Perkiomen Trail

Perkiomen Trail

Cold winter without snow

An artist's rendition of the theme:

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The creche at the corridor entrance of the Wernersville chapel includes these four figures as the center piece.   A poem I recently uncovered features the one figure that might seem out of place.

The Oxen

BY THOMAS HARDY

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

“Now they are all on their knees,”

An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve,

“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,”

I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so.

May we all weave "so fair a fancy" in 2019!  

Frank P. Fischer Memorial

Frank P. Fischer

NOV 10, 1926 - NOV 16, 2018

At Frank's funeral on December 21 in St. Ignatius Church in Baltimore.

300 of his favorite people gathered to mourn with one another.

The Desanctis family, his sister's children, were present and spoke of  the pleasure of knowing  him as a guest at their groaning table when they were growing up.

I remembered how I first saw  him when I was a student at Saint Joseph's Prep and Frank was there with seven other Jesuits in their white cassocks getting a blessing for their mission to Burma.

About forty African American grads of Loyola Blakefield processed in to the Church at the beginning of the funeral Mass.   All of them knew Frank as their teacher at Loyola.  He was responsible for the programs that began meaningful racial integration at the school in about 1967.

It was clear from testimony in the church and afterward in the church hall that Frank always, and I mean ALWAYS, focused on the persons in his presence and encouraged them to be their best positive selves, without any question.   It was his way of loving.

In reaching out to his urban students, he would go so far as to drive them from the suburban Loyola campus back to their downtown neighborhoods.   Sometimes he would not know the way; sometimes his students questioned the quality of the car; sometimes, as they told the story with happy memories, they chose to take the bus instead.

Someone testified to his compassionate work at the St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center where people with every kind of housing finance issue came to see him.  Once a client was suffering also with a bad tooth.   Frank took her to the University of Maryland dental clinic and paid for the healing work required to relieve the pain.

Another testified about one source of his compassion: his own chronic back pain.   Somedays even when in his office he would simply lie flat on the floor to ease his discomfort.

Another testified to some of his absent mindedness in his last years.   She told how he, intending to call someone else, dialed her number by mistake instead.   She had not spoken with him in some time but was thrilled to have the opportunity to talk with him and he responded with genuine affection.

Another created an imaginary conversation between Frank and his loving wife Jeanne.   In the conversation Frank announced that he had given away his car.   Jeanne questioned the abundance of his generosity.   He thanked her for watching over him and moderating his behavior by saying how lucky he was to be married to her!

We also tried to sing without the success we would have had with Frank in the room.   We tried  to sing one of his favorite songs from his pre-college youth, "Chattanooga Choo-Choo."    I believe that we won't ever be able to sing it  again with the enthusiasm that Frank lent to our voices.   No, it is too difficult for us to sing now that the Choo-choo has choo-chooed him home.

Joanne Manzo points out the Memorial Plaque at Frank's favorite eatery, Koco's

Morning Star December 4, 2018

Venus has been steady in the early winter dawn.    A few days ago lined up with the crescent moon.

And this morning leaving the sliver of moon behind in the eastern dawn.

MATTHIAS ANTHONY BUR NOVEMBER 11, 2018

MATTHIAS BEGS ENTRANCE AT THE CHURCH DOOR SO THAT HE CAN BE BAPTIZED.   HE OUTGREW THE FAMILY BAPTISMAL GARMENT BUT IT SHOWS UP JUST AS IT HAS FOR A COUPLE OF GENERATIONS  IN THE GATHERING AROUND THE BAPTISMAL FONT (HOLY CROSS CHURCH, GARRETT PARK, MARYLAND).   THE PARENTS (MIKE AND LAURA) AND THE GRANDPARENTS (STEVE AND ANN) WERE SMILING MOST OF THE AFTERNOON.   THIS MUST BE A SOLEMN PART OF THE READING!

Autumn Colors Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth Nov 3, 2018

Jesuit Center, Wernersville Pa

The Autumn Colors are suddenly upon us this year and already they are starting to wain.   Fortunately we have some sun today!

Plowman-Kasper Wedding

PLOWMAN-KASPER WEDDING

The Wedding Cake with the Unity Candle ready for lighting.

