Tom in Haiti

January 29, 2012

2012-01-29T13:48:00.000-08:00

For those of you in the north, whether you can believe it or not, I’m hot and sweaty. I don’t know the temperature exactly but it’s hot today. We have just finished celebrating the feast of St. Francis de Sales our patron. His feast day is January 24,last Tuesday, and ordinarily we celebrate on the Sunday before the feast so we can do it up right and invite guests but we were cramped for time last week so we put it off till today. It’s a big production. We had a list of some 31 invited guests but in the end probably we had over 50. The rice almost ran out, but we made it. The menu included fried chicken legs, rice and beans, a macaroni dish plus a cabbage salad and another green salad. Our men did it with the help of a community friend. Really it was topnotch. To drink there was an assortment of Coke, 7UP and beer. We had a big cake made which also just about made it for all the guests to have a piece. Then there was “des bon-bons” which are simply wrapped hard candies. That’s big here to have “bon-bons”. Well, all in all it was a great celebration. We had Mass first scheduled for ten o’clock but we got underway at ten thirty. The singing was especially good and for one of the readings there was a brief biography of St Francis de Sales. My homily spoke about printing the gospel with our lives and used Francis as an example. I think it went all right – whether anybody turned their life over to Jesus when I was finished I have no idea but think it encouraged everybody to ask if their life and words and actions were in fact reproducing the gospel.

What I really liked was the spirit of cooperation I saw in the members of the community. Everybody pitched in and did his part, not only for the preparations but especially for the cleanup after. It does my heart good to see everyone working together and it’s true that “many hands make work light.” To me this is truly the "Oblate spirit"; it what we're all about. We were through cleaning up in about an hour or so. Not bad given the crowd we had. Personally I was beat and I needed a siesta after to recoup my energy.

My sister Ann gave me a Kindle for Christmas. Like all new electronic devices it takes some getting used to. A Kindle is a device sold by Amazon.con which replaces a book. It’s like a little screen about six by ten inches and very light and you can order books which come electronically to your Kindle and are stored there. Books whose copyright have run out are free which includes all the classics- Russian, French, English, etc. but you can buy modern authors and bestsellers for around $10 a piece. That’s not bad when you consider buying an original, even in paperback is at least $15 or more. Anyway I successfully ordered a new book and also have gotten a free Tolstoy. It’s very easy, so easy I can do it. It was great on the plane coming back to Haiti, very lightweight and easy to put in your carry-on. Ironically some very good friends of mine gave me a series of books that a New York Times columnist suggested for summer reading instead of the usual junk people read at the beach. So I’ve brought some of them back with me and will read them as well. One of the blessings of being here, and they are many, is the time I have to read. It’s a real gift.

When home I’m always asked about the progress that’s being made (or not) in Haiti after the earthquake. I’m always hesitant to say that I don’t see much but I have to say that this time coming back I have noticed some changes. By the airport there have been thousands of tent-dwellers since the earthquake. Well most of them are gone and the space around there has again opened up. I’m told the government is giving people money to relocate. I hope that’s true and that they find something more livable that just a tent. I’ve also noticed some road repair going on. That to me is a first class miracle. The roads and streets overall are in terrible shape with huge holes and crumbling pavement and these are the main streets of the capitol! Well, I actually saw a work crew repairing some of the streets, again around the airport. I hope it’s not just to impress visitors. We’ll see. I’m also told that new president is fulfilling a campaign promise to put all the kids in school. Please God, may there be some progress for this very poor nation.

Finally I have to report that I’ve decided to go to Brazil in early February to be present for the ordination of the first Haitian Oblate. I was very much against his being ordained in Brazil and not shy about stating that publicly, but when all is said and one I guess I have to set aside my upset and simply be there for this historic event. I’m also happy to hear that the five Haitian novices presently doing their novitiate in Brazil will return to Haiti in late February to make their first vows. May that trend continue, that is, may the SA Province continue to move toward dealing with Haiti in a more wholesome way.

So that’s it for now. Blessings to all and happy Ground Hog Day! Tom

January 22, 2012

2012-01-22T13:37:00.000-08:00

January 22, 2012
This blog is entitled “Tom in Haiti” so I’m here to say that Tom is back in Haiti after a month away. It was a very full month and I had a chance to see lots of family and friends. What a joy! Also I want to say that many of you who read this blog sent money to help with the purchase of van that we will be needing pretty soon. It’s not near enough to getting down to looking for a vehicle but it’s a good start and I’m very grateful for your generosity. Thank you.

I spent the first few days in the US in New York City with Mary and Tom where I got to see my niece and nephew, their spouses and my “grand” nephews. I have a Haitian grandnephew, Gabriel, son of Kathleen and Hans. Actually his dad is Haitian/American, but because he’s never been to Haiti but his folks come from here, he doesn’t speak Creole. So I lovingly say I’m going to teach Gabriel Creole. “Mwen tonton Tom. Ou Gabriel!” (I’m Uncle Tom. You’re Gabriel!) He’s a very bright little boy not yet two and just starting to speak in sentences so I’m sure my Creole lesson falls on deaf ears, but it is fun. After I left but before the end of the year Steven and Jeannette had their second son, “James Riley” and a brother to Thomas McAnulty. Family can be such a gift!

Christmas I spent with my sister Ann in Niagara Falls. We had a great time and got to see lots of family and friends. The weather was mercifully mild – little snow and temps in the 40’s. After Christmas it was back to Saginaw for my annual physical and visits to the eye doctor and dentist. I had good results with my physical but nearly had a stroke in trying to order a six month supply of my medications instead of the usual three month refill. It meant calling the company who handles our prescriptions, getting put on hold for over 45 minutes, getting cut off and having to start over again, and on and on and on. I was either talking to recordings or to folks from somewhere in the world whose English was hard to understand. Everybody told me that that is pretty much standard practice nowadays. Spare me!

None of the Catholics I encountered liked the new translation of the Mass demanded by the Bishops starting the first Sunday of Advent. The priests I met liked it even less. For them it’s like learning to say Mass all over again. Thankfully the pastor of our parish in Niagara Falls where I celebrated Christmas Mass said, “Just use the old missal.” Bless him.

Another Mass I celebrated was for my cousin Stephanie Stirling and her fiancé John Darlak. That too was a joy. There were lots of people there for the wedding Mass. I’m told that it is often the case these days that people go to the reception but often skip the actual wedding. Not so for this wedding. There were lots of folks in the church and also there for the reception later. I gave the couple a crucifix as a gift, a symbol of what real love is all about. I’d gotten the crucifix from Tom Hagan who along with some of his volunteers had made it out of pieces of wood and broken concrete – ruins from the earthquake of two years ago. It was thus doubly symbolic of facing hardships that come along and doing our best to carry on when it’s not easy. Newlyweds, like all of us need to have reminders of that. By the way, you all know this but I was unaware of a famous couple who got married on TV only to divorce a month or two later. Whatever happened to “for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health until death”? Anyway, the wedding was a wonderful event. Vince and Gail, Stephanie’s loving parents and my “first cousins once removed” did so much to make the even just spectacular down to the littlest details like putting gift bags of goodies and drinks in the hotel rooms of the guests who stayed overnight. God bless them all!

I was in the US for the second anniversary of the earthquake and was interested in the coverage this got in the media. They talked about the thousands still living in tents which is true and the many scenes of rubble and debris still blocking streets which is also true but I heard some criticism of the NGO’s (Non-governmental Organizations) like the Red Cross and and of course Tom Hagan’s Hands Together. The word was that they are not working together or not spending their money well. That is certainly not true for Hands Together. All, and I mean all the people Tom has hired to teach in the schools, drill the wells, distribute the food, work in the clinics, etc, they are all Haitians. I also heard that there has been an effort to build “temporary housing” but there has to be a more far-reaching solution. That’s true in my opinion. Some group or groups are building little cabins 10’x10’ made out of untreated plywood which are a step up from a tent but not much of a step up. I’ve still never heard of a large overall plan to address the region of the earthquake and Port au Prince in particular. It seems to me that this is the moment, given all the money sent at the time of the earthquake to address the problems of the infrastructure of the city and the region. To plan new sewers, water and electrical systems, repair and plan news streets and highways, etc. but even as I write this I have to say what I said many times when talking to you and others when I was in the States, “I (we)can’t look at the ruins of Haiti with ‘American eyes’. I have to look at Haiti with ‘Haitian eyes’.” Haiti is Haiti with its history, its people and its culture. It is the Haitians who must solve these problems – given help from outside, yes, but Haiti has to be fixed by Haitians. I read that the new Archbishop of Port au Prince said about the same thing at the Mass on the second anniversary a few weeks ago.

As for community news, I just received word that the five Oblate Haitian novices will be coming back to Haiti to make their first vows. Halleluiah! Also Claudiomiro a Brazilian priest is going to come to live here, learn the language and be a part of the future Oblate Haitian presence. There is a plan to get another house where the scholastics (those with vows)will live with Claudio and Lionel, the first ordained Haitian Oblate. All that is good news, even very good news. I will be here with the postulants who have not yet made their novitiate or professed vows.

As for our property, I can report that the walls build to surround our plot of land are almost finished and paid for. The next step is the construction of a house of formation – rooms for twenty men, guest rooms, plus baths, common rooms, kitchen and dining room, a chapel, etc. All that is in God’s hands but I’m supposed to get that started somehow. Pray I get the help I need! Let it be said that from the very beginning of this project which began with the buying of the property in October of 2010 that I have total trust in God’s providence. If it’s to come about, it will be God’s work not mine. I just march to the beat of the Drummer, if you get my drift.

So, I’m back and all seems to be going well. I wish you all blessings on this new year that we have begun. Count on my love and prayers. Tom

Decenber 11, 2011

2011-12-11T10:02:00.001-08:00

“O come, O come Emmanuel
and ransom captive Israel,
who mourns in lonely exile here,
until the son of God appears…

This week has been one of real emotion. Monday, after waiting for over three months the seven postulants finally received their visas for Brazil. It has been a long wait and it’s not always been easy. The seven were great really. They thought they’d be leaving toward the end of September but no – no visas, despite the fact that they had all their documentation in before the end of August. Well, they had some extended time with their families, but they've all been here since the beginning of October. Mind you, it was not their idea to go to Brazil for their novitiate. It was a request coming down “from above,” from the provincial and his council. So they waited patiently for their visas. Several times we went to the consulate to check on the progress of their request and each time they were told to be patient. Well two weeks ago Monday we ran out of patience and I went to the consulate and “demanded” either one or the other – our documents back or the visas. On Wednesday they had the visas but there was more red tape. So last Monday we finally got the visas in hand.
The next thing was the news – again coming down from on high - that they should leave on Thursday, two days after getting their visas. There was no time to say goodbye to their families in person. It was rush, rush, rush! I felt bad and they felt bad but what can you do? The tickets were bought in Brazil. So Thursday at one o’clock we had a special dinner to say goodbye. At the same dinner, on the same day, we welcomed three of the scholastics who arrived from Brazil for six weeks of vacation. (They are part of the group who left right after the earthquake.) I had one of the men who was staying here say a few words to one of the men leaving, plus a word of welcome to the three individuals who just arrived. It seemed to work out well. Of course it is no surprise that I was “teary” but it was a surprise that many among the seven were also visibly in tears. I’m not sure but I think that it is very, very unusual for a Haitian man to cry, period! but especially to cry in public! Good for them. They are men after my own heart! Here are the words I spoke at the end in Creole. It was entitled, “Those who go, stay. Those who stay, go.”

“Soon after the foundation of the first Visitation convent (a new congregation founded by St Francis de Sales and St Jane de Chantal), there was a need to made other foundations in other cities. It was difficult for the first sisters to leave Annecy and to be separated one from the other. We have an expression which comes from that time and the expression is , ‘Those who go, stay. Those who stay, go.’

I am remembering those words today when our community is having the same experience. We have been together since the earthquake. We have shared our sufferings and the sufferings to all the others who were in the earthquake zone. During those days we literally helped feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, care for the sick and injured. It was a difficult time. It was a hard time. We slept under the stars until we got tents. During those days we saw some terrible things – people who lost an arm or people who lost a leg. Everybody knew at least one if not two or three people who died. We lost two of our brothers, Innocent and Rochelor. We made a real effort alongside Fr. Tom (Hagan) to help those in need, especially in Cité Soleil.

Thanks be to God and thanks be to the Sisters of Providence, we received the use of an SUV to help with our work. When courses started up again “in tents” in mid April we were there to join the other seminarians in a sign of solidarity with all Haitians who had suffered so greatly but who were beginning to build a new life. We were there.We had to leave our house in Tourgeau (a section of Port au Prince) and move back to Delmas 33 (our present residence) which needed to be thoroughly cleaned since had abandoned it after the quake.

All this is our history. We lived it together. Since then we have spent a year and a half in this house as postulants of the Oblates of St Francis de Sales. I want to say (and here came the tears big time) that I am very proud of each one of you, those of you who are leaving and those of you who are staying. YOU ARE VERY GOOD PEOPLE! My prayer for all of us is that we will continue to live the fidelity that we have had during this last year – fidelity to God’s will, fidelity to the Congregation of the Oblates of St Francis de Sales, fidelity to “Live Jesus!”.
Those who go, stay. Those who stay, go."

Just to let you all know that I am a sinful man, the emphasis on “and we were there!” was for the three who had just arrived, three of the seven who left right after the earthquake and who obviously “were not there.” What I said was true but maybe I could have found a more charitable way of saying what I did.

Not long after dinner we left for the airport and a tearful goodbye. Shortly after arriving home we got a phone call saying that the group could not leave because they did not have round trip tickets, just one way. Well, I headed back to the airport – it’s only 15 minutes away and when I got there the “problem” had been resolved and they could leave on the five o’clock flight. Thank God they arrived in Brazil the next morning safely but, alas, without their luggage. It was probably in Panama where they stopped and changed planes. I hope by now they have their bags.

AS for the three who arrived, one will stay and continue his studies in philosophy which he left after the earthquake. The other two will go back to Brazil in early February. We had “a talk” on Friday morning. I think they wanted to tell me that indeed they had made the right choice in choosing to leave right after the quake. Well, to put it briefly (though I was not brief on Friday morning) they did not convince me. It was their chose, yes. And they made it, yes. But it is a choice I clearly did not agree with and looking back I still do not agree with. This is all very ironic. You see, they know that if it were not for me, the Oblate Haitian foundation would have simply fallen apart. After the earthquake I was the only one here guiding the 19 aspirants and 12 postulants – insuring a transition during those troubled days. I’ve been here to purchase the land on which a Oblate house will be build. I’ve established a strong program for the postulants. They know all this and truly appreciate it. I think I’m something of a hero for them. But at the same time they know how strongly I feel about their decision to leave and I’m sure that annoys them, to say the least. So there we are, for better or for worse.

Now to something else, a subject I’m not delighted to approach but I think I must. You read above about the very very generous gift the Sisters of Providence of French-speaking Canada made to us in giving us the use of one of their vehicles since they returned to Canada to regroup after the earthquake. I understand their convent was unstable and their school was in ruins. Well, we’ve used their SUV for close to two years now and since the Sisters are back they’ve indicated that they will probably be needing it.That leaves us with simply our tap-tap which is an old Toyota pickup reconfigured to use as a vehicle for transporting our community to and from classes, etc. I hope it will hold up but we will really need a van shortly. Not a new one, of course, but a decent used one. There’s no money in our very tight budget to buy a vehicle so if any of you out there would like to help us to get a van I’d be very grateful. You can send anything at all to our Provincial Office noting that the enclosed is for Tom Moore’s work in Haiti. The provincial can send you a letter (for tax purposes) acknowledging your gift.The address is: Rev. Ken McKenna, OSFS/2056 Parkside Blvd/Toledo,OH 43620-1597. Well, there it is. I don’t like asking but we are in need. And please don’t feel obliged to send anything. I know all of you are hurting yourselves due to the weak economy and anyway, God will take care of us here. He/She’s been doing a good job up till now and I have faith that that will continue.

Thursday, “Si Dieu veut” (God willing) I’ll leave for the States for some rest and relaxation. The men have always managed to carry the ball while I'm away so I’m counting on the same for this trip. Actually with the seven who went to Brazil I’m depending on a new crew, but I’m sure they will do fine. So with that I’ll sign off wishing you all a blessed end to the Advent season, a holy and happy Christmas and a New Year filled with God’s blessings. Thank you for all you are to me. My heart is filled with gratitude. Peace and blessings, Tom

December 4, 2011

2011-12-04T13:16:00.000-08:00

I guess batting 500 first time out isn’t too bad but I don’t feel good. It’s all about the first homily I gave in Creole today, that is, the first “big” homily I’ve given in Creole. During weekday Masses for quite some time now I’ve been giving very brief homilies but today was the first time I got into the big leagues and gave a homily to a Sunday congregation. I had the first Mass today at six o’clock in Carradeux at the Chapel of the Holy Face of Jesus, an outlying chapel of our parish Ste Clare. I’ve been saying Mass there for about two months now and I thought I could try giving the homily in Creole. Usually one of the postulants preaches. Well I wrote a homily in English during the week and translated it into Creole. My teacher thought I had done a good job so I practiced and practiced my delivery for the Mass at Carradeux and then for the nine o’clock Mass at Ste Anne’s where the community always goes on Sunday. Tom Hagan presides there when he’s in town and I take his place when he is in the States like today. Well the first Mass went well. It is a tiny primitive chapel and the congregation is usually around thirty people – a good mix of men, women and children. There are no microphones to fool with and the atmosphere is warm and welcoming. I felt at ease and all went well.

Not so at Ste Anne’s. This is a very large chapel and the congregation is always a mix of about at least a hundred school kids – grades one through six or so. in addition there is a group of senior citizens which numbers about a hundred. There are a few supervisors for the kids but the kids often act up. I suspect they have no idea why they are there so like all kids they are bored and start talking among themselves. It doesn’t seem to bother the other preachers, they just go on. Well, today, given the circumstances, my “nervousness” level was high to begin with. Then there were the microphone problems and added to that lots of words in the text for this Sunday’s Mass which were tricky to pronounce. I don’t know about you but when I make one mistake or two in the beginning I get tense and that leads to more mistakes, and so it goes. What went well at the first place, did not go well at the second. Here I was preaching “hopefulness” and “patience” and not listening to my own words since I finished the Mass very discouraged. It’s all ego stuff. I was wanting to do well and and then knowing that I didn’t. “Be patient with all, especially with yourself.” St. Francis de Sales. I say that to a lot to people and fail to do it myself. All this reminds me of one of the Advent people the Church gives us to help us move through the Advent season. John the Baptist said “Repent, and confess your sins…” Well there are some (just some) of my sins.

The week was filled with ups and downs. Monday I went to the Brazilian consulate to see about the visas for the seven men going to Brazil for their novitiate who have been waiting since September for their visas to come through. After waiting over an hour I finally got into one of the offices and told the man in no uncertain terms, either one or the other: give us the visas or give us back our documents. We’re tired of waiting and have not more patience. Well the man said he’d get right on it. (Yah, sure!) On Wednesday we got a call that the visas were there in order and all we had to do was pay the fee for each visa which came to $575 American (that's for all seven). We paid it immediately and guess what? Still no visas in hand! In the meantime I wrote to Brazil telling them we had the visas and they could order the plane tickets. Well they got right on it and were saying the guys could leave this Tuesday, December 6. I had to write back and say no, wait; we don’t have the visas in hand. Thank God they hadn’t ordered the tickets and didn't have to change the date. It costs a hundred bucks to do that in the States. I don’t know if the same rule exists in Brazil. Anyway we are still waiting. It's up and down!

Yesterday I went to the youth group, Friends of St Francis de Sales. I used to go regularly but lately I’ve not been going. We took a tap-tap but this time it was not a made over pickup truck but a big panel truck. There were benches along the sides and people stood in the middle and hung on (for dear life) to a rope stretched the length of the compartment. I haven’t been in a tap-tap for some time now and it was a sort of refresher course. As we got underway a man started talking in a loud voice. At first I thought we were in for a sermon which often happens, but no, it was a man selling pharmaceuticals. He opened little boxes containing plastic strips of various pills, explaining which each was for: this is vitamin B 12 and it’s good for this or that, this is a pain reliever, etc. People reached over and gave him a dollar or two whatever he was asking. When there were no sales he looked in his knapsack for something else. Nobody seemed to be afraid that whatever he was selling might not be good for them, maybe because they didn’t buy enough of a dose to really harm themselves. You only bought a strip of six or eight pills and not the whole box. This is everyday life in Haiti for folks who have not car, meaning most everybody.

On the return trip we had to hustle to get on an already loaded tap-tap of the same kind. Young people, women with big sacks, men with tools, the whole gamut was represented. We ended our trip at the final destination point “Gerald Bataille”. From there it is an uphill climb of about a quarter to a half mile dodging all the street venders and the hustle and bustle of Saturday early evening traffic. Well, I’ve been exercising for over two months. I do a half hour each day up and down the hill our property here is located on. It’s a sensible workout and it gets my heart rate up to where it should be for an exercise period. Well it must be paying off since it started up the half mile climb at a good clip and arrived at our house well before either of the two postulants. Not too bad! Really I’m very grateful to God for the gift of my good health. I know it can disappear at any minute with an accident caused by a misstep or by some kind of attack or other. But while I have it I’m grateful for it and when I no longer have it I hope I’ll be thankful for what I have.

Now for an ending! Since I talked so much about the homily in Creole I'll give it to you in English. If you want out, stop reading here.

During Advent we wait!
We wait for lots of things.
We wait for an end to the cholera epidemic.
We wait for the day when everybody who wants work will get work.
We wait for violence and crime to end in our streets and in our neighborhoods.
We wait for a lot of things.

Advent is the season when we reflect on the act of waiting.

As we wait we remember our ancestors who waited too – in exile for 80 years. Yes, that is a long time to be far from you own land, a land given to you by God. But they were in exile, far from their home, powerless, discouraged, knowing that it was their own sin that was the cause for their exile. They waited.

As we wait we remember a young girl, a girl who is pregnant and who is living in Nazareth. She too waited. She waited for the birth of the baby within her. She waited in silence. She too was powerless but she was not discouraged. She had hope.

As we wait we remember a man God called to prepare the way for the Messiah. He too waited. He waited in hope like the girl in Nazareth.

During Advent the Church gives us guides to help us as we wait for the three comings of the Lord.

We wait to celebrate again the coming of Jesus in Bethlehem at Christmas.

We wait for Jesus as he comes to us in our ordinary lives, our everyday lives, when Jesus comes to us in the folks who are hungry, in those who are thirsty, in those who are sick, in strangers, in those who are in prison.

And we wait for Jesus’ coming in glory at the end of time.

Just who are these guides that the Church gives us to help us during this season of Advent as we wait?

The first one is Isaiah. He was a prophet who lived in the time of the exile. He preached hope in a time of no hope and faith in a time of no faith.
He tells us we cannot know the mind of God. We must wait in hope and confidence. God is faithful says Isaiah. God will free us from our exile.
We should remember this message. After the earthquake during this time of suffering, of violence and of crime we must wait in hope. We cannot be discouraged. We cannot lose our faith.

Listen to Isaiah. He can guide us during this time of Advent

Another guide for us is Mary, Jesus’ mother. She teaches us that we must wait in silence. We should find time in our very busy day for prayer,time to thank God and to renew our confidence in God. We must find time to help those in need as she found time to help her cousin Elizabeth who was old and who was also pregnant.

Listen to Mary. She too can guide us in the season of Advent.

And finally we have a third guide, John the Baptist. He teaches us that we must confess our sins, that we must avoid evil and do good.John the Baptist speaks of purification and penance. We are all sinners. We all need to confess our sins and to do penance.

Listen to John the Baptist in this time of Advent.

And so, we wait. We need to pray for one another that our Advent will be full of hope in the face of our difficulties. That during Advent God will give us the strength to help those in need. And that this season of Advent will lead us to everlasting life. (“pral nennen nou nan la vie ki pap jam fini an”).

Okay, it’s all done! That last phrase in Creole picks up an oft used phrase in the liturgy. So with that I leave you. Next Sunday is my last one here in Haiti for awhile. On the 15th I will leave for the States, God willing.

May your week be blessed. Tom

November 27, 2011

2011-11-27T12:26:00.000-08:00

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving with good food, friends and family. Here I lifted you all up to the Lord, thankful for you, my family and friends. Recently I read something that I’ve read before and that is, what a grace and blessing friends are. The love shared by friends opens us up the an awareness of God’s love in that we can say,if this love I am experiencing in my friends is so good, so wonderful, how much more wonderful will it be to experience God’s love in its fullness when we get to the other side. As kids often say, “I can hardly wait!”

This morning at the six o’clock Mass we celebrate at the Chapel of the Holy Face of Jesus, an outlying chapel of our parish, a girl about 12 years old was brought to church carried,yes carried by her mom. I’ve seen the girl before. She has a lovely face but when you look at her arms they are like twigs –so very skinny. The girl is very fragile. I’m told she has some kind of health condition. After Mass we gave her a ride home in our SUV. I asked her before all the guys had gotten into the car if she understood my Creole. She said yes. That was good news. I’m getting up my courage to give a homily in Creole. In fact I want to do it in the next two weeks before I come home at Christmas. I’ve been giving a brief introduction to Mass in Creole, nothing much, just a few sentences. It was that and my recitation of the Mass prayers that I asked the girl about. Shortly after, on the way home after we had dropped off the girl, I asked Osias, our driver and my right hand man, about my introductory remarks and he said they were well done, in good Haitian Creole (Kreyòl Ayisen). So I asked him, is there another kind of Creole and he smiled as though giving away a secret. It turns out there is “Kreyòl blan” (“white Creole”) or, roughly translated, Creole spoken by white guys – guys like me. I laughed. I reminded him that I had learned something else this week in Haitian when I was with him. On the back of a mini bus was written “Lavi ti nèg pa fasil” (“Life for the little guy is not easy.”) You may have noticed the use of the words “blan” which comes from the French “blanc” meaning “white” and the word “neg” which comes from the French word “nègre” which Larousse translates as “Negro”(and not far from the “n” word which I hope is vanishing from our American vocabulary). Well in Creole “blan” can mean simply “foreigner” and “neg” means man, male or even “guy”. Neither word is racist. All this I find fascinating. Not long ago I was warned by two of my siblings about “going easy” when getting into “touchy” areas such as race or native religion, etc. with the Haitians since I am clearly white and not Haitian or black. So I brought this up to my teacher Anacréon. I told him what I had said and what I had talked about and he said, ”You’re simply learning about our culture, Père Tom, and that fine.” I thought that was the case and that I was not being offensive, but I was happy to be reassured.

Here’s a little anecdote which is true. When I was at Our Lady Gate of Heaven Parish in Detroit in the mid 1970’s, the parish school sponsored a workshop for all the parish staff on racism. It was given by a team which included a white man whom we learned was originally from the South. In the course of the workshop we also found out that this same man had been ostracized from his family because of his work for racial and social justice. During one of the sessions he said, “If anybody calls me a racist…” Now let me stop right there. If I were that man and somebody called me a racist I’m sure I’d say, “Just wait one minute here buddy! Don’t call me a racist! I’ve spent a lot of my life working for racial justice. I’ve even lost my family because of this work!” Well, that would be me. It was not that man. What did he say? “I someone calls me a racist, I say, ‘thank you for pointing that out to me. Show me how I am racist so I can erase it from my life.” Wow, those words have always stuck with me. Here was a man who was steeped in racial justice, a man who had paid a high price to follow his ideals and yet he could admit after all that that there may in fact be hidden racism within his head or his heart. So while I feel I am not a racist I must always examine myself to make sure there is not some hidden racism (or sexism, or other “ism”) hidden somewhere in my being. It was an excellent workshop and a great lesson.

Today is the day in the Catholic Church throughout the English speaking world that the text of the Mass was officially changed or “updated” or whatever the term is. It has been the cause of a huge amount of anger and upset for many priests and laypeople. They feel the process was all wrong and that the final product is a very very poor translation of the original Latin text. If you know me, as most all of you do, you know which side I’m on. I’m against the new version and I’ve signed petitions asking for it to be “marketed” in different places, different parishes of different sizes and makeup, etc., all of course to no avail. Rome and the “go along” bishops of the USA would hear of no such action and simply went ahead and forced this very labored text on an unsuspecting laity. Well yesterday I read an article on this subject. It’s pretty long but I think it’s worth reading if you’re interested in the topic. So at the end I’ll add it to this week’s blog. If it does not interest you simply stop reading at my closing which is now.

Blessings to you all and may you Advent season be blessed. Count on my prayers and keep my in yours, Tom

Erasure of Vatican II extends to new Missal—affecting 400 Millions

The three foremost developments in the Roman Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council committed it to engage the modern world are the largest exodus in 2000 years for lack of such engagement, the sex abuse scandal’s betrayal of children, and the relentless Vatican campaign to erase the Council. By 1997 this infidelity to Vatican II had led dozens of European theologians to judge the Vatican in schism in its rejection of collegiality: the Holy Spirit speaks to only one person.

Emblematic of this rejection of the highest Church authority was the Congregation of Divine Worship’s presumption to delay approval of the English-speaking Bishops’ Conferences’ (ICEL’s) excellent new Missal translation, l5 years in the making (available at misguidedmissal.com), to replace the hurried 1973 post-Council translations, and then, in 2001, to reject it. These translations had been approved in 1998 by all eleven English-speaking conferences, exercising authority the Council granted solely to the bishops’ conferences, by a 99.9 per cent Council vote. The CDW’s role was to check adherence to procedures.

The Council’ liturgical constitution calls for translations of “noble simplicity . . . short, clear [sentences] . . .within the people’s powers of comprehension,” that lead to “full conscious, and active participation in the liturgical celebrations” by “all the faithful.” The norms had emerged from over 50 years of liturgical scholarship.

The CDW’s Liturgiam Authenticam dumped Council norms and abandoned the universal use of dynamic equivalence in quality translation. For English prayers it required literal word for word translations from the New Latin Vulgate, even to grammar, syntax, punctuation, and capitalization, and through sacred vocabulary to evoke transcendence and mystery. One moment’s Latin vernacular translation, falsely claimed to have been endorsed by the Council of Trent (which occurred before it), with its now archaic sexist language, should now be the sole basis for 21st century translations in all languages!

The CDW then claimed right of approval of an all-new team of translators to work in secrecy and called an end to decades of ecumenical collaboration to produce common texts. Notre Dame theologian-historian-chant scholar Peter Jeffery calls LA “the most ignorant statement on liturgy ever issued by a modern Vatican congregation.”

The norms promised failure. Secrecy limited consultation; the substitute team lacked expertise. The result is a big step backward. The texts occasioned 10,000 proposed amendments and a new Vatican review group, Vox Clara, continued to make numerous changes even after bishops’ conferences, if reluctantly and under pressure, had given approval. Glaring errors remain—sentence fragments, redundancies, a cue treated as a prayer. The first Eucharistic prayer ends with “we offer you firstly” without a “secondly.” Profusis,, meaning “overflowing,” is translated as “overcome,” beclouding a joyous scene.

Style failures abound. One Eucharistic prayer sentence has 82 words. One Easter Vigil prayer cannot be readily understood. “When supper was ended, he took the cup” becomes “”He took the precious chalice in his holy and venerable hands,” three needless adjectives too many. Is anything gained by saying “incarnate of the Virgin Mary” and “begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father” that warrants sacrifice of clarity and availability to all? Bishop Donald Trautmann, a former U.S. ICEL chair, views “consubstantial,” “chalice,” “born ineffably of the inviolate Virgin,” etc., as reducing understanding rather than bringing Catholics closer to God. Apparently, no one remembered that these texts are to be heard, not read.

Ideology deep-sixed this fine 1997 Collect for the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time: “Almighty and eternal God, Whose bounty is greater than we deserve or desire. Pour out upon us your abundant mercy; Forgive the things that weigh upon our consciences. And enrich us with blessings for which our prayers dare not hope.” All new ECEL prayers were discarded.

Why a wooden loyalty to a single undistinguished Latin translation at the price of clarity and intelligibility? Liturgists see traditionalist resistance to clear, simple prose in liturgy; hostility to inclusive language, and an imperious rejection of Council collegiality. Forget prayability and those for whom English is a second language, accented speakers, and children.

Bishop Arthur Serratelli, current US Bishops’ CDW chair, identifies dissatisfaction with these translations as rising from contemporary individualism which rejects institutional authority in favor of freedom--do-it -yourself liturgical originality, creativity. and diversity. But innovative excesses and efforts to curb them have not been associated with the 1997 translations nor these. Complaints have focused on the illicit imposition of translations at odds with spoken English prayer.

Writing in the July 15 Commonweal, Rita Ferrone sees the thrust of the CDW and Liturgiam Authenticam as the basis for disapproval. Vatican II reforms “that invited aggiornamento and engagement with the world” are sacrificed for a “liturgy reimagined as an event taking place in some sacral space outside of our world, rather than the beating heart of a world made new.” The shadows of John Paul II, who extended the old Latin rite over near-unanimous episcopal objection, and Prof Joseph Ratzinger, who faulted lack of doctrinal precision in the first vernacular translations, figure in answering why.
When Anthony Rupp, a conservative Benedictine liturgy scholar realized that an unsatisfactory translation was being imposed in violation of the English-speaking bishops’ authority and tempered his promotion, he was dismissed. He now observes that when he thinks of that process and “then of Our Lord’s teachings on service and love and unity. . .I weep.”

The Irish Association of Catholic Priests reject the translation as “archaic, elitist, and obscure, and not in keeping with the natural rhythm, cadence, and syntax of the English language,” a style so convoluted “that it will be difficult to read the prayers in public.” LA actually declares linguistic norms detrimental to the Church’s mission!

Others fault abandonment of the first principle of effective translation into English, to use Anglo-Saxon rather than Latinate words whenever possible and the straitjacket of literal translation in obscuring meaning . The most criticized literal Vatican translation, “Christ died for many,” illustrates; the Latin “the many” is a nuanced way to say “all”!

Prof. Jeffery faults the apparently unqualified translators as “not familiar with the treatment of Greek and Semitic words in the Latin scriptures and liturgies,” “unacquainted with the history of the Credo and the Kyrie,” “use Aquinas as a source of proof texts without regard for what he was actually saying,” “do not understand the relationship between the New Vulgate and the traditional Vulgate,” “seem unaware of the other Latin Bible texts used in the Roman tradition,” and “show no sign of ever having read any patristic exegesis” etc. “The tradition is bursting with vitality,” he observes, “LA is rigid with prohibitions.” “Why would anyone choose the thorns over the roses?” he asks. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

New First Sunday of Advent Collect 1997 Opening Prayer
Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, Almighty God,
the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ strengthen the resolve of your faithful people
with righteous deeds at his coming, to prepare for the coming of your Christ
so that, gathered at his right hand, by works of justice and mercy,
they may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom. so that when we go forth to meet him
Through the Lord Jesus Christ your Son . . . he may call us to sit at his right hand
And possess the kingdom of heaven.
. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ. . . .

New Postcommunion 1997 Postcommunion
May those mysteries, O Lord, Lord,
in which we have participated, Grant that in our journey through this passing world
profit us, we pray we may learn from these mysteries
for even now, as we walk amid passing things, to cherish even now the things of heaven
you teach us by them to love the things of heaven and cling to the treasures that never pass away.
And hold fast to what endures. We ask this in the name of Jesus, the Lord
Through Christ our Lord
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The new translation offers some felicities. Ferrone notes the response, “It is right and just,” at the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer, which is crisp, easily understood, and avoids the present sexist pronoun. “From the rising of the sun to its setting” is restored in Eucharistic Prayer 3. The prayer before Communion harks again to the Latin “I am not worthy to have you under my roof” but using the Latin subjunctive---“that you should enter under my roof”” strips meaning and poetry.

The Vatican-directed translations will be introduced on the first Sunday of Advent following promotion as a “precious gift” that “delves more deeply into the mystery of Christ” and better reflects the faith (without explaining how). Extensive promotions, from the USCCB to parish bulletins ignore the excellent 1997 translations scuttled by the Vatican and hijacking of translations authority. They compare only the hurried1973 and present translations; ignore serious inadequacies and wide disapproval, and some lob off these translations as if the licit 1997 ones or claim them they further Council objectives they reject. Neither do they mention near uniform reports from the premature South Africa use of the translations that reveal “opposition bordering on outrage,” leading to calls to reconsider use elsewhere and pleas for letters to bishops.

When Cardinal Francis George bullied ICEL to change its norms “or be finished” (Archbishop Denis Hurley chided him for being uncollegial), the fix was in, the bishops’ powers soon taken. Now, Rome claims a right to make its own translations.
Fortunately, the heavy Vatican hand has, so far, fallen only on some 400 million English-speaking Catholics.

william.slavick@maine.edu William H. Slavick

A retired English professor, Bill Slavick studied liturgy under scholars who contributed to the Second Vatican Council liturgical constitution and at St. Bernard Abbey. He recently attended a seminar with Anthony Rupp, OSB, on the Missal translations.

November 20, 2011

2011-11-20T15:09:00.000-08:00

It’s the last Sunday of the liturgical year, the feast of Christ the King. Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the USA and next Sunday we begin Advent. I can hardly believe it. Pretty soon I’ll be headed to the States for some r and r. I’m looking forward to it. The only glitch is that the seven men headed for Brazil still have no visas from the Brazilian embassy. The end result may be that they’ll be refused and then what? I hope they can begin the process again but this time apply as “students” and not as “religious”. But they’ve gotten hints that they may not be able to do that. And to think that if they had applied as "students" they would have left in early October. What a mess. I thinking of asking for permission to have their novitiate here (my original request which was refused)so we’ll see. Dealing with the administration of the South American/Caribbean Province is very frustrating. More on that later.

This week I got one of the thousands of “group e-mails” that get sent by friends and others thinking that “This is cute” or “You’ll like this” etc. Well this one I did like. It is a quote from Steven Colbert. I’ve heard he is a comedian who assumes a very conservative stance as part of his act, but in reality he mocks many ideas of the right. Anyway, here’s an example:

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we’ve got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition — and then admit that we just don’t want to do it. — Steven Colbert
I thought it was funny.

Well I’ve been wasting time trying to think of something to write, things like what happened this week or my observations on one thing or another but nothing is coming. I wrote above that dealing with the Administration of the SA/C Province is frustrating, well it got more than “frustrating” this week. Thursday at the end of an e-mail from one of the Haitian scholastics who is Brazil continuing his studies – one of the seven who chose to leave the country after the earthquake – he let me know that the first Haitian Oblate is to be ordained a priest on February 12 in BRAZIL! My heart was broken. I have tried to convince the Provincial and his Assistant when they were here in August that this ordination must take place in Haiti. It is so very symbolic. It says the Oblates of St Francis de Sales are here in Haiti and intend to stay. Buying property is one thing. Even building a house of formation is another, but we need more. We need real, living Haitians to make there their vows here and to be ordained here.

On top of all this I have heard not one word from the Provincial or his council about this decision. It was only indirectly that I learned this information. In spite of all my pleading and Tom Hagan’s as well, they are just going ahead and doing what they want. So, long story short, you friend Tom is not a happy camper these days. What is ironic is that I just finished Ravier’s life of St. Francis de Sales our patron and model. He was so given to do the will of God. I’m fond of saying, “What is, is” and it’s up to me, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to discern just what God is saying in the events of everyday. Well, what about this situation? It seems to me that the Haitian point of view is being completely overlooked. As for me, I feel God sent me here. I did not know why but since the earthquake especially, I seem to be the one appointed to hold the Oblate foundation together since all the professed Oblates and the Brazilian Oblate superior all left the country. So I feel I have a role to play and that role is to speak up for Haiti and the Haitian foundation. I’m not to sit back and simply go along with any decision that comes out of Brazil. The Postulants can’t speak up for themselves. Like the postulants of any religious congregation they are at the bottom of the ladder and have no voice. So I’m their voice and with Tom Hagan I’m aware of the situation here in Haiti. We know what’s going on. The Brazilians simply do not. It’s as simple as that. I had to swallow hard last August when the Provincial and his Assistant, over our pleas, said that the seven postulants had to go to Brazil for their novitiate and not make it here in Haiti. (Isn’t it ironic that the Brazilian government seems to be at odds with the Brazilian Oblates’ plan?) Anyway, enough! I’m in the process of contacting the “powers that be” to get this decision turned around. Wish me luck.

