the first group of children in 1964. In 1966, she founded SAN to progressively increase shelters for Honduras' children, a population which is neglected, abandoned, abused, and orphaned at one of the highest rates in the Western Hemisphere. Scattered across Honduras, SAN currently has group homes for over 160 children, an agricultural training center for teenage boys, schools, and a hospital.

As news of SAN's operations spread, Sister was inundated with children she rescued from prisons, orphans referred by social services, and abandoned or street kids that walked long distances on the rumor of a meal and a bed from the "nun who helps children." 

The Austrian charity S.O.S. Kinderdorff asked Sister Maria Rosa to collaborate in building hundreds more children's homes in Honduras, as well as throughout Central and South America. While she used their financial support of roughly $500,000 per year to improve housing, she eventually deemed their regulations too restrictive for effective care, cutting ties in 1989 and fundraising on her own.[

During the devastation in Honduras caused by Hurricane Fifi in 1974, which killed up to 10,000 Hondurans, Sister Naria Rosa and her staff went house to house, evacuating people from the flooding. When she heard a distant child's cries, she swam until she found the baby on a mattress floating in the flood waters, bringing it back to safety.

She served as the Director of the Society until her death on 16 October 2020.

Sister María Rosa was hospitalized and tested positive for coronavirus COVID-19 in July  of 2020. She was released to recover at home on 18 August 2020. She died that October.

Among the many awards presented to her:

Marquette University- Honoris Causa, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2009 "for exemplifying the spirit of magis and being a woman for others," on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of her profession.

The Good Samaritan Award in 1977, given by the National Catholic Development Conference in New York City to "individuals who have devoted themselves to good work through humanitarian love."

University of Saint Francis Xavier of Antigonish, Canada - Honoris Causa

A postage stamp was issued in her honor by the government of Honduras in recognition of her enormous efforts on behalf of the children.

A documentary film,  WITH THIS LIGHT, was released in 2022 and a book of her life and work, “Madre: The Nun Who Was Mother to the Orphans of Honduras”, by Kathy Martin O’ Neil also released in 2022.

We are grateful for people like  Lorene who carry on this nuns work for the poor of our world.

NEW BEATIFIED FAMILY

 

Sunday September 10, the ULMA family will be beatified in Markowa, in the southeastern part of Poland. This marks an unprecedented event in the modern canonization process. This is the first time that an entire family has been beatified together, and the first time for an unborn child is to be beatified.  (See Blogs January 2020  & 12/20/22)

This family, made up of Josef and Wiktoria Ulma and their children, included the child Wiktoria was carrying and who was born pre-mature at the massacre.  Having no time for a baptism, the child obtained "blood baptism” of a martyr. This unusual beatification stands as a testament to their sacrifice during World War II, when they sheltered and protected eight Jews from persecution. 

 Both parents were well-educated, had many books and knew foreign languages. Wiktoria understood German, so she understood everything the Nazis said to each other before the execution.

The children were Stanisława, aged 7, Barbara, 6, Władysław, 5, Franciszek, 4, Antoni, 2, and Maria, 1.One wonders what it takes for men to kill small children!  The men remain nameless, while we have the children's names- forever in our list of saints.

 A new book, “Martyred and Blessed Together: The Extraordinary Story of the Ulma Family,” was  published September. 5.

It’s rare for the participants in a beatification ceremony to include a rabbi. But the beatification of “the Good Samaritans of Markowa” will be attended by Michael Schudrich, the chief rabbi of Poland. His presence shows the great esteem in which the Ulma family is held by the Jewish community worldwide. The family was recognized as Righteous among the Nations by the State of Israel in 1995. The title honors non-Jews who risked their lives to save those of Jews during the Holocaust.

We must also remember this day members of the three Jewish families also killed, who were harbored by the Ulmas: the Goldmans, the Grünfelds, and the Didners.

Pope Francis said: May the example of this heroic family, who sacrificed their lives in order to save the persecuted Jews, help you to understand that holiness and heroic deeds are achieved through fidelity in the small everyday things. I bless you from my heart.

The Ulmas’ liturgical feast day will be celebrated on July 7, the date of the parents’ 1935 wedding.

RARE BIRDS IN MAUI FIRE

 

So much has been written about the loss of life and almost total destruction of the small town of Lahaina on the island of  Maui.  We are certain wildlife fleeing the fire must have perished as well, but recently in the news is the conservation group who have managed to save some very rare birds. My readers know by now how much the birds of Hawaii mean to me.

The Maui Bird Conservation Center, one of two in Hawaii managed by the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (the other being on the Big Island), has set up areas to protect the islands’ native birds. There are two species of rare birds housed in the center, the ‘akikiki and  the ‘alalā (Hawaiian crow).  Already more than three dozen ‘akikiki relatives have gone extinct.  Exerts say the ‘akikiki is next.

 The goal is to release birds into the wilderness in the future, saving the species from extinction. Eggs from ‘akikiki and ‘alalā, have been collected.

