Moving...

Ok. To all of you who have been just hanging on a thread, waiting for me to post something new to my blog... ...here it is. I'm moving. Well, I'm not really moving. But my blog is. Over the summer I thought a lot about what I wanted to do with this blog and I want it to be more everyday kind of stuff. You know, literally "what's going on with me" kind of stuff. So, I thought it best to re-launch my blog with a new address: dominicpetan.blogspot.com. I hope to make it something I update much more regularly (and I would appreciate a little bug once in a while when I'm not... though I may not always welcome it ;) ). So take a spin over at the new address and see what I have to offer. dominicpetan.blogspot.com I'll see you there!

Peace.

Seven Last Words of Christ: "I Thirst."

Happy and blessed Easter to all!

Below is a reflection that I recently wrote for Good Friday on one of the seven last "words" (phrases, really) of Christ and I thought that I would share.

A couple of weeks ago, I had an opportunity to visit my family in Illinois to celebrate my sister’s birthday, a rare treat for me since entering the seminary. Although it wasn’t an official three-day weekend, it worked out that my classes for Monday were cancelled, which allowed me an extra day before returning to the seminary. Prompted by the amount of work I had waiting for me at the seminary, but moved by an interior conviction that felt strangely outside of myself, I decided to leave on Sunday instead. Throughout the six-hour drive back to southern Indiana, I sat with an aching in my heart, a longing for that denied opportunity to spend more time with my family. I had every reason, it seemed, to stay at home and enjoy them for another day. As the miles rolled away I came to see that it was God that had asked me to leave, and in doing so to feel a great longing for more. As I prayed the rosary while driving, I began to see the connection between my longing for my family and Christ’s longing on the Cross when he said, “I thirst.” It was then that I could connect this very tangible sense of longing for my family to the longing that my soul feels for God, and I began to understand what the Psalmist means when he says, “As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God” (Ps 42:2)

In Lent we purposely make a hole in our lives – we leave an urge unfulfilled. In other words, we thirst. We allow ourselves a tiny bit of suffering not to punish ourselves, but rather to awaken in us an awareness of the spiritual thirst that is constantly raging in our souls.

When we cover up our physical thirsts by satisfying them, we cover up our inner emptiness, and pursuing worldly satisfaction becomes our never-ending concern. When we subject ourselves to fasts for the sole purpose of penance, it seems senseless because it doesn’t point to the spiritual thirst that arrests each of our souls. However, if we allow our fasting and abstinences to point to the longing that our souls have for God, then we learn to tolerate, what spiritual writer Henri Nouwen calls, the sweet pain of that longing because our inner emptiness becomes filled with promise.

Jesus, in His physical agony on the Cross, did not long to satisfy his physical thirst, even though it was immeasurable. Rather, the thirst that he proclaimed from the Cross was a spiritual one. His thirst was that in and through his agony humanity might be made new, and that his prayer that we may all be made one might be fulfilled.

Today we have a great opportunity to come to a deeper understanding of this thirst of Christ. As we sit with our physical thirsts throughout the day, let us allow them to draw us to recognize the deep groaning inside each of us that echoes the words of the Psalmist when he says, “My being thirsts for God, the living God” (Ps 42:3), for it is when we acknowledge our inner emptiness that we also find the promise that fills it. Then we will be able to say with the Psalmist, “Why are you cast down my soul? Why do you groan within me? Wait for God, whom I shall praise again, my savior and my God” (Ps 42:12).

Given at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Church – Carmel, Indiana
Good Friday, April 2, 2010

A Prayer After the Earthquake in Haiti

Lord, at times such as this,
when we realize that the ground beneath our feet
is not as solid as we had imagined,
we plead for your mercy.

As the things we have built crumble about us,
we know too well how small we truly are
on this ever-changing, ever-moving,
fragile planet we call home.
Yet you have promised never to forget us.
Do not forget us now.

Today, so many people are afraid.
They wait in fear of the next tremor.
They hear the cries of the injured amid the rubble.
They roam the streets in shock at what they see.
And they fill the dusty air with wails of grief
and the names of missing dead.
Comfort them, Lord, in this disaster.
Be their rock when the earth refuses to stand still,
and shelter them under your wings when homes no longer exist.

Embrace in your arms this day those who died so suddenly.
Console the hearts of those who mourn,
and ease the pain of bodies on the brink of death.
Pierce, too, our hearts with compassion,
we who watch from afar,as the poorest on this side of the earth
find only misery upon misery.