I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving. Keep me in your prayers. You are in mine. Tom

November 13, 2011

2011-11-13T16:21:00.000-08:00

I’m starting this on Sunday late afternoon but from the way our electricity has been acting up, I may not finish it today. We’ll see. It’s all part of living in the Third World. You go for stretches with electricity and running water (which depends on having electricity) and then, all of a sudden for no reason you have none. You’re at the mercy of the electric company. Of course there are other problems as well. For example we found out that there were problems with the transformer on the utility pole outside our house and our house was not able to accept the electricity coming from the company. That had to be looked into and “fixed”. Get this! I was up at 5:20 this morning and immediately realized that there was no electricity. So I get ready to leave for a Mass at a chapel about ten miles from here and when I go out to our car it’s not there. The guys who know about our electricity and the attendant problems had called the man they are in touch with who checks out our electric problems. They got him out of bed and picked him up to come and see what this problem was all about. I find that amazing. You just call some guy, tell him you’ll pick him up and expect he’ll say yes and come to your place to work on your electric problem on a Sunday morning. Amazing! And another thing, it doesn’t cost a fortune. I can find out, but I’ll bet we paid that man no more than twenty bucks max. The word they use for any so called “professional” who deals with a specific problem – it could be an electric problem or a plumbing problem, etc. is “boss”. I think it’s both a Creole word and in French it’s “le boss”. One of the guys pointed out to me that these “bosses” are not necessarily “professionals,” in fact they are not professionals, but just anybody who knows more about the subject than you do. I keep learning and learning and learning and I find the “system” amazing. It keeps things going when there is no real overall system in place. God bless the Haitians and the people of the Third World. There is a resourcefulness about them and a resilience that has me in awe.

The weeklong visit of Fr. Claludio, the Brazilian Oblate was a big success. He didn’t speak French but he jumped right into the midst of our community and showed lots of enthusiasm. I liked him and I think he is planning to learn French in Brazil so he can come here and help out with our Oblate Haitian Foundation. Anyway, I hope so.

Not much other news. Again the seven going to Brazil for their novitiate have still not received their visas. I met with them last evening and I’ve decided to find a Portuguese teacher and get them started here on learning the language. If there is not progress by December 1st, I’m going to write and ask permission if we can have the novitiate here. I don’t know if that will fly but we’ll see. This week I also wrote to my friend Maurice Riguet, my Oblate classmate from Fribourg who is in Benin, Africa. I asked him for a copy of the First Profession of Vows ceremony in French so when the five presently in Brazil making their novitiate come back in March we’ll be prepared. Again I hope the Province does not go back on its word to have the profession ceremony here in Haiti. We should also have the first Haitian Oblate ordained here in Haiti. He was ordained a deacon in Brazil where he has been with the others since the earthquake. Some are scheduled to return now that their theology studies are finished. I wish I had more definite information but I just don’t and there has been no change in that either.

Guess that’s it for now. Thinking of you all and sending blessings and good wishes from Haiti. Tom

November 6, 2011

2011-11-06T12:49:00.000-08:00

About a week or so ago I finished the book “Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,” by Eric Metaxas. What a book - five hundred ninety-one pages and everyone well written and informative! I’d heard of Bonhoeffer before and his book “The Cost of Discipleship” but I never read it and I only knew he was a Lutheran pastor and theologian. Well, he was much more than that. This book details his life which was lived between 1906 and 1945 and parallels the rise of Nazi Germany. Dietrich Bonhoeffer possessed a brilliant intellect which he came by honestly from his scholarly parents and ancestors and he was a saint seeing clearly what was happening in Germany after its humiliating defeat in the First World War, and the country’s quick acceptance of Hitler who promised to restore Germany to its former glory. The story is amazing. Here was a country of very faithful and practicing Lutherans and Catholics, people I saw as not unlike ourselves in the United States today, and yet who step by step allowed themselves to lead into doing unspeakably horrible things like illuminating a race of people, the Jews, and all physically and mentally challenged persons. How could that happen? How could good Christians, good church-going people allow such atrocities to take place? From what I read the answer is simple. First of all it appears that the “religion of the people” (Lutherans and Catholics as well) was only skin deep. People were going through the motions but there was no depth to their faith in Christ. How shocking and is that true of us today? Can we “overlook” things our government does - bad things, like dropping napalm on civilians, all the while thinking “what can I do”? Can we close our eyes to horrible things and be lead by the cries of certain leaders who tell us we’re America and we’re right and we’re number one and what we say goes, no matter what! If it could happen to seemingly good and honest people like the Germans of the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s it can happen to us. Really this book frightened me. It is so clear. Going back to Bonhoeffer, with his study of Scripture and theology which he took to heart – for him this was not just an intellectual pursuit, it was an openness to God’s Word and to God’s teachings and commandments in the Bible. Bonhoeffer had friends and loved ones who were Jewish or who were Christians but of Jewish stock – one married his twin sister. So from the very outset of the beating of the drums by Hitler and his band to undermine the Jews and finally destroy them, Bonhoeffer had none of it. He wrote and spoke against such policies to fellow Lutheran clergymen and scholars. And what kind of response did he get? “Oh, don’t worry, this won’t go very far.” He railed against all these tactics and was considered a “radical theologian”. Being a “good citizen”, following the government, being a “loyal German” are deeply embedded in the German blood, so Bonhoeffer’s words were hard to hear and easy to dismiss. Anyway I’ll end this rant with some quotes from the book.But let me also say to finish that Bonhoeffer was involved in a plot to murder Hitler which failed and for which he was executed two weeks before the fall of Berlin and the end of the war in Europe.

From Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxa

“Such people (meaning the ordinary, good, church-going people in Germany at the time) neither steal, not murder, nor commit adultery, but do good according to their abilities. But… they must close their eyes and ears to the injustice around them. Only at the cost of self-deception can they keep their private blamelessness clean from the stains of responsible action in the world. In all that they do what they fail to do will not let them rest. They will either be destroyed by this unrest, or they will become the most hypocritical of all Pharisees.” (Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, p. 470.)

“The solution (the one we all need to heed in our everyday lives) is to do the will of God, to do it radically and courageously and joyfully. To try to explain “right” and “wrong” – to talk about ethics – outside of God and obedience to his will is impossible. ‘Principles are only tools in the hands of God; they will soon be thrown away when they are no longer useful.’ We must look only at God, and in him we are reconciled to our situation in the world. If we look only to principles and rules, we are in a fallen realm where our reality is divided from God”. (Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, p. 471)

“As long as Christ and the world are conceived as two realms (this is the great tool we use when we say things like, “This is business, or this is government and it’s different from Church.) bumping against and repelling each other, we are left with only the following options. Giving up on reality as a whole, either we place ourselves in one of the two realms, wanting Christ without the world or the world without Christ – and in both cases we deceive ourselves…There are not two realities, but only one reality, and that is God’s reality revealed in Christ in the reality of the world. Partaking in Christ, we stand at the same time in the reality of God and in the reality of the world. The reality of Christ embraces the reality of the world in itself. The world has no reality of its own independent of God’s revelation in Christ… The theme of two realms, which has dominated the history of the church again and again, is foreign to the New Testament.” (I love that last line. Saying the world is one thing and Church and the Bible are another is just plain wrong even though the Church has taken this route in the past.) Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, p. 469) (Emphases and comments are, of course, mine.)
So that’s my take on the Bonhoeffer book. It was truly an eye-opening read.

Our visit with Father General and his assistant was pretty lackluster. He was here for three days and he came to visit our house for dinner. We took him to see the new property but that was about all. I tried in a discussion to tell him about our problem of communication with the South American/Caribbean Province and its administration but he simply said he was having a similar problem with Fr. Alberto the new Provincial. So much for support and understanding. Aldino, the General is a Brazilian and a member of the Province so I guess I shouldn’t have looked for more.

On Wednesday a Brazilian Oblate priest, Claudio came for a week’s visit. I didn’t know the nature of his visit but I’m thinking that possibly he is discerning if he could come here and help out with our formation program. He is a real nice guy, about 35; he looks athletic and seems to be enthusiastic. He doesn’t speak any French but he just jumped into the community and is trying his best to communicate. In addition to his native tongue Portuguese, he speaks Spanish so we have some guys who are pretty good in Spanish and they’ve been serving as translators. I like the man and if he is trying to discern if God is calling him here to Haiti to help with our Oblate foundation,I hope he has the courage to follow through. I’ve tried to be very welcoming. Of course there is our “Tower of Babel” problem, which is language! I was learning Spanish when I was in the States and making some progress but since being here and speaking French all day, plus learning Creole, my Spanish has left me. Now when I try to speak Spanish everything gets mixed up, especially the Creole and the Spanish. My tongue is tied up in knots. But we still have our hands and facial expressions to communicate.

I guess that’s it for this week. My love to all. Let’s keep praying for one another. Tom

.)

October 30, 2011

2011-10-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Halloween already and I heard there was a big snow storm on the east coast. Time is moving right along. With the talk of Halloween somebody wrote me asking about “zombies” which are supposed to inhabit this land. Well, that made me smile. Early on in my stay here in Haiti got talking about zombies for some reason or other. They are the scary creatures in horror movies who supposedly were secretly injected with a poison and appeared to be dead. Since there was no detectable pulse the person was assumed dead, given a funeral and buried. That night the body was dug up, some sort of antidote administered, and now the person is part of the “living dead” becoming some sort of servant to the person who poisoned them. Well, of course, I think this is all nuts and I laugh at it. It makes good horror movies but really, I mean come on! Well my views are not shared by the Haitians. Now these guys are bright. They’re studying philosophy and theology and yet none of them when asked for a yes or no answer to the question, “Do you really believe in zombies?” will say “no”. Mind you their “yes” is somewhat “iffy” but they can’t say “no”. So I go on, "Did you ever see a zombie?" “Well,” comes the answer, “I haven’t, but my grandmother or uncle or somebody somewhere in this or that province did!” I find this hilarious. Of course this touches into Voodoo which is real here. It is now an officially recognized religion. Part of their beliefs concern the spirit world taking over the body of a living person. That’s not exactly the same as becoming a zombie but it’s close. So you judge for yourself. Now if it is true and Halloween is upon us with all the spirits of darkness present maybe my body will be snatched. Let’s wait and see. (This is like coming attractions at the movies!)

This week we await the visit of our Superior General, Fr. Aldino. He making a visit of the Wilmington/Philadelphia Province of which Tom Hagan is a member. So he's flying over from Florida for a three day visit starting tomorrow. Tom has already pointed out the irony of their arrival being on Halloween. On Tuesday, November 1st a Brazilian Oblate, Fr. Claudio, the assistant novice director is coming for a weeklong visit. Exactly why he is coming is unknown to me but I’m sure we’ll find out. I’ve asked if he speaks French or English but have not received an answer.

Today at Mass at Ste Anne’s we celebrated the third anniversary of the youth group Friends of St Francis de Sales. It was a very lively Mass. Next Saturday, their usual meeting day, they will have a party. I’ve been a part of the group since its beginning and I used to go each Saturday but lately I only stop in maybe once every six weeks. They are fine young people.

I guess that’s all for now. You get a break this week and don’t have to read on and on and on. Blessings to all and Happy Halloween! Tom

October 23, 2011

2011-10-23T16:34:00.000-07:00

“Well, it’s been a quiet week here in Lake Woebegone…” to quote Garrison Keeler. It started with some rather frantic e-mails from Brazil wanting to know if there was any information at our end about the visas. The answer was no, which caused them to re-contact their people in Brasilia to see what the problem was and all to no satisfaction. Finally on Friday a call came from the Brazilian embassy here that sounded promising and the seven postulants all went to see if indeed it was a call to give them their visas. That too was disappointing but maybe on Monday we’ll get good news. The poor guys who never wanted to go to Brazil for a novitiate in the first place have been hanging around with nothing to do. They’ve been a great help in that they have filled in to do the cooking and helping with the dishes, etc. but still I think they feel like – let’s get this show on the road. They will spend the time from their arrival till February learning Portuguese to be ready for a “Brazilian novitiate”. So I hope Monday will be the day the ordeal will be settled.

Thursday and Friday the CHR(Conference des Haitiens Religieux) the conference of Haitian Religious – both men and women religious met for a general meeting. I was glad to go and participate representing us the Oblates of St Francis de Sales here in Haiti. The first day was in French and easier to follow; the second in Creole. The opening Mass was said by the Papal Nuncio. He is from the Philippines. I thought the Mass was a disaster. We had no worship aids to follow the singing and the Nuncio spoke for over 45 minutes. That was bad enough but the sound system was poor and he has a heavy accent so between the two I was pretty lost. Also, papal representatives should be models of good liturgy. I don’t care what he was talking about I’m sure it was not a homily, breaking open the Word of God. It was a talk or a conference. That’s not the place for a talk or a conference. Let him give a homily and at the end of Mass let him give a talk but don’t mix the two. Anyway, nobody asked me. The meetings that followed were pleasant and somewhat informative for me. I’m glad I went.

Friday afternoon I gave my first “chapter” or conference of the school year. Since there’s not much other news I’ll share with you what I said.
I began by saying that the official Church, the popes, bishops, Episcopal Conferences all talk about “the option for the poor”. I asked what that meant for us personally and as a community. I said it had to mean at least for us religious and future religious that we must be up-to-date about and engaged in the situation of the poor both here in Haiti and in the world. Poverty touches the question of human rights and it’s the duty of the government to help the poor to help themselves – to furnish clean drinking water, sufficient food, basic medical care and education for the children. So if we want to be good citizens, and the Lord asks that of us, we can’t go around saying, “That’s not my problem.” It is your problem and among other things you should be voting for candidates who are committed to passing laws and developing programs to help the poor. I said religious should be activists, not revolutionaries, but activists, not politicians but well informed citizens who can educate the laity about the teaching of the Church on social justice and who can encourage the laity to get involved in the cause of social justice. (I mentioned this because you may remember a former priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president of Haiti some time back and he was not successful. Mixing priesthood and politics directly is not a good idea. But getting behind lay folks and encouraging them to become candidates, etc. is a better way of going about things.) All this I said is part of the call of the Church that each of us have in our hearts, as Jesus had in his heart, an “option for the poor.”
Then I went into what Francis de Sales taught about poverty in his book Introduction to the Devout Live, a book written for laypeople primarily. In reviewing this I was touched by what I found. He says in Chapter 15 of Part III, “But I, Philothea, would put into your heart both riches and poverty, both a great care and a great contempt for temporal things.” And later in the same chapter, “Deprive yourself, then, frequently of some part of your property, by giving it to the poor with a willing heart; for to give away what we have is to impoverish ourselves in proportion as we give, and the more we give the poorer we become.” And this part I love, “Love the poor and poverty and you shall become truly poor, … now if you love the poor, be often in their company, be glad to see them in your home and visit them in theirs. Talk with them and be pleased to have them near you in church, in the streets and elsewhere. Be poor in conversing with them, speaking to them as their companion; but be rich in assisting, by imparting your goods to them since you have more abundance.” That reminded me of something Mother Teresa said, “Don’t talk about the poor, talk to the poor.”
I then reminded them of the aim and the reason for the Oblate foundation in Haiti which is, as stated by Mike Moore the first provincial of the South American Province, “to work with and for the poor.” I talked about the discussions Tom Hagan and I had with Father Alberto the new Provincial, and with Father Leoclides his assistant in August. Some of the things said were: “We should be open to the present moment, to the present needs wherever they are and where the poor are, that’s where we should be. I asked them if they were ready to be part of this vision.
When I was finished I invited them to get into groups of three and answer the following questions: (1) What does “the option for the poor” mean to me? (2) What is the importance of our celebrating our community Mass on Sunday at Ste Anne’s Chapel in Cite Soleil? (3) Are you at ease with the aims of the Oblates in Haiti? How do you see them being accomplished? It was a pretty good discussion. I said that making what is theoretical practical is the key to it all. We can talk forever about poverty, etc. but getting our hands dirty by actually working with and for the poor is another thing.
So that’s how it went. Another week and I hope a week of growth and openness to the Lord’s call. Blessings to all. Tom

October 16, 2011

2011-10-16T14:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, October 15 2011, was the 45th anniversary of my ordination. Forty-five years, wow! That’s a long time. The oldest postulant here is 43 and they kid him about being “the old man” and he wasn’t even born when I was ordained. It was in Annecy,France at the Basilica of St. Francis de Sales 45 years ago. I had already been in Europe three years with the French province studying theology at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. That’s where I learned my French. I used to kid people in the States that most people say, “I studied French (or German or Spanish) for three years or so and I can read it and write it but I can’t speak it.” I, on the other hand, would say, “I can speak French but I can’t read it or write it!” Well, that wasn’t quite true, I could read some and write some, but mostly my gift was for speaking. I think I always liked “mimicking” sounds (and people too). So when I got the hang of it, I mimicked people speaking French and it worked. It’s also strange that I never lost my French after so many years of not using it. Very few people in the States speak French. I was learning Spanish since so many folks do speak Spanish. I think it was partly because of my ability to speak French that the Lord got me here to Haiti, in fact I’m sure of it. Anyway, going back to the 45th anniversary, I offered Mass in Creole and in the brief homily I simply said I was very grateful to God for all the graces I have received during these 45 years and beyond. I also said that on October 15, 1966, I would never have dreamed that in 45 years I’d be in Haiti celebrating Mass in Creole in an Oblate house of formation.

I wrote to Maurice Riguet who was ordained with me. He is a French Oblate who is now a missionary in Benin, Africa. I love Maurice and we’ve been good friends since our time in Fribourg but we seldom write. I told him I couldn’t believe that we were 73 and that we’d been ordained for forty-five years. He wrote back echoing my sentiments. We’re both in good health – another great gift of God – we’re both very happy with what we’ve been called to do especially these past few years. He’s a pastor in Benin and in midst of trying to build a church. I’m sure that’s challenging. Maybe when we get to our building project here in Haiti he’ll have a few helpful hints for us.

Earlier in the week I received an anniversary greeting from a friend who always remembers my ordination anniversary – often when I’ve totally forgotten it. She is a very faithful friend. Yesterday I also got a note from a friend in Bay City. He is a priest of the Diocese of Saginaw. I’m so aware of what a gift friendship is. I don’t think my life would have been as great and happy as it has been (give or take a few bumps in the road) were it not for friends. To all of you, my friends, thank you and again, thank you God for giving me such wonderful people to walk with me through this life. I am very grateful.

The two Masses today were in Creole and I was struck by some of the words in the hymns that were sung and in the ways Creole expresses itself when speaking to God. Remember, Creole is language born of several language influences: Tazino, the language if the indigenous people who lived here before colonization, Spanish, the language of Columbus and his shipmates, several African languages, French and English. I find there is a very real simplicity to Creole, even a childlike quality. Some of it, of course, is the French influence and comes from the days of slavery, a very harsh and extremely cruel slavery. What the enslaved people heard they imitated and put it together with their ideas of God and Jesus. The word “God” in Creole is “Bondye” which I imagine comes from the French phrase “Bon Dieu” or “good God”. “Lord” in French would be “Seigneur” but in Creole is “Gran Mèt” which sounds like a clipped form of “grand Maître” or “big boss or ‘master’” - the plantation owner or slave master. The Trinity, “The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” becomes “Papa a, Petit la, Lespri Sen an”,(the “the” follows the noun) so Father is “Papa” and the Son is “Petit” (the “little” one) and “Lespri San” is almost directly from the French including the French article “l” L’Esprit Saint or Holy Spirit. During the Gloria they sing, “Konpliman pou Bondye nou an, Konpliman pour Gran Met la!”. “Konpliman” is like “compliments” as in “My compliments to the chef!” So, “Compliments to our God, compliments to the Lord for all God has done.” At some points they sing, “Bravo pou li!” I think that’s like saying, “Bravo to you God! Good goin’!” It’s wonderful and once again Tom gets carried away! My friend Ken Untener would say at this point, “Boring, Tom. Nobody cares!” And he’s right. But I find this all very interesting despite that fact that I still don’t understand all I’m saying (praying) during the Mass.

Well anyway, that’s it for now. Blessings to everybody. Tom

October 9, 2011

2011-10-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

We are in the third day of our opening of school year retreat. It began on Friday at ten o’clock. The retreat is directed primarily at the nine postulants who will be here this year in their second year of philosophy but since the seven going to Brazil when their visas come through are also here in the house, they too were invited to be part of the retreat if they wanted to. The pattern I’ve chosen is to give a conference and then have the men spend 45 minutes in reflective silence, talking to God about what was said and listening to what God has to say on the subject. After that they have a half hour to share their reflections in a small group of three. That is followed by a roundup of all the groups, sharing what they heard and making comments. It seems to be going well. There is overall silence in the house and even silence at meals which they are not used to, so we have music playing softly during meals – usually hymns sung by monks or choirs. It’s restful. I had two conferences on Friday focusing on God’s love for us. I gave them Isaiah 43:1-4 to reflect on after the first conference. Francis de Sales is “the Apostle of God’s Love” (my phrase) since he spoke so often and wrote so beautifully about God’s love. I felt it important that they pray about God’s personal love for them and what that really means. It’s easy to say, “God love you!” or “God loves you…” but faced sometimes with our selfishness, our often mean-spirited words and actions, in a word, our sinfulness, we can’t help but ask, “Does God really love me?” Now the answer to that question is “Yes.”, but if you’ve heard most of your life that you’re a loser or no good, or stupid, plus you’ve been rejected by people who you thought loved you, well, believing in God’s love is next to impossible. All of this takes place within us and we very rarely share these thoughts with anyone – who would listen? So there is in my heart this underlying sense that, this talk of God’s love is fine for others but not for me. My point being that even if I’m not a loser in the eyes of most, nor a bad person, still, knowing myself and my shortcomings, I may find it hard to believe and accept God’s personal love for me. Thus the need to turn to the Scriptures and to our patron St. Francis de Sales for words that will reassure us of this reality.

I then moved into the call to holiness, the “universal call to holiness” spoken of in Vatican II but long before that by Francis himself when he wrote his Introduction to a Devout Life, a spiritual classic still read today my millions of people all over the world. We’re all called to live in God’s love and to share that love with others and to have a spiritual life, whether we are a teacher, a nurse, a lawyer, a cop, a priest or a prisoner, a mom, a dad, a bishop or whatever. If Francis de Sales wanted to get that message out, I feel he wants me to make sure the future Haitian Oblates I’m working with have a firm grasp of it. So not just doing things in a spirit of love but doing them enthusiastically, and with verve. That’s “devotion”!

I also spent some time having the guys pray about the gift or talent they received from God. We all are given a gift(s) says St. Paul (Eph. 4:7). Then in the group I asked them to name it. A gift has to owned by the person to whom it was given. Our gifts have to be acknowledged by the community and used to build of the Body of Christ. And finally our gifts have to be “celebrated”. When we acknowledge the gift we acknowledge the Giver of the gift, namely God. So in a second session I had them name what they saw as gift in their confreres. We went around one by one and the person hearing what others thought his gift was had to simply remain silent and take in what he was hearing. I believe we all have gifts that we don’t even recognize or maybe name as gift ourselves.

My last conference was on a healthy love of self. Francis de Sales was known for his gentleness but by nature he had a real temper. He spent his life working against his natural tendency to simply let loose and let his temper fly. St. Jane, a not always a gentle person herself, once told Francis that he was too gentle. “What do you want me to do,” he answered, “lose in fifteen minutes of wild anger or rage the gentle house of interior peace I’ve been building for the last 18 years?” So this “gentleness” (the French is “douceur”) did not come easily. It had to be worked at. Same for us, I told them and for building up any virtues. It takes repeated acts. And when we find we’ve “blown it” as they say, we must be gentle with ourselves, pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start again. Sometimes we’re mad at ourselves because we see we are not perfect. I told the men what I read in “The Cloud of Unknowing”, that “From these effects of original sin we will never be entirely free in this life, no matter how holy we become.” So it’s try, try again with whatever good habits we’re trying to develop.

We ended with a Holy Hour. It was a little hard on my knees but I think it was prayerful. Right now I’m exhausted. We had recreation and tomorrow classes begin which means we get up at 5:00 am. “Yes, Virginia, there is a 5:00 am.”

My best to all with prayers and good wishes. Tom

October 2, 2011

2011-10-02T17:53:00.000-07:00

This week seems to have flown by. We still have no word from the Brazilian embassy regarding the visas for the seven headed to Brazil for their novitiate. Such nonsense or such bureaucracy!

I gave the three classes or conferences to the Evangelization Committee set up by Tom Hagan for the area of Cité Soleil around Ste Anne’s Chapel. I decided I’d try to speak Creole and if that failed I’d fall back to French. Well, guess what? My Creole, broken as it is, seemed to get across. Some of our men were there for the conferences and they said I did fine. That’s encouraging. It’s just getting out there and giving it a try.

Here’s some news – one of our men, the oldest, he’s 43 came down with “zona”. Volel showed me that he had a rash around his waistline. He was experiencing pain and wondered if he could see a doctor. I said of course. It was last Sunday and another member of the community knows a doctor so he arranged to have Volel see him that day. Turns out he has “zona” and got a shot and needed to return for a shot every day for five days plus have some prescriptions filled. Well Monday I got around to looking up “zona” and it turns out to be a case of shingles which is no fun. I once had a little case and I remember it was both sore on the inside and sore on the outside of the skin. Now here’s something interesting. When he initially showed me his side and back I could see a collection of little pimples forming a rash. Now if he were white like me, I would have observed the rash as being reddish. But of course Volel is Haitian and black so no red marks. That just struck me later. I don’t even think of skin color anymore. I may have said it before but I actually forget that I’m white. Well another thing occurred to me by way of a question which I have to ask, do black people blush? (I hope I’m not being racist. I’m just curious. You can let me know what you think.) Anyway, Volel is getting good care and I hope we’ve caught the shingles early. If we have, and I think we have, the cure is faster and easier. In the meantime the poor guy is hurting as you can imagine.

Monday French classes begin at the Institut Francais and a week from Monday classes begin in philosophy. I’m planning to have a retreat for the opening of the school year next weekend. That means preparing some talks. It’s all part of my work here. I don‘t mind it at all. It’s just coming up with a theme that sometimes gets somewhat difficult. So far the Holy Spirit has been there when I’ve needed Her.

Well, that’s where things are. I hope you are all well and enjoying beautiful fall weather and the changing colors. Here it’s still summer.
Peace to all and blessings. Tom

September 25, 2011

2011-09-25T13:38:00.000-07:00

Picking up from last week’s blog, maybe I should begin by saying my Creole was better this Sunday during the two Masses. My teacher, Anacréon, thought about last Sunday and decided I needed help with pronunciation. So our lessons this week were reading random texts from the New Testament. Of course it would help if I know what I was reading and sometimes I do, but mostly I don’t. I have a general idea but not an exact word for word understanding in my head. So it’s learning vocabulary which will help and of course I have the same old choice, “word recognition or phonics?” This whole process is interesting when it’s not discouraging and driving me crazy. I sort of watch myself as I’m going through it. Part of me understands the overall picture and part of me is hung up on individual words and their pronunciation. Now to all of you who are reading this, if you get what I’ve just said, you get an “A” in Mind Reading.

Last week I got back up on the horse, as they say, after my discouragement with last Sunday’s Creole’s performance. I had Mass at the Sisters and it was Monday so the Mass was in Creole not English. For Monday’s Mass the Sisters bring in some of the Haitian orphans they are caring for. Usually they are between 2 and four years old. They are so cute and can they sing! They seem to learn everything by rote and they really go to it. Everything went well even the little homily I wrote in Creole. Anacréon came along to listen to me. He was pleased with the Mass and how I did. Learning a language is such a long and usually painful process. I hope the day comes when I can just get along as I do in French. But meantime it's step by step.

We still have no word from the Brazilian embassy about the visas the men need to head off to Brazil. We went there Monday and they said the man who was working with them went on vacation and that was the reason for the delay. He said we’d hear the next day – Tuesday, but by the end of the week we still had no word.

Thursday I went to see the Vicar General of the Archdiocese. We needed a letter stating that the Oblates of St Francis de Sales were officially established in the Archdiocese. Msgr. St Hubert is the Vicar General. He is a very nice man. I went with what I thought was a model letter that he could give to his secretary to type on official stationary and stamp with the official seal. He was happy with that and he gave it to his secretary who had it done in no time. Another little task completed. That’s what life here seems to be for me.

Tom Hagan is upset with the overall lack of initiative concerning the presence of the Catholic Church in Cité Soleil so he’s taking the bull by the horns. He’s hired some of the people from Ste Anne’s Chapel to be an evangelization team. Exactly what they will do I’m not sure but he asked me if I’d give them some initial conferences helping them to get started. He doesn’t want them to take this on as just a job that pays some money but rather as a “call” or a “vocation”. So tomorrow at nine o’clock I have the first get together. Among other things Tom thinks it would be good to have them review their own faith life. Where are they with their Catholic faith? Where have been the ups and downs? Do they have a personal relationship with Jesus and can they talk about that? He really feels that they need to be convinced of God’s love for us, each of us, personally. So that’s the beginning agenda. I thought for starters I’d share with them Isaiah 43: 1-4 especially the last line: “You are precious in my eyes, and I love you.” That’s pretty direct.

At the same time I've just begun reading “Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy” by Eric Metaxas. Tom just lent it to me. In the Forward I read this: “By the time of Hitler’s ascension, much of the German church understood grace only as abstract acceptance –‘God forgives; that’s his job.’ But we know that true grace comes to us by costly sacrifice. And if God was willing to go to the cross and endure such pain and absorb such a cost in order to save us, then we must live sacrificially as we serve others. Anyone who truly understands how God’s grace comes to us will have a changed life. That’s the gospel, not salvation by law or by cheap grace, but by costly grace. Costly grace changes you from the inside out. Neither law nor cheap grace can do that.” This I think is one of Bonhoeffer’s phrases, “cheap grace”. I think it means “feel good” religion. “God loves us and God forgives us so let’s not get too worried about our sins, etc. Let’s just be nice, etc.” Well that hit me. I preach and I believe deeply in God’s love for us personally and God's forgiveness but you can go down that road too far to the point of taking the life (not to say the teeth) out of our Christian commitment. I think the author of the Forward of the book, Timothy J. Keller has it right, or better, Bonhoeffer has it right. God’s love and forgiveness became flesh and blood in Jesus and we can easily forget what Jesus said: “If you want to be my disciple you have to pick up your cross everyday and follow me.”

Well all this to say I want to work with this evangelization team and to help them renew their baptismal commitment to follow Jesus but to remind them that there is a “Cost of Discipleship” (the name of Bonhoeffer’s famous book) and it’s not cheap. So I’m off to the races with this new task and I look forward to working with these good people. It will get me more involved with the real world of Haiti and Cité Soleil. So pray for me that I can do this well.

Blessings to all as we finish September and begin October. Tom

September 18, 2011

2011-09-18T14:24:00.000-07:00

If you live in Haiti you can’t help but notice that on almost any corner of any street there is a person with a wheel barrow full of sugar cane they are selling. The sugar cane is cut into yard long pieces. (Sugar cane for those of you who don’t know, looks to me like bamboo only it’s a deep reddish purple color.) The person selling it peels off the bark, cuts it into smaller pieces and put them in baggies. I have no ideas how much they cost but it can’t be much. People then bit a piece off and chew it for awhile; then they spit it out – on the ground or into their hand while looking for a discreet place to drop it. That’s usually on the street or if they’re in a tap-tap, on the floor.
Well I’ve never tasted sugar cane to my knowledge and I’ve always wanted to try it but nobody has ever offered me a piece. Nobody, that is, till yesterday when I went to the Saturday meeting of the Friends of St. Francis de Sales, the youth group founded by one of our men four years ago and is still shepherded by two of our postulants. There, one of the young women was eating some “cane” and I was offered a piece. I was delighted and thanked her. The group looked at me, whether to see if I liked it or what, I’m not sure, anyway they seemed happy when I smiled with my first “chew”. Sugar cane is very pithy and as you chew it you get the taste of the sugar juices it contains. When they disappear, like the flavor of bubble gum, you can spit it out and take another bite. It crossed my mind as I chewed that this piece of cane had been handled by the seller who had hacked it off with his/her machete and peeled it, stuffed it into a baggy with his bear "ungloved" hand and sold it to the girl who in turn handed it to me. Were her hands germ free? What do you think? No, of course they weren’t, so “Live dangerously!” I thought. (Living dangerously here in Haiti and living dangerously in the USA means two different things. Here there is a cholera epidemic which is still in progress. You don’t “catch” cholera like a cold. You have to ingest something contaminated – like maybe contaminated sugar cane. Anyway, I’m still alive and no worse for the wear and the sugar cane was good and I’m glad I had a chance to try it – “dirty hands” or not.

This morning I celebrated two Masses, one at six o’clock and one at nine. The one at six was in a very primitive chapel which belongs to our parish, St. Clare. Our men conduct a Word and Communion service there every Sunday morning at eight o’clock. Last week they asked me if I would ever consider saying Mass for the folks there at six o’clock. I said yes but we have to be ready to go at six so we can finish at a decent time to get back, grab a bite to eat and then head off to Cité Soleil for Mass at Ste Anne’s Chapel. They assured me that would be done so off we went before six o’clock this morning to have Mass in the chapel. The road there is unbelievable, heavily rutted and filled with huge puddles of standing water. After a very uncomfortable ride through a densely populated area we headed up a hillside for about a mile. The road was nothing but a washed out path but with our trusty Isuzu Trooper on loan from the Sisters of Providence, we finally arrived at the chapel. Because it was so early I didn’t have time to go over the Mass in Creole. I always do this even though I’ve been preparing the texts for several days before. Well, I felt today was a disaster. Creole has lots of little three and four letter words. I get over one and I’m faced with another. Talk about tongue twisters! Let me make a little aside at this point.

Maybe I’ve said this before but it showed itself in full effect this morning. It is simply this: I was never taught phonics. I was taught “word recognition”. What’s that you say? Well instead of beginning with letters and teaching the child that each letter has a “sound”, I was “taught” (shown) a group of letters along with a picture and told it meant whatever the picture showed. For example: I was shown the picture of a ball and under the picture were the letters “b-a-l-l”. I learned that his combination of letters meant “ball”. Those of you who learned to read with phonetics had learned the sounds for “a” and “b” which together was “ba…” and then “l” so along with “ba” and the added “l” sound you sounded out “ball” and your little brain made the connection – “Oh, that’s ball.” You who learned phonetics can “sound out" words you’ve never seen before syllable by syllable and make a stab at what the word sounds like and is. No so yours truly. I’m at a total loss, well, not a total loss. After 73 years on this planet I’ve come to recognize many words and I know about phonetics so I can also “sound out” words but it’s not “second nature”. Mentally I have to pause and think what do these sounds mean – oh yes, then I have it. If I don’t have it and I’m reading in public something I haven’t prepared beforehand, I panic and fumble and stumble and I’m reduced to a little kid who is standing there in from of everybody and who has just wet his pants. That’s no kidding. It really is like that. Now of course this happens rarely when I’m speaking or reading English out loud in public, but what about French or now, Creole? Now we’re back to scratch as in “starting from scratch”. Well, for French I’m better than I was but it was agony when I was a scholastic in Fribourg. I was passed the book we were reading at table and I had to read “cold turkey” as it were. Again, if I recognized the word, no problem, but if I didn’t it was mentally “stop, try to figure it out and come out with the word”. Torture for an adult! Now it’s pretty much the same thing for Creole. I’m just not proficient enough in Creole to know what I’m reading. I may have the gist but I’m still flying by the seat of my pants. I get through two or three of these little words, each one being a challenge, and then I come to one that’s different – maybe with a nasal sound and I panic. Now this would be bad enough if it were only I who suffered and felt embarrassed. “Too bad Tom, so you messed up – big deal, just go on, etc., etc., etc.” says the little voice in my head. But it’s not just me and we’re talking about celebrating Mass a very holy experience – one which demands reverence and a real sense of presence. How many times have you heard about “this priest from Africa, or Columbia or India, - you can’t understand a word he says.” Well now, I’m that priest and the poor Haitian people who have gathered for Mass have to put up with this big American white guy who stumbles over has words. That really gets to me. By the way, It’s called by St. Francis de Sales in his book, An Introduction to the Devout Anne's wasn't any better. But what really touched me today was seeing a woman after Mass who had a very twisted foot, no doubt from birth. It crippled her but she simply walked with a limp. We gave her a ride down about three quarters of the mile-long hillside I spoke of earlier. It occurred to me that this woman must have gotten up at maybe four thirty to get ready for Mass and to start the hike up to the chapel. God bless her, crippled foot and all, there she was having make her way to Sunday morning Mass dressed very neatly despite the Haitian dust which is everywhere. Talk about “the faithful remnant,” she’s very much a part of it.

With that I’ll end. Bless any of you who have managed to get this far with the blog. Count on my prayers and keep me in yours. Tom

September 11, 2011

2011-09-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

It’s Sunday, September 11, 2011, “a day that will live in infamy” to quote FDR and I am remembering all those victims of the terrorist attack on the United States, all their families and all who mourn their loss. I pray too for all victims of terrorism and violence and for the terrorists as well. The very thought of the deep and bitter hatred that was the seed for that attack frightens me. It takes a lot of hatred to conceive such a plan, to prepare for it and to give one’s own life to execute it. It’s frightening to think that there is that much intense hatred in this world. Hatred is the work of the devil or the spirit of darkness or whatever you want to call it and it can only be overcome by love, not vengeance, love. “Love thy enemies,” Jesus said, “do good to those who persecute you.” Hatred simply breeds more hatred, more violence. A spirit of “Let’s get those bastards and make them pay for what they did!” which is the spirit that sent us to war in Afghanistan and Iraq against the terrorists, has eradicated neither the hatred nor the terrorism that it provoked. If anything it has increased it. Is there any answer to this terrible violence, to this hatred and what can be done to end it?

It has occurred to me from the very beginning of this terrorist act which struck this day ten years ago to pause and ask, “What has caused this hatred? Why do people hate us so? Why would anybody attack innocent civilians with such diabolical force?” (Questions I’m sure those who survived the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki must have asked.) Has our government or have we the people of the United States acted in such a way to have caused such hatred? It’s hard for me as an individual and as a citizen of the United States to think that we have. If we did, it certainly was not done consciously or deliberately. As for our government, that may be another story. Finding out what our government has done covertly and without our knowledge over the past years in some parts of the world, things that when we hear about them make us cringe and feel ashamed, I’m afraid some of these actions could indeed have caused a hatred to take seed in the hearts of some people. In no way am I saying that the attack of 9/11 was our fault. The terrorists are clearly responsible and should be brought to justice. But if we have created an atmosphere where evil men can easily recruit volunteers with words of hatred to literally kill themselves (suicide bombers) to spend months living in the States with their families, taking pilot lessons with the intention of killing themselves by flying a plan into the Twin Towers of the Trade Center, well, to me that is a huge amount of hate and I can’t conceive of anyone sustaining it in their heart for years while living a supposedly ordinary family life. But that’s apparently what happened and it’s for me and people like me to contemplate and find out what needs to change in this world and in my own heart and in my way of living. I have to really understand the depth of what Jesus meant when he said, “Love thy enemies, do good to those who persecute you.” These are simple words but this, for sure, is no easy saying. Enough said.

