KNOWLEDGE

Sadao Watanabe (Japan)

“When we speak of  KNOWLEDGE, we immediately think of the human capacity to learn more about the reality that surrounds him and to discover the laws that govern nature and the universe.  The knowledge that comes from the Holy Spirit, however, is not limited to human knowledge: it is a special gift, which allows us to grasp, through creation, the greatness and love of God and His profound relationship with every creature."

“When our eyes are enlightened by the Spirit, they open to the contemplation of God in the beauty of nature and the grandeur of the cosmos, and lead us to discover how everything speaks to us of Him and everything speaks to us of His love.” Before all of this, the Spirit leads us to praise the Lord from the depths of our hearts and recognize, in all that we have and are, a priceless gift from God and a sign of His infinite love for us.”

 “The gift of knowledge places us in profound harmony with the Creator and allows us to participate in the brightness of His gaze and His judgment.”  And it is in this perspective that we can grasp in man and woman the summit of creation, as the fulfillment of a plan of love that is imprinted in each of us and that makes us recognize each other as brothers and sisters.”

"This gift helps Christians avoid two errors in thinking about creation. The first is considering ourselves masters of creation, rather than welcoming it as a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all.” The second is the temptation to limit ourselves to creatures, as if they can provide the answer to all our expectations.”

“Safeguard creation because if we destroy creation, creation will destroy us! Never forget this!”

FORTITUDE

Alexander Sadoyon - Armenia

In recent catechesis, we examined the first three gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding and counsel. Today we think about what the Lord does, He always comes to support us in our weakness with a special gift, the gift of  FORTITUDE .

There is a parable told by Jesus, which helps us to grasp the importance of this gift. A sower goes out to sow; not all the seed he sows, however, bears fruit. What ends up on the street is eaten by birds; what falls on stony ground or among thorns sprouting, but is soon dried by the sun or choked by the thorns. Only what ends up on the good soil can grow and bear fruit (cf. Mk 4.3 to 9 / / Mt 13:3-9 / / Luke 8.4 to 8 ) .

As Jesus himself said to his disciples, the Father is the sower, who sows the seed of His Word abundantly. The seed, however, often clashes with the aridness of our hearts and, even when welcomed, is likely to remain sterile.

Instead, with the gift of fortitude the Holy Spirit frees the soil of our heart from torpor, uncertainties and all the fears that can stop it, so that the Word of God can be put into practice, in an authentic and joyful way.

This is a real help, this gift of fortitude it gives us strength and frees us from many obstacles.

There are difficult moments and extreme situations in which the gift of fortitude is manifested in an extraordinary, exemplary way. This is the case of those who are facing particularly harsh and painful experiences, that disrupt their lives and those of their loved ones.

The Church shines with the testimony of so many brothers and sisters who have not hesitated to give their lives, in order to remain faithful to the Lord and His Gospel.

Even today there are numerous Christians in many parts of the world who continue to celebrate and witness to their faith with deep conviction and serenity, and resist even when they know that this can result in them paying a very high price.

All of us know people, people who have experienced difficult situations, so much pain, let us think of those men and women who have a difficult life, who fight for the survival of their family, educate their children.

They do this because the Spirit of fortitude helps them.

How many, many men and women - whose names we do not know - honor our people, honor our Church because they are strong in carrying forward their lives, their work, their family, their faith - these our brothers and sisters are saints!

Every day saints! Hidden saints among us! They have the gift of fortitude in carrying on in their duty as people, mother, father, brother, sister citizen. We have so many - so many.

Let us thank the Lord for these Christians who are the hidden saints among us. It is the Spirit within who carries them forward and it would do us good to think of these people. If they do this, if they can do this then why not me and we ask the Lord to give us the gift of fortitude.

 With this, we must not think that the gift of fortitude is only necessary on some occasions or in certain situations.

This gift must be the base note of our being Christians, in our ordinary everyday lives. As I said we must have fortitude in our everyday life as Christians we need this fortitude to carry on in our lives, our families our faith. Paul, the Apostle Paul, said something that it would do us all good to hear: "I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me" (Phil. 4:13).
In our everyday life, in difficult times it would do us good to say this "I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me". The Lord always gives us strength, Lord never gives us more than we can handle, "I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me".

