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Mary Amore's Blog
I'd like to invite you to read my blog and get a glimpse of what my staff and I are doing here at Mayslake Ministies. Read More
FATHER JONATHAN'S REFLECTIONS
THE
GOOSE AT OUR OFFICE
A goose and a gander have moved in on us at our office. It’s April, and that time of year, when, after a long and meticulous search for the best possible nest site, they finally settle in. The goose (the female) goes to the nest while the gander posts himself nearby and stretches out his imperial neck to hiss at anyone who comes near it. Their choice of a nest would not seem to us to be a wise one. Our office building is two stories high and about a half block long, and a couple dozen enterprises occupy its space. A large parking lot faces the front of the building and a smaller one in the back. The geese have located their nest by the front door, just a couple yards from the nearest smoker’s outpost, and another ten feet to the front door. Cars and delivery trucks drive in and drive out. Clients, workers and smokers come through those doors all day long, passing within just a few feet of the nest. In the back there is a large retention pond. And you’d think that’s where these water loving fowl would choose to brood their eggs. But, they know something we don’t. What that is, I’m not sure – probably something to do with predators, available real estate, or maybe they’re first time home owners and don’t quite know how to go about things. Click here to read more.
JUBILEE SERMON/TALK
by Fr. Jonathan Foster, OFM
Delivered at Dinner Dance on Feb. 12. 2010
Like most seminarians in my time, I lacked a specific vision of what I thought my priestly ministry ought to be. Since seminarians take a vow of obedience either to their bishop or – in my case as a Franciscan - to their religious superior, it didn’t make a whole lot of difference what you wanted to do. You were told.
Nevertheless, I had some dreams and they came into focus in the last year or two before I was ordained. I knew one thing I did not want. I did not want to be submerged in a clerical culture – a state of life separate from the world, superior to the world, laden with perks and privileges, perched on the familiar ‘pedestal’ looking down on the rest of the church and humanity and perceiving themselves as belonging to a kind of higher caste. Besides being foolish, this was also arrogant, even blasphemous, since it meant standing aloof from the world in which God had deeply committed himself through the incarnation. I wanted to be in the real world where God was.
It was into this vague restlessness that there came some folks from Chicago.
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