NEW ABBOT PRIMATE FOR BENEDICTINES

Father Abbot Gregory Polan, 66, Abbot of Conception Abbey in Missouri, has been elected the 10th ABBOT PRIMATE, succeeding Abbot Notker Wolf, who has served in the position of Abbot Primate since being elected by the Congress of Abbots in 2000.

Abbot Gregory has been the 9th Abbot of Conception Abbey since 1996. He was professed in 1971 and ordained in 1977. He is a native of Berwyn, Illinois.

Abbot Gregory is the second abbot of Conception Abbey to be elected Abbot Primate. Abbot Marcel Rooney was the 8th Primate having been elected on September 18, 1996 and resigned on 3 September 2000.

Abbot Gregory is the fourth American to be elected to the Office of Abbot Primate. The others were Dom Rembert Weakland (now retired archbishop of Milwaukee), the late Abbot Jerome Theisen, and Abbot Marcel Rooney.

According to the Proper Law which governs the Confederation of Congregations of Monasteries of the Order of Saint Benedict, the ministry of the Primas is described as “the office of the Abbot Primate whose function it is to represent the Confederation and to do all he can to foster co-operation between the confederated monasteries.”

In the decree Inæstimabilis unitatis (1894) Pope Leo XIII gave the office of Abbot Primate to the Benedictines. The Primate has no direct authority over the vast number of Benedictine houses (there are Benedictine monasteries he is responsible for). There are approximately 7000 Benedictine monks. Abbot Polan becomes the abbot of the monastery Sant’ Anselmo. As the Benedictine leader, he is the point of "communio" for the worldwide Benedictine Confederation and he  works as the primary liaison with the Holy See.

Abbot Gregory is recognized as being a pastoral abbot and spiritual leader and is well regarded across various sectors. He is a talented musician, who at age 16 was already serving as assistant organist at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral. He is also a Scripture scholar who teaches Greek and Hebrew at Conception Seminary College. That made him the perfect choice a few years ago when the U.S. bishops decided they wanted a revised translation of the Psalms then in use, one that evoked both the musicality of the prayers and adhered more closely to the words in Hebrew.

Under his leadership a new English translation of the Book of Psalms has been adopted by the US Catholic Bishops and Rome as the translation that’s used in the Liturgy.

As with all monasteries, the monks at Conception chant the entire Psalter of 150 Psalms every two weeks as part of their communal prayer. Abbot Gregory says he never tires of hearing each Psalm. “They are really the nourishment of monks. Despite the fact of their daily use, they never wear thin.”

ANOTHER AMERICAN SAINT WHO LOVED CHILDREN

VENERABLE ALOYSIUS SCHWARTZ, the third of eight children, was born in Washington, D.C. on September 18, 1930.. His father, Louis Schwartz, sold furniture door-to-door, and his mother, Cedelia Bourassa, had come to work in Washington, D.C. during the First World War, where she met her future husband. She had been especially attracted to him because he was the only boy who joined her for the Novena of Grace, which she had learnt of after moving to the capital from her native Montana.

His mother died of cancer, when he was 16 years old. He grew up with the idea of becoming a priest. As time passed, this idea become more intense and specific. He would become a secular priest, he would work as a missionary, and his apostolate would be to the poor and the needy.

His Parents

In 1944, he entered St. Charles Seminary in Maryland, finishing his B.A. Degree at Maryknoll College and studing theology at Louvain Catholic University in Belgium. He used to spend his vacation helping at the rag-pickers' camps for the outcasts of the French society. Visiting Banneux, where the Virgin of the Poor appeared, he was  inspired to dedicate his priesthood to the service of the poor in fulfillment of Mary's message.

