Thanksgiving Gathering 2011

Last week was the Glenmary Students' annual Thanksgiving celebration. It was such a fun but busy event that I had no time to blog! The students gathered from all parts; St Meinrad Seminary, Divine Word College, the Novitiate, Missions, Headquarters and beyond. The guest list also included Glenmary prospects, Glenmary priests, brothers, sisters and friends who live in the area. This year we had over thirty people in attendance at the meal and gathering.
Thanksgiving Day started with mass celebrated by Fr. Neil, who was assisted by Deacon Crispine. After mass, the main meal included was served. Among other things, fresh turkeys from Tewes' Farm, the student's homemade sukuma wiki, Glenmary Sisters' pies and Fr. Vic's stuffing which was actually left over from last year but was found in the back of the refrigerator when we arrived at Gasper River Retreat Center. The day's celebration lasted well into the evening with songs, dancing, skits, jokes and juggling!
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, the students opted out of going shopping like the majority of Americans and instead listened to a presentation by Sr. Sharon Miller about the history of the Glenmary Sisters. Later that day many of the students and prospects traveled to the nearby Glenmary missions to meet Fr. Dennis Holly and to visit the missions of LaFayette, TN and Scottsville, KY.
I am thankful for all the students and my Glenmary sisters and brothers who were able to participate in the gathering last week. I had a wonderful time cooking up the birds and am grateful for all the helping hands to get the tasty meal on the table for our future missioners. A few nights together under the same roof brought us all a little closer together by allowing us to share good meals, conversations, a few laughs, time for prayer and more.
If you were unable to join us for this event but would like to visit the Glenmary missions in the future click here. Mission visits are an important part of discerning one's call to be a missioner.

NCYC Recap

WOW!

What an awesome weekend! 23,000+ youth were in attendance at The National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC) and it was jamming all weekend long. Glenmary's Booth in the Vocation Village part of NCYC was a HUGE success. Great event and great people is the best way to describe the experience. Because I was meeting so many people I had little time to tweet, foursquare, update or let alone blog! Fifty pounds Glenmary's popcorn seed "Fed the hungry" at the conference and brought thousands of visitors by our booth to learn about the Home mission need. Six New hats for the youth to trade were given away during our drawings and many of the participants signed up to receive Glenmary's email updates. Some of the young men who stopped by appeared to be great vocation candidates for the near future! I will pray and believe that many of the men who stopped by will become Glenmary priests and brothers. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to meet us and we look forward to communicating with you more in the future. Let us know if you need more popcorn, another fifty pound bag of seed is on order!

Fr. Neil and Pat McEntee making popcorn

Pat explaining the Home Mission Need

Br. David and visitor pose in front of Glenmary's Booth 

Closing Liturgy from the National Catholic Youth Conference 2011

More photos and video will be uploaded to our Facebook page.

NCYC

Hello Indy!

Glenmary Home Missioners is again present at this year’s National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC) and I think this is our largest presence ever! I think there will be 10 people from Glenmary who will be present all weekend. That’s priests, brother, sister, coworkers and 5 seminarians. We are here to support the 20,000+ Catholic youth gathered for a faith filled weekend. Hearing confessions and helping with some of the liturgies are some of the tasks the priests and seminarians will be undertaking. Glenmary also has a Vocation Booth primarily to promote vocations to the religious life and as missioners. This year's booth has a popcorn machine and we unveil our new display board which includes digitally displayed images. It is really cool! Come by and check it out if you are in the area and pick up a free bag of popcorn from our Glenmary Vocation Booth. See you there!

Alone? Not in Community!

On more than one occasion I have heard people make the comment, "I hope that my son/daughter doesn't grow up to become a religious, it would be such a sad and lonely life."

It is probably too much of a loaded comment to try and reply to it in just one blog but if you are a regular reader then you have obviously read in my previous posts that sad and lonely are certainly not the case in religious life. Even at the end of our life we are not alone nor sad.

Over the weekend Fr. Larry Goulding a Glenmary priest died. During the last days of his life, as during his life of ministry, next to him was a constant rotation of family members, people from the missions and of course his brothers from the Glenmary community. All week various Glenmary priests and brothers had taken turns sitting in his room, including all night as Larry neared his death. The night he died, Glenmarians Fr. Chet and Sister Catherine were praying the rosary at his bedside. Just as they finished the last decade and had begun the prayer "Hail holy Queen..." the hospice care nurse said, "I think it is time." A number of us Glenmarians arrived shortly afterwards and we joined in prayer together around his bedside.

This week we will celebrate Fr. Larry's life at Glenmary's Head-Quarters in Cincinnati. Many relatives of Fr. Larry, people he knew in the missions and of course many Glenmarians will be traveling into town as well. We will have a full house, some of the overflow will even be sleeping on the floor. It may sound a bit odd to an outsider but someone once commented that "Glenmarians really know how to do funerals well!" We are a close community and loved our brother Larry tremendously and therefore we make every effort to be present for this celebration of his life today or for any other member of our community in the future.

Tonight we will have a wake service at the Our Lady of the Fields Chapel which is part of our residence. It will be a chance to pray together and to hear some wonderful and certainly colorful stories from Larry's past. As is our tradition, the body of the deceased will stay in the chapel at our residence all night as we keep vigil over him. The following day we will celebrate the funeral mass at a local parish which has more seating capacity for all the guests who will be arriving. And then we will have a chance to visit the cemetery where we will lay him to rest in a grave next to his other Glenmary brothers who have gone before him. One of the most moving parts of the service is when each of us present takes a turn sprinkling the dirt over his coffin.

