Aug 15, 2023
A message on the anniversary of C.PP.S. founding from our
Provincial Director Fr. Jeffrey Kirch, C.PP.S.
As we mark another year of life in our Congregation—208 years now since our founding in 1815 by St. Gaspar del Bufalo—my thoughts turn to his thoughts in those early days. How did he envision the future? How did he attract people to the new Congregation and its mission of renewing the Church and the world through the power of the Precious Blood?
Missionaries have been faithful to that mission ever since, with God’s help. We might even say that renewal and reconciliation are just as important today than in Gaspar’s day. We never have to worry about running out of work.
And the Precious Blood family does not run out of energy. Not our Missionaries, not the sisters’ congregations that are also under the banner of the Precious Blood, not our lay associates or those who faithfully support our work.
It is heartening to me to see the many ways that Missionaries carry out their ministry, and the mission of our Congregation. As provincial director, I am privileged to sit with members as they talk about their dreams, plans and preferences. As we talk, we are working together for the good of the Congregation, the good of the Church, and the good of the member. I believe that all of that can be aligned, with God’s guiding hand.
I like the way our Fr. Ben Berinti, C.PP.S., described life as a Missionary of the Precious Blood in a recent article in the Florida Catholic. Fr. Ben spoke of “the joy of being set down smack dab in the middle of daily life with real people trying to find ways to answer the call of Christ to the fullness of life he offers.
“The blood of Christ is all about LIFE…there is life in the Blood. And so, as a Missionary of the Precious Blood, I am called to lift up life and the saving work of Christ rather than to judge, criticize, offer a negative outlook, lament how terrible the world is, etc. I am called to be a positive force for life and growth, to be a person of hope and encouragement.”
Let us all be people of hope and encouragement. Let us all find life in the Precious Blood of Jesus.
Aug 5, 2023
By Fr. Matt Keller, C.PP.S.
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration. Today we remember what happened up on the mountain when Jesus revealed his glory to the disciples, but what I think is so easy to forget about the Transfiguration is the context.
Just prior to taking the disciples up on the mountain, Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). Peter answers this question with a marvelous profession of faith: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16).
Jesus goes on to say that he is going to be killed by the religious leaders and be raised on the last day. Peter rebukes him, saying, “God forbid, Lord” (Matthew 16:22), this is not going to happen. Then Jesus rebukes Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me” (Matthew 16:23). It is after this that Jesus leads Peter, James and John up the mountain.
Where Jesus face shone like the sun and his clothes become white, where Moses and Elijah appeared to them conversing with Jesus, and where the casting cloud and the voice that came from the cloud that said “‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him’” (Matthew 17:5). An event that where Jesus reveals his glory to his disciples. A revelation of glory that made Peter, James, and John feel fearful. A revelation of glory that may not even seem to be real in the moment. When they were coming to down from the mountain “Jesus charged them, ‘Do not tell the vision to anyone”’ (Matthew 17:9). If someone claims to have had a vision, it would seem to imply the possibility of not being real, it could be fake.
Sometimes I think like Peter, James, and John, we need to have those dramatic, almost unreal, almost fake experiences of our God so that God can get our attention, so that we can hear his voice. In the Transfiguration, the disciples had an experience of God that allowed them to hear the voice of God: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matthew 17:5).
We also have these experiences. In my own life, when I was beginning to sense that God was calling me to the priesthood, I went on a Charismatic Life in the Spirit Retreat. During the retreat, the leaders offered to pray over the participants. I took my turn, allowing myself to be prayed over. It was a powerful and dramatic experience of God, so much so that it almost seemed to not be real. I heard the voice of God say to me, “You are going to minister to thousands of people.”
This message was not totally clear to me at the time, but I needed to pay attention to it. It was a voice that I probably would not have heard if I had not had this dramatic experience.
As we celebrate the Transfiguration today going up on the mountain with Jesus, may we have an experience of God that allows us to hear his voice speaking to us.
To view the full scripture reading, click here.
Fr. Matt Keller, C.PP.S., is the pastor of St. John the Baptist Church in Glandorf, Ohio.
Jul 29, 2023
By Fr. Dennis Chriszt, C.PP.S.
Our God is an awesome God,
who reigns from heaven above
with wisdom, power and love.
Our God is an awesome God!
Solomon could have asked for anything,
anything at all.
Yet he chose an understanding heart.
He chose something not so much for himself,
but for his people.
He chose to be the best king he could be,
not for his own glory and honor,
but for the glory and honor of his people.
The choice he made indicated that he already had wisdom.
He had wisdom enough to know what would benefit the most people.
He had wisdom enough to know what would in the end
make him the best king he could be.
