Love is Stronger Than Hate

by Gabino Zavala, Justice and Peace Director

On November 9-10, 1938 the Nazis began a pogrom throughout Germany against the Jewish community. This pogrom was carried out by SA paramilitary forces and German civilians. Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked. The attackers smashed windows and demolished buildings with sledgehammers. They destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany and over 7,000 businesses were either destroyed or damaged. Early reports estimated the number of Jews murdered to be 91. Later reports put the number as much higher. It was state sponsored terrorism perpetuated on the Jewish people. This event is known as Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass.

Almost 50 years later another moment of terror has taken place against the Jewish people here in our country. The mass shooting in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life Synagogue, during a naming ceremony for a child being welcomed into a relationship with God and the Jewish people, was yet another tragic and horrific moment in the life of the Jewish community and in our recent history as a nation. Eleven people were murdered in their House of Worship, a sacred space, by a white supremacist filled with hatred for Jews.

The killer tweeted his hate for the Jewish community in general and for the Tree of Life congregation in particular for HIAS, the congregation’s Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. He not only expressed his hate for Jews but also could not tolerate the congregations support of immigrants.

As a Precious Blood family, we condemn this heinous and cowardly act on a house of worship and offer our heartfelt condolences as we stand in solidarity with our Jewish sisters and brothers. We condemn all acts of violence and hate. We call on our leaders to address the plague of gun violence in our communities, not by suggesting that our schools and places of worship become armed camps, but rather looking at why any individual is allowed to purchase assault weapons.

Our response must be one of love and tolerance. We are all children of a loving God: black, brown, white and beyond; male and female; Christian, Jewish, Muslim and more; LGBTQ and straight; young and old; rich and poor, citizens and immigrants; all of us together.

We must confront a culture that allows gun violence and excuses white nationalism that speaks of hate. There should be no place for this in our nation.

The Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who witnessed the slaughter of his congregants, spoke at a vigil n Sunday: “My cup overflows with love,” he said. “That’s how you defeat hate.” Let us all defeat hatred with love.

The New Wine Press, Vol 27, no 3 November 2018

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National Vocation Awareness Week 2018

“Let us serve God with holy joy.” ~St. Gaspar del Bufalo

Sunday, November 4 marks the beginning of National Vocation Awareness Week (Nov 4-10, 2018).  It is an annual week-long celebration promoting vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

As we each are called to reflect upon our own vocation and ministry in our lives, I challenge and encourage you to reflect upon the great joy your ministry has brought to you and to others as you continue to serve God’s people.  In the words of our founder, “Let us serve God with holy joy,” we are called to find that joy in our lives and share it with others.  

This Sunday’s responsorial psalm is “I love you, Lord, my strength.”  These words remind us of the one who first loved us and what is our response in return.  

As ministers of the word, we are called to invite others to join us in the ministry.  Christian life comes with many choices.  National Vocation Awareness Week is designed to help promote vocation awareness and to encourage young people to ask the question: “To what vocation in life is God calling me?” Will you be called to the single life, consecrated religious life, ordained priesthood, or married life?

As we reflect upon the readings for the weekend of Nov 3/4, may we also take the time to reflect upon our own vocation as well as inviting others to consider his or her vocation to serving God’s people.  In addition, bulletin inserts (both in Spanish and English)  have been sent out to all the parishes we serve.  They should arrive by Monday.  Please let me know if you don’t receive them.

Finally, as we reflect upon the readings and National Vocation Awareness week, I also encourage you to visit the Bishops website for more homily hints and other resources for the week.  NVAW-reflection

Fr. Timothy

Vietnam Mission Celebrates St. Gaspar’s Feast Day

“Always be happy, and everything will go along better.” These words of St. Gaspar to Missionary Father Innocenzo Betti in Letter 1185 still rings true today as we have recently enjoyed one another’s fellowship at the celebration of our founder’s feast day. We certainly showed great happiness at our celebration of the Feast of St. Gaspar here at Gaspar Mission House in Saigon. The occasion was happy for a number of reasons. The presence of nine inquirers to our Community made it especially joyful. Having Sr. Hang Pham, ASC and her five Sojourner candidates join us was also enjoyable. Being blessed in addition with the presence of one of our benefactors, Truong Nguyen, made us all feel all the more blessed and filled with gratitude.

It was a glorious event in which to build community through the celebration of the Eucharist and a festive meal to follow. Having been living in Gaspar Mission House for six months now, we felt it was a perfect time to bless our house along with our crucifixes, religious pictures and icons. Fr. Tam Hoang was our celebrant and Fr. Nhan Bui was our homilist and the one to bless our home. Br. Daryl Charron gave the words of welcome as well as an introductory prayer invoking the intercession of St. Gaspar. During our celebration of Eucharist we presented a sacred religious picture of the Madonna to our benefactor, Mr. Truong Nguyen. He manages a manufacturing plant in Saigon for New Balance Shoes. We are grateful for the many pairs of shoes that he has given us as well as an exercise bike and weight-lifting equipment. Our time together proved to be happy indeed!

