Seeking Holiness in a Quiet Spot

Taking the time to discern our vocation or our personal need to seek holiness we are called to connect with our God. Jesus' example of prayer and teaching his followers to pray are found throughout the bible. Taking the time to make annual retreats are also an important part of our spiritual life.

"In those days he departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God." Luke 6:12

"And when he had taken leave of them, he went off to the mountain to pray." Mark 6:46

"Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed." Mark 1:35

One scripture passage that is particularly important to me is one that I chose for the first reading of my final oath mass:

"Then the LORD said, 'Go outside and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will be passing by.' A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD--but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake--but the LORD was not in the earthquake.

After the earthquake there was fire--but the LORD was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound.

When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice said to him, 'Elijah, why are you here?'" 1Kings 19:11-13

I will be celebrating the New Year in solitude on a silent retreat . Please pray for me and know that I am praying for you. I hope you too can find some silence in order to hear God ask you "Why are you here?"

From the Words of Fr. Bishop

Father William Howard Bishop, founder of Glenmary Home Missioners, wrote regularly to the missioners out in the field in order to update and inspire them in their missionary efforts. We continue to read from these in our morning prayer here at Glenmary headquarters. Today I share a couple of nuggets from his Mid-Winter Letters, written in the 1940’s.

“Winter is a time when the poor suffer very much. Who are the poor of your mission area? Do you know them? Now is the chance to show them you are their friend. The most telling approach to the “other sheep” is by works of charity for the poor. Catholics and even non-Catholics in better circumstances give willingly old clothes, provisions and money to anybody who is in touch with suffering poverty. The priest in every community should be that one. The missionary priest, above all, should covet this honor for himself. Christ loved His poor and we are other Christs.” Mid-Winter Letter Rev. William Howard Bishop 1944

“Love the Poor, the sick, the helpless and attend to them. They are God’s influentials. They are his aristocrats. He loves them. If you are known in your community as the contact man for all the poor and unfortunate of the place, you could not have a more honorable title on earth or one that would make you more welcome in the courts of heaven. Besides this, you will be a marvelous drawing power for converts.” Mid-Winter Letter Rev.William Howard Bishop 1948

Merry Christmas

Chung Mung Giang Sinh. 

Kuwa na Krismasi njema. 

Mele Kalikimaka.

Joyeux Noël! 

¡Feliz Navidad!

Natale hilare.

С Рождеством!

Mo'adim Lesimkha.

Nollaig Shona Dhuit.

Geseënde Kersfees

عيد ميلاد مجيد

Frohe Weihnachten!

Bo Nadal

Bada Din Mubarak Ho.

Buon Natale!

Kurisumasu Omedeto

Hristos se rodi

Last Minute Blogging

I wanted to wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas. It has been enjoyable writing this blog the last six months and I look forward to writing even more after Christmas... and hopefully well beyond that too.

FYI - I have added the gadget to the right of the blog to make it easier for your to share these posts with your friends and loved ones at the click of the mouse. Modern Technology is amazing...

I'd love to hear back from you, so please log in and leave you comments or find me elsewhere. And there are plenty of places to find me. Since I started on the road and living out of the car so much, I am not even sure where to find me most of the time. But on the web I am definitely locatable.

Home page is of course - http://glenmary.org/vocations. The enews information has an up-to-date road schedule.

You can friend me on Facebook at Hermano David Henley or the Glenmary Home Missioners Vocations FAN PAGE.

Follow my tweets @hermanodavid. Don't worry if you miss one or two, because 90 percent of them are just for fun.

And I am broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on my youtube channel BrotherDavidGHM. Both the English and Spanish trailers of our new video are posted there as well as old Glenmary home videos, some of which are over fifty years old!

And if nowhere else, you can always track me down via email. brotherdavidhenley@gmail.com

Looking forward to seeing you at all these stops and more.

Prophets Needed

Have you ever been in a situation where you saw an injustice happening and felt you just had to say or do something? Perhaps God was calling you to be his voice in that instance. And perhaps God is calling you to be a prophet in your life. After all, a prophet is merely a spokesperson for God. The great thing about being a prophet is that you truly see yourself as an instrument. God uses you to bring voice to a situation that needs his attention. The hard part shouldn’t be accepting the call. The hard part should be denying the call—and ignoring the world’s need.

