A MESSAGE FROM OUR RETREAT DIRECTOR
Thank you to all of you for supporting the Passionist Community
in its ministries. Our ministry is all about keeping alive the memory of the
Passion and death of Jesus Christ, which our founder St. Paul of the Cross saw as the most outstanding sign of God’s
love for each of us: Which means that there is nothing that we have ever done, or that anyone can ever do to us, that can
separate us from the Love of God!
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Although preaching has always been a primary ministry for
us, the modes, the means and the venues of this ministry continue to evolve. Today we find ourselves proclaiming our message
on the internet, working in collaboration with laity and with women religious, developing new interdependent relationships
with Passionists from around the world, and professing the implications of our spirituality at the United Nations through
our NGO – which represents Passionist men and women from at least 56 countries.
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When
a man or a woman joins the Passionists, he or she can be certain that in some manner they will be confronted by the sufferings
of Christ, both from within themselves and in the person of the brothers and sisters of Christ to whom they are sent. I have been a professed Passionist for 46 years and a priest for 39 years.
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I have been privileged to preach from coast to coast to coast, as we say in Canada, – from the subarctic
to Newfoundland to Vancouver Island; and also from Maine to the San Joaquin Valley, from San Francisco Bay to New York City;
and from Kingston to Mandeville in Jamaica, WI.
Everywhere I have been sent I have seen the cross:
Carried by people living in third world conditions on a native
reserve in the sub-arctic of Northern Ontario; in the southern coal fields of West Virginia; and in the hills of Jamaica,
West Indies;
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Carried
by a retired miner suffering from black lung disease telling how wonderful God is for providing him with so much even as he
was living in a shack built around a disabled school bus and his developmentally challenged adult sons
provided meat by hunting squirrels, rabbits, and deer - in season and out of season;
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Carried
by affluent women in fur coats who told stories of hiding in boxes in their suburban attics to avoid their abusive husbands;
by inner city youth who received no support or evidence of love from their overwhelmed parents;
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Carried by a high school student who, struggling with his
homosexual orientation, told me, “You need to tell the students who are gay that God loves them!”
Intrigued that that would be the first thing he would ever say to me, I asked “Why?” And
he responded, “Maybe if they hear that they will trust that someone cares about them and they won’t be tempted
to go to the gay district where some unscrupulous people will take advantage of them”!
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Carried by persons who have been scandalized, oppressed, or abused by representatives of the church;
and also carried by persons in deep grief and remorse over the things that they had done to others;
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Carried by our wonderful Passionist Volunteers International as they brought Communion to bedridden
women and men living in dark, cramped quarters on the spine of the low mountains outside Kingston, Jamaica, and by other volunteers
testing the people for diabetes and high blood pressure;
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Carried
by the Jamaican women struggling up and down the steep mountainside to wash their laundry in the only slightly polluted river
below;
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Carried by the 850 youth and adult volunteers who each summer
travel to Preston County, WV to improve the living conditions of hundreds of people incapacitated by age, injury, mental illness
and depression;
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Carried by a recent graduate from high school, who, after
a month travelling in Europe with his friend, told me that his volunteer stint was far better than the freewheeling trip.
He said, “This is like being on retreat!”
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Each Passionist Retreat House, Parish, overseas mission, TV
Mass, internet outreach, and each individual Passionist has a common experience: the Passion of Jesus continues in the people
– both in their suffering and in their service to one another.
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In my three years at Bishop Molloy Retreat House I have ministered to members
of the NYPD and the FDNY; politicians; lawyers; alcoholics; drug addicts; and people with other addictions; business
men and women; abused women AND men; seminarians; religious sisters and brothers; priests; deacons; college, high school,
and middle school students; Protestant clergy and laity; mystics and repentant sinners. And
no Passionist I know would be surprised at that list! It is our call to be there to assist those who need
us. So thanks again for assisting us in our vocation - to carry the message of the
love of God expressed in the Cross to all who cross our path by serving the suffering Christ in our midst.
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You can support Bishop Molloy Passionist Retreat House by spreading the word about
our programs and by donating to us at: Bishop Molloy Passionist Retreat House86-45 Edgerton Blvd.Jamaica, NY 11432 - 718-739-1229
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