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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2008
Dear
friends,
Greetings
and peace. At the store this morning, I volunteered to the check out person that Labor Day is one of my favorite holidays.
Her response was: "Really, why?" For a moment, I had to ask myself that same question. I realized that deep in my consciousness
was the experience of school beginning.
During
both my grade and high school years, Labor Day weekend marked the end of summer and the start of a new school year. In Missouri,
the weekend marked our last trip to swim in lakes and rivers. The lazy, hazy days of summer
began to flow into fall. Temperatures dropped and humidity eased as our lives changed from endless carefree days to days of
study, games, and new friends and demanding teachers. These changes always speak to me of the “divine comedy”
of life in Christ Jesus.
An ancient treasure of spiritual wisdom I often quote is: "Be careful what you pray for, you
may get it." My prayer is for new life and possibilities. God hears my prayer and gives life in fresh and surprising
vistas. However, maybe these gifts and surprises are not the boxes I hoped to open.
In
the last two Sunday Gospels, Peter the apostle is surprised and offered new life in Christ Jesus. "Who do you say I am?" asks
Jesus of Peter last week. Peter at first volunteers the stock answer: "some say John the Baptist
or one of the prophets." Jesus refuses to take a surface answer. Looking into Peter's soul Jesus asks "Who do you say I am?"
Jesus goes from Peter's head to Peter's heart. St. Peter goes to his core with the response: "You are Christ, the Son of the
Living God!"
Peter has new life in Christ Jesus. Peter has a heart relationship with Jesus. However, this relationship
also has challenges. Jesus tells Peter and the disciples that he must go up to Jerusalem to suffer, die, and rise at the hands of the religious leadership
of the country. Peter refuses to accept this new and intense dimension of life with Jesus. The Lord directly confronts Peter
and shares deep feelings: "Get behind me Satan...you are not thinking as God does but as human beings."
Peter is taken to candor and heart in his walk with Christ Jesus.
Friends, this same Jesus invites you and me to daily
challenges, growth, and joys in our friendship in the Lord. May this September, the start of the school year, the movement
into the last busy months of 2008 find you and I ready and open to welcome the gifts, challenges, and people God is bringing
into our lives. May we know as does St. Peter that God is in love with us beyond our dreams. As our lover and friend, Jesus
looks into the eyes, into our souls and poses the ancient question: "Who do you say I am?"
In St.
Therese and St. Benedict,
Brother Fred Buerman ob. OSB
www.handofhelp.info
www.holytrinitymonastery.org
P.S. Friends please take a look at the many tabs on our website sharing the mission of Hand of Help to
young adults. We welcome your emails and communications. Happy Labor Day!
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FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 2008
Dear Friends,
Greetings and peace!
This summer of 2008 is both a blessed and busy time. I am enjoying preaching each weekend. I find that the Gospel is
a constant call to me for conversion and change of heart. I send you special blessings on the feast of the Assumption of Mary,
assumed body and soul into heaven. This feast is always a special one for me. Both my mother and father had a great devotion
to Mary, Mother of God. Facing the hard times of the depression of the 1930s and the upheavals of World War II, they both
found a mother of mercy in Mary.
We celebrate Mary's Yes to Jesus, the Reversal of God. Mary's prayer in the Gospel
account is a poem of reversal, The Magnificat: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my
Savior for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant...." I invite you to read the whole poem Mary speaks to her cousin
Elizabeth on the visitation to her home: Luke 1: 46-55.
 Mary's yes now becomes
our yes. Fifteen years ago this summer, I was blessed to be working with AIDS patients through the Holy Redeemer Support Group
and living at Holy Redeemer Rectory in San Francisco. I called up a man quite sick named Richard. We visited
over the phone and then I asked if I could come and see him. Richard replied that Jesus would not be comfortable at his home
so how would I be? Richard also volunteered that he was not a member of any church. Finally, Richard said: "you can come over
for a few minutes."
As I walked the few short blocks to Richard's apartment, I prayed that I might offer some hope
and care. At our first meeting, we were both a bit formal. However in the Spirit we soon found mutual roots in St. Louis and a mutual passion for old movies. I also noticed a rosary by Richard's bed.