Move us to act swiftly this day,
to give generously every day,
to work for justice always,
and to pray unceasingly for those without hope.

And once the shaking has ceased,
the images of destruction have stopped filling the news,
and our thoughts return to life’s daily rumblings,
let us not forget that we are all your children
and they, our brothers and sisters.
We are all the work of your hands.

For though the mountains leave their place
and the hills be tossed to the ground,
your love shall never leave us,
and your promise of peace will never be shaken.

Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Blessed be the name of the Lord,
now and forever. Amen.

Copyright © 2010, Diana Macalintal. Permission is given to reprint.

Help for Haiti

Hopefully we are all painfully aware of the situation in Haiti. I don't intend to spend much time talking about this because it is getting an incredible amount of coverage, as it should. I have just a few thoughts and then I will mention some things that I believe we all can commit to doing right now and in the long run to help our desperate brothers and sisters in Haiti.

Having made two trips there with teams from my parish in Carmel I did not need to see pictures or even to hear reports about the destruction caused by the earthquake. I have seen firsthand how the buildings in Haiti were built and I was immediately certain that most of them wouldn't have withstood the forces of the earthquake. This is not to say anything against the Haitian people. They built with the best that they had as best as they could - buildings that have withstood hurricanes - but it wasn't enough to withstand an earthquake of that magnitude. As images started to come in and I laid eyes on the reality of the devastation, my heart broke.

The Church in Haiti was far from immune from the devastation. The Archbishop of Port Au Prince was killed and the cathedral along with the seminary was destroyed. It is unknown how many seminarians were in the seminary, but it is feared that they and the staff of priests and religious are also lost. As a seminarian, to think about the impact that losing most if not all of the country's seminarians will have on the Church in Haiti and its future is overwhelming, to say the least. And this is only a part of the total story.

The initial response is necessarily so massive that only people at the highest levels of major governments can possibly coordinate any effort to quickly and effectively help the survivors. Nevertheless, here are three things that I think that we all can do right now and well into the future to help the Haitian people.

1. Pray. Let us be relentless in our prayer. Prayer is keeping survivors still buried under the rubble alive and giving strength to those who have already spent days searching for and digging them out. It is consoling grieving survivors and their loved ones around the world. The people of Haiti need our prayers now more than ever and it is something that is well within our capability to do and to do abundantly.

2. Donate. Obviously, the humanitarian need is massive right now. It's almost incomprehensible. The best thing that we can do is to make sure they never have less supplies than they know how to distribute. I personally have made my initial contribution to Catholic Relief Services. They are big enough to take part in a job of this magnitude, they have a history of presence in Haiti and will continue to have a presence in Haiti indefinitely. You can go to http://www.crs.org/ to donate. There are many more organizations out there that have similar resources to CRS, however, and so if you have not found one already and made a donation, please find one soon and donate.

3. Fast. This is a combination of the two, in a way. The Haitian people are in desperate need and it is going to require some sacrificial giving on our part to help them rebuild their lives, not just materially, but emotionally and spiritually as well. I invite you to pray and to ask God what you can sacrifice in your own life in order to help the people of Haiti rebuild their lives, materially, emotionally, and spiritually. God will definitely answer that prayer. With humility and courage we can all make a difference for the people of Haiti today and in the future.

It is in our darkest moments that God's power manifests itself most strongly to break through with His light. He is calling each of us to respond. May we have hearts full of charity to hear and respond to His call.

Keeping tabs...

I don't know why I just thought of this today, but in order to keep people better updated about my progress through cancer treatments, I started a journal on CaringBridge.org. I'll continue to update this blog with my reflections and information about other things going on in my life, but I'll keep the cancer specific stuff over on CaringBridge. You can find the site at: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/dominicpetan

As always, thanks for your prayers!

And then, everything looked different...

Ok, it's been a really long time since I've posted, but just about all of you should know the reason for this by now. Nonetheless, I thought I'd give a little summary in case there was any confusion.

In the middle of September I had surgery to remove an enlarged lymph node from the area under my left arm. The pathology of the lymph node revealed that the growth was malignant and was diagnosed as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer. Further tests revealed a complete diagnosis: stage 4 diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. This type of lymphoma, I have been told, is of the aggressive type, which means that it grows quickly. However, I've also been told that this type of lymphoma is very treatable (i.e. it responds well to treatment - which, if it had the possiblity of virtue, would make somewhat virtuous, I guess) and that the treatment is well-developed and proven to be effective. Together, what this means is that treatment should (and will) start soon (very soon).

