Yes, I Moved Into a Former Crack House and Need Prayers for Discernment in the Ministry for the Poor

For some reason BlogSpot is not allowing this short video of a priest blessing a house.  Not to worry, just know that this took place and that it will be used in the witness and spirit of the hospitality of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in addition to other entities such as the highest levels of the charisms and gifts of the Holy Spirit -- praise, healing, prophetic word and visions, miracles of all kinds, and much more toward the poorest and most forgotten.  The last mentioned above parts somewhat with the focus of the Catholic Worker Movement, among other things happening in some of the more vocal houses.  Peter and Dorothy's witness though of their passionate Catholicism, and their radical 
and sacrificial love of the poor and lives dedicated to the poor, will continue through this house!  Pray along with MANY, including Benedictine monasteries and abbeys, for the canonization of Dorothy Day AND Peter Maurin!  Come, Holy Spirit, come!

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19YtFTTJtIKKhyN4eIUWNQ7Zgq5W1-6ri/view?usp=sharing

Rainbow Miracles and Beautiful Music!

By Monica       PDHOH  Columbus, Ohio 

     I had to share some things that happened last Friday at Hope on High with my outdoor dwelling friends on the South end!  BEAUTIFUL guitar playing and music was done by Carson and Willy!  THEN, to top off an amazingly entertaining night, was a spectacular show in the sky -- with a rainbow leading my path on a highway, then practically driving under a complete rainbow!!  Thank you Jesus!!  Good things are coming!  Well, couldn't get videos to upload here because it said that each one is too large, sorry!  You can join me on Facebook under Monica Siemer Jmj
    I am selling my house and moving into a poorer area soon to begin Peter and Dorothy's House of Hospitality!  Pray for me!

Yes, Peter and Dorothy's House of Hospitality is Really Going to Begin!!

By Monica      PDHOH    Columbus, Ohio

    God put into my hands two things within three days to point me in the directions of actually BEGINNING a community that lived as Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin lived: Peter and Dorothy's House of Hospitality!  Starting very small and aimed toward "street people," or those dwelling mostly outside, I finally am taking steps to start this mission, yayy!!
    The two thing that happened were these:   our St. Patrick's Benedictine Oblate organizer, Vicki Albright, said that the Vatican is wanting to step up the cause for sainthood of Dorothy Day, a Third Order Benedictine too!  We had all been praying and she asked us to continue since it was so close!  Msgr. Mottet always said that Peter Maurin should be canonized right alongside Dorothy because it was his idea, his push to be implemented, etc.  He only lived for the first 15 years, but Dorothy did it for almost 50 yrs!
    The second thing God used to point my attention to Dorothy was that my newly widowed 80+ year old neighbor, not a Catholic, gave me a book that her late husband had had and that she had never seen before going through his things.  It was the book, The Reckless Way of Love, Notes on Following Jesus by Dorothy Day (2017)  Ha, ha!  They are not even CATHOLICS!  I am not sure many Catholics would have such a radical book, let alone an elderly Episcopal neighbor!
     I hope to eventually add the Peter Maurin House of Hospitality, Casa de Hospitalidad de Guadalupe, and Casa de Hospitalidad Oscar Romero.
    I encourage anyone who does not know much about this Mother Teresa of New York for nearly 50 years, as I have often called Dorothy Day, please read this newest pocket-sized book, The Reckless Way of Love, Notes on Following Jesus by Dorothy Day (2017).  It is a compilation and summary of her very best inspirations!  Her life and shining witness were her greatest inspiration though, in the spirit of St. Francis of Assissi (another pacifist): "Preach at all times, only sometimes use words."
    PRAY FOR THE CANONIZATION OF DOROTHY DAY AND PETER MAURIN, please. :)

Pope Francis, Please Canonize Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin

Dear Pope Francis,

       Please, we ask you, go ahead and canonize Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, two American Catholic saints who modeled the early Church like no others here! Please, dear Papa.

      In Christ,
        Thomas and Monica Siemer

My father, Tom Siemer's, portrait of Dorothy

Peter Maurin

It will bring light,
to all the killing in the
world!

