The Servant of God Elizabeth Prout (Mother Mary Joseph)

Posted on January 11, 2012 by

The Servant of God Elizabeth Prout
Foundress of the Sisters of the Cross and Passion 1820-1864

What follows is the testament of Elizabeth Prout given during a Canonical Investigation conducted in 1859 by the Bishop of Manchester, England and three Canons of the Cathedral Chapter.

“Was it by accident, Lord, that I came to Manchester? I was alone and penniless and I had to earn my living. But all the time I felt You were drawing me there. There was something You wanted me to do. I saw how the children were growing up in ignorance. And then I met the mill girls and the young men crowding into Sunday School and Night School eager to learn. And as I crossed the dark city at night, I saw the others: women shouting and screaming in the doorways of public houses, women lying dead drunk in the gutters, then fighting men like beasts, children patched with sores and seamed with life, wandering in the rubbish dumps with the starving cats. This is not how men and women should live, Lord. You love every one of them… and yet they do not know You…

Lord, no matter how hard my life is, I am happy because I know You love me. I want to share that happiness with my brothers and sisters in Manchester. And to reach them, I must share their lives, work with them and teach them. O Lord, until Your will is made clear, I will defend the Institute. Your will be done.”

Her life

The above cited testament is a legacy that indicates the modernity and relevance, even today, of the Sisters of the Cross and Passion of which she is the Foundress. Originally it was named the Institute of the Holy Family and was established at Saint Chad’s in Manchester in 1852.

Elizabeth Prout was born in 1820 to parents who belonged to the Evangelical Anglican Church at the time. Her life could easily have been the subject of a novel by the Bronte sisters or Charles Dickens. It is fraught with romance and an outcry for social justice. When Elizabeth became a Catholic in 1841, she was disowned and persecuted actively by her parents. As an only child and of a highly sensitive nature, her interior pain was overwhelming.

In 1848 Elizabeth left her household and joined the Belgian Community of the Infant Jesus of Northampton. Compelled to leave while yet in formation because of the discovery of tuberculosis of the bone, she found it necessary to knock at her parents’ door where the family persecution began again. At the dawn of mid-century, she encountered Father Gaudentius Rossi, the first Italian companion of Blessed Dominic Barberi, C.P. and a friend of Doctor John Henry Newman. His English skills in the pulpit were extraordinary. This was partly because of his admiration of Newman’s eloquence. By many he is considered to be the co-founder of what was to become the Sisters of the Cross and Passion. Eventually he would be transferred to the United States to the Community of Saint Paul of the Cross in Pittsburgh because of his ability to communicate well in English.

This brought a reprieve to Elizabeth Prout. While he was substantive in his canonical direction and its relationship to the spirit of the Passionists, Father Gaudentius was so exacting and harsh that, at times, she found herself with only one other companion. He was succeeded by the Venerable Ignatius Spencer, who gently and lovingly told her, “Thank God for everything” and led her to her own phrase: “In the will of God I find my joy.” The Congregation found renewal and growth in their collaboration. But that was not without its price. A single diocesan priest accused them of the most inappropriate of human relations. For a while the pair, plus all the Institute, was thrown into a trash heap. Still, Ignatius counseled her gently. “When God asks you for your reputation, he assures the effectiveness of His love and of your work.”

The genius of Elizabeth Prout was that she sought to stabilize the image of the Church in Great Britain in a manner paralleled by Continental Catholicism after the Council of Trent which called for images of mercy, charity, education and evangelization. New Orders then sprang up and often without specified corporate apostolates. In the case of Elizabeth Prout in 19^th Century England, there was no prescribed corporate apostolate in the beginning. The Sisters instituted discipline in households and inaugurated methods of hygiene. They taught school, but often not in a formal setting. Because of the pressures of the Industrial Age, the early members worked in the textile mills along with their female companions. They needed to do this to subsidize their work, to support themselves and to provide missionary example. British law forbade the wearing of the veil by Catholic nuns. They therefore had to wear a bonnet in the streets which they removed once at work.