I asked him about the rosary. "My stepmother gave it to me as a child, a long time ago." We then began to share about the
rosary and Mary, mother of God. At the end of the visit, Richard said: "You can come again if you would like."
Coming home that evening, I shared with Father Zachary Shore, pastor of Holy Redeemer, about my visit with Richard. Father Shore gave me a present to take to Richard
on our next visit, a picture of Mary, Mother of All Light in Darkness. This little gift touched my new friend's spirit. Over
the next year, I saw his love of Mary grow, I heard Richard's yes to God's reversal of despair in his life. The following
Easter, Richard was received into the Church.
Finally, Richard's illness took a turn for the worse. Talking with him
a month before he died, Richard said: "You know how I said that Jesus would not come to my house. Well, now Jesus is here
brought by his mother. Jesus and Mary have invited me to their home. Richard's life flowed into the Jesus, the Yes and Reversal
of God. I tell Richard's story tonight as I preach here at Our Lady of Mercy.
Friends may you and I say yes in Mary's
spirit to Jesus, the Reversal of God! May we sing like Mary and Richard now with God: "He has come to the help of his servant
Israel, for he has remembered his promise
of mercy, the promise he made to our forebears to Abraham, Sara, and their children for ever."
Blessed Assumption and
joy in the Lord Jesus and Mary!
Brother Fred Buerman ob.OSB
www.handofhelp.info
www.holytrinitymonastey.org
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SUNDAY,
JULY 27, 2008
Dear
friends,
Blessings
and peace!
I
always find it a joy to be in touch with all of you. This weekend finds me at the parish of the Transfiguration in San Jose, CA
preaching the Mission appeal for Hand of Help. My thoughts this morning are on Jesus as buried
treasure and imagination of God.
Jesus' parables, little stories of everyday life, stand the
test of time. Sunday after Sunday, when I share the parables I see joy, gladness along with questions and challenges in my
hearers and in my own heart. This week is no exception. Jesus offers his hearers and us across the centuries, parables about
the Kingdom of God.
Buried treasures, pearls of great
price, vast schools of the fish swimming in the sea are all images Jesus--the Imagination of God--uses to lure us into life
at new levels of depth and intimacy. Are you and I ready to treasure hunt? Are you and I ready to be surprised? Are you and
I ready for “the Imagination of God” in our community, lives, and world?
 Last week I had the joy of seeing
one of my spiritual mentors, Bill Edwards of St. Louis, MO. Bill is
80 plus years young, a man living in and with Jesus, the treasure and imagination of God. Over forty years ago, Bill met a
bishop who called him to a commitment to helping in the donation of planes for missionaries all over the world. At the time,
Bill was married, raising six children with his dear wife Charlotte and running a business. Yet called by Jesus through the
bishop to assist missionaries to preach the Gospel in remote areas, Bill said yes. Bill's treasure hunt in Jesus treasure
of God resulted in the foundation of "Wings of Hope." This wonderful organization has been going strong since 1962. Over 150
planes have been made available to missionaries around the world. Bill, in the Spirit, gave over the leadership 15 years ago.
Now Bill mentors, prays, and supports missionaries like myself. Talking with Bill, makes the Gospel of the Kingdom come alive.
Bill is a life long treasure hunter for Jesus the treasure of God. Bill has opened his imagination to Jesus, the Imagination
of God.
Friends,
you and I are also called to treasure hunt in the fields of our lives. You and I are called to bring our imaginations into
Jesus, the Imagination of God. There are pearls of great price waiting for us to discover. May Jesus the parable of God bless
our treasure hunting as Jesus calls us to life now and life eternal beyond our dreams. Until next week, good hunting!
In
St. Therese and St. Benedict,
Brother Fred Buerman ob.OSB
www.handofhelp.info
www.holytrinitymonastery.org
PS Please send us requests for prayers and your graced comments! FB
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THURSDAY,
JULY 10, 2008
Dear
friends,
Blessings
and peace in the Spirit.
