The Lenten season is a time for conversion, but we often wonder how to enter into our own transformation. The insights of Jesuit Bernard Lonergan can help us understand ourselves and how God heals us with our help. These five sessions will explore God's action and our intentional
response.
Book Review of the Week
Things Hidden: Scripture as
Spirituality, by Richard Rohr. St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2008.
Twenty-five years earlier Richard Rohr had written a book called “The Great Themes of Scripture,” which was based on his first taped talks given in the seventies. In this new decade he was asked to reflect again on those same great themes. He came to this book with newer insights and a broader vision from a quarter of his life gone by. “I came to this book with a much stronger faith in the objective presence of the ‘Stable Witness’ within who ‘will teach you everything’,
and whose ‘law is already written on your hearts’. All that a spiritual teacher really does is ‘second the motions’ of the Holy Spirit.”
This first motion of the Holy Spirit is planted within each person by God in the act of creation and it gives the spiritual wisdom for inner conviction and outer authority. In this book Rohr proceeds not book by book of the Bible but
according to this pattern: a) he gives capsulated form at the beginning in the Hebrew Scripture. b) he presents a character or theme development through the whole middle part of the Bible. c) at the end, especially in the Risen Christ and in Paul’s theology of the Risen Christ, Rohr comes to a crescendo, a fuller revelation of the Christ, known to be non-violent and one who invites the reader to loving union.
(Thanks for Sr. Irene Hartman, OP for this review.)
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Saint of the Week
St. Claude de la Colombière: (1641-82): Feb. 15.
This is a special day for the Jesuits, who claim today’s saint as one of their own. It’s also a special day for people who have a special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus—a devotion Claude de la Colombière promoted, along with his friend and spiritual companion, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. The emphasis on God’s love for all was an antidote to the
rigorous moralism of the Jansenists, who were popular at the time.
Claude showed remarkable preaching skills long before his ordination in 1675. Two months later, he was made superior of a small Jesuit residence in Burgundy. It was there he first
encountered Margaret Mary Alacoque. For many years after he served as her confessor.
He was next sent to England to serve as confessor to the Duchess of York. He preached by both words and by the example of his holy life. .
.
Tensions arose against Catholics and Claude, rumored to be part of a plot against the king, was imprisoned. He was ultimately banished, but by then his health had been ruined.
He died in 1682. Pope John Paul II canonized Claude de la Colombière in 1992.
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A young man visiting a dude ranch
wanted to be "macho," so he went out walking with one of the hired hands. As they were walking through the barnyard, the visitor tried starting a conversation: "Say, look at that big bunch of cows."
The hired hand replied, "Not 'bunch,' but 'herd.' "
"Heard what?"
"Herd of cows."
"Sure, I've heard of cows. There's a big bunch of 'em right over there."