Monday I went out to see Fr. Joseph who is to help us build a wall around our property and eventually to guide us (me?) through the building of a house of formation for 20 aspiring Oblates. Before I left in August and after giving me the impression that he could take on this project, he had indicated that he had some other pressing projects and that he couldn’t be personally responsible for ours. Well, that through a monkey wrench into the works. So on Monday I went to see Joseph with Makendy, Osias’s brother to see if we could work out some arrangement and get started on the work of the wall. What I found out was that if we can wait till mid November to start the wall, Joseph and his crew can do it for us. They project that it will be done by January. What a relief! I said that’s fine. By all means we can wait till November to begin the wall. There remains simply a meeting this week with his foreman, an Italian volunteer, the Dominican Sisters, Joseph and me to set a price for the project based on how many meters we need to surround our property. I have to keep reminding myself that God is in charge of everything, details and all. I just need to be open to God’s lead and not be anxious. It’s true for this project and it’s true for everything in life. “God grant me the serenity…”

Our community is complete. The seven leaving for Brazil this month are here as are all but one of the nine who will make up the community this year – those in second philosophy. We are still on a summer schedule; not as steadfast as our schedule for the academic year. I was glad to see the guys and they seemed glad to see me. I celebrated Mass in Creole four times this week and I’m trying to just speak more Creole day in and day out. Speaking is not quite as hard as understanding, even like ordinary conversations at table. But it will come and I’ll pick up my Creole lessons with Anacréon my teacher. The thought of losing Osias, my right hand man when he leaves for Brazil gives me pause but I have to remember the lesson mentioned above. Follow God’s lead and don’t be anxious.

Just a last quick thing. Before leaving I dropped into some friends in Saginaw. Edna and Rocky McIntyre are wonderful people – just ordinary salt of the earth folks, and on leaving Edna handed me some money saying she knew it would get into the hands of a needy Haitian if she gave it to me. Now Edna and Rocky are not rich and it wasn’t a fortune but it was sixty dollars that were hard earned and would never have been spent frivolously. Anyway on Tuesday one of the young people from the youth group we have in Cité Soleil came by. David is a great kid and presently the president of the group. He has a winning smile and he told me he had passed the first part of his state required exam. I congratulated him and then heard the reason for his visit. Though I never would have suspected it, David’s parents are both dead. He lives in Cité Soleil with his sister who is a single mom. He has very little means of support. He needed money for school supplies and some clothes and he turned to me to see if I could help. Well, while I don’t like giving something to individuals (it’s usually to a group that I use the money given me) I gave David Rocky and Edna’s dollars and added a few more with the promise that this was just between us and that it was not me who was helping him out but some good people in the States. He left very grateful. I was left thinking how good I have it. I’ve never been hungry like I’m sure he has, nor without the basics of life, never! So God bless David and his friends and God bless the McIntyres and the thousands of Americans like them. How could anybody hate good people like that? How could anybody what to terrorize them?

May we all get through this 9/11 day of remembrance better prepared to make a better world wherever we are. My blessings to all. Tom
,

September 4, 2011

2011-09-04T15:45:00.000-07:00

Friday around six fifteen I landed back in Haiti. I was due in at three in the afternoon but we had engine trouble. Actually we were late in boarding the flight for Port au Prince because of “an engine problem” but it was supposedly taken care of and so off we went only to be in the air about twenty-five minutes when an announcement was made that that the “engine trouble” reappeared and we were turning back to Miami. Well we did that, landing amid lots of fire trucks on the field (“a standard procedure” they said) with no problem. I wasn’t scared but I did have some thoughts of “what if”. Anyway in about an hour we re-boarded another plane and arrived safely.

My stay in the US was devoted mostly to rest. I was pretty wiped out after the provincial visitation. I had spent lots of energy trying to convince the provincial to allow our seven Haitian candidates to make their novitiate here in Haiti but it was not to be. They are now getting their passports and visas ready to leave for Brazil later this month. The novitiate will not begin until February so they will have plenty of time to learn some Portuguese, the language of Brazil.
A positive outcome of the visit was the decision to begin building a house of formation on our newly acquired property. More on that later. Also we put together some guidelines for a five year plan concerning our Oblate foundation here in Haiti. I’ll share some of that later also. Tom Hagan was in on that discussion as well as others we had. Tom was eloquent in speaking of what he hopes will be the aim of our foundation, namely to work with and for the poor. Please God that that will be so as the years progress. I think that was the aim of the Oblate American foundation back over a hundred years ago but very subtly we’ve become, like the early immigrants to the USA, very middle class and very comfortable. I think we Oblates do good work but there is not much focus on the poor and the disenfranchised.

As for the construction of a wall and a house of formation we need to begin, I just met with Osias’ brother Macendy who may be able to help with this project. I was thinking that Pere Joseph a Scalabrini priest who has been here for years and who has supervised the building of their complex could supervise our building project. He certainly has been very helpful in getting us the property, etc. and has given me to understand that he has men who can work for us. However when it comes right down to it I find out that because of the many irons he has in the fire, he can’t take personal responsibility for our project. What we need is a person who can be on the spot and who can be a liaison with Joseph who will help him with the buying of materials, etc. That person is Osias’ brother – maybe. Tomorrow we will go out to meet with Joseph to see if this arrangement will work. I hope it does because if not I don’t know where to turn. So pray Macendy can do what’s needed and that we can get the ball rolling.

Last night I picked up the biography I was reading, André Ravier’s Francis de Sales Sage and Saint. The more I read about St. Francis de Sales the happier I am to be one of his sons. Francis faced all kinds of impossible tasks, tasks that would weary anyone, but he had a great spirit. One of the things he accomplished was to visit many of the parishes of his very large diocese. He did most of this on horseback through very difficult passes through the Alps where he lived. He’d completed a long trip and soon had to set out on another. Here’s what he wrote to St Jane de Chantal:”I am going on this blessed visitation in which I see at the end of the field crosses of all kinds. My flesh trembles, but my heart adores them. Yes, I salute you, small and great crosses. I salute you and kiss your foot, unworthy of the honor of your shade.” And later to another person he wrote: “I have preached regularly every day and frequently twice a day. Ah! How good God is to me! I have never felt stronger. All the crosses that I had foreseen initially have only been olive trees and palm trees; everything that seemed like gall to me has proved to be like honey or something better. I can say, in all truth, however that except for the time when I am riding horseback or waiting to fall asleep at night, I have had no leisure to give any thought to myself or to consider the direction of my heart, so closely did important preoccupations crowd upon each other. I have confirmed a countless number of people.” What a guy! My hero! I hope I can be the same and do the same as our patron.

That’s it for now. I hope all are enjoying the Labor Day weekend and that the new “school” year will be a blessed one for all. Count on my prayers. Tom

August 7, 2011

2011-08-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

Well, for starters, I’ve had better weeks. Fr. Alberto arrived on Monday. He is Ecuadorian and the provincial of the South American/Caribbean Province. He is about 42, a priest for seven years and an Oblate for about 14 years – very outgoing, full of energy; a kind of roly-poly, happy go lucky guy. However he speaks only Spanish and Portuguese, no English. Fr. Leoclides, on the other hand is 59 (we celebrated his birthday on Thursday), the assistant Provincial, is a very wise and respected member of the province. He’s very nice, smiling and he seems very balanced. He speaks English somewhat. He arrived on Tuesday for this very important meeting.
The first day, alone with Alberto, I tried in my very poor and broken Spanish to talk with him about some of the issues we needed to discuss. He seemed open and something of a kindred spirit. Tuesday afternoon after Leoclides arrived and had dinner and a siesta we began our meeting. Tom Hagan joined us later. I’ve made a summary of the meetings and I’ll insert the first part of that report how.

Summary of the Discussions during the Canonical Visitation
Monday, August 1, 2011, 4:00-6:00
Fr. Alberto met for the first time with Tom Moore. It was a rather informal beginning since Fr. Alberto does not speak English and Tom’s Spanish is very poor. Some of the issues raised were: the possibility of having a novitiate here in Haiti since there are seven candidates ready for a novitiate: five who just finished their two years of philosophy and two who are studying theology; the question of building a house of formation on our property, and the budget for 2011-2012. Tom gave Fr. Alberto a copy of the official documents concerning the purchase of the property which cost $250,000.00 (USD) plus closing costs.

Tuesday, August 2, 3:30 – 7:00
Present for this session were Fr. Alberto, Fr. Leoclides and Tom Moore. They were joined at 4:30 by Fr. Tom Hagan.
The session began with drawing up an agenda.
1.Novitiate, 2. New Building, 3. Return of the Scholastics in early 2012, 4. The question of accepting new candidates, 5. The Budget for 2011-2012 and 6. Drawing up a 5 Year Plan for the Oblate Foundation in Haiti
Before beginning to discuss the agenda items, Tom gave a brief explanation of why he was in Haiti and how his coming came about. Tom feels he is here as the result of an inspiration he received during a retreat in October of 2007. He thought his story was relevant to the discussion.

Novitiate

Tom began with a presentation of the reasons for having a novitiate in Haiti beginning in early September. There are seven candidates ready for a novitiate. Making a novitiate in Haiti would follow the rhythm of Haiti and the Haitian school year. Tom is also convinced that sending our candidates to Brazil at this time not a good idea for many reasons. The fact is the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales have a reputation problem here in Haiti since the departure of Fr. Carlos and the seven scholastics immediately after the earthquake. It is considered by many priests and religious as an unbelievable move given the drastic needs of the country in that moment. Tom said he could understand the desire of the provincial and the province to have an “integrated” novitiate with candidates from the various regions and countries but because of the special needs which are present here in Haiti at this time the greater good would be achieved by having a novitiate in Haiti, not Brazil.
Fr. Tom Hagan joined the conversation at this point. Shortly after his arrival, Fr. Alberto presented to Fr. Tom Hagan a beautiful metal plaque in gratitude for the witness Tom has given to all of us Oblates with his dedication to the poor and his work in Haiti. The plaque also recognizes the generosity of the Hand Together organization for their financial support in founding and maintaining the house of formation in Haiti. Without Tom Hagan and Hands Together the Oblates would not be here.

Fr. Alberto also presented a plaque to Tom Moore thanking him for his dedication to the Oblate foundation in Haiti. Tom accepted the plaque with gratitude but later said that the plaque should be part of the archives of the SA/C Province. Fr. Alberto and Fr. Leoclides invited Tom Moore to come to Brazil for either the perpetual vow ceremony of Mardochée in August or the diaconate ordination of Lionel in October.

The discussion continued about sending the seven candidates to Brazil for their novitiate. Tom Hagan reaffirmed all that Tom Moore had said and spoke very clearly and emotionally about the damage done to the reputation of the Oblates in Haiti by the choice of the seven scholastics to leave the country right after the earthquake. He feels very hesitant about exposing the Haitians to the comforts of life in Brazil. It cannot but harm the dedication future Haitians must have to live with and work with the very poor. That is the aim and the reason for the Oblate foundation in Haiti.
Despite this reasoning from the two Oblates who have been living in Haiti before, during and after the earthquake and who know the situation Haiti presently, both Fr. Alberto and Fr. Leocledies insisted the greater good at this time was to have the seven candidates come to Brazil for their novitiate. This decision effectively means that because of the difference in the school years the candidates will lose a whole year. Tom Moore declared that he was totally opposed to this idea but that he had to bow to the decision of the South American/Caribbean Province and accept it as God’s will. The meeting finished with Evening Prayer and dinner.

I guess I should add that I had offered to be novice director if they had no one to send. But it was not to be. So you see, we lost, the seven men are to go to Brazil for a novitiate which will begin in February. They are to leave Haiti around September 20 to get to Brazil to begin language study in preparation for the novitiate. The next morning we began our meeting with a prayer to the Holy Spirit and then asked Alberto and Leoclides if after a night to sleep on their decision they still thought it was God’s will and in the best interest of all for the seven go to Brazil. They said yes. I reiterated that I was totally against the decision but that I would not speak against it and that I had to accept it as God’s will. I mentioned that St. Francis de Sales encourages us not just to “accept” God’s will, but to “love” it. I said I had done the first part and I was working on the second part. I also said that I would not go to Brazil for the final vow ceremony nor for the deacon ordination simply because in doing so it would mean I agreed with the decision of the seven scholastics to leave the country right after the earthquake and the decision of the former administration to have five other Haitians come to Brazil for their novitiate which is going on right now. That meeting was rather brief since we had arranged for the two visitors to see Cité Soleil and the work of Tom Hagan and Hands Together.

After dinner I suggested that Alberto speak to the seven postulants he was inviting to Brazil. That was done and the rest of the afternoon we used to go visit our newly purchased property. Tom Hagan invited us out to dinner at a restaurant that evening.

The other things that were decided included the decision to begin building a house of formation on our property which is positive, how we would handle any requests to join the congregation, our house budget for this fiscal year and most important the beginning of a clear five year plan for the Oblate foundation in Haiti. Tom Hagan was present for that meeting and he was very very good. I hope we can accomplish what we talked about. That should take another blog.

Alberto left on Friday but alas there were mechanical problems with his plane so he returned to the house in the late afternoon. He left yesterday.Leoclides will leave on Thursday when I do.

Frankly, it’s all very frustration. These are not bad men but it’s the same problem I had with the former administration. I (“we” Tom and I) an here in Haiti and they are in South America. They either cannot or will not listen to what fwe have to say abouaat the situation here and the needs that are particular to Haiti especially since the earthquake. So, we do what we can.

Blessings to all. Tom

P.S. I leave on Thursday for a few weeks in the States. I think I need a change of scenery.

July 31, 2011

2011-07-31T05:54:00.000-07:00

July 30, 2011
It’s after 5:30 on a Saturday afternoon. We’re having thunder and dark clouds but not much rain, at least so far. We could use some rain since everything is so dusty. Of course it’s always dusty, that’s because the windows are always open and when it’s dry, dust settles on everything. You could dust everything in your room and come back in half an hour and it would need dusting again. The answer is to just let it build up and dust maybe once a week. You have to cover your computer and printer to avoid major dust problems with them, but other stuff just gets dusty and you get used to it. It’s one of those things that just "is" here in Haiti or at least where I am in Haiti.

Yesterday we got the word finally that Father Alberto, the Provincial is going to arrive on Monday morning. Father Leoclides, the Assistant Provincial will get in on Tuesday. The Provincial is only staying five day. He will leave on Friday but Leoclides will stay until the eleventh. We have a lot to talk about and I’m somewhat anxious. However there’s a part of me that says that’s not the answer. Just wait and see what happens. My biggest question is will there be a novitiate beginning at the end of August or the beginning of September? We have seven men who are ready for a novitiate and in my judgment putting it off is something of an injustice – but that’s me. It also kills me that we have these seven men who are clearly ready. That’s something of a miracle in this day and age with vocations to religious life and priesthood so few. Anyway, I hope we the get permission for that.

Then there is the question of building a building on our newly acquired property. The house we are in is rented till December 2012 which means we better get our act in order and get serious about building a house of formation. The money for it is there since the congregation took up a collection for Haiti after the earthquake and what they raised will cover what we paid for the property and what we will need for the building. In Haiti land is expensive but construction costs are relatively inexpensive – at least in comparison to prices in the States. So all of this is part of what we have to talk about. I’m also trying to arrange a meeting with Archbishop. I will be sort of a courtesy call letting him know we’re here and having the new Provincial make his acquaintance. You may remember the former Archbishop was killed in the earthquake. He was a good man. I’ve heard nothing about the new Archbishop. He’s only been in office about three months.

It’s been quiet here in Lake Woebegone this past week. We were down to three but we added two more on Thursday and on Friday another one. Later today two came back from the summer camp that our men are running for the youth group from Cité Soleil. We’ve been getting the house in order for the Provincial’s visit. I’ll give him my room since it has a bath. The other one will be upstairs where there is a big room also with a bath. It will mean some rearranging but the men are very flexible. My days have been filled with reading and having my Creole lesson. I’ve mentioned I think that I’m making progress with the Creole. I still find it all but impossible to understand everyone at the table. They speak so fast and I’m lost. As for my speaking to them, that’s what’s coming along little by little. Also reading the prayers at Mass which change each Sunday, has gotten easier. I remember last year at this time I would be sweating bullets preparing for Sunday Mass. I’m much more at ease now, thank God.

I went again this week to the women’s prison with Anacréon. He’s the postulant who is my Creole teacher. I really admire him. He took the initiative to find this pastoral ministry and he is very good with the women. Lots of folks are afraid to enter a prison. It’s all because of the serotypes created by society. People in prison are like people outside of prison. Are there violent people there? Of course there are. Are there violent people outside walking the streets? Again, yes. I have to say that my experience of visiting prisons has been very positive. Anyway getting back to this visit it was good. Like last week, there were about 25 women in the room. I think they were surprised that I came back. I had told two who asked for a pamphlet on the rosary that I’d try to find one. One wanted one in French and the other one in English. To my surprise I found one among my things and Anacréon found the other. We also brought some rosaries. There is a woman in Niagara Falls who sent me two boxes of rosaries to bring to Haiti. I have been taking them a little at a time since I always have a weight problem with my suitcases. So they were happy we remembered.

We gave a lesson on God’s love. I was happy to do it and the women seemed attentive. I think all of us feel at some time or other, does God really love me? – I mean after all the bad stuff I’ve done or said. Of course the answer is yes. God loves us because of who we are, not because of what we do or don’t do. But in a world that has a way of putting us down it's not surprising that we forget that. So it was a good experience for me being there again. I’ll try to get back when I return from my time in the States.

Sunday morning: I’m getting ready to celebrate Mass at Ste Anne’s in Cité Soleil. This afternoon I’ll get my room ready for the Provincial to use during his visit. I’m hoping all goes well and I’ll let you know. Meantime blessings to all. Tom

July 24, 2011

2011-07-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

I just returned from la Chappelle Ste. Anne where we had Mass. The community was sparse for some reason or another. I think because the summer schedule is often erratic the folks aren’t always sure if there is a Mass or not. Tuesday is the feast of St. Ann so there will be a big Mass and it has been announced. I think Tom Hagan will have it and I’ll concelebrate. Tom’s been away this week taking some vacation, I hope. His week was between two preaching assignments for Hands Together.

Monday morning the Friends of St Francis de Sales leave for their 10 day camp experience. Most of our community will be there with the group leaving us without a driver. Osias my right hand man will go with them. I’m glad he’s going and I hope it will be a relaxing time for him. He’s on call 24/7 – very generous with his time and talent, God bless him. In the house will be Anacréon, the postulant who teaches me Creole, Abela, Réné and I. I think we can make it okay.

I got indirect news today that the Provincial, Pere Alberto will arrive here August 1st. That is good news since things have been up in the air concerning his arrival date. According to the note I got today he will be coming with the assistant Provincial Fr. Leocledies. I’m wondering about the language situation. Alberto’s native tongue is Spanish and I’m sure he’s fluent in Portuguese. Leocledies is Brazilian but what other language he speaks is unknown to me. So we have our ever difficult “Tower of Babel” problem. There will be a lot to talk about so I hope we can do that with some facility. What little Spanish I had when I left the States has all but disappeared since I speak French all day and I’m getting into Creole. So we’ll see… Keep that time in your prayers since, like I said, there will be a lot to talk about, top in my list will be having a novitiate here beginning the end of August or the beginning of September.

Last Monday Anacréon stopped in to say hello. He along with the others is on vacation. He offered to come every day to give me a Creole lesion at four o’clock. I accepted the offer. His family lives here in Port au Prince. On Thursday I went with him to his pastoral work at a woman’s prison. It was a good experience – sad but good. About 25 women came into a room and Anacréyon led a discussion. Afterwords the women simply chatted and I met two of them individually – one is a Canadian and the other is an American. I suspect both were involved or accused of some drug related incidents. Neither has seen a judge and one has been in prison over a year. Some justice system! I’ve heard that it is so here. Also if you‘re a big drug dealer you can get a lawyer and you walk without problems. It’s always the little people who get caught and who do prison time. It’s the same in the States. I used to go to the state prison once a month for Mass and confessions. The place was full of low level drug related offenders but never any of the kingpins. Anyway, pray for the two women. They both, it fact all of the women there, seemed to be just nice people. Despite Jesus’ words about, “I was in prison and you visited me…” I’m afraid society still is not kind to either prison inmates or former inmates.

I saw that your weather in the mid-west and on the east coast has been really hot. Here it’s hot but thankfully we’ve had a breeze that makes it quite bearable with lower humidity. But we’re still mostly damp all day sweating as we do.
That’s it for now. Blessings to all. Tom

July 16, 2011

2011-07-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

Hi Everybody, I'm back in Haiti but I've got a problem. While home I got a new computer which shoulc not be a problem but of course for me, it is. First of all our electricity has been on and off because our inverter is not working. We have electricity if it comes directly from the electric company (EDH) of if fwe use our genrator to provide electricity. It seems our inverter which stores electricity to use during the time we are not receiving it directly from the electric company is out of order. I hope and pray that it can be fixed and we will have a stead stream (as steady as anything can be here in Haiti)of electricity.

Second problem is our internet service. We pay $60/month for this service but lately, for the last few months, it has been very "spotty". Sometimes you have it and sometimes you don't. It terribly frustrating. When you want it, it's not there.

Third problem is the new computer. I leterally put it in my briefcase as I left without having had time to get to "know" it. So now I'm here and I'm very confused.
One real bad thing is my Skype connection. It does not seem to be working. I barely here he dialing sound for the numbers and then there is nobody on the other end. Is my computer faulty with regard to the sound or am I not doing something right? Who knows? Why I didn't bring my old computer is beyond me. Well, I do know why I didn't bring it. It was a question of weight. You pay if your bags are overweitht and you pay a lot if they are really overweight. So I left if behind. Now I'm sorry I did. Skype worked easy with the old computer and so did going to my blog to post an entry. I'm I have to navigate the G-mail sea and I'm getting seasick. So if you don't hear from me in the next few weeks it's probably because I can't find my way back to where I'm supposed to enter the blog.

As for things in general they are fine. The house was in good order. There are only six men here now, the rest are off doing summer ministries and taking some vacation. The big thing coming up is the visit of Father Alberto, the Provincial of the SA/Carribbian Province. He is to arrive the first week of August but I still have no fixed date. There is so much to discuss. We need to have a novitiate beginning late August or early September. Will he send us a Novice Director or will he name me to that position? It's all a mystery. We also have to begin planning for the future of this Hatian foundation. We've bought land and Hands Together - God bless them - have drilled us a well on the property so we can begin putting up a wall. We will be helped with all that by "Pere Joseph" a Scalabrini priest who lives close by and who oversaw the building of many buildings on the Scalabrini property. All his buildings stood up during the earthquake so that says a lot. Anyway, getting back to the visit of the Provincial I need your prayers and "we" need your prayers.

Many of you have given me money to help our work and to help needy Haitians. Well I just gave a check to one of our postulants to pay for a week's vacaation for thrity "Friends of St. Francis de Sales" a youth group founded at St FdeS H.S. one of Hands Together's schools in Cite Soleil. They are wondeful young people and many groups get to "do a camp" during the summer for a week or ten days somewhere outside the city. This group has never had that opportunity so I thought it was a worthy cause and gladly wrote the check to pay for food, etc. So on their befalf I thank you.

Guess that's it for now. I hope this gets posted. I'll write again next week if I can get into my blog. Pray for my patience! Peace to all and love. Tom

June 5, 2011

2011-06-05T17:21:00.000-07:00

For the Haitians these days, it has been “cold”. The temperature is about 78 degrees but it has been overcast and rainy all this week and generally miserable. I always think of the 30,000 or more living in tents. It’s one thing to go camping for a weekend and have rainy weather, but it is quite another to live day in and day out in a tent with no privacy, no decent bathroom facilities and what’s worse, no security from roving bands of bandits and rapists who can terrorize these neighborhoods of tents. God help them.
We, on the other hand, are “inconvenienced”. One of the postulants who often wears one of our light “winter” jackets with a hood when it is in the low 80’s, came to chapel on Friday in a much heavier jacket. He’s freezing! as we would say, like we would be if we were wearing only a light spring jacket and the temperature dropped to around 40. So if you are out in the rain you are wet and if you are wearing some kind of plastic rain gear you’re still damp because you are sweating under the plastic. You can’t win. This is new for me. I’ve been here in the hurricane season when it’s been overcast and rainy for maybe two or three days, but not a week. Add to that a black out – that is,no electricity from the electric company! That means no running water because the pump only works with electricity from EDH. Luckily we have a generator which will charge up our inverter so we have lights and can use our computers. It’s getting to be exam time and papers are due so the computers are running constantly. Alas, with the dampness, we have a very spotty internet connection. Why the weather affects the internet I’ll never know, but it seems it does. So another “incontinence” and yet in comparison to many many others we’re very well off.
I had the end of the school year interviews this week with mixed results. Either my questions with which tried to elicit some self awareness was not clear or many of these men are not terribly self aware. When asked what is the most important thing you have learned about yourself this past year, only one said, “I see that I have possibilities and that I have more patience.” Not a bad answer. Most of the others simply said they have learned more philosophy or that their French has improved. That may be true but it’s not very deep. (Oh Tom, you’re never satisfied!) The two I’m not inviting to continue next year said they preferred that I not say anything when I leave on Tuesday. They will be gone when I get back in early July. I agreed to say nothing. Friday I gave a brief conference lining up things that need to be done after exams and before they leave for vacation on June 21. I made a copy of what I said to avoid any confusion. The men have a way of clearing out right away without leaving the house and property in good order so I’ve named certain ones to okay the cleaning and book gathering before they get their transportation money. I think they’ll do fine.
Now for a RANT! I just got back from Cité Soleil and Mass at Ste Anne’s. It went very well and like last Sunday, for the second time, I proclaimed the gospel in Creole. It’s always a matter of “little by little…” Anyway for the rant – we passed as we often do armored vehicles, really war vehicles, of the United Nations (supposed) Peacekeeping Force. The soldiers are in full battle dress carrying heavy weaponry. (It has got to be very hot and uncomfortable.) They come from Pakistan, Nepal (It is on record that it was this contingent who brought their special strain of Cholera to Haiti), Brazil and elsewhere. I’m sure millions if not billions of dollars have been spent on this force since their arrival some ten years ago or so. And for what? They don’t do anything. There they are in Cité Soleil where there are gangs roaming the streets, killing people in broad daylight and the UN Peacekeeping Force sits in tanks and does nothing. I want to ask them how many criminals have you put behind bars since you arrived. I’ll bet not one. If the money spent on their upkeep had been spent on building and repairing highways, roads and city streets, on building a hospital or two, on building schools, etc. that money would have been better spent. As it is all money spend on paying the soldiers goes to foreign economies and does not help Haiti at all. Something is very wrong. In the poorest part of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere soldiers from all over the world are riding around in tanks and military war vehicles while the people they are looking at are in such dire need – well something is very, very wrong! I’m not a politician, nor an economist, nor a social scientist, nor a doctor nor a lawyer but I just don’t get it. We seem to be totally invested in war materiel and we have forgotten about the basic needs of people for food and decent drinking water, for decent jobs, education and health care. This wartime economy and mentality is just wrong.
Anyway, that’s the news from Lake Woebegone. I’m off the the States on Tuesday, God willing. Let’s keep praying for one another. I’ll pick this up when I return to Haiti. Love and prayers to all. Tom

may 29, 2011

2011-05-29T16:26:00.000-07:00

It’s Mothers’ Day here in Haiti. Today at the Chapel of Ste Anne in Cité Soleil where we have our Sunday community Mass, we blessed all the mothers, those present and all our mothers both living and deceased. We also blessed the women who though they are not mothers literally, nevertheless they have many spiritual children with whom they have shared their maternal instincts and have enriched us all.

I’m just back from a second Mass for a young adults group. I thought they wanted the Mass in Creole but when it came to the readings, they did them in French. Oh well… I had to prepare a homily right after dinner since the one who asked me to say the Mass said to me, “Oh no, Pere Tom, you are preaching.” Well the homily was in French and it talked about our Mothers who were the first to teach us about our Faith, our prayers and the hymns we remember from our youth. I said that in doing this they were giving us an example, that is, they were sharing their Faith with us and so encouraging us to do the same with others (at least indirectly). This picks up on the theme of Easter time, namely that it’s about baptism and proclaiming the Good News. The best part of the homily was fact that it was short. The homily this morning at Cite Soleil was at least 20 minutes long.

Friday I had a short chapter/conference at which I announced that I was beginning a final interview session with all the men. I gave them five questions that they should be prepared to talk about. Do you what to hear them? Yes, Tom we can hardly wait! Well, here goes: (1) What is the most important thing you have learned about yourself this year? I said that this question concerned their self awareness and self-knowledge. (2) What is the most important thing you have learned about community life? (3) Talk about your spiritual life and especially about your personal prayer. Have you noticed any changes since September? How so? (This concerns your spiritual life as one who is to be an Oblate.) (4) What is the thing you are ashamed of during this time? (5) Give three reasons why the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales should continue to accept you as a Postulant? I begin the interviews tomorrow. So we’ll see if the questions provoke any serious discussion.

Wednesday and Thursday I attended a conference of Religious Women from Canada who have sisters here in Haiti along with members of the Conference of Religious (men and women) of Haiti. The Canadian Sisters wanted to help with the “re-founding” or “rebuilding” of Haiti which is supposedly beginning. There was a panel who spoke to the condition of Haiti today from several points of view. All well done. The next day there were two talks given by Haitian theologians about what stance religious should assume in this time; one that is prophetic or one that is mystical? And the second talk was about what religious should be about at this time. Both were excellent and very challenging. Strip yourself of all privileges, work together, find a way of helping people without creating a dependency, to name a few. It was a good conference and I met several Canadian Sisters and also some Superior Generals who are Americans and members of Canadian congregations. I found them all very heads up.

One sad observation cited by one of the Haitian theologians was that the world in general (and it’s true of me personally) find the Haitian people unbelievably strong and resourceful. In the face of so many disasters the carry on. He pointed out that this is true for the individuals and for families. Family is very strong here in Haiti he said. What is sad is the fact that together, as citizens of the country, as Haitians, they are not strong and they are not united. This in spite of their motto, “In Union there is Strength” (or something like that). He said that they just don’t work together-whether it’s because they do not trust one another or what, I’m not sure. I’m really looking forward to the article this Jesuit will publish on the same subject.

Finally I’m adding to today’s blog a homily sent to me by a friend in Detroit. It is from a website that has a homily for each Sunday of the year. I thought this one was especially thought provoking. So blessings to all. Till next week, Tom

What I find astounding in the Acts reading today
> is that the Samaritans accept Phillip's
> preaching and then they receive the visit by
> Peter and John, who had arrived to survey what
> was happening in Samaria. The Samaritans and Jews
> were bitter enemies, yet the Samaritans accepted
> these preachers from Jerusalem and the Christ they proclaimed.
>
> Imagine how the early Jewish Christian
> communities would have to adjust to Samaritan
> Christians in their midst! Wasn't John (along
> with James) the one who wanted Jesus to call down
> fire on the Samaritan village that had rejected
> him (Luke 9-54)? The good news in the story is
> that former enemies are united by their faith in
> Christ. Forgiveness and reconciliation were
> fruits of the Spirit's presence among those early
> Christians -- but let's hope, not just "back then," but for us too!
>
> The Samaritans were outsiders, to the extreme,
> for the Jews; but God is consistent in giving the
> free gift of grace to those formerly
> excluded. Now the aliens are aliens no longer.
> All people are eligible candidates for God's
> gifts and are made brothers and sisters through
> their baptism. What Jesus promises in today's
> gospel has happened--the Advocate, the Spirit of
> truth, has been given us. Now we are all brothers
> and sisters in Christ--not orphans, but children
> of God. There should be no "outsiders" in our
> community; none counted as "late-comers," or second class parish
> members.
>
> As we look around our congregation this morning
> whom have we or our parishioners considered
> Samaritans, the least likely to join us in
> prayer? But here they are! We cannot ignore them,
> especially if they, like the Samaritans, show
> signs of the Spirit's life. We welcome and
> respect one another; none are lesser in God's
> eyes, nor should they be in ours. Peter calls us
> today to "good conduct in Christ." What better
> conduct can we do as a Christians, with past and
> present differences, than be united as a community of Christ's
> disciples?
>
> There's an "issue" in today's Acts reading which
> probably will confuse main-line churchgoers. It
> occurs in the second part (8:14-17) and it's
> about baptism and the gift of the Spirit. More
> fundamental Christians would argue for a baptism
> of the Holy Spirit to complete the work of
> Baptism. Early Christians saw the Spirit working
> in very obvious, external signs (speaking in
> tongues, ecstatic behavior, etc.) And so they
> expected to find these signs as proof of the
> Spirit's presence. Paul had to deal with how to
> address the Corinthian community's manifestations
> of the Spirit. While he appreciated these gifts,
> he also saw how they could cause rivalry and
> partisanship and divide the church. Remember
> where he put the emphasis in his letter to the
> Corinthians, "There are in the end three gifts
> that last: faith, hope and love, and the greatest
> of these is love (I Cor 13:13). In our church
> tradition we might see, in the apostles' laying
> hands over the Samaritans and their prayer for
> the Spirit to come on them, as a foretaste of our celebration of
> Confirmation.
>
> Today's gospel has one more selection from Jesus'
> "Farewell Discourse" to his disciples the night
> before he died. He is preparing them for his
> departure. He directs them that, if they love
> him, they will keep his commandments. It's what
> you might expect a religious leader to say before
> departing: "Here's my last will and testament."
> Or, "These are my last words to you--don't forget
> them!" But I want to ask, "Where is the book of
> commandments Jesus left behind? Let's open it up
> and check off how we have been doing."
>
> It's a mistake to think that, just before he is
> about to leave his disciples, Jesus is springing
> a set of rules on them. That's not the way he
> lived life with his disciples. We don't have a
> rule book to remember him by and guide us. We may
> have had a student's list of proper behavior when
> we were in grammar school. Perhaps now, at work,
> we have a list of procedures and guidelines which
> employees are to follow if they want to keep
> their jobs. But we don't have a rule book for
> Jesus. We know what he wants us to do: to love
> one another as he loved us; to be forgiving and
> self-sacrificing towards those who need us--even
> if they don't deserve it--just as he was with us.
> How can you write that down in a rule book? Or
> spell that out in a list of commandments? Jesus
> calls us to do more than any law would require.
> Laws narrowly define how we are to behave. But
> Jesus' love breaks laws confines and sets us free
> to be loving -- even towards our enemies.
>
> As I write this we Americans are celebrating the
> death of Osama bin Laden. He was a terrible man
> who inflicted pain on tens of thousands of
> lives--his victims, their loved ones and those
> who suffered the conflict of war and acts of
> violence as a result of his actions. I was in New
> York on 9/11 and you could see and smell the
> burning towers, with their human and structural
> contents, across the city. My family's parish had
> 25 funeral masses those weeks.
>
> James Martin, S. J., in a recent blog for
> "America" magazine, (posted May 2, 2011), shared
> his memories of ministry to survivors, victim's
> families, rescue workers and medical personnel
> near the site of the World Trade Center. He says
> that while he is "not blind to the death and
> instruction caused by Osama bin Laden" still, we
> are Christians celebrating the Easter season when
> Christ, an innocent victim of violence, rose from
> the dead. Jesus calls us to forgive, "Not seven
> times… but seventy times seven times." In other
> words, forgiveness doesn't have a required number
> or a time. Nor is it given to some, but not to others.
>
> Forgiveness is the most difficult virtue, but it
> is a serious responsibility for all Christians.
> Bin Laden was killed on the day John Paul II was
> beatified. When the Pope got out of the hospital
> after he was shot, he went to the prison to visit
> the Turkish extremist Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried
> to kill him, to offer him forgiveness. The
> picture of the Pope talking in the cell with
> Mehmet became an icon of forgiveness for people of all faiths.
>
> We are relieved bin Laden is no longer a threat
> to other innocents, but Martin reminds us that as
> Christians we are called to pray for him and
> eventually to forgive him. It is not an easy
> teaching to follow. Jesus himself was not
> untouched by violence and yet he forgave those
> who inflicted it on him. Jesus knew what he was
> asking of his followers. Left on our own we could
> never live out Jesus' teachings -- especially the one about
> forgiveness.
>
> But he makes clear today that he has not left us,
> only to return at some later date to see how we
> have followed his teachings. Instead, he tells
> this disciples "I will not leave you orphans, I
> will come back to you." He promises to send them
> "another Advocate." In John's gospel Jesus was
> the first Advocate sent by God to us. Now, he
> tells us a second, another Advocate, will be
> given them, "the Spirit of truth,"--the Holy
> Spirit. The Spirit will make Jesus' present to
> us. That Spirit will also open Jesus' word to us
> and inform and enable us to live as he did--as
> children of the loving God Jesus revealed to us.
>
> Love calls and enables us to follow the way of
> Jesus. The Spirit he sent us floods us with an
> awareness of God's love for us and overflows from
> us to those around us--even to our enemies.
> People will see in our lives signs of the
> Spirit's presence in us. How else could they
> explain the loving and forgiving ways we live?
>
> Next week is the Ascension of Jesus. The
> departure he prepared his disciples for will
> happen and, at first, they will feel his absence.
> After he is gone they will have to get busy and
> live the life he taught them. But not before they
> receive the gift of the Advocate he promised. In
> John's Gospel this happens when he appears to
> them in the upper room after his resurrection.
> Each of us is aware how we need that Spirit if we
> are to reflect Jesus' risen life to the world.
> So, as we wait for our Pentecost, we pray as
> individuals and the church, "Come Holy Spirit."
>
> We mainstream Christians, especially Catholics,
> tend to shy away from terms like, "evangelizing,"
> "bearing witness," "giving testimony," etc. They
> sound so "in-your-face." It's what we tend to
> expect from certain fundamentalist sects. Still,
> the one fruit of the Spirit's presence is to form
> us as witnesses to Jesus' life, death and
> resurrection. I find Peter's advice to the
> Gentile churches today helpful as he directs
> them, "Always be ready to give an explanation to
> anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope,
> but do it with gentleness and reverence…."
>
> Peter would know that Jesus fulfilled his promise
> to send the Holy Spirit because he would know
> of the Spirit's presence in the Gentile
> Christian churches to whom he was writing. His
> advice to them and us, is to live the kind of
> lives that would move someone to ask about our
> faith. The presumption being that our lives are
> distinctive enough to raise questions. Our
> response should be one of a gentle respect for the person who asks.
>
> So, when Osama bin Laden was killed and we
> were asked about it, how did we respond? I heard
> a woman interviewed from London today. She was in
> the bombing of the London Underground that killed
> over 50 people in 2005. She said she was glad
> that others might now be spared a similar,
> terrifying experience like the one she went
> through. But, she added, all life is sacred, even
> his. So, she said, she could never rejoice and
> celebrate the death of another human being, even
> if it were Osama bin Laden. Very challenging
> response. It has the sound of the "Spirit of
> truth" about it. The Spirit Jesus promised to send and guide us!
>
> Quotable
> "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives,
> but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not
> even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies
> hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already
> devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out
> darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot
> drive out hate: only love can do that."
> --- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
>
>Jwe ask ourselves:
> Has you example ever aroused interest in someone about your faith?
> Did your response lead to a personal sharing of your faith with
> them?
> Have you prayed for them since that discussion?
>
U

May 22, 2011

2011-05-24T05:12:00.000-07:00

You don’t appreciate things, common things that are all around you, until they’re not there. A very good example of this for me is the internet. Yesterday morning, very early, our internet connection left us and it did not return until Sunday, late in the afternoon. No big deal! Ha! It isn’t a big deal really but I needed to contact about three people and of course, I couldn’t. Frustrating? Oh yes. For one thing the Provincial of the South American/Caribbean Province who has been “incommunicado” since his election in January is now back in Brazil and there will be Provincial Council meeting this week. We just got this message and since he is supposed to visit us “first thing” I wanted to let our representative know that I’m leaving for the States on June 7th. So if he’s coming soon it better be very soon. But of course with no internet there was no way to get this information to Brazil. Well, we now have the internet, at least for awhile, so I sent the message off.
The next thing that happened was a phone call from my sister Ann. There was no message just an indication that she had called my cell phone. Well that is highly unusual so what can I do? No internet, no Skype and thus no call back to Ann. Now I’m trying to remain calm and am doing okay, but still – what was the reason that she called? I called her on my cell phone and left a message on her answering machine asking what the trouble was. Well, a few hours later when we got the internet restored I called only to find out (over a very bad connection) that she had not called and everything was all right. Thank you God but after all that uneasiness I was left sort of tired and not really feeling like writing this blog. But at least I’ve started it.

