last days

Wednesday June 4th was spent with the Nuns who are under our province’s jurisdiction. Fr. Gregory welcomed “our Sisters” [left to right]: Srs. Edith from Covington, Kateri from Sioux City, Donna from Piedmont, Angel Teresa from New Caney and Teresita from San Antonio. Sr. Therese from Little Rock was unable to come. We first shared what’s going on at the chapter and invited each to give a report on her community. Vocaton promotion was our first priority.

Covington: We were blessed during the time of Katrina with having our brothers from New Orleans here for a semester, and to help us clean up after the initial damage. Fr. Sam gave wonderful talks during his stay with us --very formative. Mary Catherine transferred to San Antonio, and Joan transferred from Little Rock. Fides made solemn profession 21-May-06 & Grace on 03-Jun-07. Anna Maria made 1st profession 08-Sep-06 & Gabrielle professed 05-May-07.

LittleRock: Greatest need is new life in our community. Blessed with close relationship with our Fathers.

New Caney: Our community celebrates 50 years of our foundation this year. With great emotion, voice choked, Sr. Angel Teresa acknowledged “an enormous debt of gratitude to San Antonio Carmel and our friars in helping us survive a crisis in our history.” LifeAwareness retreat was a help. MaryAnne was present at career day at St Thomas University and a day for high school seniors in vocation promotion. After a few visits, young women are invited to come inside the cloister for a live-in. Theresa Margaret came from Savannah Dec 28, 2007. We had difficulty finding a chaplain this triennium, but last March 28, Msgr Paul Procella retired to be our chaplain. Friars can help us as extraordinary confessor, with talks and retreats, homilies, and pooling efforts for vocational promotion. Dinosaurs moving into neighborhood: Dino Park planned.

Piedmont: The medium age of our community is 58. This triemmium we have celebrated one diamond (60) jubilee, one golden & one silver. Two became US citizens: Agatha and Maria. Villa Teresa invited over for Juan de Bono’s conferences on Elizabeth of Trinity which we hosted. We replaced our roof in Feb '08, and it was destroyed by a hail storm in March. Difficulty finding priests for Mass. We are developing a formation team to help the novice mistress. Elder Care concern to take care of Sisters at home with help. Our Fathers help by their visits. We want them available for special liturgies. Continue the Marylake formative program. Help foster vocations to friars and nuns, perhaps we could make a collaborative effort in this. We signed up for vocation day in Stubenville. We need to go where the vocations are.

San Antonio: We are grateful to our friars. We feel the relationship between the nuns and the friars here is as it should be. We have two Sisters in formation: Mary Catherine and Teresa Guadalupe a novice from Guadalajara. In July a woman from Puerto Rico will enter as postulant. All three are in their 30s. This is a big help as our membership is much older than that. Maria was received in 1970, so we have a big vocational gap. Hospice helps with Stella. Monthly day of recollection with Blessed Sacrament. Goals: vocation promotion, program for formators, deepen own community life and life of prayer. We want the friars to continue offering retreats for us in Spanish and in English. DVD’s of conferences could be made available. OCDS might help with this.

Sioux City: We’re a young community in a small city of 85,000. We have ten nuns. Our foundress Agnes 90, is still with us. We distribute altar breads and have a regular chaplain. We just received a postulant, the daughter of two OCDS members; she’s 21 years old. Medium age of community is 50. Vocation committee appointed, 4 nuns including novice. We made a vocational DVD, and have a procession to empty cells in our novitiate to pray for vocations. Happy to participate in Formators workshop. There’s something special about formation workshop in our province at Marylake. Goals: complete remodeling of choir and grill, plan something for St Paul year. We’re a diverse community; we work hard to have open expression of ideas. Provincial was there when we had to deal with a difficult situation.

Fr. Stephen asked if possible to have vocational requirements of each convent to help us direct prospects: age range, etc. to have perhaps in catalogue. Plan in such a way that dates when nuns will be out will not overlap with Association meetings, workshops, etc. Witchita nuns call themselves OCD. Our theological reflection is a ten year project initiated by the General Camillo with about 4 more to go.

The chapter finished up loose ends on Thursday the 5th, following the golden jubilee Mass for Fr. Jenaro on Wednesday evening in the Basilica. Cornish hens were prepared and tables decorated in the refectory afterwards. Father Ralph preached telling the story of Jenaro’s impatient encounter with some gypsies who showed up at Dallas’ cathedral on Ash Wednesday. They came up at Communion time. When Jenaro held up the host, after the “Cuerpo de Cristo,” they replied, “Not that! The other thing!” Jenaro told them he distributed ashes at the end of Mass. So they came up again after Mass, but stuck out their tongue as if they would be receiving Holy Communion. Jenaro, now exasperated with these unchurched gypsies, gave no furhter explanation. He simply put the ashes on their tongue.

After Mass, a banquet was held for all. The two Luises brought out the finest liquor.

The Chapter ended on Friday morning, the 9th. The chapter of 2008 came to a close at 10:00 am.

Day 6

Gregory convened at 9:05 am and welcomed the OCDS members present, introducinig the newly elected president of OCDS Provincial Council, Elizabeth Korves from Austin. Elizabeth Korves then introduced the members of the council: [left to right] Henrietta Albright from Baton Rouge, Dorothy Mansen from Dallas, Elizabeth, Gloria Guajardo from San Antonio, Nancy Thompson from Cedar Rapids Iowa, and secretary Karen Harris from Atlanta. Elizabeth then gave a report on the work of the PC over the last three years.

What can the friars do for the OCDS?

