May our voices bless

The Ghent Altarpiece, Singing Angels,
Jan Van Eyck, 15th-Century Dutch.

One Advent/Christmas reflection on Silence, one on Voices:

To reach my popular post "Keep Silence This Advent," click here.

And here is my new reflection, which will post this weekend in the SQPN-affiliated Catholic Vitamins podcast V-- For Voices. My Missionary Moment for that podcast features my father reading his morning offering, and reflecting on its meaning, plus my daughter singing Et in Terra Pax:

Voices
By Marianna Bartholomew

Voices -- can babble, argue, demand and demean. Or they can gently, sweetly calm...speak words of peace and love, and unity.

Voices can be heard too seldom, in the life of a man or woman alone, in a new city, estranged from all that is familiar. Voices can be rare in the life of the elderly, beyond demands to take medicine, or to move here or there, or to head to bed or awaken.

Voices can rattle the nerves of a young mother, when it’s dinnertime and the toddlers are hungry and the husband reaches home on a late train from work. Voices can shake the confidence of young and old, when they are teasing, sarcastic, tempting or over-demanding.

But at their best, voices bless. Voices reach through history, through the ages, forming our foundations, our heritage. Voices repeat and resound in oral traditions that shape, guide and celebrate. Voices through radio, television or internet can be powerful agents for good or evil. Voices through history, can be great educators. Voices should be heeded.

The voices of wise men and women of faith resonate through the ages and are available to us today, if only sought.

Listen to the voice of a saintly Catholic from more than 1200 years ago:

Christ the True Vine Greek Icon, 16th C.

Rod of the Root of Jesse

Rod of the Root of Jesse,

Thou, Blossom of Mary born,

From that thick shady mountain,

Cam’st glorious forth this morn:

Of her, the Ever-Virgin,

Incarnate wast Thou made,

The immaterial Essence,

The God by all obeyed!

In Balaam’s ancient vision

The Eastern seers were skilled;

They traced the constellations,

And joy their spirits filled:

For Thou, bright Star of Jacob,

Ascending in Thy might,

Summoned these first Gentiles here

To worship in Thy light.

As on a fleece descending

The gentle dews distil,

As rain o’erflows the cistern

The Virgin didst Thou fill.

Tarshish and Ethiopia,

The Isles and Araby,

And Media, leagued with Sheba,

Fall down and worship Thee.

By St. Cosmas (d. 760)

Translated by J.M. Neale

So, we have the wisdom of the saints, and we have the wisdom of our elders. Do we take time to sit and listen? Here is wisdom from my father, a 94-year-old man, rich in experience, who learned what faith is from loving parents. He speaks especially of his father. Born into poverty by the stockyards of Chicago, his passion for learning and solid footing in faith uplifted him to become a mechanical engineer and patriarch of a large and growing family. He shares here his morning prayer, offered to the Lord day in, day out, for decades beyond counting:

Morning Offering
Thank you, Almighty Father, for this moment 
and for another beautiful day to do your work: 
to love and to prove myself worthy 
of the eternal reward prepared for me in heaven. 

I will greet the new day with a song and a smile.
I know You are with me and I dedicate this day to You. 
Let my love for you, my wife, my family and all mankind 
shine in my every good work every day of my life. 

I will live life to the hilt, seize every opportunity, 
smile at all adversity, and revel in the joy and wonder 
of a full and productive life 
in this wonderful world of your creation.  

-- By Joseph F. Robin, Sr.

MB: So, did you always feel this way?
JR: Yes, I think so...most of the time. But if somebody asked me to put it down into words I might not have said everything there. But the gist of the thing is that you're telling God that you will be what He wants you to be...and He wants me to say that freely and openly and grab everything he has to offer.
MB: Did you learn that from your Dad?
JR: I think my father did live that way...he was a very, very fine man. And I think he did his job just about like nobody else I ever knew.
MB: Did he put all his heart into it?
JR: Absolutely.

Finally, we have the voices of youth. Do we listen? Do we encourage our youth to express what is most excellent within them? What frightens or confuses them? Do we placate our youth with movies and good times, new clothes and new cars, but not care for their spirit? Here is the voice of one young person who has lived and loved for 18 years….in whom the faith of her parents and grandparents has taken root and flowered. Her faith spills into song and wishes peace upon the earth, in the traditional Latin piece, Et in Terra Pax:

(Erin Bartholomew sings) Et in terra pax, hominibus, bonae voluntatis, Et in terra pax, hominibus, pax, et in terra pax, hominibus…

God’s blessings upon you, these final days of Advent. Wishing you a blessed Christmas filled with only fine and loving voices and a New Year brightened by the Lord’s sweet voice daily guiding and cheering you.