It’s now Monday morning and I’ve been able to talk to my sister Ann and she’s fine and all is well and she doesn’t know how her number appeared on my cell phone. It’s a mystery and part of modern technology which is beyond me.

The next news is that Father Alberto the new Provincial of the South American/Caribbean Province is now in Brazil and is going to have a meeting of the Provincial Council tomorrow. At that meeting they will fix a date for his visit to Haiti. That was the other thing I wanted the internet for on Saturday. I needed to tell our representative on the council that I’m leaving for the States on June 7 and will be away for a month. Then I got word that he wants to come on July 15 to visit the community. The only problem is that most of the community will be on vacation at that time so very few will be here to meet him. I’ve now let them know that so either he’ll come soon before I leave or he come later when the community will be back from vacation in September. There is also a question of a novitiate which we need to have begun in late August or early September. I’ve offered to be novice master if they want me, but one way or the other we need to have a novitiate. That too will be decided at the meeting tomorrow – I hope. Dealing with the SA/Carib Province has proved to be very challenging to say the least. So we will see what we will see.

I’ve been following the Little White Book for the fifty days of Easter published by the Diocese of Saginaw in Michigan. “The Little Books” came from an idea Bishop Ken Untener once had in preparing his diocese for the season of Lent. He put together a “Little Black Book” (the cover was black and it was little) containing Scripture passages for every day and a reflection on the passage. The reflections came from Ken’s soul. They were down to earth and written in “kitchen table” English as he would say. People loved the books and so a tradition began. Ken made books for Advent and also for the fifty days following Easter. What he was doing was teaching his flock how to pray the scriptures (Lectio Divina). When Ken died the tradition continued with thoughts taken from his writings. There are thousands sold and distributed each year in various parishes and religious houses across the US and Canada and beyond. Ken was a very good friend of mine and I tell people that if they want to know Ken read (and pray) his reflections on the right hand side of the Little Books. He once told me it took him about two and a half hours to write a single reflection.

Well, the reflection for Saturday, the Fourth Week of Easter is on John 10:10 and begins with another quote from John’s gospel “I came so that they might have life.” “That they may have life” was Ken’s Episcopal motto. He writes: Sometimes I may get the impression that to join the Church is just the opposite of what Jesus said in the Gospel. Instead of coming out of the confinement of the sheepfold and into the wide open pasture, a person who joins the Church seems to be going into the confinement of the sheepfold. Maybe I feel confined because there are things I can’t do. Maybe I feel my thinking has to be stifled. But Jesus’ words are true. I may expect that belonging to the Church community means I give up some freedom to think what I want to think. In reality, the security I can find in the Church allows me to dream and explore and ask questions I couldn’t ask before. By belonging to a community of the Lord’s disciples, I can dream great dreams and experience a great destiny no matter who I am. Jesus has come so that I might have life. (The meditations always end with the suggestion “Spend some quiet time with the Lord.”)

That reflection is pure Ken Untener. “…I can dream great dreams and experience a great destiny…” Ken did dream and he studied and he thought deep thoughts. He loved the Church and he was steeped in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. He was a true bishop, that is, a true shepherd and teacher. He helped us all who were fortunate enough to be part of his flock to open our minds and hearts to the great truths of our Faith – to ask questions and to learn more. He did this for the priests of the diocese but he did it especially for the laity. He loved celebrating Mass in the various parishes of the diocese and opening the scriptures for the faithful to see anew and to celebrate anew the mysteries of our Faith. Ken was so down to earth. He didn’t let the titles and the trappings of the episcopacy cow him as so many of his brother bishops have been cowed. He loved being bishop but he didn’t need to be a bishop to be okay. He was a magnificent person and I am very blessed to have been one of his friends.

Now having said that I am faced with what I read in the National Catholic Reporter about a bishop in Australia who was relieved of his diocese, a very rural diocese in Australia with very few priests. Why was he removed? Simply because over six years ago he mused in a pastoral letter he wrote to the diocese that given the situation of so few priests that maybe we should begin thinking about the question of ordaining married men and also of ordaining women. He simply wanted to open a discussion, ask a question, and for that he was removed. “I can dream great dreams…” well, you may be able to dream great dreams but don’t talk about those dreams or don’t ask any questions. After all, the Pope has said the Church cannot ordain women and DON’T EVEN TALK ABOUT IT! Something is terribly wrong! We’ve always been able to ask questions – to push the envelope. When we have evidence that there are bishops who closed their eyes to the sexual abuse perpetrated by some of their own priests on children and there has been no removal from office, no punishment for them and another bishop in a rural diocese who hasn’t enough priests to insure a Sunday liturgy in each parish because of a shortage of priests, wants to open an honest discussion about the possibility of ordaining others who are not single male Catholics…-and he is removed from his diocese… Not so good, not so good.
So these are my wandering thoughts from Haiti this week. Blessings to all. Tom

May 14, 2011

2011-05-14T13:59:00.000-07:00

It’s Saturday but it’s a special Saturday. Today here in Haiti we are inaugurating a new president, Michael Martelly. I pray and we pray that he will be able to fulfill his duties with integrity and that he will be able to work with the other branches of government to bring about a change here in Haiti, a change for the better. I know that’s a lot to hope for but my hope is in the Lord and for the Lord all is possible. After all, it’s the Easter Season and look what God did for Jesus his Son! Everybody thought that it was all over. Jesus was dead and not only dead but crucified! Only to find out that on the third day he wasn’t dead at all but that he had risen from the dead. May Haiti rise from the deaths it has experienced through the years, the deaths of corruption, exploitation, and natural disasters. At the end of my reflections today I’m adding a piece from the New York Times that gives a summary of the history of Haiti and where we are today. I though it seemed to be a balanced look at the situation. You can judge for yourselves.

Other news: I followed up my fist conference on sexuality by a second one in which I gave the community two cases of hypothetical Oblates in different pastoral situations. They broke up into three groups of six to discuss the cases and come back with their reflections. After that I gave my reflections. It seemed to go over well. I have pointed out that when counseling people, the door should always be left open. I also said that touching anyone no matter how compassionate our intentions or how innocent a gesture such as a touch can be misunderstood. We must have the permission of the other person to enter their space. I quoted our Founder Fr. Brisson who said, “You must never touch a student neither to correct nor to caress.” Not bad advice. Too bad lots of priests and others didn’t heed it.

I also pointed out that we are seen by the public in general and by the civil law as “professionals”. As such any interaction between us and an individual is not on an equal person to person basis or level. We will be held responsible for any misconduct that takes place in that meeting. It’s as simple as that. I know some of you may be thinking how sad that such things have to be said, and I agree; but they must be said and repeated again and again so that we don’t have naive priests and religious wandering around. There has been no outbreak a clergy sex scandal here in Haiti “so far”. And please God there never will be. But we must be ready and prepare our men for the world as it is and not as we would like it to be.

Next week there are a few free days from class. Wednesday is the equivalent of our Flag Day and it’s a national holiday. I remember celebrating it last year at our other house. I must have returned by then after my back operation. Thank God my back has been okay but I still watch and don’t pick up heavy things.

Guess that all for now. Blessings to all. Tom

The article on Haiti follows:

Overview
One of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, Haiti in recent years has struggled with problems ranging from near-constant political upheaval, health crises, and an annual barrage of hurricanes. and the worst earthquake in the region in more than 200 years.
The quake that struck on Jan. 10, 2010, reduced much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, to rubble. A study by the Inter-American Development Bank estimated that the total cost of the disaster was between $8 billion to $14 billion, based on a death toll from 200,000 to 250,000. That number was revised in 2011 by Haiti's government to 316,000.
More than a million displaced people still live under tents and tarpaulins. International donors promised Haiti $5.3 billion at a March 2010 donor’s conference. But reconstruction involving better buildings and roads has barely begun. Officials’ sole point of pride six months after the earthquake — that disease and violence had been averted — vanished with the outbreak of cholera.
In March 2011, two conservative rivals faced off in a runoff election for the presidency. In April, it was announced that Michel Martelly, a performer with the stage name Sweet Micky, had defeated Mirlande H. Manigat, a former first lady and college administrator who was the top vote getter in the initial round of voting in November 2010.
With tens of thousands of people displaced by the 2010 earthquake still living in camps, only a fraction of the rubble cleared and more than 4,600 killed by cholera since the epidemic began in October, it appears Haitians believed only a political newcomer like Mr. Martelly could change the country’s direction.
In the campaign, Mr. Martelly eschewed the skirts, underwear and other outlandish outfits of his musical career in favor of tailored suits and serious talk of reforming agriculture, streamlining the delivery of humanitarian aid and restoring law and order by bringing back the military, which was disbanded more than a decade ago after a history of human rights and political abuses.
Now, he faces the challenge of speeding the rebuilding of a country that, long before the quake, was the poorest in the Western Hemisphere and one if it’s most politically unstable.
Haiti is heavily reliant on foreign humanitarian aid, dispersed among hundreds of nongovernmental organizations that operate in effect as a shadow government. It also relies on United Nations peacekeepers for security. In addition, Mr. Martelly will have to share power with a prime minister picked by Parliament, where the party of his predecessor, Rene Préval, is strong.
The Duvalier Legacy
Haiti occupies an area roughly the size of Maryland on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Nearly all of the 8.7 million residents are of African descent and speak Creole and French. The capital is Port-au-Prince.
The country is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, with four out of five people living in poverty and more than half in abject poverty. Deforestation and over-farming have left much of Haiti eroded and barren, undermining subsistence farming efforts, driving up food prices and leaving the country even more vulnerable to natural disasters. Its long history of political instability and corruption has added to the turmoil.
In 1791, Haiti became the world's first black republic and the first independent nation in the region after it won independence in 1804 in a slave revolt against Napoleonic France. Its history has been shaped by profound political disarray, chaotic rule marked by corruption and brutal repression and, beginning in 1915, a two-decade occupation by the United States. Haiti's most infamous leader was François Duvalier, known as Papa Doc, who was elected president in 1957, beginning a long rule known for venality and human rights abuses. His son Jean-Claude Duvalier ruled from 1971 until he fled in 1986 but not before looting the treasury in another Haitian tradition. What followed was another period of alternating civilian and military regimes.
Regime Change and Free Elections
In 1991, Jean-Bertrand Aristide became president after winning 67 percent of the vote, but he was overthrown shortly after taking office in a violent coup leading to a three-year period of military rule that ended only after the intervention of a United Nations force led by the United States. While the 1995 election of René Préval, a prominent political ally of Mr. Aristide, was widely praised, subsequent elections were plagued with allegations of fraud, including the 2000 restoration of Mr. Aristide to his old post.
Over the following years, violence spread throughout the country as the government cracked down on opposition party leaders, holding power in part with the aid of extra-legal gangs. In February 2004, after groups opposed to the Aristide government seized control of cities and towns throughout Haiti and closed in on the capital, Mr. Aristide resigned and fled to South Africa. United States-led armed forces under the authority of the United Nations Security Council were sent to Port-au-Prince to bring order and oversee the installation of an interim government. The United Nations has spent some $5 billion on peacekeeping operations since 2004.
In 2006, Mr. Préval was re-elected president amidst allegations of impropriety.
Despite bouts of optimism brought on by the implementation of a new constitution and the first peaceful transfer of power between two elected presidents in the nation’s history, Haiti’s politics in the post-earthquake era remain as tumultuous as ever.
The Return Duvalier and Aristide
In March 2011, days before the election, and despite warnings from President Obama that his return could cause yet another tumultuous political development here, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the twice-exiled former president of Haiti, returned home from exile in South Africa.

Mr. Aristide became the second major figure in Haitian history to return in recent months: Jean-Claude Duvalier, the former dictator known as Baby Doc, suddenly returned from exile in January and is living quietly in the city while courts iron out pending human rights and corruption charges related to his government.
After Mr. Duvalier, who was overthrown in 1986, arrived in the capital in January 2011, Mr. Aristide demanded that his exile end, too. In February 2011, Haitian officials issued him a diplomatic passport, denied to him since his departure.
Both men claim that they are interested in national reconciliation; both are doubted by critics of their governments. Experts inside and outside Haiti fear that the presence of the two former leaders could further destabilize the country, which is already struggling with cholera, tent cities created by the 2010 earthquake and political instability before the delayed presidential runoff on March 20.
Political Instability and Natural Disasters
Since 2008, Haiti's situation has worsened dramatically. It has staggered under the double whammy of food riots, government instability and a series of hurricanes that killed hundreds and battered the economy — all of this before the deadliest earthquake in the country’s history.
The January 2010 earthquake left the country and its densely populated Port-au-Prince in flattened, its poorly constructed buildings and shanties destroyed or seriously compromised and the government broken. Upwards of 250,000 lives were lost.
More than 3,000 school buildings in the earthquake zone were in shambles; hundreds of teachers and thousands of students were killed. Some schools may never reopen, leaving vast numbers of children languishing in camps or working in menial jobs, struggling to sustain themselves.
The United States and Its Tone
Humanitarian aid from around the world has streamed into Haiti. The United States, which has a history of either political domination or neglect in its backyard, has tried to strike the right tone, coordinating relief efforts and pledging financial aid.
Since 1994, Haiti has resurfaced in the American conscience only during times of crisis: the Aristide meltdown; and after four devastating storms in 2008 that wiped out most of the country’s food crops and damaged irrigation systems, causing acute hunger for millions.
In the aftermath of the January earthquake, the United States was among the largest single donors, committing $1.15 billion on top of the more than $900 million already spent.
Pledges added up to nearly $5.3 billion over two years, and a total of $9.9 billion over three years or more, according to Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general. But the very size of the outpouring raised questions about whether the commitments would be met and how fast the financial support could help salve the needs of the Haitian people.
Hopes Fade for a New Haiti
By May 2010, the hope that a more efficient, more just Haiti might rise from the rubble was giving way to stalemate and bitterness. Haitians complained that the politically connected were benefiting most from the scant reconstruction work and that crime was returning. Meanwhile, unproductive politicians and aid groups struggled with temporary refugee camps that looked more permanent every day.
Parliament was essentially disbanded; power rested with Mr. Préval, his cabinet and a reconstruction commission led by the Haitian prime minister and former President Bill Clinton. Haiti’s first election since the January earthquake took place in late November 2010, characterized by disorganization, voter intimidation, the ransacking of polling stations and fraud.
Even before the polls closed, 12 of the 18 presidential candidates had called for the election’s cancellation. In early December, following an election in which polling places were ransacked and ballot boxes stuffed, the country’s electoral board announced that Jude Célestin, seen as Mr. Préval’s hand-picked successor, and Mirlande Manigat, a former Haitian first lady, had won the first round of voting. Michel Martelly, a singer with an impassioned following in the streets of Haiti’s bedraggled capital, came in third.
The results set off violent protests that shut down the capital and spread outside the city. Mr. Préval, whose popularity has fallen as the pace of rebuilding from the January 2010 earthquake has slowed, came under intense diplomatic pressure to accept the conclusion of a team of international experts who said Mr. Célestin had not earned a spot in the runoff because of tainted results.
Both Mr. Martelly and Ms. Manigat were considered relative conservatives, particularly on law-and-order concerns.
Mr. Martelly promised an anticorruption crusade, to eliminate what his campaign has identified as $900 million in “wasted money” in the Haitian government, and a back-to-the-land program to revive agriculture. Mr. Martelly, who was briefly in the Haitian Army in his youth, has also discussed restoring the feared military in a role akin to the National Guard in the United States.

May 8, 2011

2011-05-08T13:56:00.000-07:00

It has been a week where there’s been funny things happening, different things; all in all I suppose it’s been just a regular week!

A funny thing: Friday Osias told me he needed money for… I just couldn’t get it. It had something to do with the car; something was broken and needed fixing. “Moof lay!” he kept saying, le moof lay! Well finally he drags me out to show me the back of the jeep and and he points to the tail pipe. Further along the tail pipe we find “le moof lay” or, since it is an English word, pronounced correctly it is “the muffler!” I said, Osias, if you’re going to use an English word, like “muffler” you have to pronounce it the way we do in English – MUFFLER! We all laughed. Most of the men know some English but they’re afraid to use it. I keep saying that I have to use French and Creole and I murder both, so they have to try their English. Don’t you just love it!

Next I’m reminded of the teacher who wrote the word “sex” in big letters on the blackboard. There was silence in the classroom. He then proceeded to say, “Now that I have your attention…” and went on to tell the class what he wanted to say. Well, in that same way you may recall last week I was going to begin a series of talks on sexuality and I’m sure, now that I have our attention, you want to know how the talk was received. In a word, fine – we had a good beginning. At the end of the talk which I began by talking about the sexual abuse scandal by the clergy and the need to talk about our sexuality as we move toward a life of celibacy, I had two questions that everybody had to answer out laud there in front of the group. The first question was: What is your reaction to all I’ve said? And second: What is your reaction to the sexual abuse scandal? Their responses were good and as I said, for a start I was happy with the response I got. Mind you I was quite explicit about biological changes that take place in our bodies as we move from boyhood to manhood. And then I was very clear about some of the bodily or genital reactions men have automatically given certain stimuli. Plus I addressed some of the psychosexual differences between men and women with regard sexual fantasies and sexual arousal – all things we’ve learned and know about (or should know about) and have experienced but things not often talked about. So we got the ball rolling. There is a lot more to cover and discuss but little by little. We finally got around to having the conference on Monday late afternoon since we were rained out on two previous occasions. The fact is, on Monday in the courtyard outside the house which is covered by canvas tarps, it started to rain and then to pour. Was God telling me something? Well, we moved into the dining room and continued there and thank God it worked. As for comments after which I solicited I think most everybody thought it was good to talk about.

Today, Sunday is Mothers Day in the USA but not here. Mothers Day here is the last Sunday of May. I offered Mass for my Mom and for all your Moms and for all those wonderful women I have met who have nurtured me with their maternal instincts in healthy ways. I’ve been known to say, “We love our Moms and we hate our Moms” and by that I mean there is no one who can get to you in a way you don’t want to be gotten to than your Mom. Moms just seem to have that “special something” that can drive you crazy - whether it’s a word or a look or both. Usually it’s something we just don’t want to hear or look at and yet – there it is, brought to you by your Mom. Lots of that stuff we usually come see later was true or right, but only later, never at the moment. As for loving our Moms, well, what can I say? Moms are our greatest cheerleaders. They are always in our corner rooting for us and hoping (and of course praying) that we make out okay in whatever it is we’re about. They all went through a lot bring us into this world for which all of us are grateful. So may you all be blessed, all you Moms out there and all the other good women who have blessed us with their goodness and love.

Today I said Mass at a chapel attached to our parish of Ste Clare. Tom was in town so he said Mass at Ste Anne's. I noticed a lot of construction up in the hills outside of town where this chapel is located. Some organization or organizations are building plywood cabins for the people. How they choose a site I have no idea but there are lots of one room cabins going up. They look sturdy enough and are set on a simple cinder block foundation. They don’t look very big, maybe 9’ x 12’. And I’m sure it’s better than living in a tent, not a lot better, but better. My problem with the construction is this, there seems to be no plan. I’m wondering if they are building future slums. There doesn’t seem to be a planned layout with electric lines, sewers, and water supply. It all looks very provisional and haphazard. But who am I to judge? I hope the new government which is set to take over sometime this month can get to work on an overall plan of reconstruction. I noticed last week that the Palais National (something like our White House) which was in ruins after the earthquake is being taken down. What will replace it and when is anybody’s guess.

Friday I gave a short talk to the community about this being the last stretch of the school year and how we need to be patient with one another and kind. We can’t forget everything and just think of “my exams” and “my year-end assignments”. I’ve had to mediate a few fights between a few members of the community in the last three weeks and while I’m ready to do that I encouraged the folks to find peaceful means to work out there differences. We’ll see how that works out.

Guess that’s it for now. Peace and blessings to all and be assured of my prayers. Tom

May 1, 2011

2011-05-02T06:41:00.000-07:00

It's May first already, can you believe it! All is well here with me in Haiti. We’ve had a week of vacation from school. There has been time for study, for some work around the house and for some recreation. The men in philosophy have one more day of vacation but the two studying theology return to class tomorrow so it’s back to our usual schedule – up at 5:00 am, meditation at 5:30 and Mass at six. Then, because Tom Hagan is in the States I go to say Mass for the Sisters.

Tomorrow afternoon I’m giving a chapter/conference to the men on Sexuality. It will be a series of conferences since I can’t say all I want to say in a single sitting. My reasons for giving such a series are many. First there is the natural need to talk about our sexuality since we are religious or future religious and priests. As such we are not married and yet we remain sexual beings. Lots of folks don’t believe a person can live a celibate life, i.e., not having genital/sexual outlets. But it is indeed possible and to those who are called to live such a life, it can be very happy and fulfilling. But what do you do with your body and your sexual urges which were created by God, are natural and are usually usually satisfied in a married situation? That’s why we need to talk. How do you channel this energy which is literally a “creative energy” into other outlets that are not genital? Sexuality can be looked at from simply a biological point of view and also from a psychological point of view and then from a spiritual point of view which includes living morally according to gospel standards. Because of the horrors so recently uncovered in the scandal of the sexual abuse of minors and others by priests I feel it is necessary to begin a discussion now even before these men begin a novitiate. They need to know (and live) what they are getting into. Does this fit personally and individually for these 18 men who are postulants of this congregation of the Oblates of St Francis de Sales here in Haiti in 2011? I want these men to be good Oblates and good, holy and faithful religious priests. No double standards and not winking at the vow of chastity and having a “friend” on the side. So I’ll begin tomorrow with the basics which everybody knows but don’t often talk about seriously. I’ll let you know the reaction. I’m holding the conference in the courtyard in front of the house and not in the chapel. I’m going to have everybody in a circle and at the end ask each one to respond to a question or two. Everybody’s going to have to say something. Getting a discussion going here is really tough. I’ll see how this works.

Thursday afternoon the skies grew very dark and there was a huge wind storm with a torrential downpour. It rained like "the hammers of hell" as my dad used to say.
All I can think of at those times is –what must it be like if you’re in a tent and an aging tent at that. First of all it might have been blown over and all your stuff is right out there in the rain. Everything you own is soaked. Now remember, that’s not just the people who are poor, poor, poor who are living in tents. There are lots of folks who are at a living standard above that and maybe even a few standards above that. All kinds of people are in tents! At night prayers I reminded everybody of how fortunate we are having a roof over our heads. I don’t think we can be reminded of that enough. I urged them all to pray for our benefactors whose generosity has allowed us to live so relatively free of the many inconveniences which surround us.

Friday we went to the beach. It was a great day however there were drawbacks. First and foremost the traffic. Getting out of Port au Prince was something else. Osias one of our drivers is a genius I swear. He circles through congested streets and neighborhoods finding streets less congested. Notice I say “less” congested. There’s always congestion either from other vehicles or from piles of concrete rubble from ruined houses that are being rebuilt by their owners. Or you hit a market area and have to snake through crowds of people carrying all kinds of stuff either on their heads or in their arms. On the way back on Friday night we were at least 15 minutes stalled in a street so jammed with people that traffic in either direction could not move and the pedestrians were touching the doors of our car. But so it goes – nobody seems to expect anything different. Added to that, you have motorcycles snaking in and out, passing you on the right and on the left. It’s crazy! Anyway, once out of Port au Prince we were on a “route nationale” which is “in theory” like one of our Interstates We’re talking a two lane road that is “paved” but which has huge holes every so often and stretches of gravel and of course, lots of construction. At those points you just have to maneuver around gaping holes and rough cement work on a very slippery muddy path. I wouldn’t drive here if my life depended on it. Thank God for Osias and Volel the other driver.

The beach we intended to use was closed so we had to hunt for another. It seems individual people have bought stretches of waterfront property. They fence it off and put up some buildings get some picnic tables, etc. and you pay to get in and use the beach. The place we found was decent, not by US standards, but not bad. Actually there was no sandy beach, just rocks that you stepped off to enter the water. I enjoyed being in the water though there were huge rocks just below the surface of the water and some of them were sharp. We found out later when we in for a second dip that moving up the shoreline and entering the water there was safer and less prone to have the huge rocks. All in all it was a great day.

Saturday I went to the Friends of St Francis de Sales the youth group founded by one of our scholastics. Most of the student leaders were absent because they are taking special Saturday classes to prepare for their baccalaureate exams in June. I did however spend about a half hour talking to one of the students in Creole. He understood me and I understood him. Little by little I’m getting there though understanding what’s being said for example at table is still beyond me. May the day will come…

Guess that’s it for now. News that the Provincial is returning to Brazil for a provincial council meeting come in yesterday. Like doubting Thomas, I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ve been hearing this since March 25th but still no meeting and no fixed date for the new provincial to come and visit. Blessings and peace to all, Tom

April 25, 2011

2011-04-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Ester everybody! May the blessings of the Risen Lord be yours throughout these Fifty Days of Easter and beyond!

After our Palm Sunday ceremony at Ste Anne’s in Cite Soleil, Holy Week moved along gently. The men were off school from their theology and philosophy classes but the Institute Francais was still in session till Thursday which meant they had at least two classes each in the afternoon. We got some common chores done – spring cleaning stuff, etc. I asked them to clean up their rooms, around their beds, etc. How much good that accomplished I don’t know. It’s pretty crowded and they don’t have a chest of drawers to keep their clothes in, and it tends to be pretty messy. So I said that the room should be clean if not neat. I think I’m probably mimicking all the mothers of teenagers or all military sergeants in charge of the new recruits.

Holy Thursday I was again at Ste Anne’s. Of course there is always bedlam when it comes to ceremonies at that place. There is a small team of very dedicated laymen who were trained years ago by a very venerable priest who has since died. They try their best. Add that to the general disorder which I often find in Haiti generally plus the demands of the Holy Week ritual and you have what you have. We had the washing of the feet which I love to do and I find so very touching. There were twelve persons, six male and six female, three sets of students and three sets of senior citizens – all of course from this very poor part of Haiti. Toward the end of the Mass we distributed food vouchers for the seniors and then we had a procession of the Blessed Sacrament through the streets and to Ste Anne School. Again it was bedlam. The church was pretty full; I’m sure there were over three hundred people, maybe more – senior citizens and students. To exit the chapel you have to go through a barrier which should roll back to let everybody pass but the barrier was stuck and everybody (all 300 plus) had to pass through a single doorway. It was like a funnel and of course people were pushing, etc. I was at the end carrying the Blessed Sacrament. I kept saying, “Jesus, bless these people and keep them in your heart. They are so needy in comparison to those of us who have so much.” It also ran through my mind that Jesus would have been right at home in this crowd. He wasn’t the least bit sophisticated like me with my middle class sensitivities who was wondering why they didn’t just take it easy and go through the doorway “like adults should”. It also ran though my mind that people like my very good friend Bob Schramm who is a liturgist par excellence, would have had apoplexy through the entire celebration – from beginning to end. Maybe that’s why I’m here and he’s not.

By Good Friday Tom Hagan was back. I had spent the morning quietly while most of the community went to the Stations of the Cross – one which walked through the city streets in the area where we used to live. That afternoon we joined Tom at Ste Anne’s for the Good Friday rites. They include (1) a reading of the Passion according to St John, (2) the prayers for all the various groups of people (It’s here where the old Latin prayers had us pray for the “perfidious Jews”. Thank God we’ve gotten beyond that – at least in our language!) (3) The Veneration of the cross and finally, (4) a Communion service. Well, the Veneration of the Cross includes taking the cross in procession through a large section of Cite Soleil in the area of the chapel. It was a pretty big cross and Tom carried it on his shoulders like Jesus and then Chris (an Oblate priest from Wilmington who had come to Haiti for the Triduum) and I took turns carrying it. What an experience! It seemed like there were at least five hundred people with us all joining in singing penitential psalms and hymns and at times crying out, “Live Jesus!” and “Have mercy on us!” People joined in the march along the way through the filthy streets strewn with litter and garbage. One senses a very deep piety here overlaid with some fanaticism but for the most part just lots of very poor people praying their hearts out.

We celebrated the Easter Vigil in our parish church of Ste Clare. It was to begin ten o’clock but didn’t get started till at least ten thirty. It was long and I mean long! The service has lots of words but is overflowing with symbol and I’ve been told you don’t have to explain symbols since they speak for themselves. Well I guess that’s not so here. The principal celebrant spoke for over 45 minutes retelling the stories we had just read in scripture. That was followed by about twenty five baptisms and some ten confirmations –again all explained as we went along. The celebration ends with the Eucharist and chants proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus. It was about two thirty in the morning when we got home. Talk about too long! Then we had to get up and be ready to leave for Cite Soleil for the Easter Sunday morning Mass. It was beautiful in its own way but again confusing. No processions this time but there were baptisms. “Mwen batize ou o non Papa a, ak Petit la, ak Lespri Sen an. Amen » That’s Creole. Time wise this was pretty tame – only two hours and fifteen minutes. God bless Tom Hagan! His heart is right there with those people. He wishes he could do more by way of evangelization. The people need some good religion. They need to know God loves them. I'm sure they can get a glimpse of that in Tom’s dedication and goodness.

Sunday afternoon we were invited to dinner at the rectory. I met the former Archbishop of Port au Prince who studied in Fribourg when I was there. He’s about ten years older than I but we had a great time remembering old professors, etc. What a coincidence! Sunday evening we had our recreation which had been postponed from Good Friday. We had a cake I bought with a gift Mother Teresa’s Sisters had given me. And now, Monday and for a few days, it’s time to REST. I leave you with the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta written on the card Sister gave me: “Let nothing trouble you so as to forget the Joy of the Resurredion” Easter blessings and peace. Tom

April 17, 2011

2011-04-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

April 17, 2011
I arrived here in Haiti on Thursday morning about 9:00 am after a pretty uneventful trip. I’m always glad when the trip is “uneventful” which means “no problems”. Don Zurack my friend drove me to Detroit Metro on Wednesday. It took Spirit Air again since their flights are so cheap (comparatively). Doing that means having to sit up overnight in the Fort Lauderdale airport but that’s no big deal. People have said to me, “Tom, get a hotel!” but since I get into FL at ten at night and have to leave on the flight to Port au Prince at 7:30 am, it’s just not worth it. By the time I’d get to the hotel and check in and then have to leave to be at the airport at 6:00 am to go through security, well, like I said, it’s just not worth it. Anyway there are lots of folks doing the same thing – sitting up and getting early flights the next day.

While in the States I didn’t experience much “spring” weather. It was cold for the most part. Well, no so in Haiti. I think we are moving toward the hot season on schedule. So far it’s not really “hot-hot” but I can notice the difference. We’re inching toward the hot temperatures when it gets really humid and sticky. That’s when you are wet or at least damp from sweat most of the time. But today is beautiful and there is that blessed breeze which keeps the humidity down.
Back here at the ranch things seem to be in order and all seems to have gone well in my absence. I got together with the three men who were in charge and they reported that all went well. Everybody seemed to be glad to see me and I was glad to see all of them. I brought back as I normally do lots of odds and ends for the community – things that are easy to come by in the States but not so here. There were tools and kitchen items, also computer items, etc. I also brought back some clothes made by an ecumenical group of women in Saginaw for some orphan children that one of our former seminarians are looking after.

While I was home I gave a mission at my home parish in Niagara Falls. It was a very good experience and people were generous. I went to my former high school to receive a check for over eight hundred dollars that some of the students had raised for both our community and for Hands Together. The kids slept out overnight in cardboard boxes reminiscent of the many homeless people.They had sponsors donate dollars for the time they spent outside. What a great thing to get young folks involved in thinking of others, especially the less fortunate. It was Jerry Bartko,OSFS my classmate who organized the effort. Jerry is still teaching at what was Bishop Duffy High School but is now Niagara Catholic. There were reporters there from the local paper, the Niagara Gazette, who covered my talk to the students and the presentation of the check. The next day I made the front page “in living color”. It was sort of “local boy makes good.”

I had a chance to see other friends in Ohio and Michigan. It’s always good to see folks but I really do notice the difference in the pace of things. Here my life is pretty well ordered. At home it’s not always so quiet. One happy coincidence among others was getting in on a meeting of priests of the Saginaw Diocese. I got in to the US on Monday and on Tuesday afternoon there was a meeting of the presbyterate. I was delighted to see all my old friends. I spent almost twenty years in Saginaw working with the seminarians and serving as sacramental minister in several parishes. I truly feel part of that group as part of my heart is there. Again there were donations for the work here in Haiti with our seminarians for which I am always grateful. That’s true too for the people at SS Simon and Jude’s parish and also St. Christopher’s in Saginaw and Bridgeport. While I was there John Mancini, OSFS was named pastor of both parishes since Sister Ellen Rinke, IHM who was Pastoral Administrator at St. Christopher’s will be moving in July to another parish at the request of the bishop. Things are tight clergy-wise everywhere. I saw to my sorrow in Niagara Falls that the church where I was baptized, and my mother before me, is no longer Sacred Heart Church but Bethany Baptist. What changes in my lifetime! When I was a kid there was not one but three priests at Sacred Heart and a convent full of Sisters of St. Joseph. Now the whole enterprise, church, school, convent and rectory are gone and all that in sixty years!

Getting back here to Haiti, I had lunch with Tom Hagan, OSFS on Friday. He looks well and he says he feels well. I’m so glad to hear that. We had a lot of catching up to since he’d been gone for over three weeks before I left and I was away over three weeks. Things at Hands Together move along. Tom said that there are problems in his St Francis de Sales High School with kids bringing in guns and knives. Sound familiar? Now remember, the school is in Cité Soleil, the huge slum and like in all slums all over there is a lot of crime and violence. It’s the same here as in Saginaw, Michigan or probably any other city in the world. Tom is often faced with violence personally. People want a job and he has none to give, or they want something else and he can’t do it – and they want to kill him – literally! How he does it, I’ll never know. And as I’ve often said, in the midst of it all, he maintains a marvelous sense of humor.

Tom is off to El Salvador for a few days so today, Palm Sunday; I had the Mass at Ste. Anne’s in Cité Soleil. It was in Creole and I was grateful to find that despite my three week absence, my little Creole is still intact. We blessed the palms and walked through the streets singing “Hosanna!” Again I just wept inside as we passed many very poor people outside hovels that they call home. I pray that the newly elected president can bring some coordination to efforts to help these people and to get the country on its feet.

Tonight I’m giving a chapter to the community. I’m encouraging us all to get into the spirit of Holy Week. In 2007, my friend Ken Untener died and was buried on my birthday, April 1st. The following Sunday was Palm Sunday and I talked in my homily about ritual – what it means and how it can help us in our earthly struggles and sadness. I’m using part of that homily (translated into French, of course,) for my talk to the community. I’ll add it to this already very long segment of my blog for any of you who want to read further. For now I wish you all the blessings of Holy Week and thank you all for your loving support. I’m very grateful. Tom

TODAY WE BEGIN HOLY WEEK. WE ARE ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE THREE MOST HOLY DAYS OF THE YEAR WHEN WE REMEMBER THE PASSION, DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS, OUR LORD AND SAVIOR.

WE DO THIS RITUALLY; IN WORD, IN SONG, IN SIGN AND IN SYMBOL.RITUAL ALLOWS US TO ENTER INTO THESE MOST HOLY MYSTERIES. THEY ARE NOT THE MYSTERIES BUT THEY LET US EXPERIENCE THE MYSTERIES.

AS YOU ALL KNOW, THIS WEEK WE BURIED OUR BISHOP. IT WAS A VERY SAD AND DIFFICULT TIME FOR MANY. I KNOW IT WAS FOR ME.

KEN UNTENER WAS AN OUTSTANDING HUMAN BEING; A MAN OF DEEP AND LIVING FAITH, A MAN OF PRAYER, A MAN GROUNDED IN SACRED SCRIPTURE AND THE TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH; A VATICAN II BISHOP, AND FOR ME PERSONALLY, A VERY CLOSE FRIEND.

HIS DEATH BROKE MY HEART AND I GRIEVE HIS PASSING. I DO NOT THINK THAT I COULD BE HERE BEFORE YOU TODAY WERE IT NOT FOR THE STRENGTH AND THE PEACE I DREW FROM THE RITUAL THAT SURROUNDED HIS DEATH AND BURIAL. I KNOW I COULDN’T.

BUT BEING THERE THIS WEEK WITH SO MANY OF HIS PEOPLE, HIS PRIESTS, THE DIOCESAN STAFF, HIS FAMILY AND HIS FRIENDS BREATHED NEW LIFE INTO ME.

WE PRAYED. WE SANG PSALMS. WE LISTENED TO PREACHERS WHO REMINDED US OF THE GIFT WE HAD IN KEN. WHO REMINDED US OF WHAT A MARVELOUS MAN GOD HAD CREATED IN THE PERSON OF KEN UNTENER.

I SOBBED DURING THE FUNERAL MASS AS THEY LAID HIS WOODEN SHEPHERD’S CROOK ON HIS COFFIN ALONG WITH HIS BIBLE AND CROSS.

I CRIED COPIOUS TEARS AS ARCHBISHOP JOHN QUINN BROKE OPEN THE SCRIPTURE READING FROM JOHN 21 AND SHARED A LETTER HE WROTE HIS FRIEND KEN SHORTLY BEFORE HE DIED.

THE GATHERING OF THE PRIESTS AND BISHOPS OUTSIDE THE CHURCH SINGING FOR THE LAST TIME BOTH THE SALVE REGINA AND ECCE QUAM BONUM WAS SO MOVING. AND SO WAS HIS BURIAL AS BOTH FAMILY AND FRIENDS, MEMBERS OF HIS FLOCK AND HIS PRIESTS LITERALLY SHOVELED DIRT INTO HIS GRAVE.

ALL THIS IS RITUAL. ALL THESE GESTURES, THESE WORDS, THESE HYMNS. ALL THE GREETINGS EXCHANGED BY THE PEOPLE WHO KNEW AND LOVED HIM. ALL THIS BROUGHT ME TO THE HEART OF WHO KEN UNTENER WAS AND WHAT HIS LIFE AND MY LIFE AND OUR LIFE IS ALL ABOUT - TO KNOW LOVE AND SERVE GOD IS THIS WORLD AND TO BE HAPPY WITH HIM FOREVER IN THE NEXT. TO LOVE GOD WITH MY WHOLE HEART AND SOUL AND BEING AND TO LOVE MY NEIGHBOR AS MYSELF.

AS HEALING AND REASSURING AS ALL THIS WAS FOR ME, I AM REMINDED THAT THE RITUAL OF HOLY WEEK, THAT WE ARE ABOUT TO ENTER, IS THE SAME.

TOGETHER AT SUNDOWN ON THURSDAY WE VIGIL WITH JESUS THROUGH THIS LAST SUPPER AS HE WASHES THE FEET OF HIS DISCIPLES. AS HE IS ARRESTED, TRIED AND EVENTUALLY ON FRIDAY CRUCIFIED. AS HIS BODY LAY IN THE TOMB THROUGH THE QUIET OF FRIDAY NIGHT, ALL OF SATURDAY INTO THE EVENING WHEN WE CELEBRATE THE EASTER VIGIL AND CHRIST’S RESURRECTION WHICH SPILLS OVER INTO EASTER MORNING AND BEYOND THROUGH THE 50 DAYS OF EASTER.

