My only desire is to love You

Oct 2, 2009 | Latest

The following is the funeral homily that Father Hudgins gave at Mrs. Jones’ funeral Mass, September 25, 2008.

   Thanks first to Steve and to Carol’s family.  It is indeed an honor for me to be able to preside at Carol’s funeral.  Thanks also to the Seton Choir.  I had a chance to talk to Carol in the weeks before she died about the music that she would like and when I suggested the Seton Choir, she lit up.  I’m so happy the Seton Choir could be here to sing because she loved you so much.

   I knew Carol for the last five years of her life.  She came to me for spiritual direction, so I do believe, then, that I knew her soul.   One day she came in for direction, and she was all beaming, all joyful.  She said, “I’ve got to share this prayer with you.  I just have to share it.  I just love it.”  She had written down this prayer, and I have kept it with me ever since. 

   I love You, O my God, and my only desire is to love You until the last breath of my life.  I love You, O my infinitely lovable God, and I would rather die loving You  than live without loving You.  I love You, Lord, and the only grace I ask is to love You eternally.  My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You, I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath. [St. John Vianney]

   I had the chance to talk to Carol more than anyone lse I’ve ever talked to before death, for months and months.  One night while she was at Walter Reed Hospital, she gave me a call.  She sounded upset, and she told me, “I want to talk.”  So I drove to Walter Reed – the diagnosis had been for the worst.  It was now clear that the chemo treatment was not going to work, that the cancer was very aggressive, and that the end would come soon.

   I talked that night to Carol about many things.   I asked, “You never know when that hour of death is going to come.  If it came before you were prepared to say goodbye, is there anything you would want me to say to everyone at your funeral?”  She said, “Yes, three things.”  Before I tell you those three things, I would like to say that every time we gather at a funeral there are three things we need to say.  The first are words of comfort and consolation to those who are left behind.  They’re the ones who are bearing the cross now.  The second thing we need to do is to remind ourselves of the shortness of life.  Every time we gather for a funeral we are reminded that this life is very brief.  None of us knows when the end will come, and we must be ready.  We’ve got to live our lives with our faith right here, and be prepared to stand face to face with Jesus.  The third  is that we need to pray for those who have died.  As St. Ambrose said so long ago, “Those whom we have loved in this life we must not abandon in death, until by the help of our prayers, we have led them safely into the kingdom of heaven.”

   It turns out that those are the same three points that Carol wanted me to talk about.  She had three messages for her three “families”:  her family at home, her family at Seton and her larger family, the Church.

   First, for her family at home, for Steve, Jeff, Lauren, Elena, Melanie and her Mom,  this is what she said.  “I want you to take all the love you had for me, and I want you to give that now to your children.  Make them strong.  Teach them their faith.  Make them grow up strong in their faith, just like I tried to do with you.”  That’s what she said.

   She knew that the greatest consolation we have is in the Person of Jesus Christ.  He is the One who died and rose.  He is the One who showed us that death is not the end.  He showed us that death does not have the last word; that everything given to Him can never be lost; that nothing given to Him can ever be destroyed.  Just as He told us Himself, “If you live in Me and My words live in you, you will bear much fruit.  You will bear fruit that will last.”  “Anyone who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live.  The one who believes in Me will never die.” 

   I remember one other night I went to see Carol at Walter Reed, and I asked her, “Carol, are you afraid to die?”  And she smiled at me immediately, you know, with that smile that she had and with that gaze that she had; she looked me right in the eye and said, “Oh no, I’m not afraid!  How could I be afraid to go to Jesus?”  She said, “I don’t trust in my own good works. I don’t trust in my own merits, because I don’t have any.  Every good thing I’ve ever done has been God’s work through me.  And I know that all of my sins can be wiped away by one drop of His blood.”  That’s a consolation to all of us.  The consolation of knowing that Jesus Himself is our ransom from death and that Carol placed herself completely in His care.

   The second thing Carol wanted to say was to her Seton family.  She made me promise I would say this.  She said, “If I’ve ever done anything to hurt any of you, please, I beg you for your forgiveness.” She knew that she had faults, and she wanted very much to ask forgiveness for anyone she had hurt.

   I don’t think a lot of Carol’s students ever knew just how much she loved them.  She would think about them, pray for them and do everything in her power to help them.  She would bring their troubles home with her, and she would think about what she could do to help.  Many times she asked me what was the best way to help one of her students.  Despite her best efforts, she still knew that she had offended people, and she wanted to ask them for their forgiveness.

   You know, one of the very best things to keep in mind as we go through this life is that we must live forgiving and being forgiven by others.  Jesus said, “Forgive and you will be forgiven.”  “Blessed are the merciful, for mercy shall be theirs.”  And, “The measure you measure out to others will in turn be measured back to you.”

   We live our lives knowing our faults and knowing that we must seek forgiveness from others.  Forgiving and asking to be forgiven, this is perhaps the very best way to prepare ourselves for our own death and judgment. Carol knew that she was not perfect, but for her students and co-workers, she wanted to ask for your forgiveness; wanted you to know that she loved you all very much.

   The third thing she wanted to say was to her greater family of the whole Church. Carol is the last person who would want me to stand up here on the day of her funeral and canonize her.  Here is what she wanted me to say to you: “Tell those people to pray for me!  You tell them I want their prayers!  Tell those people to pray for me!”  Because we know that all of us will one day stand before God, and we know that if there are any sins that stand between us and His kingdom, our prayers for the deceased will help them and make them worthy to see God face to face.