Many Glenmarians began to gather at our residence last night and still more will arrive today. We gather from all of the missions in order to celebrate the life of our brother and to his dedication to the mission apostolate. Glenmarians are not sad and lonely in life nor are we in death. We find the joy in God, the love of life where we serve, the togetherness of community in all that we do and the hope of everlasting life.

Rev. Laurence Goulding

Glenmary priest, Fr. Larry Goulding passed away Saturday night at the age of 81. Larry joined Glenmary after his service in the U.S. Marines, which took him to Korea, where he served over 50 years in the Home Missions. Just as he was a dedicated soldier in the service he was also a dedicated missioner. Up until about a year ago, at age 80, Larry was still serving as sacramental minister in two of Glenmary's missions in Eastern, KY. Larry's age and sickness may have slowed him a little in recent years but he continued to share his love of God and his talents with all the people he served. He was always a joy to be around and even walked the last days of his journey on earth valiantly. He knew that he was nearing his death and openly shared that news positively and hopeful to what the next world would bring. While cutting his hair a few weeks ago I told him I was still a novice barber and he replied, "ain't nobody gonna see it where I am going so it doesn't matter what it looks like to me."

Larry was always known for his colorful expressions he is quoted as saying "Whenever and wherever I encounter another person, I imagine that I disappear and Christ appears. I feel this very strongly when I am in front of the people at Sunday Mass. However, this does not work with traffic cops." The quote of his that I recall most often is "We've tried everything else, we might as well pray." So often this is true in all our lives, we are too busy looking for a solution to our problem or a loophole in life that we forget that the one way we can all get through this world and make it to the other side... Just a little more prayer in life is all that we really need.

Last week I went to visit Larry on Veterans Day and noticed a sign where he was staying which had the words of Jose Narosky: "In war, there are no unwounded soldiers." Fr. Larry was a soldier and a peacemaker. Let us continue to pray for all our veterans, those who are serving in harms way and for all the peacemakers in the world like Fr. Larry.

Brother David Brooks

For a number of years I heard some of my fellow Glenmarians talk about Brother David Brooks and his magic show. But since Br. David died in 1972, I never imagined that I would have a chance to see a glimpse of his performance. Brother David worked as a professional magician for a number of years before he joined Glenmary Home Missioners. As a brother he was not just a magician, but also a Registered Nurse caring for the people in the missions and serving in Glenmary's infirmary for many years.

Recently Glenmary's archivist, Lucy Putnam, had an old film reel from our archives digitalized. To our surprise some of the film contained a few brief clips of Br. David and his infamous magic routine. This film which luckily has been preserved in the archives has not been seen for over 50 years. It is a great joy to be able to see one of our past missioners share his gift way back then and thanks to modern technology, continue to share it today with many others. Do you believe in magic? 

God calls people with many different gifts and talents to serve in Mission Land USA? Could God be calling you to share your gifts and talents too?

Fr. Frank Schenk

Glenmary priests and brothers never cease to amaze me. Fr Frank Schenk celebrates his 96th birthday today. We actually honored him last night by celebrating his birthday party with a special supper. This morning I had the privilege of taking him to the local polling station at 6:30am so he and I could vote. Fr. Frank is the oldest living Glenmarian. A side note for those who don't know this, although he is blind he still bakes bread 3 days a week at our Glenmary Headquarters (scroll down to see the pictures below). Homemade bread from flour that he grinds himself! AMAZING! Thank you Fr. Frank for yours of service in the missions and to your continued dedication to your fellow Glenmary brothers. Happy Birthday!

Happy 96th Birthday Fr. Frank Schenk!

Fr. Frank celebrating mass at Glenmary's Our Lady of the Fields Chapel

Fr. Frank STILL makes bread

Fr. Frank with his homemade bread
fresh out of the oven

Poverty in Rural America

This past week the Brookings Institute released a report on the "Concentrated Poverty" in Metropolitan America. It contained the sobering statistic that 15% Americans are living below the poverty line. Soon the U.S. Census is supposedly going to release it's updated reports on the poverty rates in the United States.  I admit that although I find this data is fascinating it can also be overwhelming to try and know what it all means? Sometimes I don't understand why different reports have varied results even though they claim to contain the same information. And sometimes I don't know who to believe when the reports have conflicting information or because certain groups disagree with the results stating that other groups studies did not accurately portray all the data... The bottom line though is that these poverty studies do show that there are many people who are struggling and suffering in the U.S. at this time.

I tend to believe my theory that when people who live in the cities and metropolitan areas are struggling economically as many recent studies have shown, that usually means the folks who live in the rural areas are suffering even more. My unscientific data is from my lived experience in the Glenmary missions. I have seen that the people in rural areas have less access to the resources that are available in the larger metropolitan and urban areas. I don't know if one can say that the poverty is worse in these areas because poverty is poverty wherever you are living but in the rural areas the needs are tremendous. According to the U.S. Census data, in Chicaksaw County Mississippi, a Glenmary mission area, over 27% of the population is struggling below the national poverty level - nearly twice the national average!

Two interesting maps below: The first is a U.S. Census Bureau map showing the percentage of people living in poverty in the United States. The second map shows the percentage of Catholic adherents in each county in the U.S.. It is fascinating how these two maps correspond in a many places - highest levels of poverty and least number of Catholics... This is Mission Land USA - this is where Glenmary serves the spiritual and material needs of the people living in these areas.There are many more mission areas like Chickasaw County that Glenmary has not reached yet and the Church needs your help to get there.  Is this where God is calling you to serve? 

Feed back

I have been writing for this blogspot for a little over a year and am happy to see readership increase!

Seeing the readership steadily increase is a good sign - hopefully it means that I am doing something right. But recently I have been thinking that I would like to receive some feed back from all of you as well. Below is a spot where readers can share their comments.

What have you enjoyed about the blog?

What have you not liked?

What topics would you like me to write about in the future?