RITUAL ALLOWS US TO ENTER INTO THE PASCHAL MYSTERY - THE DYING AND RISING OF JESUS. IT HEALS US. IT STRENGTHENS US. IT REMINDS US OF WHO WE ARE AND WHO GOD IS AND WHO GOD CALLS US TO BE. DON’T MISS IT.

March 20, 2011

2011-03-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

It’s almost “D” day or “departure” day for me since I’m scheduled to leave tomorrow. It’s also Election Day here in Haiti. On Friday the country was treated to (or cursed by, depending on your political views) the return of Jean Bertrand Aristide, the former president who was elected twice and twice removed from power. Once it was by a military coup and a second time by a popular uprising that was threatening his very life. For the last several years he has been living “in exile” in South Africa but on Friday he returned to a cheering mob who loves him and who swears he was kidnapped by the United States Government. It is a fact that the Clinton administration restored Aristide to power so he could finish his first term. It is also a fact that he is the first democratically elected president of Haiti with something like eighty-five percent of the popular vote and that verified by an international monitoring group. The numbers in his second election were not quite so overwhelming and there was talk of a lot of voter fraud.

Aristide is a very bright man I’m told and he is something of an intellectual. As a priest working in the slums he was a fiery preacher. As for his governing, he was overwhelmingly for the poor and governed from the far left as I understand it. The rich and the extreme rich were totally against him. I understand he neglected to form any kind of political coalition with the middle class or with business people. Some say he was naïve politically and included in his administration some bad guys who were known to terrorize some groups of people, especially opposition groups to his regime. Still others say he was corrupted by all the power and became as bad as the people he opposed and preached against as a Salesian of Don Bosco priest working in Cité Soleil the huge slum on the edge of Port au Prince. So in the midst of his second term amid huge uprisings all over the country but especially in the north (which some say that were orchestrate by the rich to get rid of him) Aristide was whisked away in a United States Government aircraft, and like I said, allegedly “kidnapped” by said United States Government. Since I’ve been here I’ve tried to get “the facts, Mam…, just the facts” but I have not succeeded. There is legend, there is myth, there is a smattering of historic facts and with it all I’m baffled. I do know that all the Oblate scholastics and novices and postulants I met when first got here were all for Aristide. They see him as a hero fighting for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised. I have met others who think he was simply inept and still others, who think he was a crook, just like all the other Haitian politicians.

What will Aristide’s coming back mean? Who knows? “Baby Doc” Duvalier came back and is here in the country and I’ve heard nothing of him. Some what him brought before a tribunal to answer for his “crimes against humanity” when he was dictator but no action has been taken in that direction. Again, today is Election Day. So far I’ve heard no unusual noises, no seeming uprisings, but the day is young. I’ve given up trying to understand Haitian politics. I’m just hoping to leave tomorrow morning for a few weeks away. If there is political unrest may it be after Monday morning.

There were lots of details to attend to before leaving. We had to buy two tires for the vehicle lent to us by the Sisters of Providence from Canada and also buy two tires for our tap-tap. Our tap-tap also needed some heavy repair work aligning the front wheels. I wanted that done before I left if possible and thank God it got taken care of. I also wrote thank you notes to the lady from whom we purchased the land and to the lawyer who moved us through the process. They will be delivered when we get the final papers in hand once the transfer of deeds is officially registered – supposedly in a few days. Finally there was the chapter or conference I had to prepare for the community before leaving. I gave that on Friday afternoon before our Stations of the Cross. My theme was the Lenten season and our attention to details of living religious life – to our prayers, our relationships in community our responsibility for the tasks assigned to us, etc. It was a bit of an examination of conscience with regard to our personal behavior and our community involvement. I’m never sure if my French makes sense so I have to run my written material by somebody in the community, usually Osias my right hand man. He assured me that what I wrote was okay, even good. Osias is a very responsible and giving member of the community, God bless him!

I guess lastly I can add something I find very sad. I try to keep up on the news in general by glancing at the on line editions of the Detroit Free Press, The New York Times and for their obituaries, The Niagara Gazette, but for Catholic news I go to the National Catholic Reporter and to America Magazine, a Jesuit publication, both on line. The following is from America commenting on the tragedy of our Church’s hierarchy, this time in Philadelphia, refusing to come to grips with the sexual abuse crisis. It’s been almost ten years now since the Dallas meeting at which time the bishops committed themselves to deal with this issue straight on and to cooperate with civil authorities investigating possible abuse cases. Now we find out that that was not done. When will we ever learn? Here’s the piece from America:

Philadelphia’s Shame
The story is incomprehensible, particularly so many years after the U.S. bishops’ meeting in Dallas in 2002, during which the “zero tolerance” policy for sexually abusive priests was initiated. After a grand jury indicted three priests in Philadelphia last month and found “substantial evidence of abuse” in the cases of 37 more, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the archbishop, stated there were no priests in active ministry with “established” allegations against them. A few days later he removed three priests from ministry; three weeks after that, he suspended 21 more. Philadelphians were further outraged by the details: One priest still in ministry had been flagged earlier by the pastor of the parish, the parish school principal and the director of religious education.
How could this happen nine years after Dallas? How can priests facing credible accusations still be in active ministry almost a decade after the abuse crisis broke in Boston? After Pope John Paul II said there was “no place” in the priesthood for abusers, after agonizing testimony from victims, after millions of dollars of legal settlements and countless lawsuits, after the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law, after the founding of the Office of Child and Youth Protection at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, after “safe environment” programs were instituted in every diocese and after Pope Benedict XVI met personally with abuse victims during his visit to this country in 2008—in short, after years of agony?
The disheartening news from Philadelphia shows that the church still has not fully faced the scourge of clerical sexual abuse, that victims and their families must still speak out, that lawsuits still seem insufficient to wake up some church officials—and that resignations are in order.

It’s a sad note to end on but there you are. I don’t plan to write anything for the next three weeks. I hope you’re all well and well into the Lenten season. Blessings to all and love, Tom

March 12, 2011

2011-03-12T13:12:00.000-08:00

It’s Saturday afternoon and my usual time to write is Sunday, but since I have the free time I thought I’d begin. As I reread this first sentence it looks like I’m busy every minute here but I’m not. Actually I have a very healthy and, I think, wholesome schedule. I get plenty of rest, more than enough to eat and a house schedule that affords time for prayer, reflection and reading. So all in all I’m very well off. I always notice a difference between my time spent here and time spent in the States. Here things are for the most part predictable (give or take an earthquake or hurricane) whereas in the States it’s not quite so. Don’t get me wrong, I love my time in the States, but it just more crowded and unpredictable. I look forward to my time with family and friends and I’ll be seeing them (you) very soon, “si Dieu veut” as we say in French. I’m scheduled to leave on a week from Monday, March 21st if all goes well. Sunday March 20th is Election Day which is always “dicey” here in Haiti. So we’ll see.

Concerning the elections, it’s all very strange to me. They had the first round of elections in November when there were about eighteen candidates running for the office of president. In theory, if no one receives fifty percent of the vote plus one there is a runoff between the two top vote getters. Well you’d think that in a few days, a week, maximum two weeks, you’d have the results of the election since Haiti is not that big a country. But no, ‘twas not the case. Word leaked out after some time that the two top vote getters were Jude Celestine, the candidate backed by the party of the outgoing president, and Mme. Mardigat, a former first lady who was now running on her own. Well, a lot of popular sentiment was for a man named Michel Martelly (Sweet Mickey) a former rock star and when he did not make the top two, riots broke out and the country was shut down for three days. So it was back to the drawing boards for the electoral commission who are presumed by all, it seems to me, to be corrupt. Finally after six weeks or so they managed to get Celestine to drop out and announced that the two candidates were Martelly and Mardigat. Then they scheduled the long awaited second round for Sunday, March 20th. All that having been said, I heard that the percentage of people voting in the first round was 28 percent. If that figure holds up, the next president of Haiti can elected with 14 percent of the vote plus one – hardly an overwhelming mandate. But what do I know? And as a brief footnote, part of Martelly’s rock star act was to take his pants off. That will make him President “Sans pantalons” (without pants). On the other hand if Mme. Mardigat wins she can be called (following the expression used for an overbearing wife “she wears the pants in the family”) "the President who wears the pants!” I just hope there are no riots either on Election Day or the day after so I can catch my plane for the USA.

(This is an aside. I just got finished typing the above when I noticed that the margin of the second paragraph had become indented. How? Only God knows. I then tried to fix the mistake only to end up having the paragraph all split up with words here and there. God bless Ronald our in-house computer expert. He came and fixed the problem. I asked him what happened and how to fix it. He undid his work and fixed it again to show me and I still don’t know what I did wrong nor how to fix it. To some it is given to be computer literate and to others, not. I am in the “not” category.)

And now for our “mental health” day on Tuesday – it was good. You may recall I had asked three women religious to move us through a day devoted to reflection on the earthquake and its effects on us individually. They in turn had invited a group from Montreal who were in the country giving workshops on this very subject to join them. So for our community of nineteen we had seven facilitators. We were at tables in a U shape and were asked why we had come. Silence! Our men said nothing. Now I’m not naive and I know guys in general are not given to speak up so I tried to start off with my own reasons for being there. Did that encourage others to speak? No. It was painful for those first minutes. Finally someone else from the team took over, another “guy” and he managed to get some of the men to share. Well, we then were broken up into small groups with a facilitator in each group and were asked to share our memories and feelings concerning the earthquake. I gather from the roundup an hour later that the men had opened up more. It was hard to avoid saying something when you were in a group of only three. After the roundup there was a pause and we continued with another small group session. Then we broke for lunch which we had prepared and brought with us. We all ate together, the facilitators and us. The afternoon was a full group session in which they taught us some skills about dealing with the stress of emotions, etc. We ended at three instead of four. Overall it seemed that the men were happy with the day. I talked with the three Sisters after (when I gave them a stipend) and talked about one of our men especially whom I thought stood out and whom I just don’t think should continue with us. He is one of the oldest guys but he acts much younger – like a boy scout to be specific. (He just happens to be very involved with the scouts here in Haiti.) Well, the Sisters agreed with me. They also said they’d be available for any follow up if any of our men requested it. That little session with the Sisters was helpful for me. I helped me confirm some of my suspicions. So, like I said, it was a good day and I think it achieved its purpose.

That night we had a special recreation with beer since it was Mardi Gras. The next day was Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. In the afternoon I was asked if I could visit an aunt of one of our men who has not been well and administer the sacrament of the sick. I said I’d be glad to do that so a group of us went to the aunt’s house. I want to share some of my reflections on the ride there.

Lucy, Abela’s aunt, lives on the other side of Port au Prince. So we rode through the city. What an experience! We passed street after street of buildings still in ruins with tents all over the place. Narrow streets were made even narrower by the placement of these makeshift dwellings and of course, litter everywhere. How do they do it? I kept asking myself. Where do you go to the bathroom and where do you get washed? Where do you cook and where do you brush your teeth and shave? Even if you compare the living in a tent to going camping, campgrounds have common showers and bathroom facilities, but not here, at least none that I saw. Now remember it’s over a year that folks have been living like this. Their house was either partially or completely destroyed and they’re now on the street in from of what was their house. What must that be like?

We drove further on streets of the capitol that are filled with giant pot holes so large that you have to swerve to the other side to avoid ruining your vehicle totally. Our route took us past the ruins of the Palais National in the center of the city and again the previously huge open space is now an immense tent city. I’ve been told that there have been hundreds of women raped in these tent cities since a tent is easy to enter and there is no real protection. People live cheek to jowl. What must that be like? There is no such thing as even a minimum amount of privacy. Again I asked as we drove along, how do they do it?

We passed a shopping area, no, not a mall; believe me, not a mall! It was an open air marketplace where you could buy anything from appliances to food items, set up in the sidewalks in front of buildings that are or were “stores”. It’s utter bedlam and there is litter and filth everywhere. Moving through the crowd in the car, Osias, our driver, just kept tooting the horn to let us pass through the mob. And this is downtown Port au Prince the capitol of the country! There is no order at all to speak of; at least that I could see. No policemen directing traffic, no street cleaners picking up the litter. Now maybe things were like this before the earthquake, I don’t know, but after the earthquake they just seem to be more cramped and more – I don’t know, words escape me.

We finally reached Abela’s Aunt Lucy’s home. It appeared to be one of the older houses of this section of Port au Prince. It was small and the living quarters were somewhat cramped. I suspect this is the home of a middle class family and I couldn’t help mentally comparing it with one of our middle class or even lower middle class homes. Guess what? No comparison, not even close. As bad as things are in the States right now with the financial downturn of these past four or five years, still in all we have so much more that most Haitians have, even middle class Haitians. I’m not writing this to make anybody feel guilty. I am writing it to make people feel grateful. It’s kind of like that old expression, “I was filled with self pity because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” And I can add that it’s not rare to see folks who are missing a foot or an arm; I’m sure as a result of the earthquake and being caught under tons of fallen debris.

So my ride to Aunt Lucy’s was eye opening. Lots to ponder during these days of Lent and lots to be grateful for.I pray that you are all well and looking forward to an end of this winter which I hear has been something else in Michigan and throughout the northeast. Blessings to all and peace. Tom

March 6, 2011

2011-03-06T12:52:00.000-08:00

It’s Carnival time here in Haiti, national fun days! Everything is shut down Monday and Tuesday (Mardi gras) and there is traditionally dancing in the streets. Here in Port au Prince everyone heads for center city, or they used to. Now center city which was a huge open space, is strewn with thousands of tents and the only real view available is simply the view of the ruins of the Palais National, the Cathedral and the other destroyed state buildings. But despite the ruins, despite the lack of any kind of plan for rebuilding the country and the capitol, despite the miserable living conditions, despite the cholera, despite the flawed election process, life goes on and so does Carnival.

Tuesday I met the three Sisters who are going to lead our community through a day of mental health centered around the earthquake. The Sisters invited us to have the day take place at their residence. That’s good since it gets us away from our ordinary surroundings and their grounds are lovely. We’re bringing our own lunch and drinks so as to not burden their community cooks with more work on the holiday. Get this, I asked the Sisters what their stipend would be. The just looked at me and said, “Oh no, mon Père, there is no stipend.” I said that if priests were giving us a day there would be a price and they laughed (a knowing laugh, I might add.) So it’s the same all over. The Sisters do the work and the priests get the glory. ‘T was ever thus! as my Mother used to say. Anyway I hope the day turns out to be a profitable one for all. (And yes,I’m planning on giving the Sisters a stipend!)

Thursday was the day we signed the papers making the sale of the land official. I had arranged for us to take a picture since it is a monumental step for the Haitian foundation of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales and all present were gracious enough to agree to the photo. I’d include a copy if I know how to do it but alas, I’m lucky to be able to get this blog on line. A computer techie, I am not.

Wednesday begins Lent and I have a copy of the “Little Black Book” from the Diocese of Saginaw. The other day when I was at the Sisters arranging for our community day and I had finished our meeting, I spent some time reading and praying since I had to wait for a ride. Like I said, the grounds at the Sisters' convent are lovely and restful unlike the streets outside, so among other things I looked at my Little Black Book for this year. I noticed that the Sundays are devoted to reflecting on the Mass; each Sunday dedicated to a different part of the liturgy. Now those of you who know about the Little Black Books know they are created from the writing of my very dear friend the late Bishop Ken Untener. Basically they are an effort he made to teach ordinary folks how to pray the Scriptures (Lectio divina). Each day there is a selection from Scripture with a very simple, down-to-earth reflection from the heart and the pen of Ken. He invited everyone to take six minutes of quiet each day, just six minutes, and to spend it reflecting on God’s Word. Ken was convinced that because the Word of God is “active and alive” (Hebrews) God speaks to us directly when we read or hear it. So these six minutes are simply a time we give to God to let him/her share a word with us. It may be a word of comfort or a word of encouragement; it may be a little nudge to get us going. Whatever it may be, it is God’s loving word to us personally.

Well, with all that in mind I found myself in tears as I read over the Sunday pieces. They come directly from Ken and I could just hear him as I read the words. From time to time, Ken used to do what he called “a teaching Mass”. It would be a regularly scheduled Sunday Mass in a parish but he would pause at different parts reminding the assembly of what this was all about. Now most of the gathered knew the Mass but most probably had taken it for granted and had let it become “ordinary”. Ken’s explanation awakened in them a deep love and appreciation for the gift we have in the Liturgy and how precious it is. Ken died seven years ago of leukemia. He didn’t feel good at Christmas and by April first he was buried. It was a terrible shock for the entire diocese and for many in the church in the United States. He was a very gifted teacher and preacher. He was bright and he was holy and he was a Vatican II priest/bishop “to the very tips of his fingers” as the French say. He had an appreciation for what went before that council called by Pope John XXIII and he could help his flock understand “the changes”. He would tell the folks that this was not something “new” but rather a return to our roots in the faith. He was a very popular speaker and inspired many throughout the church in the United States and even beyond. For me personally his death was a devastating experience – losing a very close and loving friend. I had experienced the death of my parents and of older relatives and acquaintances whom I loved. I had even known the death of some friends close to my age and experience. But the death of Ken was different. At the time and even now I’m given to reflect, if I feel so sorrowful, so devastated at the death of my friend, what must it be like to experience the death of a husband or a wife (or even worse, a child) with whom you have shared a lifetime. As the old hymn says, “I scarce can take it in.”

So I get to use the Little Black Book starting today, since it begins on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday to help you get ready for the forty days. I guess that’s it for the moment. Blessings to you all and happy Mardi gras. Should I say, “Happy Lent!”? It just doesn’t sound right. Peace, Tom

February 27, 2011

2011-02-27T14:26:00.000-08:00

Well I went to the lawyer’s house/office on Tuesday and I thought that would be it, but no. I gave him the final check but he has to draw up the papers and he will call me to come in this week sometime for the final signing. But it’s all but done. Next, as I said last week, will be the building the wall around the property. Step by step!

We began the second semester this past week and on Monday classes will begin at the French Institute. Next weekend, the last before Lent, will be Carnival! That’s big here. Everything is closed on Monday and Tuesday (Mardi gras). I may have said that I’ve wanted to do something for the mental health of the community around the subject of the earthquake and its aftermath, so having met some Sisters who have worked with groups in this area, I’ve arranged to have them come on Mardi gras to give us a daylong session. I’m going to meet with them on Tuesday to plan for the day. I ran the idea by the community and there seemed to be a positive response. Remember some of the men were with the two aspirants who were killed and others were themselves trapped in the rubble of the collapsed house of Hands Together. As for the rest of us, we all have our stories and memories. Maybe I’ve told you that I feel somewhat funny about my experience of the earthquake itself. I know where I was and exactly what happened and what I did. What is different is that (1) through it all I never thought I was going to die and (2) I wasn’t scared. I sort of feel like I should have been but I wasn’t. Why? Well, first of all in the room I was, nothing fell on my head. The ceiling did not fall in. I ran to open the door (since I remember having been told if you are in an earthquake run for the nearest door jamb to give you some support), I got the door opened and I saw that I only had to run about 12 yards to get outside. I figured if I were outside I’d be safe. So I hollered to everybody in the house to get out and I ran for the door. Once out, even though the earthquake was still happening and everything was shaking horribly, I felt I was relatively safe. Now that’s hugely different from someone who was pinned under huge pieces of concrete as some of the guys were. Their experience was horrific. It is for that reason I thought we should try to do something to insure people were okay mentally after the experience, horrible as it was. In talking to the Sisters I said that if they noticed in the group some whom they felt needed further counseling we could arrange for that. So you can add that to your prayer list.

What else is new? This week I came across another article from the DeSales Center at DeSales University, our Oblate University in Pennsylvania. I thought it was interesting so I’ll add it to this blog in case you are interested. If not you can stop reading here. Blessings to all as we move toward Lent. But first, we dance! Tom

January 21, 2011 Posted by salesiancenter

In the movie Unknown, currently in theatres, Liam Neeson stars as a man who wakes up after a car accident in Berlin only to find that his identity has been hijacked by an assassin. Enlisting the aid of an illegal cab driver and a former East German security official, he seeks to find himself, only to discover that … no, I won’t ruin the ending for those who have not yet seen it!
But during his sojourn to self-discovery, the main character utters a curiously simple idea: mental illness, he opines, is the conflict that exists between who we are and who we think we are. One might rightly infer that mental health is the absence of such conflict.
But who do we think we are? And how do we know?
The question of personal and social identity occupies our entire life. Discovering our “self” is a task of youth. Cultivating that sense of self, and improving it along the way, takes up the majority of our days. And relishing in it or relaxing with it is what we hope for in retirement.
These days, however, the path to self-enlightenment all too often seeks to avoid conflict. We hear of the need to raise our self-esteem, thereby learning to love ourselves for who we already are. Popular psychology gives us the tools – in workbooks and ten-day exercises – to enhance our sense of self so as to be liked and appreciated by others. With this socially sanctioned knowledge, we will then be in a position to perform better, live healthier, and find success. The problem, though, is that such an approach seems designed, as my scholarly confrere notes, “to make one feel better and better about less and less.”
Educators at all levels continue to be faced with this growing movement to improve self-esteem. Gone are the days when a student might receive a “failing” grade in a course and have to repeat a program of study for his/her own good; the worst rating on Pennsylvania’s System of Student Assessment in elementary and secondary schools is designated now as “below basic.” And with the current spate of inflated grades in post-secondary education, many, if not most, students (and some parents, too) consider receipt of a “C” to be a personal affront that targets them for future failure in their desired profession, rather than an accurate acknowledgment of “average” work. The conflict, it seems now, is between who we are and who we want to be or think we can be or should be.
But resolving that conflict – and bridging the mental health gap between who we are and who we think we are – is not a matter of discovering the unknown, nor is it a result of enhanced self-esteem. Rather, it comes from first acknowledging the truth about ourselves, from accepting what is known, if we but have the courage to admit it.
More than four hundred years ago, St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) gave a new twist to the ancient philosophical dictum, “know thyself.” In one of his Letters of Spiritual Direction (p. 98), he admits that “We can’t go anywhere without having our feet on the ground, yet we don’t just lie there, sprawled [in the dust].” And in his classic Introduction to the Devout Life (I:5), he elaborates on this realistic image of human life: “We must not be disturbed at our imperfections,” he writes, “since for us perfection consists in fighting against them. (But) how can we fight against them unless we see them, or overcome them unless we face them?” The twist comes in his steadfast conviction that, although the struggle to find and improve our self may sometimes be difficult, “we are never vanquished unless we lose our life or our courage.” And, he concludes, “Fortunately for us, we are always victorious provided that we are willing to fight.”
In other words, the real pursuit of perfection begins (and continues) with the willingness to make an honest and forthright appraisal of who we are, shortcomings and all. Taking this necessary first step sets us on the path toward becoming who we can be. It also enables us to see others for who they are and to treat them kindly along the way … as fellow sojourners on a road still less traveled, yet the one alone on which we fill find our true identity and our eventual happiness.

Like I said, I thought it was good. Tom

February 21, 2011

2011-02-21T07:16:00.000-08:00

I did not get to the blog yesterday, Sunday, since it was a very busy day – a good day, but a very busy day. I had Mass at the chapel of our parish. There is only one priest in this very large parish of Ste Clare so the pastor rarely gets to offer Mass in the chapel. Since Tom Hagan was in town he had Mass at Ste Anne’s so I offered to celebrate Mass at the chapel. If a priest is not available, two of our postulants prepare a Word and Communion service for the people who gather. There is always singing and since we’ve been going we bring our keyboard given to us by the Poor Clares of Saginaw. That gets attached to a large battery to supply the electricity. No, there is no electricity in the chapel. In fact when I say “chapel”, we are not talking about a quaint little steepled building off in the country. It is a very primitive and crudely built structure with a tin roof. You could break an ankle climbing to the entrance. But the people are happy to have a place to worship and I was happy to be with them.

On the way home I (“we” because it is “our” cell phone) got a call from the Sisters asking if I could come and say a Mass at eleven o'clock since some Sisters had arrived late and did not have the change to attend Mass. So I said sure, and after getting back home I awaited the driver from the Sisters. After that I returned home and we had our main meal. Right after eating, Osias, one of the Postulants and my right hand man, drove us over to Tom Hagan’s to pick him up and head out to see our new property. (I say “our” because tomorrow, Tuesday I’m slated to go the the lawyer with a check for the rest of the selling price and sign the papers making the property “ours” in the name of the Archdiocese of Port au Prince.)

The drive to the new property takes a good half hour depending on traffic, over “roads” that are terrible. We arrived at the Missionaries of St Charles – better known as the Scalabrini Fathers and Brothers and there we met Père Joseph. This priest is really terrific. He’s originally from Italy but has spent time in Chicago and also Toronto. He’s been here for over 20 years and has build (and/or supervised the building of) an amazing complex which includes a residence for the Scalabrini priest and brothers, a novitiate and a scholasticate. All the buildings are one story and stood up under well under the effects of the earthquake. I’d met Pere Joseph before several times, mostly on journeys out to ask about the possibility of buying land in the area. When we finally were ready to buy, it was he who put us in touch with the landowner. He told us we’d have no problem with a deed because they had bought their land from the same family.(In Haiti you have to sure, even very sure, that the person selling the land is in fact the owner and that the deed is clearly to the land being purchased. There is a horror story that circulates, whether it’s true or not I’m not sure, that says the Benedictines who have a monastery farther up north in the mountains, bought land and built on it only to have the “real” owner come later with proof of his ownership asking the monks to fork over the price of the land. So knowing whom you’re buying from is a very important issue.)

Anyway Joseph took us out to see the land. It is a “caro” which is more than a hector. A hector I’m told is a thousand miters square whereas a caro is thirteen hundred square meters or larger than an hector. So it’s a good size piece of property. We will be neighbors to the Dominican Sisters of the Presentation from Columbia. I had met Sister Gloria last week at a gathering of the Religious of Haiti. She’s very enthusiastic and it would suspect a real “go-getter” who was delighted to meet her future neighbors. There is a third caro that Joseph is negotiating to buy for a foundation of the Scalabrini order. The foundation is connected with the Italian Red Cross and is planning to build a community center, library etc. for the area. As Joseph explained it, it sounds like a very good project and with him overseeing it, I’m sure it will be well done and also well build.

Once we finalize the purchase of the land we need to build a wall encircling the property. The Sisters need to do the same and also the foundation. So if all goes well, and please God that it will, we can all be part of a major wall-building leaving only the dividing walls to be build later which will separate the three properties and Joseph can see to all this with a crew he has working for him. You have no idea how happy I was to hear all this. I have great confidence in Joseph. He’s about my age. He has been novice master for the Scalabrini order and he teaches at the seminary. I think he is smart and I think he’s holy and I think he very practical. All of that says a lot to me. (Did I ever tell you the story of St Teresa of Avila the great mystic who when asked what she wanted in a spiritual director, someone holy or someone bright, she said, “I’ll take someone bright.” Me too!

After seeing the land Joseph invited us to see a school they build before the earthquake. It’s two stories and there are 600 kids in the school. It is a very simple but handsome building and it only cost when all was said and done about $50,000 US. Amazing! But it’s in knowing where to go for supplies, etc. and not depending on big construction companies and architects. Again I’m hoping when it comes time to build Joseph will be there to guide us.

Finally we were invited to have a beer at the Scalabrini house. It was hot and the beer hit the spot. But more than that, the talk with Joseph was just great. We spent the better part of an hour just talking about “things”. Tom Hagan was really glad to meet Joe and I think vice versa since they’d each heard about one another but never really met. We reflected on Haitian culture and how we fit into it. Joseph is wise as is Tom Hagan and just hearing them talk was uplifting. I learned a lot.

We left Joseph with the promise of being in touch and went next to the retreat house which adjoins the Scalabrini property. It’s run by the Sisters who will be our neighbors. There we met Sr Gloria, among others and Tom had a chance to talk to her about the help he needs to update the religion teachers in his schools. Gloria knows a Dominican priest who would like to get into such a project of “teaching the teachers” and Tom needs just that. So making the initial connection was good. The whole afternoon was good. Tom really enjoyed it and so did I.

Guess that’s it for now. Blessings to all and peace. Tom

February 13, 2011

2011-02-13T13:17:00.000-08:00

Let me begin by saying thanks to all of you who chipped in to help 17 of our 18 postulants sign up for the second semester of French at the Institut Français. Our budget was cut severely in October when we had a visit from the then provincial and Fr. Carlos. They did not see sending the men to upgrade their French as a priority whereas I did. I was acting on the advice of the deans of the two philosophy schools where we have students. They both advised that all the men take classes in French. Why? It seems that although they all speak French – and let me say very clearly – much better than I speak French, nevertheless the French they learned in school was not taught well so they do not have a good overall knowledge of French. I suppose it would be like someone in the States who has an eighth grade education taking classes at a university level. Yes he/she speaks English but do they have the English skills to do college level papers and reading, etc. So with the budget cuts we had to cut out classes at the Institute. I continued to think that it was important and so I asked folks like you who read this blog and others if they could to send a few bucks to pay for the second semester and you did! Thank you. Now we’re not talking a fortune. For 17 men (one of our community members is a former French teacher and has no need of the classes) the cost is $94.00/student for two two-hour classes a week or $1600 for the group of 17. That’s very reasonable in comparison to prices in the States. And the fact is, if we want good students for our Oblate foundation here in Haiti, it’s well worth it. So yesterday I went to the Institute and signed everybody up for the second semester. What a circus! Although there is a computer in the office, all the work of registering and arranging the different classes is done by hand – pen and paper. Also when I got there with the exact amount in Haitian goudes, I was told there are no discounts this term. Last term if you registered two persons one paid the full price and the second was at a reduced rate. When I called before I was told that the prices were unchanged so I assumed that the discount for the second person was still in place, but no, not so. So Monday one of the men will go back with the payment for the three not covered. Classes start at the end of the month so I wanted to get to the early registration date to be able to get our men into classes which run from two till four in the afternoons instead of from four till six. The earlier classes make it easier on the house schedule. So I did accomplish that and we’re all set for the next semester. This week is still exam week for the 16 in philosophy. Friday will be the last day of exams then the second semester of philosophy begins right away a week from Monday. No semester break! I think the next break is at Carnival or Mardi gras the two days before Ash Wednesday which as you know is late this year. Carnival is big in Haiti. I guess it’s one of the few times everybody just says, “Let’s just forget our troubles for a day or two and let’s have fun!” –not a bad idea.

On Friday I gave a conference to the community on the subject of “Evidence”. It was based on a workshop I made years ago with Fr. Ray Carrey a priest psychologist from Oregon. The topic of the workshop was helping people discern a vocation to priesthood or religious life and was aimed at vocation directors of religious orders or dioceses. Ray was great and you really “worked” in his workshop. His idea was based on the idea that a diocese of religious order ought to know what they were looking for in a candidate. It was not enough to say we want this man/woman to have average intelligence, a good moral life and sound physical and mental health. He said if the call is to be Benedictine, that’s a lot different from being a Jesuit or Franciscan. A call to diocesan priesthood is very different in the Archdiocese of New York than say to the Diocese of Nome, Alaska. Different skills are needed to live a life in these different settings. A call to the contemplative life requires life skills very different from a call to a teaching or nursing order. Well, you get the picture. Ray went on to say you didn’t need heavy psychological testing to get at this information with a candidate. What was needed was an in-depth interview which would elicit the information you were looking for. With that information you could make a judgment that the candidate either had what you were looking for or at least the possibility of developing what you were looking for or that the candidate did not exhibit evidence that he/she had or probably could not develop the skills you were looking for. Where is this all going?

Well, as you know I’ve been asked to be the responsible person for this house of formation for the Oblates of St Francis de Sales here in Haiti. We have 18 Postulants and a judgment has to be made as to their readiness or fitness for religious life and specifically the Oblate life. Usually a formation “team” makes these judgments but there is no “team” here, only me. I’m not happy about that because since I began formation work back in 1971 (Wow! That long ago? Yes, Tom, “that long ago!”) I’ve always worked with a team. A team is made up of different people committed to the same task but who come come at the task from different points of view. This is great when it comes to formation work. Different folks see things differently and view candidates from different points of view. But I’m left here, for the time being, alone to made some of those judgments regarding the fitness of these men for religious/community life. Now a person can have a vocation to priesthood but not necessarily be called to religious or community life. Helping that person discern that (that is, God’s will for him in this regard) is part of my responsibility. So to help me I gave a conference on “evidence”. (Did you ever think I’d get back to the topic?)

I told the community that it was their task to discern God’s will for them. Just saying “I have a vocation” does not necessarily mean that indeed that person has a vocation. He should be able to give evidence of such a call. Also I said there were two sides to this vocational discernment, the person himself and then the community which is examining the candidate to judge his acceptability.Going back to Ray Carry’s workshop he would ask a candidate, “Why do you want to be a priest (Oblate or Jesuit, etc.)? and chances are the stock answer is, “I want to help people.” Well as beautiful as that sounds, Ray wanted to go deeper to look for “evidence”. So his next question was, “Tell me how you’ve helped people up till now.” Now you’re getting at some evidence. Has this person any evidence to show that he has in fact been helping people in various ways or is this a sort of pipe dream – wanting to “help” people. Another example I remember he gave us was asking a person about siblings. “Do you have sisters or brothers?” Usually there is a difference between a person who comes from a large family than one who comes from a small family. Not to say one is better than the other but there is usually a difference. “Yes,” one man said, “I have a sister.” “Are you close,” asked Ray. “Oh, yes, very close,” said the man, “We exchange Christmas cards once a year.” Well, if you simply stopped with the answer, “Yes, we’re very close,” you would think one thing but the second question got deeper and revealed that this man’s idea of “close” was far from the normal idea of close. See what I mean about getting deeper and eliciting evidence for what you’re looking for?

I’m going to have individual interviews with the men here after exams. I’ve already had two interviews with them plus a brief one just before Christmas when I gave them their travel money for the Christmas break so it's not as though I have not been gathering some evidence. I’m going to give them some questions to prepare for the interview, questions, that if they answer them honestly will help them and me to show evidence that they are in the right place or maybe that they’re not. For example they might have a vocation to diocesan priesthood but not to religious life as I said before. We’ll see how this works out.

My possible questions would be something like: What do you like most about this community life you’re living and why? Give details. (Evidence). What do you find the most demanding or difficult about living in this community and don’t say,”Nothing is difficult for me.” Be honest! Name three things you’ve done to help a confrere in the last two months. Name two positive and two negative things you’ve learned about yourself since September. Which vow do you think will be the most difficult for you to live Poverty, Chastity or Obedience? Why?

So we’ll see where it goes. I’m doing this in an effort to help them in their personal discernment and to help me with my responsibility toward the community. And yes, if you’re wondering, are there a few men in the community that I have my doubts about? Yes! But I want to be as objective as I can and as fair as I can. So pray for me in this awesome work of formation and pray for the community that they will be honest with themselves, with God and with me. If we’re all as honest as we can be God will let us know what is the right thing to do.

Finally, the lawyer called on Friday. The final official measuring work of the property we are buying has been completed. Now I must bring a check for the rest of the selling price to the lawyer’s office and sign a document of sale which can then be co-signed by a representative of the Archdiocese. It’s all step by step.

Blessings to all and Happy Valentine’s Day. Tom

February 6, 2011

2011-02-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

It’s Sunday morning. Breakfast this morning was hot chocolate, a treat for the community, and bread – just bread, no butter, no peanut butter, no jam or jelly – just plain bread. This is Sunday and breakfast is somewhat special on Sunday. Sometimes we have a special soup, the soup Haitians eat on New Year’s Day. It has a special name but I understand it’s a traditional soup that everyone eats on the first day of the year, always made the same way and containing certain fixed ingredients. (Just for your Haitian education, the reason this soup is eaten on New Year’s Day is because the slaves were never allowed to eat soup. Only the masters and their families ate soup. So this is a symbolic gesture, a symbolic food which says,”We are no longer slaves!) Anyway, today I was struck that simply hot chocolate and plain ol’ white bread with nothing on it was special and I think it was appreciated by all. If only that were served in one of our houses of formation in the States and probably elsewhere in the world, I bet the men would not be happy. Not here! I learn something new each day.

And speaking of the history of Haiti and the slavery that existed, not long after I got here I realized it would be good to get a history of Haiti and read it. I did in fact get a history and I began reading it but I had to stop since the description of the treatment, or rather the maltreatment of the slaves was too hard for me to read. I put the book on my shelf and haven’t taken it up again. Well, when I was home at Christmas I was given a book, a novel,Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende. It takes place here in Haiti and at the time of the revolution. All that I remember from reading the history of Haiti is integral to the novel. And while it is still horrible to read how the slaves were treated, it is all woven into the story. I think the situation of Haiti today is the result of some of its history. At one point, probably the early and mid sixteenth century the world economy depended on Saint-Domingue (present day Haiti) and Saint-Domingue depended on slave labor to make it work. The French treated their slaves brutally. They fed them very little and worked them hard, so much so that many died after two years or so of labor in the sugar cane fields or mills. The French thought it cheaper to work the slaves hard for a few years and have them die rather than to treat them in a more humane way and have them live longer. It was all a question of economics. To the colonizers, blacks were simply not human. Here is some dialogue from Page 81: “Surely, you do not believe that the blacks are like us (whites)?” From the biological point of view, there is evidence that they are.” “It is obvious that you have had very few dealings with them. Blacks have the constitution for heavy work, they feel less pain and fatigue, their brain power is limited, they do not know how to make choices, they are violent, disorderly, lazy, and they lack ambition and noble sentiments.” “The same could be said of a white brutalized by slavery, monsieur.” So I’m learning the history of Haiti through a novel and while the story line is very interesting, believe me it’s not a pleasant read.

This week someone sent me one of those e-mails “with a message”. It amounted to saying that all Muslims are dedicated to killing anyone who is not a Muslim and of course that means all of us (non-Muslims). I thought it was somewhat off the wall. Are there fundamentalist Muslims who want to kill us, yes. Are most most Muslims like that, I think not. Anyway I returned the sender a note disagreeing with the message and then from the DeSales Center came a piece about St Francis de Sales that spoke of the conflict in Egypt and how conflicts can be solved peacefully. I took the time to send the relevant part to the one who had sent me the original e-mail. I think it’s worth copying here, so here goes…

Dear ……
Today I received this piece from a blog written by one of my confreres at DeSales University in Pennsylvania. He was commenting on the conflict taking place in Egypt where people are fighting for democracy against a government that wants to quell their efforts. The piece recalls a conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Europe in the 1590’s. Francis de Sales, a Catholic priest who is the patron saint of our order, the Oblates of St Francis de Sales, was exiled from the city-state of Geneva which at the time was in the hands of the protestant Calvinists. Many wanted to take back Geneva by force using “iron” (canons) and “powder” (gun powder). So Francis in his first speech before this group raised a battle cry but using a weapon not often thought of, namely love or charity. It’s in that spirit that I think we have to “do battle” with the fundamentalist Muslims spoken about yesterday in the piece you sent me.

Just thought I’d send it along. TM

“And the fundamental truth to which freedom should be connected, a truth which is now threatened by the potential for violence in a government’s clash with protestors, is simply this: “the only proper and adequate attitude towards the other is that of love” (John Paul II).

But love does not do away with conflict. In fact, it may be the only weapon that effectively solves the conflict. This was the import of Francis de Sales’ inaugural speech as the newly appointed leader of the cathedral chapter in 1593. At the time, the chapter – a form of local church government – had been exiled from Geneva, where Calvinist beliefs had overtaken the intermingled religion and politics of the region.

He spiked his address with a veritable call to arms: “At last the day has dawned! We must re-conquer Geneva, the ancient seat of our assembly.” Enthused and inflamed by this agenda, his audience could not have seen what was coming next. “It is our fault,” he proclaimed, “if the name of the Lord is blasphemed among the nations.”