   Carol was always thinking about eternity.  I remember one time she had Steve driving half way across Northern Virginia looking for my mom’s house, trying to return some tapes that my mom had lent her.  Mom came out of the house and saw her and said, “Oh, I’m so sorry.  I’m going to pray for your condition.”  Carol, without missing a beat, said, “Oh, the heck with my condition.  God will give me a new body!  Pray for my soul – I‘ve only got one of those!”  She had such a quick mind.  She always knew exactly what to say.  She was so sure of the need to pray for one another, even after this life.

   Carol has many friends in high places, I am sure.  That’s for certain now, but I believe it was true even in the last days of her life.  Just last Saturday, I got a call from Steve at about 10:15 p.m.  Carol had taken a turn for the worse.  Her breathing was very erratic, and it appeared that this might be the end.  So I drove to the Hospice in Arlington, arriving around midnight  The entire family was there.  We celebrated Mass together.  I gave Carol the Apostolic Pardon and gave her the Anointing of the Sick.  I want to tell you, for your consolation, that in ten years of being a priest, I’ve never seen a holier death. 

   At the moment of consecration, I held up that Host for a long time.  I wanted Carol to see Jesus and to know that He had come to be with her in her last hour  I held up the chalice of His Blood.  And although Carol was not able to receive the Host because of her weak condition, I was able to place just one drop of the Blood of Christ that I had taken from the chalice and place it on her tongue.  She got that “one drop” of Christ’s Blood that had been her trust and her hope.  Carol died within the hour.  Carol died with the grace of the sacraments and with all her sins forgiven by the Blood of her Savior.

   And now we gather one last time to pray for her; to offer the Sacrifice of Jesus  for the forgiveness of sins.  Pray now with me that even today Carol may see Jesus in the face, and hear Him say to her those most beautiful, and most powerful words that any Christian can ever hope to hear:  “Well done good and faithful servant.  Enter now into the joy of your Father’s kingdom.”

Old Wine in New Wine Skins

Sep 15, 2009 | Latest

CONSIDERING THINGS BRIEFLY

Mom and I do not watch TV or listen to the radio, which I think I have mentioned before, so we are often unaware of many “news worthy” events and are very grateful for this.  Mrs. Torres, mother of six alumni and a current Seton senior (Justin, Jason, Josh, Dan, Jessica, Amy and Jennifer),  periodically sends me, well, periodicals and Catholic newspapers.  This catches me up on some things.  I just learned that Sarah Palin resigned as governor of Alaska, for example.  The magazine said that she was going to resign – and I just asked Mrs. Carroll yesterday if she had in fact resigned.  She said, “That happened a long time ago.” So, despite my knowledge being of late late breaking news, I am going to mention some things I learned from the Torres materials, some things I have learned from family and some things I have learned from experience.  Some you may find interesting.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi is perhaps the only person to have survived both atomic bombs.  He was a resident of Nagasaki and went to Hiroshima on business the day the 1^st bomb was dropped.  He was two miles from the epicenter.  Burned badly, he managed to get on a train back to Nagasaki where he was treated.  He returned to work on August 9^th, heavily bandaged, but his boss did not believe his story and was in the act of berating him for missing work when the 2^nd bomb fell on Hiroshima, two miles from his place of work.  He is now 93 years old.  Croagh Patrick is a holy hill in Ireland where St. Patrick fasted and prayed during the 40 days of Lent, and it is now a frequent place of pilgrimage.  A mining company recently determined that there is “gold in that thar hill” and applied to mine it.  Fortunately, the County of Mayo said the gold is fine where it is.  Mr. P, Miss Pennefather (Laura), Shelly (Sister Rose Marie) and I climbed the hill on our Marian Year pilgrimage to Europe.  On the way down the mountain, Mr. P got a good sized gash in his knee and lost a lot of blood.  He got stitched up by a doctor, and when Mr. P asked about getting the stitches removed, the doc told him to take them out himself.  And so he did.  Is “snuck” now ok?  In one edition of a newspaper, two different writers used the word “snuck” in their columns.  Past tense of “sneak” is still “sneaked” or did I miss the change?    Points of interest in Ohio.  I had always thought Ohio was somewhat dull, but that might be because my primary experiences of the Buckeye State are of its bus stations.  I can tell you that Toledo and Cleveland’s Greyhound terminals are nothing to write home about.  However, it was in Cleveland while I was waiting for my bus that a man in a trench coat approached me and opened his coat to show me hundreds of watches and assured me  that they were very cheap.  My nephew has been working in Zanesville for the past couple months.  (I went to Mass in Zanesville when I drove rather than took the bus from Virginia to Colorado and thought the people were so friendly waving and honking to me as I drove down the street – then I realized I was going the wrong way on a one way)  Brent texted me that he had crossed the World Famous Y Bridge in Zanesville.  I knew not of its fame, but you can see an aerial view of it by googling.  It’s the only bridge you can cross and stay on the same side of the river or receive the direction of “Go half way across the bridge and turn right.” Then he sent me a phone picture of a building that looks like a giant picnic basket – this is near Columbus.  It is worth a google.  Has anyone reading this been on the Y Bridge and/or seen the Picnic Basket Building?    First Frost.  I like folklore and the folklore around here according to my sister Barb is that the first frost is six weeks after one hears the first locust.  Our local locust says that the first frost will be October 1^st this year.  I’ll let you know on the 5^th of October if our locust was accurate.    California Smoke.  The smoke form the fires in California was very visible here for two days – I mistook it for an early morning fog rolling in and then for a haze later in the day.  It wasn’t until a dove hunter stopped in and told us that it was California’s smoke that I knew what it was.  Tax $$’s at work.  A man came to our house to ask if he could count and classify birds.  A couple weeks later, a couple women came to the house to ask if they could count and classify trees because an aerial view of our farm indicated that it could be considered forested land.  The bird man was here roaming around for quite a while.  We do have lots of birds.  The tree women roamed around for a while before returning to the house to say that our farm did not meet the qualifications for a forested area and they were not going to count trees after all.  We have fewer trees than birds.  The bird man said he would send the results of his count, so when we get that, I’ll let you know the official government summary of the type and # of birds on our farm.  One of the tree women looked a lot like alumna Tess Kelly.  2^nd Year Seeds.  Learned this year that plants grown from seeds saved from the previous year’s crop will often cross with related plants in the garden.  I can attest that pumpkins and gourds  cross with zucchini and produce some strange looking vegetables.  Not saving seeds anymore.  Peach Pits.  If you want to try to grow a peach tree from saved pits, about now is the time to plant.  Wash and dry the pits, then plant.  The success rate for germination is not high.  Peach pits must get cold before they will germinate, so to start them in the house, one must chill them first.  I am going to try planting five pits.  Three years from now we may be eating homegrown peaches.  Since we talked about the birds, we had better talk about the bees.  For a really long time we have had a hive of bees on our roof or in the wall just below the roof.  (Our house has a flat roof.) We recently had a new roof put on, and I had not thought about the bees.  I called a bee man to find out what would happen to the bees with the new roof.  He said that if they couldn’t get back to their hive, they would die and when the weather gets really hot their honey will probably start coming through the roof or wall.  I think, maybe more hope, that the bees are getting back to their hive through a crack in the stucco.  Year of the Priest.  Father Vander Woude, you were great on EWTN.  I don’t think your dad was embarrassed having you talk about him – I think he is even prouder to call you his son than we are to call you our priest and friend.  When you said that your dad wasn’t perfect, I thought about his missing finger.  How did he lose that?