North American Martyrs, Heal Our Nation

Joan of Arc helped liberate Orleans, France in
the 1400s. This city nurtured North American
martyr Saint Isaac Jogues in the 17th century.
Image from Catholic Forum.

Imagine growing up in Orléans of Saint Joan of Arc fame, in the 1600s. Recovered from the Hundred Years’ War, this north-central French city on the Loire River, has the amazing Gothic Cathedrale Saint-Croix d’Orleans, or Cathedral of the Holy Cross, a thriving university dating back to the 1230’s, and is a transportation center, filled with culture and commerce.

Next, imagine you receive a fine education and are ordained a Jesuit priest. You can fit right in with intellectuals and rulers of Orléans. But you feel called to remote forests, to serve people who have never seen a modern city, don’t speak your language and are fierce warriors.

This is Saint Isaac Jogues’ story and it has given me chills since childhood. His superiors sent this native of Orléans to serve allies of the French, the Hurons and Algonquins, in North America, in territory called “New France.” In a canoe en route, several Christian companions and he were captured by Mohawk Iroquoise. Father Isaac Jogues could have easily died from blood loss or gangrene after his captors tortured him and chopped off several fingers. He survived and became a slave of the Mohawks, seeking every chance to teach the tribal people about Jesus and God’s mercy. When Dutch merchants learned of his plight, they smuggled him off to present-day Manhattan.

Miraculously, he sailed back to France, where people greeted him as a "living martyr." He was even given special permission by Pope Urban VIII to celebrate Mass with his mutilated hand, since the Eucharist is only supposed to be held by the thumb and forefinger.

Orleans, France. 1895 Image is in public domain.

He had certainly earned safety in some quiet assignment. But after just a few months of recovery, Father Isaac Jogues headed back to North America.

A shaky peace was forged between the Iroquois, Huron, Algonquin and the French, and in 1645, Father Isaac Jogues and lay helper Jean de Lalande went into Mohawk country to act as ambassadors. But illness and crop failure had hit the Mohawks. Europeans immigrating into the New World, especially children, were helping to spread smallpox. But Indians feared the missionaries were magicians who were casting spells on their tribes.

The missionaries preached peace, but when they were captured by a hostile group of Mohawks, they were taken to their village of Ossernenon, now Auriesville, New York. The Turtle and Wolf Clans of the Mohawks argued for the priest’s lives and wanted to free them. But members of the fierce Bear Clan, ambushed the men from behind, using tomahawks to behead them.

Photo of mosaic in Cathedral Basilica 
of St. Louis taken by Mark Scott Abeln.

For my Catholic Vitamins podcast "J-for Jubilee," I told how my family drove along the Saint Lawrence Seaway, past Quebec City to the spectacular shrine of St. Anne de B’eaupre. We didn’t realize at the time that when Father Isaac Jogues was martyred by the Mohawks, his body was thrown into the St. Lawrence River.

Just about ten years after this martyrdom, an Indian maiden was born near Ossernenon. Kateri Tekakwitha was the daughter of a Mohawk chief and a Catholic Algonquin woman, and it is thought she belonged to the Turtle Clan who had argued to save Father Jogues and Lalande. 

Kateri lost her brother and parents to smallpox, that also left her with impaired vision and facial scars. She was quiet, avoided social gatherings, and covered her head with a blanket to spare others the sight of her scars. She was mocked and cast off by her tribe because she took a vow of virginity, consecrating herself to God. When she died at the age of 24, eyewitnesses saw her smallpox scars fade and her face bloom into beauty.

“The blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Tertullian penned these words around the 2^nd-3^rd century after Christ. It seems that the sacrifice of Saints Isaac Jogues and Jean de Lalande watered the soil that nurtured Kateri, known now as the Lily of the Mohawks. 

In the United States, we celebrate the Feast of the North American Martyrs, also known as St. Isaac Jogues and Companions, on October 19. And on October 21st this year, Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to canonize Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.

