 
JOURNEYING TO SMA PRIESTHOOD

by Fr Tim Cullinane SMA
Copyright 2013, The Society of African Missions (SMA)

Smashwords edition

First Published 2013

Cum Permissio Superiorum

Cover image – Donbosco Mawdsley SMA
Table of contents

Preface

Foreword

1.SMA Vocation

2.Formation in the SMA

3. Personal Relationship with Jesus

4. The cross in the life ofJesus and in our lives

5.SMA Community

6.Melchior de Marion Brésillac and His Mission

7.Prayer

Anchor points of Prayer

Ways to Pray

Praying with the Scripture

Prayer and Imagination

Silent Prayer

Distractions

Prayer of the Church

Prayer Quotes

8.Faith Sharing

9.Discernment

10.Discernment of Vocation

11. Feelings

12. Self-Esteem

13. Dealing with Weakness

14. Examen

15. Keeping a Journal

16. What is Spiritual Direction

17. Mass

18. Sin and Reconciliation

19. Self-Denial

20. Mary

21. Praying the Rosary

22. Celibacy

23. Justice and Simple Life-Style

24. Pastoral Work

25. Spiritual Reading

26. Study

27. Preaching the Homily

28. Holidays

## Preface

It is with great pleasure that I write these few words of introduction for this very attractive and useful book. Fr Cullinane has done a great service to SMA in writing this book. Much of what is contained within is not confined to SMA so it is a book of huge relevance to all those preparing for priesthood, within Africa and throughout the world.Fr Cullinane brings to his topic a huge personal experience. What he brings to this field is not something culled from academic study, though the ideas within would stand up to the most rigorous examination of academia, but from 50 years of missionary priesthood in the SMA. His missionary career has been one of great variety: school ministry,Seminary Spiritual Direction in Ireland, Provincial administration, community leadership,seminary Rector, Regional Superior, Seminary Spiritual Direction in Africa. From this vastexperience Fr Cullinane has shared with us a wealth of treasures.Fr Cullinane writes from the heart, a heart rooted in Christ and in a love for priesthood. A heart that has a huge regard for the human condition and that knows our hearts are ever restless until they rest in Christ. The words in this book are both inspiring and challenging.They show a missionary priesthood as a sublime calling from the Lord, a calling given tosome but not to many, a calling that has to be discerned within the church and not merely by individual choice.

This book is of great practical value. It ought to be on the obligatory list of spiritual books for all house of formation. It will serve our future priests well into their priestly lives and can be a good evaluation tool in on-going formation. All priesthood is a calling to be a servant for others. Missionary priesthood is a particular call within priesthood to be a servant to those outside one's own cultural background and place. It is a call 'ad gentes', 'ad extra' and 'ad vitam'. Fr Cullinane reminds us that it is not always easy to respond to this call and it requires a certain aptitude that has to be resourced and strengthened through prayer over one's entire life. If one is choosing missionary priesthood in hopes of entering a comfort zone in one's own country or another, then it is clearly not a missionary vocation one has discerned but rather a call motivated by one own personal satisfaction needs. A thorough reading of Fr Cullinane's book will help the student discern between a true call of the Lord and the promptings of a selfish spirit.

I congratulate Fr Cullinane on this fine achievement. The preparation of this book has taken years of study, reflection and prayer. May it serve all our students to prepare for priesthood with great courage and dedication and may it help all of us priests to live our missionary priesthood with great commitment and integrity.

Fr Tim, thank you.

Fachtna O'Driscoll SMA

Superior General Rome, November 2013

## FOREWORD

"You did not choose me. No, I chose you and I commissioned you to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last" (John 15:16).

The fact that you are reading this book means that more than likely, you are in an SMA Formation House preparing for SMA priesthood. The book is meant to help you on your journey. It is designed so that at the end of each chapter there is an opportunity to listen to the word of God, who is your real formator, to reflect and share with others the fruits of your reflection on this word, on the content of the various chapters and be enriched in turn by the sharing of your brothers. It is a book to be prayed and reflected through rather than read

In 2010, I was at Agoe in the Republic of Benin, as the Church began to celebrate 150 years of Christianity. The President of the country, the entire episcopal conference except for one bishop who was ill in France, over 10,000 people, 300 priests and up to 400 sisters took part in the celebration, Over the wall was the well-kept cemetery where many of the early SMA and OLA missionaries are laid to rest, 12 of them before the year 1900, many of them dying in their twenties and thirties after only I to 5 years in the country. In their wildest dreams they could never have imagined such a celebration would one day take place across the wall. The ceremony was all the more moving because of the priestly ordination of 4 SMAs from Republic of Benin who would later in the year go out as missionaries to different parts of Africa, and be a link in a chain going right back to Melchior de Marion Brésillac himself.

As a student in formation you are called to be another link in that chain called by God Himself to be an SMA missionary priest. Pope Benedict said on one occasion, "Each of us is the result of a thought of God, each of us is loved by God, each of us is necessary to God. There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others about Him" which is what missionary priesthood is about. This is your vocation. I hope that this book will help to deepen it.

"How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of one who bring good news, who herald peace, bring happiness, proclaims salvation."

Tim Cullinane SMA

## Chapter 1 SMA VOCATION

Rabbi Zusu said, "When I appear before the Almighty, I am not afraid to be asked, "Rabbi Zusu, why have you not been like Abraham, the patriarch or like Moses our great teacher? The question I truly fear is, Rabbi Zusu, have you been Rabbi Zusu?

"I know the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, they are plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future filled with hope" (Jer. 29:11). As for Jeremiah, God has a plan, a vocation for each one of us. To be our real selves, to be true to who we really are, we must find that plan, that vocation and be faithful in following it. The theme of vocation, of God calling people for a special mission runs right through the bible. We see it in God's call of Moses, "The cry of the sons of Israel has come to me and I have witnessed the way in which the Egyptians oppress them, so come, I send you to Pharaoh to bring the sons of Israel, my people, out of Egypt. When Moses says to Pharaoh," who am I to go to Pharaoh?" God says, "I shall be with you" (Exodus 3:9-11). To Jeremiah, God says, "before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you came to birth I consecrated you, I have appointed you as a prophet to the nations (Jer. 1:5) and when Jeremiah expresses reluctance for his mission, God says, "they will fight against you but shall not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you (Jer. 2:3). At the last supper, Jesus said to the apostles, "you have not chosen me but I have chosen you and commissioned you to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last" and His last words to them before he ascended into heaven were, "go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you and know that I am with you always, yes to the end of time"(Matt 28:19-20). From the bible quotations above, we see the essence of vocation: a call, a mission, a need to respond and God's promise to be with.

God still calls people, ordinary people like you and me for a special mission in life. Cardinal Newman wrote, "God created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission – I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for his purpose, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his... He has not created me for nothing". More recently in speaking on the nature of vocation, Pope Benedict compared the vocation of each of us to that of Mary with one important difference, "Mary received her vocation from the lips of an angel. The angel does not enter our room visibly but the Lord has a plan for each of us. He calls each of us by name. Our task is to learn how to listen, to perceive His call and to be courageous and faithful in following it."

God calls some to be teachers, others engineers, doctors, farmers, mechanics, politicians, diocesan priests etc. Some he calls to go outside their own countries as missionary priests like our founder Melchior de Marion Bresillac. The fact that you are in an SMA Formation House indicates that you have heard this call in your heart, for God never calls someone to be an SMA unless he has first put the SMA vocation in his heart. To respond to the call can be costly but to be true to oneself one must answer it. Jeremiah speaking of his own call and of its cost said, "You have seduced me, Yahweh, and I have let myself be seduced. I am a daily laughing-stock. The word of God has meant for me insult, derision, all day long. I used to say, "I will not think about him. I will not speak in his name anymore. Then there seemed to be a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones. The effort to restrain it wearied me. I could not bear it (Jer. 20:7-9). For those who do respond generously the reward is also great. When Peter said to Jesus, what reward will we get, we who have left everything to follow you? He said, "I tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house, wife, brothers, parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not be given repayment, many times over in this present time and, in the world to come, eternal life(Luke18:28-30).

Lectio Divina

Vocation in the Bible

Exodus 3:9-11Call of Moses

Luke 1:26-28Call of Mary

Mark 10:17-27Call of Rich Young Man

John 1:35-45Call of First Disciples

Luke 4:16-22Mission of Jesus

Reflect/Share

1.What first attracted you to the SMA? How has this attraction changed or developed over the years?

2.What resistance do you find yourself in responding to God's call?

3.Read again what Rabbi Zusu said. Do you feel the SMA is the right place for you? Why?

## Chapter 2 Formation in the SMA

Formation in the SMA is about your growth as a person and as a missionary. It involves two people, God and yourself. The work of God comes first and is the most important. "There are few people who realize what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves entirely into his hands and let themselves be formed by His grace (St Ignatius). "We are the clay, you are the potter, and we are all the work of your hands." However, unlike a piece of clay, we are free to co-operate or not co-operate with God's action in our Formation. Before the rain comes, no matter how hard a farmer works nothing will grow but when the rain comes he has to co-operate by digging the ground, planting the seeds and keeping his farm free from weeds. It is the same with us and God in our Formation. An SMA vocations' poster sums it up well, "Join the SMA to be all you can be with God's help and your willingness" as did Ignatius in another context, "pray as if everything depended on God, act as if everything depended on yourself."

Pastores Dabo Vobis, the document on the formation of priests issued by Pope John Paul 11 in 1992, says there are four areas of priestly formation: human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral.

Human Formation is the foundation: The priest should be balanced and strong, affable, hospitable, sincere and prudent, able for pastoral responsibilities, never arrogant or quarrelsome. The affections of a priest should be mature so that he can love like Christ; he should have a good sexual formation so that he understands the nature of celibate life (43).

Spiritual Formation is the core which unifies the life and pastoral activity of the priest. Those who take on the likeness of Christ the priest by sacred ordination should form the habit of drawing close to him as friends in every detail of their lives (45)

Intellectual Formation: If we expect every Christian to be prepared to make a defense of their faith and "to account for the hope that is in us' (1Pt 3:15) , then all the more should candidates for the priesthood be able to do it and have the ability to relate to people at every intellectual level. It has been said, "If you ordain a pious fool, he will soon lose his virtue after ordination and you will be left with the other part."

Pastoral Formation: All formation finds its completion in pastoral formation; it is preparing seminarians "to enter into the charity of Christ the Good Shepherd...Hence their formation in its different aspects must have a fundamentally pastoral character (57). Pope Francis has talked about the type of priests and bishops needed for the Church and says, "The risk that we must avoid is priests and bishops falling into clericalism, which is a distortion of religion. It is not about saying, "I am the boss here." It is about respecting and caring for the entire people of God."

SMA Formation Directory

18. The SMA considers formation to be a life-long process of conversion and growth, of attuning ourselves ever more perfectly to the mind and heart of Jesus Christ in our missionary commitment.

20. Each student, member and associate of the SMA bears the primary responsibility before God for his formation, and for making the best use of all the resources available to help in the process.

23. All SMA formation is directed towards the goal of forming missionaries to be dedicated apostles of Christ (Cons 53). This goal unifies and colours all aspects and dimensions of the formation process, personal communitarian, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral.

27. "Formation in the SMA has as its point of departure the life and experience of the individual" (Cons 53). In order to acquire clear and objective knowledge of themselves, their gifts and limits, their strengths and weaknesses, SMA formation encourages its candidates to reflect on the process of their human and spiritual maturation.

In SMA formation, there are five important relationships:

-relationship with oneself

-relationship with Jesus Christ

-relationship in community

-relationship with our Founder, with his spirit and charism.

-relationship with our Mission to Africa and people of African origin

Lectio Divina: Isaiah 64:8 "I am the clay, you are the potter."

Jeremiah 18:1-6 Jeremiah at the Potter's House

Reflect/Pray/ Share:

a) Is the present system of SMA formation in line with what is written above?

b) "Formation in the SMA has as its point of departure the life and experience of individual" What does this mean and what are its implications.

c) What positive and negative experiences have you had of formation?

## CHAPTER 3 PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS

" _You have to fall in love with Christ and everything else follws" (St Augustine)_

"SMA formation is a life-long process of conversion and growth, of attuning ourselves ever more perfectly to the mind and heart of Jesus Christ in our missionary commitment" (Formation Directory 18). Every SMA needs to be captivated by the person and mission of Christ.

In "Passion for Mission Today", describing the experiences of individual SMA missionaries, many of them with years of missionary experience, under the heading "What sustained me in my missionary life as an SMA?" there was one consistent theme and that was - a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Here are some examples of what different SMA's wrote "what supported me in my missionary life has been the knowledge that Jesus Christ is by my side...He has been my daily companion. As He was always there I was able to take hard knocks... and there were many, coming sometimes from my brother SMAs, superiors or bishops and I was able to take setbacks. He helped me fight discouragement and continue my missionary life along with Him. It has been a personal affair between Him and me: concerning only the two of us since it goes on within our hearts" (522).

"For me Christ is my companion every day, even every minute and I talk with him sharing joys, sufferings, anxieties, projects. Christ is the companion who inspires me" (529)

"My personal relationship with Christ and the knowledge that it is He who is carrying me through all kinds of difficulties. All my achievements come through him. I never would have managed without him "(537)

St Theresa of Avila says "A man can bear all things provided He possesses Christ Jesus dwelling with him as his friend and affectionate guide. Christ gives us help and strength, never deserts us and is true and sincere in his friendships...what more do we want than to have at our side a friend so loyal that he will never desert us when we are in trouble or in difficulty as worldly friends do. Consider St Paul. It seemed that he could do no other than speak about Jesus continually, because he had Jesus engraved and printed upon his heart."

To develop a friendship with Jesus, you need to spend time in prayer with Him every day and in every situation ask yourself what would Jesus do in this situation? We also need to believe with Paul, "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me." The following passages are meant to help you meet Jesus and develop a friendship with Him. Pope Benedict says, "There is nothing more beautiful than to know Christ and to speak to others about our friendship with Him" and that is what we are called to be and to do as SMA missionaries.

There is a well-known painting by Holman Hunt, entitled, "The Light of the World" in St Paul's Cathedral in London. It shows Christ knocking at an ivy-encrusted door, lantern in hand coming to bring his presence and light to the person in the house. The door has no handle and can only be opened from the inside. The painting is an invitation to open our lives to Christ and the light that He brings. "Look I am standing at the door, knocking. If one of you hears me calling and opens the door, I will come in and share a meal, side by side with him (Revelations 3:20). Pope Francis has pointed out that for some Catholics there is a danger, not of refusing to allow Christ to enter but rather of keeping him locked inside ourselves, inside our churches and communities and not allowing him to go out to meet the poor and the most abandoned in the places where they are. In this case it is not so much a situation of Christ knocking at the door trying to get in but rather Christ locked inside and knocking at the door trying to get out.

Reading the Scriptures also makes it clear that the Gospel is not merely about our personal relationship with God.... The Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness(180, 88 The Joy of the Gospel) /

Prayer

"Jesus join my life to yours. I want to unite my life to your life, my thoughts to your thoughts, my feelings to your feelings, my heart to your heart, my works to your works, my whole self to your self in order to become through this union more holy and, more pleasing in the sight of your Father and in order to make my life more worthy of your grace and of the reward of eternity. I want to join myself to you. For example, when I pray I will join the holiness of your prayer to mine. In the totality of my life as well as in every detail I will join the whole breadth and height of your divine intentions to whatever I have to do or to suffer. I will join, if possible, your looks to my eyes, your holy words to my tongue, your meekness to my gentleness, your humiliation and self-emptying to my humility, in a word, your whole divine spirit to my actions and when in me I discover something not inspired by your spirit and which proceeds from my self-centeredness or from some poorly mortified impulse I will renounce it and disown it with my whole heart. No, my Jesus, I promise myself to have nothing in me which is not in union with you."

" _Dear Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance wherever I go. Flood my soul with your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that my life may only be a radiance of yours. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel your presence in my soul. Let them look up and see, no longer me, but only Jesus" (Cardinal Newman)._

Lectio Divina

Revelation 3:20I stand at the door knocking

John 3:1-21Jesus meets Nicodemus

John 4:4-42Jesus meets the Samaritan Woman

John 5:1-8Jesus meets man at pool of Bethsaida

John 8:1-11Jesus meets adulterous woman

John 9:1-41Jesus meets man born blind

Luke 10:38-42Jesus meets Mary and Martha

Luke 19:1-10Jesus meets Zacchaeus

Philippians 3:5-15 What Jesus meant to Paul

Ephesians 3:14-21Prayer of St Paul

Galatians 2:20Crucified with Christ...I live not I but Christ

Reflect/Pray/Share

a) Which of the above passages has most meaning for you?

b) What is your favourite image and quotation of Jesus?

## CHAPTER 4 THE CROSS IN THE LIFE OF JESUS AND IN OUR LIVES

When we talk of a personal relationship with Jesus we are talking of a personal relationship with a person who died on a cross. Something in us tries to avoid the cross. We tend to create a Christ to suit ourselves and are inclined to tippex out the parts that are too demanding. We want Christianity without the cross. Some Churches offer it today and make a lot of money. New Age churches preach a gospel of prosperity and tell the people if you come to our church you will do well in business, all your problems will be solved, if you are sick you will be healed, if you have no money you will get money. They promise a feast of miracles and invite people to come and claim their miracles.

What Jesus said is quite different

Jesus did not say, "come and I will make you rich or "come and claim your miracle." When Jesus asked the disciples (Luke 9:18-22) "who do you say I am?" Peter gave the correct answer, you are the Christ the expected Messiah but he had a wrong idea of the type of Messiah Christ would be – a suffering Messiah not a populist messiah. Christ suffered himself and said, "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). That sounds very different from the gospel of prosperity that is so often preached nowadays and the style of life of many ministers of the Gospel. The Jews thought that Christ would be a powerful Messiah who would triumph over the Roman occupation and establish Israel as a great nation. Jesus had to correct this and say "The Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death (Mark 8:31-31)."

What we have in the life and death of Christ is God saying to us, "this is the kind of human life I want you to imitate". The problem is that the life of Jesus does not match the normal ambition of many people, even priests. Christ did not become man according to the measure of our concept of being a man. He became the kind of man we do not want to be: an outcast, rejected, accursed, crucified. "His state was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God. He emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave and became as men are, he was humbler yet even to accepting death on a cross" (Phil 2:6-9).

Long before He was born Isaiah prophesied regarding the Messiah, "The crowds were appalled on seeing him – so disfigured did he look that he seemed no longer human – so will the crowds be astonished at him, the kings stand speechless before him...without beauty, without majesty we saw him, no looks to attract our eyes; a thing despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering, a man to make people screen their faces: he was despised and we took no account of him."(Isaiah 52).

However, Christ did not go after the Cross. He even prayed to avoid it. What he tried to do was to be faithful to the mission given to him by the Father and in trying to do this he encountered opposition and the Cross.

FOLLOWERS OF THE CRUCIFIED ONE

'This is in fact what you are called to do, because Christ suffered for you and left an example for you to follow the way he took" (1 Peter 2:21).

St Paul says, "Let that mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. Though his nature was Divine, yet He did not cling to His equality with God but emptied Himself taking the form of a slave and became as men are. He was humbler yet even to accepting death, death on a cross" (1 Pet 21:24).

"Here we are fools for Christ sake, while you are the clever one in Christ: we are weak, while you are strong: you are honored, while we are disgraced. To this day, we go short of food and drink and clothes, we are beaten up and we have no homes: we earn our living by labouring with our own hands: when we are cursed, we answer with a blessing: when we are dishonoured, we endure it passively, when we are insulted we give a courteous answer. We are treated even now as the dregs of the world, the very lowest scum" (1 Cor. 4:9-13). Are you prepared to be this kind of priest and missionary?

Our Founder

Our Founder's passion for mission brought him to the foot of the cross. The cross was a recurring theme of his life, his prayers, sermons and retreat conferences. From his diaries it would appear that his most painful encounter with the mystery of the cross was his decision to resign his post in India. Though personally convinced that he was acting in accordance with conscience, he foresaw the serious consequences such a dramatic decision would entail for himself and his future. It was, especially at that time, tantamount to an admission of failure and was bound to bring upon him nothing but disgrace in the eyes of his esteemed superiors and colleagues. He could only hope that God would draw some good from his sacrifice. This is what he wrote in his diary just before he set out for Rome to explain in full his reason for offering his resignation. "O my God, why must I leave? Why must I quit a Mission I love so much? You alone can see into my heart and I have the hope that, one day, you yourself will tell me clearly that indeed it was all done for you, that my only ultimate motivation in resigning was the glory of your name and the honour of your Church. It is a sacrifice, O my God, a sacrifice I make to You, a sacrifice known to You alone, because other men, even good men, will think very differently about it when they hear about it. They will say I was inconsistent, fed-up, maybe even selfish or too self-opinionated. As for me, O my God, I only hope that, out of the many humiliations which surely lie ahead, you will know how to draw out some benefit, some progress for the Church and the missions and that will be enough for me (Souvenirs 3, p1196).

We all like to be appreciated by the people, by our colleagues, by those in authority, but this was not the experience of Christ or of our Founder. When he came back to Paris he got the cold shoulder and was treated like a stranger by his own brothers, even less well. His criticism of the Paris Foreign Mission Society was not forgotten. "I see myself abandoned, repulsed, suspected by those who, it seems to me, should be my main support. This is my cross. I accept it with the grace of God, but it sometimes seems beyond my strength. The best years of my life have passed and nothing worthwhile is accomplished for the glory of God, nothing solid established in our Missions, no suitable place in the Lord's vineyard in which to work."(letter to Msgr Luquet, 11th June 1855).

The cross marked especially the manner of his death. There was the terrible physical suffering of the last days but even more intense was the mental suffering as he was assailed by the thought that God would hold him responsible for the error he may have made in coming to Sierra Leone and for the death of his confreres.

The German theologian Bonhoeffer said, "When Christ calls a man to follow Him, he calls him to die." There can be no mission without the cross. I remember an Italian confrere telling me at one time that when he was in the Minor Seminary, where it was the custom that priests from different congregations would come around talking about their congregations and their mission. They usually brought films or teaching aids to illustrate their talks which the students very much looked forward to. One day a giant of a man came to give them a talk about the work of the SMA. During the talk, while he stopped to take a sip of water, one of the students put up his hand and asked him if he had brought any films or teaching aids. With this Fr Colleran stood up, put his hand into his pocket and brought out a giant crucifix, held it up and said, "I have no teaching aid but the cross of Jesus Christ." Today our Founder holds up the same teaching aid for us. The great missionary St Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ. I live no longer I but Christ lives in me". "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh, I am filling up what is wanted in the sufferings of Christ on behalf of his body, the Church of which I am made a servant"( Col 1:24). If we are to be missionaries in the footsteps of Bishop de Marion Brésillac, there is a price to pay.

The question posed by Peter to Jesus, "what about us? we have left everything to follow you?" What are we going to get out of it? was also posed by our Founder in a "Retreat to Missionaries."

"What are you looking for? Quid queritis? The joy of ministry? Don't come here. For friendship, for recognition, consolations, in return for that you do? Don't come here. You will find all of that in Europe... But if, faithful to your vocation, you accept, in all its depth, a life of sacrifice; if you are looking for Jesus alone, the poor Jesus, the humble and humiliated Jesus, Jesus crucified, ah! Then come! Hasten to run after Him, come!