Andrew Thomas Plowman and Jessica Helen Kasper

Great Uncle Frank with the bride

Some of my contribution to the wedding ceremony:   "....... while we in the congregation focus on this couple today, let’s not forget their parents: Kathleen and Keith and Tom and Ellen.   Without their steadfast love, without their commitment to their children, today never comes into being.   Yes, we celebrate today the blessings that these three couples are to one another and to us.    Be consoled because these marriages are God’s way that we, too, all of us witnesses get a share in their blessings both now and in the future.    Beyond these three couples representing two generations of family, we have present here grandparents.  And some of us knew great grandparents and great-great grandparents, all of these ancestors wonderful family members.   Jessica, I and some others here, when youngsters,  knew some of your great-great grandparents.   I have a photo of myself with your great-great grandmother, Elizabeth.   And photos, too, of myself with great grandparents, grandparents and parents.  You represent for me a fifth generation.     I just put on my personal bucket list a photo op with a member of the sixth generation.   But Andrew and Jessica, no pressure.   I’m feeling healthy.  But I am reluctant to count on the other fifth generation members in my family....."   


But here are some of the 5th gens with the bride; some of the family can certainly count on them but my time is relatively short!

    

Crypt Chapel at Wernersville

Crypt Chapel at Wernersville

Catholics very often honor  bishops and benefactors by burying them in chapels under the altars of much larger chapels.   The Main Chapel at Wernersville has just such a crypt chapel, a bit below grade level and windowless.   This is the site for the remains of Genevieve and Nicholas Brady. the generous benefactors of the building and grounds, built as a Novitiate and still used by the Jesuits for a residence.   But the large building now serves mainly as a retreat house.

This crypt chapel not many weeks ago was the site of a Mass celebrated for the Jesuits in the community by Father Robert McTeigue, S.J. with Father Ifkovits as his altar server.  

He celebrated Mass in the Extraordinary Form, the Latin Mass based on rituals approved and published after 1570 and commonly used until about 1962.   In certain circumstances in these days such a Mass is celebrated publicly.   Many Catholics find devotion in it.  Indeed it was the form of the Mass known to the Bradys.   For me it was a return to the experience of my childhood church in the nineteen forties and fifties.

Kingfishers and Dragonflies

Kingfishers and Dragonflies

Last year while off to the Abbey of the Genesee for retreat and rest, I was entertained by two Kingfishers actively feeding in a stream near the retreat house.  This year I happened to see one but it was quietly perched over the water.  Not feeding time?

But I did note the dragonflies.

One curiously attempted a landing on my head.    White patterns on its wings and body.   Another steel blue.  Another using a strong dry branch in the wind.   For twenty minutes on end it eyed its prey and did its own feeding.  And curious about me, too.

I was reminded of Hopkins' poem:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame...

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same...

Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

And reminded, too, of this simple Hiaku penned by a Gesu student about an unlikely sight there on North Philadelphia's Thompson St.

A butterfly lands on a leaf.

I look at it.

It looks back at me.

Chimney Swifts

CHIMNEY SWIFTS AT WERNERSVILLE JESUIT CENTER

An inactive chimney on our building  is the nesting place and night nest for hundreds of swifts.   These late summer, early fall evenings the ritual of floating into the chimney in great numbers takes about ten minutes.   Here is a portion of the show taking place each day between 7 and 7:30 PM.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1A-qRCI8vskw8rliBYmwMuGWUyLR7kYUi

Post Script:   Swifts left for the south most of them toward the end of the week of October 7.   It is said that some fly even to the Amazon.   We look forward to their return!

Always Partly Cloudy

ALWAYS PARTLY CLOUDY

Today partly cloudy.  The Future?

Ignore the foreshortened horizon, 

The clouds clumped in storm formation.

Tomorrow's forecast:

It's always partly cloudy.

May, June, July, August

DESPITE OUR WOES IN CIVIC AND CHURCH LIFE, ALL THESE EVENTS AND THEIR HEADLINERS CONTINUE TO GIVE US HOPE

Jack Sylvester  SJP '18   On to Scranton University but his younger brother Jeff will help him stay in touch with the Prep.

Butler Brothers, Carson and Kaden, Prep class of '18  with their parents Ronja and Bill Butler.   Carson to Gettysburg and Kaden to Messiah College.  The family lives in Camden bringing their Christian faith and Dad's artistic talent to share their own with the blessings they find there.

                                                         




Second from the right is Steven Dierkes, Prep '18, on the way to Holy Cross.   His brother Andrew, RN, PhD is just finishing his doctoral research at Univ of Penn.   Pictured with them is Fr, Shaun Mahoney, Neuman Chaplain at Temple University.