It seems something really significant, some powerful force for good, will be unleashed with this event. And the Native American community? It has waited for this canonization day for centuries.

A depiction of Jean de Brébeuf's and Gabriel Lalemant's martyrdom marks
a map of 1657 drawn by Bressani. Image is in public domain.

I started my Missionary Moment for the Catholic Vitamins "M for Mercy" podcast this week by playing the Huron Carol on recorder. The Carol was written in 1643 by Father Jean de Brebeuf, another North American Martyr. He wrote the words to the Carol in the language of the native Huron/Wendat people and based the tune on a traditional French folk song. He overcame tuberculosis to come serve the Hurons near Lake Huron, and many of the Indians came to love him and follow his faith. When he was later captured and tortured by Iroquois, the warriors consumed his heart because they hoped to gain his courage. He was a massive, powerful man with a gentle way, and people said he did not cry out in pain even once at the end.

Not everyone has the courage of Saints Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brebeuf or the other North American martyrs. But we do have the actual saints rooting for us. Their interest in saving souls didn’t end when they reached heaven.

This 17th-century painting
by Father Claude Chauchetiére is one
of the oldest portraits of Kateri
Tekakwitha. Image is in public
domain.

Maybe this October, as we put out our pumpkins, we can call on all the saints and remember that Halloween is really All Hallow’s Eve, the day before All Saints’ Day, honoring all saints in heaven, known and unknown.

You might plan a trip to the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs, also known as the Shrine of Our Lady of the Martyrs, in Auriesville, New York. Or visit the National Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine outside of Fonda, New York, also the site of the only fully excavated Iroquois village in the country. My husband and I took our children to the rustic chapel and museum in a 200-year-old barn near Fonda some years ago, and it was an awesome experience to pray and learn more about our North American saints. 

With the saints on our side, any first timid steps into holiness will grow bolder with practice. Even if we’re in a situation or time in our life when we’re especially hidden or lonely – we can be assured we’re not alone in living our faith. Holiness spreads. It bridges heaven and earth -- and practiced on a large scale, will renew a nation.

Monsignor Reilly, Great Jazz and an Amazing Week

A score of tough days resolved for me on a high note yesterday, thanks to a famous Irish priest from New York, some great jazz and a flurry of Holy Spirit activity.


My sleep has been troubled, lately. The same week I wrote Pushing 'the Pill' leads to loss of Liberty for the Catholic News Agency, I was awakened by nightmares, filled with a sense of how dangerous this world is becoming. 


So, when I heard world-renowned Monsignor Phillip Reilly was visiting Chicago last weekend and giving a talk entitled "Be Not Afraid" at St. Isaac Jogues Church in Hinsdale, I felt drawn to attend. Stations of the Cross, benediction, and Monsignor's powerful message (see below), put everything into perspective. 


At a little reception afterwards, I found myself face to face with this lively, Irish priest from Brooklyn. I mentioned my Pushing 'the Pill' article and how it was the most controversial topic I had ever tackled. Monsignor Reilly took my face in his hands, looked warmly into my eyes, and said, "Marianna, relax!" 

Steve Vining's inspiring album,
featuring "Choose Life."

He told me the "Pill" had brought great evil to the world, and we needed to speak out on this topic, but that we did not do so alone. He gave me the sense of this great cloud of believers standing together for life. 


Monsignor's face shows effects of cancer. His nose appears to have been surgically reconstructed. But he exudes peace and down-to-earth humor and joy that is contagious. He is a great advertisement for embracing life to the fullest.




That night triggered several days' worth of amazing events. Also attending were my friends Vicky and Steve Vining and their young daughters. As we chatted, Steve mentioned he had produced a CD and was soon to release another. Before we parted, Steve dug around in his car and handed me Telling Visions, which he produced and wrote with the help of his wife, and performed with the accompaniment of some of the finest jazz musicians in Chicago.

Chicago area musician Steve Vining

I popped in the CD and listened to it all the way home, volume cranked. Now, I knew Steve was a musician who played and sang in bands, but he also worked full-time at DePaul University, so I thought his musical "hobby" involved a casual garage band. 


To say I was pleasantly surprised by his music would be an understatement. My family and I listened to the CD for the next several days, returning again and again to the amazing vocals, harmonies and soaring jazz riffs.