Lectio Divina

Isaiah 53:2-7 "without beauty, without majesty, we saw Him"

Reflect/Pray/Share

a) "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let Him deny Himself take up His cross and follow me." What does this verse say to you? How does it make you feel?

b) "Many people today want Christ without His cross." Do you agree? Give reasons for your answer.

c) How ready are we to meet Christ in the suffering people of today's world? Are we doing enough for the most abandoned? What can we do as seminarians?

d) Give examples of SMAs who are facing the cross in a very real way today.

## CHAPTER 5 SMA COMMUNITY

God is community, three persons living together, each with his own individuality but joined together in the community of the Trinity. Christianity is a communal endeavor. The first thing Jesus did was to form an Apostolic Community. At the beginning each one of us had a dream or plan, put there by God, of what we wanted to do with our lives. Then we looked around to see the group that had a similar dream and joined them. We found it in the SMA and that is why we joined the SMA rather than the Diocese or the Carmelites or some other congregation. We can do so much alone by ourselves but by working together with others in a community, we can achieve much more and there will be support and continuity in our work. "What you dream alone remains just a dream, but what you dream with other people, that can become a reality" (Rolheiser).

SMA Constitutions

From the beginning, our Founder envisioned a missionary family totally devoted to the service of Africa. He placed the Society under the protection of the Holy Family...In a spirit of shared responsibility we have been called together as members of one community, whether we actively exercise our ministry or are in retirement for reason of age or illness (Constitutions 23)

Living as apostolic communities we come together to share our faith and love. Through this community life we help each other to live and preach the Gospel after the example of Christ and the disciples gathered around him (Constitutions 24).

After the example of the first Christian Community , we come together to listen to the word of God and share it, to celebrate the Eucharist and the Prayer of the Divine Office, and so strengthen our family spirit and foster a climate of peace and openness ( Constitutions 27).

Charter of Formation

Communitarian in character, SMA students, members and associates are formed so as to love and work as apostolic communities, praying together, sharing with one another, their joys and sorrows, achievements and frustrations, hopes and fears, affording each other loving support and bearing one another's burdens (Formation Charter 31).

Our Formation Houses provide those in initial formation with a gradual introduction to a style of responsible community life, which helps them to overcome self-centeredness and superficiality in relationships (Formation Charter 32).

Football, which so many people watch so assiduously every week as they follow the fortunes of such teams as Manchester United, Barcelona or Chelsea, can tell us something about community. In the most successful teams you have players from different countries with differing talents. The most successful teams are those which can give the individual player the freedom to use his unique talents and yet get him to play as part of a team working towards the same goal while at the same time being ready to sacrifice himself, and play in any position that the coach decides for the good of the team.

There is a continuing call to conversion from individualism to community especially at this time when the SMA is becoming more international than ever before, a call to weave a new SMA tapestry with different coloured threads from India, Ireland, France, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Poland and all the other countries that make up the SMA at this time. This will demand conversion and commitment, a willingness to think SMA rather that individual country or Unit. This process begins in the Formation House. Community does not just happen. It has to be worked at. Building community is difficult and requires a strong commitment and personal sacrifice on the part of all the members.

Community Living

Depending on the person, community has the potential to be either a source of life and growth, or a source of decay or death. Community living is like a mirror and tells us much about ourselves. Life with someone else doesn't show me nearly as much about his shortcomings as it does about my own. "We shall suffer from the temperament and habits of others but they are workmen whose job it is to polish the stone before it can be fitted into the building. Some will chisel with words, others by what they do others by what they think of us. All this is precious, want it, use it, and do not shirk from it"(Rolheiser). Community can show me the path to growth. e.g. If I am the passive/victim type then to grow, community living will tell me that I need to be more assertive. If I am the domineering character in every group, then a willingness to listen and to be led is for me the call to life. If I have an avoidant personality, am reluctant to engage with others and hardly ever share in groups the call will be to be more outgoing, relate more with people and be ready to share more in groups. If I hardly ever volunteer when volunteers are asked for, I need to volunteer more. If I am always the first to volunteer, at times I should hold back and let others take the initiative.

Care, Concern and Communication

Community living involves care and concern for others, encouraging and building them up rather than pulling them down by what we do and say. There is a place for fraternal correction in community because we are called to help each other to grow and not allow our brother to die before us but we must always "speak the truth with love". Avoid gossip. If there is something you cannot speak to a person himself about don't say it all.

Some people don't really care for or connect with anyone and choose not to be in relationship. They may greet you in passing but there is no real communication. They may live in the same community for years but pass each other by like ships in the night. Speaking about community in "Passion for Mission Today," one SMA member says of another, "the problem with you is that we never know if you are saying what you think or thinking what you say." Much of our sharing can be quite superficial and remain at the level of sharing about football, the news of the day, what is happening in the seminary. For real community there needs to be sharing on the level of feelings. This is the level at which many people seldom share with anyone yet it is the level where the real me is. This ability to share myself at an appropriate level with someone else, the ability to let someone else know who I am as a person, to share my good points, my weak points, my strengths, my failures, my hopes my dreams is necessary for real growth as a person and as a community.

Relate to People as Jesus Did

The challenge is to relate to people like Jesus did. Everyone in the Gospels who met Jesus and was open to what He had to offer was in the better of having met Him. In his dealings with people, he was never fearful of anyone nor was he restrained by any taboo. He was a perfectly free person. He gave every person his undivided attention without even a trace of self-concern. The people who met him were enriched by the encounter. He called forth the very best in each person. In the presence of Jesus, people could be fully themselves. With Jesus there was room for everyone, He never had the slightest temptation to exploit or manipulate, let alone to write off anyone. In no way did he shy away from meeting people, yet in all his contacts he was never shallow or self-centered? Neither did he fear confrontation or conflict, nor on these occasions would he ever lose his composure or his peace of mind. Always there was a genuine warm concern for the true self of the other person. With wonderful ease he related to people in sincere and heartfelt affection. His love crossed all barriers of race and culture as in the case of the Samaritan woman. Today with the challenge of internationality and mission to be able to relate to people like Christ did is the best way forward.

Real Community

Real community emerges where people with their differences are accepted and loved, even if not always liked. In reality the only perfect community is an imperfect community. The true Christian community is one in which we must struggle to understand, accept, and love one another in spite of our differences, our humanity and our sinfulness. The successful communities are those in which members are able to accept their imperfections and are willing to work together as they are. In contrast, the less successful communities are those that want to gather all perfect people before developing community.

Community Vision and Mission

"Where there is no vision the people perish" (Proverbs 29:18). Every community needs a vision and mission statement that inspires them and that they can all row in behind. The vision and mission statements for SMA Community Bodija at present are:

Vision Statement

"We envision a community of leaders that is built on service, support and acceptance of members from different backgrounds and cultures. A community where there is effective collaboration, mutual respect and a sense of responsibility. A community dedicated to fostering a serene atmosphere that stimulates holistic growth for integral development with the aim of producing missionaries with the vision, passion and commitment of Melchior de Marion Brésillac."

Mission Statement

"The SMA Community, Bodija enables members to discern, grow and mature in their call from Christ to be missionary priests in the footsteps of Melchior de Marion Brésillac , who will be 'the salt of the earth and the light of the world" wherever they are."

You, yourself, should have a personal vision and mission statement but it should be in line with the community one. It important that vision and mission statements are not just words on a card or a poster on a wall but something taken down from the wall and alive, in the community room, in the dining hall and workplace.

Lectio Divina

Community in Scripture

Acts 2:42-47 The early Christian Community

Acts 4:32-37The early Christian Community

1 Corinthian 12Different Gifts

John 17:17-21That they all may be one

Reflect/Pray/Share

1. Good experiences of SMA community that you have had

2. Not so good experiences of SMA community that you have had

3. "We don't fight"..."this means you don't communicate." Do you agree?

4. Suggestions for improving the community that you are in at present

5. "In reality, the only perfect community is an imperfect community" Do you agree?

## CHAPTER 6 MELCHIOR DE MARION BRESSILAC AND HIS MISSION

There is something intriguing, even mysterious about the portrait of our Founder, Melchior de Marion Brésillac, the one we are all familiar with. It is a portrait commissioned by his brothers as a gift for their father's 80th birthday. The piercing eyes seem to look straight at you, even through you and the look itself has a perplexing, enduring even haunting quality about it.

In a short poem by the German poet, Maria Rilke, he describes a visit to an art gallery where he is captivated by a piece of Greek sculpture. By the words he uses the poet draws us into the beauty of the sculpture and makes us sit spellbound before the statue of the Greek god, Apollo with our eyes fixed on the glittering marble. Then in the last two lines there comes the turning point. Suddenly we are aware that what we are looking at is also looking at us. "There is not a spot on it (on the marble statue) that does not look at you." The poem ends with the punch line, the curt demand which the piercing look of the statue makes on you:

"You must change your life."

The picture of the Founder should have the same effect on us. We are looking at him but he is also looking at us and inviting us to change and follow him into mission inspired by the vision and qualities that he had. What was this vision and what were these qualities?

His Vision for Mission

In the book of Proverbs, there is a verse which says, "where there is no vision, the people perish" (Prov 29:18). In a small brochure that our Founder printed in 1856 about his vision for the Society, he wrote "the first and main goal of the newborn society is to evangelize the countries of Africa where the light of faith has not yet penetrated or that are most deprived of missionaries." The same thing is repeated in the first of the Fundamental Articles of the Society. "The main aim of the Society of African Missions is the evangelization of the African countries that are most in need of missionaries. "In his letters, sermons and preached retreats one idea keeps re-occurring, that he would like to put his life and the life of the Society to the service of the most abandoned. In a sermon he gave in 1857 he said, I am going to say in two words that the Lord has inspired within me..."the evangelization of the most abandoned places in Africa under the authority and direction of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda".

To make the Founder live today, the General Assembly of 2013 renewed the Society's commitment to the Church's mission of evangelization in continuity with his charism. In its vision it commits the Society to the ongoing work of primary evangelization in both rural and urban areas where knowledge of the Gospel is lacking; it also underlines the SMA commitment to the most abandoned working for JPIC among the marginalized, two thirds of whom are women, inside or outside Africa.

His Passion for Mission

Not only had our Founder the vision but he had also the passion and commitment to make the vision a reality. The passion for mission was there all through his life. It was seen at the very beginning when he himself and his companions came before the statue of Our Lady at her shrine at Fourviere in Lyons on the 8th of December 1856 and dedicated their lives to the work of the African Missions, putting the Society under the protection of Our Lady. The same dedication was repeated when our Founder admitted the first permanent members into the Society in a ceremony in Lyon on July 24th 1858. Part of the oath they took reads as follows:

"I now offer my life to God and I accept beforehand with joy – for God's greatest glory, the development of the Church, the salvation of my soul and that of the people entrusted to me the sufferings, deprivations, difficulties of climate, the pain of persecution and even martyrdom, if God finds me worthy of dying as a witness to the faith."

Before he left for India our Founder let his passion for mission express itself in four well known resolutions:

a) To be a missionary from the bottom of my heart.

b) To neglect nothing that will advance the work of God.

c) To seize every opportunity of preaching the word of God.

d) Lastly, and it is for this above all that I implore your blessing, to use every available means, all of my strength, all my mind, towards the training of a native clergy.

### What sustained him in His missionary life?

His vision and passion for Mission drove him on and sustained him. He had found a cause for which he was willing to live and die to bring it to fruition. But what fired this passion for mission that he had? The answer can be found in the vision that drove him and also in the last word he spoke before he died: "Faith...Hope...Charity" These were not just the last words of a dying man but the driving force of his whole life. He was:

A Man of Faith

He had an unwavering faith and trust in God's love and protection under the heading of Divine Providence.

" I will distrust my own strength and my own lights and will always submit the success of my enterprise to Providence and the direction of the Holy See."

"I have no illusion about the difficulties or the apparent impossibility of success. But with God everything is possible. What I should want to do is to throw myself blindly into the arms of divine Providence and go absolutely 'a l'apostolique' straight to these people, either alone or with one or two companions."

"What difficulties there are! However, let us not distrust Providence."

A Man of Hope

Pope John Paul II had great hope for Africa. "The continent of Africa faces many difficulties, crises and conflicts which bring so much suffering and misery. Some Africans at times are tempted to think that the Lord has abandoned them, that he has forgotten them. We want to say a word of hope and encouragement to you, the Family of God in Africa. Christ our hope is alive. Africa is destined not for death, but for life (The Church in Africa n13).

Melchior de Marion Brésillac had such a hope. Without it, he could never have faced the challenges of founding a new Society for the evangelization of the most abandoned in Africa and gone there himself at a time when Africa was regarded as the white man's grave. Speaking of the future, he said "The work will continue as long as there is willingness and you are that willingness." When we look at what happened in Freetown and the growth of the Church and the SMA in Africa since then an SMA cannot but be a person of hope. The small seed that was planted and seemed to die in Freetown on June 25th 1859 has grown into a mighty tree, which has taken root in different parts of Africa.

A Man of Love

Our Founder made his own the words of St Paul, "caritas Christi urget nos." The love of Christ drove him on and on. This love was expressed as a special love for the most abandoned and especially those who did not know Christ.

He made a distinction between what he called "love of affection" and the "duty of loving". In India he said that he believed that it was the lack of "love of affection" that was the principal source of the opposition to the ordaining of Indian priests. He himself believed that he had been granted that facility of affection and he gave himself no credit for being able to love the Indian students, stating simply, "it comes naturally to me". It was that same love for Africa that drove him up and down the length and breadth of France trying to get personnel and money to found the Society. It was that same love that drove him to Africa and to death in Freetown at an early age.

Lectio Divina

Matt 28:16-20 ""Go, make disciples of all the nations"

Reflect /Pray/Share

a) Look at the portrait of Melchior de Marion Brésillac for a few minutes and see what it says to you.

b) What aspects of his life inspire you?

c) As you reflect on the life of Melchior de Marion Brésillac do you really want to follow in his footsteps or is God calling you in another direction?

d) "You must change your life" What in your life needs to change if you are to be a true follower of the Founder?
QUOTATIONS FROM THE FOUNDER AND FR PLANQUE

1. This work will continue as long as there is a willingness and you are that willingness (SMA Founder )

2. I have contemplated more than a hundred tropical suns rises and each time the magnificence of nature gave me a completely new scene ( SMA Founder)

3. Let us adore the infinite power of God who created thousands of worlds from nothing. Let us admire him in the marvels of creation: "Yahweh is majestic" (Ps 92:4) (SMA Founder)

4. To be a missionary from the bottom of my heart (SMA Founder)

5. "Let each one study his vocation carefully – Each receives from God his own particular gift and let him stir himself to follow it regardless of everything" (SMA Founder)

6. Prayer, my brothers, prayer, I come back to it always...All is promised in prayer and without it what can we weak mortals do? (SMA Founder)

7. Yours is the future Lord. I am not sure on what shore the wind now blowing will cast me. Whatever happens to me Lord, may your will be the only motive force of my actions (SMA Founder)

8. I want nothing extraordinary, just simplicity combined with a vision that is truly apostolic ( Planque)

9. I live only for the missions (Planque)

10. Our aim is to love God and make Him known and loved (Planque)

11. Do not forget His presence in your lives but bring Him with you wherever you go, into the very heart of your works (Planque)

12. It does not matter where I am when it is God who sends me (Planque)

Topo

The first SMA foundation outside of Lagos was Topo Island 1875. Land was given by the Government for a project which would combine book learning with farming and practical skills. The OLA sisters joined the SMA and had a school for girls. There is a Cemetery and Church Building, and many of the early missionary and first Catholics of Badagry are buried in the Island Cemetery, overlooking the lagoon on one side, and the Atlantic ocean on the other side. A few years back, the OLA Sisters from Southern Nigeria came to spend one day on Topo Island and celebrate the Holy Mass especially for all the OLA Sisters who are buried there. Towards the end of the ceremonies, an elderly Sister came forward to address everyone present and took out of her pocket, what seemed an old letter, and she began to read from the paper: Sr. Monique, OLA, died 25years ago, buried here on Topo Island, Sr. Jean Marie, OLA died 23 years ago buried here on Topo Island, Sr. Marie Terese, OLA died 27 years ago buried here on Topo Island and on and on, she read out names and the ages of the Sisters who were buried on Topo Island. Nearly all of these Sisters died when they were 20 years or 30 years of age. Then the Sister put the paper back in her pocket and spoke to all the Sisters present. These Sisters who are buried here on Topo Island had a 'Dream', and they were ready to pay the price to make their 'Dream' come true. Sisters of today, do you have a 'Dream?' What is your 'Dream', and if you have a 'Dream' are you ready to pay the price to make the 'Dream' come true? All eyes were down cast in case the old Sister may ask any of us to speak!

## CHAPTER 7 PRAYER

"Prayer," according to St Theresa of Avila, "is nothing else than an intimate friendship, a frequent heart to heart conversation with Him whom we know loves us." It is not doing something but being with someone. It is like talking with a friend, who knows all about us, our faults and failings and still loves us. With him we can feel comfortable in openly and honestly sharing our successes and failures, our cares our hopes, knowing that He understands, cares, forgives, encourages, laughs or cries with us. Prayer is turning our face towards someone who we know loves us and is walking beside us all of the time. Pope Francis said, "The key to pray is to feel loved by the Father."

Much of the time, we live our lives as if God were far away from us in some remote heaven, but in reality, God is very near. "In fact He is not far from any of us, since it is in Him that we live and move and exist" (Acts 17:28). Stop for a moment and listen to the movement of your breath or the beat of your pulse. These are the sounds of God loving life into you at every moment. If God forgot about you for one second, you would no longer exist but God will never forget you. He says so Himself: "I will never forget you; I have carved you on the palm of my hand. Does a mother forget her baby? Or a woman the child within her womb? Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you."(Isaiah 49:15). "He is like someone who lifts and infant close against his cheek" (Hosea 11:4). Like a mother carrying her baby on her back, God carries you along the road in your journey to be an SMA missionary priest and afterwards in your life as a missionary. Life in the seminary is not a question of struggling along by oneself but of putting your hands into the hands of God who journeys with you. You may have many friends but God is your best friend, who is always at your side with His love and support, and never turns away from you no matter how many times you turn away from Him.

God is very near to you not only in the chapel, but when you are in your room, in the classroom, playing games or walking along the road. Wherever you are, God is with you and prayer is simply being aware of Him who is always living with you and within you. "If anyone loves me he will keep my word and my father will come to him and we will make our abode in Him". "I have been crucified with Christ and I live now not I but Christ lives in me" is the way St Paul puts it.

Growth in Prayer

To grow in friendship, a boy and girl need to spend time together. If they don't, the friendship soon withers and eventually dies. To grow in friendship with God, we need to send time with Him in prayer each day. If we don't our friendship will grow weaker and weaker and finally die altogether. Without prayer, our life lacks power. Without regular recharging the light of a rechargeable lamp, grows dimmer and dimmer and finally dies altogether, so also without regular prayer our life as a Christian as a seminarian grows weaker and weaker as would our bodies if we did not take food on a regular basis. Without the habit of regular prayer, there can be no real growth in your spiritual life and no real formation. There is a lot of pressure on a seminarian because of the demands of study, of assignments and of the House Programme. That is why it is very important that you make out a prayer timetable for yourself in the same way as you make a study timetable. Tithe your time and give one tenth of your time to God each day to include Mass, Community prayer, Spiritual Reading, Examen, Meditation, Rosary and your own private prayer. Don't give God the time you have left over after everything else when you may well be tired and sleepy. Give the best part of your day to God. People are different. Find out the time of the day when you can pray best and where possible use that time for prayer.

Christ our Model for Prayer

Christ is the model for all of us. If there is anything the gospels show us about Christ, it is that He was a man of prayer.

And in the morning, a great while before day, He rose and went out to a lonely place and there He prayed. (Mark 1:35).

Now it happened in those days, that He went out into the hills to pray; and all night He continued tin prayer to God (Luke 6:12).

Want God

To be a person of prayer, the most important thing of all is to want God, to want Him more than anything else in the world, to be able to say like Saint Paul, "for me life means Christ" (Philippians 1:21) There is a story about a young monk who complained to his abbot that he was not able to pray. The abbot brought him to a river and held his head under the water for a few moments. When the abbot let go his hold, the young monk jerked his head out of the water, gasping for air. "When you want God as much as you wanted that breath of fresh air, then you will be able to pray" said the abbot. Students sometimes say to me, "I had no time today for prayer because of the pressure of assignments". I have yet to hear a seminarian say to me, "I had no time to do an assignment today because of the need to give time to prayer."

Lectio Divina on Prayer

Luke 11:1-13

Luke 18:2-8

Luke18:10-14

Matthew 7:21

Matthew 18:19-20
FOUR ANCHOR POINTS OF PRAYER

_1.Preparation_

If I am going to use scripture, what scripture text will I use? It is better to select and read over the passage the night before. There is truth in the axiom, "fail to prepare, prepare to fail" even in the realm of prayer. The best preparation for prayer is a life lived in tune with Gospel values. It is also important to get in touch with what you really desire during the prayer period.

What do I desire? What do I want to ask the Lord for?

2.Entry into Prayer

I quieten down

I become aware of my feelings

I ask the Holy Spirit to help me to pray.

I ask for what I desire in this period of Prayer

PRAYER PERIOD

3.Exit from the Prayer

I quietly bring the prayer to a conclusion

I speak to the Lord in my own words and pray a slow "Our Father" or "Glory be"

4.Reflection after the Prayer

If possible do this in a different place. Prayer is like a meeting with a close friend. Imagine that you are sitting alone after a visit of a close friend. Ask yourself, how did the meeting go? What struck me? What did I say to my friend (the Lord) and what did He seem to say to me?

What was the mood of the meeting? How did I feel during the meeting? Did my feelings change during the meeting? What will I take away from the meeting?

Is there some point I should return to, when I pray again?

WAYS TO PRAY

Our prayer is the way we express our relationship with God. There are as many ways of praying as there are of loving. No two people are alike in loving, so no two people approach God in exactly the same way. Your prayer is as unique as your fingerprints. No one else can give God what you can give him. You don't have to imitate anyone else to please God; you just have to be yourself, standing honestly before God, like the publican in in the temple (Luke 18) or like Esther praying in the temple (Esther 4:17f).

By ourselves we cannot pray. St Paul makes this quite clear in writing to the Romans: "the Spirit too helps us in our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sights too deep for words." Pray often to the Spirit to teach you how to pray. Say to Jesus like the apostles did, "Lord teach me to pray."

The best way to pray is the way you find most helpful. What suits one person may not suit another. You will be led to pray in different ways at different times in your life. Here are some ways of payer that different people have found helpful. Use them, in so far as they help you.

Vocal Prayer

Don't feel that you have to compose your own prayers all of the time. Use the great prayers of the Church, which have centuries of tradition behind them. Use your favourite prayer book or a psalm from the breviary to help you. But remember there is a difference between saying words and praying. When you say a prayer, pay attention to the words you are saying and to the person to whom you are speaking, God the Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Mary or a particular Saint.

The Chair Prayer

There is a story of a priest who went to visit a sick person in his home. He noticed an empty chair at the sick man's bedside and asked what it was doing there. The sick man said: "I had placed Jesus on the chair and was talking to Him before you arrived... For years I found it extremely difficult to pray until a friend explained to me that prayer was a matter of talking and listening to Jesus. He told me to place an empty chair beside me and imagine Jesus sitting on the chair and speak with Him and listen to what he says in reply as you would speak and listen to a close friend. I've had no difficulty in praying ever since."