On the left are Jena and Jake Gonzales celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary at our Wernersville Chapel.   To their left is Jena's sister Annabelle.   On the right in Father Jack Barron, S.J. and in between three of the Precious Blood Sisters from Shillington.

My nephew Sean Bur and his bride Marissa Gelber are dancing the Horah!

Father Frank Kaminski, with his sister Phyllis are cutting the cake at a party arranged to celebrate  his fifty years as a Jesuit.   He serves energetically on the staff of the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth and helps us Jesuits celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, etc.  I am writing this on National Chop Suey Day but Frank is away and we resort to the ordinary.

Jesuit Vow Day for two young men completing their two-year Novitiate and moving on further to prepare for priesthood: Paul Phillipino and Doug Jones (on our right).  They are flanked by our Provincials and the Directors of the Novices.

I try not to miss a special sighting of Moon and Mars, here over the beach in July at Long Beach Island.    OK, my camera doesn't do Mars justice but clearly a reddish-tinged globe.

Rob Ambrose and Van Nguyen were married at St. Helena's on 5th St. in Philadelphia.   Van escaped Communist Vietnam about forty-five years ago as a child.   She was blessed to finally make her way to the USA as a refugee.   Rob grew up in Pennsylvania and works hard as a teacher in Philadelphia.

Van's young nieces and nephews all came to celebrate the Nuptial Mass with her.

Kirsten and Troy Sams  are flanking their youngest just baptized.   He is named for the Prince of Peace and is baptized Pax Charles.   His older brother (Emory Ignatius) and sister (Flora Minx) flank the font with  the baby's godparents. 

I got blessed to be a stand-in for the priest, Neil Ver'Schneider, who baptized the first two and was out of town.     This was a joyful event with mom telling how she was not sure about readiness for a third child...but God had a little surprise for the four of them.

These six talented young men were ordained priests in June at the chapel on the campus at Fordham University.   I had the opportunity to be there and enjoy conversations with scores of my Jesuit friends.   These six were among about thirty Jesuits ordained this summer in Canada and the United States.   Cardinal Dolan called our priestly work "spiritual cardiology."


AND MISSING:   THE PREP'S STAGING OF 1776! ;  TONY BRAITHWAITE AND HOWIE BROWN OFFERING A COMEDY SKETCH FEATURING THE FOIBLES OF OUR PRESIDENTS AND GETTING US TO LAUGH OFF OUR PTSD...POST TRUMP STRESS DISORDER; LASALLE COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL BACCALAUREATE FEATURING MY GRAND NEPHEW, DREW, AS STUDENT SPEAKER USING  JESUIT LANGUAGE WITH THE PHRASE "FINDING GOD IN ALL THINGS!"; A VISIT TO TWO AND THREE GENERATIONS OF FAMILY GRAVES AT HOLY SEPULCHRE WHERE I FOUND OUT THAT TWO PLOTS HOLD PLENTY OF SPACES FOR THEIR HEIRS; AND A MAY WEDDING OF TRICIA MORRIS AND JARRELL JAMES AT ST. RITA OF CASCIA ON SOUTH BROAD STREET.

AT ST RITA'S SOME PIUS MAN CAME UP TO ME AND KISSED MY HANDS THINKING THAT I WAS A LOCAL BISHOP!    THE ABSENCE OF A RING SHOULD HAVE PERPLEXED HIM AT LEAST!

Hiaku from the Archives March 1984

          Spring waters in flood

Down the folds of the hillsides
Dancing and falling.

 

The pale light of dawn

At sight of the waiting world

Breaks into bright flame.

Fischer Endowment at Loyola High School Baltimore

LOYOLA COMMUNITY COMES TOGETHER TO SUPPORT FRANK FISCHER ENDOWMENT

5/22/2018

On Friday, May 18, a group of 150 alumni and friends of Loyola gathered for a fundraising dinner benefiting the Frank P. Fischer Diversity Scholarship Fund at Loyola Blakefield, which is geared towards making a Loyola education more accessible to young African-American men in the Greater Baltimore region. Guest speakers included Ken Montague ’60 (the first African-American graduate of Loyola), Bill Jackson ’71 (Judge on the US Superior Court in DC), Trey Hunt ’19, and Izaac Hester ’21. Mr. Fischer was also in attendance. Many thanks to event chairmen Stan Mosley ’75 & Wesley Wood ’88, along with a large supporting cast of dedicated African-American alumni.