So God poured out on him
wisdom, power and love,
and so much more.
Our God is an awesome God,
who reigns from heaven above
with wisdom, power and love.
St. Paul wrote to the Church of Rome,
and to us, in our second reading today,
reminding them and us
that we have been predestined.
We have been chosen by God.
God chose us, not the other way around.
God chose us to be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
God chose us to be justified, redeemed, saved by the Blood.
God chose us to be glorified, to share in the very life of God.
Our God is an awesome God,
who reigns from heaven above!
Jesus shared a bit of wisdom with his disciples long ago,
and he shares it with us today.
The kingdom of God is the most valuable thing in the world.
Only a wise person will recognize it,
but if one does recognize it,
one will do whatever it takes to get it.
Jesus shared with his disciples a bit of wisdom long ago,
and he shares it with us today.
Everything, everyone can be found in the kingdom of God.
We don’t have to sort things out ourselves.
God will send angels to that.
We only need to know that all are welcome,
that we don’t have to protect the kingdom from those who are unworthy,
those who are not good enough,
for everyone is worthy,
everyone is good enough to be in the kingdom of God.
Jesus tells us today that there are all kinds of things
and all kinds of people in the kingdom,
and we need to let God and the angels do any sorting that might be necessary.
That is the wisdom Jesus shared with his disciples long ago
and the wisdom God shares with us today.
Our God is an awesome God,
who reigns from heaven above
with wisdom, power and love.
Our God is an awesome God!
Fr. Dennis Chriszt, C.PP.S., is the director of advanced formation for the Missionaries of the Precious Blood. He also directs Precious Blood Parish Missions (pbparishmissions.org).
Jun 18, 2023
By Fr. Joe Nassal, C.PP.S.
At our recent provincial assembly in Indianapolis, the Missionaries of the Precious Blood hung a banner with the quote from St. Gaspar, our founder, chosen to be a focal point of our gathering. It urged us, “Do ordinary things with great spirit.” As we return to the Church’s season of Ordinary Time, our founder’s admonition might be etched upon our minds as we embrace the daily challenges of the next few months.
All three readings reveal the power of right relationship with God that is needed to “do ordinary things with great spirit.” In the first reading, from the Book of Exodus, God tells Moses to remind the Israelites that it was God who liberated them from slavery by bearing them up “on eagle wings.” If they stay faithful to the covenant God made with them, they will be God’s “special possession, dearer to me than all other people.”
St. Paul in his letter to the Romans picks up this theme of the intimacy of relationship God desires to have with us. But Paul takes us deeper into the mystery of this relationship, reminding us that “while we were still helpless,” Jesus shed his Precious Blood to save us from our sin.
“God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us,” Paul writes. Then, capturing a phrase essential to our spirituality, Paul says we are “justified by his blood.” It is the Blood of Christ that frees us from sin, draws us closer in the circle of relationship, and moves us out into the mission of reconciliation and renewal.
What does it mean to be justified by the Blood of Christ? No matter what sins imprison us, or guilt haunts our step, the Blood of Christ seeps deep into our souls to bring us healing. It is Christ alone, through his Precious Blood, who gives us a new lease on life.
We see this realized in the motley crew of missionaries Jesus chooses in the Gospel. Looking at the vast crowd who “were troubled and abandoned,” Jesus chooses twelve from among his disciples to help him in his ministry to those on the margins. The call of the twelve apostles reflects the difference between making a living and making a life. Is what I am doing for a living, my life? Or, as the Quaker teacher Parker Palmer said, “The life I am living is not the same as the life that wants to live in me.”
These twelve were probably doing fine in their chosen occupations. They were making a living. But when he chose them to be his apostles, Jesus tapped a new life that was waiting to be born in them. In his terrific book on discernment, “Let Your Life Speak,” Palmer asks, “When I listen to my life, what is my life trying to tell me?”
These former fishers and farmers, tax collectors and carpenters, were now listening to a life that “gave them authority over unclean spirits” and the ability “to cure every disease and every illness.” They listened to their lives and Jesus spoke truth to them that gave them new courage to proclaim, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Being a disciple means “to be with Jesus.” To stay close to him, to break bread with him, to listen to his teaching and act upon it in our lives. The twelve who are chosen and sent “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” are called by name to address the evil in the world and to preach Good News. No background check is necessary. Though there may be skeletons in their closets that sometimes rattle and shake their commitment to follow the call, the importance of naming these twelve is that Jesus chooses ordinary people to live an extraordinary dream.