Benedictine Spirituality of Accountability, a Heart-to-Heart Talk

Monica,   Columbus, Ohio

What a precious night with the Hope on High people! Such a quietness and gentleness in these homeless people and especially in how they ask for something. They barely ask and only after you have been talking for a while. You can barely hear their voices, just above a whisper, that they almost say in passing, trailing off,.. something like, "Do you have any sterno to heat my tent, it's supposed to stay cold tonight," or "are there any heavy blankets?" All these things they are in DIRE need of too, but never push, never in demanding (except for Stanley -- ha ha --- long story).
I wanted to post snippets that spoke to me from a booklet one of my beloved Benedictine priests from "my" Archabbey in Indiana, St. Meinrad's, called "Accountability as a Heart to Heart Talk," by Fr. Mateo Zamora, OSB. I will just quote him. I also changed the order to read the most important part if you do not have time for longer. Just in time for Lent too! Praise Jesus.
"Although it [accountability] presents consequences for bad behavior, the "Rule of St. Benedict" actually provides us with a very positive and refreshing take on accountability, .... a heart-to-heart talk..:
'Listen carefully, my son, to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from a father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice' (RB Prol:1).'
The 'Rule' begins with a command: 'Listen!' I don't know about you, but whenever I am told to listen, it usually means that I am in trouble. Either I am in trouble or I am not paying attention...
It is interesting to note that the word 'obedience' is rooted in the Latin word 'audire,' which means 'to listen.' ... Accountability, then, as a discipline of mutual obedience, is first of all a practice of listening to one another.
'Listen carefully' (RB Prol:1)
The reason, I think, that some calls to accountability do not work is because, instead of a heart-to-heart talk, it is a mouth-to-ear talk.... this is counsel 'from a father who loves you.' (RB Prol:1).
The father is doing this not to make the son feel bad for doing bad. He is opening up his heart because he cares about him. He is concerned about what he is doing -- or not doing...
Why is it a heart-to-heart talk? It has to be a heart-to-heart talk because the topic is deeply personal. It involves one's behavior, one's faults, one's mistakes, those delicate details that nobody ever wants to discuss ...
Genuine accountability has to be a heart-to-heart talk because it involves hurts.... because there is a relationship that exists (child and father) and this relationship is very important to both.
.... because that is how love operates: not through the mouth or guts or brain or the liver (ha, ha, I liked that line), but through the heart.
In this model of Christian accountability from St. Benedict, both parties are willing to be vulnerable. They are opening up their hearts to one another. That is why it works. To be vulnerable here -- from the Latin "vulnus," which is translated as wound --means that they show their wounds to each other; they reveal their injuries.
Both have been wounded and the relationship itself has been damaged. They show their wounds to each other so that they can be tended to and healed.
Christ who 'humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross' (Phil. 2:8) We see our Lord hanging on the cross and there He bares not only His heart to us, but also all the wounds that our sinfulness has caused.
The Almighty has put his utter vulnerability on display on that cross to reassure each one of us that He is willing to do anything and suffer everything, if only we would be reconciled with Him. He opens up his Sacred Heart, not to demand justice, much less to exact vengeance, but rather to offer us mercy and forgiveness.
From that cross, the Lord invites us to a heart-to-heart talk. The question is: Are we ready? Are we ready to bare our hearts to Him?"
..this discipline of accountability ... can be a way of life, just as it has been for those who have followed the "Rule of St. Benedict" these 1,500 plus years.
[Finally, his Part 1)
Obedience is a blessing to be shown by all and to all. It is a blessing, or better yet, a benediction, which comes from the Latin verb "benedicere," which literally means to speak well of somebody, to commend another, to say something good to someone. Obedience is a blessing to be shown by by all and to all.... we owe it to everyone in the community.
When we forget that obedience is a blessing to be shown by all and to all, we start neglecting one another's feelings, one another's needs, and one another's dignity.
Christian accountability is a discipline of mutual obedience in a community of disciples. It means that everyone cares about everybody, and everyone looks out for everybody. It is a culture not of selfishness, but of selflessness. It is a discipline, the way of the disciple of Christ, for He said, 'This is how all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another' (Jn. 13:35).

These photos remind me of many of my friends on the south end.  No, they are not homeless, they usually live in tents, boarded up houses, sheds, make-shift shacks, and one even on a bench on the side of High St.

St. Francis: "Preach at all Times, Only Sometimes, Use Words"