May the winds and sun of summer kiss and bless your spirit in
the Spirit. This coming weekend we receive some very concrete teachings from the Lord Jesus. The account of St. Matthew: 13:1-23
is all about the Jesus the Seed of God falling into different kinds of ground soil. In many of Jesus' examples, the soil is
not able to receive the seed. Yet, for the soil receptive to the seed a harvest of richness follows.
 Jesus' account takes me back a few years ago to a Vision Quest that
I made in the desert around Arizona City. Lynch, a good friend and Yaqui
Indian, was my spirit guide. Lynch had been a "tunnel rat" in Vietnam facing
death day in and day out as he bore through the earth in the jungles of Vietnam.
For seven days, Lynch mentored me in the harsh yet inviting desert. As we began, Lynch referred to the seed of insight being
shared in the soil of my person. Each day brought new wonders and new challenges. With Lynch, I felt safe and able to grow.
Again and again, Lynch called me to notice life at deeper levels.
 On the last day, Lynch took me to a cliff overlooking the desert landscape. For three hours, I stayed alone in thought
and prayer, a bit anxious about snakes and other desert life. Sitting on the ledge, Lynch advised me to focus on something
which gave me hope. In front of me, a little tree growing out of the rock with a tiny bloom called to me. In its fragile survival,
I found a link to my own fragile spirit. Lynch finally came for me and invited me to sing my song of hope. Lynch, a man in
love with Christ, helped me to understand the seed of God eager to grow in the soil of Fred.
Friends may Jesus the seed of God grow and bloom in the unique soil of you and I in time and eternity. Blessings to you
all in Jesus the Seed, summer, and bright Sun of God. In St. Therese and St. Benedict, Brother Fred Buerman
ob.OSB www.handofhelp.infowww.holytrinitymonastery.org
_________________________ THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2008
Dear Friends,
Blessings and
peace as the summer time embraces us here in the northern hemisphere and winter greets our Hand of Help network in New Zealand
and other parts of the southern hemisphere.
I write you
today of courage and grace under pressure. Today is the feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop and Doctor of the Church. St. Cyril fascinates
me because he lived just three hundred years after the Lord Jesus. His writings and life tell of a man in love with the Lord
Jesus and his mother Mary in every fiber of his being. These early centuries of the Church witness struggles over the question
of Jesus as both God and human. St. Cyril celebrates Jesus' humanity as born of Mary like us in all things except sin.
Cyril
experienced much conflict around his beliefs. One of his shining moments was at the Council of Ephesus in the fifth century.
Ephesus was the center of learning and style in Cyril's day.
Visiting Ephesus a few years ago, I recall its magnificent
ruins. I call Ephesus the Boston
of the ancient world. In Ephesus, St, Cyril proclaims: "That
anyone could doubt the right of the holy Virgin to be the Mother of God fills me with astonishment. Surely she must be the
mother of God if our Lord Jesus is God, and she gave birth to him."
About fifty years after the Council of Ephesus,
a major earthquake rocked this ancient center of learning. A few more earthquakes and natural disasters turned Ephesus into ruins but the Spirit of the council and Cyril's faith are with us today. I love
his feast because in St. Cyril, St. Paul, and Mary we are
linked to a God become human, a God who tells us that our life now is only the beginning of an eternal adventure with God's
unconditional Love.
In the hills above Ephesus, there
stands the final home, according to legend, of Mary. Visiting this little shrine of Jesus' mother almost ten years ago, I
felt a peace, a joy in the presence of goodness. I cannot vouch for all the history of Mary's home. However, I can say that
Mary's “Yes” to God brings hope and possibilities beyond our dreams. I pray this week like St. Cyril, St. Paul, and Mary that we all can say yes to God so alive in our lives.
Blessings until next week! Please share your comments, reflections, and request for prayers with us.
In St.
