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RELIGIOUS SIGHTINGS
TALKING IS OVERRATED
WHAT DO YOU call a three-hour, nearly silent fi lm about the lives of Carthusian monks in the remote monastery of Grand Chartreuse in the French Alps? A hit, that’s what. The documentary Into Great Silence played to packed houses in Germany and received rave reviews in 2005. “The fi lm,” according to its website, www.diegrossestille. de/english/, “is an austere, next to silent meditation on monastic life in a very pure form. No music except the chants in the monastery, no interviews, no commentaries, no extra material.” Philip Groening, a German who directed the fi lm, lived in the community for several months and took part in all aspects of the monks’ lives, leaving him with only two to three hours each day to work on the documentary. “When I left the monastery, I was thinking about what exactly had I lived through, and I was realizing that I had had the privilege of living with a community of people who live practically without any fears,” Groening told the BBC. “They have the feeling that if something goes wrong, then it’s OK because it’s something that God wanted, and this is something that changed me.” Asked about the monks’ simple, prayercentered, and mostly silent daily routine, Groening says, “I think they simply do it because they choose to become close to God. It’s a very simple concept, the concept is God himself is pure happiness; the closer you move to God, the happier you are.”
SILENT PARTNERS— The monks of the remote Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps are the stars of the film Into Great Silence.
College students value spiritual quest
EIGHTY PERCENT of college students say they are “very interested in spirituality,” concluded a major study in 2005 by the University of California (see www.spirituality.ucla.edu/). Among the findings: 76% are searching for meaning/ purpose in life 74% have discussions with friends about the meaning of life
81% attend religious services 79% believe in God 69% pray
MORE PRIEST PREPARATION INCLUDES CEO TRAINING
SOME SEMINARIES, such as St. Mary Seminary in Baltimore, place great importance on getting priests ready to lead parishes, reports Associated Press writer Joe Milicia, because some become pastors within a year of ordination. Sister Christine Schenk, C.S.J. executive director of FutureChurch, a Cleveland based group dedicated to parish reform, would like to see every seminary require courses in human resources, management, and community organizing. “Most priests want to be a priest because they want to be ministering to people,” says Schenk, “not because they want to be a manager.” Father Brandan McGuire, 39, of Holy Spirit Parish in San Jose, California, was the executive director of an association in the computer industry before becoming a priest. “Fundamentally, it’s exactly what I do now,” McGuire says. “You deal with lots of different people who have their own agendas, and you have to keep everyone unifi ed on the same standard. And this standard is Jesus Christ.”
–Billy Corgan of rock band Smashing Pumpkins on discerning one’s vocation in The God Factor (FSG, 2006) by Cathleen Falsani.
Communities take the law into their own hands
FOR CENTURIES religious communities have ministered wherever they have seen a need to serve, whether it’s in classrooms, hospitals, shelters, or on street corners. In recent years “courtroom” has been added to the list. More than 100 sisters, priests, and brothers in the United States are also civil lawyers, according to Sister Margaret Taylor, R.S.M., former head of the Intercommunity Legal Conference. The move toward practicing law as a form of ministry gathered steam in the 1980s, when many religious communities made a conscious choice to work for social justice. “Religious doing this are interested in finding the broadest way to effect systemic change on behalf of the marginalized. The law has the potential for doing a lot. It has the ability to establish rights,” says Taylor, an attorney involved in community development work in Philadelphia. Other priests, brothers, and sisters are public defenders, child advocacy attorneys, elder lawyers, law professors, and immigration lawyers. Kathy Chuston, O.S.F. is currently studying law at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Before she joined her community, she had worked as a court reporter and a legal secretary and had seen her share of unsavory lawyers, as well as those with a strong social conscience. Now, she says, “I see the practice of law, for myself, as a ministry, as a way to help those who are underrepresented by our legal system to gain assistance during a very vulnerable time in their lives.”
CORE VALUES—Jayne Ader and Congregation of St. Agnes Sister Madeline Gianforte (right) have brought holistic healing to the poor of Milwaukee.