        Monica,  Columbus, Ohio

       Beyond words was the experience last night with the homeless on Williams Rd., with the portable soup kitchen of Hope on High.  I went to be with my South side buddies, mainly the homeless who live in the woods close by, to simply sit and share lives at meal with each other.
       Aaron still struggles greatly with addiction, and all I did was listen to a litany, beautifully and eloquently spoken, of what has been taking place in the woods and his personal life through all this.  If he could only see how exquisite he is in the eyes of Jesus, which is what I prayed unceasingly while he was talking.  I have done this with him at least four or five times.  He said at the end, "Next time I see your smiling face, I am going to be clean and beginning a new relationship with my 17 year old daughter."
       Fred ("Santa") and Red, his girlfriend in a wheelchair from crushed bones in her feet (from a great height suicide attempt) were there. So glad to see them and get to catch up!  Scott came, whose girlfriend Harmony is in jail awaiting a sentencing for probation violation on March 1. He was just released the day before from two weeks in a facility for mental health (from missing her during her arrest).  I prayed with him, and ask all of you readers to please pray for Harmony.  She must call her probation officer every night at 6:15 to see if they should meet the next day.  Being homeless and having no cell phone makes this very difficult (and being surrounded by others who do not have cell phones -- and there are no payphones anymore!).
      Scott emphasized that the homeless are discriminated against every single day.  She was caught because she was breaking apart a very dangerous verbal fight between the friend and her boyfriend.  The neighbors called the police.  Pray for Harmony on March 1, please.
      "Baby," a huge man (tall and big), "fifteen years living as a homeless man," got so angry at the man I was eating and speaking with who was laughing at something separate that he pulled out a large wide knife and sat it on the table while he yelled at him some.  Scott stopped him, took his knife and put it in his coat, and almost started a real fight.  I stormed the heavens and they both took it outside the big tent and cleared it up.
      Viola was there and her boyfriend Tim! Tim broke his foot tripping on a cut-off small tree stump, and is on crutches (they were the ones living in the closet of a boarded up home).  I was able to bring four large trash bags of clothing from those who donated to the December parties we threw there.  Viola got new clothes, a coat, and a much needed blanket.  I gave them three propane cans to get them a few warm nights.  Such a sweet couple.  I gave propane to others as well, because it is still winter out there.
      Tyrell came and looks better than the last time I saw him, always smiling wide!  We sat and talked. Such a DOLL baby!! I get FAR more out of all this than they do!!  Michael did not show nor Tim Tom; and I was so sad. Tim is the one homeless even among them, without a tent, and Michael has serious spinal and other health issues. I hope they are okay, and I pray for them often.  Michael has the titanium rod along most of his spine, etc.
       Papa Bear came!!   He looks sooo different from December!  He's been very sick in the past couple of weeks.  He has lost so much weight and is weaker (in his seventies?).  Thanks to EDDIE BAUER for donating an additional 25-30 brand new winter coats!!!   All of them were taken and very well appreciated!  Papa Bear got the sassiest red and black ski jacket -- for UNDER his winter coat that was a jacket of jean material.  He said it felt much much better.
      Throughout the night I was able to take one to two groups "home" to the edge of the woods, at different openings, with all their new belongings.  My favorite trip was with Michelle, a woman I just met in her 50's whose been in these woods for a year with a 27 year old daughter, Mikaela.  We just sat at the edge of the woods and talked and talked about both our families. Words cannot describe the beauty of the conversation.  I always always pray in the Holy Spirit as I listen, and He always shows up.
     I feel God may be asking me to buy a house or two down there, with land, to possibly begin a little community of these homeless and "forgotten" people. It would be difficult for them to just be added to a middle class family, in a Christ Room that Dorothy Day promoted.  One reason is how different and even lonely they would feel apart from their friends and people who have shared their experiences.  They need community.
      They are SOOOO in need of everything though, and I want to REALLY help them, not simply say, "God bless, keep warm and well fed," as Jesus (or St. Paul?) warned in the Scriptures.  Not just to "preach" to them, or give them an experience of God then walk away, with such dire situations and circumstances.  I am speaking to myself as well.  I am guilty.
      Coming here once or twice a month and befriending them is just not enough for me at all.  Show me the way, Lord.  What do you want?
     Please pray for me!  And especially for all these people on the South side.  "We" - all 80-100 main BFF's in heaven and I - claim this South side area for Christ!  We bind and cast out anything of evil from all these woods (boy did Aaron have some stories), and all those whose mascot is the Marion-Franklin Red Devils, the school right by there that generations have gone to and heavily support!           Please God, help us claim this all back for you, especially any spirits of addictions, hopelessness, and atheism!  Come, Holy Spirit, come!!
         

Fourth Outdoor Party for the Homeless on FRIDAY, Feb. 15

To any Columbus natives, we had two beautiful Christmas parties for the homeless on the South end in December and one in January.  There is another one from 5-7, Monday, February 18, at the parking lot of Heer Park by the South High Planet Fitness on Williams Rd. just off of South High Street.
Wanting to continue the friendships begun, we will join HOPE ON HIGH, a multi-church effort begun by the Obetz Church of the Nazarene, with their set up of a nearly four-sided large tent, with hot air pumped in, lights, tables, chairs, and a banquet style soup kitchen on wheels!  I am bringing some beef stew, but come, and bring whatever you can!  There usually is a grave need for warm  blankets, sleeping bags, clothes, shoes, etc), and a lot of GREAT conversation!
Pray for these homeless on the South end, and for a bigger Catholic presence down there!  Come, Holy Spirit, come!

Touching the Foot of Christ on the Cross

                                                      By Monica  LCW, Columbus, Oh.
     Please pass this partial repost of last year's Lenten newsletter along to people.  There is no regular way to get to it on Bing; so perhaps this will help.  Pray.

     I had an out-of-body experience at the Mayo Clinic in early June of 2015 that has taken me this long (almost 8 mos.) to try to capture in words, to attempt to clarify, or even to understand. This intense and alarming experience cannot be subjected to words or boxed into words, which has been part of the delay, as well as illiciting a horror in me of its memory, equaled to a memory of simultaneous intense, agape-love ecstacy, in an almost mystical sense.  I am glad to have delved deeply into St. John of the Cross before (The Ascent to Mount Carmel and Dark Night of the Soul) 3 yrs ago on a 3-week silent retreat, to begin to grasp and digest this incident. 

      Having been nudged for quite a while by the Holy Spirit to try to write about it, the final push was at mass at St. Patrick’s today where we perch on the edge of another beautiful Lenten season.  The Dominican priest, on celebrating the feast of Blessed Catherine Ricci, reminded us of the power of meditating at length on the passion of Christ, particularly of Him on the Cross (one Gospel has this being for six hours, not three) in excruciating, writhing agony, suffering for all of our sins and sinful living, that of the whole world, to set us free.

     Basically, I believe that God allowed me to touch the foot of Christ on the Cross, and for 8-10 seconds, maybe 15, as long as I could stand without letting go, I was allowed to share in SOME of the intense swirling conglomerate of pain and love that enveloped Him during His hours of “defeat” and triumph on the Cross.