Prayer of Petition

Jesus said, Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened" and He meant what He said. Begin with your own needs and then move out in circles to the people in your community, in your life, in Nigeria, in Africa, in the World.

Prayer of Praise

Take one of your favourite psalms of praise eg Ps 145-150 and let this be the starting point for your own prayer of praise. Sing, dance if the situation allows it. Let your body express your prayer.

Arrow Prayers

Since God is beside us all of the time, it is good to become aware of this by short prayers at different times during the day by raising our minds to Him. These are sometimes called ejaculations or aspirations and being short are not prone to distractions as the devil has not time to interrupt.

PRAYING WITH SCRIPTURE

**Lectio Divina**

The two Latin words "Lectio Divina" mean "Sacred Reading" and is an ancient method of approaching the scriptures that goes back to the early days of Christianity. Pope Benedict spoke about " Lectio Divina" on 16th September 2006: "I would like to recall and recommend the ancient tradition of Lectio Divina, the diligent reading of Sacred Scripture accompanied by prayer that brings about that intimate dialogue in which the person reading hears God who is speaking and in praying responds to Him with trusting openness of heart. If it is effectively promoted, this practice will bring to the church -I am convinced of it- a new spiritual springtime."

Method for Personal Lectio Divina

Beginning

Choose the scripture passage you intend to pray with. Invite the Holy Spirit to speak to you through the text and help you to pray. This kind of prayer has three phases that you move between as you feel drawn: lectio(reading) , meditatio ( meditation) and oratio(prayer)

Lectio

Read slowly and gently, listening with your heart to the words. There is no need to rush. No need to get to the end of the passage. When a particular word or phrase strikes you, stay with it as long as there is something in it for you.

Meditatio

Think about; reflect on a word or phrase that speaks to you. Repeat the words that strike you. The words may trigger off thoughts, memories or reflections in your own life. That is good.

Oratio

Let yourself respond in prayer, in words from the heart. Talk to God in your own words or simply stay in silence before Him. When you are ready or if you are distracted, move on to the next phrase and again stop when something strikes you. Don't rush

Ending

When your prayer time has come to an end, finish with a short prayer. Afterwards you might want to make a note in your journal of anything that seemed significant or take with you a single word or phrase that has spoken to you.

SIMPLE METHOD FOR LECTIO DIVINA WITH DAILY READINGS

1.Take your Missal, become aware of God's presence and ask the help of the Holy Spirit to hear what He wants to say to you through the day's readings.

2.Listen to the Lord speaking to you through the readings for whatever time you give Him e.g. 10-15 minutes. I say listen rather than read because when we listen we are more open to what the Spirit is saying to us, allowing him to take the initiative. When we say read we are more active with the Spirit more in the background. We pay attention to what the Spirit says to us, reflect on it and respond to it as He leads us.

3.At the end, we thank Him for being with us and take a word or phrase or thought along with us and bring it to mind at different times during the day.

As we do this day by day, the Scriptures will be opened to us and our celebration of the Eucharist will be enriched by it.

"If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciple, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31)

Group Lectio Divina (30 minutes)

How to conduct the Prayer

1.Begin with a prayer to the Holy Spirit.

2.Ask one of the groups to read the text clearly and slowly.

3.The group then takes some moments of silence to reflect on what they have heard.

4.Invite each person in the group to share a word or phrase or image in the text that struck them (no need to say why it struck them).

5.When everyone has done this, asks another member of the group to read the text again (slowly).

6.Invite the members of the group to reflect (for 5-8 minutes) on what the Lord is saying to them in this text at this moment. Each member then shares what he feels the Lord is saying to him e.g. "what the Lord seemed to be saying to me through this text was...what came to me as I heard this text was...what I felt as I heard this text was...the image that came to me as I reflected on the text was...This may be based on the phrase that struck him during the first reading or on what another person in the group has shared.

7.Ask another member of the group the read the text a third time (slowly).

8.Invite members of the group to make a prayer based on the text: prayer of gratitude, prayer of guidance or help or sorrow etc. Keep the prayers short. Not everyone needs to say a prayer.

9.Close with a hymn or a prayer that all know.

Things to avoid

•Arguments about the meaning of the text

•One person saying too much. It is not a time for homilies or giving advice to others.

•Don't let the prayer get bogged down in complicated explanations or interpretations.
PRAYING WITH THE IMAGINATION

One way God seems to speak to people in prayer is through the imagination. Many people say. "I have no imagination" but nobody has no imagination. Take a moment to think of the last time you were at home for Christmas. The power that enables you to know what that feels like is imagination. The following exercise can help you to use that same power in prayer.

This prayer works well with any gospel or Old Testament scene where there is action taking place. Some examples of suitable passages are given below.

Take a few moments to become still and quiet. Invite God to work through your imagination as you pray with the passage. Ask God for what you want, perhaps "to know him more clearly, love him more dearly, follow him more nearly."

Read through the text two or three times until you are thoroughly familiar with the story. Then let the scene gradually build up in your mind's eye. Take your time, see everything that is around, hear, feel, taste and smell.

Where are you? Take your place in the unfolding scene. You may start as a bystander or one of the central characters or simply enter into the action as yourself.

Let yourself be drawn naturally into conversation with Jesus or another participant in the story... Stay in the scene for as long as you have chosen to and then draw the prayer to a close.

Some passages suitable for imaginative prayer

Matthew 14: 22-33Peter walks on the water

Mark 10:46-52The cure of Bartimaeus

Luke 5:1-11Call of four disciples

John 13:1-17Jesus washes the disciples' feet

Exodus 3:1-6Moses and the burning bush

1 Samuel 3:1-10 The call of Samuel
PRAYER OF SILENCE

"Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).

"Let us be silent so that we can hear the whispering of God" (Ralph Aldo Emerson).

Three brothers and their parents lived together in a house by a river. When the parents died, the brothers decided to go their separate ways. The first said, "I'm going off to look after the sick, the streets are full of them. I will bring them healing and care." The second said, "Everywhere I go I see people at loggerheads. I'll go away to reconcile them I will bring them peace." The third brother said, "I'm staying here where I am."

After a couple of years, the two brothers came back. The first said, "It's hopeless, there are too many sick people. I can't cope." The other brother said much the same, "It's impossible. I am torn to shreds. There's no peace left in me, let alone my bringing peace to anyone else."

They sat and looked at each other with sadness, pitying their condition. Then the third brother filled a bowl of muddy water from the river. "Look at that," he said. They looked and saw nothing but muddy water. "Let it stand," he said, "let it be." Later on they looked again. And now the water was clear and they could see themselves in it, as clearly as in a mirror. The third brother then said, ''when the water is always stirred up, it is muddy. It can only be clear when it is still. It's the same with you. Only when you are still can you see your true self and know what to do.

In the seminary there are times of silence during times of retreat but you need to also make pockets of silence for yourself at other times. Silence helps you to see and hear your true self and see and hear God more clearly.

An Indian mystic, Sri Ramakrishna, describes the mind as a mighty tree filled with monkeys, all swinging from branch to branch and all in an incessant riot of chatter and movement. This is an apt description of the whirl of activity that goes on in many of our minds during meditation. The job at the beginning and during meditation is to bring all of this hyper-active and distracted mind to stillness, silence and concentration. This is what the psalmist means when he says, "Be still and know that I am God" (46:10). We don't like silence and run away from it. We talk too much during prayer and do not listen sufficiently. I am sure you have been exhausted by someone who comes to visit you and talks non-stop, never listening to what you have to say. God too must often be exhausted by our incessant chatter during prayer and our failure to listen.

How does God speak to us during prayer? God can speak in many ways but he speaks especially in the silence and if we take time to listen and let the word come out of the silence, we will hear what He is saying to us. To get you into the mood for listening to God in prayer, you may find one or more the following exercises helpful at the beginning of meditation, especially if you find that on a particular day you are all tensed up or your mind is flitting about in all directions. To give each of the exercises a fair chance you should try them for five to ten minutes each day for a week. Only at the end of this should you start making a judgment about their suitability.

Breathing:

Take the position you intend to use in prayer. Next, relax your body. Begin with the muscles of your face and move down through your shoulder chest, arms, and legs.

Now, observe your breathing. Don't change it; just pay attention to its outward and inward movement. Feel it touch your nostrils. Attend intently to your normal everyday breathing. Do not exaggerate it, just be aware of your normal breathing and focus all your intention on it. If thoughts come to your mind e.g. that this exercise waste of time, do not follow the thoughts but return gently to focusing all your attention on your breathing. Continue the exercise until a certain stillness and concentration sets in.

Listening:

Take your prayer position and relax your body. Close your eyes and listen to the sounds around you.... cars.... people.... birds.... coughing.... movement of furniture.... Don't even try to identify the sounds.... just listen to them. If distracting thoughts or feelings come to your mind during the exercise, be aware of the thoughts and feelings, but don't follow them, come back to giving all your attention to the sounds you are aware of here and now. Continue this exercise until a mood of quiet sets in.

Sensation:

Take your prayer position and relax your body. Become aware of your clothes gripping your shoulders, legs, arms; your shoes gripping your feet. Pay attention to any other sensations you feel, tingling, itching. Begin at the crown of your head and focus on the sensations there; then move gradually down your body until you reach your feet. If you seem to find no sensation in a particular part of your body, just move on to the next part. Continue the exercise until a mood of quietness and relaxation sets in.

However, we will never be able to quieten down during prayer if we do not make an effort to still our minds at other times. One way of doing this is to give all your attention to what you are doing at this moment e.g. eating, washing dishes. Many don't. We are everywhere but in the present. There is a story about monks who were discussing the merits of their respective abbots. My master said one, can do wonderful things, cure the sick, give sight to the blind. In fact, he has even raised a man from the dead. My father abbot, said the other can do even more wonderful things. "When he eats he eats, when he sleeps he sleeps and when he prays he prays. "God is in the present moment and it is by giving all our attention to what we are doing at this moment that we meet Him. He then moves on to the next moment, where we find him before us. During the time for manual labour, we find God best by doing the work as best we can rather than visiting the Blessed Sacrament or saying the rosary.

Praying without Words

Be silent

Be still

Alone –

Empty before your God

Say nothing... Ask nothing

Be silent.... Be still

Let your God look upon you.

That is all.

He knows....

He understands

He loves you with and enormous love

He only wants to look upon you with His love

Quiet...Still... Be

Let your God...

Love you.

Everyday an old man came to church to pray. He always sat quietly in the last seat. One day the parish priest decided to ask him about it. "what do you say to God during the time you spend in church? The man smiled and answered, "I don't say anything. He just looks at me loving me and I look at Him loving him." This is another way of praying -just sit there and look at God and let God look at you. Every time your mind wanders off to something else, bring your attention back to God again. It helps sometimes to take a word or phrase and repeat in your mind. Words like "Jesus ''mercy' 'love' 'Abba' or the words of the Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me" may be helpful.

Something To Do

What do find helpful to still your mind?

Take 20 minutes and sit with Jesus like Mary did in Luke 10:38-42

Lectio Divina

I Kings 19Elijah encounters God in the gentle breeze

Mark 4:35-41Jesus still quiets the storms in our lives

Luke 10:38-42 Mary and Martha

DISTRACTIONS

If you ask most seminarians, what their greatest problem in prayer is, they will more than likely answer, distractions. If you ask them what they do when they are distracted, many of them will say, "I take up a spiritual book and read it' or "if I am on holidays, I cut short the prayer time, as I feel I am only wasting my time."

When distractions come into our mind, they are usually there for some time before we are aware of them and during this time, our prayer is pleasing to God. When we become aware of them, we have a choice to take, If we decide to stay with the distraction, our prayer stops but if on the other hand, we decide to return gently to where we were in our prayer before we became aware of the distraction, such prayer is pleasing to God. In fact a period of prayer with distractions may be more pleasing to Him than a period of prayer in which there are no distractions. The reason is that when there are no distractions, we find it easy to pray and enjoy it but when there are many distractions, we have to make a conscious effort to come back again and again to God and what God wants is our efforts to pray not our own idea of what good prayer is.

Another way of dealing with distractions is to make them the subject of our prayer. If we are distracted by thoughts of our people at home, we can take some time to pray to God about them and ask Him to look after them. In this way the distraction becomes an occasion of prayer.

Prayer is a relationship with God. He gives Himself to us totally and expects us to make a similar response to Him. If we are holding back in any area of our lives, e.g. refusing to forgive someone, pursuing a relationship in a way that is incompatible with priesthood, we will find it difficult to pray until we put right our relationship with God. This does not mean that we have to be perfect in order to pray. The best prayers in the bible come from sinners, but from sinners who were honest in admitting their sinfulness, their need for God and their willingness to change.

If you never think of God during the day or if you rush into prayer with your mind full of other things, you are likely to have many distractions. But if you develop the practice of becoming aware of God's presence at odd moments during the day by raising your mind to God with short aspirations, you will have fewer distractions in prayer. Another help with distractions is to pay special attention to the first five minutes of prayer time. Don't rush into prayer; take time to become silent and relaxed and to become aware of God's presence by using the breath prayer, breathing in God's love and breathing out anxiety or any other thoughts or feelings that are pulling you down or use some other method that helps you to quieten down.

Writing about distractions in his book "New Seeds of Contemplation" Thomas Merton writes, "If you have never had distractions you don't know how to pray. For the secret of prayer is a hunger for God and for the vision of God. A man whose imagination is crowded with useless thoughts or evil images may sometimes be forced to pray better, than one whose mind is swimming with clear concepts and easy acts of love. That is why it is useless to get upset when you cannot shake off distractions. Firstly, you must realize that they are often unavoidable in the life of prayer. If you feel you have to use a book do so, but if you allow your prayer to generate into a period of simple spiritual reading you are losing a great deal of fruit. You would profit much more by patiently resisting distractions and learning something of your own helplessness and incapacity. And if your book merely becomes an anaesthetic, far from helping you meditate it has probably ruined it."

Dryness and a feeling that we are getting nowhere in prayer can also be discouraging. In the beginning of our prayer life, God often gives us a lot of consolation and it is easy to pray. Later to help us to grow and to help us to see that we should not pray because we get nice feelings but because we want God not the consolations of God. This can be seen from the experience of the following two people

The spiritual writer Ruth Burrows prays one hour at 6.30am and another hour at 5pm as well as attending Office and Mass. She says that a lot of her prayer is darkness and a feeling that God does not exist. When she was asked, "if someone tries to pray and finds he or she is getting nowhere, what then? "The great word is faith. You have your own subjective impression that nothing is happening. But who are you going to believe? God or yourself? It is a terribly hard decision in practice. In one of her books she writes that prayer is a combination of "lights on and lights off" experience. It is like sitting in a room at night with a person. When the lights are on you can see the person but when the lights go off the person is still there but you cannot see him. It is the same with us and God. He is always beside us even when we don't experience his presence.

Charles de Foucauld in Tamanrasset devoted four hours to prayer each day, spending a long time before the Blessed Sacrament. He admitted that prayer had become very difficult. He had to battle with darkness and dryness, and kept at it only by force of will. "if only I knew Jesus loves me" , he wrote, "but he never says it."

Whether our prayer is good or bad is the last thing we should worry about. The only thing we have to do is give time to prayer each day and want God. Everything that happens after that depends on God.

When our prayer is dry, dark and distracted, the first question to ask is "Whether there is some pattern of serious sin in my life that I am making no real effort to overcome?" If the answer is "no" the only thing to do is to put yourself in God's hands, to remain faithful to prayer however it feels, to wait in the darkness and allow God to work in his own way.

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for wrong thing, wait without love,

For love would be love for the wrong thing; there is faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are in the waiting (T S Eliot Four Quartets)
PRAYER OF THE CHURCH

Beginning in the Formation House, the fruitful recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours is something that is meant to grow over the years. Lest the 'Opus Dei', 'the work of God' as Saint Benedict calls the Divine Office, become the burden of God, it is important that in the Formation House we try to celebrate it as well and as fruitfully as we can so that it becomes an act of love, a joy and not just a burden imposed by the Church. What follows is meant to help you to do this.

Prayer of Christ

In praying the Prayer of the Church we enter into the prayer of Christ who is always praying for us and in us. As we begin an hour of the Office, we can truthfully say, "I pray, now not I, but Christ prays in me." A consciousness that while praying the office, we are in union with Jesus can help us fight the boredom and discouragement that often comes in our daily desire to be faithful to the Prayer of the Church.

Prayer of the Church

The Divine Office is the prayer of the Church. When we open the breviary, we must realize that we are entering into a choir, into a congregation into a society made up of people of every condition on earth - happy, sad, dying, being born, getting married, hungry, in prison, rich, poor, in hospital, fearful, depressed, joyful. The Divine Office will never have much meaning for us until we say it in this way, that is, until we begin to think with the church and pray it as the prayer of the church throughout the world and not make it into a private prayer for ourselves alone.

It is only when we pray it in this way that many of the sentiments of the psalms will make sense. If we are happy and joyful, psalms of lamentation will not make sense if we are using the office as a private prayer but they make a lot of sense if we pray them as the prayer of the church and reach out to the many people who are suffering at this moment and allow our voice become their voice as we cry out to God to help them.

There can be a lot of selfishness in our private prayers. The Office challenges us to leave our private concerns for the moment and join the choir of the church. It challenges us to make her sentiments our own whatever they are at this moment: praise, thanksgiving, sadness, intercession.

A priest is one who speaks to men in the name of God, and to God in the name of men. There is nothing a priest can do for the people in his parish or school that is more effective than to recite the Office in their name. Some say they have no time for prayer as they are too busy during the day helping people. Yet, there is no better way a priest can help people than by the time he spends each day reciting the Divine Office on their behalf. We may be saying the Office in some lonely out of the way place with no one around yet we are surrounded by the church as we do and we can truly say "The joys and hopes, the fears and anxieties of the men and women of our age, and especially of those most pushed to the margins of life, are the joys and hopes, the fears and anxieties of the men and women of the Church. Why? Because there is nothing which belongs to human life which does not find an echo in our hearts" (Lumen Gentium).

On the importance of the Prayer of the Church, Cardinal Dolan of New York says, "Pragmatically we have seen the data that tell us that a negligence in the breviary is usually the first sign that a man's vocation is in danger. Experience tells us that those who say, "Well, I don't say the office, but I do other prayers every day, are usually deceiving themselves. It has become clearer and clearer that a priest needs the daily office for his survival" ( Priests for the Third Millennium p258).

When he was Pope, Pope Benedict wrote, "I know the primary service I can render the Church and humanity is in effect prayer. Lots of people write to me asking for prayer...they tell me their joys and sorrows, their plans for the future and their problems in their families and at work. Their requests also reflect the uncertainty that humanity is presently experiencing."

Saying the Office

The General Instruction on the Office quotes the precept of Saint Benedict "Let the Spirit harmonize with the voice" or if you prefer let your mind and heart be at one with the words that the liturgy puts in your mouth. It is not sufficient to say the Office mechanically, being present in body but absent spirit. We have to enter into it with our total persons, not with part of ourselves. This is a challenge that we are called to rise to anew each day. "When you are praying the Office, think of the words you are saying and the Lord to whom you are speaking" (Charles Borromeo).

Speed is a great enemy of proper recitation. Prayer of any kind will not survive haste for long. If you are being distracted, make a deliberate effort to go slower than normal and you will find that this will help your concentration. Don't be afraid of periods of silence. God speaks in silence as well as in words. He tells us so himself, "Be still and know that I am God."

Place and time are also important. Choose a place and time that help you to be recollected. A good beginning is half the battle, so before you begin praying the Office, take time to become aware of who you are praying to and who is praying in you. As you say the hymns, psalms and canticles, let your mind rest on God, the mystery you are celebrating, or the words you are saying.

The Liturgy of the Hours should nourish our whole prayer life as well as help us to dedicate the whole day to God. Using the Office of the Day especially on Feast days as the starting point for meditation can be very helpful in our spiritual growth as well as helping us to pray and think with the Church. The Liturgy of the Hours should flow into the activities of the day. As we pray the Office together each day in the Formation House the fruit should be evident in a more loving, forgiving and dedicated community.

Responsibility

The Liturgy of the Hours is entrusted to the sacred ministers of the Church in a special way. The Church deputes them to say the Liturgy of the Hours that at least through them the duty of the whole community may be constantly and continuously fulfilled and the prayer of Christ may persevere unceasingly in the Church. "Bishops and priests and other sacred ministers who have received from the church the mandate to celebrate the liturgy of the hours are to recite the whole sequence of hours each day, preserving as far as possible the genuine relationship of the hours to the time of the day. They are to give due importance to the hours which are the two hinges on which this liturgy rests, that is Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer; let them take care not to omit these hours, unless for a serious reason. They are also to carry out faithfully the Office of Readings, which is above all the liturgical celebration of the Word of God. Thus, they will carry out daily that duty of welcoming into themselves the Word of God. That the day may be completely sanctified, they will desire to recite the middle hour and compline, thus commending themselves to God and completing the entire "Opus Dei" before going to bed" (General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours N 29)

To help you pray and understand the breviary better you should read the entire instruction for yourself. You will find it in the introduction to the first volume of the complete breviary.

The SMA Constitutions encourages us to pray the Liturgy of the Hours together as a means of strengthening our family spirit, "After the example of the first Christian Community, we come together to listen to the word of God, to celebrate the Eucharist and the Prayer of the Divine Office and so strengthen our family spirit and foster a climate of peace and openness" (27). One possible sign that relationships are not going well in a community is when they do not pray together.

Reflect/Share

a. What strikes you from what is written above?

b. Reflect on and share your experience of praying the breviary

c. What do you find helpful in praying the breviary?

d. What do you find difficult in praying the breviary?
PRAYER QUOTES

1.Pray as you can. Don't pray as you can't (Abbot Chapman). In other words pray in the way that you find most helpful.

2.I have a very simple way of praying. It is centered entirely on attention to the presence of God and to His will and to his love (Thomas Merton).

3.Priests and sisters should spend one continuous hour daily in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Those who do are completely changed for the better. There are three reasons to make a daily holy hour: (1) The need for the psychological continuity of prayer in silence. (2) A commitment to intercession for the world. (3) Our Lord asked for it: "Can you not watch one hour with Me?" Spending part of the holy hour meditating on the Scriptures or with a Scripture commentary is recommended (Fulton Sheeen).

4.Chair Prayer...Imagine God sitting beside you on a chair. Speak to him as you would speak to a friend like Moses "who spoke to God face to face as a man speaks to his friend." Jesus said, "I no longer call you servants but friends"

5."Prayer is nothing else than an intimate friendship and frequent heart to heart conversation with him, whom we know loves us."(St Theresa of Avila

6.I know very well that the primary service I can render to the Church is in effect prayer. Lots of people write to me asking for prayers they tell me their joys and worries, their plans for the future, and their problems in their families and at work... their requests also reflect the uncertainty that humanity is presently experiencing...those who pray do not lose hope(Pope Benedict XV1

7."Prayer changes things" (Cardinal Okogie)

8."Life is fragile , handle with prayer"

9.All the angels pray. Every creature prays. Cattle and wild beasts pray and bend the knee. As they come from their barns and caves they look up to heaven and call out, lifting their spirit in their own fashion. The birds too rise and lift themselves up to heaven; they open out their wings, instead of hands, in the form of a cross, and give voice to what seems to be prayer. What more need be said, on the duty of prayer? Even the Lord himself prayed. To him be honour and power for ever and ever(Tertullian Thursday Third week of Lent, Office of Readings)

10.Old Man in Church:" What do you do sitting before the tabernacle for many hours each day?" " He looks at me and I look at Him... He looks at me loving me. I look at Him loving Him."