The effectiveness of her vision was bolstered by several Passionists, both men and women. When she died in 1864, she informed Father Ignatius that she had sincerely attempted to meet every contradiction, every humiliation, every misunderstanding, every piece of gossip and every physical pain with a joyful “Thanks be to God!”

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, you have shown us the unconquerable courage and creative love of the Servant of God Elizabeth Prout. She is for us a model of fortitude. Grant through her intercession a greater identification with the poor and the uneducated, the jobless and the homeless. May we imitate her and receive from her the favors for which we pray. Amen.

- Father Jerome Vereb, C.P.

New Year’s Day 2012 – Reflection by Fr. Robin Ryan, C.P.

Posted on January 1, 2012 by

This morning’s liturgy is a little complicated. There are a number of themes that come together in our celebration today. First and most obvious, we have rung in the new year and so as we pray together at this Mass we take time to remember the significant events of the past year and to pray for God’s blessings and guidance in 2012. Second, January 1 is World Day of Justice and Peace in the Church. As he does every year, the pope has issued a special message for this day; this year’s is titled “Educating Young People in Justice and Peace.” So today we pray that our world will become a more just and peaceful place in the coming year. And we keep in mind all of those people throughout the world who live in situations of oppression and war. And third, in our liturgy this morning we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. We remember Mary’s singular role in the story of salvation and call upon her with a title that was very important to Christians in the early Church: “Mother of God”.

It strikes me that the person of Mary really draws together all of these different themes and helps us to focus our prayer this morning. The hymn attributed to Mary, the Magnificat, celebrates the powerful working of God’s grace in her life: “The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is God’s name.” We profess that Mary’s life and her person were marked by a singular greatness. We believe that Mary was the “most perfectly redeemed” of all human persons. God’s redeeming, life-giving grace shaped her life in such a profound way that she was even preserved from the presence and power of sin.

Distinctive greatness is a funny thing; it can affect us in very different ways. Sometimes our encounter with such greatness can be overpowering and even humiliating. It can serve only to remind us of our own limitations and inadequacies. I remember as a teenager playing in a basketball game against a very good ballplayer. He went on to play for a prominent college team, had a leading role in the national championship game and played in the NBA. He is still involved in the game today as a coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. We had heard the scouting reports and knew how good he was before the game, and he proved to be just as great a ballplayer as everybody had said. Playing against him was for me a not-so-subtle reminder of the real limitations of my basketball talent. It wasn’t pretty. It was an overpowering and very humbling experience.

But sometimes we experience distinctive greatness that does not overpower or diminish us but, rather, lifts us up. It ennobles us. Some years ago when I was teaching in Boston, a friend gave me two tickets to hear the Boston Symphony on a night in which Yitzhak Perlman was playing a Beethoven violin concerto. I remember watching as this disabled virtuoso slowly made his way across the stage with the braces that enable him to walk. After the initial applause there was silence, as he carefully backed his way to the riser on which the soloist’s chair was located, lifted himself up and took his violin in hand. Then he launched into a flawless performance of that concerto. It was an experience of distinctive greatness that elevated all those who were present; it brought you into deeper touch with your own dignity as a human being. It was an ennobling experience.

The singular greatness of Mary is certainly of the second kind. It is always ennobling; it elevates all of us. In the gospel, we have gazed at Luke’s portrait of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus. Luke tells us that “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” This courageous woman of faith had been receptive to the presence and action of the Spirit in her life, uttering her yes to God’s plan of salvation, even when it interfered with her own plans for her life. One can only imagine the stares that she received from relatives and neighbors in her little village of Nazareth when her child was born sooner than they thought it was supposed to be. Her life had been turned completely upside down. Mary’s “yes” to the angel meant that her life became enveloped in mystery, in the mystery of God’s saving love becoming enfleshed in human history. Mary stood before this mystery as a woman of profound faith, but she must have wondered how it would all turn out. There must have been times in which the darkness of mystery seemed to overpower the light. And yet she treasured “these things” in her heart and reflected on them, trusting that God was at work in a way that transcended human comprehension. Mary shows us that at its heart human dignity is discovered and expressed in relationship – in relationship to the God in whose image we have been created. It was by giving of herself fully to God that Mary lived out the essence of human dignity.