     I had once seen a detective show where there was a gory graphic scene of a 20 year old woman who had been nailed to crude cross beams with large nails in her hands and feet, and was found the next day.  It was shocking.  I realized then how I had become somewhat numbed or used to seeing Christ on the Cross and had lost the true sense and appreciation of the intensity and torture of Christ’s torment on the Cross.

     For those who have not read past articles, I had donated 59% of my liver to a relative in end-stages liver disease in a surgery on June 9.  There were complications, then a fully ruptured bowel (technically the secum leading to the colon) and a second emergency surgery performed 4 ½ days later, having to be left somewhat open for several weeks.  The convalescence has been long, with almost six months off of work with many complications, and is still taking place (hence another reason for the delay in this newsletter and writings).

     I will admit that I went to the Mayo as a coward.  I was terrified and did believe that God was possibly asking my life for the sake of The Lamb Catholic Worker to begin here and for Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin’s canonization, besides saving a relative's life.  While I said “yes,” I was more and more scared the closer the date came.  It was not until the very day before surgery that this lessened some, when the Gospel was the same as what I had planned for my funeral, the beatitudes.  This felt as a a gentle nod to me that all was in His hands totally and I could be at peace.  This is not the life anyways, the real life is to come!

     In my weeks leading up to leaving for the Mayo, the fear had become so intense (certainly tangled in  and magnified by menopausal hormones) that I went to The Book Loft in German Village to find any kind of relief in the religious section.  I had gone to MANY Eucharistic Adorations, and they helped to appease it while I was there, but as soon as my foot was outside, it all came flooding back.  More than anything, I was ashamed at how scared I was and wanted to pretend to be brave, or to REALLY BE brave.

     Only two things caught my eye in the few minutes I stayed at the bookstore.  One was simply a book cover that said, “Living Courageously:  You Can Do Anything, Just Do It Afraid.”  That was it!  It IS courageous to do something anyways, even as a scaredy-cat, so I convinced myself. I just wanted to take a big straw and suck His strength and His braveness into me.

       The second thing I found was truly amazing and perfect.  It was a short story of an orphanage during the Korean War.  It had been hit directly by bombing and corrugated metal and parts were everywhere.  Underneath everything was a 4 year old girl with a severed leg, bleeding to death.  The doctors asked all the orphan children that were her blood type if one would come forward and give them their blood or she would die.  A little 6 year old boy finally stepped forward.  They began taking his blood and he started to cry.  He was asked if it hurt and he said no.  They continued and he cried so hard he was wailing.  They stopped and said he did not have to if he was afraid or if it hurt, and he said, “I am NOT afraid, keep going.”  They did and he screamed and screamed. 

     When finished they asked him why he was crying so hard if he was not afraid and it did not hurt much.  He said that he thought he had to give her all his blood, and that he would die instead.  They asked him, “WHY would you do that?!  Why would you be willing to give her all of your blood?”  He said, “She is my friend.”

      I felt God’s grace pour over me that it is okay if I am not this perfect martyr, but a big baby.  As I walked out of the bookstore, a beautiful sight unfolded before my eyes.  The trees, I think Magnolias, were shedding their white, pink-lined blossoms like snow, with no breeze to cause this.  I sat down on the benches to soak it up, the petal-covered ground and pedestal bird feeder looking as a beautiful wedding.  As petals fell on my clothing I thought of the Scripture, from Revelations, that goes something like, “the wedding feast of the Lamb has begun; the bride has made herself ready, adorned with the finest of linen glistening and pure..”
      At the Mayo, I lay in bed one day in particularly excruciating pain.  My memory was after the first surgery but before they had found and acknowledged the perforated secum (ruptured bowel). The pain meds were not cutting it much at all.  I couldn’t pray or use words well in my head.

       Every split second was beyond any pain level I had ever experienced, including five childbirths with no painkillers or epidurals.  I couldn’t even hold up one hand by itself toward God, so I took my hand I was trying to hold up and barely held it up at the wrist, with my other hand. 

       We had been listening daily to a song Abby Evans, my niece and caregiver, kept playing for me called “I Surrender,” by Hillsong (the 12-minute concert version on Youtube is the best).  It goes:

I surrender,

I surrender,

I want to know you, Lord

I want to know you, Lord.

Like a rushing wind,

Jesus breath within,

Lord have your way,

Lord have your way,

Innnn Me.

Like a mighty storm

Stir within my soul,

LORD, HAVE YOUR WAAYYY,

LORD, HAVE YOUR WAY,

INNNN, MEEEEEE.”

It gets pretty intense!

       I was trying to sing this song with intensity in my head, and then praying: “Have your way in me, have your way in me, have your way in me, have your way in me,...  You could stop this if you really want to; you must be willing this.  Have your way in me, have your way in me, I say yes, have your way in me. I offer this for the canonization of Dorothy Day!  For the canonization of Peter Maurin!  Then almost screaming in my head too – “I do this for ______’s SALVATION!” (one of my five children who is an atheist).
      That’s when it happened. Eyes closed, with my hand barely pointing upward from my abdomen, I was suddenly touching something warm, round, and slimy, with a sharp-edged metal piece coming out of the top.  I opened my eyes in my mind and it was the foot of Christ on the Cross.  I couldn’t see the other foot, I was in such close proximity.  I looked up and could not even see His knee, the bright blinding light from above was so intense, completely swallowing the entire room.  I was almost instantaneously drawn into an inferno of pain, like fire all over my whole body, wracking, and boiling my skin. Later when I was remembering, I recalled that the most intensity was in my palms and feet.