Ask each house how the friars collaborate with the OCDS group in their area in relation to helping share Carmelite spirituality. Each house reported after a coffee break. Marylake assists two communities in Little Rock and Jackson. They meet at our monastery twice a year. Seculars help with upkeep of our facilities in Dallas. Seculars in San Antonio are now meeting in the basilica undercroft. Oklahoma City invites more interaction of OCDS with friars, since they meet at our Nuns, and have a Villa Teresa Sister as their assistant. New Orleans assists two groups: one who meets at the seminary and the other at our nuns in Covington.

How are the students formed about OCDS? CA-AZ province requires their students to attend the Regional Congress and one OCDS meeting each year.

Eat with us! The new OCDS Provincial Council met before the chapter in Castroville. They are shown here having their last Mass with outgoing delegate, Fr. John Michael. Celebration of OCDS 50th jubilee in San Antonio organized a reception, no friars even came across the street to attend this. It was negatively received by the ocds. Similar thing when we visited the General in Dallas.

Do not water down the demands of our OCDS vocation.

What can the OCDS do for the friars? Please alert us to when a profession or ordination is going to take place. If it’s public, some might be able to attend. At the very least, if we know early enough, we can put an announcement into the Flos Carmeli, our newsletter, so OCDS can hold the friar in prayer and maybe send a card. The session adjourned at 12:25 pm and the OCDS joined the friars in the refectory for some delicious enchiladas made by Ralph’s sister Alicia. In the afternoon we continued working on the Acts and Policies.

Day 5

This was the first chapter of our province to which every solemnly professed member was invited to participate. Left to right in back: Bernard O’Neill, Raphael Kitz, Bonaventure Sauer, John Michael Payne, Jesus Sancho & Jenaro de la Cruz. Front: Joseph Le, Marion Bui, Sam Morello, Ralph Reyes, Henry Bordeaux, Jerome Early, Luís Gerardo Belmonte, Gregory Ross, Stephen Sanchez, James Curiel, Luís Joaquin Castañeda & John Magdalene Suenram.

On Friday the chapter reviewed our provincial policies. We first treated our new “Safe Environment Policy” which replaced our 2005 policy on “Sexual Misconduct.” The new policy was formulated by Fr. Ralph with the help of Presidium. It is meant to ensure that our province is a safe place where minors and adults with special needs may be protected from sexual abuse.

After an introductory section containing a definition of terms, the policy is divided into six sections: I. Code of Conduct, II. Screening and Formation Programs, III. 29 Standards for Prevention, IV. Review Boards, V. Pastoral Care Plan, and VI. A Form to be signed. We next approved the policy on Alcoholism and Chemical Dependency, then amended the Standardization of Financial Reporting with the recommendation that Quick Books replace Quicken, using the same stated categories as implemented in 2005. We differed the Living Will to later pointing out that Medical Power of Attorney is needed in order to implement the will. Fr. Luis Gerardo Belmonte [right], our delegate to the next general chapter.

Fr. Provincial then asked us to think about some goals to achieve this triennium, and concrete plans for achieving them. Areas of concern: vocation promotion and development projects including senior friendly houses of residence. Having finished the business of this first week of the chapter, we adjourned until Monday. In the evening, Fr. Provincial announced that his new delegate to the Secular Order was Fr. Bonaventure Sauer.

Day 4

Thursday began with former Provincial, Fr. Bonaventure [photo right] leading us in Morning Prayer & Mass. Father Sam is in charge of music and liturgical coordination at the chapter. Left to right below: Fr. Jenaro whose golden jubilee of profession we will celebrate next Wednesday evening, Frs. Jerome, Marion, our postulant Juan Guillermo, Fr. Jesus & Br. Bernard.

Our business this day was spent on the Acts of the Chapter. Most of the Acts of the chapter of 2005 were approved for the following triennium. Amendments were made to four of the Acts on Our Carmelite Life, one Act was dropped. Amendments were made to two Acts on Members and Formation, and one Act added. One Act under Government was delayed. Under Economics, the Medical Fund and Elder Care Fund were revised, and an addendum added on expenses requiring special permission. Tomorrow we will proceed to examine our provincial Policies.

In the evening, we shared supper with our Nuns. 96 year old Sr. Stella is now in the infirmary and unable to make her enchilladas. Our nuns now have two White veiled onesn in formation: one from Mexico, and Mary Catherine whose Oatmeal cookies are always a delight. Fr. Marion [photo right] entertained our nuns with his Vietnamese lute which he made of bamboo.

chapter day 3

On Wednesday morning, our new provincial council was installed. As Brother Joseph [photo right] is 7 months short of the three years required for this office since solemn profession a dispensation had been obtained from Rome overnight. We then proceeded to read the introduction to our chapter Acts of 2005, and give a report on what follow-ups had or had not been done on the goals we had set for this past triennium. A provincial website has been up and running at http://www.carmelitesok.org Fr. Provincial and his brother Michael have been maintaining it. Perhaps we could contract someone to continue this maintenance. Fr. Luis Joaquin [photo left] gave a report on vocation promotion efforts over the last three years. He receives about ten e-mails a year that appear to be good prospects. Work with Serra clubs and youth groups. We have one postulant, Juan Guillermo who after completing a fall course in English in New Orleans, would hopefully be ready to enter our novitiate after the first of next year.

Regarding Santa Maria in Dallas, we had hopes that the province of Mexico might help us staff this parish, but other developments took precedence. We still hold out the hope of help to our province from Mexico’s province of San Alberto.

We also discussed at length the best place for our students, with much discussion on Oblate’s O.S.T. [School of Theology] in San Antonio, and Notre Dame seminary in New Orleans. After a break, the superior of each of our houses gave a report on their respective foundation: Stephen for Mount Carmel Center, Jesus for Santa Maria both of Dallas. In the afternoon the community reports continued with Ralph on Marylake, Jenaro on Oklahoma City [photo right], John Magdalene on San Antonio, and Sam for New Orleans.