In his message for World Day of Justice and Peace, Pope Benedict reflects on the need to tap into the idealism of younger people in our world and to educate them in the ways of justice and peace. He stresses that we need more than intelligent teachers who can espouse ideas and theories; we need credible witnesses who model lives committed to building a more just and peace-filled world. And he emphasizes that at the very heart of the work for justice and peace is the recognition of the inherent dignity of every human person. Benedict says that “the first step in education is learning to recognize the Creator’s image in [the human person], and consequently learning to have a profound respect for every human being and helping others to live a life consonant with this supreme dignity.” The pope reminds us that peace cannot be attained without safeguarding respect for the dignity of persons and peoples.

The pope’s message for this day echoes what we learn from the life and the discipleship of Mary. It is a message that reaffirms the inestimable worth that every person has as a child of a loving Creator. Saint Paul exhorted the Christians in Galatia never to forget their own worth as sons and daughters of God, the God to whom they could cry out in the Spirit, “Abba, Father.” He reminded them that they were not slaves but children of God in Christ, and that they must live their lives out of that truth.

As we pray on this New Year’s Day, friends, you and I, too, are invited to recall the dignity we have as daughters and sons of a loving Creator. This human dignity was refashioned through the life, death and resurrection of Christ. We are challenged to think and act and choose from the perspective of that God-given dignity. That is the way that Mary lived her life, and her example is meant to be ennobling for each one of us. Each of us is summoned to enter into this new year with an abiding awareness that he or she is truly a child of God. And we are challenged to recognize and affirm the God-given dignity of every person we meet, particularly the most vulnerable of our world, those people whose dignity is so often impugned. We are called to demonstrate a profound respect for the transcendent dignity of every human being, at whatever stage of life he or she may be.

Christ thinks so much of us that he offers himself to us in this wonderful sacrament of the Eucharist. He comes to commune with us and in so doing he raises us up, just as Mary was elevated by the presence of God in her life. As we approach the table of the Lord, may we pledge to live this year as God’s sons and daughters and to affirm the dignity of every person whom we meet.

- Fr. Robin Ryan, C.P.

Pope Emphasizes Human Dignity (abcnews.go.com)

Christmas Message from Fr. Ottaviano D’Egidio, C.P.

Posted on December 24, 2011 by

Nativity Scene in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral

Dear brothers and sisters of the Congregation and the Passionist Family,

When we celebrate Christmas we celebrate the coming of God among us: He is a Child that is born into a family of the spouses Mary and Joseph, who will love him with simplicity and faithfully care for him in silence with the dedication of ones who know that God is in their home. At the Annunciation the Angel said to Mary: “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High.” (Lk.1:31-32) His birth is so human! He is immersed in the fullness of humanity: sent from the perfect communion of the Trinity, he entered into a world of conflict.

Jesus is born as a man in the context of contemporary history: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria… And Joseph too went up from… the town of Nazareth…to Bethlehem… to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Lk. 2:1-7)

Respectfully and reverently we almost always skip over the words of the angel: “you will conceive in your womb” – even if we recite them in the Hail Mary; and also: “Mary, his betrothed, who was with child…the time came for her to have her child.” She was a pregnant woman like so many others in the world who was expecting the birth of her child and the time arrived for her to give birth to Jesus. God is born like all the children of the world and Mary is his mother and gives birth, although immaculate, like every other mother who gives birth to a child and feeds him at her breast. Mary, according to the accounts of the nativity, gives birth to the One who was foretold, in poverty and in the solitude of a courageous journey. She would not receive the glorious announcement of the angels: “I proclaim to you good news of great joy…a savior has been born for you” (Lk.2:10-11); rather it would be the shepherds who would bring her the message and she would accept it in a spirit of faith.

