Harvest

As you read this, another new year has either just begun or is rapidly approaching.   The Church actually pays very little attention to the beginning of the new civil year. 

When Dr. Kevin Birch sits down at the keyboard of Hook Opus #288 pipe organ at St. John Church in Bangor, it is most often to lead the Sunday congregation in prayer and song.

Some years ago, there was a review in the Wall Street Journal of a new book on Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island. I’d like to share a section of that review with you.

Jesus sometimes says comforting things. Other times, He says things that are hard to understand. And finally, there are times when He says things that we can fully understand but don’t like.

For the past 81 years, Leo Desjardins has attended St. Louis Church in Auburn. It is why he did not want to miss the final Mass.

“It feels good to me, like home.” Stephanie, age 34, has been living at the McAuley Residence in Portland for the past few months.

At age 87, Colleen Martin makes sure she keeps her mind active. She reads a book each day, gets the daily newspaper, subscribes to TIME magazine, and loves to engage in political debate.

With each of the folding chairs in the main hall at the American Legion occupied by parishioners, a handful of people were happy to stand against walls and even in the adjoining kitchen as a special Mass began in the town of Jackman on Sunday, July 7.

“It’s so exciting that this is actually happening,” says Jeff Tiner, chief operating officer for Catholic Charities Maine...

“They’re amazing.” Shelly Carpenter, the director of faith formation at 
St. Thérèse of Lisieux Parish in Sanford, is effusive in her praise of two teenagers she has had the pleasure of getting to know through their involvement in youth ministry.

On a rainy (not snowy, yet!) Sunday afternoon in Buffalo, I am writing my annual pre-Christmas Harvest column with a few suggestions for your reading or for last minute Christmas gifts.

Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has called me to leave the Catholic community of Maine, where I have served as diocesan bishop since 2004.

Pope Saint Gregory the Great (d. 604) gives a dire warning to “pastors who…hesitate to say openly what is right because they fear losing the favor of men.”

Millions of people in our world began this day with empty stomachs, knowing from the moment they awoke that they would somehow need to scrounge up a few morsels of food to keep their families fed and to have enough strength to go about the day.

A number of Harvest readers commented appreciatively on the book recommendations I offered in last year’s November edition.

n his most recent and superb book Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith (NY: Image Books, 2011) Chicago theologian Father Robert Barron tells of a dinner at which a young Flannery O’Connor...

I celebrated Mass in July with 49 Catholic teens, gathered with the staff of our diocesan Office of Lifelong Faith Formation for the second annual New Evangelization Week at Saint Joseph’s College.

Airports, alas. My obligations with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops necessitate my spending much more time in airports than I like.

No, this is not about nature’s welcome signs of spring after a long, cold, snowy Maine winter. This is rather about the radical meaning for our lives of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Parents: Do you worry about your son’s or daughter’s faith as you anticipate them going off to college? There are reasons why you should. And there are reasons why you shouldn’t.

Father Ronald Rohlheiser, O.M.I., had already been among my favorite spiritual writers when, about a year ago, I read his book on the Eucharist: Our One Great Act of Fidelity. With that, he immediately moved to the top of the class.

Eight maids a-milking. “On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me eight maids a-milking.” January 1 is the 8th day of Christmas, the octave day of Christmas, we call it liturgically.

As the election season ends it is worth our while to reflect on how we have conducted ourselves as Christians in the political debates and how we ought to conduct ourselves in the political process that continues year-round.

The passage of bills in several states recently, including our own, has raised a very important question: What is marriage?

Stanley Hauerwas is a Protestant theologian and ethicist. He is usually thought of as a Methodist and holds a chair of theology at Duke University.

We are now beyond Easter. It is still the Easter Season, but we are beyond all that goes into the crush of celebrating Holy Week and Easter in a parish.

We all know that the word “catholic” means “universal.” And, as Catholics, we are proud that Catholics can be found on every continent, sharing a common faith.

I used to write a regular column on liturgy and, even now, a liturgical question is sometimes posed to me. This column is not really intended to be a question and answer piece.

I was putting together an adult faith formation presentation on conscience. They asked me for a snazzy title for the bulletin announcement. I am not good on snazzy titles but the one that came to mind was: “Following your conscience… all the way to hell.” Let me explain.

t has now been just over a year since the introduction of the new translation of the Roman Missal. With only occasional slips, we have pretty much mastered “And with your spirit” and “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.”

There is a notion in contemporary society that religion ought to have no role in the public sphere. We often hear that opinion expressed, in one form or another, at election time.

In the introduction to his book, What is the Point of Being Christian, Father Timothy Radcliffe, former worldwide leader of the Dominican Order, writes: “A community which founded its existence on the claim to moral superiority would not only be repulsive but would inevitably invite people to search out their failures and expose them with glee.

As I said in my previous column, I really wanted to write a column about the Eucharist to serve as a link between Easter (April 8) and the Solemnity of the Body of Christ (June10).

“I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” I am sure you recognize these words immediately: they come from the Creed we recite at Mass every week.

When I was a young boy, probably 10 or 11, my father gave me a hand missal such as was common at that time so that I could follow along at the Mass, with the Latin on the left-hand page and an English translation on the right.

One day last year at this time, as I walked out for the newspaper in the morning, I had to walk through a pile of leaves which had collected in the driveway. I always find something sad about the leaves falling each autumn.

When I first arrived at the parish in Cape Elizabeth, Sister Ruth Hayden was on the staff. Sister Ruth had long served as an educator of children.

By now, I suspect, most readers are aware that in a few months we will begin using a new English translation of the Mass. We have had the translation we are currently using for almost 40 years.

Several months ago, when the National Football League postponed a game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Minnesota Vikings because of a snowstorm that Sunday in Philly, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell complained, “We’ve become a nation of wusses.”

As we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family this year, it is important for us to reflect on the Gospel which recounts the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt to escape King Herod.

Recently, I noticed how often at funerals we sing “Amazing Grace.” It’s the most popular hymn in America. Curiously, I heard on the radio once that the song most often played at funerals held at funeral homes is “I did it my way” with Frank Sinatra.

The Barna Group, a research company which studies the relationship between spirituality and culture, has reported that “71% of United States adults say that they have developed their own slate of religious beliefs, rather than accepting the tenets of a particular faith or religious group.” I don’t get it.

In 2002, I helped move my aunt, then in her 80s, from a two bedroom condominium in Auburn to Portland into residential facility for senior citizens.

I have a confession to make. Every year, even before Advent is over, I search the radio dial until I find an FM station that plays Christmas music and nothing but 24 hours a day.

“What are you reading?”… a question a friend of mine inevitably poses whenever our paths cross.

Among my fondest ministry memories are the college and university chaplaincies where I served while a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston.

Readers will probably not be surprised to learn that the deadline for submission of my Harvest columns is always a couple of months prior to publication

Since my arrival in Maine as your bishop six years ago, I have subscribed to Down East: The Magazine of Maine. I look forward every month to its informative and enjoyable mélange of Maine facts, opinion, fiction and trivia.

“Long before its ground started shaking, Haiti was already a byword for a broken place.” So began a recent New York Times front page article about the earthquake that devastated the country.

Forming One' Conscience