Wild horses, long walks on the beach, with MEN

Click the title to go to catholicmountain.com, a website for Catholic men.


These are old photos from when I took a few guys to Assateague Island for camping. Wild horses roamed the island!

What a great trip this was! It is my hope to be able to do more camping, and perhaps snowshoeing with guys this year. There've been a couple guys who have mentioned they'd like to get out into the wilderness. So pray for me that these hopes would become reality and I'd be able to share adventures with the men that I work with. Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati became the patron of my ministry to men, so I'm asking for his prayers especially for the manifestation of fruitful fraternity. In honor of Pier Giorgio I dressed up like him for Halloween. Alas, I have not one single photo, but I wore hiking shorts with long wool socks underneath hiking boots. I wore a flanel shirt, put my daypack on and a pipe in my mouth. It wasn't that different from my normal attire...Let's just say I miss the mountains a bit. I'm praying for you all!

For your enjoyment:

Pied Beauty Gerard Manley Hopkings
Glory be to God for dappled things--
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow and
plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change;
Praise him.

BODY (of Christ) BUILDING

I want to share with you all this morning about an aspect of our ministry that has really been doing well. About 2 weeks into the semester, one of our students expressed a desire to go to the gym more often. For some reason, it was proposed that we meet early in the morning, so no one had anything going on, to begin our day together training our bodies. It began with myself, Raul, and one of Raul's disciples, Tony. We immediately recognized that it could become a great tool to connect with guys.

A brief word: our one on one discipleships are good, but sometimes for men it is difficult to just sit down face to face and talk about our spiritual lives. FOCUS and other men's ministries have discovered that it is necessary for men to sometimes do things shoulder to shoulder, as men going to battle. Sports, or working out together is a great vehicle for this.

We've been inviting more young men to commit to the gym with us, 7:30am Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. There are now 5 of us who are there pretty much every time, then about 5 others who are there every so often. We meet outside the gym and pray together offering our lifts for specific intentions. Then as we lift we spot each other, holding one another accountable to the work we've dedicated ourselves to and supporting each other through encouragement. Disciplining ourselves alongside these men, Raul and I have built up great relationships with them. One of the guys, a sophomore named Vince, has impressed me with his drive and response to challenge. He is in Bible study with John Junghans, my disciple. Because of my relationship built up through working out with Vince, I've noticed his potential for greatness. John and I have been talking about inviting him into discipleship, to complete John's quota of 2 disciples: I disciple John, and he disciples a guy named Nick, and potentially Vince, thus spiritually multiplying.

I was excited yesterday when John (who has been immovable when I try to get him to wake up for workout) saw a great opportunity to invest in Vince by coming to morning workouts. So this Friday John has decided to sacrifice his morning of sleep to come lift, out of love for Vince. He'll be learning discipline by training his own body, but will also be communicating discipleship through his loving sacrifice for Vince's relationship with Jesus.

Another great result of this activity is our visibility to the greater community. The people who work out early are dedicated, usually there very regularly. We've gotten to know several of these people, including the students who work in the rec center. We are able to chat with all these people, and witness to Christ in our lives by our joyful and motivated attitudes. There are a few with whom we've connected well. Andrew and Camillo are grad students who are Catholic and sometimes, if we get to the gym at the same time as us, will pray with us before workout. A good looking, buff stud named Kevin we also found out is Catholic, and we've been inviting him to lots of activities. Now we see him at mass and our Wednesday night dinners alot! It's cool how working out has given us these opportunities to reach out.

In honor of a faithful member of my support team, we've adopted this moto: 1 Cor 6:19: "Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?"...Tone your temple!

Important Update, Prayers needed

Dear Friends and Family,
A situation in the mission has been bubbling for a couple weeks, and I now would like to ask you all for strong prayers. I mentioned in my newsletter that I have 2 disciples (students I'm leading in one on one mentorship). One of them, Kevin, has been struggling with this commitment. He is a very busy psychology student, but is also somewhat of an unlikely leader within the community. He began discipleship last year, being asked into it and led by one of our student leaders who left for seminary this fall. Thus I "inherited" him, as we say in FOCUSspeak. Sometimes these inherited discipleships go well, but usually they are quite difficult because the relationship, which our ministry depends on, changes for the one being discipled. Kevin is a sophomore, and I have had a difficult time establishing a relationship with him. Part is my own imperfections, for which I implore your prayers and God's Providence. But also, it is simply hard to call leadership out of a person if they are naturally a bit disinclined.

Kevin has had a hard time with tougher class load this year, and has not been able to be present at many of the greater community's events. He also did not respond to many of my challenges to him to step up in leadership of the younger guys. He officially excused himself from discipleship a week ago. Rather than simply let him slide, I have been challenged to invest in him all the more, even though he is out of discipleship. This is a great opportunity for me to love--to learn to love. Kevin remains in Bible study, so he is still a student in our program, for whom we are here serving. I ask that you all pray God gives me the gift of courage and charity to reach out to Kevin in creative ways, considering his time constraints.

Also, pray for the fulfillment of spiritual multiplication in our entire ministry, as we seek new students to step into leadership from our Bible studies.

Thank you all so much for your support and prayers, for you fidelity to God in your own particular vocations of husband, wife, priest, father, mother, businessman and woman, musician, doctor, engineer, contractor, and lawyer. God bless!

Archbishop speaks to UMD men

Yesterday at our monthly "Vianney Dinner" at the Catholic Student Center, his excellency Archbishop Donald Wuerl (of D.C.) came and spoke to young men discerning vocations. One thing he told us a little about was his very recent involvement with the Synod on the Word. 264 bishops gathered in Rome over the past month to discuss the Word. He had just arrived back, and was eager to share some of his experience with us. In his grandfatherly way he recounted with delight that the Word not only refers to Scripture but much more. The Word is the Son, second person in the Trinity. It is God's image of Himself. It is the actual words Jesus used while on earth. God became man and used our own language to speak with us. It is indeed Scripture, but it is also, as pondered by the Metropolitan of Constantinople at the Synod, God speaking to us through everything we encounter in our daily lives. This was one of the encounters with God that I personally discovered on my walk with the contemplative Community of the Beatitudes in Africa. God communicates with us constantly. He uses everything. It is only our business and distractedness that prevents our listening. If we but took time to consider our surroundings, we would hear God's voice, His Word, speaking through it all. This flower, that co-worker, my car that uses too much gas, a plain table.
The Archbishop remarked on Lectio Divina, or Holy Reading, an ancient method of prayer with the Scriptures. Faithful of all walks of life are taking this up as a way to pray to God through His Word.

Let us take time to ponder God's majesty and love through the small things, considering His Word to us in our everyday life. I pray He converts your heart more and more that you fall deeply in love with Him. Peace be with you!

All Saints Day with Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Pietro Sambi

This weekend for the Solemnity of All Saints, I went with a few students to our National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. It was a special occasion for the feast, but also because our Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, celebrated mass. It was a beautiful liturgy with fantastic choral arrangements and organ music. Archbishop Sambi delivered an insightful and animated homily about our communion within the Communion of Saints. He reflected upon the many instances in the mass when we ask their intercession. Thus the priest prays, "God, by the merit of their prayers and intercession may we gain your constant help and protection".

I must say it is an incredible gift to have fabulous places like the National Shrine to take students to. We met at the Catholic Student Center in College Park and drove the 15 minutes down Michigan Avenue to the Shrine for a holy hour before mass (which also got us great seats!), and then some time afterward for fellowship.

And on this memorial of All Souls, may God protect all your loved ones who have died in Christ, may they by His Passion and Cross come to their reward in Heaven.