One of my favorite songs is Choose Life. This truly epic arrangement uplifts the spirit, inviting it to soar to an appreciation of life's beauty, and how only one "choice" leads to fulfillment:


"The answers are laid out before you
yet the questions are all that you see, 
You curse at the lock and you kick at the door 
not admitting that you hold the key..."


 and: "You're making your decisions constantly, 
with each thought and each passing breath, 
Gliding on the cutting edge of life, 
on the cutting edge of death."




Bravo, Steve and Vicky. Especially moving, is that this CD evolved after the couple experienced a full-term pregnancy loss. They were later blessed by the birth of their now 12-year-old daughter, and have a five-year-old girl they adopted from Guatemala. Their life is that wonderful jumble of not-always-controlled joié de vivre and chaos found in any home with little ones. I could picture the scene perfectly when Vicky described their family "exercise" time, when they all walked "laps" and romped in the basement.




Never would I have guessed that this busy mom had written songs and vocalized, and her husband also wrote songs, sang, played guitar in and produced, an album reminiscent of "Sting" and "Steely Dan," but with its own irresistible sound. 


By Monday, I could not settle to anything until I shared this music with Deacon Tom and Dee Fox, who produce Catholic Vitamins podcasts, affiliated with the Star Quest Production Network (SQPN). I have been contributing little Missionary Moments to these podcasts for several months, ever since being interviewed for Catholic Vitamin W -- Witness, about living our faith daily. 


I knew Deacon Tom was interviewing the star of the soon to be released movie October Baby that afternoon. He was preparing a special podcast with a pro-life theme, and I could not get the thought out of my mind that Steve's song, Choose Life, would be a perfect addition to the show. 


Deacon Tom and Dee are amazing in their flexibility. By bedtime last night, the special October Baby podcast was posted, featuring Deacon Tom's exclusive interview with leading lady Rachel Hendrix and musical interludes and the entire Choose Life song by Steve Vining! I can't resist saying it -- modern technology rocks. Jesuit Father John Hardon would be so pleased. This renowned Servant of God, theologian, friend and spiritual director of the Vinings, had often encouraged Steve to put his musical talents to use for spreading truths of the Faith. So:


* If you have never heard of Monsignor Phillip Reilly or his groups, Helpers of God's Precious Infants, then do a search and learn more. His loving, compassionate approach has been saving babies and mothers across the world for 50 years.


* Go see October Baby when it is released in theaters March 23. You are sure to be inspired by this gripping film produced by the creators of Fireproof and Courageous.


* Check out Steve Vining's CD Telling Visions, especially his song Choose Life. The CD is available through various online suppliers, including Catholicmusic.com.


* Listen to Deacon Tom and Dee's special J -- for Justice Catholic Vitamins broadcast featuring October Baby's leading lady, Rachel Hendrix, and Steve's song.


* Pray for Father Hardon's cause for beatification to move forward.


* Finally, pray daily that life might be cherished and freedom honored everywhere.

A Message from Monsignor Phillip Reilly's March 9, 2012 talk, Be Not Afraid:


When planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Monsignor Reilly was praying at an abortion clinic a few blocks from New York Harbor, across from the twin towers. A black cloud enveloped the area, but babies continued to be killed at the abortion center, so Monsignor stayed to pray, only reaching Ground Zero around midnight. 

At the site, he closed his eyes to pray a rosary and had a vision. He saw workers within the building at 9 AM, getting coffee and water, preparing for their day, secure within their familiar work environment. When planes slashed through the building, these workers had nowhere to flee, no way to save themselves. Monsignor then "saw" in his vision a mother's womb, invaded by weapons of terrorism, the abortionist's tools. Ground Zero, said Monsignor, is all around us.

Go to the abortion mills to pray, he urged, to be witness to this tragic taking of human life. Do not be afraid of "Golgotha." Accompany these little souls in spirit as they are so brutally evicted from their earthly home by their own mother's choice. Monsignor reminded us that these babies are safe with God. These women are "mothers forever," who emerge from abortion centers wounded and needing unconditional love and forgiveness.


On a final note, Monsignor told how a priest friend was on the scene with the firefighters, before they went into the World Trade Center. They asked the priest for general absolution, saying, "Father, you know we're not coming out alive." 


Who were these firefighters? Many were family men -- fathers with little ones at home, said Msgr. Reilly. They turned and went up into the burning towers, saving literally thousands of workers, "doing the right thing" step by step, fulfilling their vocations, until the very end.