He was ordained a diocesan priest on June 29, 1957 and was assigned in Busan, South Korea on December 8, 1957. He founded the Religious Congregation of the Sisters of Mary to serve the poorest of the poor on August 15, 1964 and the Brothers of Christ on May 10, 1981. He established Boystowns and Girlstowns to take care, educate, and give a bright future to orphans, the abandoned and children coming from very poor families. He also built hospitals and sanatoriums for very indigent patients; hospices for the homeless, handicapped elderly men, children with special needs and single mothers. He was also involved in pro-life activities.

In 1985, he started new work in the Philippines. In 1989, he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), which he accepted with joy and serenity as a gift from God. In spite of his deteriorating health, he also established a Boystown and Girlstown in Mexico in 1990.

With humility, courage and unwavering faith, he suffered and accepted humiliations, criticisms, trials, pains, and difficulties, just to be able to serve and love God through the poor. His illness made him immobile but still even in a wheelchair, he continued to fulfill his duties with joy. He spent hours before the Blessed Sacrament, praying the rosary, hearing confessions, and heroically preaching in words and examples, the virtues of truth, justice, chastity, charity and humility. His love for God and the poor consumed him. He not only helped the poor, but he also lived poor.

On March 16, 1992, he died at the Girlstown in Manila and he was buried at the Boystown in Cavite, Philippines. He was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Sisters of Mary and the Brothers of Christ continue to live his charism of serving  the poorest of the poor in Korea, Philippines, Mexico, Guatemala and Brazil.

NOT THE BED-STY I KNEW

I recently came across a new possible saint of the USA and one from an area dear to my own heart.  When I was studying for my PhD, I ventured into Brooklyn every Sunday eve to study with a woman who at the time was a renowned authority on children with autism. Her school was in the heart of Bed- Sty and a very dangerous place to travel into. One did not walk alone, and at times I had to take children on a public bus in and and out of the area. Near the school were vacant lots and burnt out buildings. Strangely, I never felt unsafe. (I read the area is now vastly improved with restoration projects.)  

SERVANT of GOD FATHER BERNARD QUINN, the former pastor of St. Peter Claver parish in Bedford-Stuyvesant and founder of Little Flower Children’s Services in Brooklyn and Wading River, died in 1940 after a lifetime of ministry to the African-American community in the Diocese of Brooklyn.

St Peter Claver

Father Bernard, who was born in New Jersey on January 15, 1888, died at the age of 52, founding his congregation in 1922 after he was granted permission by his bishop to establish a Church for black Catholics in Brooklyn.

As a young priest, Father Bernard was drawn to serve black Catholics. When he approached Bishop Charles McDonnell about starting a parish for blacks in Bedford-Stuyvesant, he was told that recruiting chaplains to serve US soldiers in World War I was a priority for the diocese.

He volunteered and served in France, where he nurtured a devotion to St Thérèse of Lisieux. He visited the house where she was raised and became the first priest to celebrate Mass there at a time when it was a little-known shrine.

Father Bernard returned from the war in ill health after being gassed with poison. He suffered poor health for the rest of his life.

Upon his arrival back in the diocese, he received permission from Bishop McDonnell to start a new parish for black people in Brooklyn. He worked with the “Colored Catholic Club” and established the parish of St. Peter Claver in what had been a Protestant church that later was turned into a warehouse depot.

He later began a novena in honor of the Little Flower at St Peter Claver. It brought together hundreds of white and black Catholics, in what was said to be "the only place in the United States where whites joined their black brethren week after week in prayer, even though it was a time when blacks and whites were separate."

At that time, blacks were not welcomed in Catholic churches in Brooklyn and had to journey to a Catholic church set aside for blacks in Manhattan. Father Quinn, the son of Irish immigrants, devoted much of his life to the betterment of blacks not only at St Peter Claver.

He built a community center a block from the church. One of his major achievements was an orphanage called the Little Flower House of Providence, Long Island. The Klu Klux Klan burnt the building down twice but each time Msgr Quinn ensured it was rebuilt.  The Klan threatened Father Bernard with death but he defied them. He later established in the diocese a second parish for blacks, St Benedict the Moor in Jamaica.