A neighbor alerted the center of approaching fire and they sprang into motion using multiple fire extinguishers and a garden hose to fend off the flames until firefighters arrived about 40 minutes later.

"In that moment, our instincts kicked in and we knew what we had to do. The goal was to keep the fire from spreading toward the aviaries," said Jennifer Pribble the Senior Research Coordinator in Recovery Ecology.   "We appreciate the work of the neighbor who jumped in, and the firefighters who have been out front keeping the fire at bay so we can continue to focus on the birds.”

The wildfire came within about 150 feet from the edge of the center’s 46-acre property. Strong winds  caused damage across the entire facility which required the team to evacuate some birds into other shelters. But for now the birds are safe.

,While there is struggle to save the akikiki, the ʻalalā breeding program has resulted in an incredible increase in the population, from fewer than 20 birds in the late 1990s to more than 110 birds today.

ANOTHER GREAT BENEDICTINE

One of my favorite Benedictines is not well known in this country and if Father E and I had our way we would make his letters at the top of the list for those seeking a deeper spiritual life.

DOM JOHN CHAPMAN, O.S.B. was born in 1865 the son of an Anglican canon of Ely Cathedral. Baptized with the name of Henry Chapman, he was educated privately and at Christ Church, Oxford where he received a first class degree in Classical Greats. He stayed for a subsequent year at Oxford reading theology, in which he took a third. It was an important year for him, however, because in this time he decided to take Orders in the Church of England.

Having trained at Cuddesdon, near Oxford, he was ordained deacon in the Anglican Church in 1889, and began his curacy at the parish of St Pancras, London. He found himself increasingly troubled during this time about the position of the Church of England, however, and eventually left the parish for good soon after Trinity Sunday.

In December 1890 Chapman was conditionally baptized in the Catholic Church at the Brompton Oratory.In April 1891 he entered the Jesuit Novitiate at Manresa House, Roehampton, but after eight months had determined that his vocation was not to the Society of Jesus.

 He subsequently entered the Benedictine Maredsous Abbey in Belgium, when he was given the religious name of John. He professed simple vows on 25 March 1893, and made his solemn vows on Whitsuntide 1895.

After his priestly ordination in 1895, he went to Erdington Abbey, near Birmingham, where he stayed until 1912, serving the community as novice master and later as prior, but also frequently visiting the library of St Mary's College in nearby Oscott.

 Having spent nine months at Maredsous, in February 1913, Dom Chapman was made temporary superior of the Caldey island community (now based at Prinknash Abbey), when it was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1913-14.

 On the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918), Dom Chapman first became a Professor of Theology at Downside Abbey, joining the many monks who had fled Maredsous to England.

In early 1915, when these monks moved to Ireland, he became army chaplain  to the British forces. After initial training, his brigade arrived in France in July 1915. He lived in the trenches in autumn 1915, until a persistent knee injury led to him being sent to hospital in November.  After leaving the hospital, he first was stationed at Boyton Camp, Wiltshire, for several months, and then returned to France. 

At the end of 1917, he was transferred to Switzerland, where multilingual chaplains were need for the POW camps. He remained here until the Armistice. (For myself, having gone back to school after 15 years in the enclosure, I can imagine how difficult this transfer from monastic life to life outside, especially in time of war, was for Dom John.) 

 In 1919  Dom Chapman transferred his monastic stability to Downside Abbey. He spent most of 1919-22 in Rome, though, working on a Commission on the revision of the Vulgate. He returned to Downside in 1922, where in 1929 the community elected him Abbot. As 4th Abbot of Downside, during his short term of four years, cut short by his death on 7 November 1933, he carried on the work of Abbots Cuthbert Butler and Leander Ramsay. He completed the transformation of Downside into a modern abbey in the mainstream of the Benedictine tradition and in 1933 became the founder of Worth Priory, since 1957 Worth Abbey, when he bought the property, then called Paddockhurst, from Viscount Cowdray.

Dom John Chapman was thought  many to be the greatest patristics scholar of his time. Reputedly he had read all 378 volumes of Migne. However, he not only read both Greek and Latin with the greatest facility, but also read and wrote French, Italian and German with similar ease. Many of his contributions to biblical scholarship and patristics have proved of lasting value, especially his work on St Cyprian, St John the Presbyter (of Papias), and on the priority of the Gospel according to Matthew that, so Chapman argued in support of the early Church tradition, was the first Gospel account to have been written.

In his day Dom Chapman was a much sought-after spiritual director and authority on prayer, the spiritual life and mystical theology. His writings remain of perennial value, especially his Spiritual Letters.  He was noted to be brilliant and volatile in manner, but serene in religious observance.  An oft quoted advice of his was: "Pray as you can, not as you cannot!".

According to his contemporaries, Chapman had a brilliant mind and was a fascinating conversationalist. He was also a talented pianist and a Christian humanist in the finest tradition

Photos of Abbeys:

Left: Maredsous

Right: Downside.