Dear friends, sometimes we may be tempted to allow ourselves be overtaken by laziness or despondency, especially when faced with the hardships and trials of life. In these cases, do not lose heart, but invoke the Holy Spirit, so that with the gift of fortitude He can lift our hearts and communicate new vigor and enthusiasm to our lives and our following Jesus.

COUNSEL

Continuing his weekly catechesis on the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis devoted his May 7 general audience to the gift of COUNSEL.

The gift of counsel helps Christians “understand the proper way to speak and behave and the path to follow,” Pope Francis said. “But how does this work? From the moment we welcome and host Him in our hearts, the Holy Spirit immediately begins to make us sensitive to His voice and to direct our thoughts, our feelings and our intentions according to God’s heart.”

“At the same time, He increasingly brings us to turn our inward gaze upon Jesus as a model of how to act and relate with God the Father and our brothers and sisters,” he continued. “Counsel, then, is the gift by which the Holy Spirit makes our conscience capable of making a concrete choice in communion with God, according to the logic of Jesus and of his Gospel.”

Pope Francis emphasized the importance of prayer for the gift of counsel:

    We always return to the same point: prayer. Prayer, praying is so important. Praying those prayers that we all know from childhood but also praying with our words, praying to the Lord: ‘Lord, help me, advise me, what should I do now?’ With prayer we make room for the Spirit to come and help us in that moment, he advises us all on what we must do. Prayer, never forget prayer, never. Nobody notices when we pray on the bus, on the streets, we pray in silence, with our hearts, take advantage of these moments to pray. Pray for the Spirit to give us this gift of counsel.

THE GIFT of UNDERSTANDING

(Dr. He Qi)

The Holy Spirit’s gift of  UNDERSTANDING allows Christians to obtain “intimacy with God” and helps them understand things as God understands them.

When the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts and enlightens our minds, he makes us grow day by day in the understanding of what the Lord has said and accomplished.

One can read the Gospel and understand something, but if we read the Gospel with this gift of the Holy Spirit, we can understand the depths of God’s words.

The Holy Spirit’s gift of understanding differs from human understanding, the “intellectual prowess” that varies from person to person. What a beautiful gift the Lord has given us. It is the gift with which the Holy Spirit introduces us into intimacy with God and makes us sharers in the plan of love which he has for us.

Jesus told his disciples He would send the Holy Spirit to help them understand everything He had taught them. This kind of understanding is a “grace” which “awakens in a Christian the ability to go beyond the outward appearance of reality and to probe the depths of the thoughts of God and his plan of salvation.

This gift does not mean that a Christian can “comprehend all things” and have “full knowledge of the designs of God,but rather, it helps the Christian to “read inwardly” and “understand things as God understands them.

While human understanding and prudence are good, Jesus Christ desired to send the Holy Spirit so that everyone might understand “with the mind of God.
                                     
                                                                             Our Holy Father Pope Francis

THE GIFTS of the SPIRIT- WISDOM

In April Our Holy Father started a series of short talks at his general audiences to explain the gifts Jesus would leave to the disciples after He left them.  This week I present these talks as preparation for PENTECOST.

… Dear Brothers and Sisters: Today we begin a series of catecheses on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is himself the “gift of God” (cf. Jn 4:10), the presence of God’s love in the Church and in our hearts. Based on a messianic prophecy of Isaiah, the Church has traditionally distinguished seven gifts of the Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord. The first of these is WISDOM. As a spiritual gift, this wisdom is an interior light, a grace enabling us to contemplate all things with the eyes of God and a heart docile to the promptings of the Spirit. Born of closeness to God in prayer and loving communion, it helps us to recognize with joyful gratitude his providential plan for all things. Christian wisdom is thus the fruit of a supernatural “taste” for God, an ability to savor his presence, goodness and love all around us. How much our world needs the witness of such wisdom today! Let us pray for this gift, so that, rejoicing in the Holy Spirit, we can be true men and women of God, transparently open to his own wisdom and the power of his saving love.

SPIRIT SPEAKER

Last week I took two of our Shaw children to a parish on the mainland north of us so they could be confirmed. Our charismatic Seattle Archbishop was on hand for the ceremony, even though it was a small group of 25.  If I could sum him up it would be “joyous energy radiating Christ".

ARCHBISHOP JAMES PETER SARTAIN was born June 6, 1952 in Memphis, Tennessee, the youngest of five children, as well as the only boy.  He is the first priest of the Diocese of Memphis to become a bishop.   He selected as his episcopal motto: "Of You My Heart Has Spoken" (Ps. 27:8).