After chiding them for their deficiencies as teachers and examples of the faith, he then gave voice to his novel battle cry: “We must bring down the walls of Geneva with charity; we must invade Geneva with charity; we must recover Geneva with charity.” He made clear that he would “not propose to them iron (canons) or that powder whose odor and stench recall the infernal furnace (hell).” Instead, he exhorted them to “breach the walls of Geneva with our ardent prayers and storm the city with mutual charity.” He concluded by reminding them that “Our front lines must wield the weapons of love” because “to the one who loves, nothing is difficult.”

Today, that kind of weaponry is no less needed in these difficult times. Without recourse to transcendent values, secularist solutions are at risk of collapsing. Without respect for the rule of law that justly maintains social cohesion, the ideal of democracy will falter. Without an attitude of genuine love for fellow citizens, peace cannot prevail … in Egypt or anywhere else.

I guess that is my philosophy too. Anyway, I hope you are all well. You are in my prayers. Tom

January 30, 2011

2011-02-01T08:24:00.000-08:00

I told the community this week. After I got the official word, that Father Carlos was not going to be coming at the end of the month as we had all expected and that I was going to continue to be the one in charge of the house for the time being. The announcement was met with great applause. Following that I said, “Remember, now I am Caesar! Things will be a lot tougher.” They all laughed. Who said, “I don’t get no respect!”? I’m just kidding. However I was a bit surprised by the sustained applause. I don’t know if it was pro-Tom or anit-Carlos.

On Monday, the actual feast of St Francis de Sales, I concelebrated Mass with Tom Hagan at Ste Anne’s chapel in Cité Soleil. Tom picked me up before and I spent some time with him at the Hands Together offices. Tom showed me the new mobile clinic that Mary’s Meals, a Scottish charity,gave to Hands Together for their work. It is unbelievable. In this huge van there are two examining rooms plus a room to draw blood, etc. It’s all air conditioned. What a great tool to put at the disposal of the poor who live in out of the way places. They are waiting for an x-ray unit to complete the equipment. I was really impressed. Tom, in his casual way, keeps it all in balance. He said, “I think I’ll sleep in it!” And indeed it’s a lot fancier than his actual sleeping quarters. Of course he’s kidding. I can’t tell you what a joy it is to be near to Tom Hagan. He is a marvelous man. He’s been coming to Haiti since 1985 and he’s lived here for over fifteen years. He’ll tell you honestly that he really doesn’t like being in Haiti and he’s very tired of all that Hands Together demands of him both here in Haiti and in the States, but he knows this is what God wants of him and he does it. What a marvelous Christian and what a great privilege it is to get to know him. By the way, just before I left the States in January a new DVD arrived from Hands Together. It speaks of their work after the earthquake and again it’s very well done. I think you can probably write for a copy and share it with your friends. You can also send a few bucks their way to aid in the marvelous efforts they are making to reach out to the poor and sick here in Haiti’s largest slum and beyond. By the way, Tom and Hands Together hire only Haitians, giving people work. Some other organizations doing good here bring in their own workers from outside the country. Another reason to support Hands Together.

February 1, 2001
Things got busy and I didn’t get back to the blog. Not much more to report. I’m fine thank God. The weather here is much better than the blizzard conditions I keep reading about on the internet. We have sun and cool breezes. Sorry I can’t share it with you who are freezing. Till next time. Peace and blessings, Tom

January 23, 2011

2011-01-24T15:23:00.000-08:00

It is Sunday morning, January 23rd at 9:30. There is a lot of last minute running around putting the last things in order for our Mass at ten o’clock (or there abouts). Guests are arriving and being seated in the courtyard in front of the house where we have placed the altar for an outdoor Mass. Yesterday and this morning have been given to all the preparations for the Mass and dinner in honor of the feast of St Francis de Sales our Patron whose actual feast day is Monday, January 24th but because Monday is a class day we are celebrating today, Sunday. I’m amazed at the energy and the enthusiasm of the men. They are filled with joy to celebrate this feast. Yesterday I was fearful that one or two of them would fall on the concrete while climbing on the trellis and covering it with tarps to avoid the Haitian sun during Mass. I’ve said this before, but if you are ever stuck somewhere – on a desert isle or elsewhere – and you can choose one person to help you, by all means, choose a Haitian. They are unbelievable! They seem to be able to accomplish the most difficult of tasks with seeming little or no difficulty. I just stand in awe.

Someone asked me to say something about who St Francis de Sales is, so I’ll do that at the end of this blog entry. That way if you just want to read the “news” of Tom, you won’t be burdened with a long chapter on the life of Francis de Sales.

Speaking of the Haitian people, yesterday I went by tap-tap to the youth group Friends of St Francis de Sales. I was impressed by the group of about thirty young people who among other activities listened to their president give a lecture on “timidity” – what it is and how it effects those who are timid and how they can overcome this frame of mind. I thought he was eloquent, but just as impressive was the attention he received from his peers. They listened to the twenty minute talk and then proceeded to ask relevant questions.

Coming back we caught the second tap-tap which was larger than the usual pickup. It was a truck in which you could stand up if you were not lucky enough to get a seat on one of the benches that lined the two sides of the back compartment. I stood, grateful for being able to get aboard amid the rush of humanity that wanted to get on. The ride took about twenty five minutes and I again just stood and listened. I couldn’t understand all that was being said but there a general air of levity in the van. People talking – even yelling over the noise to one another, their voices filled with laughter. In the midst of it all I thanked God for letting me be there – for letting me be here in Haiti. It’s true that all around is poverty and squalor, ugliness and dirt, seeming hopelessness and corruption, yet here I am amid God’s forgotten ones. I’m not doing a blessed thing to relieve their suffering. I’m not sure I’d know what to do even if I could, but at that moment my heart was filled with joy and gratitude for the privilege of sharing this tap-tap ride with these good people; people who laugh and carry on with what appears to be joy despite their very hard lot in life. God bless them.

(Monday, January 24, 2011) Well that Mass was wonderful yesterday. Two friends of the community were present to help with the music, playing both a keyboard and drum. Haitian music is lively and so is the music at Mass. Lots of clapping of the hands and swaying. Lots of more staid people would hate it but it’s so free and so real, not at all pretentious. Some of the songs were in Creole and some in French. All in all it was wonderful. How my homily went over, who knows. I wasn’t run out of town anyway. I basically used a homily I had written two years ago for the feast of St Francis de Sales but those to whom I gave it then are either in Brazil or gone from the community, so I felt okay in recycling it. After the Mass we had a dinner for all present which was beautifully prepared and presented. There was plenty of food and soft drinks and even beer if you so desired which I did so desire. Tom Hagan is there for the dinner since he had Mass earlier at Cite Soleil. By the way, Tom is feeling much better. Not a hundred percent but much better. I’m encouraging him to take it easy but that’s easier said than done.

The very big new I have to report this week is that of the elections of the South American Province which took place in Brazil last week. Mike Moore, an American who has served in Brazil for over thirty years was elected four years ago as the first provincial of the South American Province. Previously our Oblate communities in South America were listed as a mission territory. Mike chose not to run for a second term so the field was open. As it turned out an Ecuadorian priest was elected provincial. Following that election was the election of his council. That is four other men to advise him in his task of running the province. The first counselor elected was a Brazilian priest who is highly thought of throughout the whole of the Oblate community. He was once nearly elected Superior General. After him came the huge surprise, they elected a Haitian scholastic (seminarian not yet ordained) who only took his final vows in November. What a shock! We’re all ecstatic; the Haitians will have a voice in the governing of the whole province. His election was followed by the election of two others: one,a young priest, who has spent some time in Haiti and another who speaks French – a rare commodity in the South American Province. Now what all this will mean remains to be seen but here in the house the men are very happy and honestly, so am I.

So “that the news that’s fit to print”, as they say. I hear it’s very cold up north and even across a good part of the USA. Sorry about that! Blessings to all and thank you so much for the many notes of support at the time of the anniversary of the earthquake and also for the many feast day greetings. I’m very grateful. Tom

At this point I’m going to say something about St Francis de Sales since one of my friends who takes the time to read this blog has asked me about who he is. So here goes. Francis was born to an aristocratic family in 1567 in Savoy (which today includes parts of France, Italy and Switzerland – it is the Alpine region of Europe). This was the time just after the split in the one Christian church in Europe. Geneva, a previously Catholic city for example was in the hands of the followers of John Calvin. The climate was very warlike, Catholics against Protestants and vice versa. Francis the first child was destined by his father to become a great person to give honor to the family by becoming a lawyer and maybe even president of the Parliament of Savoy; and so it was that at an early age he was sent off to school in Paris, a center of learning at the time. There he entered Claremont College a Jesuit institution. Francis was very bright and a very good student. All the while following the Ratio Studio rum (the Jesuit system of studies) he was being exposed to the French court and learning all the manners and customs that went with a life of an aristocrat. It was during these days that Francis, always interested in theology and having a secret desire to one day be a priest, would go into some of the theology lectures far above his head. At the time they were discussing Calvin’s theology of predestination. Basically, Calvin said, since God knows all, he knows what we will choose in life and he thus knows what our destiny will be – either we wind up in heaven or in hell, but whichever we are “predestined”. Since a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, Francis talked himself into thinking that he’d spend eternity in hell and as such could never love God for all eternity. That was too much for him to take and he gradually worked himself into what we would call a nervous breakdown. He lost weight, grew very pale and sickly over a period of a couple of months. He was simply inconsolable. Well, finally taking the bull by the horns, Francis went to a little chapel near the college to pray. He said that if he was going to spend eternity in hell not being able to love God at least he spend his lifetime on earth loving God and doing good. In the chapel was a statue of Notre Dame de Bonne Deliverance, the black Madonna of Paris. Francis knelt before the statue and prayed a prayer which was written on a little paper he found in the chapel – it was the Memo rare, a prayer known to many older Catholics. Following the prayer as if miraculously a burden fell from his shoulders and he was restored to health, both physically and spiritually. Francis never forgot that incident and he has a great love for the Blessed Mother all during his life.
After Paris came studies in Padua in Italy. There Francis studied civil law (for his father) but also theology (for himself). Padua was something of “sin city” at the time, a very liberal and open university town. Francis was exposed to all kinds of temptations, especially those of the flesh, as they say. Well, to guard his commitment to God he made a rule for himself which has come to be called “The Rules of Padua” in which he committed himself to a life of fidelity and holiness. He had a Jesuit priest as his spiritual director to help him through this time.
Francis came away from Padua with doctorates in both Law and Theology. Not too bad! Returning home his father was glad to see him and immediately wanted to expose him to the Savoyard society with the idea of finding him a suitable wife from another noble family. Well, Francis was not in favor yet he respected his father. What to do? He ended up convincing him mother of his priestly intentions and getting her to have the father change his mind. That’s what happened. Francis was finally ordained for the Diocese of Geneva and was named Provost of the Cathedral Chapter, a rather prestigious post. Francis turned out to be a great preacher and teacher and a very gifted pastor. A few years later he was asked by his bishop to go the the Chablais region to try to win it back from the Calvinists who had influenced it for over seventy years. This was a daunting assignment. There was great violence between Catholics and Protestants and this was the modern equivalent of a ghetto turf war, but Francis took on the challenge. How did he go about his task? Not with arms, swards, etc. but with truth. He used the media of his day, the printing press, to circulate tracts pointing out the errors of Calvin’s teaching and the truths of the Catholic faith which had been so long ago forgotten and neglected. He preached wherever he could. He was very persuasive and kind and more and more people were drawn to him. In some three years he accomplished what others had tried to do and failed, that is bring back the region to the Catholic faith.
Soon after Francis was named coadjutor bishop – that is the bishop who would take over when the present bishop either died or resigned. It was not very long when he became bishop of Geneva, but because Geneva was in the hands of the Calvinists, the see city for the diocese had moved to Annecy. That is where Francis spent the rest of his life.
Ordained a bishop at 35 Francis accomplished a number of unbelievable things in the twenty years he was to serve in this post. Immediately he went to work reforming the Catholic which was in huge need of reform. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) had set in place many reforms directed at the errors that had crept into the Church during the centuries before errors that the reformers like Luther and others had pointed out. The reform had to be from top to bottom, that Is, from the clergy down through the laity. Francis started with the clergy and believe me, that was not easy! He spent the all of his years as bishop at this task. He also worked on reforming the laity, teaching catechism to both children and adults. He made as goal for himself to visit all the parishes in the diocese which numbered 400, a grueling task given the mountainous region of his diocese and having to accomplish all these visits on horseback. Francis’ health was somewhat fragile but that did not stop him. On he went. In addition to this terribly hard work he became the spiritual director to many hundreds of persons who came to him asking for advice. Many of the letters he sent to one woman in particular, a mother and the wife of a person of considerable public rank, who asked how was she ever to have any kind of spiritual life in the midst of the “rat race” (in French “traca”) she was asked to live by her state in life. These letters were later gathered together by Francis and published as An Introduction to the Devout Life which is still a spiritual classic. So Francis wrote hundreds of letters (imagine doing this by candle light at night since there was no such thing as electricity then). He also carried out diplomatic missions demanded by the Duke of Savoy, traveling several times to Paris to negotiate with the King of France. In Parish he became something of a “superstar” because of his magnetic preaching and gifts as a spiritual director. He also founded an order of nuns’, The Visitation of Holy Mary, with his very dear and spiritual friend St Jane Frances DeChantal. Add to this writing another spiritual classic The Treatise on the Love of God, it’s almost too much to believe. But he did it and did it well always living and witnessing to the little virtues he encouraged all to develop, the virtues of humility and gentleness. Francis was a very loving man all the days of his life.
Finally, returning from one of the diplomatic missions to Paris for the Duke, Francis arrived in Lyons very spent and instead of staying in very posh living quarters he chose to stay in the gardener’s cottage of the Visitation monastery. There he suffered a stroke and died on December 28 1622. What a great man. What a loving man. We Oblates of St Francis de Sales are so privileged to have him as our patron.

January 16, 2011

2011-01-16T15:04:00.000-08:00

It is 81 degrees and a gentle breeze is wafting over this part of Haiti. The sun is shining. It is a perfect day. My body feels that it’s back where it belongs after three weeks of freezing temperatures both in New York and in Michigan. What can I say? During my visit which was wonderful, I said several times, “Haiti doesn’t have very much but at least it has HEAT!” And that’s true. It still doesn’t have very much but it does have heat which is not oppressive at this time of year. It’s so different returning to wearing sandals and a very light cotton shirt and light pants when not even a week ago I was bundled up heavy cloths and a winter jacket. I think my poor body has become acclimated to the warmer weather and it’s not happy in the cold.

I began my journey back on Monday evening with a flight from Detroit. My friend Don Zurack picked me up in Saginaw and drove me to Metro Airport. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch in Burch Run and we had time for a good visit on the drive to Detroit. Previously, I had been leaving from Flint where there is a 6:00 am flight to Chicago and then another to Miami and a third to Port au Prince getting me in at 4:30 in the afternoon. That was with American Airlines. But last April Pam, my travel agent, got me on an unbelievably cheap flight from Detroit to Port au Prince (Detroit- Fort Lauderdale, FL – Port au Prince all in one day) on Spirit Airlines. Well because of my back problem and operation I couldn’t use the ticket so we set it aside to use later. The problem was that the one-day connection was no longer possible so I left Detroit Monday at 7:00 pm and arrived in Fort Lauderdale around 10:45. The flight to Port au Prince was Tuesday morning at 7:15 am. So instead of trying to find a hotel that late and then get back to the airport at 5:15 am (Be there 2 hours before an international flight!) I just sat up in the airport all night. So did lots of other folks. It was somewhat uncomfortable but not that bad and since I got to Port au Prince Tuesday at 9:30 in the morning. I had time to unpack, get a shower (alas, cold water) and get a nap before the men arrived from class around one o’clock.

Well, it didn’t take long to get back into Haiti. I arrived on the eleventh and the twelfth was the first anniversary of the earthquake. There was a Mass scheduled at the Cathedral, or what was the Cathedral, for 8:00 am. Things are scheduled early here because once the sun is in the sky direct sunlight can be unbearable. So all of us, the eighteen and me, headed down to the cathedral. There was an immense crowd already gathered – I mean thousands of people. I went into the chancery where the priests were vesting. (I had thought of just “attending” but I think the men wanted me to concelebrate so I did.) I met Tom Hagan there. We were “partners”. Tom looks like his old self and I was so happy to see him. He really had me and others worried there for awhile with a huge infection that had developed in his blood. Thanks to the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic and the huge amount of antibiotics, he is back to what appears to be normal. Please, God, that it be so.

There were literally hundreds of priests there and many bishops and a cardinal who came from Rome to represent the Pope. You may have received the following e-mail from me since it sent it to many people on my address list.

Hi Folks,

I just returned from an open air Mass on the grounds around the ruins of the former Cathedral. It was very moving with thousands and thousands of folks, hundreds of priest concelebrants and lots of bishops from here and from other countries. A cardinal from Rome representing the Pope presided and gave a very powerful homily. Tonight we have a community Mass for all the deceased during the earthquake but especially for the Mom of one of our scholastics who is in Brazil and for our two Aspirants, Rochlore and Innocent who were killed. It is a day of remembering and I've been close to tears since this morning. God bless this poor country and may God help these people to fine the way out of such unbelievable poverty and public corruption. It is they who have to do it, not the foreigners nor the foreign dollars flowing in from lots of good intentioned people throughout the world. Somebody has to get a foothold, a step to set a movement in action. I'm afraid, for all their goodness, for all their invincibility the Haitians have to begin to trust one another and to work together even if it means that one may get more or have more than someone else. It's all very complicated and I know nothing. I just love these folks and hope they can find a way out of this terribly sad and death dealing situation.

Rereading what I wrote seems to capture my emotional state then and frankly now. That night we did have the Mass here that mentioned. Here what I said during the very brief homily:

Today, a national day of mourning, has become for all of us a day of personal mourning. A year ago today each of us lost someone close – for the Lundi family it was the loss of their mother. For us and especially for you who were aspirants last year with Father Tom in the Hands Together house, it was the loss of two of our own, the loss of Rochelor and of Innocent. What sadness – what a terrible day! I don’t think even now we realize or accept the depth of these losses. Death is so final. Thanks be to God for our faith – a faith that gives us, in the face of this very sad reality, the possibility of hope – “for we believe that for those who believe, life is changed not ended and when we come to the end of our days here on earth we will have an eternal dwelling place in heaven” - words from the Preface of this Mass for the Dead. And there are other words of consolation that we will pray as well. “Welcome into your kingdom our departed brothers and sisters, and all who have left this world in your friendship. There together and forever we hope to share in your glory when every tear will be wiped away. On that day we shall see you, our God, as you area. And we shall become like you…”

So, a day of mourning, yes, but also a day of hope.

May God our Father and his Son Jesus give us the courage to believe in the face of these terrible events which are so sad and so difficult.

And may the consolation of the Holy Spirit rest upon us and on all Haitians today, this twelfth day of January 2011 – the anniversary of the earthquake –a day of national mourning.”

But life goes on. The next day there was class for all the men. I took it easy. I remember two years ago coming back and getting right into my exercise routine and then getting sick. So I’ve learned. Easy does it! Friday evening we had our usual recreation. There‘s always popcorn and Seven Up and a few hands of Uno. Saturday to the bank to get money to run the house on and Sunday Mass in Cite Soleil at the chapel of Ste Anne. I said Mass in Creole and was a lot less nervous. All this is grace in action and my heart is filled with gratitude to the good God who is taking good care of me and the others.

Just as a note, Sunday evening (tonight as I write this) or tomorrow Monday the South American Province will have their Provincial Chapter and elect a new provincial and council. We’ll see what all that will bring about since there will be changes. Mike Moore will not be provincial since he’s chosen not to to keep his name in. “On vera,” as we say in French. (By the way, I had to translate the homily I quoted above from French. Things come out differently in different languages.)
My best to all and prayers. Tom

December 13, 2010

2010-12-13T13:04:00.000-08:00

Hi Everybody,
Just a quick entry to let you all know some very good news. When a Pope is elected a cardinal comes out on the balcony of the Vatican and says, "Habmus Papam" "We have a Pope!" Well I can say, "Habmus terram!" "We have our land!" (or at least we have begun the official process for buying our land. Today I was at the lawyer's office with Mrs Baker, the landowner and we signed a "Promesse de vente" or a Promise to Sell. I handed over a sizable check, one third of the purchase price and off we go! The paper work should be completed no later than March 14, 2011. Deo gratias! Thanks be to God! Now I can get the plane tomorrow afternoon and begin some needed R and R. I hope you all are blessed with a peaceful and happy Christmas season and New Year. My plan is to be back in Haiti Jan 11, 2011, the day before the first anniversary of the earthquake. "Si Dieu veut" as we say here, both in French and Creole. So till then, at least on the blog, Blessings to all, Tom

December 9, 2010

2010-12-09T08:36:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s another lesson in learning about the Haitian culture! I’ve experienced an earthquake, been through a hurricane, although it wasn’t a direct hit, am living through a cholera epidemic and now it’s a political uprising with reported rioting in the streets. If I keep at it, pretty soon I’ll be a full-fledged Haitian. So what’s happening?

Well, yesterday, December 8, was the feast of the Immaculate Conception which is a big Marian feast day here in Haiti. The day started with our community prayer and Mass. I was surprised that there was class given the big feast, but there was - at least there were classes scheduled, both at the school of theology and the school of philosophy. However after Mass the men told me that there was unrest in the streets since the results of the election were announced the night before – there were people throwing stones and Delmas 33 a big thoroughfare that runs close to our house was shut down by folks burning tires, dumping garbage and otherwise making the street impassible for cars and trucks. I was to have Mass at Mother Teresa’s sisters where there was to be a renewal of vows for one of the sisters. Well I waited and waited but no one came to pick me up. Meantime we heard that all classes were canceled. I called the sisters and was told that their driver was having trouble reaching me but that someone would be coming to pick me up. Well about twenty minutes later two sisters and one if the drivers from the convent knocked at our gate. I followed them on foot for about a quarter of a mile on very hilly back streets where we found the jeep with the other driver. We then proceeded to find our way to the sisters via a very circuitous route. Well we had the Mass and the renewal of vows and after the superior asked if I’d like some breakfast and could I say another Mass for their workers. I guess the feast day was a day the sisters chose for a worker appreciation day. I told her I’d be glad to have the Mass. Meanwhile I enjoyed a very nice breakfast, a breakfast a lot fancier than the one at our house. Following the Mass two sisters and a driver took me back home, again following the very winding route through back streets. I guess having the sisters in the jeep was for security. Who would stone a car having Mother Teresa in it? Now some of you may be thinking – how scary! But honestly it wasn’t. Though we passed folks on the back streets there were no angry mobs. I didn’t feel the least bit scared. However when we parked the jeep and walked the last bit of the way to our house, I saw a part of the big street Delmas 33 and it was indeed blocked off by lots of debris. I returned home in time for our noon day meal and told the men to use the time to study. Actually it was eerie. There was no traffic sounds coming from the usually busy street next to us and from the second floor you could see empty areas usually crowded with people. It was like a ghost town and remained so throughout the day. I called my family to let them know I was safe in case news of the unrest had hit the TV’s in the States, which I was told later that indeed it had. Our house and property are surrounded by a big wall which is topped with barbed wire. There are two gates at either end of the property which are made of steel and are always locked. So we’re very safe and we’re off the beaten path. So to all of you reading this – not to worry!

Today we began as usual with meditation and Mass. During meditation he heard a very subtle but delightful sound. It was a gentle rain. Halleluiah – what better way to cool down hot tempers than a good rain! Well it was just a sprinkle and after breakfast I found out that things would again be closed down today meaning no class. I waited for the driver from the sisters to come and picked me up which he did about a quarter to seven. I was driven over to the sisters again using an indirect route because the main roads are still blocked. Again few people were outside because of the rain – another sort of ghost town. When I got back the men had uprooted weeds in the lot on our property. I had seen rats there the other day and said that the community had a choice; it was either me or the rats but not both since I hate rats. Mice are one thing, rats are quite another. Well they told me that in pulling up the weeds they killed two rats. Good! I was touched that they had chosen me over the rats. But today is another weird day. I think it’s hard for the guys to concentrate on their studies even though they have extra time. I keep telling them that Francis de Sales said, “For a priest, to study is the eighth sacrament” but that only goes so far. When their country is in a state of unrest I’m sure they are all uneasy.

Today at 11:30 am I was supposed to meet with the lawyer to give him the check and begin the process of officially buying the land. Well, that’s out given the circumstances. Maybe tomorrow if all is calm, but even then I wonder. We’ll see. That’s what it’s like living in a third world country. It’s always “We’ll see”; maybe yes, maybe no. People have so little control over their lives. Maybe a tap-tap will come along to give them a ride or maybe not. Maybe there will be a vacant place in the tap-tap, maybe not. Maybe we’ll avoid cholera, maybe not. Maybe I’ll get some work and have enough to feed my kids, maybe not. I have no idea what it must be like to live that way. In my life in the States I’m so used to having and so used to being able to choose. It’s very rare when I wouldn’t have electricity or running water. I certainly was never in a position where I had to wonder if I’d have something to eat that day. (My problem was having too much to eat!) So seeing the plight of those who are left to live at the hands of fate is very moving. Even those who are not desperately poor, those who are a cut above the poor, even they have very little by comparison to us from the first world. And how come I got lucky enough to be born to caring parents in a land of plenty? How come at 72 I have very good health? It’s all part of the mystery, but a mystery worth pondering. (Wow! How did I ever get here? It’s my wondering mind.)

So that’s it from my part of the world. I’m supposed to leave on Tuesday but will the planes be flying or will the flights be canceled like they are today? “We’ll see….” Tom

December 5, 2010

2010-12-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

It’s been quite a week to say the least. Election Day, last Sunday was relatively quite in our neighborhood. Only one of the men was registered to vote here in the city and he went to do his civic duty. Alas, as I’ve heard about many eligible voters, his name did not appear on the rolls so he couldn’t vote. Now remember, there’s been a huge displacement of people especially here in the center of the quake zone, so people aren’t in the neighborhoods where they were before the earthquake and where they were registered. But many of them let the authorities know where they were and still there were hundreds if not thousands of mix-ups. Added to that number were the hundreds (maybe thousands) who had lost their national identity card in the quake and who needed to have one to vote. The government was hugely slow in replacing the cards so again many folks were simply disenfranchised. What a mess! I’ll be interested to see the final percentage of those eligible who actually voted. I’m hearing that a guy who was a singer (not Wycliffe but another) and again whom I’m told as part of his act would pull his pants down – great presidential material! - he got 39% of the vote. (However in thinking about it, we had a president who did the same thing while he was president, so who is to say!) The woman who was leading in the polls before the election got 31% of the votes counted so far. When no one gets a 50% majority plus one there is a runoff election in January. So there will be a run off.

Everything was closed on Monday for fear of violence surrounding the elections. I got a call from Tom Gumbleton, retired auxiliary bishop of Detroit and a friend of mine, saying he was in the country and wanted to stop by. Tom is a great apostle of charity. He’s spent his life defending just causes and he was here in Haiti with a group of Catholic Workers who sponsor a clinic in our neighborhood and who sponsor a food program that feeds thousands of kids. Tom has visited before and I was looking forward to his visit. He said he’d arrive when he arrives – that’s so Haitian. You never know what will hold you up. Shortly after Tom’s call I got a call from Food for the Poor a Catholic organization which obviously feeds the poor but also helps feed seminarians. So we’re on their list and every two months we get sacks of rice and beans and anything else they have to share. Sometimes it’s a carton of tennis shoes, sometimes paper towels or boxes of breakfast cereal. Well they wanted us to come in and pick up a donation. Now remember Tom is coming and I never get visitors, so what to do? I had to go to Food for the Poor since my name is on their list. Well, I went thinking that if Tom came when I was gone he could come back another time – maybe.
Usually it’s crowded on distribution day but Monday there was hardly anyone there. On the list we got was marked several boxes of hygiene supplies, several boxes of shampoo and four cartons of folding chairs – ten in each. Well, we put it all into our pickup and came home. Luckily, Tom hadn’t arrived yet.

When he did arrive that afternoon we had a nice visit. I showed him and his friends around the house and showed them the things we had just received from Food for the Poor. One of the women said that they needed some chairs at the clinic so I said, great; you can have a carton of 10 since we don’t need them all. Anything we get from Food for the Poor we can share or give away but we cannot sell it. So I was happy we could help them and I said 20 of the chairs were going to be used in our chapel. Then I asked would they want the chairs that were presently in the chapel; they are “kiddy” chairs like you see in a kindergarten classroom. Again they were delighted to get them. So we delivered the chairs to their clinic which isn’t far from here. I saw all this as God’s Providence. We just happened to get the chairs on a day when everything else was closed. They needed chairs. We didn’t need the chairs we had in the chapel and they were glad to get them too. See how good God is!

Now moving on to Friday – you remember I’ve been crazy waiting for word to sit down with the landowner and the lawyer and begin the process of buying a piece of property that will be used by the Oblates of St Francis de Sales for a future house of formation here in Haiti. Well on Friday the provincial sent an email authorizing me to contact or general treasurer to send the money to write the check for the down payment. Halleluiah! Since I’m leaving for some vacation time on Dec. 14th, time was getting close. Well, thank God, now we can act. We, myself and all the Haitians postulants and scholastics,have been storming heaven for just such a result. Now we begin prayers of thanksgiving.

Finally, yesterday, Saturday, I went with a few of the men to where they are doing pastoral work. It was with a group called MEJ (Movement Eucharistique de Jeunes) how to translate that? It's an international Catholic young people’s group or movement centered on the Eucharist – how’s that? I’m told it is a parish centered movement which gathers youth and younger people into three major age groups: little children, adolescents and young adults. They meet once a week – often after Mass on Sunday for “animation” or fun and game-playing, for prayer and for sharing. It is very well known here in Haiti though I’ve never heard of the group in the States. The group I went to see was a young adults group who meet every Saturday from four o’clock till six thirty. Our men are members and simply witness by their presence. They join in the activities and the discussion and sometimes give a conference. I was very impressed by the group which numbered about 25 last night. There was lively singing and drumming when we arrived. Everything was outdoors since the church hall they used to meet in is under reconstruction after the earthquake. New members were welcomed and I was introduced. They thanked me for coming to be with them. This was followed by a small group discussion of responsibility in the family – doing your part when asked by your parents, even though you are older now. The discussion in my group was obviously lively, young men and women both joining in and of course all in Creole. What impressed me was their simplicity and their seeming transparency. They appeared to me to be childlike. Not childish, but childlike. There are adults ranging in age from maybe eighteen to upwards of 32 or so I would guess. They were serious at times and at times playful. They seemed to be dedicated and clearly they wanted to be there. When they prayed, they prayed for their country, especially hoping that the elections would bring about some good but not necessarily counting on that. They prayed for the cholera victims and others. Like I said, I was touched. Afterward I asked our guys about the group. They said that they are probably middle class young people, not like the youth group in Cité Soleil who are clearly from very poor families. I’m always glad to be exposed to new situations and to try to understand these Haitian people. They amaze me, all of them. How they carry on in the face of so much adversity – the poor, the middle class and the yes, even the rich (though I guess the rich are not so affected by the disasters we’ve seen lately. Money has a way of shielding you from lots of stuff.) Anyway, it was very good being there.

After my ramblings I wonder if anyone has the fortitude to read all this. I don’t worry if you don’t since just writing it does me some good.

Blessings to all, Tom

November 28, 2010

2010-11-28T13:10:00.000-08:00

It’s Election Day here in Haiti and I’ve been warned not to go to Cité Soleil for Mass since Election Day is often accompanied by violence. So we didn’t go. Actually I was there yesterday afternoon for a meeting of the youth group, the Friends of St. Francis de Sales. It’s a group founded by one of our scholastics over two years ago. When I can, I usually go with the men who are working with the group. We go and come back by tap-tap which is always a kick. Riding in a tap-tap is really getting into life here in Haiti. Everybody is crowded together carrying I don’t know what all. It could be live chickens or huge sacks of used clothing, or shopping bags overflowing with vegetables, etc. Sometimes we get a person, usually a man, who is preaching the gospel in a very loud voice at fever pitch so that you couldn’t get a word in edgewise even if you were given to try; actually most people chime in with an “Amen!” or an “Alleluia!” I’ve been tempted to tell the guy, “Look, see the cross (we wear our profession cross outside around our neck), I’m saved and I've given my life to Jesus, but this guy next to me (one of the postulants) is a sinner and needs to be converted.” But alas, my Creole is not that good or that fast. We’d be at the end of the line before I could get a sentence like that out and have it understood.
But speaking of Creole, on the way back yesterday, I sat in the cab of the pickup (tap-tap) which is sometimes available instead of riding in the back, and I had a conversation in Creole with the driver. He was happy that I was learning Creole. I asked him about the election, did he think it would change anything. He said no like most people I talk to say. I asked about the corruption of the politicians and he said corruption among the politicians in Haiti was the worst in the world and there seems to be no end in sight. He’s voting for the only woman candidate, a woman who is a former First Lady. He thought she was educated and would represent Haiti well. Whether she could or would change anything, well, that was a different question. My sense was that he thought probably not.

This week I was asked to write a small piece for Bondings our provincial newsletter. It was something of an update like I wrote to the members of the province a few weeks ago. I thought I’d add it to this week’s blog.

BONDINGS ARTICLE
Let me begin by saying that I am not suffering personally here in Haiti. If anything, I am an “observer” since I’m not living in a tent, crowed together with hundreds of others who have no decent health facilities like toilets and showers and no privacy and no decent food or water to drink. The question is not “How do you, Tom, maintain some sense of optimism and hope in a situation where there are so many bad things that have happened but, “How do they?” To me it is a great mystery, but for the Haitian people, life simply goes on. They are magnificent and, in my judgment, truly invincible. And while there are reported deaths – 230,000 from the earthquake, scores from the hurricane and mounting numbers daily from the cholera epidemic, there are no reported suicides. By comparison, how many suicides were reported in the United States these last few weeks? Perhaps St Paul has some insight into this when he writes to the Romans 5: 3-5,”… and not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” To skeptics these are merely pious words but to the thousands of suffering Haitians, a people rooted in the Christian faith, I see these words taking on flesh. How do the people deal with the fears that multiple disasters bring? They just do. It occurs to me that for many if not most Haitians life has always been hard and there have been very few breaks along the way. So they rejoice when they can, when something good happens and when disasters occur, they keep moving on when people like me would just give up.
So that’s what’s happening in Haiti as I see it. Keep this very poor nation and its very good people in your prayers that “the same loving God who took care of us yesterday will take care of us today and every day.”

I hope I not giving away the news in Bondings which they told me would come out at the end of January. By the way, if you want news of our province quarterly just ask to have a copy sent to you and they’ll be glad to oblige. It’s a way of keeping up with what the Toledo/Detroit province of the Oblates of St Francis de Sales and news of some of the members. (Write to Bondings Editor, 2043 Parkside Blvd. / Toledo, OH 43607 or just call 419/724-9851.

This morning instead of going into Cité Soleil, I went to celebrate Mass with some of our postulants in a chapel of the local parish about eight miles from here. Getting there in our borrowed SUV was something else – riding over roads (and I use the term lightly) that could easily give you a dislocated back. The chapel was higher up than we are – I think I’ve mentioned that Haiti is mountainous and around here very hilly. Well we passed hundreds of tents clustered together on the hills. I found out that these tents are “housing” people from Port-au-Prince who were left homeless by the earthquake. I did notice some community latrines probably built by Oxfam or some other international organization among the tents and the tents themselves seemed to be spaced farther about than in most tent cities I’ve seen. Also being up higher in a more rural atmosphere might give a little more breathing space and /or comfort to the people living there. But it’s still a tent city and the folks are not in their own homes like they used to be.

There were about forty people at Mass and things were very well organized. Yesterday a few guys went out and had a music rehearsal with the folks. We brought along our “battery” which is a big battery that can be charged up with electricity. It allows you to plug in an appliance. We brought along the keyboard which was given to us by the Poor Clare Sisters in Saginaw a few years ago and a man played it accompanied by another man on a drum. The people sang their hearts out and it was a beautiful Mass for opening the Advent Season. After Mass I hear some confessions all of course in Creole. I feel like “Father Romero” that George Carlin used to talk about in the early days of his comedy act. George was a Catholic kid brought up in New York City. He used to say that all the guys went to confession to Fr. Romero who could hardly speak or understand English. They’d go to him to confess their sins of “petting”, etc. And when asked to be more specific they’d say, “Yah Fader, heavy on the ‘covet’!” Well, except for the fact that most of the penitents are older women, it’s probably a good thing to go to confession to “Fr. Tom” since he has little or no idea what they are saying. I tell them that my Creole is not good but I’m sure God understands them and that’s what is important. To be honest, there and at Ste Anne’s Chapel in Cité Soleil, I’m brought to tears literally by these good people. They are so fervent and I look at them and they are so poor, dressed in clothes that I’m sure are second, if not third hand, but clean and make to be presentable for Mass on Sunday. They whisper their sins and I wonder what to say. I remind them that we’re all sinners and that God loves us always whether we are doing it right or whether we are messing things up and to keep thinking about God’s love rather than our sinfulness. Now of course, those thoughts get put into very broken Creole but I hope they help. At the end, after the words of absolution I say what the priest says at the end of Mass. In English we say something like, “The Mass is ended, go in peace.” In the missal in Creole the priest says, “ Ale ak kèr kontan!” or “Go with a happy heart!”I like that.

Maybe that’s a good place to end. To all, may you be blessed during these coming days of Advent in which we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Lord at Christmas. Tom

November 21, 2010

2010-11-21T11:36:00.000-08:00

It is our custom as Oblates of St. Francis de Sales to renew our vows on this day November 21, the feast of the Presentation of Our Lady. However because this year the feast falls on a Sunday and not just any Sunday but today, the Feast of Christ the King, the greater feast takes precedence. All that means is that we either find another day to renew our vows or we do it at a community gathering. So I’ll do it twice, once with Mass for Mother Teresa’s sisters, the Missionaries of Charity and again as our community gathers for night prayers. Actually I’m the only one in the house with vows but I want to introduce our postulants to this custom. I get choked up when I renew my vows. It was on September 14, 1957 when I made my first vows at St Anthony’s Church, a big Oblate parish in Wilmington, Delaware. At the age of 19 I was full of fervor and ready to give my whole life to the Lord. Maybe that’s way too young to make such a commitment but I’ve never looked back. I’m truly gratefulto the Lord for the grace of my vocation and while there have been times when I was ready to chuck the Oblates for all kinds of righteous reasons, good sense and a calm spirit prevailed and I’ve stayed. I’ve learned during the years that being right is one thing and being “righteous” is quite another. Nobody can be more “righteous” that Tom Moore when he’s on his high horse and knows everything. I cringe looking back at some of the things I’ve said and done in moments of righteous anger. What an ass I was. I love Anthony DeMello’s rendering of the famous 1970’s pop-psychology book,I’m OK, You’re OK. He thought it would be better put, “I’m an Ass, You’re an Ass." But we live and learn. And going back to the renewal of vows which, by the way, I do every day as I put on my profession cross, the words are very touching: “For the love of God, and moved by a firm resolve to consecrate myself more fully to Him and to follow Christ more closely in my whole life, here and now, with my brothers as witnesses – I, Thomas Moore, vow for life – chastity, poverty, and obedience according to the Constitutions of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. I give myself with my whole heart to this religious family, so that, by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I may seek perfect charity in the service of God and the Church.” I must say also that the original vow formula which in those days was in Latin, was not only put into the vernacular but also somewhat expanded. I know the old formula by heart but not the new one, so when it comes to November 21 and the devotional renewal of our vows, I am usually teary-eyed in repeating the words. His tears are near the surface!