Jesu, ufam Tobie. 

We are all Better. Thank you, Mr. VW.

Sep 4, 2009 | Latest

Mr. Vander Woude died September 8, 2008, in a successful effort to save his son Joseph.  The following is a tribute written last year by alumnus and long-time Seton teacher Tim Heisler for Seton’s school newspaper. 

                                   We are all Better.  Thank you, Mr. VW.

“Mr. Vander Woude is a great man.”  So I have heard, but what does it mean?  Obviously, it does not mean being rich or famous, and I don’t recall Mr. Vander Woude being the life of the party either.

   Yet he is truly a great man.  So much so, that I am both honored and humbled to write this article.  “Lord, I am not worthy…” came to my mind as I sat at my computer.

   Greatness – in this year of St. Paul, it is appropriate to look to him for the answer.  He tells us that the great men of the Old Testament, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Moses were great because they were faithful.

   One particularly great man from the New Testament was neither rich nor famous, and, from his “biblical silence”, it is safe to assume he was not the life of the party either.  But, we are told, St Joseph was an upright, or righteous, man, thus a man of deep faith.

   Mr. Vander Woude let me borrow his chainsaw….twice.  And I broke it….twice.  Eventually, I bought him a new one.  It was the least I could do.  After all, he had put in my sewer line; helped me spread hay (which he had given me) around my yard so I could pass inspection; laid the pipe connecting the well to the plumbing; and saved our basement from flooding. 

   So buying him a new one seemed appropriate.  He thanked me with such sincerity that at the moment I thought I was truly doing something charitable, or at least something beyond the minimum required.  Then he told me he was still going to fix the old one.  I asked him why.  After all, now he had a brand new one.

   That old chainsaw, he answered, was his favorite; it had been a gift from his son Steve.

   Tom Vander Woude is a great man. 

   I also bought myself a chainsaw, embarrassed at the prospect of breaking his a third time.  Within two weeks this new saw no longer worked.  Mr. Vander Woude came over once again.  He finally asked, as Josey hopped out of the pickup to play basketball with my kids, how I had been cutting down the trees.  After I told him, he patiently explained that chainsaws were not meant to cut through dirt:  a revelation.  Then he gave me a course on sharpening the chain, which had grown inexplicably dull.

   You may ask, “Why should we care about a chainsaw?”  The answer is that he did care.  I was no close friend who had helped him through thick and thin.  No, I was someone who needed help, and he cared, somehow managing to neglect none of his other duties.

   How did he do that?  Faith.

   Mr. Vander Woude had a St. Joseph-like faith.  In writing this, I thought it important to avoid hyperbole.  We have heard of the heroism of his dying, so the tendency to exaggerate our experiences with him while he was still alive is indeed a temptation.

   But I am reminded of Out of the Silent Planet, by CS Lewis.  In his book, there is a scene in which a portrait of Ransom the main character, is being drawn.  The portrait, however, is not quite true to life.  When asked why, the artist responds that if it were, generations later, nobody would believe it.

   Such is the case with Mr. Vander Woude.  We read the articles in the newspapers and see the specials on TV, and years from now people are sure to question their veracity.  “This man could not have been,” they will say, “for such people do not exist.”

   So, why the chainsaw?  Surely some religious subject would have been more fitting.  Training altar boys was on of his many duties at Holy Trinity; in fact, he convinced my sons to become altar servers.  He was a daily communicant. A story about preparing the Brentsville gym or Linton Hall’s chapel for Mass seems called for.

   If not religious, perhaps one of the many stories recounting the substantial, life-changing help he gave people he barely knew, such as allowing my present in-laws to live in his house for a month – all 14 of them, the oldest seven of whom were girls….there’s true courage!

   Certainly that surpasses a chainsaw story.  Or what about Seton?  After all, he helped immensely, from coaching basketball (where he played everyone on the team, including me, in every game…and we still managed to go 20 and 5 that year), to helping lay the gym floor, to myriad other selfless acts.  And yet none of these was my focus.

