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Let us pray:

Gracious God, we know that you are present today as you were at our founding. We thank you for the pastoral vision of Servant of God, Fr. Isaac Thomas Hecker and the missionary zeal of his companions.

We ask that you bless our Paulist family. Inspire us to use our gifts to serve the people of North America. Enkindle a fire within us to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. Challenge us to reconcile all who have been hurt or alienated. Encourage us to unify the Body of Christ and to pursue dialogue with people of all faiths.

By the grace of your Holy Spirit and through the intercession of St. Paul the Apostle, lead us in wisdom's ways into a future not our own; strengthen us to be the servants of your Word. May we strive to help all men and women to discover Christ in our age so that together we might build up your kingdom of Earth.

We make our prayer through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Paulist Fathers' latest video on what is the Paulist mission.

Pope Bendict XVI is going to announce the first Pauline year. The Church is known for dedicating years toward various themes; we've had many Marian years, years dedicated to the Eucharist or the Rosary, but now, to the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul.

St. Paul, who is turning the ripe old age of 2,000, will be the focus of a year starting June 29, 2008, the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul and ending on the same feast in 2009. No information has been released on what type of events the Vatican will be hosting for the year.

The Paulist Fathers, who look to St. Paul as their patron, will be the midst of celebrating their 150th anniversary.

I like it when things work together.

The Rights of Catholics in the Church

by James A. Coriden

The work, by Rev. James Cordien, is obviously the work of a scholar of canon law. While very factual, the presentation is dry. At the end of the discussion in each section, Cordien adds needed flavor through a case study.

While the presentation is dry, the work is a comprehensive look at the rights of Catholics in Church (true to the name!) while admitting that these rights are not always respected. The sense from the author is that as the Church adapts more the notion of "rights of the faithful", some of the difficulty is presented by the Church, through her priests or bishops or through the institutions of appeal or lack thereof.

In many sectors of the Church, the faithful are sadly believe that "Father is always right", no matter the situation. This work brings to light many of the rights that I personally was not fully versed on, such as the right to educate children or for religious formation. Some rights, like the right to form assemblies of the faithful, are more well-known through their fruits, the many lay association movements that now exist in the Church. Other rights, such as the right to receive the sacraments should be explored in greater depth--many pastors prohibit individuals from marrying because of parish "registration", something not foreseen by the Church.

The work is divided into three broad sections: "An Overview of Rights in the Church", a section that looks at the historical development of rights and freedoms in the Church, from the apostles to the revised 1983 Code of Canon Law. The meat of the book is found in the second section, "The Rights of Catholics in the Church". This 100-page section speaks of twenty-eight rights identified from the Code of Canon Law by the author broken into relatively easy to understand sections that follow a logical order. Many of these discussions overlap since many of the rights are rooted in common themes, especially the active participation of the faithful in the life and ministry of the Chuch. The final section, "Limitations On and Defense of Rights in the Church", after acknowledging the rights, explores the limitations and nature of appealing when a person's rights are denied.

All in all, I give this book three stars for "I liked it". I probably won't read it cover-to-cover again, but it'll stay in my reference collection and add to my understanding of canon law. I do hope the author completes a second volume discussing the obligations, the flip side of the rights coin, of Catholics in the Church.

Last night, I made my national radio debut on Sirius' The Catholic Channel- Channel 159 on your Sirius Satellite Radio- during Paulist Father Dave Dwyer's Busted Halo nightly broadcast. This is the sister program to the BustedHalo podcast.

It was a brief segment about what was preached during the Sunday homily (to connect with Friday evening's segment about what readings are lined up for Sunday) and to make a quick plug for the UCC's homily podcast.

I'll be updating that after lunch.

If Christ is to be for us a savior, we must find him here, now, and where we are, in this age of ours; otherwise, he is no Christ, no Savior, no Immanuel, no "God with us."