Outside the Gate

Jesus also suffered outside the gate,
to consecrate the people by his own blood.
Let us then go to him outside the camp,
bearing the reproach that he bore.
Hebrews 13, 12-13

Dear Members, Companions, Volunteers, and Friends,

After Father Tom Albers’ funeral earlier this month, I brought back some of his books for our new library at Precious Blood Renewal Center. In one of these books, The Passion and the Cross by Father Ronald Rolheiser, there is a story about a woman who “admitted that she couldn’t really explain what the cross of Jesus meant to her but said that she had a sense of its meaning.” Father Rolheiser recounts how when this woman was a young girl, her mother was murdered. “When she saw the blood-soaked mattress and her mother’s bloody handprint on the wall, she, right inside the horror and pain of the moment, knew in her gut, without being able to put words to it, that there was a deep and sacred connection between her mother’s story (and her blood on that mattress) and Jesus’s story (and his blood on the cross).”

We celebrate the feast of our founder, St. Gaspar, in a year when we have once again witnessed so much bloodshed, so much death because of violence, so much loss due to fires and floods, hurricanes and horrors that terrorize the soul, and so much hurt and suffering caused by the scandal of sexual abuse and abuse of power in the church. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that “Jesus also suffered outside the gate, to consecrate the people by his own blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp, bearing the reproach that he bore.”

As people who claim the spirituality of the blood of Christ poured out on the cross, our founder’s feast invites reflection on our desire to stand with the victims of violence in our world. Are we willing to go “outside the gates” where the blood-stained cross stands and to be brave and bold enough in our commitment and our cause to be an inclusive and compassionate communion created and sustained by the blood of Christ?

“Sometimes the heart intuits where the head needs to go,” Father Rolheiser writes. For people sent by the blood, we belong “outside the camp.” But we can’t go there unless, like the woman in Rolheiser’s story, we have made this sacred connection: “In her deepest center she intuited the connection between her mother’s blood and Jesus’s blood,” Rolheiser writes, “even though she couldn’t articulate that connection in words. In street parlance, ‘she got it,’ without precisely understanding it.”

Like St. Gaspar, Precious Blood people seek to live a spirituality of reconciliation. One of the stories from our founder’s life that continues to inspire is about Sonnino where bandits were terrorizing the people. The town was going to be destroyed by the government, but Gaspar knew there had to be another way. Gaspar proposed a process of evangelization instead of destruction. Gaspar’s mission was deceptively simple. It was a ministry of presence. The missionaries moved to the places where violence reigned and established “safe houses.” In these safe houses, renewal and reconciliation were rooted in the ministry of the Word.

Gaspar confronted the reality of violence by being in solidarity with the victims. But he also recognized in those who perpetrated the violence the image of God that had become so damaged and demeaned by desperation, poverty, and hunger. Armed only with the cross, Gaspar sought to be a blood-stained bridge of hope and reconciliation. As we celebrate his feast, I offer this prayer as we seek to stand in the chasms today and find the courage to go outside the camp:

God of all Creation,
we give you thanks for the prophetic and saving action of your Son,
Jesus Christ, in whose blood we are brought close to your heart.
Your servant, Gaspar del Bufalo,
allowed the Word of peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation
to become a living fire, imprisoned in his bones,
causing his blood to boil until the soil on which he stood
was saturated with the blood of Christ.
Your Spirit penetrated Gaspar’s heart
and gave him the courage to go outside the gate,
to stand at the foot of the cross.
Your Spirit ignited within him
a desire to speak the truth
and to bring your love, justice, and mercy
to the very ends of the earth.
As Gaspar fearlessly proclaimed your Word
and passionately gave witness to its saving power,
give us the courage to go outside the camp
as we seek to live Your inclusive covenant of love.
+

Please join us this week for three special celebrations to mark our identity as Precious Blood people. This Sunday, October 21, at 4:00 PM, we will gather at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Saint Joseph, Missouri, to celebrate the Feast of St. Gaspar. On Tuesday, October 23, at 6:00 PM, we will gather at St. James Church in Liberty, Missouri to celebrate the life of our brother and former provincial, Father Tom Albers. And next Sunday, October 28, at 4:00 PM, we will come together to dedicate our new sacred space at Precious Blood Renewal Center in Liberty, Missouri.

As always, if we cannot meet each other in person at these celebrations, may we meet in prayer.

With peace,

Joe Nassal, C.PP.S.
Provincial Director