      Simultaneously, there was a burning in my heart for Christ as I have never experienced, equally as intense as the pain. I felt this ferocious love for me as well, my direction. I could only hold on for probably 8-10 seconds or so, maybe 15, before letting go.  THIS had been 100 times worse than my pain.  When I “came back,” although still in a GREAT deal of pain, I took a nap!  It was NOTHING, nothing in comparison, not even in the same galaxy, as this pain Christ led me through.  Nothing in my life from this point on will ever compare, even if I were to be crucified somehow.  Christ had had the “sins” of the world rip through His wounds and His torture - not just metaphorically, but physically. 

      My love for Him was forever changed, transformed to heights I did not think possible.  It was a gift, a gift. Just brace yourself if you say or sing that you want to really know Him, as in the song, and to have His way in you. It is almost too much for us to bear, his level of love for us. Those who wanted to walk closely right up with Christ, his beloved Apostles, to know Him, love Him dearly as a friend, learn from Him, and follow Him closely, were all martyred.  The exceptions were Judas Iscariot and John (although his "martyrdom' may have been the worst if he touched Christ's foot as support, but even if not, witnessing what he did!).  These grueling deaths though were after living incredible lives of great joy in the Spirit, building His Kingdom on Earth. Better yet, now they are at His side forever, seeing His beautiful beautiful face, laugh, Spirit.

      

           My Sweet Savior, Jesus Christ, through constant prayer and the intercession of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, and through the loving care of my family, Lisa, Abbie, and Dory are mainly what got me through this ordeal.  I think of St. Paul, and after having had a particularly torturous scourging, was singing praises to God even after midnight in the jail, chained heavily (against his wounds in dirt and skin agitation), when the walls shook and the chains fell off everyone.  He stopped the guard from killing himself, and was “cleaned up” at the guard’s house before baptizing him, showing he was quite a mess.  Wow, singing praises in this situation, not knowing his fate too.
       I was not always singing God's praises at the Mayo, but hope to if I am ever in another situation of intense physical suffering for Christ. My heart goes out to our modern martyrs in dangerous places. As my niece Bernadette Rogers, young Catholic mother of eight has tattooed on her, "Make my suffering perfect."




    Take Up Thy Cross

Take up thy cross, the Savior said,
If thou wouldst my disciple be;
Deny thyself, the world forsake,
And humbly follow after me.

Take up thy cross, let not its weight
Fill thy weak spirit with alarm;
His strength will bear thy spirit up,
And brace thy heart and nerve thine arm.

To Thee, great Lord, the One in Three,
All praise for evermore ascend;
O grant us in our home to see
the heav'nly life that knows no end. Amen

From the Liturgy of the Hours for Benedictine Oblates, St. Meinrad Archabbey, P. 184

 

           

Pray for the canonization of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, please!

Pope Francis' Good Shepherd Cross, Finding the One Lost Sheep

By Monica,   LCW,   Columbus, Ohio

This post is simply to convey the choice of crucifix, designed and worn by Pope Francis, that represents his papacy.  It is of the good and brave shepherd, Christ Himself, who out of unspeakable love, will go to great lengths to find, and coax, and bring in the lost sheep, carrying it tenderly on His shoulders.

The Crowd, Lenten/Spring Lamb Catholic Worker Newsletter

The Crowd    

by S. Johansing and Monica       LCW  Columbus, Ohio

 

      As we approach Lent and Easter 2017, this article spotlights the responses and actions of the crowds to Christ and the internal human responses Jesus may have had to all that He was experiencing as well as to these responses of Him, especially during what transpired from Palm Sunday to His ultimate Passion.
     By the point in Jesus' life of Palm Sunday, the poison of the Jewish leaders' jealousy and fear had been fanned and cultivated to the point of immense hatred at the murderous level. While self-evident for a long time, the love and mercy of Jesus' most Sacred Heart had to have made Him hold onto a last thread of hope for them.
     After all, He did not seek fame for Himself, constantly shushing whoever he healed or set free, in order to move about and teach Truth as far and wide as possible before His end.  They had to have seen this.  He did not cater to the popular "women of prominence" or even them, nor anyone (such as a highest rabbi or Pharisee) who could have had the power to cast him above them. He had zero interaction with the local and national leaders to undermine them either. He was no real threat at all.
      The only threat He was to them was His holiness of life and audacity to speak the Truth to them -- particularly about the hypocrisy of their lives and hearts.  To speak what was true -- about God's mercy, love, and especially His humility that even they, lesser than God, chose not to live by in their roles as religious leaders.
     Knowing that He most likely will suffer and die a grueling death, He enters Jerusalem as a king, to the uproar and great enthusiasm of the cheering and praising crowds.  They even loudly sang songs over him while they put palms down for his donkey to walk upon, as a carpet emitting the highest royalty.
     It must have been such music to His ears!  He had to have thought for a fleeting moment that maybe, just maybe, He may not have to suffer so greatly on the cross. It must have been the height of His time, that maybe "they DO understand.  They might finally get it and see what I am trying to do and that I truly truly do love them.  They see and finally KNOW the truth behind my message, the Truth of this new Way, the way of love.  Truth itself. They finally do understand I AM. My Kingdom on Earth has truly, truly come and begun. I was to come into the world and fix the mistake made in the fall, but maybe I do not have to go through with that which I know I must do; perhaps My kingdom has begun without this, and I do not have to be exposed to that level of hatred and physical pain."
      But ...
     It starts slowly, taking Him in the night a few days later.  Even though He knew this must be, He had pre-warned His Apostles, even though He had given them His Body and Blood in the first Eucharist, that awareness and exultation of Palm Sunday before must have given Him a tiny glimmer of hope.  He still begged His Father at Gethsemane, after the first Eucharist, for this cup to please pass Him by if it could. He would not have asked if He did not think this was possible.  His desire was steadfastly to solely do the Will of His beloved Father (who is one with Him), and perhaps this easier path may be His Will, He may have briefly thought.  Their praise and adoration still rang out in His head.  His sweat was like drops of blood as He pleaded hard for this cup to pass Him by, of what most likely lie ahead, if it was His Will.