After my comments questioning the Catholicity of Georgetown, to be fair, I should also highlight that they do honor priests who aren't as controversial as Fr. Drinan.

Georgetown President John J. DeGioia presented the President’s Medal to Father Thomas F. Stransky, C.S.P. The Paulist Father has worked greatly over the years with interfaith relations and was one of the principle drafters of the Vatican II document, Nostra Aetate.

I met Fr. Stransky when I was in Washington, DC last month since he's been in DC for a short while now over the course of this lecture series. He'll be returning back to the Tantur Institute in Isreal shortly. The Institute, founded after Vatican II to continue the discussion between Catholic, Orthodox and Protestants, is owned by the Vatican, administered by the University of Notre Dame and is directed by Paulists.

I'm in flight again over the States as I travel back to Texas. This time, however, I'm in a MD-80 so there are a few more people on the plane. St. Paul's College, the seminary for the Paulist Fathers, is a beautiful place. First, it is located on 4th Street in Washington, DC, right next door to the offices of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and just a bit further away from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It is virtually surrounded by various houses of other orders and it almost like "Catholic Row", just off campus of Catholic University of America.

Since I'm in flight and I'm lacking the right cable, pictures will be uploaded later.

Inside the building, the chapel is a very simple space. It is configured in a choir setup (with the pews split in two sections facing each other across the main aisle) with an ambo near the entrance with the altar on the opposite end of the space. On the left side, there is a fixed organ and a piano complements the chapel on the right side. As you would expect with a chapel, we celebrated Mass and prayer sessions throughout the weekend. As I'll write more about later, Fr. Issac Hecker had two "mission crosses", which were crosses that Paulists kept and used as they preached missions across the country. One of his mission crosses is displayed outside of the chapel. Later, I discovered that the other cross is kept in the archives which are located in the space I'll discuss- the library.

The library was amazing. Formerly the chapel, the two-level library is adored with various stained class windows. In addition to a couple of "usual saints", there are also windows for Fr. Issac Hecker, the society's founder and another one for the Paulist Press (founded in 1868), among others. It would a nice area to study and if I had more time, I would be able to tell you more about the library, namely the book selection.

The common rooms were nice. The Paulist Fathers do not take vows of poverty, but instead seek to live a life of Gospel simplicitiy. In practice, this means they live comfortably without excess. Between the various common rooms I saw, they had nice TVs to watch movies or sporting events with the guys in the house, well-stocked fridges and plenty of little snacks. All in all, this provides a space for the priests, seminarians and novices to de-stress and build fraternity among the members.

I enjoyed the rooms at St. Paul's. Each person in the house has their own room with a wired Internet connection (wireless offered as well), a small closet, a small dresser, a desk, a bed with a bathroom and shower. I didn't look in the rooms of the men who are actually living at St. Paul's, so I'm sure it varies some. Personally, while I'm not obligated to Gospel simplicity, I should reduce some of the "stuff" I have and once I did that, the rooms would have everything I need.

The dining room is nice and open, giving itself to discussion. The adjancent reception room is where they have their weekly "community dinner"- a little nicer affair than a normal meal- appears about the same. I haven't really reflected why they have two seperate spaces except perhaps to make the weekly dinner a bit more special. If they had a large group, I did notice, the wall between the spaces can slide open making it one large space.

I didn't see the recreation space. They are currently renovating two wings to turn them into the Hecker Center for Mininstry (read: office space for non-Paulist Catholic organizations) and my assumption is that some of the rec space has been impacted by it. I saw an exercise bike in a storage hallway. Of course, let's not use this to assume the Paulists care not about the physical health of their members. From my experience, both Fr. Dave and Ed at the UCC have membership to UT Rec Sports.

For the moment, that is all I can think to write. Now, I'll move on to homework.

Just wanted to pass along to everyone in Texas that it is currently 51 degrees in Washington, DC and they're not expecting it to get over 58 degrees by the end of the day.

Stay tuned for an interesting event that took place in route to Washington, DC....