The Family Foundation School Catholic Community Bulletin
Pauca Verba (a few words)
Monday is the Feast of the Holy North American Martyrs. These are eight members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) who were horribly tortured and killed in North America by Iroquois Indians. These missionaries from France were attempting to lead the natives of the region to Christianity. Three died at Auriesville, New York: Rene Goupil (1642), John de la Lande (1646) and Father’s Isaac Jogues (1646). The others died at Midland, Ontario, Canada: Father John de Brebeuf (1649), Father Anthony Daniel (1648), Father Gabriel Lalamant (1649), Father Charles Garnier (1649), Father Noel Chabanel (1649).
Here at school we might see in Father Noel Chabanel a particular patron as he was a scholarly man of great intelligence but who was unable to learn the Huron language. This inability made him effectively useless to the mission work. Father Chabanel was unable to adapt to the harshness of the life of the Canadian wilderness, the food and lack of hygiene. Despite his natural feelings of revulsion, however, he had taken a vow before The Blessed Sacrament to remain working on the mission in North America until he died! He was the last of the Jesuit martyrs, having been shot and killed by a Huron Christian who had apostasized (fell away from the faith) and who later admitted his crime had been motivated by revenge for the evils he believed the missionaries had brought upon his family.
Father Noel Chabanel’s icon is found on the wall next to the window of the confession room at the front entrance of our chapel. He is so important for us because HE STAYED and finished his work when everything around him said, Go home to the comfort of France. We might learn from his story: perseverance, non-hatred, humility and the deepening of our own faith in Jesus, who has “been so gracious as to die for me.”
Take these words of Pope Benedict XVI to heart:
“To all of you I appeal: Open wide your hearts to God! Let yourselves be surprised by Christ! Let him have ‘the right of free speech’! Open the doors of your freedom to his merciful love! Share your joys and pains with Christ, and let him enlighten your minds with his light and touch your hearts with his grace.”
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In today’s gospel Jesus tells of the rich man who had a huge harvest…more than he could store. So the man tore down his barns and built larger ones. Then he said to himself, “There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, ‘Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!’” But God said, “You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?”
What about this? the television world we absorb – eating, drinking, playing, resting, fun, fun, fun…. And then all of a sudden, often without warning, we’re gone and it’s all over. Of a short life lived this way, or a long life: what was that all about? I mean, do we ever think about these things: Why was I made? Why was I made uniquely? For what purpose? What’s my destiny? Was I made for nothing?
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Look across the property to the hills opposite the school. The leaves are all fallen now. A great maple can drop many thousands of leaves! Is there something to learn from the trees? Is there something I need to drop? Old bitterness I’m clinging to? The carrying around of all my stuff? My indifference to spiritual things: later, later, later… My petty resentments around this place? My loveless reaction to people? My selfishness that keeps me from even thinking of God’s poor, while I am entertained, over-fed, living under a mountain of things I say I absolutely must have? Drop my life-method of lying? We each have to name the falling leaves. Next spring’s leaf-buds are right behind each fallen leaf! New life is promised! But first, the tired old leaves have to be dropped.
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Christmas Greccio at The Family School! We’ve heard of Saint Francis creating a living Christmas scene at Greccio, in a cave, high up in the mountains. The people came from all around to celebrate the birth of Jesus in a most memorable and tender way. While next year we hope to celebrate Christmas in our own ‘cave’ – (that will take some doing) this year students are building a manger for Mary, Joseph and the Holy Infant. Musicians are preparing the carols and songs. We’ll bundle up and celebrate Christmas Midnight Mass – with live animals – under the stars and the moon. Candle-light and hay bales. We’ll learn a beautiful new Gloria and sing with the Christmas angels: Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis…Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth.