     Yet He fully submitted, as always, to the most perfect Will of the Father in heaven. Imagine His "fully human" side, once the sequence is put in motion, looking down at His bound hands, ...  This time He won't evade a stoning or avoid getting hurled off of a cliff, ...
       He could not turn to others for support either, to lean on ... Yes, even His beloved Peter really did do it, completely denied ever having known Him in His hour of greatest need.  And He was to be the HEAD of this new Kingdom on Earth.  Even though He had told Peter on Holy Thursday that He would do this three times against Him, and even though He told Peter that He will be sifted greatly but He will pray for His strength to encourage His brothers after, the beginning of the Church --  it still had to have grieved Him greatly knowing those moments of Peter's voice nearly swearing vehemently that he knew nothing of Him.  Such rejection from someone so close for three years.
     Even though He knew all this was to be, what a sinking, sinking feeling it must have been when the sting of the first whip jarred Him, and the rawness of excruciating shredded skin was being further whipped deeply into muscle tissue... He is fully God and fully human.  His physical pain no different than our own.
     It gets worse and worse without a minute of let-up... the piercing thorns driven into His skull by blows of reeds as dense as hollow baseball bats -- that crown of thorns that continued agitating His skull all day while struggling.
     The very people who had jubilantly sang praise of Him five days earlier - praising the one who they had heard so many great things about - now viciously turned on Him, urged on by the ringleader Pharisees and Sadducees.  It was not long that the power of suggestive doubt, suspicion, and hate had swayed the crowd, taken root, and grown into hateful and dangerous thoughts against Him.  It was crystal clear from the Father: "No, you really DO have to do the whole thing..." And as always, He willfully obeyed when He could have ended the suffering in a flash.
      Nudged on they shouted to crucify Him, to release Barabbas, even after seeing how badly He had been scourged. As he passed through them, they screamed into His face, they spit on Him, threw things at Him.
      Now He carries on his raw stinging open back a huge, impossibly heavy cross, like concrete blocks, through the city streets and up this insurmountable hill....  with the shrieking screams of the two other prisoners being crucified ahead of Him...  the long crude nails being driven through His hands and feet, splitting them open, like a worm with a hook through it, and hanging by His body weight on only His nailed hand and feet wounds ...  the humiliating nakedness in front of these women for hours all in front of the malicious crowd.
     The most wrenching of all, putting His sweet mother, sobbing at His feet, through indescribable pain and suffering at the sight and experience of His torture -- the sword of swords piercing her heart over and over and over again without mercy, with nothing to ease her pain.
      And the feet.  How beautiful the feet that walked so far to bear good news, now bearing the force of love... And that unspeakably raw spot at the top, that constantly bore the force of His entire body weight bearing down hard upon it, by gravity, rubbing and agitating this open fleshy tangle of nerves and vessels, especially when He had to push His body upward to take a breath.  Excruciating.  Stinging.
       On the cross you typically died from lack of air.  The extended arms put pressure down upon their chest and lungs over time. In order to take a breath, you had to "stand up" high on your feet, lungs higher than arms.  Such torture for Christ upon His precious feet! That's why they broke the knees of the other two prisoners so that they could not stand higher to take a breath, and so, would die quickly.
      It is one thing to have a nail driven through your hand or foot accidentally, and wait for help to arrive.  It is altogether another to have your entire body weight hanging and pulling hard solely from those terribly injured inflamed and raw places of the body for hours, ripping them more all the time.
      One Gospel account puts it at SIX hours not three that He hung at those pressure points, that He needed to pull Himself upward every few breaths, at His hands and onto His feet.  Unimaginable.