Like Peter, we may sometimes speak before we think and so set ourselves up for failure by being unable to live up to our word. Like James and John, our temperament and ambition may get in the way at times. But the naming of the twelve reminds us that we are ordinary people who are frail and sometimes fearful, weak and sometimes weary, who are called to live every day with great spirit.
Like the twelve, we may not be the brightest or the best, the holiest or the most honest. The bones of our disappointments, our despair, our dashed dreams may rattle in the dark corners of our soul’s closet. What matters is we have been “justified by his blood,” and summoned to live lives worthy of our calling in the dailiness of our lives, “to do ordinary things with great spirit.”
Fr. Joe Nassal, C.PP.S., a noted author, preacher and retreat leader, also serves as vice provincial director of the United States Province of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood.
Jun 10, 2023
By Brother Tom Bohman, C.PP.S.
It seems a universal belief that we can find happiness at the right restaurant eating our favorite foods. Fish, eggplant parmigiana and ice cream are high on my list. Today we highlight a permanent food, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ-Corpus Christi.
This day has great significance to those who hold the banner of the Precious Blood high in their hearts and souls as Missionaries. Sometimes I think that we may not be much different than the Hebrew people wandering the desert for 40 years and complaining about quail and manna.
We value things of this earth and do not consider enough the lasting benefit of the Eucharist. Recently, a man from St. James the Less Parish, where I serve, was killed in an argument over a parking place. The value of the Blood of Christ is one of the main themes of our founder, St. Gaspar, in his lengthy retreats to villages and cities. Gaspar challenged those who do not value life during his times. We need to do the same from womb to tomb.
I enjoy a pamphlet published bi-monthly called One Bread, One Body, written by lay people in Southern Ohio. Allow me to paraphrase a thought for today from this publication. Holy Communion allows us to bridge societal divisions: between families, races, nations. It allows us to get beyond our pettiness and sense of self-importance. If we are true believers in the Eucharist we can change the world. Our hope for the future is not news filled with blood and violence. We share in the great healing mystery of togetherness with one goal. Happy Corpus Christi.
To view the full scripture reading, click here.
Brother Tom Bohman, C.PP.S., is in ministry at St. James the Less Church in Columbus, Ohio.
Jun 3, 2023
By Brother Brian Boyle, C.PP.S.
Please recall Holy Trinity Sunday three years ago. That Sunday may have felt lonely. Chances are you attended Mass online. Chances are you would not have celebrated Easter as you did in previous years. Outside of the person(s) you lived with, you might not have had a lot of personal contact with the outside world. Your relationships suffered. The fear of getting an unknown ubiquitous virus was bad enough. Hunkering down with little outside contact may have felt unbearable.
The Trinity addresses this. The Holy Trinity is the ultimate “3-for-1 Deal!” No seriously, Trinity is three Beings in One. God even though is one, is a relationship in and of itself. The Father does not actively hunker down and away from the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son doesn’t just decide to go it alone. The Holy Spirit and the Father never conspire to throw the Son under the bus. The relationship is active and fluid.
Even though we may have felt alone, and worse, we may have hunkered down from God, gone it alone and conspired to throw others under the bus. God is always with us and wants to renew the relationship with us. The Exodus reading demonstrates that God wants to be with the Israelites despite their stubbornness. Even though God saved Israel again and again, the Israelites still could not surrender and let go. Ancient Israelites did not have a 3-in-1 idea of God. They believed that God had many facets: slow to anger, rich in kindness and many others.
In the Corinthians reading, Paul is attempting to sort out decisions within the early Church in Corinth. Paul is not asking for doctrinal uniformity. He is asking the Corinthian Christians to put aside their differences. At the end of the day, the Church in Corinth is stuck with itself, and he is asking the Corinthians to face this reality. Paul is not trying to be an arbiter of their differences to see who is purer in doctrine and practice. Thus, it makes practical sense to mend rifts with each other.
Have you ever had a vice president or some appointed consultant assigned to your department to “clean house?” You might have been on the wrong end of that as well. Today’s Gospel assures us that God is not sending Jesus to fire us. Jesus was sent to journey with us throughout our lives despite our stiff-necked ways, shortcoming and sins. The original hearers of this Gospel were Jewish Christians who were kept out of synagogue for their new beliefs. They were denied relationships from their greater community.
The Trinity has been presented to me as a pew dweller in years past as a very thick theological idea. Ultimately it is a nut that we will never crack. These readings present the Holy Trinity as a model to have relationships with others despite my differences from others. It also is an invitation that God wants to be with me despite my worst inclinations.
To view the full scripture reading, click here.
Brother Brian Boyle, C.PP.S., is a hospital chaplain in Northwest Indiana. He is also the associate director of Companions (lay associates) of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood.