A clipping fromThe New York Times described the scene of the funeral held at St Peter for Msgr. Quinn in 1940 - 8,000 people lined the streets around the church.

In a pastoral letter written by Father Bernard to the people of St Peter Claver, he said, "I love you, I am proud of every one of you, and I would willingly shed to the last drop my life's blood for the least among you."

In later years, Msgr. Quinn referred to himself as "an adopted son of the Negro race."  The cause for sainthood for Father Bernard was introduced at the Vatican in 2010. 

USELESS KILLING IN HAITI- ANOTHER RELIGIOUS

This past week another useless killing of a religious, who like so many, goes into a poor country with the intent to help the poor and needy. From her photos she looks like a lovely, caring woman, but I wonder if she had been in a habit, if she would have been protected?

The body of slain Spanish Sister Isabelle Sola Matas was carried away by morgue workers, after she was attacked while driving her car in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday, Sept. 2, 2016. Local judge Noel Jean Brunet said that two men on a motorcycle drove by and killed the 51-year-old Roman Catholic nun while she was driving. She worked at St. Joseph church where she directed a program providing people with prosthetic limbs.

She was a member of the Congregation of the Religious of Jesus and Mary, whose order commit themselves to serving others.

Jean Brunet Noel, a justice ministry official at the scene, identified the woman as Sister Isabel Sola Matas, 51. He said she was from Barcelona but had lived in Haiti for years. Noel said her purse was stolen after assailants shot her twice in the chest as she sat at the wheel of her SUV. She was attacked as she inched down a winding avenue filled with pedestrians and vehicles in Bel Air, a rough hillside neighborhood of shacks in downtown Port-au-Prince.

A Haitian woman who was a passenger in the car was also shot twice and taken to a hospital. Her condition was not immediately known.

At Sacred Heart Catholic Church, the Rev. Hans Alexandre described Sister Isabelle as a "tireless servant of God" who helped build houses, worked as a nurse, fed the hungry and created a workshop where prosthetic limbs were made for amputees injured in Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake.

"The loss is immense. In killing her they didn't kill just one person, they killed the hopes of many people," Father Alexandre said.

She was widely known for her generosity. She hosted Father Alexandre and four other priests at her two-story home for over a year after the previous church building and its rectory were toppled by the quake.

She helped raise tens of thousands of dollars to build a vocational school on the church compound where Haitians could learn everything from catering to electrical wiring to music, Alexandre said.

One Haitian woman outside Sister Isabelle’s home shouted in distress and anger when she heard about the killing. "What a country this is! She did so very much for people here and this is what happens," Suzie Mathieu said.

By her home's metal gate, a disheveled man in tattered clothes stared at the ground. "She was the person who took care of people like me, helping with food and other things," he said. "I am very sad today."

During his September 4 Angelus address, Pope Francis said:

We pray especially for Spanish missionary nun, Sister Maria Isabel Sola Macas, who was killed two days ago in the capital of Haiti, a country so tormented, for which I pray for an end to such acts of violence and for greater security for all. We also remember other sisters that recently have experienced violence in other countries.

"A HOLY PRIEST" (USA)

FATHER JOSEPH WALIJEWSKI was a saint in the eyes of the poor he served as a La Crosse diocesan missionary priest in Bolivia and Peru, where he established several parishes and founded an orphanage.

Now the diocese is trying to have him declared a saint in the eyes of the church as well. Father Walijewski, who died of pneumonia and acute leukemia in 2006 at age 82, will become the second sainthood candidate from the diocese.

 “If Father Joe was not a saint, I don’t know who could be,” the Rev. Sebastian Kolodziejczyk said in a telephone interview from Peru. “He wasn’t just a priest performing the sacraments, he was a guy who took people to the hospital because he was the only one who had a car. He was building community. He was very simple, very joyful, very prayerful in living out the gospel.”