    

        May this Lent be a time to ponder more closely and fully than ever, every detail of the Passion of our Savior, Jesus Christ. The Stations of the Cross done together most Friday evenings of Lent in Catholic churches, moving throughout the entire church together along the walls (14 Stations), as the crowds did who followed Christ carrying His cross through the streets, is powerful!  This is not only from the intense prayers and detailed meditations in the booklets, but physically walking through each detailed phase of it does one great good -- with meditations on what went through His mind and that of those in the crowd, of prayers He has for us to help fully enter the scene for insight into our own lives.
       May this also be a time of pondering who we are in the crowd, in different crowds we find ourselves in, toward Christ and His Way of love, of mercy, of peace.  May His love and His peace reign in our hearts and in our world for all that He modeled and sacrificed for us; just as Dietrich Bonhoffer and Franz Jaegerstatter sacrificed in refusing to join Hitler's army of hate, greed, and lust for power.  Mussolini and Hitler could not have killed the millions that they did without a LOT of help -- it took thousands of Catholic soldiers in both Germany and Italy to massacre millions.
      May we, like Christ, be a shining light on a hill, a city set apart, refusing to kill sacred human life as the nonviolent Cross of our Lord and Savior has taught us in word and deed!  (See the new movie directed by Mel Gibson, "Hacksaw Ridge").
      At an Encounter weekend I recently attended, I explained to a Franciscan of the Renewal who was praying over me on the last day (and had put a relic of St. Padre Pio on my shoulder while ministering to me) that I felt like a punching bag, with hard boxing glove blows from others through Satan in their actions and words, not knowing from which direction they will come from next, to the point of even being denounced as evil.  He said, "Do you know what this means?!  What an honor this is?!  How blessed you truly are .... the few who have had this honor..."  I needed that, praise Jesus.
     May we trouble ourselves this Lent to read an entire Gospel in a short time (a week or two) to truly and fully put ourselves into the sandals of Christ's most precious feet.  May our Shofar (Old Testament horn for rallying all to religious services and to war) be blasted the loudest for Christ the King of Kings and Prince of Peace in this world of great hate, fear, suspicion, and killing.  May all of our actions mirror only Christ's and His most holy Apostles and martyrs.

    May the loud blasting horn call Christ-followers to a spiritual war -- armed with "the breastplate of righteousness," the "sword of Truth" (the Word made flesh), and with the greatest of all  - LOVE -  against an Old Testament mentality so prevalent in the Middle East to this day.
      This Lent may we also take the priceless time of listening to the voice of the Lord alone, that of our Beloved.  Eucharistic Adoration with the actual physical flesh and body of our Lord Jesus Christ in the room is powerful!!
      As learned in Theophostic prayer, may we have uncomfortably long wait times, seemingly fruitless wait times in silence, beyond any more words, prayers, expressed internal yearnings or even praise, for that sometimes faint and quick "wisp of smoke," or "still small voice" of God, the manner described in the Old Testament when God speaks to us.
      Patrick Reis, at an Encounter weekend,  gave a wonderful exercise in hearing the voice of God.  He said, "Shut your eyes and say your first and last name in your head....  That is what it is like to hear the voice of God."  I have had this happen as well, more clearly and conversationally in addition to that still small voice, but usually in the second or third hour of Eucharistic Adoration.  This still small quick manner has happened more often than the other, for me.  Always have pen and paper ready - and discern after with prayer, to make sure it is from God.
      St. Catharine's just opened up its Thursday Eucharistic Adoration in Lent for 11 hours, from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.  Praise the name of Jesus for this, and Fr. Dury (and Fr. Lumpe for beginning regular Eucharistic Adoration again).  We also have Adore, another newer form of Eucharistic Adoration, on the first Sunday of the month at 6:30 p.m.  We will have our 7th one March 5th at St. Catharine's.  This is and has been done Franciscans of the Renewal style, which I won't give away!  POWERFUL.
    We know how this epic story, the greatest love story ever told, of Christ's passion, ends after all the torment and suffering.  It ends GLORIOUSLY and extends forever and ever and ever for all of our stories, sprung from the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!  He has truly freed us from death and set captives free, set all of us free by taking our sins upon Himself on that excruciating cross: our sins of the past, present, and future if we plug into the Cross of Christ.  We can be freed from pride, lust, greed, hate, wrath, vainglory, suspicion, and all other forms of sin.  Praise our King, our Savior and Deliverer, the Prince of Peace, now and forever!!

     In this year, 2017, of the 100th anniversary of Fatima, consider reading and undergoing the book, "33 Days to Morning Glory."  The beauty of this book is the meditations of others who have done this: St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. John Paul II, St. Maxmillian Kolbe, and St. Louis de Montfort.  All of these saints have added pearls of great price to this experience.

     While you are supposed to begin it 33 days before an actual Marian feast day (see schedule below), so that it ends on a feast day, if you have done it before, you may want to additionally consider beginning on April 10 -- 33 days before the first apparition of Mary at Fatima, May 13, (1917 was the first time).  Mother Mary appeared at Fatima six times, once a month on the 13th for six months.  Great miracles in the sky appeared on the last one, witnessed by tens of thousands, October 13, 1917.

    If you have never undergone it in the St. Louis de Montfort way - (I have not yet) you may want to undergo this much more rigorous manner involving removing yourself from "the world" for the first 12 days!  I plan on trying to this summer when I am off from teaching.  