Mary meditates on these events, trying to understand their meaning. (Lk.2:19) It is by the power of faith that she struggles to enter into the mystery of God. The relationship between this human maternity and the challenge to accept the reality of Jesus in faith will achieve its fulfillment when a woman in the crowd “called out and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” But Jesus said: “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” (Lk. 11:27-28)

In addition to bearing him in her womb and nursing the Son of God at her breast, Mary was situated in her mission by the prophetic words of the old man Simeon: “And you yourself a sword will pierce.” (Lk. 2:35) If Jesus would be a “sign that will be contradicted”, i.e. he would encounter challenges, confrontations and rejection by the people that he came to save, then Mary would have to participate in the sorrowful mission of her Son. Here, too, Mary is presented as a mother, but above all as a “believer” who “hears the word of God and observes it.” She must walk along the dark road of danger and suffering.

Whoever believes in and loves God shares in His mission and if God calls him, he allows himself to be found and he accepts his plans even without knowing the details, as did Mary. And all of us, religious and laity, are challenged, each according to his or her own status in life.

And we may ask ourselves, filled with wonder and surprise at such great simplicity: Is the Baby that is wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger with animals really Him, the God announced by the prophets and the long-awaited Messiah who will free his people from oppression?

This is the same question that would be posed to John the Baptist when Jesus, now an adult, was about to begin his mission: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” (Mt. 11:3)

Jesus is not confused by this question. He understands John’s perplexity and he opens his mind and his heart: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” (Mt. 11:4-6) At times we too are blind and we don’t want to see or hear. And many times and in different ways, whether on a personal level or the level of the Congregation, we refuse to accept new things as did the citizens of Nazareth when Jesus entered their synagogue one Sabbath to read the prophecy of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk. 4:18-21) But he was rejected: to free the oppressed and to bring good news to the poor was at the very heart of his mission and because of this mission conversion and a change of heart from those things that have been irrefutable for so many years were needed.

And in profound agreement with the response he gave to John’s disciples and what he read in the synagogue of Nazareth, in Matthew 25, Jesus invites us to recognize him in the sick, in the hungry, in the imprisoned, in the poor and in the powerless of this world. But we need eyes and evangelical wisdom to recognize him and a change of heart to understand and study the signs that God is sending us.

And at Christmas the sign that is also given by the angels is a Child wrapped in swaddling clothes. Word and sign, simplicity and poverty, the gift and the glory of God come together in Him: the Word was made flesh and came to dwell among us. The Child Jesus is the language of God that reveals to us that not only man is in God, but primarily, that God is in man.

And this helps us to understand that perfection is not about self-realization, but is found in one another; that greatness is not about being served, but serving; that the fullness of liberty is to be free from oneself, free for others and for God; that freedom is about total and serene abandonment to God especially in suffering and in sickness; that the fullness of love is not about being loved, but about loving. Thus it is for man and thus it is for God: The Child of Bethlehem and the Crucified One on Golgotha is the sign and the gift of the one, same love. May St. Paul of the Cross open our hearts to understand this great love!

Merry Christmas! May the New Year 2012 be a year of peace for our communities, for the Passionist nuns and Sisters, for our families and for the world! May there be work for the unemployed and a peaceful future for the young.

Together with the General Council and the religious of the Community of Sts. John and Paul, I particularly wish to remember the sick and those who are alone and suffering in spirit.

Fr. Ottaviano D’Egidio, C.P.
Superior General

Retreat of Sts. John and Paul
Rome, 20 December 2011

Blessed Bernard Mary of Jesus Silvestrelli, C.P.

Posted on December 19, 2011 by

He was born Caesare Silvestrelli on November 7, 1831. Before all else it must be noted that he was one of the most brilliant leaders in the history of the Passionist Congregation. Without a doubt he shaped the modern scope of the of the Passionists of the Twentieth Century. Beyond that he helped to change the modern Papacy.