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on March 15, 1924, to Frank and Mary Walijewski, Father Joseph Walijewski, or Father Joe, as he was mostly known, learned the hard lessons of poverty through his own experiences growing up during the Great Depression. Like many other families at that time, his family suffered through economic hardship, but held fast to their faith, at once so simple and yet so strong that it served to fill in the want and lack of material goods.

Since his early youth, Father Joe sought to serve God as a priest of His Church, and especially desired serving God all his days in missionary work. Some experiences during his youth helped form this calling. As a young boy, he would wander down to the city train station to watch fruit being unloaded, in part with the hope that he might receive a piece of fruit which had either fallen by chance from the crates or was given to him outright through the generosity of the station workers. One day, a worker handed him a banana, his favorite fruit , and when he discovered it had come from South America, this far away land became a source of growing fascination.

On the few occasions he could afford to attend the cinema, young Joe was also inspired by the 1938 film "Boys Town," and its hero and founder, Father Edward J. Flanagan. Joe would watch the movie several times, marveling each time at Father Flanagan and his gift of working with and engaging children.

Joe successfully applied for admission at the Polish seminary at Orchard Lake, Mich., Ss. Cyril and Methodius. He continued to grapple with his academic responsibilities, but he made a promise to the Lord that should he complete his studies for ordination, he would dedicate five years of his priestly life to the work of a foreign missionary.

 His own Diocese of Grand Rapids would not accept him into its major seminary to study theology because he did not study in the diocese's minor seminary. He was encouraged to look to other dioceses for sponsorship. Broadcasting letters to various bishops throughout the Midwest, Joe received a reply from only one – Bishop Alexander McGavick of the Diocese of La Crosse, who was looking for Polish-speaking priests to serve the Polish communities in his diocese.

Accepted by the Diocese, Joe entered St. Francis Major Seminary, Milwaukee, but his struggle with academics continued. While many among the faculty had little hope for the struggling seminarian, Monsignor John Schulien, a theology professor who befriended Joe at St. Francis, defended the young man.

"Joe Walijewski may not be the most intelligent priest," he said to the other faculty, "but he will be a holy priest." The priest-professor's words were apparently convincing: Father Joe was ordained by Bishop John Patrick Treacy as a priest for the Diocese of La Crosse in 1950.

In his time as a priest for the Diocese of La Crosse, he served in two assignments as a parish priest in the diocese and two as a missionary priest in South America. From 1950 to 1956, he served various parishes around the diocese before heading to Bolivia. After serving in Bolivia as a missionary for 10 years, he returned to the Diocese of La Crosse in 1966. He again served at various parishes until 1971, the year he returned to South America, this time to Peru, where among other achievements he established Casa Hogar Juan Pablo II, the diocesan sponsored orphanage which continues to serve poor children of Peru to this day.

There was one more blessing granted to Father Joe before his death in 2006. His desire to die while working for the poor was widely known among friends and coworkers, and he had this wish granted when after celebrating Palm Sunday Mass at Casa Hogar, he took ill and was admitted to a hospital in Lima.

He exhibited heroism throughout his missionary career. A prime example of his saintliness was his dedication to “the children, the suffering, poverty-stricken, discarded children of Peru.”

“Here is a man who saw these children not as waste products of a society that could not or would not take care of them but as children of God,” said  La Crosse Bishop William Callahan

“He stepped up to help, with few resources.”

“Saints act impulsively (because) their sense is that God is going to provide,” he said. God’s provision included a $50,000 donation from Pope John Paul II that helped found the orphanage in 1987.

Also testifying to Father Joseph’s dedication is Dr. Steven Laliberte of Onalaska, an optometrist at the Mayo Clinic Health System-La Crosse who worked with the priest during several vision missions to the orphanage.

“His faith was so blindly focused that nothing ever dissuaded him from his mission,” Laliberte said.  That mission escalated to make the orphanage an outreach center and provide medical care to thousands of destitute Peruvians.