   The reason is this:  we all have different stories; mine are of no more value than yours.  But each unique story seems to revolve around the same thought:  Tom Vander Woude lived his faith.  He did do great things with great love, but if we only remember the great things, it can be easy to forget that he did small things with great love as well – fixing chainsaws, for example.

  And therein lies his greatness, the greatness of faith.  True faith manifests itself through charity, and that is the force that moves the biblical mountain.

   Simply put, I am a better person for having known Mr. Vander Woude; Seton is a better place for having known Mr. Vander Woude; and anyone anywhere who ever knew Mr. Vander Woude, that is, who ever experienced the man, however briefly, to truly know him, is a better person for it.

   And that is no hyperbole.

Czestochowa

Aug 25, 2009 | Latest

 A couple things before the great posting by Mary Van Scott from Poland.  Following upon Sarah’s volunteering posting, here is a link to read an article from the Arlington Catholic Herald about another Seton grad’s volunteering:  (http://www.catholicherald.com)  Also, there were two late comments on the entry from 7/14 — “What’s in a Name?”  I think you would enjoy reading them.  Also, there is a relatively new ripple that you would enjoy from Beth VandeVoorde  You must scroll through the 3 previous ripples to get to it.  OK, now to Poland.

                                                   CZESTOCHOWA

Blessed be the Name of Jesus.

The Foreign Language Department at Seton has undergone a dramatic if not essential change.  The drama was the nice kind: a romance and wedding.  The change was one that was welcomed but I predict one that might prove to be implemented only sporadically.  (How many times will Seton’s French and German teacher be referred to as “Mrs. Haggerty” in the coming 12 months, instead of by her new name, “Mrs. Schuller”?)  But thanks be to God the essentials are the same.  Mrs. Johanna Haggerty Schuller will be teaching this coming year at Seton and although she plans to travel more, will keep her house on Jackson Avenue in Manassas. 

Did you know that her basement on Jackson Avenue was the first Seton French classroom?  Up until her youngest child began school, Seton French students (they didn’t have German back then) drove the mile or so to one of Seton’s many off-site facilities (Mass at All Saints, Driver’s Ed. at Osborn, gym class all over town, etc.) to re-learn how to pronounce the letter “r” and to find out that nouns come in two genders.  For those of you who did not study French in the 70’s and thus didn’t say the year and date every class in French: did you know that the French words for 77, 78, etc. translate as “sixty-seventeen, sixty-eighteen” and so on?  Just giving some deep background here. 

I met Mrs. Haggerty when she came to Seton to give us a pro-life presentation in 1976, and then the next year when I signed up for French I.  I kept with the French for my whole Seton career, eventually exchanging tutoring for babysitting the five (at that time) little Haggertys.  One of my clearest memories is the day they all came down with stomach flu just as Mrs. Haggerty got home from the weekly grocery shopping.  I always liked those kids and that day I was especially grateful to them as they somehow managed to put off the unpleasantries until their Mom pulled into the driveway and it was time for me to go home.  What I remember best is one of them greeting her at the front door saying, “Mommy I don’t feel well” and then producing irrefutable evidence there on the stairs.  One of the others was right behind with a follow-up maneuver.  Mrs. Haggerty took care of the mess just calmly saying, “I hope when I get to purgatory I won’t have to clean up any more throwup.”

Mrs. Haggerty and I stayed in touch and see each other once in a while in Virginia.  But last month she and her new husband Paul Schuller came to Central Europe on their wedding trip.  Did you know that Mrs. Haggerty (whoops! Mrs. Schuller) was born in Germany and didn’t come to America until she was about 12?  Her lack of accent has always seemed to me a proof of her language skills.  She was born in Breslau—at that time part of Germany but now part of Poland and known as Wroclaw—and was visiting there as well as other places of interest in Germany and Poland, also with stopoffs in  Prague and Vienna.  Now that I am living in Poland we decided to meet in Czestochowa, which is about halfway between where I live and where she and her groom were staying, and is always a good place to visit since it is one of the principle Marian shrines of Central Europe.

The attraction for Czestochowa is the famous icon of Our Lady at the Shrine of Jasna Gora (“Bright Hill”). For more than 600 years the “Black Madonna” has reigned in Czestochowa; her shrine a place of refuge and pilgrimage for Poles as well as many others. Centuries of exposure and candle smoke have darkened the Jasna Gora icon and earned her the nickname “Black Madonna.” Legend has it that the icon was painted by none other than St. Luke himself, but the actual history of the icon gets lost in the mists of time after tracing back a few centuries. A very striking trait of the Black Madonna image is the two slash marks on her right cheek. These were made centuries ago by an invader’s sword, when Jasna Gora was a fortress in a very real sense of the word, and the enemies of the Church had infiltrated all the way to her altar. Subsequent efforts to repair the image were unsuccessful and the slash marks have come to take on a deeply symbolic meaning, representing Mary’s full participation in the life and tribulations of her children.

August is a good month to be writing about the Black Madonna because the feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa falls on August 26.  It is a beautiful time of year here: warm, sunny weather but not overly hot or humid; the open-air markets everywhere are bursting with color and locally grown fruits and vegetables that in this cool climate you only see for a few weeks out of the whole year.  July and much, much more so, August, are the time of the traditional walking pilgrimages from all parts of Poland to the shrine.  In this agrarian, northern society August is a time of a temporary lull in much of the farm work, waiting for the late August harvests, and tradition has decreed it the month for pilgrimage.  In fact every year on the first Sunday of August at Masses all over the country a letter from the bishops is read, reminding everyone that August is a special month to Poland (several miracles, in varying eras including both early and late 20^th century, with a nature of defending Poland’s national identity, have taken place in August) and for that reason all people are strongly recommended to refrain from alcohol and tobacco as a thanksgiving offering. 