    

Start of 33-day Plan	Marian Feast You've Chosen	Feast / Consecration Day
9 Jan	Apparition of the Immaculate Virgin Mary at Lourdes	11 Feb
20 Feb 1	The Annunciation	25 Mar
13 Jun	Our Lady of Mt. Carmel	16 Jul
13 Jul	The Assumption	15 Aug
6 Aug	Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary	8 Sep
13 Aug	Our Lady of Sorrows	15 Sep
19 Oct	Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary	21 Nov
5 Nov	Immaculate Conception	8 Dec
9 Nov	Our Lady of Guadalupe	12 Dec

PLEASE PRAY FOR THE CANONIZATION OF DOROTHY DAY AND PETER MAURIN!

   

I May Be the Miracle to Help Get Peter Maurin Canonized

    By Monica Siemer,  The Lamb Catholic Worker, Columbus, Ohio
       Many who strongly desire to have Dorothy Day canonized want Peter Maurin, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, canonized alongside her.  She always said that HE started the Catholic Worker not her, that it was his vision, his dreams, his everything, and that she simply went along.  He only lived 15 years to see it bear fruit, while she did for nearly 50 years.
      It dawned on me, after saying so many, many times to people on my return from the Mayo hospital and the Gift of Life Transplant House, that I was supposed to die according to statistics.  Nearly all the cases of people donating part of their liver to a loved one (I gave 59% of my liver to my nephew Nick), that had need of a second emergency surgery 3-5 days out, died.  I was the worst case the Mayo, who has never lost a patient in the 215 live liver donor surgeries in 15 years, has ever seen.  At the other places that do these rare surgeries, nearly all have died that needed a second emergency surgery right away.
       I offered everything up for Nick, for the canonization of Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day together, for the purification of the Catholic Worker Movement back to the diamond of its founders, and for the Lamb Catholic Worker to begin here in Columbus, Ohio.  I was 16 days in the hospital and a month in the Gift of Life Transplant House.  I constantly asked for Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin's intercession (along with Mother Mary, of course).  Dorothy is in the "Servant of God" stage of the beatification process but I believe that Peter is not at all.  In the Catholicism 10-CD series, Fr. Robert Barron introduces the Catholic Worker Movement with the wide grin of Peter Maurin, not Dorothy Day.
      Please Dear Papa, Holy Father, consider canonizing Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin together!  Pray for us too!!

Pope Francis, Dear Papa, Please Canonize Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, and Oscar Romero, Modern Day Champions for the Poor!

By Monica, The Lamb Catholic Worker, Columbus, Ohio - Dorothy Day was a Benedictine Oblate and in this Year of the Consecrated Life, how powerful and catalytic it would be for teenagers and adults of all ages to see canonized two lay people who have lived exemplary, prayerful lives to the level of priests and sisters.  My prayer is that Dorothy and Peter are joined with Archbishop Oscar Romero, another champion for the poor in the same era, who was recently (January 15) deemed an official martyr of the Church, to be recognized in this manner.  Dorothy always said that Peter Maurin truly started and was the founder of the Catholic Worker, not her.  He only lived to see it happen for 15 years while Dorothy lived it for almost 50 years, as a prolific writer. In Fr. Robert Barron's Catholicism multi-DC series, it is Peter Maurin's face that introduces the Catholic Worker Movement, not Dorothy's. Thank you, dear Papa, for declaring Archbishop Romero a martyr.

"We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”
― Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness

"When we die we carry under our arm what we gave to the poor."

- Peter Maurin 

      One last note is on Benedictine Oblates, or Third Order Benedictines.  You commit to quite a rigorous and edifying prayer life, praying the Divine Office daily in addition to other things.  Amazingly, even though so rooted in rich Catholic tradition, it is humbly and ecumenically non-denominational.  I love that!  You go through a particular abbey, becoming somewhat one in communion with them, and meet monthly with others like yourself in your hometown, have Benedictine priests and monks come to join your groups at times, and go to retreats a couple times a year with the ultimate goal of seeking the presence of God every day.

      You can be as young as 15, which is also an exquisite feature.  You go through a year Novitiate, trying it out and seeing if it is for you, and then you commit.  Yes, you can marry if you have begun this as a single person.  What an incredible, solid faith-filled community of people you would be sharing your life with, sistered with an extraordinary group of prayerful men, the Benedictines.  I am beginning this process through St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana. Pray for me, please.  Already I feel the tug away, and understand why St. Benedict himself, wanting to bring monasticism to the world, felt such a forceful level of resistance from Satan that he was given by God the powerful prayers of the Benedictine cross and medal for protection! I have given hundreds of these away in the course of my lifetime to put under loved ones beds, T.V.s, computers, in cars, wallets, and purses, on desks, keychains, etc. not knowing I would one day become a Benedictine Oblate! I had never heard of one, nor even knew that Dorothy Day was a faithful one, Catholic Worker that I am.  What an accomplished orchestrator God is in our lives!
     Use any tool possible to keep Satan and his evil spirits away, who do indeed prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.  Someone scoffed at this recently and said, "Yeah, but we have God," meaning we do not need these things because God is on our side.  Observe how many, many times Jesus had to order Satan to get behind him!  It doesn't just happen, we have to call on Jesus often to get Satan behind and away from us when tempted away from His will and His plan for our lives.
      Finally, we encourage everyone here in the U.S. who are movie-goers to see the movie, " Old -Fashioned" purposely premiering on Valentine's Day to counter the movie, "50 Shades of Grey."  We need more Benedictine Oblates in the world!