11.The spending of time in God's presence is a real pastoral priority; it is not an addition to pastoral work: being before the Lord is a pastoral priority and in the final analysis the most important.(Pope Benedict to priests of Rome)

12.Every religious must bear witness to the primacy of God and must dedicate a sufficient long period of time every day to stand before the Lord: to tell Him of her love, and above all to let herself be loved by God (John Paul11)

13.Jesus: "In the morning long before dawn, he got up and left the house and went off to a lonely place to pray there." Before choosing the twelve apostles he spent the whole night in prayer...being in agony, he prayed the longer...watch and pray that you enter not into temptation.

14.Make out a daily programme for prayer and spiritual reading in the same way as you make out a programme for study and do your best to keep to it. Try to give one tenth of your day to prayer and spiritual reading.

15. "As a seminarian, the most fruitful prayer times for me were not moments when there was an obligation to pray but moments when there was no obligation to pray, a few minutes spent alone in the chapel, before a statue or sitting quietly in the seminary grounds looking at the sunset and lifting my heart to God."

16."Prayer is not so much talking to God, imploring God or manipulating God; prayer is listening to God so that we can do his will rather than trying to impose our own will on God" (Thomas Merton).

17."A person thinks and imagines that when he prays the most important thing, the thing he must concentrate on, is that God should hear what he is praying for. And yet in a true sense it is the reverse: the true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he is the one who hears, who hears what God wills. The immediate person uses many words and makes demands on God; the true man of prayer only attends" Soren Kierkegaard.

18."The key to prayer is to feel oneself loved by the Father" (Pope Francis)

19.How Pope Francis prays

"I pray the breviary every morning. I like to pray with the psalms. Then, later, I celebrate Mass. I pray the Rosary. What I really prefer is adoration in the evening, even when I get distracted and think of other things, or even fall asleep praying. In the evening then, between seven and eight o'clock, I stay in front of the Blessed Sacrament for an hour in adoration. But I pray mentally even when I am waiting at the dentist or at other times of the day ( Interview with Antonio Spadaro SJ America Magazine Sept 30th 2013)

20."Prayer does not block the mouth of lions nor transfer to the hungry the peasant's dinner. It has no special grace, to avert the experience of suffering but it arms with endurance thse who suffer, who grieve , who are pained" (Tertullian).

## CHAPTER 8 FAITH SHARING

"Living as apostolic communities we come together to share our faith and love. Through this community life we help each other to live and preach the gospel after the example of Christ and the disciples gathered around him" (Constitutions 24).

Faith sharing is the sharing of how God is working in my life and in the life of the community. Life's journey is not a solitary journey. Each person is born into a community. Faith sharing removes the barriers that divide and grants permission to enter into the sacred place in the life of another where he is touched by the Spirit. Sharing of difficulties can be especially growth producing as we learn to see more clearly how God is working in our lives through these difficulties. Faith sharing is the coming together of a community, the being present to one another, to remember, to reflect, to share, to give each other the support needed to grow in the awareness of God's presence in the daily events and happenings in our own life and in the life of the community. Faith sharing is never to be forced and each person shares only at the level he is comfortable with. What is shared at the meeting should not be talked about with others who were not at the meeting.

Barriers to be overcome to facilitate Faith Sharing

1.Others will be aware of my inadequacies and if they really knew who I was, they would not like me.

2.I cannot trust the other members not to speak about my sharing outside of the meeting.

3.My faith is a private matter between myself and God

How would you address these barriers?

Guidelines for a Faith Sharing Meeting

There are many ways to share faith. The following guide is a general format for a small faith-sharing group

Opening Prayer

Relevant Scripture Reading related to the theme of the sharing

Silent Reflection

Sharing Thoughts and Experiences on the theme of the sharing. Sharing should not be hurried. People speak as they are ready. Short pause after each sharing.

Closing Prayer

Silence ("silent reflection") is an essential part of the faith-sharing experience. Silence creates a reflective and unhurried atmosphere. It allows those less reticent to gather their courage and speak. It serves at the start of each session as a way to focus thoughts on the gathering itself, away from the day's previous activities.

Here are some additional guidelines the leader may wish to stress at the first meeting

Respect each person and their contribution. Faith-sharing is not problem-solving, debate, or literary analysis. It is a sharing of some aspect of our own individual spiritual journey.

Each person shares on the level where he is most comfortable.

Try to speak with honesty and openly to enhance the community's growth.

Before sharing a second time, wait to be sure that all have had a chance to share a first time.

Confidentiality is essential. What is shared within the group remains within the group.

Silence is important to the process. Allow time for reflection after the reading of scripture passage and after the individual sharings.

Some Topics for Faith Sharing

1.The Story of your own Vocation...Scripture for Introduction...Rich Young Man (Mark 10:17-22)

2.Sharing of the time when Jesus became real for you and the growth of your personal relationship with Him.

3.What you like about the SMA or Missionaries who inspired you

4.A spiritual book that helped you

5.Good experiences in community

6.Difficult experiences in community

7.A relationship that has been very life-giving for you

8.Difficulties in relationships

## CHAPTER 9 DISCERNMENT

"The unexamined life is not worth living" (Socrates)

Solomon "give your servant a heart to discern between good and evil" (1 Kings 3:9)

St Ignatius in his spirituality stressed the importance of reflecting on and finding God in one's own experience. In 1521, while recuperating at the family castle in Loyola after serious injuries gotten in a battle in Pamplona, a relative provided him with some reading material. Unfortunately for the patient, there were none of the tales of chivalry and daring that Ignatius so enjoyed, just a Life of Christ and a book on the lives of the saints. Ignatius took them up grudgingly.

What happened next would change his life, and the lives of everyone that would later be touched by Ignatian spirituality. Here is Ignatius, on his sick bed, in his own words, describing what happened. St. Ignatius refers to himself, perhaps out of modesty, as either "the pilgrim" or "him."

"While perusing the life of Our Lord and the saints, he began to reflect, saying to himself: "What if I should do what St. Francis did?" "What if I should act like St. Dominic?" He pondered over these things in his mind, and kept continually proposing to himself serious and difficult things. He seemed to feel a certain readiness for doing them, with no other reason except this thought: "St. Dominic did this; I, too, will do it." "St. Francis did this; therefore I will do it." These heroic resolutions remained for a time, and then other vain and worldly thoughts followed. This succession of thoughts occupied him for a long while, those about God alternating with those about the world. But in these thoughts there was this difference. When he thought of worldly things it gave him great pleasure, but afterwards he found himself dry and sad. But when he thought of journeying to Jerusalem, and of living only on herbs, and practising austerities, he found pleasure not only while thinking of them, but also when he had ceased. He began to inquire the reason for this difference. He learned by experience that one train of thought left him sad, the other joyful. He gradually recognized the different spirits by which he was moved, one, the spirit of God, the other, the evil one." This was his great discovery which changed his life calling for a decision to be made by him on which spirit (impulses, inclinations, desires) to follow.

Bishop Baldwin of Canterbury (Office of Readings Friday Week 9) makes the same point in a different way "It has been written: there are paths which seem to man to be right, but which in the end led him astray. To avoid this peril, Saint John gives us these words of advice, "Test the spirits to see which are from God." No one can test the spirits to see if they are from God unless God has given him discernment of spirits to enable him to investigate spiritual thoughts, inclinations and intentions with honest and true judgment. Discernment is the mother of all virtues; everyone needs it either to guide the lives of others or to direct and reform his own life. "Oh that today you would listen to his voice, harden not your hearts."

The challenge is to be aware of our impulses, images, inclinations and desires and not to encourage or entertain any thought, image, impulse or desire not inspired by Christ or the Holy Spirit. Let nothing but Christ hold sway in your mind and heart.

Awareness is very important, to be aware of the forces that are drawing you in different directions right through the day, to be able to say "this impulse or inspiration, if you wish, is from God and will lead me to God and this impulse or temptation is from the evil one or from my own corrupt nature and will lead me away from God if I follow it.

After awareness comes choice – to choose God or something other than God. "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and happiness" (Victor Frankl).

"Since the Spirit is our life, let us be directed by the Spirit" (Gal 5:25)."The unspiritual are interested only in what is unspiritual, but the spiritual are interested in spiritual things...your interest are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the spirit of God has made his home in you" (Romans 8)

"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, you will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way you should go, follow it" (Isaiah 30:21).

Self discipline is very important. Take the steering wheel out of a car and with nobody in control, the car is headed for disaster. Without self-discipline you give over the steering wheel and allow yourself to be controlled by all sorts of undesirable behaviours in so many areas of your life:food, drink, sexuality, money etc. Without self-discipline and the grace of God one can easily become a recidivist, a person who keeps on repeating undesirable behavior or relapsing back into an old bad habit. Discernment and self-discipline is the way to growth.

Lectio Divina

Galatians 5: 16-26: Paul describes the two movements (spirits, impulses) at work in you and invites you to let yourself be directed by the spirit of God.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20: The two ways...Choose life

Reflect/Pray/Share

a) From your own experience, can you confirm the truth of what Ignatius discovered? Do you find in yourself two spirits (movements, impulses) , one from God and leading to God which when you follow it leaves you happy and at peace and brings you closer to God and another spirit not from God which if you follow it leaves you sad, empty and draws you away from God and what you want to be?

b) Do you notice certain patterns of impulses that have been with you for many years, some life giving, others not live giving. What choices do you need to make?

c) Look back over the past day and list ten activities you engaged in. When you have made the list mark the different activities as "nourishing"( from God) or "not nourishing (not from God)." What do you learn from the exercise?

d) Reflect on the story of the fall, (Genesis 3) in the light of what is written above

SAT NAV

Modern cars are often equipped with a device that gives you direction. It is called a SAT NAV and here's how it works: you punch in where you are and where you want to go and the system kicks in. A map appears on the small screen and a voice gives you directions: 'Take the next right turn.' What it is even more useful is when you miss your turn the voice says 'recalculating'.' It works out how to get you back on track and gives you new directions. Even when you mess up the directions the voice remains calm, in control, and does not get annoyed when you make mistakes, 'Recalculating.' Within each of us is a SAT NAV put there by God. The prophet Isaiah says, "Whether you turn to right or to left you will hear a voice behind you saying, 'This is the way you should go, follow it."(Isaiah 30:21). Listen to that voice.

## CHAPTER 10 DISCERNMENT OF VOCATION

" _I know the plans I have in mind for you are plans for peace, not disaster reserving a future full of hope" Jer. 29:11)_

Lord, send your Holy Spirit to guide me to find the place in life where you want me to be for in your will is my peace.

Discernment is also the name given to a form of prayerful reflection that seeks to know more fully what path in life God wants me to follow. It involves listening to God in prayer but also involves doing my homework – what is the actual issue here, what are my options, have I a realistic sense of my strengths and weaknesses? Am I listening to God and to my Formators? It also calls me to take the time to discover how I really feel about the question at a deep level so as to find out where I find myself most drawn.

Above all, discernment involves a choice between options which are good – I do not discern whether I should become a bank-robber or kidnapper or not! – and is carried out in confidence that God will still be with me, whichever choice I make. Discernment is involved in every choice we make in life as we try to do what God wants us to do e.g. what phone to buy, how much time I should spend on the internet or watching television. Here we are talking about a major decision, whether or not God wants me to be an SMA missionary priest.

The Ignatian tradition speaks of three moments or times when discernment may take place or to put it in simpler terms three ways of finding out what vocation in life I should follow?

First, there are times when I simply know what it is that I should do, without any doubt entering in. I may or may not be able to give convincing reason for my choice. But I could not take another path and be true to myself e.g. Paul on Road to Damascus, Call of Matthew. Neither of them had any doubt of what God wanted of him.

Second there are times when, faced with possible paths ahead the preferred choice is not entirely clear. We are presented with alternatives that all seem attractive to some degree and we are not blessed with the gift of clear certainty about what to do. In these cases, Ignatius says that we can discern the right choice by attending to the inner movements of our feelings, impulses or spirits as Ignatius calls them. In particular, feelings of "consolation' and 'desolation' will signal the correct course of action. Ignatius describes consolation as every increase in hope, faith and charity resulting in a feeling of peace at a deep level. Spiritual desolation is just the opposite. The words Ignatius uses to describe it include darkness of soul, disturbance, movement to things low and earthly, disquiet of different agitations and temptations. An experience of consolation about a choice I have made is an indication that this is the choice God wants for me.

Third, I may approach the decisions I have to make in an unruffled state of mind with no deep feelings one way or the other, finding that I can view the different reasons calmly, without great movements of feelings in any particular direction.

In this understanding of vocation discernment, the ideal is where feelings (second approach above) and the intellect (the third approach) pull in the same direction. In authentic cases of the first kind of discernment, there is no problem. Even here, though, it is worth checking out the responses of heart and head so that I do not get carried along by a blind enthusiasm.

The following prayer exercise brings together the different elements of two and three of the discernment process and gives time for you to note the direction that they incline you towards.

I begin this prayerful reflection by taking time to become still, outwardly and inwardly, and asking God to show me in this prayer what it would be useful for me to see and what path in life he wants me to follow. It is important that I let go of any preference I myself might have and be completely open to God's will for my life. If deep down, I have already made up my mind, there is no point in discerning.

Next I spell out for myself as clearly as I can what my real options are in the situation that I am trying to discern. What is the actual question that I am facing, and what are the concrete alternatives?

I then map out, using four columns, the two sides of each of the alternatives, that I want to explore. For example, if I am trying to decide between going to University and SMA priesthood.

Advantages of going to University

 | Disadvantages of going to University

 | Advantages of SMA Priesthood

 | Disadvantages of SMA Priesthood

---|---|---|---

 |   
 |   
 |

 |   
 |   
 |

 |   
 |   
 |

 |   
 |   
 |

 |   
 |   
 |

I spend time filling in whatever comes to mind for each of these columns. Then I take some time to sit and see how I feel about each option as I look at what I have written. Then I spend time imagining that I have opted one way or the other. What does that make me feel like? The process should be done not in one session but over a period of time, taking a few days to look at each of the four alternatives one by one. During this period I should also seek advice and guidance from people I trust, formation staff, friends.

If the matter is now clear, or I have no more time before I have to decide, I make a decision based on what I have seen and entrust it to God. Like a person bringing dishes before the King and observing which dish gets his nod of approval, I bring my decision after discernment to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament to see if it gets his nod of approval as shown by whether or not I am at peace deep down with the decision I have made. You may have to repeat this process a number of times during the formation process as you feel called to do so. It would be most unusual for any student to pass through the formation process without ever wondering whether or not he was in the right place. Times of doubt and struggle are important times as after working through them, they either lead to greater commitment and a deepening of one's vocation or the discovery that one is in the wrong place, both of which are good results for the person because the important thing in life is to find the place where God wants you to be.

Since vocation to the priesthood is a call from God through the Church, another source of discernment is the decision of Superiors which in most cases will confirm my own discernment. If it doesn't, this can be a difficult time for the person and he may blame the Formators saying, "They don't like me" but if he is prepared to see it from God's point of view it may mean that God is leading the person in a new direction and in a sense taking the decision out of the person's hand and inviting him to go forward in a new direction in life, thankful for the experience he has had in the Formation House and at the same time being at peace with himself and hopefully in time with the decision that has been made for him.

Take time to do the exercise as outlined above when questions about your vocation arise? Having done it share the result with your spiritual director.

Reflect

a) What would you like to be if you were not an SMA student?

b) Are you in the right place? Is the SMA for you? Give reasons for your answer.

## CHAPTER 11 FEELINGS

_This being human is a guest house._

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond (Rumi:The Guest House)

We do not decide how to feel. Feelings happen. However we can learn how to deal with them and use them to know ourselves and others and to grow as persons. Feelings are not under the direct control of our will. They are spontaneously evoked by our perception of reality. Albert Ellis speaks of the ABC of feelings:

  1. Activating agent - sight of snake

  2. Belief or interpretation - snakes are dangerous

  3. Consequent feeling - fear

However, if you go out at night at night and walk on a hose pipe in the garden, your belief that it is a snake will also give you a feeling of fear. Our feelings are strongly influenced by our thoughts. We are made up of bundles of thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and impulses to act. In the above example, if our thoughts tell us there is a snake, we feel fear, our body tenses up and there is an impulse to run away or if we are brave to kill the snake. Feelings are spontaneously evoked by an experience of some kind which acts as an activating agent. If we get in touch with what we feel, we can ask ourselves the question; "What does this feeling tell me about myself?" Where does it come from? Many of our feelings go back to childhood experiences. Lack of unconditional love in childhood can lead to many negative feelings later in life. In this sense feelings tell us a lot about ourselves and can help us grow in self-understanding and maturity. We tend to neglect feelings. Many of us are not in touch with our feelings. We were taught in our childhood to express 'good' feelings and hide or suppress our 'negative' feelings. When we get into the habit of suppressing our negative feelings, we end up becoming unaware of our feelings but feelings cannot be suppressed forever. They express themselves in some form or other, often in destructive ways. e.g. lack of self-confidence, depression, overeating, addiction etc.
How to deal with Feelings

1.Awareness of Feelings

An old monk was asked by a novice, what was the secret in holiness. The old monk said, "I will give you the answer in three words: "Awareness, Awareness, Awareness." Be aware of your feelings and impulses. Otherwise, they will lead you by the nose to places that deep down you would not want to go.

Name them

The following list of feelings is far from complete but will help you name your own feelings:

Happy, Excited, Joyful, Good, Glad, Content, Satisfied, Sure, Secure, Confident, Energetic Curious, Capable, Optimistic, Satisfied, Surprised, Withdrawn....

Sad, Depressed, Hurt, Hopeless, Heartbroken, Anxious, Frightened, Nervous, Ashamed, Embarrassed, Guilty, Humiliated, Irritated, frustrated, Angry, Lonely, Insecure, Abandoned, Lost, Rejected, Shy, Disappointed, Optimistic, Miserable,

Image your feelings e.g. If you were asked to name a musical instrument that images your feelings at the moment, what would it be? – a drum, a violin or other stringed instrument or I feel like a damp towel, a cracked cup, a flat glass of coke, an Okada driver etc.

Pause for a moment. How are you feeling now? Don't confine yourself to the list given above. Have your feelings changed over the past 24 hours? From your own experience as in the case of the example of the snake is it true that your thoughts affect your feelings? If you are anxious about reading publicly in the chapel how might your thoughts be affecting your feelings?

2.Accept and Befriend your feelings

Don't fight or push away difficult feelings. Befriend them. Embrace difficult feelings as a mother would a wounded child. When we learn to be with our feelings without being overwhelmed by them we can respond creatively. Don't identify with them. Remember, "I have feelings, but I am not my feelings." Look at them as you would look out a window at passing cars but don't identify with them by e.g. going out into the street and getting into the car of one of them and allowing yourself to be carried along by that particular feeling. Be aware, name, accept, befriend but don't indulge. Instead of seeing e.g. sadness as something to be fought off and suppressed as an enemy see it as something that could be approached , explored and befriended. Painful emotions make us miserable but often bear gifts. Anger can lead to action in pursuit of justice. Fear warns us of possible danger and is a component of mature courage. Guilt reminds us of our best self and recognizes the gap between our behavior and who we would like to be.

View feelings and thoughts as passing mental events like the sound of a passing car, sight of a bird in the sky or boats passing along a river as you sit on the bank. They arrive, stay for a short time and then fade away of their own accord. If you begin thinking about them you will make the situation worse. e.g. Someone does not greet you in the morning and you feel bad about it. If you just stay with the feeling for a while, it will pass away but if you begin thinking about "why the person did not greet me?" you will make yourself more miserable by imagining all kinds of different reasons and scenarios. "They don't like me" "How did I hurt them?" "I will never talk to them again" or a better scenario "Maybe they forgot their spectacles and did not see."

See what Feelings may be telling you.

What we are dealing about above are passing feelings but some feelings and thoughts may be persistent over a long period of time, triggered by some problem that remains unresolved. Acknowledge that the problem needs attention. Make an appointment with yourself to look at it at some specific time and explore it more fully. After reflecting on it, bring it to Jesus in prayer. Say, "Jesus, I can't manage this by myself, Help me" Listen to what Jesus may say to you about the problem. Seek the advice of a friend. Bring it to the next session of spiritual direction. Some problems can go back to childhood as was the case of the epileptic demoniac (Read Mark 9:14-29). Some weaknesses have no easy solution and may be with us all our lives. It is the same with feelings. A person may never overcome his unjustified angry feelings but through, reflection, prayer and working with it over the years the anger will have less control over him. At first our anger or anxiety may be like a dog barking outside or even inside our house but as we work with it over time the bark of the dog will be further and further away from our house and in the end may be barely audible and we ourselves will grow through the experience ( Read 2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

Examen that puts a special emphasis on Feelings by Dennis Hamm, S.J

1.Pray for light that you might see the day as God sees it

2.Review the day in thanksgiving

Walk through the past 24 hours, from hour to hour, from place to place, from person to person, thanking the Lord for every gift you encountered.

3.Review the feelings that surface in the replay of the day

Our feelings, positive and negative, the painful and the pleasing are clear signals of where action was during the day. Simply pay attention to any or all of these feelings as they surface, the whole range: delight, fear, resentment, anger, peace, contentment, impatience, desire, hope, regret, shame, contentment, uncertainty, compassion, disgust, gratitude, pride, rage, doubt, confidence, shyness - whatever was there.. Feelings are the clearest signals to what is happening in our lives.

4.Choose one of these feelings (positive or negative) and pray from it. That is choose the remembered feeling that most caught your attention. The feeling is a sign that something important was going on. Now simply express spontaneously the prayer that surfaces as you attend to the source of the feeling - praise, petition, contrition, cry for help or healing, whatever.

5.Look towards tomorrow

6.What feelings surface as you look at the tasks and people you will face tomorrow? Fear? Delightful anticipation? Self-doubt? Regret? Weakness? Whatever it is turn it into a prayer – for help for healing, whatever comes spontaneously. To round off the Examen, say the Lord's Prayer.

## CHAPTER 12 SELF- ESTEEM

" _The infinite God is present at every moment bringing me forth in his creative love."_

" _I am precious, I am important, I have something valuable to offer."_

List five of your strengths and five of your weaknesses. Most people find it easier to list five weaknesses, an indication that their self-esteem is low. When we have high self-esteem we feel good about ourselves and have a high level of self-confidence. Low self-esteem shows itself in an inability to form intimate friendships, feelings of anxiety and insecurity, excessive desire to please others, feelings of inferiority, depression, non assertion and having no intimate friends or strong enemies. How do you come into a room full of strangers? Do you make eye contact with confidence or wish you hadn't to enter the room? When asked to do something do you avoid the challenge and rarely volunteer?

People with low self-esteem feel totally hemmed in by their limitations and imprisoned in their own confines. They are afraid to say what they think. They allow others so much power that they become over–inhibited in the presence of people they think are superior. They just can't trust themselves to say anything in a group. They are always afraid that they will express themselves pathetically and that others might laugh at what they say. People with low self-esteem very often think that others are permanently scrutinizing them, and talking about them. They cannot be themselves and are always looking over their shoulders to see what others think of them. They find it difficult to receive love as they feel they are not worth loving and to compensate engage in destructive habits e.g. overeating, oversleeping, even 'over praying'.

They rarely ask for help. This could be because they avoid relationships in case their inadequacies are found out. They change to adapt to the situation and tend to agree with everybody and do not seek out challenges in life.