I have had the experience of walking from Lublin to Czestochowa on pilgrimage five different times.  It’s a 12-day walk covering a little more than 200 miles.  Usually about 3000 people go on the Lublin pilgrimage.  Multiply that by all the cities and towns in Poland and you get an idea of how many people make these pilgrimages!  Some travel for three, even four weeks. 

The first few pilgrimages were arriving in Czestochowa the days the Schullers were in Poland.  There was no pilgrimage coming in the day we met at Czestochowa but there WAS a conference of exorcists meeting there all that week!

We weren’t able to spend much time together; the Schullers had driven about 200 miles from Wroclaw and had to get back that night and, as they found out, 200 miles on Polish roads is NOT the same as on the expressway!  At least, though, the days are very long in July and the scenery was beautiful.  I drove our 17-year-old station wagon from the opposite direction and met them at the shrine.  Even though they were the tourists/visitors and I am the more or less “local,” they arrived a little early for our rendezvous (notice the French influence here) while I got there about an hour late.  We were going to meet outside the monastery at a huge statue of Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, mentor of Karol Wojtyla and known as “the Primate of the Millennium” (and you NEED to know more about him than this much.)  I spotted the Schullers right away from a distance as they paced back and forth looking around, probably looking for me, occasionally looking up at the sky although whether in appeal to higher Powers or possibly hoping I might fall down from that direction, I don’t know. 

We went into the church and “greeted” Our Lady.  Masses run pretty much all day there in the summer and one was just getting underway, in Polish of course.  We decided to attend it and I had the surreal experience of being in the same room as Mrs. (Haggerty) Schuller SPEAKING A LANGUAGE THAT SHE DOESN’T KNOW.  How many people can say that?  (She would say she doesn’t speak Spanish but I don’t count that because she speaks French and Italian fluently and also knows Latin.  So how much Spanish does she really NOT know?)

The picture is in a large side chapel.  After Mass we walked through the main church with its profuse marble, immense organ, many statues and curlicues all over the place.  Mrs. Schuller took one look and remarked, “Some Italian must have decorated this.”  In the chapel the walls are just covered with votive offerings to Our Lady of Czestochowa: clustered strings of amber and coral necklaces are a favorite gift as well as crutches and other symbols of prayers answered.  In the main church the motif is definitely Rococo (Italian for “over the top Baroque”).

Back outside we had to skip the beautiful outdoor stations and Rosary mysteries and the various small museums because of lack of time.  Try not to be disappointed when I tell you we ate hamburgers for lunch.  They really are noticeably different here.  And I need to mention that we visited the restrooms where as Mrs. Schuller and I left the ladies room the attendant lit into us “be sure to put your money in the box not like that man who just left the men’s room!” (Polish bathrooms are almost never free.)  Mr. Schuller was outside waiting for us, “What was that lady yelling at me about?” he asked. 

We talked a little about the wedding.  They said the idea of a small wedding had come up but the bride knew that after living in the area for so long and with the thriving Seton community, a quiet wedding at All Saints wasn’t likely.  She spoke glowingly of the beautiful music the Seton choir provided, with many of her favorite classical pieces.  When I asked how I could get pictures of the wedding they just smiled and said they didn’t know if anyone had taken any, since all their children were in the wedding party and thus unable to photograph things.  Somehow I think somewhere there may just be a few photos.  Maybe we could post a few on this site?

From Poland, Mr. and Mrs. Schuller, wszytkiego najlepszego na wielu szczesliwych lat, a niech Matka Boska Czestochowska was towarzy przy kazdy krok!

STUDENT TEACHER I

Aug 15, 2009 | Latest

                                                                          STUDENT TEACHER I

Blue&Gold, Seton’s school colors, were selected by vote, after the Conquistadors was selected as the mascot.  It was Joe Scowcroft who submitted these colors and campaigned for their selection.  They beat out Green&Gold and Burgundy&Gold.  I think that the Royal specification was added on the next year but not by vote.   I need to see if anyone has any recollection of that.  I was thinking it might be a good idea to make our blue color Guadalupe Blue or Tilma Blue in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe which goes with Conquistador and our Pro-Life charism.  Royal Blue would probably be the closest we could come to the color, so nothing would really change except the name of the color.

   There are two things that I thank Joe for teaching me, one through athletics and the other through art.  Here’s the athletic one first

   One of the first sports we were able to compete in with the number of students we had was cross country.  The first meet I remember was at Leesburg Christian.  The gallery could not see most of the race, but we were lined up a ways from the finish line to watch for the runners when they came into view.  The first runners appeared – a Leesburg Christian runner in first and Joe in second, a fair distance behind.  There was a flat stretch, then a downhill, then a fairly steep uphill before leveling off for the dash to the finish.  Inexplicably, as the first runner came into view, a fellow from among the spectators jumped into the race some distance ahead.  No one seemed upset by this, so I thought that perhaps he was assigned to do this to show the way to the finish line which might not have been clearly marked.

   We could see that Joe was running well, but the distance looked like too much to make up.  Joe got to the downhill  sprinting with his scapular flying in the breeze.  Hills are killers at the end of a race, but Joe started up the hill in striking distance of the lead.  Joe continued sprinting uphill and took the lead and won the race.  The scapular, the effort, the thrill of victory:  it is still one of my favorite moments of all Seton athletics.   

