This is the first time since he was canonized in October of 2010, that we can celebrate a Mass in honor of Brother Andre, CSC. I have known and loved Brother since I was a child. One of my relatives, the son of one of my great aunts was taken up to St. Joseph’s Oratory in the 1930’s and he left his crutches there and walked away. I remember hearing that family story so long ago and was thrilled when I went there with my family in the late 1950’s. I have been fortunate enough to return a number of times to the Oratory. Brother was born on August 9, 1845 and died on January 6, 1935. He had frail health from birth. He was baptized at home as soon as he was born because they didn’t think he would live the night. Even with his health problems, he did a lot of manual labor and in his twenties, the Archbishop of Montreal recommended him to the Holy Cross community by saying, ” I am sending you a saint”. He was made the porter (opened the doors and met the people) and his holiness led many to come and ask his help. He always led them to St. Joseph and he said that if they received their request, it was through St. Joseph not him. He is a great model for all of us.
My good friend, Sister M. Stella, CSC also has a great devotion to Bother and so I remembered her at prayers today and even called her at Notre Dame, Indiana to see how she was doing. She says that she is in very good health and “keeping busy”. She loves being out there and says hi to all her St. Bernard’s and Camp friends.
I had the school Mass today and the theme the students chose was “Peace”. The wanted the beginning Mass for the new semester to call all of them to be “peacemaker”. It was a lovely Mass and at the end the principal, Chris Kelly, always builds on the homily and gives it a special school slant. Today, he reminded the total school community that if each of the 599 members of the school community committed themselves to do “one nice thing for someone else in the school” each day, that more than 200,000 good deeds would affect the school and it would be a place of peace. Good idea for all of us.
We are working on being more inclusive in our parish life and worship, so today at 4pm, Fr. Jim led a service for people with disabilities in our chapel. It was so calming. Very soft guitar music was played and in front of the altar, had been place the statues of Joseph, Mary, and the Babe as well as the three Magi. I won’t do justice to the tone, Fr. Jim set except to say that at one point each person was invited to come to the scene and bring our special gift of ourselves and offer it to the Child. It was very moving. Fr. closed by going to each of us with the marvelous picture of “The Smiling Jesus” by Hook and blessing each of us. It was a real Epiphany gift.
Then I went to the rectory where for the next four hours, all kinds of volunteers from the parish came for the 12th Night party. It was so nice to see or to meet people from the parish but I was exhausted and so I sneaked away around 8pm and came here to the parish center.
We have a Holy Hour every First Thursday night in our chapel from 9 to 10pm and one of us priests leads it. I will do it tonight. It is well attended and very low keyed. We do it before the Blessed Sacrament and we use Scripture and the Liturgy of the Hours. So I’m off to that now and will keep all of you and your needs in my prayers.
I’d say you had a nice Epiphany/St Andre day! My day was mostly spent in the friendly skies – BWI to New Orleans to Dallas to Amarillo. OK, it was a “cheap” ticket so one has to expect a few “ups and downs.” It was 60 degrees when I arrived. Yeah!