In the 1960s & '70s, then-Jesuit Frank Fischer took bold steps toward recruiting and preparing African-American students to attend Loyola. Frank was also instrumental in matching funding opportunities to ensure that those who might not otherwise have access to a Loyola education were fully supported. The Frank P. Fischer Diversity Scholarship Fund provides financial support to African-American students whose families possess a demonstrated financial need and who meet Loyola’s academic standards for admission. Mr. Fischer was the first person to facilitate the meaningful racial integration of Loyola Blakefield, and we honor his proud legacy through this fund.

If you would like to make a gift to the Frank P. Fischer Diversity Scholarship Fund, you can do so here.

Frank Fischer with his friend Ralph Moore at

Loyola High School Blakefield

I am the Vine; You are the Branches

 “It is to the glory of my Father that you should bear much fruit,

and then you will be my disciples.”   John 15.8

End of our eight foot gnarled grapevine trunk

Closeup of its promising shoots

TWO WEEKS LATER THE CANES ARE THRIVING

Though there are thriving vineyards not far away, here at the Jesuit Center we have only this one struggling vine.   Its gnarled old trunk was severely pruned this spring but, surprising us who know little of vine tending, these new shoots, called canes, are promising.  Last year the grapes were, while not vineyard worthy, somewhat plentiful and tasty.  Let's see what happens this year after the severe pruning.   Stay tuned for some seasonal progress.

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, April 29, 2018

Very often the gospels record the parables and proverbs that Jesus uses to illustrate his teachings.  In this morning’s gospel Jesus uses the grape vine as graphic illustration of our union with him.

In Berks County in recent years farmers and land owners have made the grape vine a more prominent feature of our landscape.   Wineries like Pinnacle Ridge and Clover Hill are attractive places to visit.   The grape vines themselves are extraordinarily durable.   They have a long and fruitful life, many bearing fruit for over a hundred years.   Tending the vines is a labor of love that demands focus, skill and good judgment.   Pruning is essential each year.   Done correctly it greatly improves the quality and number of grapes.    Not only are the dead branches cut off but most of the branches that bore fruit in the last season are cut back, some severely.   But amazing to those of us who know little about this pruning:  the tiny buds on the branches or canes that remain on the vine often yield two healthy clusters of grapes.

Jesus knew something about the care of the vines that yield fruitfulness.   This encouraged him to think of his followers as branches attached to him.   He imagines himself as the enduring trunk of the vine.   Truly, after the pruning process the budding branches might not look like they have much potential.   So, too, with his disciples; they appear to be without much potential, slow learners, knuckleheads we might say.   

We ask how it happens that they spread successfully the saving message of his love.  The answer is in the image.   As in the union of the vine and the branches, Jesus shares an intimacy with his disciples.   The vine and the branches together are one.  Without their intimate life of one in the other, no fruit is possible.   Jesus is life for the disciples and the disciples through their faith give life to his message.  

Year after year parts of pruned branches remain strong in their bearing of fruit, other branches die off but still new ones spring out of the trunk to continue the production of fruit.   So Jesus’ message not only survives but thrives into the ages that follow.   But to continue to bear fruit his disciples also experience the frequent pruning of their wayward selves, the frequent pruning of the fruitless parts of their persons. 

We pray that we can know ourselves as united to Jesus in that imagined intimacy of vine and branches.  This knowledge urges us to the practice of seeing Jesus in our brothers and sisters.  This knowledge urges us in our words and works to share ourselves freely with those that are in need.   Even if hardships seek to overcome us, this knowledge creates around us a community that offers consolation and hope.

        "It is to the glory of my Father that you should bear much fruit,

and then you will be my disciples.'

Goslings on site!

Goslings Galore

Yes, we see a lot of Canadian geese in our part of the world!    And now we know why!    

This couple has been to our pond in each of the last three years.  Mom sits on exactly the same nesting spot at the edge of the pond for two or three weeks each year.  She had to sit through some snow and freezing weather this year.

This is their third family just at our site.  We have no proof of numbers from last year but the first year there were at least four goslings.

There are, of course, predators in the wings and on the wings.   Our local red-tailed hawk butchered a duck that he had carried to the lawn right under my window.   A quiet place to dine.  So mom and dad have nothing to worry about from a stray photographer but they know enough to keep a steady watch.