Today I invite you to reflect with a litany of the saints as we move towards All Saints Day. For some this may be a different way of praying this litany than you’re used to, but I think it’s an uplifting version of how we are invited to pray with and as the community of saints. One of my favorite aspects of this video is that it combines the iconography of the Church with the sung prayer of the Church. Have a blessed weekend!
Sarah Heiman is Campus Minister for Education and Spiritual Life at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT.
Thanks to the influence of the Irish (the Celtic nation, not the Notre Dame football team), this Sunday we celebrate the feast of All Saints. Built on the pre-Christian autumn feast of Samhain, All Saints commemorates the harvest of the righteous envisioned in our first reading from the Book of Revelation. Both the 144,000 from the house of Israel and the larger throng from every nation, race, people and tongue have remained faithful to the gospel in spite of the persecutions that come upon Christians in every age. The feast of All Saints celebrates the countless number of believers who have lived the values of the beatitudes in disparate times and lands.
Fr. Michael Himes writes about the importance of the communion of saints for the life of the Church. Quoting G. K. Chesterton, he writes that the communion we share with the saints prevents us from “falling into . . . ‘the most degrading of all forms of servitude,’ namely, being merely a child of one’s time.” (Himes The Mystery of Faith 2004). On the one hand, the average college student (along with many in our 21st century American culture) can lack an historical consciousness and the critique of contemporary assumptions that go along with one. On the other hand, we’ve seen a resurgent interest in the saints among younger Catholics. This is probably due to the prominence that John Paul II gave to canonizations during his papacy. But I think their own misgivings about our present culture has something to do with this interest. This Sunday’s feast presents a great opportunity to talk about the communion of saints and the diversity of our Church that spans not only different language and cultural groups in our present day but across the centuries itself.
Fr. Peter Walsh, CSC is an assistant chaplain at Saint Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University.
Happy Halloween Week!
In a lighthearted bit of news … Pope Benedict recently appeared on Prague. Wearing his white robes, the audience noted a large spider on him. Did they tell him? No! Viewers shot a video and posted it on www.youtube.com!
The video can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOx045-UlBc. No earth shaking thoughts here, just a fun Halloween link! Clearly I wasn’t the only one watching, the video has drawn over 170,000 hits!
Katie Byrnes is an Assistant Chaplain at Saint Thomas More Catholic Chapel at Yale University.
Petrus Development Offers Fellowship
Applications are being accepted now for the Petrus Fellowship. This fellowship promotes the growth of professional development ministry within Catholic campus ministry for higher education and provides $4,500 payable at $1,500 per summer toward the tuition and fees of the Masters of Arts in Philanthropy and Development program at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in Winona.
CCMA awards the scholarships on an annual basis, one each year, such that three persons are in the program concurrently. Eligible applicants will have at least two years full time fundraising experience and employment in the development field.
For more information and to apply for the fellowship, please visit the Petrus Fellowship page at http://www.ccmanet.org/ccma.nsf/petrusfellowship?OpenForm or contact Chrysta Bolinger at Bolinger@ccmanet.org.
New Campus Minister Support Network Needs You!
Greetings for the fall semester! CCMA offers the New Campus Minister Support Network (NCMSN) to allow CCMA members who are new to campus ministry to draw upon the resources and experience of CCMA members who have “run the race” for awhile.
Attention New Campus Ministers:
You are invited to join the NCMSN in order to dialogue with experienced campus ministers who are dedicated to helping you succeed in your ministry. You decide who you would like to contact via email or phone to begin dialogue about your new campus ministry experience.
Attention Experienced Campus Ministers:
Join the NCMSN as an experienced campus minister and help a new campus minister succeed by offering your experience and expertise.
Join the NCMSN:
To access the NCMSN, please go to the CCMA webpage (www.ccmanet.org) and click on Members (left hand side of the home page). You will need to enter a login and password. (If you need the login and password, please contact Michelle Gundrum at gundrum@ccmanet.org).