Blessed by Pope  (St.) John Paul

When Father Joseph died, tens of thousands turned out to honor him as his casket was carried through the streets to his burial in a grotto behind the orphanage. He is being considered for canonization.

ST. TERESA of CALCUTTA

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”

Today we rejoice with the whole Church in the canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.   

           Tomorrow, September 5, is her feast. ALLELUIA  ALLELUIA

THE MAKING OF A SAINT (FOR THE USA)

FATHER WILLIAM EDWARD ATKINSON was born in 1946 in Philadelphia, one of three sons and four daughters to Allen & Mary. He attended St. Alice’s Elementary School and Monsignor Bonner High School, and upon graduation, asked to join the Augustinian Order. He spent a year as a postulant at Augustinian Academy, Staten Island, New York, and then entered the Villanova Province’s novitiate of Our Mother of Good Counsel in New Hamburg, New York, on September 6, 1964. The following February 22, 1965, while recreating with several other novices on the novitiate grounds, the toboggan in which he was riding hit a tree, leaving Bill almost completely paralyzed from the neck down.

Amazingly, he survived the accident, and following extensive rehabilitation, expressed his desire to continue as an Augustinian. He began again his novitiate year at Villanova, professing simple vows on July 20, 1970, and solemn vows on July 20, 1973. A care team of friars assisted Bill during his time in formation, and for many years beyond, as he moved about with the use of a motorized wheelchair. Bill completed his years of college and theological studies at Villanova, and with a special dispensation from  (St.) Pope Paul VI, John Cardinal Krol ordained him to the priesthood at his hometown parish of St. Alice in Upper Darby, Pa., on February 2, 1974, almost nine years after the accident that left him a quadriplegic.

Blessing by Pope (St.) John Paul

He celebrated his first Mass at the Field house of Villanova University. From 1975 until 2004, almost thirty years, Fr. Bill was stationed at St. Joseph’s Friary, where he taught at Msgr. Bonner High School, was assistant school chaplain, senior class retreat coordinator, moderator of the football team, and the director of the afterschool and Saturday detention program.

He was known for his wonderful sense of humor, and was recognized as an excellent teacher, encouraging moderator, and compassionate confessor. Fr. Bill was the recipient of many awards and acknowledgements, among them an honorary doctorate from Villanova University in 2000.

In 2004, Fr. Bill moved to the Health Care Unit of Saint Thomas Monastery at Villanova University. He passed over to the Lord on Friday afternoon, September 15, 2006, surrounded by those who loved and cared for him. His funeral liturgy was celebrated  in Saint Thomas Church, Villanova University, after several hours of visitation. Fr. Bill was buried the following morning in the Augustinian section of Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken, Pa.

On a quiet night in the middle of August, 2014, a group of twenty-five invited guests gathered at Saint Augustine Friary in Villanova, to meet with the Augustinian Postulator General. The agenda was simple, if unusual! Fr. Josef Sciberras had come from Rome for an informal conversation with friars and laity, relatives, friends and confreres of Fr. Bill Atkinson, to determine whether or not this friar might be someday, a future canonized saint of the Church. Fr. Josef offered a challenge to those gathered: “Convince me that Fr. Bill lived a life of heroic virtue. Persuade me that he is a saint.”

One after another, individuals told the stories of their relationship with Fr. Bill and made their case for his character, his virtue, his fidelity, his ministry, his humor, his humility, and much more. By evening’s end, Fr. Josef acknowledged that he was convinced. If canonization were only that easy! But it signaled the beginning. Fr. Josef ’s work was before him. There seemed to be sufficient reason to believe that a serious and formal look should be made into Fr. Bill’s life.

Questionnaires were distributed to those present, who were asked to take them home, fill them out, and return them to the provincial office, which, in turn, would send them off to the office of the Postulator at the Augustinian General Curia in Rome.  In 2015, the U.S. bishops  endorsed the sainthood causes of  Father Bill. We pray he is found worthy of sainthood, as an example that with God nothing is impossible!