Question: Would I be this committed to find the missing sheep?

Have a great day!

Sometimes its important that we spend some quiet time with God so we can hear him admist the busyness of our world. I wrote this prayer in novitate.

Jesus, live in my heart. May all my actions this day reflect your presence in my life. Be a growing presence in me. Consume my voids and reign in me so it is not I who talk, but you. You who heal the soul, you who preach, evangelize, comfort and bless. May the Glory ever be yours and let me remain humble. Allow me to be a humble servant who knows where his master can be found and show others. Do not let my pride or ambitions get in the way of the mission you set before me. Channel my energies for I cannot, you must. I surrender unconditionally for I have lost, even before the battle has begun, and it is in this surrendering that I am made strong by my Lord. Lord be my captain, commander, king of my heart, and my God.

 

Juno is a really cool movie, I think it captures youth culture well and offers a strong pro-life message. Juno is bout a young teenage girl who after premarital sex discovers she’s pregnant. When confronting her friend, she accompanies her to an abortion clinic. After discovering that she cannot go through with an abortion, she finds a family who will adopt her child, tells her parents…as the story goes. The movie accompanies Juno on her journey as a young expecting mother.

Check it out, leave a comment.

Happy Easter

Sean Hogan a Salesian Novice and former Salesian Lay Missionary reflects on his experience of service in China.

“Teaching the kids here at the school is a challenge, but a joyful challenge. When you come here you take on many roles. You are a teacher, an advisor, a friend, a window to America and the outside world, and a Catholic role model. We try to be all of these for our students and for those who we meet each day.

Living in the city is not easy. The food takes some getting used to and just the everyday how things work takes a lot of getting used to.

Although sometimes trying, the challenges are making me a stronger person and I feel that God is really pushing me through this wonderful opportunity to grow more fully into the man I need to become.

Everything here is a work in progress and nothing ever seems to be done, but living in this environment seems to make life more realistic. I am so blessed to have this opportunity to take in all that I am able to everyday and I know, as many volunteers have said in the past, I will take with me much more than I am capable of giving.

There is much work to be done here and it is a great feeling knowing that we are apart of something small but great.”

Love is service and when we serve we preach. Lets pray our service allows us the opportunity to be a beautiful instrument in the hands of the Lord

Sean’s Blog

When we refer to passion, we think of a feeling thats inspiring.

The real meaning of passion comes from the latin word pasio. Which means “to suffer”.

In life and in ministry, we are called not just to love, but love as Don Bosco did, with compasison. We are called to love the young, get involved in their lives. Share their joys and also be compassionate with them. To “suffer” with them, in order to show God’s love.

 Prodigal Son

 

   “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father give me the share of his property that will belong to me.’ So he divided the property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spend everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son, treat me like one of your hired hands.”‘ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still a far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe–the best one–and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

    “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called on of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed you command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” (Luke 15:11-3)

Lord, feed us with your word and send us a good chef.

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 15, 2000 by Patricia Lefevere

Dockside chaplains tend to cargo ships’ `expendable pawns’

Salesian Fr. Mario Balbi Sdb. claims he is so old — at 80 — that one of his former students has already been an archbishop for 25 years. But age means nothing to this dockside dynamo who labors 70 hours each week meeting the spiritual needs of sailors, stevedores and drivers at the Port of Newark.

In the old days ships docked for up to two weeks, and a chaplain might have a long stretch with the crew before they sailed again. Not today, noted Balbi. Computers have speeded everything up, and a ship hefting thousands of tons of cargo can be unloaded in four hours. Not much time four a man to offload sin, take Holy Communion and tell his troubles to the chaplain.

“Hurry up, Father. I see my boss coming,” the priest recalled a recent port driver’s confession. “He’s on the top of the rig. I’m at the bottom.”

Last year the Stella Maris Apostleship to Seafarers logged 2,304 visits aboard container vessels. That’s a lot of boats when one discovers that a 1,900-foot-long ship with 4,000 containers sails with a crew of only 14.

Loneliness is a seafarer’s heaviest cross, the Brazilian priest said, noting that many seafarers are away from home up to 10 months. It’s the presence of God and the thought of their families that is awakened at sea, he said — “especially at night when you’re alone on the bridge. What you see is darkness. What you hear is the talk of the waves.”

Balbi, too, is far from his native Brazil and returned earlier this year for the first time in 35 years to mark his brother’s 95th birthday. They grew up in Manaus, in the heart of the Amazon rain forest, 900 miles from the Atlantic coast. An English packet boat would arrive in the river town every month, bringing with it men and freight to fascinate a young lad.

The Salesians, with their outreach to youth, also drew Balbi. He was ordained 52 years ago and spent the next 22 years teaching literature, French and Latin. At age 50, “I asked to do something different.” He was awarded with the chaplaincy job at the Port of Savannah. About to retire in 1990 after 20 years in Georgia, the energetic Balbi, who had been president of the National Association of Seamen, was invited to Newark.

Fr. Charles McTague, chaplain emeritus at Newark, calls Balbi, “the archbishop of the Seven Seas.” Balbi admits he has friends in every port. When he’s not saying the daily Mass at noon in Stella Maris’ chapel or the Saturday evening and Sunday morning liturgies, he’s counseling seafarers, sending a message or money to their loved ones and occasionally looking for a stray sailor in a local jail. Balbi speaks Portuguese, Italian, English, French, Spanish and German and says he knows how to laugh in Korean.

Despite his cramped office, Balbi is eager to go to work seven days a week. He pins Matthew 25:40 on his lapel like his port I.D.: “What you did for the least of my brothers, you did for me.” Evening finds him completing work on a biography he is calling “The Unpublished Don Bosco.” After several trips to Rome and to the Piedmont village where St. John Bosco, the founder of the Salesians lived, Balbi hopes he’s discovered what previous biographers have missed or only fantasized.

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