HEALING IN THE HEART OF THE CITY
COFOUNDED in 2002 by Jayne Ader and Madeline Gianforte, C.S.A., with help from the Congregation of St. Agnes, CORE/EL CENTRO, a nonprofi t natural healing center operating in the heart of Milwaukee’s Hispanic community, is dedicated to making holistic healing available to all people, especially those who are underserved or face barriers in receiving healthcare. “We passionately believe,” say CORE cofounders, “that the most effective healing happens when natural healing modalities are integrated with traditional medical practices and that all people deserve access to holistic healing.” Among the CORE/EL CENTRO offerings are sessions in dance aerobics, massage, acupuncture, reiki, T’ai Chi, meditation, and yoga. “At the heart of the center, say Ader and Gianforte, “is a belief system that all individuals have untapped energy at the core of their being that, when accessed, creates personal and global healing. CORE/EL CENTRO believes that through nurturing, listening, and responding to the deeper wisdom of the body, mind, and spirit, individuals can heal, empower, and transform themselves, their families, their communities, and the world. In less than three years the demand for their services increased sixfold, and there are now more than 70 professionals providing services. For more information go to www. core-elcentro.org.
JESUIT TEACHES ARCHITECTURE WITH THE PERSON IN MIND
“THE STUDIO IS A HOOK,” says Father Terrence Curry, S.J. in describing the St. Joseph’s Studio College at the University of Budapest in Hungary. The architectural studio for students Curry runs allows him to introduce his concept of community design to Hungarian students and also to be a missionary. The largely nonreligious college students are attracted to Curry’s energy and commitment. They routinely invite him out to the pub, and most showed up early and stayed late for his ordination. Even at the end of a long week coordinating an international seminar, Curry expounds on his ideas with the enthusiasm of a 6-year-old on a playground—swinging off one idea and jumping to the next. “My primary ministry,” he says, “is to work with people and engage them in the question of how we can make the building environment worthy of the human person.” At St. Joseph’s Studio College in Budapest and at the Community Design Center he founded in Detroit, the local community gets
BUILDING COMMUNITY—Father Terrence Curry, S.J. and two former colleagues look over some building plans.
involved in designing or renovating buildings. Their involvement nurtures a sense of ownership that translates into fi nal works that uplift and enhance, says Curry. He clearly enjoys the challenge of witnessing to the faith in a post-communist country. And he loves being able to combine his passion for architecture with low-key evangelization. “People ask me, ‘How can you be a priest and an architect?’ And I say, how can I not?”
Program helps with life direction
FOR YOUNG ADULTS in the U.S.,finding help with education and job training is one thing. More difficult is finding help in understanding one’s talents and spiritual gifts and how to use them. That’s what Sisters Rita Schilling and Diana Rawlings discovered when they researched the vocational needs of young people in the late 1990s. From their findings, the sisters’ religious community—the Adorers of the Blood of Christ—formed a ministry that uses the Internet and phone conferences to guide people through decisions about what to do with their lives. The, program,
LifeChoices®, employs interviews, a spiritual inventory, lifestyle examination, counseling, mentoring, retreats, and workshops. More than 1,500 people of all ages have used the program to move on to the next step in their lives. Although many married people use the program, it was originally designed for single men and women who are still undecided about life’s major choices. To learn more about SPIRITUAL MENTOR–Sisters Rita this free service, offered in Schilling (middle left) and Diana English or Spanish, contact Rawlings (middle right), shown with 1-877-236-7377, ext. 1411 or Adorers’ vocation team members Christi Cupp (top) and Lori Benge. e-mail ascvocations@adorers. org. Information is also online at www.adorers.org/lifechoices.aspx.
–Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Collins, prefacing his questions to Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J. in the corruption trial of former Illinois Governor George Ryan. Prejean, who was serving as a character witness, was one of the advisers Ryan consulted before clearing Death Row in 2003 (Chicago Sun-Times).
“LIBRARIANS give us a scare.”
–Benedictine Sister Carol Hellmann of St. Walburg Monastery in Villa Hills, Kentucky after the sisters’ team lost to the Boone County library team in the annual Corporate Spelling Bee for Literacy. The three-time Benedictine champions fell in the last round when they couldn’t spell chimopelagic, referring to deepsea organisms (The Cincinnati Post).