Once you are in the “Members Only” section, please click on the New Campus Ministers Support Network (NCMSN). This will bring you to the NCMSN site.
If you are a new campus minister hoping to join the NCMSN, scroll down until you see the box “Join the NCMSN”.
If you are an experienced campus minister who would like to be a part of the NCMSN, please click on “Join the NCMSN as an Experienced Campus Minister”.
In each case, you will be asked to fill out an online form. Once the form is filled out and submitted to CCMA, you will be given additional instructions as to how to utilize the NCMSN.
For more information:
Feel free to contact any member of the NCMSN committee:
Esther Sanborn, Chair, sanborn@sxu.edu
Courtney Hull, chull@mansfield.edu
Maura Neuffer, cathmincod@sbcglobal.net
Michelle Gundrum, CCMA, gundrum@ccmanet.org
May God’s blessings be upon the work of your ministry!
Evangelical Catholic Introduces Wide Awake!
Living Wide Awake in Christ is the call of every Catholic Christian. Wide Awake Chapel Hill brings together college students and young adult who have not yet awakened to the joy of life and Christ, and those who have and want to go deeper. Music, inspiring speakers, inspiring student stories of waking up, and workshops to help us wake to the fullness of life Christ came that we might all have. Workshops for pastoral staff facilitate the formation of awakening, evangelistic ministries and campus and in parishes.
The conference will be held Friday, November 13 from 6 p.m. to midnight at the Student Union, Great Hall, at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Form more information, the conference video and to register, please visit the EC website at:
http://www.evangelicalcatholic.com/WIDEAWAKECONFERENCE/tabid/149/Default.aspx
Our campus is currently in the midst of midterm season. This translates into frantic students attempting to cram a little bit more knowledge into their heads before exams, and professors trying to grade papers and exams for all of their courses within a limited time frame. Everyone is on a deadline, and everyone is stressed.
I’ve had many conversations recently about how to balance responsibilities and find time for God in the midst of busy-ness. We live in a society in which we believe we’re more highly valued if we’re able to juggle many things at once. Multi-tasking, as much as many people hate it, is seen as a necessity.
The challenge for many of us is that we don’t know how to stop doing and thinking about many things at the same time. When we turn our minds to prayer, we’re also internally fretting about whether we’ll have time to finish that task or to make that phone call or write the email we’ve been meaning to write. Distracted prayer is better than no prayer at all, but it fails to do fully what we desire.
Prayer is a way to step outside the busy-ness and refresh our spirit. It doesn’t always seem easy to carve out time during the day to do this, but I think we’re better able to approach the multiplicity of things that demand our attention if we have those moments when we’re conversing with God. Sometimes even closing the door, turning off the cell phone, logging off the computer, and spending a few minutes in silence can be enough to recharge our batteries. Today, take some alone time with God, and just be present.
Sarah Heiman is Campus Minister for Education and Spiritual Life at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT.
Welcome to Program Swap! You are encouraged to share your great program ideas by posting them in the comment box. Let us know what programs you have been developing in your various campus ministry sites!
Notice how the different people in Sunday’s gospel treat Bartimaeus, the blind man whom Jesus restores. As Jesus walks by, Bartimaeus upsets the crowd by calling out to Jesus, asking him to have pity on him. The crowds are perturbed by Bartimaeus’ noisemaking and try to squelch him. Needy people, it would seem, are to be seen and not heard. No doubt these same folks have dropped a coin or two into Bartimaeus’ lap over the years that he has begged on the side of the road; they are fine patronizing a blind man but once he gets too vocal they hush him up.
Jesus, on the other hand, calls Bartimaeus to come forward and asks him to articulate what the blind man needs. Jesus could have walked over to the side of the road and healed Bartimaeus, much like others have thrown him a mite. Instead, Jesus makes Bartimaeus an active participant in his own healing and restoration. Jesus empowers Bartimaeus, the opposite of what the crowd has done, some time before he opens his eyes. Restoring Bartimaeus to full human dignity and agency is the focus of this passage, more so than a miraculous healing. Bartimaeus responds to the restoration by becoming a follower of Jesus. The prophecy of restoration from Jeremiah clarifies this focus, as does the context that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem—a scant fifteen miles away—and the salvific events that will happen here. This observation can help students who are discerning the dynamics of their own spiritual life: do they feel empowered by the religious influences of others or are they being squelched?