Therese and St. Benedict,
Brother Fred Buerman, ob OSB
www.handofhelp.info
www.holytrinitymonastery.org
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SUNDAY, JUNE 15, 2008
Dear friends,
We hear this
weekend from Jesus that: "the harvest is great, but the laborers are few." Often, I have taken this to mean that we need to
invite more young adults into Jesus--the Harvest of God--as priests, sisters, brothers, and lay ministers. Preparing to preach
in the Diocese of Scranton this weekend, the Spirit brought home to me new dimensions of Jesus' call into the harvest.
I found myself
sharing with three faith communities now united. These parish churches of St. John, Blessed Sacrament, and St. Francis have long histories
of faith, hope, and charity. Immigrants built these homes of faith. Their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren
continue through life in the Spirit.
Sharing today at the early morning liturgy at St. John's,
a couple visited with me after Mass. They spoke of their
great love and care for missionaries. These fine people also recounted a mission of their own. With much love and pride, they
showed me a picture of a smiling young man originally from Nigeria.
They became his step parents when he was ten years old. Today he is an independent young adult with his own business and life.
However, he is their beloved son now thirty years old. Reflecting on their mission journey of raising and caring for him brings
the presence of the Spirit to all of us. Their testimony helps me to receive new possibilities for Jesus' words.
Today
preaching a homily on mission, I found these lay missionaries preaching a homily much more eloquent than my own in the testimony
of their lives and call as missionaries to this young man from Nigeria.
We may have our part of Jesus' harvest all picked out. The harvest field of our comfort awaits us.
Jesus the Lord
of the Harvest may have other plans for us. Perhaps, "the harvest is great and laborers are few" because I want to decide
what part of the harvest is my call. I came from the early liturgy at St. John's
with a special wisdom for us in the Spirit: God has wonderful plans for you and me in God's harvest. God is waiting on my
yes, not my way, but God's way. May you and I embrace life in Jesus' harvest of God!
Friends I send you all blessings
and peace this week. Please share your wisdom. We also welcome your request for prayers.
In St. Benedict and St. Therese,
Brother Fred Buerman ob.OSB
www.handofhelp.info
www.holytrinitymonastery.org
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THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 2008
Dear Friends:
Blessings and peace to all of you. I am very happy to resume my weekly spiritual e-mail. Many of you have offered
great inspiration and encouragement about these weekly spiritual communications. Thanks for giving me energy in the Spirit
to continue this graced sharing.
The Gospel of Matthew for this 10th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Matt 9:9-13) feels like
a personal letter sent to the address of my life by Jesus. Perhaps, this is so because the date of June 12 draws near. Every
year on June the 12, I remember and thank God for an anniversary. June 12, 1962, is the date I entered Church service as a
young man of 17 years. Somewhere in my psyche I heard that same call that Matthew hears in the account today from Jesus: "Follow
me". How surprised Matthew must have been to hear the call: "Follow me". Matthew is a tax collector, unclean, an out cast
from the traditional Jewish purity codes of who was in and who was out.
Matthew's call is full of surprises. Jesus
does not just call Matthew the tax collector from his life and world into a new life and world totally separate from his friends.
Rather, Jesus comes to a banquet at Matthew's home with other sinners and tax collectors much to the astonishment of the Pharisees.
Jesus' response to the outrage of the Pharisees is "'I desire mercy, not sacrifice; I did not come to call the righteous but
sinners.'"
Driving to Glencoe, MO on that 12th of June 1962, to the postulancy
of the Christian Brothers, I felt anxious and afraid. I was sure that my other brothers would be very holy and together. What
a relief when I met 60 other young fellows just like me all in need of God's mercy. Each day I marvel at the life of Church
service which God guides me into day after day. Now in 2008, I still feel like Matthew, trying to follow Jesus but so much
in need of His mercy.
Perhaps you too have these feelings and wonder where God is leading. I only know this: Our God
is a God of mercy, our Jesus bids us to follow daily with all our weaknesses, challenges, and possibilities. Pray for me this
week, as I do for you. Until next week,
In St. Therese and St. Benedict,
Brother Fred Buerman ob.OSB
www.handofhelp.info
www.holytrinitymonastery.org
P.S. Please share with us any prayer requests. There is a place on the Hand of help website to do this.
You can also email us at serve@theriver.com. FB
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