They feel they should never make mistakes, never say no, never be wrong and tend to dismiss positive messages and compliments. Some people compensate for an inferiority complex by trying to be particularly charming or appealing. Others hide their sense of inadequacy behind arrogant behavior. People of low esteem tend to be with people of low esteem.

Growth in Self-Esteem

To grow in self-esteem we must first of all accept ourselves as we are. Today's world doesn't like weakness and brokenness as can be seen from the advertisements on television always featuring beautiful healthy people doing well in life with the latest technological gadgets. Brokenness and weakness are not acceptable except as the basis for a new drug, gadget or treatment to take them away.

The struggle to love ourselves is complicated by the fact that we cannot be selective. It is futile to conduct an inventory of ourselves claiming some parts as good and discarding others. It is only by embracing the total package that we grow as persons

"The act of self-acceptance is the root of all things. I must agree to be the person I am. The clarity and courageousness of this acceptance is the foundation of all existence"(Guardini). Never make it a goal to conquer faults. Take it for granted that you will always have tendencies towards certain self-destructive behaviours, which will always be opportunities to grow in virtue and rely upon the grace of God. The serenity prayer expresses it well, "Lord, help me to change the things I can change, accept the things I cannot change and have the wisdom to know the difference.

Embrace mistakes as opportunities for learning. Be assertive, be spontaneous, accept mistakes as part of life, challenge yourself to grow and do not take on goals others impose on you.

Childhood and Self-Esteem

Explore the cause of your low self-esteem which often goes back to lack of unconditional love in childhood when one was loved and accepted if you behaved in a certain way e.g. "You are a good girl/boy if you eat your porridge." There is a small child within each of us who often was neglected or in some cases even abused sexually and physically. Even though you are grown up that little child is still within you.

What should a parent do for their small child to give him a sense of self-esteem and to help him feel good about himself? To improve your self-esteem, do what you would do for any small child.

-give the child unconditional love

-accept hold and nurture the child

-value, listen, give time to the child, challenge the child.

-talk positively to the child, support, praise the child but be firm in the face of unacceptable behavior

-protect and be compassionate to the child and allow the child's expression of all feelings.

You can do this for your own small child now.

Celebrate and feel good about yourself

"You are worth celebrating. You are worth everything. You are unique. In the world, there is only one you. There is only one person with your talents, your experience, your gifts. No one can take your place. God created only one you, precious in his sight. You have an immense potential to love, to care, to grow, to sacrifice, if you believe in yourself. It doesn't matter what you have been, the wrong you have done, the mistakes you have made, the people you have hurt. You are forgiven. You are accepted. You are loved in spite of everything. So love yourself and nourish the seeds within you. Celebrate you. Begin now. Start anew. Give yourself a new birth today. You are you and that is all you need to be".

"Each person is the result of a thought of God...Each person is willed by God...Each person is loved by God...Each person is necessary to God" ( Pope Benedict XV1)

"You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others" (Nelson Mandela - Inauguration Speech as President of South Africa)

Self-esteem and God's Word

No one is born with a poor self-image. The self-image is shaped and formed as we develop by the things that happen to us, especially by the words that are spoken to us. A word is very powerful. A word can destroy or give life. Our self-image is often created by the words others say about us or the words we say about ourselves through our destructive critic. The destructive critic is like a parrot on your shoulder or a voice inside you that keeps saying things that bring you down e.g. "you will not be able to cope in this situation," "you will be sent away," "you will fail the examination." Our self-image should be formed around the creative word of God not around the destructive word of the world or of the destructive critic. If we want to know who we are, we should ask God. The healing of the self-image comes through listening to the word of God and making that word our own by repeating it again and again in our minds, morning and evening until it becomes part of us.

Jesus said, "If you make my word you home, you will indeed be my disciple. You will learn the truth and the truth will make you free" (John 8:31-32). Even when we are not feeling valued even by ourselves there is someone who believes in us and values us -God." The first step is to listen to and accept this word of God. Listen to what He says about you. In the following exercise put your own name in the blank space and let the words sink deep into your heart and not just be words on your lips.

I made you...in my own image and likeness and when I made you I saw that you are good (Genesis 1:27,31)

You... are precious in my eyes and I love you( Is 43)

You... are my beloved, my favour rests on you.

You...are the light of the world and the salt of the earth

You... are the temple of the Holy Spirit ( 1 Cor 6:19)

As the bridegroom rejoice over the bride so does you God rejoice over...((Isaiah 61)

We then spend five minutes every morning praising and thanking God...

"I thank you for my being. I praise you that I am precious to you."

"I thank you for the wonder of my being, for it was you who created me, knit me together in my mother's womb."

When we have accepted the word of God for ourselves and praised God for "the wonder of our being" we also accept that word for others, even people we don't like because to each of them God says,"you are precious in my eyes and I love" so if God accepts and loves them we too should accept and love them. Then we go on to praise God for that person. "Lord, I bless you for e.g.Peter who has hurt me."

Lectio Divina

Select five Bible texts that are life-giving for your own self-esteem. Write them on a card and pin them on the inside of your door so that you will see them as you leave your room. Repeat them over and over again until they become part of you.

Reflect/Discuss

What strikes you as important from the above presentation?

What is your destructive critic saying to you?

Name one experience in your life that lowered you self-esteem and one experience that boosted it.

What factors, do you think, influence self-esteem in students

What childhood experiences are still affecting you?

The House with Golden Windows

They never failed to move him, those golden windows in the house on the hill. Regularly after supper, the boy would look across the valley and his eyes would sparkle as he wondered at the beauty that stirred him so deeply. One evening, drawn towards the light, he felt compelled, with the setting of the sun, to follow his heart's allurement. It would be a long journey down into the dark valley where the wild animals wandered and then the dangerous climb up the rocky hill-face to the house with the golden windows.

There was a strange silence and many shifting shadows as the small hero pressed forward, trusting his instincts to guide him through the night. He learned as he journeyed on to befriend the darkness, to accept the pain of his lustiness, and to believe in the power of the light that he loved. As dawn breaks, the young adventurer is scratched and bruised, now climbing slowly, but approaching with every step the object of his desire and admiration.

Breathless with excitement but tired from his long night's adventures the boy collapses wearily on the doorstep. "Please tell me," he whispers to the bright-eyed woman who extends her arms to him, "is this the house with the golden windows?" With a smile she shakes her head. She points back over the valley. High on the hill was a little house, his own house, its windows on fire with the pure white light of the morning sun. Quietly they stood in the presence of mystery. The boy sensed it was an important moment of his life. "There," the woman gently said, "there where you live you will find the house with the golden windows.

## CHAPTER 13 DEALING WITH OUR WEAKNESS

Father Buckley the rector of the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, USA wrote this letter to the Jesuit students who were about to be ordained priests. He asked his young students a surprising question not if they were strong enough for their vocation, but if they were weak enough. The following is part of his letter:

My Brothers,

As your ordination approaches, I find myself reflecting upon the priestly future of your existence, the deep mystery to which we are called, which catches up your whole lives. We have been together now for three years. We came to the theologate together. We began at Berkeley together. And now you are to be priests. There is a practice among us Americans, common and obvious enough, in estimating a man's aptitude for a profession and a career. You list his strengths. Peter is a good speaker, possesses an able mind, exhibits genuine talent for leadership and debate. He would make an excellent lawyer. Steve has good judgment, a scientific bent, obvious manual dexterity and human concerns. He would make a splendid surgeon. Now the tendency is to transfer this method of evaluation to the priesthood, to line up all the pluses !! socially adept, intellectually perceptive, characterized by interior integrity, sound common sense and habits of prayer !! and to judge that such a man would make a fine priest. I think this transfer is disastrous. There is a further pressing question, one proper to the priesthood, if not uniquely proper to it: Is this man weak enough to be a priest? Let me spell out what I mean. Is this man deficient enough so that he can't ward off significant suffering from his life, so that he lives with a certain amount of failure, so that he feels what it is to be an average man? Because it is in this deficiency, in this interior lack, in this weakness, maintains Hebrews that the efficacy of the ministry and priesthood of Christ lies. "For because He Himself has suffered and been tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted...For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we, but without sinning... He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since He Himself is beset with weakness." How terribly important for us Jesuits to enter into the seriousness of this revelation, of this conjunction between priesthood and weakness, that we dwell upon deficiency as part of our vocation. Otherwise we can secularize our lives into an amalgam of desires and talents, and we can feel our weakness as a threat to our priesthood, as indicative that we should rethink, as symptomatic that we were never genuinely called, that the resources are not ours to complete what we once thought was our destiny and which spoke to our generosity and fidelity.

What do I mean by weakness? Not the experience or sin, though it may contextualize sin, but the experience of a peculiar liability to suffering. A profound sense of inability, both to do and protect even after great effort, to author, perform, effect what we have wanted or with the success we would have wanted, an inability to secure one's own future, to protect oneself, to live with clarity and assurance or to ward off shame and suffering. If one is clever enough or devious enough, or poised enough, he can limit his horizons and expectations, and accomplish pretty much what he would want. He can secure his perimeters and live without a sense of failure or inadequacy or shame before what might have been. But if you cannot‐‐‐either because of your history or your temperament or your situation‐‐‐then you experience weakness at the heart of your lives. And this experience, rather than militate against your priesthood, is part of its essential structure. So also us, my Brothers, so also us. The priest must also be liable to suffering, weak as a man because he must become like what he touches‐‐‐Christ and the body of Christ. St Paul says "I will all the more gladly glory in my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak; then I am strong." (2 Cor 12: 9‐10)

Achilles was a powerful hero in Greek literature. When Achilles was just an infant, his mother immersed him in the river Styx, which separates the land of the living from the land of the dead, to confer on him immortality, and to make him invincible in battle. But when doing this, she committed a grave error. Through her oversight and negligence, she held Achilles by his left heel when immersing him in the river Styx, and forgot to immerse his heel as well.

And so, in spite of his great power and strength, and unsurpassed skill and prowess in battle, Achilles remained with one weak or vulnerable spot, his left heel, which was ultimately to prove fatal. In the final battle of the Trojan War, as Troy was being sacked and burned by marauding Greek soldiers, Achilles was shot in his left heel with a poisoned arrow, which finally killed him.

We all have our weak or vulnerable areas, our Achilles' heels. For a long time in some parts of the world, the priest was placed on a pedestal and seen as a man beyond reproach. In recent years with the incidence of sexual abuse of minors and priests living in improper relationships, a darker side of priesthood has emerged which has caused great scandal and harm to the Church, especially in Europe and America. At the moment Africa is blessed with many vocations to the priesthood. Seminaries have large numbers of students and seminarians with their whiter than white cassocks look the model of sanctity but underneath powerful and destructive passions can be at work. A seminarian who may outwardly appear to be very holy without a weak spot will almost certainly have his own weakness, his own Achilles' heel. This weakness can be handed down from parents or tribal group like some illnesses, be influenced by the environment he lives in which often promotes non-Christian values or be the result of his own conscious or unconscious behaviour or a mixture of all of the above.

In dealing with our weaknesses five things are important:

1.Know your Weaknesses

There was a sign over entrance to the Greek Oracle at Delphi, which read: "Know yourself." This is very important to know our weaknesses as well as our strengths

2.Accept your weaknesses. "There is no freedom like seeing myself as I am. There is no freedom like looking at myself as I am and saying, "Yes, that's me." There is no freedom liken taking myself in my arms for only in that embrace will I experience healing. Only in that embrace will I come to know my true self."

Accept but do not indulge your weaknesses. Choose life. God has given us free will. There is a saying which goes, "We cannot stop the birds from flying over our heads but we can prevent them from nesting in our hair." "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and happiness" (Victor Frankl). "We are in a sense our own parents and we give birth to ourselves by our own free choices of what is good" (Gregory of Nyasa)

3.Turn to God for help. St Paul wrote, "What a wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body doomed to death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"( Romans 7:24-25). The Sacrament of Reconciliation is very helpful in this regard. In it we experience God's forgiveness and can make a new beginning but do not use it as a means of avoiding personal responsibility for change. Do not be discouraged but learn from experience so that you avoid continuing to make the same mistakes. God helps those who help themselves. If a person knows from experience that certain food does not agree with him and makes him sick, he would be very foolish to make the mistake of taking the same food. The same is true of patterns of behavior.

4.Be honest with your spiritual director and a close friend sharing with him your real self not just the things you like about yourself or that you think he might like to hear. If you do this you can be helped to grow through your weaknesses.

Lectio Divina

Romans 7: 14-24"I cannot understand my own behavior"

2 Corinthians 12:7-10"My grace is sufficient for you"

Reflect/Share

  1. List five of your strengths and five of your weaknesses

  2. Your reaction to Fr Buckley's Letter

  3. Can our weaknesses can help us in pastoral ministry?

## CHAPTER 14 THE EXAMEN

St Ignatius regarded the Examen as the most important prayer of the day, so important that even if one had to omit other periods of prayer for some serious reason, one should never omit the Examen. The Examen helps me to see where God is leading me each day and where I might be resisting Him. It helps me to notice impulses or movements from God that I should follow and to notice impulses and movements not from God (from the evil one, from the world around me, from my own sinful nature) and to resist them as following them would turn me aside from God and hinder my growth. Set aside 15 minutes each day for this exercise. At the end of the Examen it is helpful to note down briefly in your journal what you have noticed. This practice will make spiritual direction more fruitful.

OUTLINE OF EXAMEN

1.Prayer: Ask God for the grace to help you to see the day as He sees it. "God, what do you want to show me about this day?" In this step we pray for a deeper insight into God's working in our day and into any interior movements opposed to these working.

2.Gratitude: I recall the good things that happened during the day and give thanks to God. In the Examen we don't recall an important experience simply to add it to our list; rather we savour it as if it were a satisfying meal. We pause to enjoy what has happened and thank God.

3.Review: With Jesus, I review the day. I look for the impulses or movements in my heart and the thoughts and feelings that God has given me this day. I look also for those that have not been of God. I review my choices and response to both. Think of it as a video recorder playing in your head. Push the play button and run through the day from start to finish, watching it with Jesus, letting him speak to you about the day and pausing the video where He wants to pause it.

4.Forgiveness: I tell God that I am sorry for the times I have turned away from Him and ask for the healing touch of His forgiveness. He loves me in spite of my failures as he loved the Prodigal Son. The voice of our conscience, which tells us we did something wrong and moves us to make amends is the voice of God that leads us to growth and to see more clearly our need for God in our struggle with our weaknesses. However the emphasis needs to be not on how bad we are but on how good God is.

5.Renewal: I look at the following day and a with God plan concretely how to live it learning from the experience of this day. I ask God to help me do this.

Very Short Form of Examen

Ask the Holy Spirit to help me see the day as He sees it"

-What was life - giving for me today and lifted me up – Thanks

-What was not life giving for me today and pulled me down? – Sorrow

-Plan for tomorrow

President Obama and the Examen

On July 29th 2010, President Obama appeared on the popular chat show "The View." During the interview Barbara Walters brought up an Obama family tradition, "We understand you sit at night with your wife and your daughters and you do the "the rose and thorn" right? "We still do it. We go around the table and everyone's supposed to talk about one rose, one great thing that happened that day and one thorn a bad thing that happened that day. After a difficult day his daughter Malia said to him "Dad, you have got a very thorny job." "In the last month, what has been the rose and what has been the thorn?"

In the past month the rose has been the couple of days we took in Maine: we went on bike rides with Michelle, Sasha(9) and Malia (12). – they are not teenagers yet, so they still like you but they are full of opinions, observations and ideas and it is just a great age."

When asked about the thorn the President drew laughter when he answered with his own question, "where do I begin?...we are losing 750,000 jobs a month, the economy is shrinking at a pace of about 6.5 per cent, there is an oil spill in Mexico and two wars at the same time. Walters pressed him further one thorn, the biggest thorn, the past month was not what media focus on but e.g. at night having to write a letter to parents of children who have been killed in Afghanistan or the husbands and wives of those killed in battle.

What was your rose and thorn this day?

Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy that the thorn bush has roses

## CHAPTER 15 KEEPING A JOURNAL

A journal is a tool for reflection. For much of the time we live on the surface being carried along by events and feelings. The journal helps us to listen to ourselves and to God working in our lives. When you are fully aware of what actually happening on the level of feeling as well as thoughts, you are better able to give direction to your life. The journal is a private document for your eyes only so let it be an expression of your life as it really is and not as you would like it to be. Share with others only what you want to share or feel you should share.

Suggestions to begin with

1. Ten Statement Autobiography

If anyone were to understand in depth the real you, what are the ten most essential things he would have to know about you? In these ten statements do not include any obvious external facts which are visible to all who know you. Rather they should reveal the real you, the person behind the masks, as opposed to surface appearance.

e.gI have always been afraid that I will get very ill.... the turning point in my whole life was my mother's death....

2.What have been the significant influences on your spiritual life and how have they affected you?.... parents and family.... parish and school.... significant people that inspired you.

3.Trace your faith journey over the years:

How has God been drawing you?

What forces have been drawing you away from God and pulling you down?

Do you detect any pattern in the above?

4.What are your favourite scripture passages?

6.What is the history of your desire for SMA priesthood? How did it begin? What attracted you to the SMA? How has the desire changed over the years?

7.Draw a faith line by drawing a line across the middle of an A4 sheet or sheets. Go through the different stages of your life: childhood, primary school, secondary school, preparatory programme, philosophy, theology. For each period, above the line mark in experiences that made God real for you and below the line negative experiences, experiences that pulled you down and were not from God.

Daily/Weekly use of Journal

When you find time on a daily or weekly basis, sit down quietly for a few minutes, letting your mind quieten down, your thoughts fall away. Begin to record in your journal whatever bubbles to the surface of your consciousness since you last wrote in the journal or during the past 24 hours. Do not try to control or censor what happens. An important goal of writing is to become aware of your moods. And write them down exactly as they are without reasoning or judging.

In the journal I can also record God's blessings, the way He has spoken to me through people, events and the world around me in the course of the day.

The journal is also a place to record ideas and insights on life that have come to me in the course of the day or week. It is a place for recording dreams.

If you are very busy keep a one-sentence journal

Once a day -- either right when you wake or right when you're about to end your day -- write down a sentence about your day. It could be about how you feel, what you did, what the weather was. It can be about you, about other people, about the past or future. Getting into the habit of writing something down every day -- even just a sentence -- will help you to say more present to yourself.

Create a quote book

Begin a book that contains your favorite quotes -- both from well-known sources and from those you know. You can even put some of your own words of wisdom in there! Doing this will help to inspire you and will also help you be more in tune with what you (and others) are saying. Words come and go so quickly that sometimes we really forget to listen, and keeping track of quotes will help you say more tuned in to what is being said and has meaning for you.

Review of Journal

Take a special time each month e.g. during the monthly recollection, to read over your journal. This enables you to see the growth patterns, the areas of strength and weakness in your life. It helps you to see better, how the Lord has been working in you during the past month. In this way your journal can become a stepping stone to a fuller and freer life, and help you to see those aspects of your daily life that are in tune with the Spirit and those that are not. The journal can also be used as the starting point of your prayer, as it helps you to see your real self and come before the Lord as you are. Keeping a journal demands time and self-discipline as it needs to be kept on a regular, though not always daily basis. Keeping a journal is a great help for spiritual direction and helps to make it more fruitful

There is no one correct way of keeping journal. What have been outlined above are only suggestions. Use them in so far as they help you.

## CHAPTER 16 WHAT IS SPIRITUAL DIRECTION?

Karl Rahner once said that "the Christian of the future will be a mystic or not at all." By this he meant that he will be a person who knows God from personal experience and not just from books or lectures. God speaks to each person in a unique way. What spiritual direction does is to help the person to explore this experience, hear what God is saying to him and respond to it.

"Christian spiritual direction is the help given by one Christian to another, which enables that person to pay attention to God's personal communication to him or her, to respond to this personally communicating God, to grow in intimacy with this God, and to live out the consequences of the relationship. The focus of this relationship is on experience, not ideas, and specifically on religious experience." (William Barry SJ and William Connolly SJ)

Jesus gave us examples of spiritual direction in his conversation with Nicodemus, with the woman at the well and in the ongoing formation of Peter and the other disciples. The spiritual director is like John the Baptist when he said to the two disciples, "Behold the Lamb of God" and pointed out Jesus to them. The spiritual director's job is to point out Jesus to the directee in the directee's own experience so that he will experience him himself and respond to it like the two disciples in the gospel. Each person is on a personal journey with God and God is the real spiritual director guiding and leading each one in a unique way. Spiritual direction is first of all about helping the person to hear what God is saying to them in prayer and in life experience and to help them to discover and respond to God's plan for them as it unfolds. The focus is on the person's actual experience of God. It is different from counselling which is more problem centered and deals primarily with the observable and behavioral aspects of the human person. It aims to give the person greater freedom through natural self-knowledge. It centres more on the interaction of the two people involved, with the focus on the counselee. It is true that some counselling often comes into the spiritual direction but it is not the main focus. It is also different from giving advice and teaching though at times these too may be part of the spiritual direction process. If a person comes with a problem in relationships, the counsellor may explore the problem in depth, sometimes going back to childhood, the feelings associated with and with the help of the counselor map out a plan for possible action. Giving advice, which most of us are good at, is also different where you tell the person what you think the person should do. In spiritual direction, the first questions should be, "have you brought this problem to prayer and what does God seem to be saying about it and move on from there." Of course spiritual direction is much wider than dealing with problems. Its primary focus is on how the person is experiencing God in prayer and outside of prayer and how he is responding God's initiative. At times in spiritual direction there will be times for challenge and confrontation but affirmation and encouraging the good is more important. The spiritual director needs to check often that he has not slipped into a counseling mode. The evil one may want us to focus on problems and issues in order to avoid God. The main focus has to be on the relationship with God and not the problem. We can use issues to avoid God.

Preparing for Spiritual Direction

In spiritual direction, the real action is between yourself and God. God is like a radio station communicating all the time in prayer and outside of prayer but you must be tuned in to be aware of his communication. There are also forces at work in you and from outside of you that if you follow them will draw you away from God and from your true self.

You need to be aware of these two forces, how they were active in your life since the last session of spiritual direction. These are the ingredients that you bring to spiritual direction. A cook cannot prepare a meal if she has no ingredients. Spiritual direction will not be very fruitful unless you bring the ingredients and for this you need to be aware of what is happening in your life and the forces that are drawing you towards God and away from God. If you have been faithful to Review of Prayer and Daily Examen you will never be short of material the following questions will help you prepare for a session of spiritual direction.

1.How are you experiencing God at this time? How is he leading you, drawing you?

2.How are forces drawing you away from God and from your true self moving in your life at this time? What choices are you making?

3.What issues in your life, in your prayer have been most prominent in recent times? As regards these issues did you bring them to prayer? What does God seem to be saying to you about them when you do bring them to prayer?

4.How has prayer been since the last session of spiritual direction? How do you pray? What helps you to pray? What difficulties do you have in prayer? How much time do you give to prayer each day?

5.What about your relationships in the community and outside the community, with family and friends \- male and female-how are they going?

6.How is the seed of vocation growing in you? Do you feel you are in the right place that the SMA is for you?

7.What do you desire? What is your deepest desire?

8.Are you growing, dying, or just drifting along in this community?

9.How is study going for you? Do you study for the glory of God or your own glory?

10.What is the best and the worst experience you had since the last meeting?

11. Can you be free with the director? Do you trust the director that whatever you share will be kept in confidence? If you are not free can you be honest enough to tell him.

12.Believe that spiritual direction is helpful...see it value...don't just come for the sake of coming.