Fr. Peter Walsh, CSC is an assistant chaplain at Saint Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University
In the most recent edition of America Magazine, author Mark Bauerlein discusses “generation text” and their struggle to connect. Each of us on our own campuses has sought out ways of meeting our students where they are. Certainly the old adage that ‘if you feed them they will come’ still holds but what next? Bauerlein raises some great food for thought in suggesting that our student’s bedrooms are no longer “private space but a social hub” where at one in the morning their “rich social life makes daytime face-to-face conversations seem tame and slow.” The availability of information to our students is astounding. Their ability to filter and retain it can be equally astounding. How then does God compete?
One website believes they have found a least part of the answer. www.sacredverse.com describes its role as “spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ in an innovative way - via cell phone technology.” The content of their text messages can be anything from papal quotes to sacred Scripture. With students plugged into phones 24/7 this is definitely one way to reach them - for only $12 a year (per service).
Katie Byrnes is an Assistant Chaplain at Saint Thomas More Catholic Chapel & Center at Yale University.
Greetings for the fall semester! CCMA offers the New Campus Minister Support Network (NCMSN) to allow CCMA members who are new to campus ministry to draw upon the resources and experience of CCMA members who have “run the race” for awhile.
Attention New Campus Ministers:
You are invited to join the NCMSN in order to dialogue with experienced campus ministers who are dedicated to helping you succeed in your ministry. You decide who you would like to contact via email or phone to begin dialogue about your new campus ministry experience.
Attention Experienced Campus Ministers:
Join the NCMSN as an experienced campus minister and help a new campus minister succeed by offering your experience and expertise.
Join the NCMSN:
To access the NCMSN, please go to the CCMA webpage (www.ccmanet.org) and click on Members (left hand side of the home page). You will need to enter a login and password. (If you need the login and password, please contact Michelle Gundrum at gundrum@ccmanet.org).
Once you are in the “Members Only” section, please click on the New Campus Ministers Support Network (NCMSN). This will bring you to the NCMSN site.
If you are a new campus minister hoping to join the NCMSN, scroll down until you see the box “Join the NCMSN”.
If you are an experienced campus minister who would like to be a part of the NCMSN, please click on “Join the NCMSN as an Experienced Campus Minister”.
In each case, you will be asked to fill out an online form. Once the form is filled out and submitted to CCMA, you will be given additional instructions as to how to utilize the NCMSN.
For more information:
Feel free to contact any member of the NCMSN committee:
Esther Sanborn, Chair, sanborn@sxu.edu
Courtney Hull, chull@mansfield.edu
Maura Neuffer, cathmincod@sbcglobal.net
Michelle Gundrum, CCMA, gundrum@ccmanet.org
May God’s blessings be upon the work of your ministry!
Evangelical Catholic Introduces Wide Awake!
Conference for Catholic College Students and Young Adults
UNC-Chapel Hill
Student Union, Great Hall
Friday, November 13, 2009
6:00 p.m. - Midnight
For more information and registration
http://www.evangelicalcatholic.com/WIDEAWAKECONFERENCE/tabid/149/Default.aspx
Living Wide Awake in Christ is the call of every Catholic Christian. Wide Awake San Diego and Chapel Hill brings together college students and young adult who have not yet awakened to the joy of life and Christ, and those who have and want to go deeper. Music, inspiring speakers, inspiring student stories of waking up, and workshops to help us wake to the fullness of life Christ came that we might all have. Workshops for pastoral staff facilitate the formation of awakening, evangelistic ministries and campus and in parishes. Conference video and registration information:
http://www.evangelicalcatholic.com/WIDEAWAKECONFERENCE/tabid/149/Default.aspx
Read the First Comment