Born of noble parents in the aristocratic Minerva section of Rome behind the Piazzo Doria-Pamphila, he received a private education from two priests who were part of the domestic household. His parents died when he was yet a teenager. His spirituality was engendered principally by the Oratorians whose church, the Chiesa Nuova (the New Church) was only a few steps away from his home. The times were turbulent, particularly between 1848 and 1853. His brother, like that of Saint Gabriel Possenti fell in with the Roman Freemasons and actively sought the unification of Italy and the nullification of the power of the Papacy. Caesare’s beloved sibling, Luigi, was a prominent leader of this movement. Later, his younger brother Augusto joined Luigi and his sister, Elisa married yet another leader. The family was divided. They only came together to comfort their dying father, Giantommaso. The entire experience steeled the heart of the young and devout Caesare with a resolve to defend the Catholic Church.

Saint Gabriel Possenti’s brother had also gone over to the Liberal Movement and, as a result, committed suicide. Their separate but similar family experiences endeared them to one another. They came together in the 1850 in the Passionist Novitiate in Morrovalle. Gabriel died young and, under the supervision of his companion, was canonized the second Passionist saint in 1920.

In early 1853, Caesare entered the Passionist Motherhouse of Saints John and Paul in Rome. The Superior General also was an indefatigable leader of the Passionist Congregation in the time after the first suppression. The Major Superior took a personal interest in Caesare and gave him the religious name Luigi of the Heart of Mary. He traveled to the foundation House of the Congregation at Monte Argentario. Almost immediately after being clothed with the habit his health collapsed. He left on May 3^rd of the following year under a cloud of broken health and depression. Still all was not lost. Anthony of Saint James had his eye on him and arranged that Passionist Priests would tutor him toward the diocesan priesthood. Eventually, through a series of indults and dispensations, he was ordained a diocesan priest A Cura di (under the protection of) the Passionist General Curia.

In 1857 he reentered the Passionist Novitiate, receiving the name Bernard Mary of Jesus. He held a series of leadership positions within the Congregation from the moment of his ordination. He published The Memoirs of the First Companions, an important document of Passionist history which stabilized the charism and the Rule of the Passionists for the next hundred years. Just as importantly, he stabilized the foundation of the Congregation in Argentina and from there, supervised the spread of the Order throughout all of Latin America, through the Caribbean and into Spain itself. In the United States, he divided the foundation into two Provinces and established the Retreat Movement de jure (by precept) several years before it could take effect in Pittsburgh and in Boston.

Pope Pius IX Death Mask

Most important was his effect on the besieged Pope Pius IX, encouraging him to surrender to the Liberal Movement of Italy, assuring the Pope that God, in the Passion of Jesus, was in this action. On September 20, 1870, the Cannonades blasted the city of Rome. The ruling junta of the Resurgiments announced that Rome was no longer independent, but now part of the nation of Italy. Bernard Mary met Pope Pius IX at the foot of the Scala Sancta (Holy Stairs), which is a Passionist Basilica. Together the two men climbed the steep stairs which saw the condemnation of Jesus by Pilate. When they reached the top after a painful journey on their knees, they both prostrated themselves. Bernard Mary uttered the words: “Let us place everything in the cup of the Blood of Jesus.” To that, Pius replied: “If I have done that, I have completed my mission.” He immediately fell into great peace in order to face the eight years as a prisoner in the Vatican that awaited him. In his own way, Bernard Mary helped the Pontiff see that the Papacy must now take on the role of Peter as a spiritual force.

- Father Jerome Vereb, C.P.

Prayer:

Lord our God, you taught Blessed Bernard Mary to love the crucified Christ by perfect detachment from material goods. Following his example of prayers, grant that through constant meditation on the Passion of our Lord, we may live and die for him who is our Redeemer. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit one God, forever and ever. Amen

An Old Story-teller: SS John and Paul, A Shrine Church of Rome (Part 5) (thepassionists.org)
Blessed Pius of Saint Aloysius Campidelli , C.P. (thepassionists.org)
Feast of Blessed Grimoaldo Santa Maria of the Purification, C.P. (thepassionists.org)

Homily for the Perpetual Profession of Brother James Fitzgerald, C.P.