13.Be reflective and aware of what isahppeningin your life of the forces that are drawing you in different directions.

14.Before coming for spiritual direction, pray that the session will be fruitful and pray that God will guide the director to be of help to you. Take time to reflect on the questions above so that you will have something worthwhile to share.

Other Approaches

What is written above is the Ignatian approach to spiritual direction but there are other approaches.

Desert Fathers

The Desert Fathers had their own approach. When someone came to them for spiritual direction, they listened to the person's story uninterrupted often for a considerable time. Having listened to the story, they gave some words of wisdom or advice and concluded by praying over the person sometimes with a laying on of hands and a blessing. To give an example of this approach, I read of a priest who was struggling with many things and decided to use the occasion of a meeting with Mother Theresa to ask for advice. When after ten minutes of elaborate explanation he became quiet, Mother Theresa looked at him and said gently, "Well, when you spend one hour adoring your Lord and never do anything you now to be wrong...you will be fine."

Group Approach

This approach respects the importance of community in African culture. In this approach, several people e.g. a class group in a Formation House meet with the spiritual director and share what is happening in their lives, how they see it in relationship to God and seek guidance for the development of their relationship with God in the context of what has been shared. Initially it is the spiritual director who responds with wisdom to, what has been shared. As time progresses, others in the group share their wisdom also.

## CHAPTER 17 THE MASS

" _Offer every Mass as if it were your first Mass_

Offer every Mass as if it were your last Mass

Offer ever Mass if it were your only Mass."

The Roman Emperor Diocletian (244-311) prohibited all meetings of Christians including the celebration of the Mass. Nevertheless the Christians of Abitene in modern day Tunis decided to continue gathering in one of their homes to celebrate Sunday Mass. One day the proconsul raided the house where Mass was being said and arrested and interrogated those who were present. Asked if they kept the Scriptures in their homes, they answered courageously, "We keep them in our hearts." One of them Emeritus admitted that he allowed Mass to be said in his home. Amazed at this confession the proconsul interrogator asked him, "Why have you received Christians in your home, breaking the imperial laws. Emeritus's answer was clear, "We cannot live without the Sunday Eucharist." Can we say the same thing?

Every day in the Formation House, there is Mass but it can become routine, something to get through before we have really woken up and the real work of the day has begun. However, it is the most important time of the day. Growing to understand and live the Mass is the work of a life time but it begins by each day doing our part to celebrate the Mass well and not allow it to become something routine, another item on the timetable

In the Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ Himself, our passover and the living bread which gives life to men through His flesh.... in it, men are invited and led to offer themselves, their work and all creation with Christ. For this reason, the Eucharist appears as the source and summit of all preaching of the Gospel (Vatican II Ministry of Priests No. 5).

Ever Mass is a continuation of what happened at the Last Supper. Being present at Mass is like being present at the Last Supper. The Vatican Council puts it this way:

At the Last Supper, our Saviour instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in order to make the sacrifice of the Cross be present throughout the centuries until He should come again..., and to entrust to the Church a memorial of His death and resurrection a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Passover meal in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us (Decree on the Liturgy No. 7)

At Mass, Christ is present in Word and Sacrament. The Vatican Council says "He (Christ) is present in His word since it is he Himself who speaks when the Holy Scriptures are read in Church" (Liturgy N. 7). It may be helpful to think of the lectionary used at Mass as a ciborium, containing not only the Word of the Lord, but His presence as well. At Mass we receive not only from the ciborium of the Eucharist but also from the ciborium of the word, the lectionary.

Like the words of Jesus in Palestine, these words both give us help and encouragement and call us to change to a new way of living. But we must really listen when the word of God is read in Church. Every day, God will say something to us if we make a definite effort to listen and put the word into practice that day. Going over the readings the night before in the missal or bible or using them as the subject of our meditation is a great help to a deeper hearing of the Word of God during the Liturgy.

Do this in Memory of Me

The Words "Do this in memory of me" should challenge us anew each day. One of the things that Christ is saying to us through the Church at this part of the Mass is 'live the kind of life that I lived, giving yourself completely to God and to God's people like I did.'"You know that among the pagans their so called rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you. No, anyone who wants to be first among you must be the slave of all. For the Son of Man himself did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:42-45).

Our lives must match our words. Otherwise, our Mass becomes a daily lie. To each of us Christ says, as He said to the sons of Zebedee "Can you drink the cup that I must drink?" (Mark 10:38). A Formation House is a place where we are called to die daily to what is not Christ-like in us. In the ordination ceremony, the bishop says to the person being ordained "know what you are doing and imitate the mystery you celebrate. In the memorial of the Lord's death and resurrection, make every effort to die to sin and to walk in the new life of Christ."

Our whole life must flow into the Mass as we place ourselves on the altar and offer ourselves with Christ to the Father. There can be no question of deliberate sin or of the holding back of any part of our lives as our private estate. In the cross on the altar is the autobiography of the first priest. In the Mass each day we try to respond to God and to the people we meet like He did. This is what He called his followers to do, when He said, "do this in memory of me."

Holy Communion

To live like Christ lived is not easy. It is impossible if we try to do it on our own, but we are not left on our own. In the Holy Communion of every Mass, Christ comes and gives us the strength. ''He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him" (John 6:57). Because of the Mass we can say "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me"(Phil. 4:19). and "I live now not I, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20).

Each day there is a connection between liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Sacrament. In the Readings, God tells us what He wants us to be and to do this day. Through Holy Communion, He gives us the strength to do it.

Sign of Peace

A SMA Formation House is made up of students from different cultures, countries and backgrounds, each one a mixture of sinner and saint, sometimes helping each other, at other times hurting each other. Because we are all sinners we are in constant need to forgive and to be forgiven. The sign of Peace in the Mass is a daily challenge to forgiveness and reconciliation with those present in the Church and those far away. "If you are bringing your offering to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come back and present your offering. "(Matthew 5:23). If we give the sign of peace and yet keep resentments towards others or hurt them during the day by calumny, detraction, by refusing to help or greet them or by taking another way, when we see them coming towards us, Jesus is speaking these words directly to us. The mass is a daily challenge to go deeper than our differences and find our unity in Christ. There are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, but all are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28). "As grains of wheat once scattered over the mountains has been gathered together to be made one bread, so gather your church together from the ends of the earth into one in you. ( Didache). In the Mass, we are called to be in communion with Christ and in Communion with each other.

We may feel cold or sleepy or distracted as we enter the church for Mass in the morning, but the challenge is to be aware what the Mass is, Christ present in our midst offering himself and giving Himself for us. Each day we should place ourselves on the altar and say to Jesus "I offer myself with you to the Father, change me like you change the bread and wine and help me to grow into the kind of priest you want me to be so that I will be an acceptable offering to the Father. I come before you like an empty chalice; melt me, mould me, change me, use me and fill me with your presence and power.

The Mass is not meant to 45 minutes in the morning separate from the rest of the day as our whole day must flow into the Mass and the Mass must flow into our whole day.

Visit to the Blessed Sacrament

The light before the tabernacle reminds us of the constant presence of Jesus, even when Mass is over. The Church is a holy place, the house of God. In it we should always behave with respect and reverence.

The tabernacle is Christ present in our midst, so that we can be with Him, listen to Him and speak to Him as we would with our best friend, which indeed He is. In his writings and sermons, Bishop Fulton Sheen often spoke of the great blessings that his devotion to the Eucharist brought him in his work as a priest and bishop. He attributed it to the fact every day of his priestly life he spent hour in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament does not just happen, it is cultivated. You can do this in the Seminary by going to the chapel when no rule says you should go and spending some time with Jesus, sharing your joys and sorrows with Him, praising and thanking Him and at other times just being there in silence allowing Him to love you:

Lectio Divina

Mark 14:12-16.22-26 "This is my body. This is my blood."

John 6:51-58 "My flesh is real food"

Reflect/Pray/Share

Reflect on Masses that you have experienced that were very meaningful for you and the people. What made them meaningful? Based on your experience what can be done by the priest to make the Mass more meaningful for the people?

## CHAPTER 18 SIN AND THE SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION

" _I am a sinner on whom the Lord has looked" (Pope Francis)_

To be a seminarian is to be a sinner, needing to come to God again and again for forgiveness and healing. "If we say we have no sin in us, we are deceiving ourselves and refusing to admit the truth" (John 1:8). If we are not conscious of sin and seldom feel the need for confession, the reason might be that that though we may say many prayers, our relationship with God is weak or nonexistent. Sin is a betrayal of love and if the love relationship is not very strong in the first place, we will not feel any need to repair it when it is broken. For example, if we hear that ten people have been killed in an accident in China, to be honest, we are not deeply moved, but if someone we love dies or is sick it is different, because with that person we have a deep personal relationship. It is the same with our relationship with God. Like adultery in marriage, sin is a betrayal of a love relationship but first of all there must be a love relationship. Our love relationship is not only with God but with the community in which we live and with the broader community. We are called to build up our community in which we live. Not following the House programme, especially when no one is watching us, brings down the tone of the community and encourages others to do the same. Sin is an offence against God and the community a breaking of a love relationship. It also does damage to ourselves. It promises a lot but in the end leaves us empty and unhappy. We end up like the prodigal son, alienated, alone and sad.

Sin can come from within ourselves, from our own choices, "It is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean. For it is from within, from men's hearts, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man unclean (Mark 7: 21-22). The devil is also at work, especially in Formation Houses to draw us away from God. "Be calm, but vigilant, because your enemy the devil is prowling round like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5: 4:8-9). Movements to sin can also come from without, for we live in a culture that often lives in ways that are alien to Christian values leading us to believe that certain types of behaviour are acceptable because "everyone is doing them" but St Paul says, "Do not model yourselves on the behavior of the world around you, but let your behavior change, modelled by your new mind" (Romans 12:2). You should ask yourself the following questions before engaging in any behaviour:

•Does this behaviour make me grow as a person?

•Is it something I can share with others?

•What would Jesus do?

•Am I being true to my deepest self if I engage in this behavior?

•This behavior puts my life in a certain direction. Is that the direction I want my life to take?

God Calls us Home to Himself

Even though we betray love and turn away from God, God never turns away from us and is always waiting for us to repent and come home to Him. He is always ready to embrace us like the father of the prodigal son. "Where sin abounded, grace did more abound....Come back to me with all your heart." God's forgiveness comes to us in a special way through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where the Father embraces us with His forgiveness, gives us great peace and a chance to make a new beginning.

Canon Law stresses the importance of this sacrament:

"Individual and integral confession and absolution constitute the sole ordinary means by which a member of the faithful who is conscious of grave sin is reconciled with the church. Physical or moral impossibility alone excuses from such confession, in which case reconciliation may be attained by other means" (Canon 961)

As priests, seminarians will be ministers of the sacrament of reconciliation. It is unlikely that they will lead their people to a fruitful reception of the sacrament unless they themselves are in the habit of regular and frequent confession.

Celebrating the Sacrament

When we go to confession, we meet Jesus like the woman who came to him in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-55). She brought her sins to him and told him that she was sorry. Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven "and with these words she experienced His forgiving love. The past was over and done with and she could make a new beginning. When we go to confession we too hear His words of forgiveness and healing, and we too can make a new beginning. "The confessional must not be atorture chamber. Instead it should eb a moment of sacred reconciliation and encounter with the Lord's mercy which spurs us on to do our best"(Pope Francis).

Preparation for Confession

  1. Pray for Help

"Come Holy Spirit; help me to know my sins, to be truly sorry for them and to make a new beginning."

The Lord is looking at you, eye to eye, as you prepare for this confession. What feelings run through your mind as you feel him looking at you?

2. Examination of Conscience

AHave I loved God as I should?

Have I loved others or have I hurt them by word, deed or neglect?

Have I been using the gifts God has given me to grow into the kind of person He wants me to be?

B 1) Living in the SMA community, do I play my part in making it into the kind of community God wants it to be or am I bringing others down by my words or behavior?

2) What about my work, study, apostolic, manual? Do I do it to the best of my ability?

3) What is my relationship with other people, fellow students? People at home? Is there someone that I am not fully reconciled with it?

4) Am I committed in all sincerity to follow Christ as a missionary priest or am I in the house with mixed motives?

5) Am I preparing myself by my way of life for life of celibacy or are there consistent patterns of sexual behavior that are incompatible with a life of celibacy?

6) Am I faithful to a life of prayer? Do I give enough time to prayer and scripture reading?

7) Am I kind and loving and helpful to others?

3. Confession

Pope Francis stressed recently the importance of confessing one's sins with concreteness. Some go to confession, he says, but say so many up-in-the air things, that they don't have anything concrete. Confessions in such a way is the same as not doing it. When a child comes to confess he never says something general, "But father, I did this and I did that to my aunt, another time I said this word and they say the word but we have the tendancy to hide the realithy of our failings by being vague."

4. Sorrow

"And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, "Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times, and Peter went out and wept bitterly" (Luke 2:61-62). As you come to confession express your own sorrow in a way that comes from the heart. Psalm 51, where David expresses his sorrow for his adultery is a good model.

5. Purpose of Amendment

Real sorrow is shown by deeds, not words. What steps are you going to take to change what is wrong in your life? Learn from experience and don't keep on making the same mistakes again and again. It is possible to use the Sacrament as a guilt shredder without making any real effort to change destructive behavior patterns. On the other hand it is true that there may be temptations to certain patterns of behavior which will be with us all our lives. We should not be discouraged. St Julian of Norwich wrote: "we need to fall and we need to realize this, if we never fell, we should never know how weak and wretched we are in ourselves, nor should we ever appreciate the astonishing love of our maker, We sin grievously, yet despite all this it makes no difference at all to His love, and we are no less precious in his sight. By the single fact that we fail, we shall gain a deep knowledge of what God's love means. It is good to know this." St Augustine said, "Put your sins under your feet and they will lift you to God."

The important thing is to be aware of our sins, of the constant need for conversion, of the need for regular recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation but most of all to keep on trying and not be discouraged but take the advice of one of the Desert Fathers, "Everyday, I make a new beginning" remembering always the words of St Paul "God will not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength but with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it" (1 Cor. 10:13).

Lectio Divina

Scripture Passages in preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

SinColossians 3:5-11; Mark 7:17-22

Sin of David2 Samuel 11:1-12:15, Psalm 51

Zacchaeus Luke19:1-10

Jesus and the ProstituteLuke 7:36-50

Prodigal SonLuke 15:11-32

Healing the paralyticMark 2:1-12

Pharisee and tax CollectorLuke 18:9-14

Reflect/Share

What struck you from a reading of the above?

## CHAPTER 19 SELF - DENIAL

God is at work in our lives at all times, helping us to grow towards Christian Maturity. The Bible speaks of Him as a Father forming His child and as a potter working with clay.

" _Yahweh, you are our Father;_

We the clay, you the Potter

We are all the work of your hands" (Isaiah 64:8).

Besides God, there are also other forces at work, trying to draw us away from God. The world around us and the people in it are basically good, coming as they do from the hands of God but because of sin they can very easily lead us away from God instead of towards Him.

In Romans Chapter 7, Paul speaks of wanting to do God's will but finding deep within himself another force at work that drew him away from God. If we are honest, we will have to admit that the same force is at work in us. Because of sin there is a force in us that draws us away from God. "It is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean. For it is from within, from men's hearts, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man unclean" (7:21-23) ,

Then there is the devil. In Ephesians Paul tells us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the Sovereignties and the Powers that originate the darkness in this world (Ephesians 6:10-13). Each day we are called to say 'Yes' to God and 'No' to Satan and the works of Satan. That is why asceticism, self-denial, mortification, penance and fasting must play an important part in the life of every Christian and not just during Lent. Yet these are not ends in themselves. They are means to the end of helping us to love God with all our hearts and souls and our neighbour as ourselves, which is what the Christian life is all about (Matthew 22:37). The Christian life is not primarily an ascetical one, but a life of love that necessarily implies asceticism as part of daily living.

A mother has to practice self-denial in caring and loving her children, often getting up at night to respond to the cry of her child. If an athlete is to do well in competition, he has to practice self-discipline and train hard so that he will win the prize at the end. For the seminarian, Christ is the prize on which his whole heart should be set, with single minded dedication.

"All the runners at the stadium are trying to win, but only one of them gets the prize. You must run in the same way, meaning to win. All the fighters at the games go into strict training: they do it to win a wreath that will wither away, but we do it for a wreath that will never wither. That is how I run intent on winning; that is how I fight, not beating the air. I treat my body hard and make it obey me, for, having been an announcer myself, I should not want to be disqualified (1 Cor. 9:24-27).

Jesus insisted on the importance of self-denial, in order that we might have a part with Him. "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me (Luke 9:23 see also Mt. 10:38, 16:24, Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23).

St. Peter stresses the need for vigilance against the attacks of the enemy. "Be sober and watchful; the devil, who is your enemy, goes about roaring like a lion, to find his prey, but you, grounded in faith, must face him boldly" (1 Peter 5:8).

We can hear many fervent, emotional sermons from preachers about turning one's life over to Jesus but ultimately we must return to the unromantic asceticism of guarding our hearts and our thoughts so that no enemy can enter and dominate us.

Areas of Self-Discipline:

If there is a pattern of sin in our lives, this is the first area that calls for self- discipline. We must starve our sins before we starve our stomachs. In the Formation House, the rule and the time table provide an important area for self-discipline. They provide many opportunities each day to say 'no' to our own will and 'yes' to the will of God coming to us through the daily programme of the Formation House.

Discipline of the imagination is important. For this we need inner vigilance to bring every thought under the authority of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). Angry brooding, day dreaming about food, fun, sex, ambition and the rest are not helpful or life-giving thoughts because they lead us in the wrong direction and take us away from the present moment which is the only place where we can meet God.

Most people take up self-denial before they have found a self to deny. 'Know yourself' is the first movement in asceticism. We are all different, having different strengths and weaknesses and different sinful inclinations. Before we begin self-denial we need to know our area of weakness — pride, jealousy, envy, stealing, laziness, food, drink, sex. The devil knows our weakness, better than we do ourselves. We need to make ourselves strong at our weakest point by deliberately going against these weaknesses and showing that we are in control and not money, sex or drink etc.

As we said earlier, penance is not an end in itself. Penance and fasting are always means to an end, and must be chosen as any good means is chosen in so far as they help us to achieve our end. Thomas Merton says "God is more glorified by a man who uses the good things of life in simplicity and with gratitude than by the nervous asceticism of someone who is agitated about every detail of his self-denial. The former uses the good things and thinks of God, while the other is afraid of pleasure. He imagines that God has placed all the good things of the world before him like a bait or trap. It is a great illusion to try to find God by barricading yourself inside your own soul shutting out all external reality by sheer concentration and will power."

We can't change ourselves by our own efforts. There are no self-made Christians. Change is first of all the work of God's grace. "He who called you is faithful, He will do it". (Hebrew 10). But there is no cheap grace. God has given Himself 100% to us in the person Jesus Christ and He expects no less a response from us. There can be no locked rooms in our house where we put 'no entry' signs to God. "Without God we cannot, without us God will not" (St. Augustine). God does not force us; He leaves us free to respond or not to respond to his initiatives in our lives. What self-denial does is that it gives God a chance to work in us and transform us. There is a parable of a fisherman who caught many small fish in his net. When he pulled it out, he discovered in the bottom of the net a very large and beautiful fish. The wise fisherman cast all the little fish down into the sea without a second thought and joyfully went home with his large and beautiful fish. The fisherman easily and happily threw away all the little fish. They seemed like nothing to him now. They had lost their former value and importance in his eyes. The day before he surely would have treasured them, but now to give them up was something that he did easily, even joyfully, because of the great value of the large and beautiful fish that he had caught. As seminarians we need to be so grasped by Christ finding in him the treasure of great price, which makes us ready to give up everything that does not lead to Christ so that we might have Christ.

Lectio Divina

Luke 9:62"Once the hand is laid to the plough, no on who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God"

Matthew 6:24 "No one can be the slave of two masters

Matthew 6:21 "Where your treasure is there will your heart be"

Mark 9:47"And if your eye cause you to sin, tear it out...

Reflect/Pray/Share

What are five weaknesses that I have and that I and God need to work on. Which one of them is calling for attention at the moment? What concrete steps am I going to take to grow in that area?

## CHAPTER 20 MARY

**Mary our Mother**

Mary is the mother of Christ, of Christ's body the Church and our mother also. In the gospel of John (19:26-27) , Mary is at Calvary at the foot of the Cross with John, the beloved disciple. John tells us, "When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Behold your mother." Throughout Church history, numerous popes and theologians have confirmed the belief that these words do not refer to John alone but that John stands for all of us. In other words Jesus from the cross gave His Mother to every human person for all time. Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, said in his Christmas Sermon of 1529, "Mary is the mother of Jesus and the mother of us all. If Christ is ours, all that he has must be ours and his mother therefore, is also ours."

Just as Mary fed and nourished Jesus, looked for him when he was lost for three days, stood by the cross and suffered with him during his passion and death so too Mary has care and concern for us her children and prays to God for us. Every one of us has two mothers, the mother who gave birth to us and Mary the mother that Jesus gave us. Imagine the best human mother possible and then multiply her love and care for her child 100 times and you will have some idea of the love and concern that Mary has for us. She is especially close to priests and seminarians and we should turn to her in all our needs and difficulties as we would turn to our own mother. She understands us better than anyone and knows our needs even before we ask her as she did the need of the bride and groom at the marriage feast of Cana when she turned to her Son and said, "They have no wine."

There is a true story about Cardinal Hume, the former Archbishop of Westminster in London. He was trying to help a family whose son was unjustly imprisoned. When the mother and members of the family came to him to see if there was any development in the case he had to tell them that there was little progress and that their son was unlikely to be released anytime soon. Sensing their deep disappointment he brought them to the chapel where they prayed together and then as they were leaving brought them to a statue of Our Lady. The statue depicted Our Lady with hands extended downwards in motherly caring. The Cardinal placed his hands in hers and told the family that when he had to deal with difficult problems that seemed to have no solution, he would go to the statue of Our Lady, place his hands in hers and ask for her intercession and help in his own helplessness. He could then return to his desk in the knowledge that Mary was accepting responsibility and would see that all would be well and in this case all did eventually turn out well and the son was released.

Mary our Model

Faith and Trust

Faith is very important for a missionary priest. If he hasn't a strong faith himself, how can he pass it on to others? Mary is a model of faith and trust. Her journey with God was one of deep faith and trust. She did not understand how she was going to be a virgin and a mother at the same time but trusted in God and said, "Let it be done to me according to your word." The bible praises her faith. Elizabeth said of her, "Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled" (Luke 1:42-45). Many people today live in fear which comes in a variety of ways: fear of God, fear of people who they think are working evil against them, fears for their families, fear of sickness fear of death etc. The answer to fear is faith, a faith like Mary's based on the fact that God loves us and as St Paul says: "Nothing therefore can come between us and the love of Christ, even if we are troubled or worried, or being persecuted or lacking food and clothes, or being threatened or attacked...for I am certain of this: neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height or depth, nor any created thing, can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord "( Romans 8:35-39). Help us to enter, like Mary, that peace which consists in putting ourselves in faith entirely In God's hands for "underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. 33:27).

Response to God

Mary is a model of response to God. When He invited her to be mother of Jesus she said, "Yes." "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). On one occasion in the gospels the mother of Jesus and his brothers came looking for him, but they could not get to him because of the crowd. He was told, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside and want to see you." But he said in answer, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice."