Well on Friday after doing some work checking on various options of how to purchase a plot of land for the Oblates of St Francis de Sales here in Haiti, I met with the landowner and the lawyer. It went well and I reported my meeting to the provincial in Brazil thinking all was ready for him to have the money for the down payment sent to our Oblate account here in Haiti. Well, of course, it’s not going to happen, at least now. The provincial now wants to check with many more members of the province to see if they agree with the process. There is a hesitation by the provincial and others to buy land under the auspices of the the Archdiocese. It seems that in other countries where the Oblates have foundations, such arrangements have been troublesome. One bishop is fine and then another comes another and he acts differently. That’s fine as far as it goes but this is Haiti. It’s not Brazil; it’s not Africa, etc. etc. I have checked with many reliable religious and they all agree that there is no problem making a purchase in this manner. So I did my homework and had everything in order and now I’m told to wait. Fine, but I’m the one who has to call the landowner (a woman who is part of a very wealthy family well known in Haiti) and the lawyer (who has excellent credentials working with religious in purchasing land in this manner) and tell them we’re not ready. I feel foolish. I’m trying not to let it get to me. I’m trying to live in “the now” as Eckhart Tolle suggests along with the monk of the 14th century who wrote The Cloud of Unknowing, but it’s still not easy. It’s all part of what I’ve often mentioned, “What is, is.” It’s as simple as that and as complicated as that. So pray for me that I may be faithful to this moment and to this issue.

Bill Auth my friend who is an Oblate had his shoulder replaced on Friday and seems to be doing well, thank God. Tom Hagan is in the States checking out a bug he’s been fighting for a couple of weeks. I’ve been praying for both of them.

I can’t believe that this is the last Sunday of the liturgical year and next week begins Advent. "Comme le temps passé vite." (How quickly the time passes.) That means pretty soon I’ll get to have a visit home and I’m looking forward to it. So peace to all and, oh yes, Happy Thanksgiving Day. We don’t have that here.

Blessings, Tom

November 14, 2010

2010-11-14T14:33:00.000-08:00

I have to be honest. Today is November 14. My ticket to leave for Christmas break is for December 14 – one month from now. What I have to be honest about is that I can hardly wait! This stint from early in September has been heavier than most. I have had my ups and downs. Probably the biggest thing was the visit of the provincial and Carlos. I took a lot of my psychic energy. It’s over and all in all I’ve adjusted to the information I received at the time, but it still was a drain. Don’t get me wrong – there have been plenty of “ups” as well. The community is probably the biggest “up”. Things seem to be running smoothly and I’m grateful for that. There are real hopes for buying a property here in Haiti and that is another “upper” and of course there are many others. But I am looking forward to a visit home more than usual.

Friday I did an update for my brother Oblates. I share it with you since it talks about some of the things going on right now.

November 12, 2010
The Brisson Cyber Community just sent in their up-dates and we also had reports from the Toledo and Jackson communities, so I thought I’d give you an up-date of my situation here in Haiti. Lots of folks were worried about me when they heard the news of Tomas, the hurricane heading toward Port au Prince and then again along with that the news of the cholera outbreak in Haiti, let me say first that I’m okay, thank God.
After some rest time in August and a few preaching engagements for the Oblate Missions, I returned to Haiti and the twenty four postulants whom I am shepherding. Yes, you heard it right, twenty four! Our community is reminiscent of Childs or maybe Battle Creek and De Chantal back in the 60’s and 70’s with regard to the numbers in the house. We began the school year with a three day weekend retreat. I talked about prayer, especially mental prayer – Lectio Divina - and gave the men time to open themselves to it and then to share some of their experiences in small groups. It was a good beginning. That was followed by some house chapters concerning house rules and behavior. With twenty five people in the house we are very cramped so we really do need some order. Interestingly enough we still have about eight men who prefer to live in tents on the property, in large part due to their fear of another unexpected earthquake. They are afraid of being trapped again as some of them were when the Hands Together house where they were living was totally destroyed killing two of our Aspirants. Who can blame them? The earthquake and its after effects are a part of all of us personally and we see the visual reminders all around us. There are the ruins of buildings partially or totally destroyed, people living in tents in the street in front of what was their home or in one of the hundreds of tent cities which are everywhere. Little or nothing seems to have changed since the quake January 12, ten months ago today. We hear of no plan from the government to put things back together. In the meantime these remarkable Haitian people carry on. Think about that, living in a tent, yes a tent, with your family and the few belongings you’ve managed to save. You have no privacy at all and what’s a worse, no decent toilet or shower facilities. But they do it, how I’ll never know. It’s clearly living in a survival mode. Next to them we are living in luxury.

Well, “luxury” may be overstating it. We have a roof over our heads, toilet and shower facilities, enough to eat and quite often, though you can never be sure, electricity to give us light at night and power to run a computer. Running water? Yes, cold running water if we have electricity to pump the water up to the reservoirs on the roof. If not, it’s get a bucket at ground level, fill it up and take it to the bathroom for your shower or to flush the toilet (when you need to – if you catch my drift.)

Mike Moore the provincial and Carlos de Borba, the Brazilian Oblate who is the founding superior of the house came for a visit in October. There had been some miscommunication between me and the province. Shortly after the quake the seven professed Haitian scholastics went to Brazil to continue their studies. I was left to shepherd the nineteen Aspirants and twelve postulants. Well it was during that time when some of the problems arose, some due to miscommunication, some to the huge distance between Brazil and Haiti. I of course was here in Haiti on site with Tom Hagan and the formation folks in Brazil were not. Anyway Mike came to clear up the questions and he did just that. In addition he looked at some property which we may possibly buy to build a formation house of our own. This is a huge symbolic step as the Haitian scholastics and postulants yearn to see the Oblates of St Francis de Sales rooted in the Haitian soil.

Since the visit life goes on. Five postulants were invited by Mike to come to Brazil to begin a novitiate in February 2011. They just left to do some language study before beginning the novitiate since it will all be in Portuguese. The rest of the men are either in first or second year philosophy and two are studying theology. We have Mass everyday and some of the Office. There is a seven minute visit before the main meal around one o’clock and night prayers at 8:15. I’m going to teach them the “In manus tuas, Domine…” See what I mean about Childs, Battle Creek and De Chantal? (This is a reference to a Latin chant used at the end of Night Prayers when I was a novice and used up until the changes of Vatican II which put many texts into the vernacular.)

If any of you are so inclined and have some extra money, it is no secret that we have needs. A big one is for books for the library – theology, philosophy, Salesian works, etc. We are able to buy some of them here in Haiti and others must be purchased in Canada or France, but it takes money and our budget is tight, even very tight. Also there are ordinary needs for pens, notebooks, etc., things we take for g ranted but are not taken for granted here. The men come from families who cannot afford to pay for their upkeep. On the advice of the seminary rector, I made a decision to send all the men to the Insitit Français to improve their French. It seems that although they all speak French, their grasp of the essentials, like grammar and a more sophisticated vocabulary needed for higher studies is lacking. I managed through the generosity of some folks to pay that bill with donations, but next semester that will end unless I find some more money. So, if you want to help you can send a check to Dave or to John Mancini and believe me it will be put to good use. You know, begging is never fun, but when you’re asking for someone who really needs it, it’s not hard at all. (Dave is our provincial and John Mancini is my confrere in Saginaw where I have a home base. John’s address is 2395 S. Outer Drive, Saginaw, MI 48601 in case anybody has some loose change he/she wants to send to a good cause.)

As for the cholera epidemic, it gets worse every day. More deaths are reported and now here in Cité Soleil, the slum outside Port au Prince were we have Mass every Sunday, over 150 cases have been reported. In the house, we’re being careful with personal hygiene, hand washing, adding Clorox to the rinse water for dishes, etc and drinking only bottled water. You can’t “catch” cholera; you get it by ingesting contaminated water, etc. So, as I said, we’re being careful.
Blessings to you all for your renewal of vows on November 21 and for your Thanksgiving Day gatherings. Keep us in prayer as you are in ours. I hope to see some of you at Christmas when I have some time back home. Peace, Tom

That was the update but let me say about the cholera problem; I talked to a nurse today who is a volunteer with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. She told me she went along with the Sisters yesterday to Cité Soleil to care for the cholera cases there. The people are very sick but with the proper care they will survive. She gave me some tips that I’m passing along to the community. We should wash all vegetables and fruits in water with Clorox and peel any fruit or vegetable that has a skin. Also she gave me the signs of an attack of Cholera as opposed to flu symptoms, etc. She said the Sisters (who are within fifteen minutes of us) have the necessary medications and hydrating equipment needed if a case of cholera should hit us. This is of course very unlikely since we are very careful regarding personal hygiene (we have flush toilets and shower facilities) and we take precautions regarding washing our hands and the dishes, etc. So we are in a cautious mode but not at all in panic mode.

This is really long so I’ll end here. You are in my prayers. Peace. Tom

November 7, 2010

2010-11-07T14:34:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it just gets to you and today is one of those days. At Mass this morning in Cité Soleil there was bedlam. Now remember things here in Haiti are rather primitive. So the lay leadership of Ste Anne’s Chapel decided that today we should use incense. Fine, but at nine o’clock when Mass should be beginning, in the sacristy they start a little fire in a brazier to make the charcoal to which we will add incense during various parts of the Mass. So we get started late! Then there is the sound system which always presents problems. A small generator produces the electricity for the sound system. That was in place but I saw as I entered the chapel two men with electric guitars who I guessed were going to accompany us during the Mass. Well, the volume was set sky high and the guitars were producing a huge amount of static. I assumed they were working out the problems before Mass. Wrong! During Mass there were interruptions of ear-piercing static at a volume that would make a rock concert envious. I was into the Eucharistic prayer when it began again and I simply said to those around, “Cut it out! Stop! We’ll do without microphones.” And we did. By this time I’m in lather since it’s hard for me to celebrate the Mass in Creole to begin with, added to the fact that I have a great reverence for this prayer. Well, you get the picture. After Mass I called everybody together and let them know I was not happy. If they want incense, fine but have it prepared well before Mass begins. Also check the sound system before we begin and be sure it works and if it doesn’t, don’t spend the whole time of the Mass tinkering with it (which is what they do in the front of the whole assembly while Mass is going on!) And so it goes. Really the conditions are terrible and since we had all the rain from the effects of the hurricane I suppose I should have been more patient, but like I said, some days it just gets to you.

Thursday morning the five men left for Brazil. Getting the visas for the Dominican Republic was a trip and we ended up having to pay $550 (US) for the five of them. Highway robbery! But what can you do? Anyway we had a very simple going away dinner the night before they left and a special blessing at Mass the day of their departure. I got through it pretty well without my usual tears. For those of you who don’t know, my tears are near the surface as they say. My friend Ken Untener used to say, “Tom Moore cries at supermarket openings.” And he was right!

After the departure I went to see the woman who owns the land we want to buy. She was very delightful and even served us coffee in those little demitasse cups. Tomorrow I go to see her notary to get into the actual nitty-gritty of buying land here in Haiti for the Oblates of St Francis de Sales.

Of course the big news this week was “Tomas” the hurricane headed toward Haiti. All my family, friends and relatives were worried about me as the weather people were predicting that it was headed directly at Port au Prince. Well it landed on Friday to the far south of the island but we got the side effects – some winds, but not much but a lot of rain. We were protected but all those poor people in their tents. They really suffer. Let’s hope that all this wetness doesn’t increase the possibility of more cholera. No, it never ends!

And on that sad note, I end this week’s edition of Tom in Haiti. Blessings to you all and peace, Tom

November 1, 2010

2010-11-01T15:22:00.000-07:00

All Saints Day

Happy feast day everybody! It’s All Saints Day and here in Haiti a national holiday as is tomorrow, The Day of the Dead or All Souls Day. This is the first break the men have had from their studies and like the “mean old’ guy that I am, I said that these days are not vacation days, they are days to catch up on studies. All of them are enrolled at the Institute François which is to improve their French and on top of that they have their classes in philosophy or theology. So since this is a house of studies they should be studying!

The five men who are preparing to leave for Brazil to begin their novitiate at the end of January are all running around trying to get ready, see their families, etc. They are to fly out of Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic on Thursday, Nov. 4 but at the last minute I found out they all needed a visa to pass through the DR. That visa costs $85 each. We heard that possibly the Apostolic Nuntio could write us a letter and get the price waved or reduced so I went to the Nuntiature (it’s a very swanky place high above Port au Prince where all the very rich live… go figure…) with a letter of request. The Nuntio’s secretary, a priest, was very polite and didn’t know if this could be done but later he came back with a letter for the Ambassador of the DR asking for a waiver for our guys. We then brought that the Embassy of the DR and were told we had to fill out papers, etc, etc, etc. So home we go and get working on filling out the paperwork, rush back to the Embassy and of course, it’s closed. We get there early the next day and they tell us it will take at least five days! Meanwhile Carlos without asking where things were with the preparations has ordered tickets for the five for Nov. 4. Well we make it or not? It’s all in God’s hands. Remember I said that today and tomorrow are holidays – well that means that the DR Embassy is not open. So…. Keep tuned in. I go between being very nervous and saying, “What can I do?”

For those of you who are interested in Voodoo, today is a very special feast day. I’m told that Voodoo was accepted as a legitimate (or an official sort of) religion here in Haiti in the not too distant past. It is a mixture of the various native religions that the original slaves brought from Africa with an overlay of Catholicism with its statues of saints, rituals, etc. Of course in my ignorance I just think of “Voodoo dolls” what you stick pins into and give pain to person the doll represents. That’s probably nonsense spread by Christians who see Voodoo as satanic. Actually Tom Hagan told me that probably everybody here practices Voodoo to some degree, even practicing Catholics. You see the Voodoo “priests” are akin to medicine men or “shamans” in our Native American tribes. They are healers and they work with natural remedies – herbs and such to bring about the cure of an ailment. Tom said he heard that instead of making a doll and filling it with pins, someone like a person wanting to get a job at a particular place may go to a Voodoo priest and have him “pray” over an image of the boss with the hope that the prayer will dispose the boss to hire the person.

Anyway the Voodoo religion has a great respect for, and from what I gather, tries to be in touch with, the spirits of deceased ancestors. So today (a combination of All Saints and All Souls Day) groups dressed in black and white, some with painted or powdered white faces go in groups visiting the cemeteries. We saw a group this morning coming from Mass in Cite Soleil. So who knows, our remembrance and respect for the saints of the past and for our own relatives and friends who we loved and who have gone before us in death, seem to be somewhat akin or parallel to the Voodoo practices of remembrance. Of course we don’t “worship” our ancestors but we think they were pretty terrific and we often share happy memories of them. (Watch out Tom! If there’s another Inquisition you could be burned for thinking such thoughts!)

So that’s been my week. Oh I almost forgot. The wonderful SUV the Canadian Sisters have lent us in their absence had its clutch burn out. I really am not surprised. We’ve had three guys learn how to drive in it and they’ve all gotten their drivers license but when I ride with any of them I know they’re not shifting in a proper cycle and maybe even “riding” the clutch. The two experienced drivers are fine but not the three new guys. So we had a very big and unexpected bill to replace a burnt out clutch. And while I refuse to worry about money, I do get a little nervous now and then.

I hope everybody had a “Happy Halloween”, Blessings to all, Tom

October 25, 2010

2010-10-25T05:07:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon again and another week has passed. There are always things happening but I guess the biggest news, at least for you in the States who are wondering about me and my state of health, is the news of the cholera outbreak. No doubt about it that is scary news. To bring it even closer to home, the aunt of one of our men died on Friday of cholera. But just so you know, she lived up north at least a hundred miles from us. But I read also that there have been some cases reported in Port au Prince. Note well, we are taking precautions. There has been a general alert like there was with the flu scare last year in the States to wash your hands well and often. As for dishes, we always wash them in cold water because there is no such thing as running “hot” water. We use detergent and I was wondering if that was enough so I suggested that they put some Clorox in the rinse water. They were way ahead of me and have been doing that. So I'm not panicking since there is no reason to. (Is there ever any need to panic?) Just pray for the poor people of Haiti. What else can happen? First the earthquake; then torrential rains and now cholera! God help them all. Frankly it’s amazing that the outbreak hasn’t come before this given the horrible conditions thousands and thousands of people have been living under since the quake. Tent cities are all over and no decent sanitary conditions exist – no bathrooms, no showers, etc.

The good news this week is the announcement of the birth of my two grand nieces Grace and Sophie, the daughters of my brother Dick’s daughter Hope and her husband Peter. We’re all so excited and grateful that they were born healthy and that mother and daughters are doing well. Please God that these two little babies will be blessed with a life of happiness and good health surrounded by lots of love and goodness. They live in California which is probably good for them but sad for the rest of the family who live in the East. It’s amazing how my family rooted as it was in Niagara Falls has spread out over the country. We have nieces and nephews in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, and California. God bless them all!

For those of you who don’t know, I had an aunt, my mother’s sister, who was a Sister of St. Joseph, Sister M. Clementine. She was always "Aunt Dorothy" to us and she prayed for all of us whether to pass exams, or to get over some sickness or to stay out of trouble (we never got into much trouble) or whatever. Anyway, when Aunt Dorothy died I sort of felt it was up to me to take over the list and to pray every day for all the family. Well I do that faithfully and not just for the family but for all my friends and relatives both living and dead. It’s a long list but after all these years I have it memorized and I hope that God listens to my prayers and takes care of them all. As an aside, funny things happen in my head from time to time. Like I said, the list has been committed to memory and so names go together. But what do you do if somebody get divorced, which has happened? Well I’m not going to stop praying for somebody simply because they are no longer married to one of my family, so I keep them on the list but add, when it happens, the new name of a new spouse. The same thing goes for someone acquiring a child through a new relationship. They get onto the list too. Some folks have deep mystical prayer lives; Tom has his list!

I should probably end there but I have another reflection. In talking to someone this week I was asked how things are here. That question is always troublesome to answer. In answering it this time I realized some things that just go on and on and which can get you down. I realized that I do get down from time to time, not hugely down but down. That is the ongoing atmosphere here. There is the constant, what I would call “eye pollution” and “ear pollution.” Everywhere you look there is litter and filth. The roads are horrible – even the so called main streets are filled with huge crumbling patches and holes. Big old dump trucks that were probably banned in the the States were sent here to be sold in Haiti. They constantly puff filthy black smoke from their exhaust pipes. The same for the cars. Add that to the ever present dust which is everywhere and which becomes muck after a rain storm. It’s all so ugly. In addition you see thousands of people along the streets squatted in front of some items they are selling – fruit or vegetables or shoe laces or water - in order to make a few bucks to live on. It’s just not pretty and it’s constant. It never changes.

“Ear pollution” is the same. If you have windows in your house you keep them open because of the heat, so all the noise of the street comes in. There is the sound of traffic, and we live next to a very busy street. The sound of people chattering as they pass and the ever present sounds from a nearby church with its very loud sound system carrying the voices of the minister singing and praying in tongues, and on and on. There is only quiet probably between the hours of two to three o’clock in the morning. And this is the way it is all the time. No change. After awhile you just get used to it. What is, is. But sometimes you stand back and take another look and see it for what it is, a very sad ugly scene that the folks here see and live in all the time. And really we in our community have it good in comparison. I think of all this added to living in a tent with hundreds of people all around me- most of whom I don’t know. I have no privacy, no decent place to wash , no decent bathroom. That’s what thousands face every day and have to live in. How do they do it? I don’t know. And what is even more amazing, Tom Hagan told me once, there are few if any suicides in Cité Soleil. How is that so?

So it’s a sad reflection but it’s part of what is happening. Keep praying for Haiti and for its people and for me too. Peace and blessings, Tom

October 16, 2010

2010-10-16T14:55:00.000-07:00

It’s Saturday afternoon,the visit of the Provincial, Mike Moore and Carlos ended Wednesday, and I’m sitting here with a terrible cold. Is it the result of some stress I felt during the visit? Very well could be. There was stress. Without going into lots of details, I think it’s fair to say that since the earthquake tension has built up between yours truly and the South American Province and particularly with their Formation Team. After the quake you may remember that the seven Haitian scholastics returned to Brazil to continue their studies and they were accompanied by Fr.Carlos who has been the superior here in Haiti. I was left in charge of the postulants (12) and the aspirants (18). There were no classes due to the chaos and tremendous destruction, so Tom Hagan and I came up with a “plan” to help those in need. The plan was approved for one year by the Provincial and Carlos who had come to visit after the quake and to take the seven back with them to Brazil. As time passed we initiated our plan with the postulants and with some of the aspirants who agreed to go along with us. It was around Easter when I returned to the States for a visit and was hit by a back problem that needed surgery. I eventually returned to Haiti about five weeks after the operation. By then classes in philosophy and theology had miraculously resumed so the postulants went back to school and the aspirants continued their work with our plan. It was then that decisions had to be made about the following year. Where were we to live? Who would move up in rank, that is, were the aspirants to become postulants following our original formation plan before the quake? All this had to be decided. The problem was, I had little communication from the Province so I went ahead and make some decisions. We rented our original house since it was declared stable by the US engineers who looked at it and I invited the aspirants to become postulants and to begin their first year philosophy. We were to live together under crowded conditions in the house – 25 in all!
Meanwhile back at the ranch (that is, in Brazil) these decisions and other things I said were not well received. They saw me as making decisions I had no right to make and causing problems for the Provincial and the province. I was seen as embarrassing them at an international meeting held in Germany this summer by what I was saying, that is, observations I was making about the situation here in Haiti. (An example: most religious and priests I, and Tom Hagan talked to found it shocking that our scholastics had left and that they were not returning to share the life of the Haitian people at this critical time.) So all of this lead to lots and lots of tension. On my part I felt a lack of communication with the province, and on their part they felt I was a loose cannon. So the the visit was intended to clear the air and I think it did.

Some of the results of the visit include:
(1) The decision to have Carlos return to Haiti in January to take over the helm and (2) five of the postulants will be leaving shortly for Brazil to make a novitiate starting in January 2011. (They are happy to be making a novitiate since they’ve been part of our Oblate formation program – some for over five years. Usually a postulancy is only two years maximum. I also think that most of them would have preferred to make a novitiate here in Haiti but they're just glad to be making a novitiate period!)Mike and Carlos also looked at a piece of property which could be the answer to lots of prayers by the Haitian Oblates if they decide to buy it and build a formation house on it.

As for other things, we bought a pickup truck (another decision I made) and are having it made over into a tap-tap to carry our 16 philosophy students to class thus saving each one individually having to get three tap-taps rides and a motorcycle taxi ride to where classes are held. I also enrolled the group for classes at the Institut Francais in French. While the Haitians speak French they are often lacking and that becomes a problem when they begin graduate studies like philosophy and theology.But all in all things are good. We’ve gotten off to a good start with a retreat and establishing some house rules. I think the spirit is good. They seem to like me and I like them. So God is good. “All the time!”

Till next time by love to all and prayers, Tom

September 28, 2010

2010-09-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

Another week past and as usual there is news to report. Probably the biggest thing that happened occurred last Friday afternoon. It was hot and the sun was shining. I had just sat down to get a haircut when all of a sudden the sky turned black and a huge wind began to blow. The trees were bent over and the rain began. And what a rain! It was torrential. It just pored for about forty-five minutes. I thought it was a hurricane since it had all the earmarks of one. I later found out that it was a “tropical depression” which I guess is a little hurricane. Anyway a tree was downed on the property cutting off our power from the city. We had electricity in our inverter which lasted us till about midnight but then, no electricity at all. We were all safe in the house. All we needed to do was close the windows but all I could think of was the poor people in tents – and there are thousands of them all over the city. I’m sure some had their tents blown over and they were all drenched, soaked to the skin. Plus all their belongings were sopping wet as were the clothes they were wearing. What a sad state of affairs. But that doesn’t stop the Haitians. They seem to be able to keep on living amid the mud and downed tree limbs. God bless them.

As for us in the community we were able to go ahead with our usual Friday night recreation. We make popcorn and they buy some chips and a few other “bon-bons” and we have a bottle of Coke or 7Up or Orangeade with ice. I honestly look forward to Friday night. Never being much of a card player, I now pass recreation playing Uno with three other men. Its fun and I can practice my Creole. By the way, my Creole is coming along. I feel happy with the progress.

Speaking of Creole, on that same Friday I got news that a man I know from SS Simon and Jude Parish in Saginaw died. Ralph Klepinger is his name. I’ve known Ralph for some time and his wife Cathy. For the last three years Ralph has been confined to bed pretty much paralyzed from the waist down. Cathy has been there for Ralph all her wedded life but she has been his “right arm”, his “guarding angel”, his “loving care giver” during these years of confinement. Ralph has always been a bit of a character ever since I’ve known him. I think his roots were Baptist but he later became Catholic. From time time he got hooked by some bad theology and was convinced he was headed to hell after this life. Well, I talked to him about that tried to show him a kinder and gentler face of God who loved him and would take him home to heaven when his time came. Well, the time was last Friday and thankfully I heard that Ralph had a peaceful death. John Mancini visited him shortly before Ralph went to heaven.

Back to the Creole… I was touched by Ralph’s death and the memory of Cathy’s abiding fidelity. I had a picture which Cathy had taken of Ralph in his bed with me alongside. So on Saturday, the day of Ralph’s funeral I offered the community Mass for him, showing the picture and giving a brief reflection on what fidelity really means. But I gave it in Creole! I was somewhat emotional to start out with and I’m sure the Creole was broken to say the least, but I did it, sort of in a way to honor the memory of Ralph and of Cathy’s loving care for him. My Creole teacher, one of the postulants, said it was great and that everybody understood. I attribute that to Ralph’s intervention!

Classes began at the Institute Francais on Saturday. It was a job getting all the men who are at various levels into groups that we could hold in our SUV plus have a driver. But it worked out. I should probably be going for a French class myself but first things first.

Sunday we managed to get our inverter connected to a generator which gives us some electricity. What a difference it makes. No electricity means no lights at night, no computer use or internet, etc. It’s so easy to get used to things and when they are not there you feel it. Of course with the scarce electricity and its low power, the pump to pump water to the reservoir on the roof does not function so no running water. That means “bucket” showers. No big deal, but running water is nice.

We got word this week that Fr. Mike Moore the Provincial of the South American Province and Fr. Carlos, the superior herein Haiti till he left with the seven scholastics shortly after the earthquake, are coming for a week’s visit on October 6. I hope it will be a time of blessing for me and the community. That’s my prayer anyway. So, till next time, blessings to all and peace, Tom

September 19, 2010

2010-09-19T16:20:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am back in Haiti. It’s Sunday afternoon and it’s about the first chance I’ve had to get to my blog – it’s been that busy. I arrived safely and without incident on September 9 at 3:15, got my three bags together and headed for the exit where I was met my some of the men. I was delighted to see them and I think the feeling was mutual. Of course it was hot and humid – so what’s new! We drove straight home. I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before but our house at Delmas 33 (where I was during the earthquake) is only about 15 minutes from the airport. You could walk the distance if for some reason that was necessary. Also the flights to Miami are only two hours and there are several each day. So again, were I to need to get back to the States fast, I could.

Well, it was take off my traveling clothes – too hot- and put on my Haitian clothes and then begin to unpack. I’m always uneasy about each of the two bags you can check in on an international flight. They can’t be over 50 pounds. I weigh them on the bathroom scales and get close to 50 – like 49.5 and I hope that’s accurate. Anyway it was. A woman from SS Simon and Jude Parish where I lived with John Mancini and where I still have my US base, had made some lovely little dresses for girls and some little shorts for boys – her name is Rosa Lee Flores –and asked if some of the children in Haiti could use them. Well, just before I left in August, I had visited a small field which housed some 21 kids ages 5-12 that were living in absolute misery. I know this number represents only a tiny fraction of all the abandoned and homeless children in the country right now, but my heart was broken seeing them. So when Rosa Lee mentioned that she and a group she belongs to made and distribute children’s clothes and could I use some, I said by all means yes. They took up quite some room but first things first. I also had bought a portable DVD player, two electric razors (there are 24 guys and one would never do) plus some other things (like my clean laundry). I got it all in and in less than 50 pounds! I also had a carry-on bag filled with odds and ends. It’s always good to get all the bags collected at the Port-au-Prince airport, into the van and back to the house safely.

I met for an initial visit with “Caesar” (the four men in charge during my absence) and found out all went well in the month I was away. Later I said Mass – in French, since they hadn’t had a priest with them while I was away. Actually most were on vacation and got back when I did.

Friday was the beginning of our weekend retreat for the opening of the academic year. On Monday the men studying theology begin their studies to finish off the second semester of whatever year they were in. The retreat went very well. I’d give a conference (the theme was mental prayer – lectio divina) then there was time to pray using the method I talked about. That was followed by a sharing of about 15 minutes in a group of five. There was a break and then another conference. They were all very serious despite the fact that some of them had never made a “silent” retreat. We ended Sunday at noon and Sunday night we had recreation which is usually Friday night.

There was a lot to do the next week. I went to enroll the men at the French Institute. I arranged to three groups of 8 to take the exam which would determine their level of competence in French. I may have said this before but it appears that there is a problem for many Haitians with French. Their native language is Creole which is spoken at home. When they start school they begin to learn French but I’m told, it’s not taught very well. So when they get to graduate level studies, many have problems. Now in my estimation, in comparison to me, their French is fine, but it’s not so. Thus the need to enroll them in the language school and sign them up for the exam.

After that I went over to to the house we moved out of in early August. I couldn’t believe what I saw. In one month they have completely renovated the building, adding class rooms around the exterior. This is now where all the theology classes will be held till a suitable can be build. These Haitians are unbelievable.
I also wanted to write an article to send to Father Carlos and the seven Haitian scholastics who are in Brazil (and from what I can see, they’ll be there several years till the finish their studies) to let them know what’s happening here in Haiti. That took some time but with Windows spell check in French it’s a lot easier than one would expect. I can always take a stab at a word in French and if it’s anywhere near close spell check will give me the right spelling. I also sent them a copy of our daily schedule and the house rules I wrote up. So it was a lot of writing but I didn’t mind it. I have a great support in the four men I named as “Caesar” in my absence. They are honest and they took it upon themselves to make of the list of teams for the various house jobs. Wednesday I had a “chapter”, that means a conference, setting down all our rules, etc. Again it went well.

That night Tom Hagan came over and we went out to dinner. It was so good to see him. He was only going to be in town a day but he stretched it out to two days. When he went back on Friday he had to fly to California to preach at all the weekend Masses at a parish that is very generous to Hands Together. I don’t know how he does it. God bless him! We talked about the coming year. We’ve gotten word that Mike Moore the Provincial of the South American Province and Fr. Carlos are coming for a visit soon. We’re both curious about what they’ll have to say since communication or information from either of them has been very sparse over the last several months. We’ll see.

Saturday I went to the youth group “Friends of St Francis de Sales” with one of the Postulants whose been running it since the founder, a scholastic, left in February. The Postulant’s name is David and he’s done a great job. He worked out a summer schedule for the group lining up informal classes in the Bible, sexuality, English and learning the guitar. Saturday there were 20 members there and they evaluated the experience. I gave a talk on Francis de Sales since new members know little or nothing about him.

The meeting was mostly in Creole. I’m learning Creole and I’m happy with my progress. My teacher is one of the Postulants and we pass a hour actually speaking Creole. Of course I stumble and fumble for words but all in all it’s going very well. I wish I know “phonics” since the Haitian Creole is very phonetic. Be that as it may, I’m getting there.

O forgot to mention that September 14, the feast of the Triumph of the Cross was my 53rd (count ‘em) anniversary of making my first vows at St. Anthony’s Church in Wilmington, DE. I prayed for all my confreres both living and dead who made their vows that day. Time flies!
That’s it for now. Hope you are all well. You’re in my prayers and Masses. Keep me in yours. Peace and blessings, Tom

August 5, 2010

2010-08-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

Hi Everybody,
This will be short because I'm writing from the Hands Together office of Tom Hagan. We moved successfully on Tuesday from Maison Constant where we've been since the earthquake to Delmas 33, the house I was literally in during the earthquake. We had thought it was unstable so we moved everything to Maison Constant. As it turns out Fr. Carlos only rented this house for a year, not three years as I thought. Antway, Delmas 33 was judged stable by some American engineers who were inspecting the buildings of Hands Togethger. The owner agreed to rent us the house for two more years (jacking up the price, of course) and he has had the walls around the house rebuilt. So we moved in on Tuesday with the help of a moving van from Hands Together, God bless them! It took three trips but by dark we make it, leaving the house we vacated very clean (at MY insistance)and getting everything into our "new" house. Wednesday was spent by my lighting fires under some of the less initiative-taking members to get all the stuff in order and that was pretty successful. At the end of the day we celebrated Mass asking God's blessing on this house and upon all of us who will live there in community.

Today there some more work to be done but as I said, we're in good shape except for not having any running water or electricity. But that's coming.

Had I more time I'd write some reflections on the thousands of people who spend their entire day on the streets selling whatever - fruit, household items, shoes, clothes,etc. I asked one of the guys how much a person could make a day selliing water, for example, or 7Up or something like that. They thought about $12 US for a 14 hour day. Imagine that!

Anyway I have no time to write more. I'm returning the States on Monday (9/8) to do some preaching for the Oblate Missions and to have some vacation time. So blessings to all. I plan to be back in Haiti Sepetmber 9. Till them, blessings and peace, Tom

July 27, 2010

2010-07-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

Driving: It’s Tuesday and I just returned from celebrating Mass at the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s sisters. The driver picked me up at 6:00 a. m. and we headed for the sisters. At that hour there is less (not little, but less)traffic so we all but sailed along. He was driving very fast when he had an opening and I just noticed things that drove me crazy. I guess inside me there is a lot of potential road rage and I’ve become aware of it just riding with the driver. If I were driving I’m sure it was move from inside my guts to my mouth and horn. First of all I should tell you about the streets in general; they are in terrible repair. We complain about potholes in the States but here there are cavernous holes or simply patches of rubble,the remains of what was once paving material. Then there are the streets that have never been paved and driving on them is like driving in a cow pasture. Even before the earthquake the streets of Port au Prince were inadequate. They were originally built for much less traffic. They are nowhere near wide enough for the traffic they now bare. Cars and SUVs, tap-taps and huge dump trucks all simply swerve to the left toward oncoming traffic to avoid the holes. And whoever gets there first, that one has the right of way. It’s just wild! Then there are the cars, etc. who jut out from side streets and nose their way into traffic, either to turn right or to turn left. And believe me, these “drivers” are not shy. They simply move into the intersection as if they owned it. As for passing on the right, well, that’s simply taken for granted, and all this while motor bikes and motorcycles weave their way through the traffic often carrying one or two passengers.

Then there are the pedestrians! There are no sidewalks to speak of so everyone walks in the street. You know our rule “Pedestrians have the right of way”? Well not here! Cars, trucks, buses, tap-taps, motorcycles, they have the right of way. I’m amazed that more people are not killed or injured daily given these horrible road conditions. As for horns, I’ve said that an indispensable part of any motorized vehicle here in Haiti is the horn and the louder the better. And does it do any good to honk? No, but honk they do. If this were the States or elsewhere in the first world, guys would be out of their cars in a flash with crowbars smashing one anothers' cars or with guns or knives attacking one another. Not here! The drivers I’ve been with just roll their eyes or give some other sign of annoyance but they don’t yell or attempt to exit the vehicle to pick a fight.

After about 6:30 a.m. traffic really becomes heavy. It seems that everything is blocked up. You can sit for ten minutes waiting for something up ahead to move. At this time the police appear. There seem to be thousands of them, all in very pressed and starched uniforms. I’m told Ararsteid dissolved the army and put in its place a national police force. What they do, no one seems to know. But they’re out in great numbers in the morning and later afternoon “directing” traffic. I guess I probably shouldn’t comment on this because I’m not Haitian and I’m not a driver, but… to me they often cause more problems than they solve. Besides that they are not always obeyed. I just can’t imagine a policeman/woman stopping a driver and giving a ticket for a traffic violation here. Maybe they do but I’ve never seen it done. I wish the police would go after the thousands of criminals, thugs and gang members who were locked up but who were freed during the earthquake and who are now terrorizing many local communities – but what do I know? Anyway, that might give you a little idea of the traffic and driving situations here.

Yesterday was the feast of St Ann and we had Mass at Ste Anne’s Chapel in Cite Soleil. It was a great celebration. Singing and clapping and even during the Gloria a few women dancing in the aisles. Many gathered were from senior citizen groups. There were lots of women as usual but also for the first time in my time here, lots of men as well. Afterwards I was kidding with many of them using my little Creole. Most of them them had on t-shirts from Hands Together saying “Program Granmoun” (Senior Citizen Program) I told them I should have a t-shirt too since I’m a senior citizen too. They laughed. I began asking them how old they were and surprisingly people whom I would judge being about 75 or 80 turned out to be only 52 or 56. Poverty takes its toll.

We have some of the men going over to Delmas 33 to begin cleaning. Still no electricity or water but I’m hopeful.

That’s it for now. Blessings to all. Tom

July 18, 2010

2010-07-18T13:43:00.000-07:00

It’s raining and it has been raining for over an hour and a half. It’s let up somewhat now but it just poured for over an hour. Imagine what that’s like for people out walking. I noticed yesterday when it was also raining that people just go on, getting wet and all. For the most part they have no raincoats or unberellas, but they don’t scurry about and scrunch up their faces and hold their hand over their heads like we do when we’re caught outside in a rainstorm. They just continue on walking all the while getting soaked.

And what about the luckier folks who have a tent – even a decent size tent, what’s it like for them? They’re probably stuck inside, bent over because in most of the tents I’ve seen, unless you're 5’2", you are bending over to move around. It’s hot and muggy in there and all your stuff is around because you probably have no dresser or closet. That’s what life is like here in the quake area even for the so called lower middle class. And while it’s true our Postulants sleep in tents, they can come into the house and move around. They’re not in terribly cramped space. Again quoting an editorial from the New York Times entitled Haiti at Six Months, “…experts say it would take a thousand trucks three to five years to clear away the wreckage, though fewer than 300 trucks are hauling now. The quake destroyed almost every ministry building and killed 17 percent of the federal work force.” And again from the same editorial: “Relief agencies say they have the money and plans in hand for sturdier housing, but can’t move until Mr. Préval (the president) articulates a clear strategy on where to build that housing and decides how land will be acquired, how private landowners will be compensated and tenant-landlord disputes settled.” And so the beat goes on…

On a happier note, my first week back has been pretty fruitful. We’ve begun an inventory of what we have and have begun to made a list of what we will need to buy for the move to the house at Delmas 33. I got to visit the director of the Institut Français and talk about testing the French skills of our Postulants with the idea that they can take courses to improve if the tests indicate that. I interviewed all the men individually and got a sense of where they are. Plus I gave each community a brief conference. Not bad! Oh yes, I almost forgot, we made a budget for next year. Mike Moore the Provincial asked for a budget. I think he needs it in hand when he goes to the Provincials’ meeting in Germany next week. He will be doing some “begging” since the South American Province is not all that wealthy so they say.

The weather has been hot but bearable. With this recent rain storm it’s even gotten cooler, a real blessing. This morning I had Mass again at St. Anne’s but this week we moved back into the chapel. We have been having Mass outside in the school court yard. I think I said last week that I’m feeling more at ease with celebrating Mass in Creole. Like everything else, the more you do it, the easier it gets.

So there’s no huge news. Tom Hagan is again this weekend in the States preaching for Hands Together. We had a talk on Friday and plan to go out for something to eat Tuesday evening. I look forward to that.

So blessings to all and please continue to keep us in your prayers. Tom

July 11, 2010

2010-07-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

“Six months after the earthquake that brought aid and attention here from around the world, the median strip camp blends into an often numbing wretchedness of the post-disaster landscape. Only 28,000 of the 1.5 million Haitians displaced by the earthquake have moved into new homes and the Port au Prince area remains a tableau of life in ruins.” (New York Times 7/11/10) I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Here I am, back again in beautiful downtown Port au Prince. How many times was I asked this in the past three weeks in the States: “Have things changed there?” And my answer was always, “Frankly, no!” Before I left in mid June I had seen not a single bulldozer or heavy equipment machine to deal with the huge masses of crumbled concrete scattered everywhere. And on my return I still see no change at all.