The Advent readings from Mass allow us the opportunity to listen to a number of the prophets in our sacred Scripture.The First Sunday of Advent began with a reading from the prophet Isaiah: “Come, let us climb the Lord’s mountain... that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” (Is 2:3) On the Second Sunday of Advent, Isaiah reassures us that the Savior shall not judge by appearance, “nor by hearsay shall he decide, but he shall judge the poor with justice...” (Is 11:3-4) Throughout this season also listen to the words of Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Malachi and others. Jeremiah reminds us that “the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David; as king he shall reign and govern wisely, he shall do what is just and right in the land.” (Jer 23:5) And Malachi tells us that God is “sending my messenger to prepare the way before me.” (Mal 3:1)

These readings truly speak to me as I reflect on words that I have recently heard. In Father Bryan Massingale’s address to a conference of vocation directors, he stated, “We don’t need numbers to enter the religious life, but we do need witnesses.” While I was visiting a Glenmary mission in Eastern Kentucky, a parishioner told me, “Glenmary doesn’t need men who are interested in just being priests or brothers, but Glenmary needs more prophets.” Glenmary Father Jim Kelly reminded me that we can’t expect a candidate to be a prophet when he enters Glenmary—however, it is a role that “each one of us can hopefully grow into."

I think that Glenmary’s founder, Father William Howard Bishop, was a prophet who called the Church to recognize and serve people’s needs in Mission Land USA. He mapped out “No Priest Land USA” and began preaching and praying incessantly for the Church to recognize the extreme need to serve the missions right here in our own backyard. His words, actions and dedication inspired many other men to enter Glenmary—to respond to that call to serve with him in the home mission lands and become prophets.

Today, Glenmary’s prophetic voice continues to cry out for justice, and it invites other voices to join in the chorus. In the southern United States alone, there are still more than 300 counties without a Catholic priest, brother or Catholic presence. In most of these mission areas, the poverty level is more than twice the national average. Glenmary is looking for a few good men, prophets-to-be, who are called to go to a strange land in order to share the sacraments, struggle for worker rights, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the ill, visit the incarcerated, and stand up against the destruction of nature. In the words of our founder in an article published in 1937, “There is a mission field much nearer our homes. . .that should command our attention not only from a motive of Christian charity but I dare to say from a motive of common justice.” As you reflect on your call to serve as a missioner and prophet, be sure to read some or all of a master's thesis on the charism of Father Bishop written by now-Glenmary president Father Dan Dorsey.

Dreams Dashed but not Broken

Watched the DREAM Act debate in the US Senate today. Hoped and prayed that the votes would be enough to allow this legislation to move forward but it did not happen today. This legislation would open the door for so many young people, some of whom are discerning a vocation. But more than that it would have allowed children growing up here in the U.S. the opportunity to dream, to participate, to share, to live, to be...

In the words of John Kennedy "Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation."

I am feeling sad and disappointed at the moment but have hope that this legislation will come back for another vote soon.

¡SI SE PUEDE!

Sneak Preview Glenmary's New DVDs English/Español

In English

Have you ever wanted to visit a home mission county where Glenmary

serves or meet one of the many men currently in Glenmary formation?

En Español

¿Le gustaría conocer alguno de los misioneros de Glenmary o a 

visitar las misiones donde sirven los misioneros de Glenmary?

I'd Rather be in Mexico

Made it back home to a Winter Wonderland… I think I should have stayed in Mexico a little while longer, or at least until the snow melted. I had wonderful visits with Glenmary’s aspirants who are studying in San Juan de los Lagos. They are busy with all the December activities in the seminary; la Fiesta de Guadalupe, Las Posadas, Fiestas Navideños, oh yeah and Final Exams too... Gracias a Dios estén bien y muy animados a seguir estudiando para ser misioneros con Glenmary.

While in Mexico I was also able to attend a gathering with the Vocation Team de San Juan and a number of promotores vocacionales from the area. I am looking forward to many events with this group in the coming year to promote vocations to the priesthood and religious life. The diocese of San Juan de los Lagos es rico en fe y tradición. It is a land of many martyrs and witnesses for the Church. As I recently wrote in an article for the Vocations enews letter, Glenmary needs men to be a prophetic voice in the missions of the United States.

Mexico

Voy estar en mexico este samana, a visitar los seminaristas, unas familias y celebrar la fiesta de la Virgen de Guadalupe. Espero que todos ustedes esten bien y intenetare escribir mas la semana que entra. despues de las fiestas.

Thank you St. Francis Xavier

In today’s Office of the Readings we Read a Letter from St. Francis Xavier to St Ignatius

“I have not stopped since the day I arrived. I conscientiously made the rounds of the villages. I bathed in the sacred waters all the children who had not yet been baptized. This means that I have purified a very large number of children so young that, as the saying goes, they could not tell their right hand from their left. The older children would not let me say my Office or eat or sleep until I taught them one prayer or another. Then I began to understand: ‘The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’”

Francis Xavier's description of life in the missions sounds a lot like a Glenmary Missioner and our work in the Home Missions. Sometimes we get caught up in the tremendous needs all around us we don’t have time for anything else. But in the closing of his letter, St Francis Xavier reminds us we must stay grounded in prayer, meditation and be actively listening to what God is saying to us.

“Lord, I am here! What do you want me to do? Send me anywhere you like” – Even to Appalachia or the rural south