Jesus is saying that what made Mary great was not so much that she was his physical mother but that she listened to the word of God and put it into practice. She is the one who said "yes" to God and brought salvation to the whole human race. This is in contrast with Eve who was asked by God not to eat the fruit of a certain tree but she refused and said "no" to God and brought misery on herself and the whole human race. Each of us said yes to God, when we answered His call to join the SMA but we need to repeat this 'yes' everyday not only during formation but later as missionary priests.

Concern for Others

Concern for others, especially the most abandoned, is at the heart of missionary priesthood. Mary is a model of such concern. We see this in the way she rushed off after the angel left her to congratulate Elizabeth on becoming pregnant after being childless for many years and then stayed to help her for three months. We see it in the way she noticed the shortage of wine at the marriage feast of Cana and asked Jesus to help to keep away shame from a young newly married couple and most of all in the way she stood by her Son during his suffering and death and by the apostles when they were sad after Christ had ascended into heaven.

Hope

Mary is a model of hope. Her whole life on earth was a journey of hope. Mary relied totally on the promises of God made through the angel Gabriel, "The Lord is with you" but she was not exempt from doubts and temptations. Her hope was tested far beyond anything we will have to undergo all through her life and in the end God asked her to follow her Son all the way to the cross. She stood there watching her Son die a brutal death. God had promised that her Son would be called great, but now He was dying in disgrace. Was it all over? Would evil have the last word? The apostles, apart from John, ran away but Mary persevered in hope, anchored securely in God's promises. She hoped against hope, when everyone on Calvary, apart from John and herself had given up hope and this steadfast hope carried her safely into the joy of Christ's resurrection.

Model for Men

Mary is also a model for us men in our attitude to women. At the time of Christ the Jewish Rabbis had a very poor opinion of women. Every morning the devout Rabbi thanked God that he had not been born a Samaritan or a woman and in their debates the Rabbis discussed whether in fact women had souls. With the coming of Christ all this is changed as St Paul reminds us, "there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ" (Galatians 3:28).Today, too women are often badly treated by men. They are too often seen not as persons and equal partners as God would want it but as things to be used for pleasure and discarded. Devotion to Mary should give men a greater sense of the dignity of all women and get them to treat every woman as they would treat Our Lady. If we take Mary and her simple lifestyle as our model there is less danger of putting ourselves on the pedestal of clericalism, seeing ourselves as privileged persons to be served by others which has done and is doing great damage to the Church.

Popular statues and pictures of Mary do not help and often give the wrong idea of who she was. They often put her on a pedestal and present her dressed in beautiful clothes with her hands joined in prayer and a halo around her head. The reality is that she was much more like a woman you would see in a Nigerian market struggling to look after her family than the woman portrayed in these images.

Mary and the SMA

At the very the foundation of the SMA our Founder and six companions went to the shrine of Our Lady of Fourviere and kneeling before her statue offered their lives for the evangelization of the peoples of Africa putting their future mission under Our Lady's protection. You can do the same before the statue of Our Lady that you have in your House of Formation.

It was very fitting that the Founder should dedicate the new mission project to Our Lady for she is Queen of Apostles. Mary is Queen of Apostles because she was chosen by God to be the Mother of Jesus Christ and to give him to our world. She is the first missionary. She also joined the Apostles in prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit in the upper room in Jerusalem and was with them on Pentecost Sunday when the Holy Spirit descended on them in tongues of fire and gave them the courage and strength to go out and preach about Jesus.

The Synod on the New Evangelisation entrusted the work of the New Evangelisation to Mary as follows:

"As Mother of the Redeemer, Mary becomes a witness of God's love. She freely fulfills God's will. She is the strong woman, who along with John, remains at the foot of the Cross. She always intercedes for us and accompanies the faithful in their journey as far as the cross of the Lord.

As Mother and Queen she is a sign of hope for suffering and needy peoples. Today she is the "Missionary" who will aid us in the difficulties of our time and with her nearness open the hearts of men and women to the faith. We fix our gaze on Mary. She will help us to proclaim the message of salvation to all men and women, so that they, too, may become agents of Evangelization. Mary is the Mother of the Church. Through her presence, may the Church become a home for many and Mother of all peoples." Proposition #58

Lectio Divina

Luke 1:26-38Mary says "Yes" to God's invitation

Faith SharingShare something of the place of Mary in your own life and your favourite devotion to her.

Personal

Write out your own dedication to the SMA Mission and go to a statue of Mary and express your dedication in your own words like our Founder did on the 8th of December 1856.

## CHAPTER 21 PRAYING THE ROSARY

The Rosary is a very simple prayer. It can be said anywhere, at any time of the day or night, in your room, in the chapel, as you walk along the road. It can be said alone or with others. It is a prayer for all men and women, rich and poor, illiterate and educated. It is one of the oldest prayers in the church and its history is full of graces, blessings and miracles, received through the intercession of Our Lady. Devotion to Mary is a great safeguard for celibacy. Mary should be the first woman in the life of every seminarian and priest. She is ever ready to listen to us and help us. She is a model of what we should be, people completely open to the movement of God's spirit. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy will."

For seminarians, who pray the rosary each day, the challenge is to make it into a real prayer and not let it become a boring, meaningless ritual.

What Mary does through the Rosary is to bring us to Jesus. There was a woman in the Gospel (Mark 5:25-30) , who had suffered terribly, in spite of the attention of many doctors. She had heard about Jesus, so she came up through the crowd saying to herself, "If I touch his clothes, I will get well." She touched his cloak, and her bleeding stopped at once, and she had the feeling inside of herself that she was healed of her trouble

Jesus, whom we meet in every mystery of the Rosary, is still the source of power, the giver of life and healing. We do not contemplate Him as a dim, distant figure of the past. He is before us right now as we say the Rosary, if only we desire Him, and reach out to Him through mysteries of His life. As we reach out to touch the simple string of beads, it is as if we were touching the edge of His clothing, like the woman in the gospel story. There is a hymn which goes:

Reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by

You'll find he's not too busy to hear your heart's cry

He's passing by this moment,

Your need to supply,

Reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by.

This is what the Rosary invites us to do.

The Prayer of the Rosary takes place as follows:

We bless ourselves "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen." We then pray the Apostles Creed, holding the crucifix in our fingers. We pray One "Our Father" on the single bead and three "Hail Mary's" on the three beads. These prayers are recited for an increase of the virtues of faith, hope and charity.

In the Rosary, proper, we say the five Decades, each consisting of' one Our Father, Ten Hail Mary's and one Glory be to the Father. During each decade, we meditate on some Mysteries or event in the life of Jesus and Mary. After the last decade, we conclude with the "Hail Holy Queen".

How to Meditate on the Mysteries:

If your close friend is very sick in hospital, you go there to visit him and to stand or sit beside his bed. The words you say are not so important. What is important is that you are there with him. When we are talking about meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, what we are talking about is being with Jesus and Mary in the great events of their lives, sharing their joys and sorrows. An example may help. If we are meditating on the 'Birth of Our Lord' we should be there at Bethlehem as we were beside the bed of our sick friend. We see the manner in which the Divine Infant lies, we do whatever comes naturally to us, hold him in our arms or bow down and adore Him. We see His mother and Joseph and the shepherds or wise kings. We listen and hear what is being said, we try to be still and do whatever God leads us to do. Most important of all, we keep looking at Jesus.

During all this time, we are saying one Our Father and ten Hail Mary's. We do not give much attention to the meaning of the words, but allow our minds to rest on the mystery we are meditating. In praying the rosary we do what Mary did. Luke tells us that Mary "kept all these things and pondered them in her heart" (2:19). In praying the rosary we gaze as through a window, to contemplate with Mary the great events of the life of Jesus. As we say the Hail Mary's we gaze with Mary on Jesus who allows us to be with him at each moment of his life from the Annunciation to the crowning of His mother in heaven. The main purpose of saying one Our Father and ten Hail Mary's is to help our minds to rest on the mystery and to keep away distractions. If we tried to keep our minds fixed on the mystery without giving our mouth anything to do, we would find it very difficult not to be distracted. However, feel free about the way you pray the Rosary. Pray it in your own way and at your own speed, not too slow, not too fast. Another way of praying the Rosary is keep before your mind your favourite images of Mary, one for each of the five mysteries or one for all five, and focus on these images as you say the Hail Mary's e.g as SMA's we could join with our Founder before the shrine of Our Lady of Fourviere and offer our lives to her for the evangelization of the peoples of Africa and ask for her help like and he and his companions did or you do what Cardinal Hume did as described in the previous chapter, or you may be helped by praying before an image in your imagination of Mary Queen of Apostles. Pray the Rosary in the way that helps you.

Readings on the Mysteries of the Rosary:

The 15 mysteries highlight the main teachings of the Catholic Faith.

JOYFUL MYSTERIES (MONDAYS & SATURDAYS)

I. Annunciation Luke 1:26-38

2. Visitation Luke1:39-56

3. The Birth of Jesus Luke 2:1-14

4. The Presentation in the Temple Luke 2:22-35

5. The Finding in the TempleLuke 2:41-50

THE MYSTERIES OF LIGHT (THURSDAY)

1.The Baptism of JesusMark 1:9-13

2.The Miracle at CanaJohn 2:1-12

3.The proclamation of the KingdomMark 1:14-15

4.THE TransfigurationMark 9:2-13

5.The Institution of the EucharistMark 14:22-25

SORROWFUL MYSTRIES (Tuesdays & Fridays)

1. The Agony in the garden Matt. 26:36-44

2. The Scourging at the Pillar Mark 15:6-15

3. The crowning with Thorns John 19:1-7

4. The carrying of the Cross Luke 2326-3

5. The Crucifixion Luke 23:33-4

THE GLORIOUS MYSTERIES (Wednesdays & Sunday)

1. The Resurrection Mark 16 1-7

2 The AscensionActs 19-1-1

3. The Coming of the Holy Spirit Acts2:1-13

4. The Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven 1 Cor. 15:51-57

5 The Coronation of Our Lady in Heaven Rev. 7:9-12

It may be helpful to pray the Rosary for a particular intention e.g. sick friend, growth of the Church in your diocese, SMA seminarians

Sharing

Do you pray the Rosary regularly?

If you do, how do you pray it?

What helps you in praying the Rosary?

## CHAPTER 22 CELIBACY

Cardinal Basil Hume of Westminster in London was once asked by Robin Day, in the course of a BBC television interview, "Imagine Cardinal Hume, that you are in a crowded room and the massive doors swing open and the most beautiful woman you had ever seen walked into the room, what would your feelings be as a man, not as a bishop or priest?" The cardinal paused for a moment and then said, "Mr Day, may I ask you a personal question? "Are you married?" "Yes", he replied. "So am I," the Cardinal replied, "I am married to Christ and the Church and I hope that you are as happily married to your wife as I am to Christ and the Church. I can answer your question by inviting you to imagine your beloved wife next to you in a crowded room when suddenly the massive doors at the end of the room are flung open and the most beautiful woman you have ever seen enters the room..." Cardinal Hume did not have to say anymore.

What is celibacy?

Celibacy is a love affair between yourself and God or else it is nothing. As a young man grows up he may have an attraction to many girls until one day he meets the special one who take his heart away. For the priest, this is what celibacy is. God is the special one who takes his heart away. The challenge for the young man who marries the special one is to be faithful to her until death does them part. The challenge for the celibate priest is to be faithful throughout his life in his love affair with the Lord. Priestly celibacy makes one unmarriageable for the sake of Christ and His Kingdom. It goes back to the New Testament. Jesus himself was celibate. He invited "those who can" to live a life of celibacy "for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt. 19:12). Paul was celibate and recommended the celibate state for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven (1 Cor. 7:32-34).

Growth in celibacy

Growth in celibacy involves a continuing deepening of the seminarian and priest's relationship with Jesus Christ. From this it follows that a life of celibacy is impossible without a life of prayer. Jesus becomes the love of our lives and with the author of the song of Songs we say, "you ravish my heart, with a single one of your glances"(Song of Songs 4:9) and like a woman who has found the love of her life, "I have found him whom my heart loves"(Song of Songs 3:4). It is when a man's love for his wife grows cold that he begins to look for other women. It is when the priest's love for Christ begins to grow cold, that he begins to look elsewhere for erotic compensation. A seminarian has many pressures, assignments, long essays but he should never allow these to cut into his time for prayer. A prayerless priest or seminarian is a powerless priest or seminarian and unless the habit of prayer is developed in the seminary it will not be developed after ordination. If a married man does not give time to his wife, the marriage will soon grow cold and even break up. It is the same with the priest or seminarian who is not a person of prayer in his relationship to the gift of celibacy for the sake of the kingdom.

The challenge for everyone, married and single is to live out their sexuality in line with their life's project. A married man lives out his sexuality according to his life project, by being faithful to his wife. If he is drawn towards sex with another woman, he should ask himself, "is this in line with my life project?" and make decisions accordingly. When a seminarian or priest is drawn towards sexual activity, whether it be fornication, adultery, masturbation or pornography he must say to himself, "I am in the seminary preparing to be a celibate priest, is this sexual activity, that I am drawn to in line with my life project to be a celibate missionary priest? and make decisions accordingly. Being faithful to celibacy is not easy and involves struggle as does faithfulness in marriage and chastity before marriage. During his time of formation in the seminary the seminarian with the help of formators must judge if he himself can live a celibate life and be prepared to make a commitment to celibacy before ordination to diaconate. During diaconate ordination, the bishop says to the person being ordained:

By your own free choice you seek to enter the order of deacons. You shall exercise this ministry in the celibate state for celibacy is both a sign and a motive for pastoral charity and a special source of spiritual fruitfulness in the world. By living in this state with total dedication, moved by sincere love for Christ the Lord, you are consecrated to him in a new and special way. By this consecration you will adhere more easily to Christ with undivided heart: you will be more freely at the service of God and mankind, and you will be more untrammeled in the ministry of Christian conversion and rebirth. By your life and character you will give witness to your brothers and sisters in the faith that God must be loved above all else and that it is he whom you serve in others.

Therefore I ask you:

In the presence of God and the Church, are you resolved, as a sign of your interior dedication to Christ, to remain celibate for the sake of the kingdom and in lifelong service to God and mankind?

Candidate: I am

Seminarians who discover in their up to ten years of formation that they are unable to sustain celibate chastity should see this as an indication that they should serve God's people in another way for as the late Archbishop Ganaka said in speaking to seminarians, "the oil of ordination will not cure a womanizing priest.". Celibacy is a gift from God. The priest does not choose celibacy, rather celibacy chooses him. Edward Schillebeeckx speaks of celibacy as "an existential inability to do otherwise." Priesthood in the Catholic Church involves a twofold vocation, a call to priesthood and a call to celibacy. It is possible to have one without the other but in the Catholic Church one must have a call to both to be ordained as a priest.

Motivation for Celibacy

Priestly celibacy must become "the candidate's own accepted personal obligation under the influence of grace and with full reflection and liberty"(Sacerdotalis Caelibatus 72) and not something imposed by Church law. The following are a list of possible motives for embracing a life of celibacy:

a) A deep interior sense of being personally called by God to live as a celibate and having God as one's best friend.

b) Celibacy is a way of loving and way of being life-giving that is meaningful and attractive to me

c) A state of life that allows more freedom and availability for mission.

d) A desire to have a life of total union with Jesus Christ in anticipation of heaven.

e) A requirement of Church law.

f) A choice of life style that is different from the life style of most people and that doesn't make sense if there was no God and no after life. Because it is so different it invites people to think about the real purpose of life.

g) An imitation of Christ by sharing in his very condition of living.

What is your own motivation or do you just see it as part of the package of priesthood?

Skills needed for Celibacy

a) Self-Knowledge: I need to know what is driving me, my erotic feelings and desires. I need to be aware of these so that I can manage them. When I am drawn towards sexual activity I must accept my sexuality but say to myself, I am in the Formation House preparing to be a celibate priest and if I encourage these thoughts or act them out, am I being true to myself and my vocation? I need to be vigilant and learn from experience my areas of weakness, people, places and activities to be wary of. We live in a culture where pornography is readily available through videos, DVDs and the internet. In an age long before the internet, St Peter speaking of some of the people of his own time wrote, "They want to look at nothing but immoral women: their appetite for sin is never satisfied" (2 Peter 2:9-22) In my relationships with the other sex I need to relate as a celibate and my female friends must be made aware of this. However, I must not suppress my sexuality but accept and celebrate it as a part of me, a gift from God to be used according to his will. Hence, I must not entertain any thought, impulse or action not inspired by Christ.

b) When lust flares up I may think that I have only two choices, indulge or repress but there is another way, surrender my lustful thoughts and desires to Christ so that I will not be overpowered by them for as St Paul says, I can do all things in him who strengthens me. I can pray like this, "Lord Jesus, I thank you for the gift of my sexual desires. I surrender this lustful desire to you and I ask you by the power of your death and resurrection to help me to manage it so that I might experience sexual desire as you intended, as the desire to love as you intended"

c) Develop the ability to be alone, to enjoy one's own company and to use such time wisely.

d) Develop friendships with other priests and seminarians with whom you can share at a deep level. Loneliness is a great enemy of celibacy.

e) Be aware of the need for boundaries in relationships.

Lectio Divina

1 Cor.32-40

Matt. 19:10-12

1 Cor 6:9

Reflect/Pray/Share

a) Write out your own sexual history, how your sexuality has developed over the years.

b) Write out your own motivation for taking on a commitment to celibacy.

c) Reflect on priests you have known for whom celibacy a) has been life-giving for themselves and others b) not life-giving for themselves and others.

d) Pray for the gift of discernment to know whether or not celibate priesthood is for you and if it is for the grace to live a faithful and fruitful celibate life for yourself and for God and His kingdom.
CATHOLIC CATECHISM AND CHASTITY

2338 The chaste person maintains the integrity of the powers of life and love placed in him. This integrity ensures the unity of the person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It tolerates neither a double life nor duplicity in speech.

2339 Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy. "Man's dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end."

2340 Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so: self-knowledge, practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him, obedience to God's commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and fidelity to prayer. "Indeed it is through chastity that we are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into multiplicity."

2342 Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life. The effort required can be more intense in certain periods, such as when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence.

2343 Chastity has laws of growth which progress through stages marked by imperfection and too often by sin. "Man... day by day builds himself up through his many free decisions; and so he knows, loves, and accomplishes moral good by stages of growth."

2345 Chastity is a moral virtue. It is also a gift from God, a grace, a fruit of spiritual effort. The Holy Spirit enables one whom the water of Baptism has regenerated to imitate the purity of Christ.

The integrality of the gift of self

2347 The virtue of chastity blossoms in friendship. It shows the disciple how to follow and imitate him who has chosen us as his friends, who has given himself totally to us and allows us to participate in his divine estate. Chastity is a promise of immortality.

Chastity is expressed notably in friendship with one's neighbor. Whether it develops between persons of the same or opposite sex, friendship represents a great good for all. It leads to spiritual communion.

The various forms of chastity

2348 All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has "put on Christ," the model for all chastity. All Christ's faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life in chastity.

2349 "People should cultivate [chastity] in the way that is suited to their state of life. Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner. Others live in the way prescribed for all by the moral law, whether they are married or single." Married people are called to live conjugal chastity; others practice chastity in continence:

Offenses against chastity

2351 Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.

2352 Masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action."138 "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."

To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

2353 Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young.

2354 Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public) , since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.

Chastity and homosexuality

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

## CHAPTER 23 CLOSE TO THE POOR SIMPLE LIFESTYLE

" _This is what Yahweh asks of you:_

Only this, to act justly,

to love tenderly

and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8)

A deacon was doing a year's pastoral work in a parish in London. Part of his work was

to go out at night with the parish St Vincent de Paul group to visit the homeless who were living wrapped in blankets under the bridges beneath the motorways and bring them tea and sandwiches. Over the year he got particularly friendly with one homeless man and as he was about to leave at the end of the year he asked him, "I will be ordained a priest shortly, what do you expect from a priest?" The man paused for a moment and then looked him in the eyes and said, "I expect a priest to be the compassion of Jesus." As SMA's this is what we are called to be "the compassion of Jesus" especially for the poor and most abandoned.

We are called to follow a Jesus who spent his whole life among people who were poor and insignificant, people who were materially poor, with no rights and no influence. Archbishop Romero who himself died violently because of his defence of the poor said on one occasion, "It is inconceivable to call oneself a Christian without making like Christ a preferential option for the poor." There were three groups to whom Christ reached out in a preferential way:

1.The sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb - those who are afflicted with some infirmity.

2.The poor – the vast majority of the population of Israel, whose life was hard, who struggled to make ends meet, and many of whom survived from day to day.

3.Public sinners, notably tax collectors and prostitutes.

What had these three groups got in common? What they had in common was the attitude of society towards them and the way they were treated by the society in which they lived. They were all despised, looked down upon, treated as second-class citizens, not wanted, kept at arm's length.

Jesus responded to them in two different ways:

He affirms their dignity by the way in which he himself relates to them.

By reaching out to them in a respectful and dignified way, he communicated to them a sense of their own dignity, in the face of the contrary message which they were continually receiving from society. It is as if he says to them: "Society may not want much to do with you, society may look down on you but I, and the God from whom I come, we acknowledge your dignity, the same dignity as any other human being in this society." Pope Francis says that when he was bishop of Buenos Aires when he was hearing confessions, he would ask penitents if they had given alms to those begging on the church steps. If they said yes, he would ask if they looked the person in the eye and if they touched the person or just threw coins at him or her.

He challenges the attitudes of that society which look down upon such people, and he challenges the structures which keep them in their marginalized place. Thus he challenges the attitude of Simon who showed himself to be embarrassed and offended by the presence of a woman who was a sinner, who came into his house to wash the feet of Jesus and dry them with her hair. We are sometimes told that religion and politics should be kept apart. But that was not Jesus' way. His caring and insistence on the dignity of every person as a child of God had political implications for the ordering of his own society – and still has today for the ordering of our own society. It also had personal implications for himself and his life, turning many of his contemporaries against him and mobilising the authorities to get rid of him. So too our caring may demand political changes in our own society and may also have personal implications for our own lives.

Jesus' Mission Statement

The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me

for he has anointed me

he has sent me to bring good news to the poor

to proclaim liberty to captives

and to the blind new sight

to set the downtrodden free

to proclaim the Lord's year of favour (Luke 4:18)

That was his mission statement. The good news he came to bring was not something vague, or spiritual or other-worldly. It was a visible reality, existing here and now, in the community which he was inaugurating. That community, which was to resemble the Kingdom of God in Heaven, was good news to the poor and to those who were willing to live a life of service, in solidarity and equality with the poor.

When Jesus talks about the Kingdom, he always talks in parables. "The Kingdom is like...." The Kingdom is the culmination of everything that Jesus preached; it is the climax of God's whole enterprise. Today, we are called to be his instruments in building up this Kingdom. The Kingdom begins in small ways. It is like a mustard seed, the tiniest of all seeds which grows into a mighty tree. It is like the seed the farmer sows – he looks out at the field, day after day, and sees nothing happening. If he didn't know better, he would say he had wasted his time. But the farmer knows that the seed is growing under the ground, unseen.