Posted on December 12, 2011 by

Today Brother James Fitzgerald is taking an important step in his life. He’s making his final religious profession as a Passionist at Mass on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the mother of the Jesus.

It’s traditional in our community to make our religious vows at Mass. We do it because we seek by vows to enter more deeply into the mystery of Jesus. The vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are ways of saying, “I want to be like him,” and so we make them in the presence of our Lord who gave himself so fully to us on the Cross. As Passionists we want to share as deeply as we can in the mystery of his Passion and Resurrection.

Usually, too, we make our vows on a feast of Mary, because she appreciates, more than anyone else, what it means to be called by God and how mysterious that call can be. She knows how to follow her Son.

The gospel today is the story of her call. That morning in Nazareth, Mary got up and was expecting to get married to Joseph and go into his house and bear children with him. Then the angel came. “How can this be?” Mary asks simply. God will bring it about, the angel says, and then leaves her.

That call radically touched Mary’s whole being: who she was, what she was used to and what she did. It was a lifelong call that raised questions all her life. “How can this be?” she said more than once. “Be it done to me according to your word.” She also said that more than once.

Mary’s experience was uniquely her own, we think, and it was. But we may also think that human life, our own lives included, go on in only human terms and God only occasionally has a hand in it, and there we would be wrong. An infant is baptized, two people get married, someone makes religious vows, and that’s it, we may think. But God’s call is dynamic; God is with us continually and God pursues us all our lives.

“Lord, you have probed me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I stand. All my thoughts are before you,” we say in the psalms. God’s call is an everyday, lifelong call.

I think Jim offers us a reminder of that mysterious, lifelong aspect of God’s call. In his early years he joined the Passionists and then that call seemed to be interrupted. “How can this be?” Yet, all through the years, he’s felt its thread pulling him back to a vowed life in a religious community he’s always loved. His profession today may be a good reminder of God’s steady, quiet, mysterious involvement in the lives of each of us.

We may tend to think that God calls only the young, but he calls us in our older years as well. In Advent we remember Zachariah, the priest, and his wife Elizabeth, who conceived a child in her old age. The Christmas story wouldn’t be the same without them. Then, there’s Simeon and Anna who hold the Infant in their arms in the temple. God calls at every age. Whether we are young or old, we’re called to keep listening and questioning and responding: “Be it done to me according to your word.”

Those great gospel figures remind us that it’s not age but faith that counts with God. It’s faith that gives life to religious vows and to communities where we live our vows. Faith moves mountains and changes the world, Jesus says, and he doesn’t limit faith to a certain age.

That’s important to remember today as we experience the phenomenon of aging in our church and our religious communities. What’s more, we’re living in an aging society; we’re living longer in our western industrialized world. It’s a phenomenon that’s increasingly affecting our economy, health care, immigration and so many other areas of our life, and we don’t like paying attention to it. We like to think young. A critical challenge for us is how we live these added years. “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart,” we pray in the psalms.

Our church is a pilgrim church, the Second Vatican Council says. In its sacraments and institutions it “belongs to this world of time.” The church bears “the likeness of this passing world.” Certainly, in our part of the globe, it bears the likeness of a changing, aging world.

Does our community–I think of this wonderful community of Passionists here in the Monastery of the Immaculate Conception, for example–have a role helping an aging world live in the spirit of the gospel.

As Jim Fitzgerald takes his vows today he’s not taking a step to security–certainly not in a religious community like ours. Religious vows don’t bring you safety, they spur you on to give yourself to God and his Kingdom. The make us ask like Mary: “How can this be?” “Be it done to me according to your word.”

Any of you who know Jim, know that he doesn’t think he’s old. He works harder and longer that a lot of people much younger than he. But I would like to offer him a few words from the poet, T.S. Elliot as he makes his vows today, words that don’t’ state a fact, but like the vows challenge to something more.

“Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation.
In my end is my beginning.”

Victor Hoagland, CP December 8, 2011

What's New?

The Passionists – St. Paul of the Cross Province

Tag Archives: God