Beyond having to tell my family that I have cancer, the hardest part about all of this so far has been trying to describe how this diagnosis has affected me; because it seems that my reaction to this news has been decidedly less desperate (??? if that is even a good word to describe it) than everyone else's so far. Somehow, within all of this, it has never occurred to me that this is the end of anything, which (from my perception, at least) is contrary to how others have reacted to this news. I've tried for weeks now to make sense of this fact. Fundamentally, it seems, there is a very simple, yet very real answer. The reality of this disease is that it is not the end of anything. Every doctor whom I've talked to has assured me that there is a way out of this. And so, in a very real way, there is no reason to entertain any thoughts resembling despair. Looking at the wider picture, the reality of this situation is one that oftentimes we'd all like to forget; that is, that we really aren't in control of everything that happens to us. If we can recognize that there is someone, much greater than us, who is in control of all things, and if we can recognize that this someone loves us more deeply than anyone else does or is able to (including ourselves), then we can approach situations such as these with a spirit of docility, infused with hope by the one who cares for us so deeply, knowing that we are not and will not be left alone. Hope is the reality of all of this.

That having been said, what has overwhelmed me the most in all of this is the incredible expression of concern that so many have expressed. With every expression of sympathy, I see such a deep sorrow that I would have to suffer any such hardship. With every offer of assistance, I see such a deep desire to suffer with me, to take part of this burden from me. This is, in its truest and most real sense, a manifestation of Jesus Christ, the love of the Father, living in each of you. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son... Your eyes of compassion are the eyes of Christ looking on me and telling me, I love you and I would rather suffer everything than to see you suffer, even for a moment. Because of this I know that, more than anyone, God does not desire me to suffer. Yet, he has chosen me for this moment, just as he chose his Son to suffer and die so that we might be saved. And so, what more could I do than pray as Christ prayed, Father, if it is your will, let this cup pass from me; yet not my will, but rather may yours be done.

And so, it is with impossible hope, hope that could only come from outside of me, that I take up this cross. Yet I know that I do not carry it alone. Each of you has already put your hand to this cross in every prayer and in every offer of assistance that you have given me. You have helped me to see Christ living here with me and to come to know his love in a way that I have been blind to for so long. Thank you. My prayer is that each of you will know that God's love is real and that you will come to know that love profoundly in your own lives. Ad majorem Dei gloriam. Amen.

A step back...

Having returned to the seminary to start my next semester, I'd like to take a step back and reflect for a moment on a couple of the often unspoken aspects of the seminary experience.

First, after spending ten weeks in Antigua, Guatemala, a city that by no stretch of the imagination could be called "quiet," I have been struck by just how easy it is to find a moment of silence to listen to the "small, whispering voice" of God speaking to me. One has to want to find this experience in the seminary, for sure, as there are many things within the community that can distract you from that silence (good things, of course, but the point is that the silence is there when you choose to enter into it). I've found refreshment by simply placing myself within this experience of silence during these first couple of weeks.

Another part that we seminarians often forget is the cost of our seminary education. None of us forgets the fact that many faithful, committed people back in our dioceses and who support our religious communities make many sacrifices to provide for our years of formation as we prepare to be the ministers of the mysteries of our faith for this generation and generations to come. But we do sometimes forget that we seminarians, aside from giving ourselves wholly to the process of formation, can share that burden somewhat by seeking out scholarships like those offered by the Knights of Columbus and Logos Bible Software. Each year, the Knights provide scholarships to Catholic seminarians currently enrolled in a four-year theology program. The awarded funds apply directly to the tuition/room & board costs for the seminarian and thus lessen the burden that the people from their home diocese or who support their religious community must bear. Another innovative program has been initiated by the Logos Bible Software company. They are providing a seminary scholarship to a seminarian of any Christian denomination as a way of promoting the ministry of spreading the Gospel and the care of souls. And these are just two ways that we seminarians can do our part to ensure that we are being good stewards of the generosity of all who support us from our homes.

Conscious again of just how truly blessed I am to be able to pray and study at such a place as Saint Meinrad, I am energized to give myself fully to my studies and formation so that I may one day, God willing, be a humble and fruitful steward of the ministry that God has called me to. As always, thank you for your prayers!