When I ask then, where do we find the Kingdom growing here on earth, we should look, not for some earth shattering event, but for small projects, that few people know about, which are trying to improve the quality of life for those who are on the margins. It is the small little efforts e.g. literacy classes or well digging in Kontagora. While visiting a prison and coming to a cell where there were many prisoners crowded together, one of them pointed to a single bulb lighting in the ceiling and said to me, "It was the SMA who put that light there" and then I remembered that a few weeks before one of the students who visit the prison during the week had asked me for money to buy the bulb. The small little efforts, the little struggles, the community projects which are trying to improve life for those who are poor, isolated, struggling are the typical signs of the coming of the Kingdom with the priest not just working for the people but working with them and empowering them. There is always a danger for the priest to become a liturgical priest like the priest in the story of the Good Samaritan and keep the poor at a distance because we know deep down that getting close to them may be costly for ourselves. This may be true but the poor are our evangelizers revealing many things to us including our own selfishness. Reading the Gospels, especially Matthew's account of the Last Judgment we can see that no one gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor.

Living in a country where, the World Bank says 70% of the people live on less than one dollar (about 200 naira) a day our whole lifestyle is being challenged. Speaking about SMA lifestyle our Constitution says, "A simple lifestyle close to the poor sharing with them what we are and what we have, will help to make a prophetic sign of the new world according to the Gospel" (C28). The Formation Directory says, "Our Formation Houses should be characterized by their simplicity and spirit of sharing" (17). Everything about them should be a witness to who we represent and what we stand for. Pope Paul V1 said that modern man is more impressed by witnesses than by preachers and will only listen to preachers if they witness to what they preach.

Jonathan Bonk in his book "Affluence as a Missionary Problem" writes, "What claim does the affluent missionary have to being a follower of Jesus? Affluence creates a number of ethical questions since it shows up the contradiction between lifestyle and the content of the message. Too much time and effort is devoted to secure economic and social security. Missionaries become the victims to a consumerist mentality, which is basically greed...The missionary no longer witnesses to the spirit of Phil 2:1-11. The incarnation, the cross and the weakness of our Saviour are to be models for apostolic life and ministry."

Pope Francis has told Nuncios that when they are proposing priest to be bishops, they should be careful, "that the candidates are pastors close to the people, fathers and brothers; that they are gentle and merciful; animated by inner poverty; the freedom of the Lord and also by outward simplicity and austerity of life, that they do not have the psychology of princes." What applies to bishops should also apply to priests and even more so to missionaries.

Lectio Divina

Rich Man and LazarusLuke 16:19-22

Last JudgementMatt. 25:31-46

Good SamaritanLuke 10:25-37

Reflect/Pray/Share

-What struck you from your reading of the above?

-Where do you see the SMA commitment to the most abandoned?

-Does our lifestyle at present reflect "A simple lifestyle close to the poor sharing with them what we are and what we have."

-70% of people in the country live on less than a dollar a day. What does the average student live on?

-Justice Peace and the Integrity of Creation (JPIC). Does the call for the SMA, to work for the Integrity of Creation move you in any way. What can be done while you are in the Formation House?

-Do you think there is too much focus on money in the Church today?

-How do you think a poor person, who goes to Mass regularly, feels at a Harvest and Bazaar in a big church in a rich parish in Lagos? How do you feel yourself?

(I am indebted to notes taken in a lecture by Fry PeterMcVerry SJ for much of the above)

## CHAPTER 24 PASTORAL WORK

Throughout the entire course of initial formation, a carefully structured and properly supervised pastoral programme will introduce SMA students, members and associates to a variety of apostolic and pastoral activities (Charter of Formation 54). In choosing places of pastoral work, preference is to be given to the pastoral needs of the poor and socially deprived, particularly refugees (55). The SMA seminarian is provided with a great variety of pastoral experiences during Stage, holidays, diaconate and in the course of the academic year. These experiences while helping others should act as a mirror to the seminarian himself and tell him much about himself:

-his strengths and weaknesses

-his ability to adjust and work in unstructured situations

-his ability to relate positively with a variety of people

-his ability to listen to people and to tune into them where they are.

-his ability to empathise and share the sufferings of others

-his ability to work with others

-his ability to reflect on social reality from a Gospel perspective

-his ability to cope with adversity

-his ability to learn from experience

Pastoral experience also helps him in the discernment of his own vocation and seeing whether SMA priesthood is really for him. The SMA student is the one who benefits most from the pastoral experience. For this to happen he needs to make good use of his time take initiative and not allow himself to become a liturgical or an internet or a DSTV seminarian.

The General Assembly of 2013 calls all SMA members:

-to promote best ecclesial and pastoral practice in our apostolate

-to advance the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults by following the SMA protocol on Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults

-to assume personal responsibility for our actions

-to demonstrate accountability and transparency

-to exercise leadership as service

-to respect boundaries

The pastoral experience has to be reflected on regularly and the student must learn from his experiences and grow through them.

Pastoral Reflection

1. SITUATION

Short description of the Pastoral Situation

Place

People

2EXPERIENCE

Take one pastoral incident that was significant for you in that situation

How did it unfold?

What was said?

How did you and others involved react?

3. FEELINGS

Describe your own feelings before, during, afterwards

4. PERSONAL GROWTH

What did you learn about yourself in the light of this incident

strengths

areas for growth etc.

5. THEOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL REFLECTIONT

What does your theology say in this situation and what does the situation say to your theology?

What does the Social structures and services of our Society say to this situation and what does the situation say to our Social Structures and services?

6. CHRIST

What would Christ have done in this situation?

Is there any parallel situation in his own life that speaks to this situation?

7.FUTURE

What will be your Pastoral approach be in a similar situation in the future?

Same approach?

Different approach?

Enthusiasm for the spread of the Catholic Faith is something that should continue to grow during the years in formation. The seminarian should be so full of Christ and his message that he will miss no opportunity to share the good news with others. But if we want to help others to meet Christ, we need to meet him ourselves daily in prayer. Through regular prayers we will become like Peter and John in Acts 4:20, who said, "We cannot stop proclaiming what we have seen and heard." The seminarian should take to heart the words of Ignatius to Francis Xavier when he was sending him on mission, "Go out and set the world on fire."

The first way a seminarian should preach is by the witness of his own life. Today, people want sermons they can see. The seminarian should never have the attitude, "do as I say; don't do as I do". Rather he should be like Saint Paul who said "be imitators of me, as I am of Christ." St Francis of Assisi said, "Preach at all times, if necessary use words." As one man said to a very exemplary priest "what you are speaks so loudly, that I cannot hear what you say."

In our pastoral work, we are never alone. Christ is always with us through the Holy Spirit helping us in the apostolate. We too can say:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for He has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord's year of favor (Luke 4:18-19).

In "Evangelization Today," Pope Paul VI tells that there can be no evangelization without the help of the Holy Spirit. It is He, as in the first days of the Church, who acts through every teacher of the gospel who submits to His guidance. He suggests to them the right words and at the same time predisposes the minds of the hearers to a full acceptance of the gospel. Techniques of teaching are valuable, he says, but even though they are perfect, they cannot dispense with the secret action of the Holy Spirit. The most careful preparation of the teacher will be of no use without Him and no discourse will be able to move men's hearts unless, it is inspired by Him. (N.75).

The Holy Spirit is there active before the seminarian comes to the group he is doing pastoral work with; he is there during his pastoral activity a will be there at work after the seminarian has gone. Therefore a seminarian should approach his work with great humility, not preaching his own ideas but putting himself at the service of the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit should give him courage in his pastoral work, but it should also make him aware of his great responsibility lest by his life or work he becomes an obstacle to the Spirit's work, and a stumbling block instead stepping stone for God's people.

Lectio Divina

John 10:11 ffI am the Good Shepherd

Luke 4:18ffThe spirit of the Lord is upon me

1 Peter 5:23Feed the flock of God

Reflect/Pray/Share

A pastoral experience that was important to you

What have you learnt about yourself, your strengths and weaknesses from your pastoral experiences?

What struck you from what is written above?

## CHAPTER 25 SPIRITUAL READING

One reason why many of us find prayer difficult is that we try to make fire without firewood. Prayer is the fire, spiritual reading the wood. In a world that is growing more and more materialistic where we are bombarded by a deluge of multimedia communication with values often contrary to the Gospel we need to take heed of the words of St Paul to the Philippians, "Fill your minds with everything that is true, everything that is noble, everything that is good and pure, everything that we love and honour and everything that can be thought virtuous and worthy of praise" (Philippians 4:8). Regular Spiritual Reading helps you to do this but Spiritual Reading does not just happen. Good intentions are not enough, especially with the pressures of academic reading and long and short essays. We need to plan and include a regular time for spiritual reading in our daily or weekly programme. A book a semester should be the minimum. Lives of the Saints or Missionaries are a category of books that can provide us with a personal challenge and bring us closer to God, though we need to remember that God is not calling us to be another e.g. Francis of Assisi, but to be our true selves.

A number of students have found the following books and authors helpful:

John Powell

Thomas Merton

Vessel of Clay by Fulton Sheen

Imitation of Christ

Way of the Pilgrim

Cloud of Unknowing

Autobiography of St. Theresa of Lisieux

Henri Nouwen

Spirituality of Justice and Peace by D. Dorr

Confessions of Saint Augustine

Rolheiser

Lives of the Saints

The Joy of Priesthood by Sephen Rossetti

Scott Hahn

For SMA Students:

Books on the Founder

Bulletins from Rome e.g. N134, The Founder's Companions in Freetown

SMA Constitutions 1-30 A Good Summary of SMA Spirituality

Passion for Mission Today, A book of actual experiences of SMA

Fr Michael O'Shea, Mission and Martyrdom

Documents of General Assembly 2013

Fr Rozario, Nigerian Christianity and the SMA

Fr Michael O'Shea, Bishop Kelly

Fr James Higgins, Kindling the Fire

Fr Peter McCawille, We will remember Them

Fr E Hogan, The Cross and Scalpel (Fr Coquard) ; Berengario Cermenati

People have different tastes in books and there is no use in trying to force yourself to read a book you don't like. Change it and get another one but don't waste your time reading "spiritual books" of doubtful value.

When reading does start a suitable train of thought, stop and reflect. Beware of the temptation of using spiritual reading as a means of getting ideas for sermons. This may happen, but the primary aim of this type of reading should always be your own spiritual growth. Don't confuse spiritual reading with prayer. Prayer is a time for personal relationship with God where you speak and listen to Him as you would to a friend. What would you think of a person who comes to visit you and spends the time reading a book?

All the reading you do in the seminary should be spiritual reading in the broad sense if you allow your study of philosophy, theology and scripture to challenge you on a personal level.

Much valuable material is now available on the Internet. Try "Sacred Space" and "Pray as you Go" "Today's Good News" for help to pray the daily readings of the Mass.

Lectio Divina

Philippians 4:8

Share

A book that you used for spiritual reading and found helpful

Action: Take a good spiritual book with you when going on holidays and read it before you return.

Aim to read at least one spiritual book each semester.

## CHAPTER 26 STUDY

It has been said that a priest should be a saint, a gentleman and a scholar. In the Seminary and Formation House the SMA student spends many hours studying philosophy, theology and scripture. He should take his study seriously. The more he knows about God, the more should he be led to love Him and to tell others about him. In the words of Frank Sheed, "It would be a strange God indeed who would be loved more for being known less."

Today, people are more educated than they were in the past. Without a commitment to study both before and after ordination, the priest will not be able to present the message of Christ in a way that will speak to his congregation. God wants the seminarian to develop to the full whatever talents he has and use them for the building up of the kingdom of God. But the devil is very clever and can mislead the seminarian to use his talents and qualifications for building up, not the kingdom of God, but his own kingdom, and in the end leave him unhappy and discontented. Fr. Malachy Cullen OSA addresses the problem in Shalom (Vol. 3 No. 2). This is what he says:

"I once met a Reverend Youngster who was unhappy — his heart not in his work. He told me the reason was that his comrades had degrees — letters — after their names, and he had none.

"What rot," I said, "Are you not a priest of God? Are you not commissioned by Christ to serve his people? Have you not his authority to teach them his word, to baptize them, to forgive their sins, to offer the Most Holy Sacrifice with them, to give them the Sacrament of the Sick, to marry them — all in the power of Christ? Is not that the greatest glory you can have? To be a priest — that is your Degree. St. Francis said that if he met a priest and an angel, he would salute the priest first. What are letters after your name compared to that"

But the young man would not be consoled. I continued. "Don't be an ass. Get your priorities right. If you ask me, some who go overseas for letters, either don't want to come back, or don't want to serve Christ's people when they do. They let Christ down — are a kind of apostates, did Peter, James, John, or poor old Jude have letters after their names? Or Mary herself? My son, the only letters that counts after a (priest) name are O.C. Other Christ's. But we must have them in our hearts — not on a piece of paper. Think it over. Be a washer of Feet, and you have a Master's Degree conferred by Christ Himself.

If you give your whole life to being a PG, a priest of God, your reward is great. This is what Jesus said, "I tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house brother sister, father, children or land for my sake and the Gospel, who will not be rapid 100 times over: houses, brothers, sister, mothers, children and land not without persecutions....and in the world to come, eternal life" (Mark 10:25).

In the past students used to put the letter AMDG at the head of their assignments. The letters mean "ad maiorem Dei gloriam" (for the greater glory of God). Our study, indeed everything we do should be done for the greater glory of God. Thomas Becket, the Lord Chancellor of England was murdered by soldiers of king Henry 11 in 1170 for his refusal to agree to give the King power over the Church. During his trial he spoke these words, "Those who serve the greatest cause can make the cause serve them" and "The last temptation is the greatest treason, to do the right thing for the wrong reason." A temptation for students is to do the right thing ( study) for the wrong reason (for their own glory , rather than God's glory). Those who serve the greatest cause (SMA mission) can make the cause (the SMA) serve them.

Because of the pressure of assignments and study there will always be the temptation to cut down on the time for prayer. If this happens too frequently it will have long term consequences that can be very damaging. If a student does not develop a prayer pattern during his time in seminary he is unlikely to develop it after ordination. What needs to be done is to make out a prayer timetable at the beginning of the year and keep to it. We should give God the best time of the day, not the time that is left over after other things, when we are likely to be tired and sleepy.

Students often put undue pressure on themselves by trying to compete unrealistically with those who are more endowed intellectually than themselves. What is needed is to study to the best of our ability in the time available and not to feel inferior because a classmate gets better results than yourself as you have talents in other areas e.g. ability to relate that the more intellectually brilliant student may lack. St John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, was quite weak intellectually but he was a great pastor and is the patron saint of parish priests.

Assignments and Long Essays

A number of years ago, I studied at a University in the USA which I found a quite different experience from studying at a University in Ireland where there were very few assignments during the course of the year but a major examination at the end of the year. In the USA it was different there were many assignments as well as a long essay. I found it different to cope with the deluge of assignments, so I went to one of the Jesuit professors who gave very good advice, which I pass on to you if you feel pressurized by assignments and long essays. "It is all about time management," he told me. "You are a priest, so the first thing you must do is make time for prayer every day, not time when you are tired but the best time of the day. As regards assignments you have to plan how many hours you are going to give to a particular assignment. Then divide the time, so much time for research, so much time for planning and so much time for writing and try to keep to your schedule as best you can. As regards research, you can spend endless hours reading books on any particular assignment and there would be still more books to read. When you have spent the number of hours you have assigned for research, stop and begin planning. When you have finished the time allotted to planning start writing. Though I was not always able to keep to it, the advice helped me greatly and I hope that it will help you too. The secret is time management, not cutting down on time for, prayer, sleep or sport.

Lectio Divina

Matthew 25:14-30

I Corinthians 1:26-2:9.

Reflect/Pray/Share

a) How does what Fr. Cullen say make you feel? Do you agree with what he says?

b) Are you studying to the best of your ability?

c) Can you accept your limitations if you are not as brilliant intellectually as other students?

## CHAPTER 27 PREACHING THE HOMILY

All the SMA seminarians study should be designed to make him better able to proclaim the Good news of Jesus Christ in the world of today. The homily is a very important part of this proclamation as it is through the homily the priest is able to reach the greatest number of people.

In his Apostolic Exhortation, "The Joy of the Gospel" Pope Francis dedicates eighteen pages to the homily. At St Martha's House where he lives he preaches regularly at the morning mass and gives an example of what a homily should be: short, simple, related to the lives of ordinary people in a language which they can readily understand. As a seminarian you will practice giving homilies. Many seminarians and priest are greatly influenced by the Pentecostal preachers they see on television and often try to copy them. That is why it is important for priests- to- be to take seriously what Pope Francis say about the homily in his Exhortation "The Joy of the Gospel."

He says that a homily is a dialogue between God and his people. "A preaching which would be purely moralistic or doctrinaire, or one which turns into a lecture on biblical exegesis, detracts from this heart-to-heart communication which takes place in the homily. In the Exhortation he says that a homily should be a heart to heart conversation and invites the preacher to speak lovingly like a mother does to her child.

The preacher should not just set out to entertain. "The homily cannot be a form of entertainment like those presented by the media, yet it does need to give life and meaning to the celebration and must therefore be brief and avoid taking on the semblance of a speech or a lecture," so as not to ruin the "balance" and "rhythm" of the Mass. At the canonization of Sts John Paul II and John XXIII, Pope Francis spoke for just seven minutes.

Getting down to the nuts and bolts of homily preparation, Pope Francis stressed the importance of devoting "a prolonged time of study, prayer, reflection and pastoral creativity to it, despite the busy lives parish priests lead: "A preacher who does not prepare is not "spiritual"; he is dishonest and irresponsible with the gifts he has received."

In preparing the homily, the preacher is required to give his "entire attention" to the biblical text, "which needs to be the basis of our preaching;" the Word must be venerated and studied "with the greatest care and a holy fear lest we distort it "Whoever wants to preach must be the first to let the word of God move him deeply and become incarnate in his daily life. Christ's message must truly penetrate and possess the preacher, not just intellectually but in his entire being."

Francis then goes on to speak about the importance of "lectio divina", starting with the text's literal sense, so as not to "make the text say what we think is convenient or useful for confirming us in our previous decisions, suited to our own patterns of thought. Ultimately this would be tantamount to using something sacred for our own benefit and then passing on this confusion to God's people." To avoid doing this, a priest needs to ask himself: "Lord, what does this text say to me? What is it about my life that you want to change by this text? What is it about this word that moves me? What attracts me? Why does it attract me? What troubles me about this text? Why am I not interested in this? Or perhaps: What do I find pleasant in this text?" "Another common temptation" which is to be avoided, "is to think about what the text means for other people, and so avoid applying it to our own life."

"The preacher also needs to keep his ear to the people and to discover what it is that the faithful need to hear. A preacher has to contemplate the word, but he also has to contemplate his people." "He needs to be able to link the message of a biblical text to a human situation, to an experience which cries out for the light of God's word. There is no need "to talk about the latest news in order to awaken people's interest; we have television programmes for that." It is possible, however, to start with some fact or story so that God's word can forcefully resound in its call to conversion, worship, commitment to fraternity and service, and so forth."

It is not just the content that is important it is also the way in which this is communicated. "Some people think they can be good preachers because they know what ought to be said, but they pay no attention to how it should be said that is, the concrete way of constructing a sermon. They complain when people do not listen to or appreciate them, but perhaps they have never taken the trouble to find the proper way of presenting their message," the Pope writes.

In order to make a homily richer and more attractive, Francis suggests "learning how to use images in preaching, how to appeal to imagery." "Language needs to be simple: It must be one that people understand, lest we risk speaking to a void. Preachers often use words learned during their studies and in specialized settings which are not part of the ordinary language of their hearers." If preachers wish to speak out to people, they need to listen, they need to share in [people's] lives and pay loving attention to them."

Language should be "positive" "It is not so much concerned with pointing out what shouldn't be done, but with suggesting what we can do better. In any case, if it does draw attention to something negative, it will also attempt to point to a positive and attractive value, lest it remain mired in complaints, laments, criticisms and reproaches."

Tips for a Homilist by Fr Alfred McBride

Fr Alfred McBride gives the following practical advice to preachers:

•Link your homily to the liturgy of the day

•Make your homily relevant to your listeners

•Make only one point

•Start with a story

•Know how you are going to end

Don't read your homily. Try to preach without notes. Keep eye contact with your congregation. Use lots of example. Say the teaching and give it a word picture. Share with your people what your life experience has taught you, but don't concentrate yourself. Make your homily a prayer and not a performance. Don't look for praise. Give God the glory. (How to make Homilies Better, Briefer and Bolder).

Lectio Divina

Mark 16:15 "Go into the whole world and preach the good news..."

Romans 10:15 "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those...good news..."

Luke 4: 42: 45 "But he said, "I must preach the Good News of the kingdom..."

Luke 4:18 "The spirit of the Lord has been given to me..."

Reflect/Discuss

a) Difference between preaching a homily and preaching at a crusade

b) Positive and negative effects of Pentecostal Preachers on Catholic Preachers.

c) How long should a homily be?

d) What suggestions would you make to improve preaching in Catholic Churches?

e) What is the place of singing as part of the homily?

f) How should one approach preaching in an area of primary evangelization where many people are illiterate?

## CHAPTER 28 HOLIDAYS

There are no holidays from formation as each day we are either going forward or backwards, growing or dying but holidays are an important part of the formation of an SMA seminarian. The SMA Formation Directory says "The holiday time is the opportunity for the student to spend time with his own parents and family, to reinforce the bonds with his Church of origin, to make the SMA known around him, and to participate in some pastoral ministry with the approval of the local Superior" (85). " The holiday period is a good moment for students to acquire some missionary, human and practical formation which the normal academic programme does not offer. These may come in the form of workshops, seminars, outreach or other modules" (89). During the holidays, one month is to be spent at home with family, one month in pastoral or SMA work and one month learning practical skills.

As regards the various spiritual exercises, in the Formation House, there are structures to help you. During the holidays this is not so and you will have to decide for yourself, when and where to do these exercises. At the beginning of the holidays, have a prayer plan. If the plan doesn't seem to be working, make adjustments to it. Planning is important, "If you fail to plan you, you plan to fail". If you miss out the exercises one day, don't get discouraged, start again the next day. However, don't be too rigid or too hard on yourself. "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." (Samuel Beckett).

Holidays are a time of struggle for some seminarians, as they experience lack of encouragement from some of their own people and are discouraged from following their vocation. It is difficult if you find yourself in such a situation but one thing it does do, is that it brings you closer to Christ who was rejected by his own people in Nazareth. Holidays are also a time to test the genuineness of your vocation but do not make any hasty decisions.

In a world, where many people do not live according to the values of Christ, the seminarian is called each day during the holidays, to decide again and again for Christ and to turn away from people, places and entertainments that he knows from experience could lead him away from Christ. "Do not model yourselves on the behavior of the world around you, but let your behavior change, modeled by your new mind" (Romans 12:2). Fix your eyes on Christ. He is very close to the struggling seminarian. As the years pass by, the seminarian should be able to see a growth in maturity in himself and in his relationship with people. It is an opportunity to grow in relationship with the opposite sex, not to be too discouraged by occasional failures but learn from your mistakes so that you will not continue making the same mistakes."

Most of all, the holidays should be a joyful time and also a time to rest and relax. The seminarian should enjoy them himself and bring joy to others and show to the world that only Christ can bring us fullness of life and lasting happiness. Deep down there is a suspicion that if we took Christ's call really seriously we would end up living a miserable existence. This is false. It is only by taking Christ for real that we can be really happy, even in this life. St Augustine discovered this truth late in life and wrote, "Too late have I loved you. O Beauty, so ancient and so new, too late have I loved you...You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you"

Reflect/Share

a) Positive and negative holiday experiences that you have had

b) How to find a time and place for Prayer during the holidays

c) What advice would you give to students going on holidays?