I was picked up at the airport by three of the men, one of whom who had succeeded in getting his driver’s license while I was away and who proudly drove me back to the house. I was so glad to see them and to be back. Of course it was hot - 93 degrees, but it was all of that when I left Michigan. What I saw riding back to the house was buildings of all sizes and shapes, mostly in ruins, being leveled by hand – yes, with picks and shovels wielded by sweating, shirtless men who were filling wheelbarrows with chunks of concrete and emptying them into the street. What my Yankee “can do” mind was thinking was: “Where are all the bulldozers? Where are those huge machines that crush big pieces of concrete which you can see at road rebuilding sites in the States? Where are some results of all that money given by so many people - good people, little people, caring people from across the USA and around the world? Are they saving it or stealing it, and if so, who are “they”? It drives me crazy. And I hate asking the Haitians these questions because they don’t know. And what’s worse, they seem to accept all this as “business as usual”. I don’t think they have any idea of just how great the response was throughout the world during and after the earthquake since they were all in shock and for the most part without television. They were dealing with the death of their family members and friends and searching for shelter since their homes were in ruins. Yes, they’ve heard generally about the economic relief aid promised, but just where it is or when it will make any impact on their lives is far from their minds. These people are dealing with survival! I think they are truly “invincible”! Torrnados come and ruin one of their largest cities and life goes on. A huge earthquake destroys their capitol and life goes on. “Unbelievable!” as Steve Stirling used to say. Yes, unbelievable but true. This morning (Sunday) on our way to Cite Soleil for Mass I saw a sign spray painted on a hunk of concrete that was probably part of a house till January 12. To me it sums up the situation here in Port au Prince. The sign read in English: “We still need help”.

Getting back Thursday meant getting rearranged in my room. I had to unpack and share my “treasures” for the house. I always have a “list” when I leave. It’s things we need or could use. This time we needed some trivets to put under the hot pan of rice and beans we always have at our main meal or for the spaghetti we often have in the evening. I also got a cheap electric hand blender to replace our cheap electric hand blender that just died in trying to blend or chop up something just too heavy for it. I picked up some tongs at the dollar store and also one of those wire “whips” or whatever you call, it for stirring things. I told the guys I’d get them something – did they have any requests? Lots of them wanted a wrist watch. I’ll try, I said. And when I was with my sister Mary in New York City, we found watches sold on the street for $5 apiece. They’re classy too! And they all loved them when I handed them out on Friday night at recreation. The others got flash lights that you can wear on your head leaving your hands free. Not a bad thing to have here in Haiti given the electricity situation.

On Friday I went over to see the house at Delmas 33, the house I was in when the earthquake occurred. It has been judged by US engineers to be stable so we’ve rented it for another two years. Lots of work has to be done before we can move in but they have started it. The interior of the house has been cleaned up and the walls surrounding the property are being rebuilt. I hope we can get in before I leave on August 9.

After that I went to a French institute to see about having our men tested for their French/speaking/writing/reading ability. Even though French is fifty percent of the official language of Haiti,and all the guys speak it fluently, because it is taught so poorly in the schools, students are often lacking in skills needed to do graduate work. So I’m interested in getting them tested to see where they are and if they need some help, to get it for them. There is irony in this since my own French is very lacking. But what is, is, so I’ll see what I can do for them. As it happened the director was not there so I talked to a secretary who will contact me tomorrow for an interview with the director.

I had Mass today in Creole since Tom Hagan is in the States preaching for Hands Together. I saw Tom before he left on Friday. He’s still hard at work putting back together all the projects of Hands Together in Cite Soleil. As usual I practiced for the Mass but with all the chaos and confusion which just seems to happen there in Cite Soleil, especially at Mass with – well, I was going to describe what seems to happen – but trust me, it’s hard to concentrate. Then I get nervous and I panic and I could barely read English never mind Creole. Anyway, I got through it and the men said it wasn’t bad. I think sometimes they lie just to make me feel good. I have to say they are delighted that I’m learning Creole. At the end of Mass I felt like a kid who just wet his pants in front of everybody. Not a terrific feeling, but since I’m in Haiti and I’ll just have to catch some of the spirit here and let life go on.

For those of you you gave me money to distribute among needy Haitian people, I did just that when I was here in May and early June. I’ve received more during my stay in Michigan and I’ll make sure it gets to folks who need it. When people thank me I simply say it’s not me who gave you the help, it’s folks I know in the States who want to see you get back on your feet. Believe me, they are very grateful.

That’s it for now. I’ll be in touch. Keep praying for us. I do for you. Tom

June 3, 2010

2010-06-03T12:48:00.000-07:00

I know I just wrote yesterday but I just have to write again today about what I’ve just experienced. Today is Fete Dieu, or the feast of Corpus Christi. It’s now celebrated on the Sunday after Trinity Sunday in the States but here it falls on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday and it is a big feast. When I was a student in Fribourg in Switzerland it was also a very big feast. Fribourg is/was a very Catholic Canton and for Fete Dieu, the main roads leading into and out of the city were blocked off to traffic and the bishop carried the Blessed Sacrament through the streets. It was a huge festival and the streets where they carried the monstrance were all decorated with little sapling trees cut down just for the feast.
Well, guess what? It is the same thing here. I went with the guys to our makeshift parish church at the corner – St. Louis, King of France at 6:30 am for the beginning of the procession. They have the procession first and the Mass after. Well, we began with about 300 people leaving the church grounds and heading out onto the streets. We processed through streets which are pretty busy with lots of traffic, but the traffic was rerouted around the procession. At different points the pastor, who was carrying the monstrance under a canopy, stopped at altars prepared by various families of a neighborhood. There he said traditional prayers of reparation and then had Benediction. At many of the stops the people had created right in the middle of the street what looked to me like sand paintings, the kind Buddhist monks create. Instead of sand the people here used cinders or part of the crushed concrete that you see all over since the earthquake - the remains of destroyed homes and buildings. Some of it was colored to make the designs – praying hands, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, etc. Really very beautiful and of course after the procession had walked over it, it was gone. It was a work of love.

As the morning progressed we were joined by hundreds of others until I think there must have been well over a thousand people singing their hearts out, raising their hands in prayer and many, kneeling in the street at the time of the various Benedictions. I have to say that I was touched to the very core of my being. Here are these people I told you about yesterday – people truly beaten up and yet here they are in the middle of the week, over a thousand,praying and witnessing to their Catholic faith. I remember being at Lourdes in France for the evening candlelight procession and being almost able to “touch” the faith of the crowd it was so palpable. Well this morning was a similar experience. God bless these Haitian people! They’re marvelous. Tom

June 2, 2010

2010-06-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

June 2, 2010
I write today with a sense of awe. Here I am in Haiti amid a people who seem to me to be absolutely invincible. An earthquake strikes their capital Port-au-Prince on January 12 leaving 230,000 people dead and scores maimed and injured, the city with its national and church monuments in ruins and yet for the population, life goes on. It’s just amazing. People who had decent homes are now in tents pitched on the sidewalk in front of their ruined dwellings leaving the street in from of their house somewhat blocked to traffic. Others are in tent cities pitched wherever there is open space. For example in what was something of a courtyard by the now totally destroyed Church of St. Louis King of France at our corner there are over seventy families huddled together – some in decent tents, others under tarps strung from tree to tree. These are the lucky ones.

AND NOW IT IS THE RAINY SEASON!

Yesterday afternoon about two o’clock it began to rain. It was a downpour like I have never seen in my life. For over forty five minutes it just poured and poured. It was what I guess you call “a torrential rainfall.” Some of our men were out of the house and returned totally drenched – soaked to the skin. And they are lucky. People like them, those caught unawares of the coming storm where also drenched, but they more than likely had no dry place to return to. If they were living in a makeshift tent like thousands here – made from old blankets and some odd pieces of plastic, etc., they returned to their “home” only to find it inundated with rainwater, soaking everything or what little they own. Think about that! Maybe you have experienced being soaked to the skin in a sudden rainstorm and you got home, took off the wet clothes, threw them in the washer and dryer and stepped into a hot shower, dried off and relaxed after this “ordeal”. Quite a difference, n’est-ce pas? (as we say in French). And yet the people here just move on. Is it hard? Yes. Would they prefer something better? Oh, yes. But will they get it? Probably not! By the way, the downpour I just mentioned was followed by another one about two hours later. I was in our vehicle and the driver was negotiating what seemed to me to be rivers at ever intersection. He said it was good we had a diesel powered vehicle and not a gas driven one. The gas driven ones die in the midst of water like this. So once again, I’m lucky. I’m in a dry suv while the population at large is huddling in tap-taps trying to stay somewhat dry.

Another observation. We have now 16 people living here – in tents surrounding the house and maybe six, including myself, in the house. These are very crowded conditions. Add to that there is no running water. The water from the city no longer has the pressure to push the water up to our reservoirs on the roof. We are lucky to have our ground reservoir filled. You have to take pails of water from there to the kitchen for water to cook with and wash the dishes with. You have to take pails of water from there to the bathroom to either flush the toilet or take a shower. This goes on day in and day out. Then for over three days we have no water from the city. Guys had to stand in a pan to catch the water they were using to wash themselves, so it could be used to flush the toilet. When all the water ran out we had to send for a water truck to fill up our reservoirs. There is no let up. In addition there had been no constant electricity in the house from about Easter till my arrival the 14 of May. A storm had burned out our inverter which stores electricity from the city and makes it available for use when the city electricity is cut off. That meant sometimes no light at night. Now mind you, these guys are taking philosophy classes. They get assignments and come home to a tent to study in or to a common dining room table to write on. It’s not easy. Also the internet was down for over three weeks because of a malfunction of our antenna. The men use the internet for their studies. So add up all these “inconveniences” and you get a picture of the life these men have. And we are the fortunate ones! We have tents. We have three meals a day. We have electricity now that the inverter was replaced. We have water to cook and clean with. Probably thousands in this area of the earthquake do not. And what is remarkable, I have not heard one complaint. Wow!

Also for those of you who gave me money to distribute personally, I’ve been doing that. A huge donation from a parish in Saginaw I simply turned over to the pastor at the corner who is organizing both spiritual works – Masses, the sacraments, etc. and also medical works on the grounds of the parish . I’ve also, through the help of the postulants working with the pastor,have been able to identify individual persons and families in great need due to the loss of everything as a result of the earthquake. When I hear “thank yous” I simply say, “Don’t thank me. It is the generosity of friends of mine who wanted to see their donations got into the hands of needy Haitians directly.”

So that’s about it. I haven’t mentioned my ongoing “dialogue” with the provincial and the formation team of the South American Province since it is still in progress. I have yet to hear their decisions. I hope I do before leaving next Tuesday, June 8. I’m slated to give a retreat in Rhode Island and then have a week with my Oblate confreres in Detroit. Then pretty soon after that,right back to Haiti. So please continue to pray for Haiti and its poor people. And continue to pray for me too. You are all in my prayers. Tom

May 26, 2010

2010-05-26T15:24:00.000-07:00

(I’m sending this May 26 because we just got the internet. I started writing this when I just got back to Haiti. I also added some today so it may be confusing. Anyway I’m glad we got the internet!

May 16, 2010
Well, everybody, I’m here- and I’ m so happy to be here. I saw Dr. Schinco on Wednesday at 10:45 and I told him exactly how I felt and how I was. He examined me and asked some questions which I answered. I told him I wanted to return to Haiti as soon as possible and that I would be returning to the USA in June since I had already bought a ticket back in April. He had no problem with my returning and said I should call him when I was back in Michigan just to check in. I thanked him and said I would. After that I thanked his office staff who was really great – very caring and competent. Then on my tracfone I called Pam my travel agent and had her make the arrangement to leave on Friday. And guess what? I had a price before I saw the doctor but when Pan bought the ticket it was about fifty dollars cheaper even though my purchase was not a week in advance. Is that a sign from the great beyond or not, I ask you. Anyway I picked up the ticket that afternoon and John (good friend that he is) got up at four fifteen on Friday morning and drove me to Flint to get the 6:00 am flight. All went well and I got to Port-au-Prince at about 3:15 local time.
When I left the community on March 17 hoping to be back on April 12 there were only about 6 in the community. When I arrived there were now 17 people postulants and a few aspirants who were living in tents given to us by Tom Hagan’s Hands Together. Some of the men have chosen to live inside the house. Everybody was excited about my return and I think glad to see me. I know I was glad to see them. That night we had recreation as usual which means games of Uno and dominos plus popcorn and pop and “bon bons” which is French for any kind of snack food – potato chips, crackers, little candies, etc. Of course I was pretty tired so after a few hands of Uno I headed off to bed. Ah yes, “the bed”! Everybody was asking me, will you be sleeping on the ground when you go back or will you be on just a cot, etc, etc. Well, I’m sleeping on a cot like before but I’m going to buy a mattress and box springs –twin size, to reassure all back home that I’m taking care of my back which I want to do. Believe me I don’t want to go through another attack of sciatica like I had and which ended up needing surgery. So no heavy lifting, no pushing, nor any of that stuff!
The above seems very normal after back surgery but get this! I’m back and we have no electricity or no running water. Well, if I need to take a shower or flush the toilet after doing number two, I need a pail of water. So I have to ask somebody to get one for it. Mind you, the men are very happy to help me in any way – like getting me water for a shower, etc. but for one who’s not used to asking, it’s a little, what shall I say, different? But it’s okay.
I had put three men in charge before leaving and they (and the community) did a great job. Saturday I went over the expenditures and all was in order to the penny. Not only that but the three “Caesars” wanted to be transparent in their decision- making so they posted every large expense for all to see and they showed how much they spent week by week on such things as transportation and food. That meant everybody could see how much things were costing. To me that was genius. Today I met with the three and asked about their experience. They said all went well – it wasn’t paradise and they had a few problems but all in all it was fine. An example of a problem was for example, saving water when it was scarce. Some could just thoughtlessly use lots of water not thinking about the increased number in the community thus causing problems. Well, they did it: they solved the problem with the cooperation of all the other. Not bad!
I am very pleased with these men. With all these inconveniences you never hear a word of complaint. That seems to be the stance of the Haitian people in general. I observe the crumbled buildings, huge piles of broken concrete and debris all over the place, tent cities and tents pitched along the streets and life goes on. I have not heard one word about a plan to rebuild the city the lives of these people, but life goes on. Maybe they just have low expectations. But whatever it is, life goes on. I’m just here sharing the sadness, the hurt, in a word, the life of these good people.
May 26, 2010
Well, I’ve been here over a week and what a week it has been. First of all I don’t see anything by way of leadership in the country. Live goes on amid the ruins. There are tents and “quasi tents” all over. People are living on the streets next to their home which has been destroyed or they are in large areas, tent cities as it were. What a mess and yet these people are survivors and as I said, life goes on.
As for our Oblate situation we have been without an internet connection since before my arrival. Trying to get Access-Haiti to attend to the problem demands infinite patience which I do not possess. Twice we’ve been to their main office – ride of about half hour and little or no results. Today a technician came and told us our antenna which was brand new in November is not functioning. Whose fault is that? Probably ours! Anyway it’s been the runaround. I went to a cyber café to try to be in touch with the South American Province and the provincial Mike Moore and that too was a horrendous experience. The internet was on and off and the keyboard was on a very shaky board making it almost impossible to use. More frustration!
Our community has grown to twenty since some of the aspirants are returning to take up plan to help those in need. The other part of the plan which included the postulants has changed since classes in philosophy have been restored. Who would have thought that they could get things started again so soon after the quake, but they have. The upshot of all this is that the seven scholastics who opted to go to Brazil should turn around and come back. I hope they will but I’m not counting on it.
Here is the problem as I see it. We (the province and I and even Tom Hagan) acted too suddenly after the quake. The reason for that was because classes were beginning in Brazil in mid February so if the scholastics were to get to classes on time they had to leave quickly. We never thought that classes would be up and running so soon. Now that they are, although under conditions that are somewhat primitive, our men should return to Haiti. There has been a great deal of money collected by the Oblates of St Francis de Sales worldwide for Haiti. That money should be spent in Haiti for our Haitian Oblate enterprise, not on plane tickets for postulants to fly to Brazil for a novitiate. A chunk of the money should be spent buying a property here in Haiti and building a house of formation of our own. While to me that seems simple enough and logical, it’s not so simple. The province just does not have enough formation personnel to cover all their bases. Will they open this question to the world wide Oblate community and ask for volunteers to come and help for a few years, men who speak French and may have some background in formation? I doubt it. Meanwhile Tom Hagan and I are here on site with no power to make decisions, yet with the responsibility of looking after the postulants (12) and the Aspirants (17). Of course Tom Hagan has his hands full with Hands Together, getting it up and running after the quake so that leaves me to captain the ship. And so it goes.
Again, the men are wonderful. They are living under terribly crowded conditions with no complaints. God bless them.

April 19, 2010

2010-04-19T13:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm not in Haiti... yet! For those of you who follow the blog let me fill you in.
On March 17 I returned to the USA. I spent a few days in New York with my sister and brother-in -law and I got to see my new grand nephew, Gabriel Joseph, son of my niece Kathleen and her husband Hans. It was a joy and I was aware of needing some joy in my life since I felt really exhausted and even somewhat on edge emotionally, given all that I'd been through the past few months.

I then wnet to Our Lady of the Cape parish on Cape Cod to preach a parish mission that I had arranged for last summer. It was a very special time - the priests there
were so hospitable and the folks so very receptive to the message I preached. Just waht the doctor ordered.

Following that I flew to Michigan where I spent a few days and then on to Niagara Falls to spend Holy Week with my sister Ann. It was on Wednesday of Holy Week that I was hit with a huge attack of sciatica - a pain runing down my left leg. I though a few aspirin would do the trick, no such luck. Next day I went to ER at St Mary's in Niagara Falls. They gave me some pain medication and told me to stay off my feet for awhaile. Well, that night was truly horrible. The pain medication didn't touch the pain. So in the early hours of the morning we went back to the ER. They did a c-scan and said I had a bulging disc and they gave me more "stronger" pain medication. I called to Saginaw to the doctor who operated on my back five years ago for a similar disc problem. I got an apointment for Easter Tuesday. My sister Ann drove me back to Michigan. She was/is a real guarding angel! It was no fun for her, believe me. I was in pain most of the time and not very good company. When we got into the doctor's office in Saginaw he ordered an MRI. By chance or miracle an opening was available that very night at 9:00 pm. The next daw we returned to the doctor who read the MRI and said that this situation was worse than that of five years ago but it was of a similar nature. Long story short he operted on my back on Monday April 12 the day I'd plnned to return to Haiti.

Right now I'm taking it easy. I was released from the hospital the day after the operataion. Now I'm walking around as ordered and I'll see the doctor on Wednesday to find out what is next. I'm hoping I can return to Haiti soon but that is in the hands of the Lord as all this is.

I'm attaching to this entry a travel journal of Fr. Bernie Barris, the pastor of Our Lady of the Cape- the pastor who was so hospitable. They have a twin parish in Haiti and he was planning on visiting it after Easter. This is the last entry in his travel journal and as I read it I though it would be good for you to see it. Again it's simply impressions of what's going on in Haiti, especially Port-au-Prince at the present. You can see there's a lot to be done. So here is his entry and I'll write either when I get back to Haiti or if that's delayed greatly, I'll let you know. Tom

FROM THE TRAVEL JORUNAL OF FR. BERNIE BARRIS:

Yesterday, we (Sisters Christine, Denise, Father Evariste and I) left Dessalines at 6:00 am before the heat of the day. We made good time getting to PAP. The roads have much improved over the past couple of years. But as soon as we hit the outskirts of PAP, it was one traffic jam after an other. The traffic has become much worse since the earthquake because some of the roads are still blocked with debris.

Whenever the Sisters go to PAP (or anyone else for that matter), they have dozens of errands to do for themselves and for others. Our first stop was at St. Charles Seminary to deliver medication to one of the seminarians from the Dessalines area. Ronald Petit-Homme is in his third year of theology for the Diocese of Gonaives.

All three seminaries in PAP were destroyed in the earthquake. These were the national seminaries for the whole country – for the dioceses of the country and for the religious communities. Some seminarians were killed in the earthquake. The others were transferred to this location in the outskirts of PAP. There are 225 seminarians, all living in tents. They are four to a tent with all their belongings. When it rains, everything that’s on the ground gets wet. Of the 225 seminarians, 150 are in theology and 75 are in philosophy. During the day, it’s unbearable in the tents because of the heat. Of course there’s no electricity in the tents. There are common latrines and a few outdoor showers set up. The site was chosen because there is a conference center there so at least, the classes are held indoors. There’s also a chapel.

I heard one priest say that this was a good experience for the seminarians because it’s teaching them how 500,000 Haitians are living after the earthquake. I guess that’s true. But my heart went out to the seminarians.

No matter where you go in PAP, you see tents. Many are still made of blankets and sheets but most of those have been replaced by real tents donated by various countries and organizations like the Rotary Club, etc. Even in “rich” neighborhoods, you see lots of tents. Some of the houses are still standing but people are afraid to live in them for fear that the roofs will collapse during the tremors. People are afraid to go into any building that has a concrete roof. And that’s the most common construction in PAP.

The earthquakes did not destroy whole sections of PAP. It’s strange. You go down a street, one building is completely destroyed, then there’s 3-4 still standing and then another couple of buildings down.

You see hundreds of men breaking up the concrete with sledge hammers, picks and shovels. During the whole day, I did not see one bulldozer or backhoe. I did see some trucks carrying the debris away. The men break up the slabs of concrete and throw the pieces in the streets making the passage of cars impossible. This is the cause of many of the traffic jams everywhere in the city. Many of the men are wearing special T-shirts indicating that they are being paid $5 per day by USAID for this demolition. This is a pretty good pay because the average factory worker in Haiti gets only about $2 per day.

As they dig through the concrete, they are still finding bodies. They found two more bodies in the rubble of Villa Manrèse last week. Funerals are still frequent.

We visited the house of the Société St. Jacques. This is where Father Rosemond lives. Part of their main building collapsed. Rosemond is fine. At the time of the earthquake he was driving in the city. His car was crushed but he did not get hurt. However, others were not so fortunate. There were twelve Sisters from one religious community coming back from a conference when the earthquake hit. A building toppled over onto their van and all twelve nuns were killed. All over the city, you see cars crushed like pancakes. They are also blocking the roads.

We visited the remains of Sacred Heart Church (Sacré Coeur). I stayed at this rectory a couple of times over the years and concelebrated in the Church. I preached once and told the story of LaSalette. It was the largest parish in PAP – 3,000 First Communions per year! The rectory is completely gone. The pews have been set up in the yard where the rectory was located. I don’t know what they will do during the rainy season. The church is a shell. Some walls are down along with sections of the roof. It will have to be torn down. This is one place I knew in PAP. It was difficult for me to see it. The Sisters wanted to take me to see the Presidential Palace and the Cathedral. I said no. I’d seen enough.

We then visited Matthew 25 House. This is the place where Pat & Vivian Tortora worked for 3 years. Sister Mary Finnick was there to welcome us. She is truly a remarkable lady – 76 years old and 60 years of religious life. She went to Haiti four years ago when she retired from teaching college looking “for something to do.” She found out what God had in mind for her…

The Matthew 25 building can no longer be used to sleep in. Everyone sleeps outside in tents. In the days immediately after the earthquake, the kitchen became an emergency hospital and the dinning room table, where we often ate, became the operating table where many amputations were preformed. Next door to this property is a soccer which became a tent city. At one time, almost 2,000 people lived there and Matthew 25 House was finding food, water and medical aid for all of these people. That was not easy in the first days. And even after three months (January 12 – April 12), getting enough food and water is difficult. Yesterday, the number was down to 1,300 residents. All are now living in real tents – usually one family per tent.

Last evening, we stayed at Father Andrew’s rectory. This parish is in the heart of one of the poorest sections of PAP. Father Andrew is in the Philippines (he is Filipino) for a month. But Father Guy received us very warmly. The cook had a delicious dinner waiting for us: goat, rice, veggies and cake. And we didn’t have to sleep in tents!

No matter where you go in PAP, you see destruction; men breaking up slabs of concrete, kids and adults searching through rubble, tents and blue tarps are everywhere. On many of the tents and food bags, you see the word USAID. That makes me proud of our country. You also see the symbols of the Canadian maple leaf and of other donor countries.

No one was spared by the earthquake. They say that it’s the rich and middle class that are suffering most because they had something. Many now have nothing and they know the difference. The poor had nothing and they still have nothing… It’s too easy to say: “that’s sick humor.” But it’s that kind of outlook that enables the poor of Haiti to keep on going. The people are resilient. You see signs of life everywhere: vendors selling mangos, bananas, fried plantains, souvenirs, food, shoes, clothes, etc. In some ways, PAP has not changed.

My fear is that Haiti will not learn to change. People are rebuilding their homes in the same ways that the old ones were built. Only the rich will be able to hire the engineers and architects to build correctly. There is still a void in the leadership of the country. Corruption and bribes is the way of business.

But through it all, Haitians are a people of faith – a very resilient people. Someone once said that “Haitians are experts in managing pain and suffering. It’s what they do best.” I hope that changes. I pray they will not need to “manage” such suffering in the future.

I conclude this chapter of the Haiti Journal 2010 on a plane heading for home. I hope to be able to type it out and get it to you soon.

March 14, 2010

2010-03-14T15:54:00.000-07:00

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m exhausted! What a week! It started with the welcome of Fr. Aldino Kiesel, our superior general who is a wonderful person. He came in on Saturday to be with Tom Hagan and me for our meeting with the Postulants and Aspirants which was scheduled for Monday through Thursday. We had time last Sunday to sit down and talk about the general outline of our get-together. We had this little powwow after showing Aldino around Port-au-Prince and the ruins of so many buildings, especially the Palais Naitional and the Cathedral. We also saw Le Grand Seminaire, the major seminary for diocesan seminarians. All the buildings on the property were completely destroyed, so was a huge retreat center called Villa Marise – a huge building build by the Jesuits in the 40’s but now in the hands of the Viatorians. It was a very imposing beautiful building with seeming hundreds of rooms for visitors and/or retreatants. It was high up and had a view of all Port-au-Prince. It’s now ruined. Unbelievable! Aldino was struck by the horror of it all. It’s really hard to tell someone what it’s like. That phrase, “You’ve gotta be there…” is really apt.

Anyway, we sat down after the tour and talked. We seemed to click as a group or team from the first moments together. After we relaxed a bit we began to get ready for the long bus trip Monday to Bassin where the retreat was to be held.

Most everybody showed up who were from the south or the PaP area. We were to meet the others at a designated spot not far from Bassin and all went well. The men from the south were happy to see their confreres from the north. It had been since the earthquake that they’d really seen one another.

Monday night was our first get together. We explained what Monday would be about, namely a time to reflect on the experience of the earthquake and how we were all traumatized and wounded, either physically and/or mentally. We handed out a reflection sheet which I had gotten from a similar exercise we had with the CHR (Congress of Haitian Religious). It used the thoughts of Henri Nouwen’s Wounded Healer as a jumping off point. They were encouraged to read the paper that night or in the morning before we met. It would serve as a basis for our sharing. So after prayer and breakfast Tuesday all were asked to get into an assigned group. We had prepared three Postulants to be facilitators for the three groups. The first exercise was simply to share their experience of the earthquake. Our schedule was flexible so they used two sessions Tuesday morning. While they were meeting Tom, Aldino and I met to talk about some of our questions and our thoughts about our plan for the next year with the men. So far, so good.

We scheduled a siesta and then back into session at 3:00 PM. The facilitators were happy with what was happening. Gradually there was a movement into how we could use our wounds to become healers for others. Again things seemed to go well. The day ended in the evening with a celebration of the Sacrament of the Sick, an anointing of each person present with holy oil, remembering the words of the Epistle of James: “Are there any sick (wounded) among you. Let them call for the Elders of the church and let them pray over them anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. This prayer, made in faith, will save the sick person and if he has committed any sins his sins will be forgiven.” It is a beautiful sacrament in its restored form since Vatican II. It’s no longer “Extreme Unction” used only for “those dying of accident, sickness or old age.” All in all it was a peaceful day and things seemed to be going fine.

Wednesday morning we introduced the group to our plan – a year dedicated to helping the survivors of the earthquake through various projects like distributing food, working with the elderly, coordinating health care at some clinics in Cite Soleil or perhaps volunteering with the Missionary Sisters of Charity (Mother Teresa’s group) at their hospice for the dying, etc. They were invited to read the plan and come back in 20 minutes for any clarification and then to go to their groups for discussion. Here’s where the uneasiness began to emerge. They returned with lots of questions, many of which seemed to be around their own needs and not around the vision of helping others in their need. In fact, there was an overall sense by us (Tom, Aldino and myself) that they did not really get it, that is, the desperate need of so many of their fellow citizens. So I tried to answer some of their questions at great length and with absolute honesty. We broke for lunch and siesta and had a huddle before the afternoon session.

On returning to the afternoon session we decided to have a go-around asking each to state where he was with everything, the plan, their participation, etc. The results of that session were so depressing for us. Lots of whining or uneasiness, etc. Not much, in fact no, enthusiasm. So after a break we returned and put it to them directly. Do you want to part of this year we’ve laid out or not. Yes, of no? If no, that was okay we said. You may not be ready or you may be called to help others in another way with another group. That’s okay, we said. In fact, this was totally unrehearsed, Tom said, “Look, if you say no I'll see to it that you get $600 US to help you get started. That was his sincere effort to let them know that they were perfectly free to say no to our plan and to move on to something else. Well, with that we sent them off for a prayerful talk with God and asked them to hand in a sheet after with a yes or a no.

After some time we regrouped. I went around and collected the replies in a folder without looking at them. We moved on to Mass at which time we placed the folder on the altar. It was only after Mass that we read the results. All present said yes except for the first year Aspirants. They all refused to turn in a paper. It was clear that they were acting as a group. What to do?

We decided to meet the first year Aspirants. I took the lead saying that it appeared that they had acted as a group. Was there any comment about that. Well, we got that they were wounded, some physically and all psychologically. Two of their classmates had been killed. They were traumatized. So we said that it was clear that they needed time and that they could not give a reply at the present. I summed up saying that not everybody was in the shape they were in and that we were going to put our program into practice starting April 14. It was clear that they could not make any promises to the Oblates right now and it was also true that the Oblates could not make any promises to them. Okay.

Next morning, the day of our departure, after breakfast we met with the group and told them about the dates we wanted to begin but that in the meantime we in fact had started and that they should, wherever they were, check with their pastor or someone and make themselves available to help those hurting. We then had Mass and headed out for a final picture. This was the kicker! The first year Aspirants moved away and would not have their picture taken with the group. So here we are at the end of our retreat with the postulants and the second year Aspirants all signed up, and the first year aspirants up in the air or even making a clearly negative gesture.

The next day, Friday, Tom stopped over. He was very angry and hurt and disappointed. He was clearly ready to throw in the sponge and leave the whole thing to me. Aldino was resting so he didn’t hear Tom. I just listened but honestly I felt like somebody just kicked me in the stomach. I wanted to be there for Tom in his sadness and hurt so I said nothing about how I was feeling. And also, I didn’t disagree with a lot he said. But it was hard, very hard.

When he left it was time for Stations of the Cross. Aldino wanted to go and so did I. During the stations I cried. I felt very alone and thought that that’s the way Jesus must have felt on his way to Calvary – alone with nobody to help him. I talked to the Lord about it and finally said, well Lord if that’s the way is going to be okay, I’ll do it and I began to feel better- not terrific, but better.

Saturday Tom came over again with Doug Campbell the American head of Hands Together. We did some initial measuring for some building we intend to do here to house the postulants. Tom mentioned as an aside that he’d thought about what he said and he was sorry if he had hurt me, but basically he felt that same especially about the first year Aspirants. He said let’s give them time, until September even. I said that’s a good idea. Later I talked to Aldino and even shed a few tears over what I had experienced. It’s just that Tom and I were so together about all this and I counted on his support and he knew he had mine, but… Well, it will be okay. By the way, Aldino was great through and with all this. I truly feel his support and gratitude for both Tom and me in what we are about.

Today, Sunday, Tom left for a week in the States which he needs. But guess what? Last night he had an attack of kidney stones. Can you imagine! They say that is so painful. Doug will try to get him on the plane and back for some help in the States. Talk about, just what I don’t need! Anyway I ran the idea by Aldino about having the first year Aspirants wait till September to come on board and he agreed. So I’ll call them and tell them that before I leave on Wednesday. I already had one of them here and told him. Honestly I’ll be glad to get to the States for some rest and relaxation.

Thanks all of you for your support. By the way, some people said they don’t want to leave a comment on the blog. That’s fine. Actually very few people do. If they have a comment they send it to me via e-mail. Sometimes I’m amazed anybody reads this. It’s usually long and I’m sure time-consuming to read. Maybe it’s good Lenten penance to help you prepare for Easter. How about that! Blessings to all and peace.

As I finish this if just felt a little rumble under my feet. It’s not over yet! Tom

March 6, 2010

2010-03-06T14:13:00.000-08:00

It is Saturday morning and a very dull and rainy Saturday morning indeed. This is highly unusual, at least for me. Ordinarily it is sunny and about 85 degrees – but not so today. My little alarm clock which gives the temperature says 23 C and only 73 F. That’s very different. Last night it rained all night. (Think of all those poor people here without a roof over their head or any covering to keep them dry, and they are in the hundreds if not thousands!) It was a slow drizzle and this morning it was still raining. I celebrated Mass at the parish for the pastor. The gospel was the Prodigal Son. I attempted in my homily to suggest that we change the name of the parable to “The Prodigal Father” who is “prodigal” in his lavish love and mercy and forgiveness for us as the father in the story was “prodigal” with his love for his son. Did it work? Who knows? At least nobody walked out. Was that because it was still raining and they had a roof over their head? Your guess is as good as mine.

We are in our final preparations to receive our Father General who is to arrive at 1:30 this afternoon. Though the title sounds fancy, Aldino is really a very simple and good man. He is Brazilian. We’re also finishing last minute tasks for our retreat which will begin Monday evening. It’s been a busy week. We have made up folders for all who are going to attend, about 40 in all. The first part of the time will be spent in trying to process all the feelings around the earthquake itself – the panic, the horror, the harsh reality of it all and how it affects each of us. For that we’re using a paper given out by the Congress of Haitian Religious who met last Saturday for a memorial Mass for all the deceased religious who died during the quake. The theme of the paper was “The Wounded Healer”. It served as a basis for our sharing in groups. I’ve adapted it for our group and we plan to talk about our own wounds and how they can help us be present to others who are wounded. Part of me is very excited about our get together and part of me is petrified. When I feel I have to do it or to be the one in charge I could get very panicky. When I remember that this is God’s work not mine, I feel a lot easier. I know God will come through for me (us) no matter what happens. And, by the way, we’re not so “scheduled” that we can’t adapt and rearrange on the spot to fit in what needs to be fit in.

Tom Hagan was here yesterday to talk about the final details. What a good guy he is! He’s one of those people that just being near helps, if you know what I mean. He’s very real – funny and yet with a good head on his shoulders when it comes to practical stuff, like getting $10,000.00 worth of food to people in need in just one part of Cite Soleil. My head would spin with all he has to arrange and see to.

The biggest news of the week concerns a car. Last week returning from the Memorial Mass with Sony one of the Postulants, I mentioned that when I come back after Easter I intend to purchase a vehicle so we can have more mobility for our projects. I said if he heard of any vehicles available, preferably a 4 wheel drive Jeep type SUV or truck to find out about its condition and cost. Two days later on Monday Sony comes in to tell me that the Sisters of Providence, a group of sisters from Montreal were going back to Canada to regroup since their school was in ruins as was one of their two convents. The Sisters would be delighted if we would use their SUV for our charitable works since they would not be needing it till at least May when they plan to decide about their future here in Haiti. Are you kidding me? An SUV, 4 wheel drive, well maintained by these Sisters! Of course, Sister, we’ll be glad to use the vehicle till May and then see where we are. Maybe then we can buy it. Why do I even think about worrying when God is right there to take care of me (us)!

Tomorrow, Sunday, it is our custom to join Tom Hagan at Ste Anne’s in Cite Soleil for Mass and we plan to do that with Aldino, the general. However the pastor asked me to say Mass at one the chapels of the parish. I said I would since he really needs the help. The guys can take Aldino (in our SUV) and I’ll go to the chapel for Mass. Saying yes to a Sunday parish Mass meant I had to write a homily more than the five or six paragraphs I prepare when I’m saying the weekday Mass. Preparing a homily is always a work of prayer and study and inspiration, but in French it’s even more. I count on the Holy Spirit for enlightenment and guidance and so far so good. While it takes time, I feel okay if after reading it to one of the men they tell me it makes sense and there are no glaring errors in the French. Actually the computer catches most mistakes, at least the spelling ones.

And finally, last week I was asked to write a piece for Bondings, our provincial newsletter. I thought I’d share with you what I wrote since it involves life here in Haiti since the earthquake. It’s just another reflection. (If anybody wants to get our newsletter simply write to Bondings/2043 Parkside Blvd/Toledo. OH 43607)

Bondings Article:

You asked me if I could write an article about some of the reasons for hope amid the devastation in Haiti. You say you have seen many articles in the media with pictures that present the death and destruction eloquently. But where is God in all this? And what reasons are there to hope? Wow, what an order!

First of all there are no easy or pious answers to “Where is God in all this?” Our faith tells us that God is always with us and that’s easy to say and even believe when things are going pretty well. It’s a whole different question when you find yourself and the building you’re in being shaken up like one of those fancy drinks in the hands of a bartender. Well, for starters, I don’t think that God is the bartender – Mother Nature is, maybe, but not God. You have been thrown instantly into a totally new experience of life. Nothing is the same. In a flash, friends and relatives are dead; your home, whoever you are and however rich or poor you are is destroyed. You have, in thirty five seconds, become a homeless person amid tremendous suffering and chaos. But you are alive. How? Why? The answers to those questions are as absent as the answer to the question why did this did happen?

I have become a believer in the adage “What is, is!” I also believe and have come to see the profound wisdom of St. Francis de Sales’ call “to live in the present moment”. So I’m alive, and this is the way it is. Now what? Well, amid the human carnage, the horrendous physical damage and the unbelievable horror of it all you gradually come to experience the presence of God - a God Jesus pleaded with in the garden, a God Jesus could not see on the cross and a God who raised Jesus to life three days later. These different faces of God shown forth during the catastrophe, in the hours and days immediately following and now, when things here are still horrible. The fact is God’s presence is experienced differently at different times. So if you’re looking for the smiley faced God, here he is not. But if you’re looking for the God of Jesus, a God so complex as to be unknowable, well, that God is here, has been here and will always be here.

As to your question of what reasons are there to hope, for me personally, that’s a lot easier to answer. When I see young men, our Aspirants, risking their lives during and after the quake to free others from the wreckage of their building, and when I see three of them the next few days again risking their lives to find the dead bodies of their two confreres buried in the rubble and when I say to them that this is very dangerous and even life-threatening and they say: “But they are our brothers.” well, that is reason to hope. Or when I look at my confrere Fr. Tom Hagan, OSFS, who in a flash saw the work of close to twenty five years of his Hands Together projects in ruins and who is immediately back again seeing how he can get food to the poorest of the poor in the huge slum of Cite Soleil, or when I see our local pastor, a Montfort Father, gathering his people for Mass and the sacraments, for Stations of the Cross and the rosary amid the rubble of his beautiful 125 year old church which was totally destroyed,- well, if they can do that and thousands of others like them pick up and start over, then there is every reason to hope, hope that Haiti will survive and that God will never leave us.

Blessings to all and don’t forget to pray for us during our retreat Monday through Thursday. Tom
PS Aldino arrived safely this afternoon and we picked the SUV from the Sisters. What can I say but God is good! TM