The Archbishop studied chemistry for one year before transferring to St. Meinrad (Benedictine) College in Indiana, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1974. He then earned a Bachelor of Sacred Theology at the Angelicum in Rome.

He was ordained to the priesthood on July 15, 1978, after which he returned to his studies in Rome. He earned a Licentiate of Sacred Theology with specialization in sacramental theology from the Pontifical University of St. Anselmo in 1979. This is the active cradle of Benedictine study.

In 2000, he was appointed the sixth Bishop of Little Rock, Arkansas, by (St.) Pope John Paul II.

Due to the increasing Hispanic population in Arkansas, Archbishop Sartain took a course in Spanish in San Antonio, Texas, in 2001, and established Hispanic ministries throughout the state. He also ordained Arkansas's first Mexican-born priest. He worked to increase vocations. The diocese had ten seminarians and no ordinations in 2000, but fifteen seminarians and two ordinations in 2005

In 2006, he was appointed as bishop of the Diocese of Joliet. In 2010, he was appointed Metropolitan Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle.

Like Our new Holy Father his message often focuses on the general need for humanity to fully manifest God's love by living for what is good, beyond themselves. His words to the youth had them riveted in their seats. His final message was: 

this is not graduation, but a jumping off place for the rest of your lies!

St. Joseph's, Ferndale, WA Confirmation 2014

SCISSORS AND PAPER

Earlier this month we did a Blog on Sister Mary Jean Dorcy  and mentioned her "disciple" Dan Paulos who carried on her work and has gone beyond her giftedness in his art. His great devotion to the Blessed Mother is evident in his work, so I thought it a good way to end this month devoted to her.

DANIEL THOMAS PAULOS is a master. He was introduced to the cut paper or silhouette art form in grade school, and later studied the secrets of the art of papercutting under the famed Sister Mary Jean. "It took him less than two years to accomplish what it took me thirty to do," she once said.

He was born in 1949 in Iowa to a large Greek-Italian family. As a young boy in Catholic school, he

became intrigued by the artistic cuttings of Sr. Mary Jean Dorcy. At her prodding, he learned the art of serigraphy (a print made by the silk-screen process) and began producing hand-pulled serigraphs of her favorite silhouettes, as well as his own.  Papercutting in religious art goes back to the sixteenth century, but has been almost a lost art in our more modern centuries.

Mary the Servant

The persistence of Sister Mary Jean drove Dan to restrict his paper-cuttings to spiritual imagery, concentrating mostly on the healing power of motherhood. “I think the role of the Catholic artist may be, in a quiet way, to convert a person, not so much to Catholicism, but to love of God and his mother,” he has said.  Dan works mainly with images of the Blessed Virgin, Christ, and the Holy Family, though in recent years we see more saints. His artistic rendering of Mary expresses not only delicacy and joy, but focuses also on Our Lady's strength of presence and her spiritual power.

Our Lady of Auschwitz

Dan also  gives us new images of old favorites such as "Our Lady of Perpetual Help," "Lourdes," or "Our Lady of Guadalupe." He gives a stirringly personal touch to the "Our Lady of Auschwitz" and the "Apache Madonna." (two of my favorites)

 

Apache Madonna

Dan, who lives in Albuquerque, N.M., says he is married to his career. “I work from when I get up until I go to bed. God has been good to me, and has given me very good projects on which to work.” 

About 90 percent of Dan’s original cuttings have been gifts to museums, churches and friends in many places throughout the world. His originals are hung in museums, not only in United States and Canada, but Europe, South America, and Japan.

Through his art Dan speaks of the strength of the Mary as our mother and protector, the  compassionate woman of the Magnificat. His "Paper Madonnas" tickle our consciences, prompting us "to go out and see what we can do to help raze bigotry, selfishness and fear." And this is how Dan Paulos understands his mission in life: "to create for the glory of God.”  He is noted for his generous heart. One artist said: I know he will tirelessly devote himself to helping another artist, without, envy, selfishness, or expecting a return on his time and effort.

Bl. Mother Teresa

St. Bernadette

His book, "Behold The Women,"  describes the  contribution made by Catholic nuns to our world. It is filled with moving testimonials, wonderful pictures and sincere recollections by many notable people. All proceeds benefit the work of St. Bernadette Institute of Sacred Art.

More of his lovely art can be seen at:TRINITY.COM

 

Dan Paulos