   I went down to the finish line and congratulated Joe on his race and victory.  He said that he had finished second.  He didn’t know that the person ahead of him had just jumped into the race at the end.  That made his effort all the more amazing. There is so much about running cross country that is mental, and it is one thing to put out maximum effort when one thinks he is vying for first; it is another thing to do that when one thinks he at best will be only second. 

   Lesson taught:  Our good efforts, even when they don’t seem to produce all that we hoped for, are never wasted.

  The second, the piece of art, is more difficult to describe.  Joe took the idea that man’s body may have evolved.  In pencil he drew this evolutionary progression starting in the upper left hand corner and continuing to circle around the paper and leading to the middle of the page.  In the center was Christ crucified. 

   It was very striking and to me turned the whole idea of evolution upside down.  If there has been an evolutionary process it hardly matters.    Joe’s picture led the viewer to a bloody and beaten body that was dead upon a cross – hardly what one would think of as the perfection of the human body. 

   Some years in Religion 9 when we were covering Humani Generis I would try to describe this drawing, but as with this description, I never did it justice.

   Lesson taught:  The real evolution of a man is the perfection of the heart:  self-denial, the emptying of oneself in love of God and neighbor, is man at his greatest.

Year of the Priest Story

  Our parish priest, Father Hector Chiapa, told this story to us last Sunday. 

   When Father was in seminary, he would teach a third grade class religion once a week.  A day in Advent he headed to the classroom without having prepared a lesson.  He quickly thought of something in transit – he could teach the three aspects of Advent:  historical, mystical and eschatological.  This was an obvious age appropriate lesson for 8 year olds!  At the end of class, Father was erasing the board the beating himself up for having taught so far over the heads of the youngsters.  Just then, a little girl from the class came up to him, gave him a hug, and said, “We love you Brother Hector.”

   A blessed Solemnity of the Assumption to all.  With joy I remember our visit to the Church of the Dormition during Seton’s Jubilee Year Pilgrimage to the Holy Land and the singing of the Salve Regina in that beautiful church.

  The posting on the 25th will be a report from Poland on Mrs. Haggerty-Schuller’s honeymoon visit there.

   Jesu, ufam Tobie.

Boomtown, etc.

Aug 5, 2009 | Latest

         BOOMTOWN, A NEW FEATURE & THE YEAR OF THE PRIEST

                                                            PART I

                                                            PART II

When I first got e-mail, there was something wrong with the server or with me or both and messages were  taking a long time to be transmitted.  For example, I got an e-mail from Mrs. Cooper on Monday that she had sent on Friday.  E-mail has two big advantages:  speed and no stamps.  Mine had only one of those advantages.  I began to think that the “E” in e-mail stood for “eventual” rather than “electronic”.  In that slow delivered e-mail Mrs. Cooper said that she really likes working at Seton because she continues to learn so much about the Faith from Mrs. Carroll.

This started me thinking about the people to whom I owe knowledge of the Faith.  Among these have been many students who have made the beauty of the Faith come alive as they have taught primarily by example in consistent daily acts or in some one particular inspiring act.  So I decided that I would periodically feature a noteworthy student here.  I have even come up with a clever name for this feature:  “Student Teachers”.  What do you think?  I have not made up a list, but there is a goodly number that come to mind quickly.  (If you think you should be featured as a “Student Teacher”, please remind me what it is I should have learned from you and I will do my best to lionize you!)  I am sure that each teacher at Seton would be able to come up with a sizeable list and that the lists would vary greatly in names.

It seems there would be no better place to start than with an original student.  That eliminates nearly all of you and gets us down to the Sweet 16 finalists as the first “Student Teacher”.  He/She (giving nothing else away) will probably be very surprised to find that he/she (still not giving anything else away) is the first choice here, because this student had the mark of humility while possessing many talents.  And it just so happens that our school colors are the result of this person’s efforts.   It might be fun for you to guess who of the 16 it will be.  To make the guessing easier I will list the first names of the first 16 students in alphabetical order beginning with the boys:  Frankie, Joe, Paul, Tim.  Athena, Debby, Dorothy, Jan, Lang, Liz, Mary, Michelle, Missy, Roberta, Shirley, Teresa.   That’s all on this today.  We will save the first “Student Teacher” for the Assumption.  Don’t forget whom you picked as the 1^st Student Teacher. 

Wait!  There is more.    

                                                            PART III

Here is another Year of the Priest story in honor of St. John Vianney whose feast is August 4^th.  This one comes from the Denver Catholic Register.

It is written by Msgr. Peter Quang Nguyen whose topic was  the importance of Catholic education.  He was born in Vietnam January 1, 1959, and escaped  from his homeland to the United States.  Archbishop Chaput just recently named him a monsignor.  Here is what he had to say. “In 2000, I had the privilege to offer the Eucharist at the 50-year anniversary of my parent’s wedding and my 10-year anniversary as a priest  After they renewed their vows, I blessed a new set of wedding rings for my mother and father, to replace their original wedding rings which they had sold when I was a child in order to pay my tuition.  They made a tremendous sacrifice for my Catholic education.   At that Mass, I presented them, with tears of joy and thanksgiving, a new set of wedding rings as a token of my appreciation.  Their sacrifice gave me an opportunity to become a witness of Christ Jesus in my daily life.”

                                                            PART IV

Thought you might like to know that August 9^th is Mrs. Carroll’s birthday.   Nine days after the 200^th anniversary of Mother Seton founding the Sisters of Charity in Emmitsburg.

Jezu, ufam Tobie.

Volunteer

Jul 25, 2009 | Latest

VOLUNTEER 

Please welcome our guest writer.    I think you will find what she has to tell us fascinating and inspiring.

