michal's musings

For too long Church people were outside of any criticism.  The culture of separation, distinction and special calling created a “much closed club” of people that live in their own world of secrecy. It is good that this culture is changing.  The crimes committed by Church people are on the first pages of newspapers and TV.  In the past when TV and mass media were not that available all the other crimes but Church’s were on the pulpits and the priests were the messengers of bad news. I know, not always and perhaps it was true for some. The culture of secrecy and pretending of being more than who the priests are created great disappointment when priests are being exposed as not better but sometimes even worse than “an average Joe.”  So, who are the priests? A good number of them are alcoholics, have problem relating to people, believe that the parish is their business, complainers and gossipers, believe that the Church and parish cannot exist without them, etc.  And yet, they ar

Last Lent I decided not to use my Facebook at all.  Why? I was spending too much time looking at it.  This Lent I chose to be more visible on Facebook.  Why? It is a new evangelization. I decided to post more pictures on Facebook from the different Newman Center activities.  Last year I had only one Facebook page.  This year I work on four different pages.  I spend the least amount of time on the one that is my own – the private one.  The other three are connected with my work and ministry.  What is interesting to me is that the amount of time I spend on four of them is still less than the amount of time I was spending on my Facebook before last Lent.  I just use Lent to break some of my bad habits.   

In silence we can experience something different.  We experience the area of life that needs quietness to become visible.  In quietness we can learn much about ourselves.  For that we need internal solitude and nonjudgmental attitude.  We cannot be scandalized by what we discover about ourselves.  At the moment when we become scandalized we might find in ourselves the tendency to deny it.  And, we don’t learn anything.  When we learn true self, by accepting what and who we are, then we make space for the possible communication between us and something that is Beyond ourselves.    How can this Beyond myself be able to communicate with me if I don’t know with whom that Beyond wants to communicate?  

Cosmic dust is so beautiful. It is like a smoke with some particles. It is being created by young stars during the process of its formation.  There are a lot of chemical reactions taking place up there.  Out of young forming stars new stars and galaxies are being created.   Cosmic dust is the sign of life and not death. Volcanoes are very similar. When they erupt it is very scary.  Sometimes it is very deadly.  However, it is still the sign of life.  The earth is alive.   Ashes are the sign of life too.  Something has to change so that something new can be created.  

The Muslim Student Association is one of the organizations at UIC.  It is a group of students that try to keep the Muslim students together and make the rest of the world aware of what is Islam.  Especially after what we have been witnessing in the Middle East and at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill we need to be more united and bring people together.  Neither Christianity nor Islam support violence and yet there is some violence in their Holy Books: Bible and Quran. Why? It is because violence is part of human life here on this earth.  However, we need to do our best to eliminate that as much as it is possible.  

On the way to the UIC Newman Center somehow I was thinking about Catholic School system in the Archdiocese of Chicago.  For my first 6 years of priesthood I was a big supporter of it.  But now, I am not sure.  I think we should be out of that area.  The schools kept us and our children in Catholic ghettos.  As Catholics we should promote public school system and make it better and more family oriented.  Our children should be raised in a more pluralistic environment.  However, I am not against Universities run by different religious groups as far as they keep it pluralistic.   The Church should be more involved in teaching about Christ and morality and not geography, biology or gymnastics.  In my opinion, orphanages, nursing homes, hospitals and institutions like this are different thing.  We should be involved in them but they should not be just Catholic and for Catholics.  They should be for all the people.  Catholic means universal.  So, let us have a universal mentality

Today I visited the Little Sisters of the Poor. They have a place for the elderly.  It is like a city: place to eat, place to play, place to pray, place to eat ice cream, etc. It is nice to have places like this.  But if not for the young workers, it would be an old people “institution.” I don’t know what to think about it.  If I am old I will perhaps end up in one of them, if I am lucky.  I am happy we have places like St. Mary’s Home.  I just hope that families visit their loved once there. I am very thankful to the sisters for their dedication to do this ministry and keep that House open.    This is the Website to the St. Mary's Home and to the Little Sisters of the Poor.  http://www.littlesistersofthepoorchicago.org/

The Neocatechumenal Way is a Catholic group founded in Spain in 1964 by Kiko Argüello.  It is not a movement but an instrument for evangelization.  It helps people to enter more deeply into the faith experience and share with others this faith experience.   The philosophy of this instrument is based on the early church preparation for non-Jews to become Christians.  It uses some Jewish elements e.g. Eucharist on Saturday evening with the commentaries on readings done by congregation and a presider.   In their spirituality the story of calling of Abraham is in the center.  All the members go on the journey together with him.  We are all called by God like Abraham was.  The question for the people of the Way is: where is my holy land? More on the Way we can learn from their webpage: http://www.camminoneocatecumenale.it/new/default.asp?lang=it

One of the things I am working on is to protect myself from angry people.  Anger is something that starts insight of other people.  It is a desire to control and when we lose ability to control we get angry. Quite often we share this anger with others or we allow others to share this anger with us. In both cases we should be aware of not sharing our anger because it hurts other people and we should protect ourselves from being hurt by others.  We do this by: -             awareness about our and other people emotions, -            feeling sorry for angry people and seeing how miserable their lives are and desire something - different for us   -            doing and saying minimum when we are angry -            not listening and/or discussing with angry people   -            telling oneself that someone’s anger is not my anger   Since I started to practice these suggestions I started to be more “healthy” and more at peace.