Hello Seton friends! I’d like to thank Mr. Westhoff for inviting me to write a guest post about my recent year of service in St. Louis.  This past year I was blessed to be a member of the Vincentian Service Corps, a program for young lay people run by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. I lived in community with seven other volunteers, each of whom worked full time at a social service organization.

I chose a volunteer assignment at the Nurses for Newborns Foundation (NFNF), helping to write grant applications and generally assisting around the office. NFNF works to prevent infant mortality, child abuse and neglect through free nurse home visits to poor families. While NFNF is not a Catholic organization, its founder is a devout Lutheran woman, and her faith touches their mission and work. It was so inspiring to see our nurses working hard across Missouri, from the inner city to rural isolated trailers. NFNF programs bring health checkups and parent education to teen parents, mentally or physically handicapped moms, and families with premature babies, or any poor family that needs some extra help.

During my time at NFNF, I learned a lot about health disparities and the realities of poverty. Accompanying nurses on their visits to clients, I was amazed to see how complex and different each family situation was. Unemployment, lack of education, lack of transportation, the confusing Medicaid system, and memories of broken or abusive families all can conspire to keep parents in the cycle of poverty. I also saw how much of contemporary culture must change if we are to have a true Culture of Life. Young women my age who were single mothers of five children had grown up in a world where chastity and marriage were the exception, not the norm. Even though these women had made the right choice to give their unborn babies life, there was no guarantee that the children would have healthy, successful lives.

Still, there were also many reasons for hope in our clients’ lives. I was amazed by how many extended families supported teenage mothers’ decision to keep their babies. A strong network of family and friends was crucial to our clients. I’ll never forget the NFNF client who performed an emergency delivery of her friend’s baby, relying on what her nurse had taught her. Or the afternoon when all the members of a parenting class all spoke up to encourage a young mother to pursue self-respect instead of staying with an emotionally abusive boyfriend. So many clients have benefitted from their nurse’s mentoring. I saw parents go back to school, find jobs, and even formalize their relationship in marriage. Donations of baby clothes, diapers, and car seats were always helpful, but what our clients needed most were positive relationships.

While I was helping babies and families, the other VSC volunteers worked in a wide variety of agencies, from daycare to middle schools to a teen shelter to caring for the elderly. It was great to see how often our ministries overlapped with each other and with other St. Louis organizations. For instance, one of the NFNF nurses paid a weekly visit to the pregnant women’s shelter where another VSC volunteer worked.

Community living with other volunteers was a major component of the VSC experience. Knowing others who were going through the same high and lows of volunteering was an in valuable support system. The eight of us ate and prayed together three times a week, and went on three retreats throughout the year. On a daily basis, we shared chore duties and carpooled to work. I think for all of us, sharing a house with 7 other Catholic women was a taste of what the religious life might involve. Our home was even a former convent! Since we were all from different states and family backgrounds, the year was a learning experience in appreciating differences and settling conflicts with compromise. During the year, VSC paid for our rent and utilities. We each earned a monthly living stipend of $330, some of which went into the community food and transportation funds. “Living simply” on a limited budget gave us a sense of solidarity with the people we served. It also was a wonderful exercise in detachment and how little “stuff” you really need to be happy.

Getting to know the Daughters of Charity was another profound part of my VSC education. I like to joke that my nun acquaintance has increased 2000%! The Daughters are kind, welcoming, and courageous women who serve in apostolates such as nursing and teaching. Each woman has amazing stories to tell about her different assignments around the country. Sr. Teresa Daly, the Daughter who directs the VSC, met with us every week. She often brought guest speakers about social justice or Vincentian spirituality.

Learning about the Vincentian family of organizations was one of my favorite parts of my VSC year. The Daughters of Charity, Congregation of the Mission priests, and the St. Vincent de Paul Society of lay people are all inspired by St. Vincent de Paul’s work and writings about serving the poor. Seton School even has Vincentian connections – St. Elizabeth Ann Seton modeled her order after the Daughters of Charity in France. Today’s American Daughters are descended from her group at Emmitsburg. Other Vincentian saints include St. Catherine Laboure, Bl. Giogio Frassati, and several Daughters martyred in the French Revolution. Personally, I want to take Bl. Frederick Ozanam as a patron over my graduate studies. He founded the Society of St. Vincent de Paul along with some college friends, and later combined his work for the poor with his career as a professor of languages.

Although it has inspired many different groups and ministries, the heart of Vincentian spirituality is to see Christ in the poor. Put into action, this means patience, flexibility, and trust in Divine Providence even when our work does not seem successful. Service is not just an altruistic civic duty; it is a profound encounter with God. Only through His love can we find the motivation and strength to keep helping the poor.

Pope Benedict XVI highlighted these same ideas in his new social justice encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. “Only through an encounter with God are we able to see in the other something more than just another creature, to recognize the divine image in the other, thus truly coming to discover him or her and to mature in a love that ‘becomes concern and care for the other.’” The Holy Father also cited a scripture verse that is the Daughters of Charity motto: The charity of Christ urges us. (2 Cor 5:14)

If you or someone you know feels Christ urging them to a year of service, research the many options available. Catholic Network of Volunteer Services (CNVS.org) maintains a directory of programs that you can search by different criteria. You can serve anywhere in the US, as well as abroad for longer commitment periods. Of course, feel free to contact me if you want to know more about VSC specifically.

In practical terms, right after college is the best time for a volunteer year, since you have very few career or family obligations. If you have student loans like I did, you can arrange with lenders to defer payments until your year is done. You can also earn an Americorps federal education grant of $4725 for your year of service. Most service programs follow a school-year schedule, beginning and ending in the summer. I had thought about a year of service, but it wasn’t until my last semester of college that I seriously considered making it a reality. I knew I wanted a break from school, but I also remembered my friends’ discouraging experiences in meaningless entry-level jobs. VSC proved to be the perfect alternative, giving me “real world” experience but also deeper meaning. I hope that its effects will continue throughout my life.

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What’s In A Name

Jul 15, 2009 | Latest

The story told in “A True Father” has been updated with additions and corrections — Father Rytel-Andrianik sent me his sermon, so everything is accurate now.

                                                                     WHAT’S IN A NAME

Tim Flagg.  What is it about this name that every Seton student, parent and teacher should know?  I could tell you in one sentence, but that would hardly be interesting.  So we will make this into a whole story — a true story about the indelible mark that Tim gave to Seton.  Now, Tim did have some help, but just as we say that Cortez conquered the Aztecs when we know he had a handful of men helping him, so we attribute this mark to Tim.

In the fall of 1975, the year of Mother Seton’s canonization, the first American-born saint, Seton School opened its doors to 16 students.  By my reckoning there were 12 girls and 4 boys.  Tim was one of the four.  His family lived at the base of Bull Run Mountain across Highway 15 from Dr. and Mrs. Carroll.  Tim was part of the daily bus route that Mrs. Carroll drove over the back country roads from Bull Run Mountain Estates to Trinity Episcopal Church in Manassas.  Her bus was a burnt orange Rambler, (a much better color that school bus yellow), and her patrons were four students:  Tim, Michelle and Roberta Desrochers and Teresa Eichler.  These three other bus patrons are also important to the story.

I road the Rambler Bus a couple times a week when I would help out at Seton.  I am important to the story too.  The bus driver is important as well.  This merry band of six held Seton’s future in its hands.

There was some talk among the students in that first year that the school should be Seton Academy rather than Seton School.  Mrs. Carroll, however, said that she liked simple things and Seton School sounded much simpler to her than Seton Academy.  The name of the school was not negotiable.  I think we are all glad that Seton is a school and not an academy.

Since the school was just beginning, we had no mascot.  There was talk among the students about picking a mascot.  Mrs. Carroll said that the students should decide on one.  I thought this was a little risky.  What sort of a name would we end up with?  Mrs. Carroll, however, put her trust in the students to come up with the mascot.

The Desrochers raised white German Shepherds.  So Michelle instantly had the idea that the mascot should be the White Wolves and their dogs could be our living mascots.  [Aren’t wolves associated with the enemies of the Church as in the Apostles being sent out as sheep among wolves?  or as Pope Benedict petitioned, “Pray for me that I may not flee for fear of wolves”? Maybe those enemies were regular colored wolves and not white ones.]

Here’s where the memory gets a little shaky.  I think there was someone else, not a Rambler bus patron, who also had an idea for a mascot.  I just can’t remember for sure, and I definitely don’t remember what it was if there was one.

The day before the names were to be placed on the ballot and the election of Seton’s mascot made, the six of us were riding toward our homes in the Rambler bus  [There must have been some other name bandied about, otherwise there would have been no need for an election.]  Teresa and the Desrochers were dropped off, so now in the burnt orange mobile there was only Mrs. Carroll, Tim and I.  The topic of a mascot was brought up.  I had been thinking about a name, and so I said, “I think “Conquistadors” would be good.”  Tim instantly said that he liked that name and was going to nominate it.  Could it stand up to the White Wolves?  Did Tim have a suit of armor somewhere that he could wear as a living Conquistador to compete with the Desrochers’ German Shepherds?  At best it seemed like a long-shot, but I was glad there was going to be some name on the ballot that had an important Catholic element to it. 

True to his word, the next day when nominations were due, Tim put in “Conquistadors”, Michelle put in “White Wolves” and maybe someone else put in something else.  The ballots were made and passed out to the 16.  Teresa Eichler declared that she didn’t like the names on the ballot, and that she was going to write in “Dragons”.  [Aren’t Dragons associated with enemies of the Church as in the Book of Revelation?  Maybe Teresa meant White Dragons.] Write-in ballots were not prohibited, so Teresa did vote for Dragons in something less than a secret ballot.  We can be sure that both Desrochers voted for White Wolves.  Tim we can assume voted for his nomination.  That meant that the balance of the election was in the hands of the remaining 12 students.

After the votes were tallied, the ballots were burnt and the white smoke let the citizens of Manassas know that Seton had a mascot.  (Not really, but that would have been a good idea.)

Again, I cannot say this for sure, but my recollection is that “Conquistador” won by one vote.

So we see that very important events, like the conquest of the Aztecs and the choice of Seton’s mascot can be the result of a few people.  Cortez led a handful of dyed-in-the-wool Conquistadors; Tim Flagg led a handful of soon-to-be Conquistadors.

Thank you, Tim, for leading the Conquistadors to their first victory:  a conquering of Wolves and Dragons and maybe something else.

——————————————————————————————————————————-

The New World Conquistadors led by Cortez faced a culture of death.  We modern day Conquistadors need to burn our ships and take up the battle daily.  The dragon of the new culture of death carries out its carnage as a law-abiding citizen, while the tyranical wolves propogate in the environment established under the dictatorship of relativism.  The very image of Blessed Mother was given to the Church so that Her “other sheep” would be converted.  She brought about the miracle of conversion after the Conquistadors had faced the culture of death squarely.  What is it that Blessed Mother wants us to do now so that she can once again bring about the conversion of the hearts of so many lost sheep?

——————————————————————————————————————————-

On the 25th we will reveal how Seton’s colors came to be Royal Blue and Gold.  That will be about a one sentence story but still of great interest.   There will also be a guest writer on that day that you are sure to enjoy. 

Jezu ufam Tobie