Announcing:
Saint Mary's Press winner for the week of November 1, 2010!
Congratulations to Karen Abler!

Karen will receive a copy of The Catholic Youth Bible®, a $26.95 value.

The Catholic Youth Bible®
General Editor: Virginia Halbur, MA

The Catholic Youth Bible® will be a true companion, helping you find the answers you seek and helping you make connections to Catholic beliefs and traditions.

Over 700 lively articles help you….

The Catholic Youth Bible®
ISBN: 978-0-88489-777-4, paper, 1802 pages

Spirituality of the Educator from a Lasallian Perspective
In this week’s issue of The Servant Leader, we have the second part of Kevin Regan’s reflection on the spirituality of the educator from a Lasallian perspective. In last week's reflection, Kevin explored our call to mission and recognizing God’s holy presence in our lives. This week Kevin’s reflection continues by looking at the spirituality of the religious educator in relation to respect and reverence for our students, prayer and prophetic witness, and suffering and resurrection.

For the "Make It Happen" resource this week, we have included a second prayer service from the book Praying with John Baptist de La Salle (Saint Mary’s Press, 1990). The theme for the prayer service is living and acting with the spirit of faith. As always, I pray God will continue to bless you and your ministry.

Peace,
Steven McGlaun

Respect and Reverence for Our Students
By Kevin Regan

Respect and reverence for the students are evident in the zeal we bring to the teaching experience. De La Salle expected in Lasallian educators an "ardent zeal for the instruction of children" and that educators "bring them [children] up in the awe of God" (Rule of 1718). All who share the Lasallian mission are called to educate the whole person with competency and awe for all of God’s creations. We must remember that we are called to offer a Christian and human education to the young, especially to God’s poor. Respecting our students, even seeing Christ in them, forbids any coercion in our ministry. Rather, our zeal should ignite in us, and hopefully in them, an awe of God through inquiries, in stories, in our conversations, and in all that is revealed through our work with our students. In science, history, mathematics, and art classes, and on the playing field, in all we do, we can help our students to wonder, to understand, to contemplate, to be in awe of God’s wonders.

Prayer and Prophetic Witness
Saint La Salle was prophetic in his ministry. He understood that his teachers were to offer an alternative way of life to the young, for they were God’s ambassadors to bring salvation to their students. God’s transformative power works through the teacher-student relationship. Br. Michael Sauvage has written, "[De La Salle] had a prophetic vision that hope of salvation was being offered to the poor through this little group of men who so boldly challenged him" Like De La Salle, our prophetic ministry depends on prayer. He encouraged daily prayer to learn from God what to teach the students and to bring all concerns regarding the students to prayer. "God wants you to remain completely abandoned to his guidance, wanting from him and him alone all the help you need" (Meditations, 20.2).

We are called also to provide a prophetic witness to the young people with whom we are in ministry. Thomas Merton described this prophetic mission as "not by telling slaves to be free, but by telling people who think they are free that they are slaves." What do we teach about consumerism? What do we say to Br. John Johnson who writes, "How do we share our gifts, our life with those disregarded in this society of things?" What do we model for our students in terms of protecting the "sacred universe," and how do we live the gospel call to be peacemakers? To be prophets for young people, we must be willing to share the truths of our faith and challenge young people to live the lives God calls them to.

Suffering and Resurrection
The spiritual journey is lifelong. We often become more visibly human and more concerned for God’s will through our human suffering. In our weakness is God’s strength. If we suffer with Christ, we shall rise with him. May we remember that the answer to suffering for De La Salle is the community, "together and by association." What we suffer is temporary, but what we create by God’s grace is eternal.

The ministry with youth we are each called to is not always easy. It is filled with challenges and heartbreaks. It is filled with love and miracles. Through it all, though, we must never forget that our mission to share the Good News with youth is sacred. Through our shared ministry, we can be strengthened by the counsel of De La Salle: "To touch the hearts of your students and to inspire them with the Christian spirit is the greatest miracle you can perform and one God expects from you" (Meditations, 139.3).

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Meditation #1: The Spirit of Faith
From Praying with John Baptist de La Salle

Theme: Central to Lasallian spirituality is the spirit of faith. De La Salle realized that unless people are animated and guided by a firm belief in the Good News of Jesus Christ, they will wander away from goodness, wisdom, and charity.

Opening prayer: Merciful God, grant me an increase in faith so that I may have hope and love in abundance.

About De La Salle
Many of the difficulties that beset De La Salle were outlined in the introduction to this book. Recall that the Little Schools and the Writing Masters sued him and forced the closure of the schools for a period. Several clerics tried to destroy his reputation and to undermine his leadership. Poverty, hard work, and illness sapped his energies. However, throughout all of these difficulties De La Salle retained his characteristic calm, remained in the background as much as possible, and went about his business as usual. With his equally characteristic tenacity, he never surrendered any of the principles that he considered essential to the Brothers and the Christian Schools. . . .

The secret of De La Salle’s imperturbable confidence and calm in the face of opposition and defeat lay in his deep religious faith, the "spirit of faith," as he called it, that he left as a legacy to his Institute. (Luke Salm, The Work Is Yours, p. 125)

An example of what the spirit of faith meant to De La Salle can be seen in a resolution he made for himself while on retreat:

I shall always consider the establishment and the direction of our community as the work of God. That is why I have entrusted it to his care, in such a way that as far as I am concerned, I shall do nothing that concerns the Institute except by his orders. For that reason I shall always consult extensively concerning what I ought to do. I will often speak to God in the words of the prophet Habacuc: Domine opus tuum. [Lord, the work is yours.] (Salm, The Work Is Yours, p. 126)

Pause: Reflect on how the spirit of faith lives in you, especially in times of difficulty.

De La Salle’s Words
Faith should be the light and guide of every Christian, to lead and direct him in the way of salvation. . . .

The spirit of our Institute is therefore first, a spirit of
faith. . . .

. . . The Brothers of the Society shall animate all their actions with sentiments of faith; and they shall always have in view the orders and the will of God, which they shall adore in all things, and by which they shall be careful to regulate their conduct. (A Collection of Various Short Treatises, pp. 57–59)

The spirit of faith is a sharing in the Spirit of God who dwells in us, which leads us to regulate our conduct in all things by the sentiments and truths that faith teaches us. You should, therefore, be wholly occupied in acquiring it, so that it may be for you a shield against the fiery darts of the devil. (The Letters of John Baptist de La Salle, p. 217)

Reflection
Love stands as the central norm for Christian living, but De La Salle recognized that love cannot be nurtured without faith. A Brother in a room crowded with poor boys would not last long if he did not believe that he was serving God and that his efforts would ultimately bear fruit. Faith lets us believe in the unseen God and the unseen benefits of our labor.

De La Salle also realized that faith not only motivates us to do good but also instructs us in how to act. Faith could draw a Brother to teach each day, but the Brother must teach as Jesus did or in the manner that faith in Jesus would indicate. Seeing all things through the eyes of faith required the study of the Scriptures and constant prayer.

Forgetting the role that faith plays in our day-to-day activities or in our relationships is easy. To reappropriate your acts of faith, sit quietly. Remind yourself that God is with you. Meditate on each of these questions and record your responses, perhaps in your journal or on a separate sheet of paper:

- What actions have I taken today that depend on my faith in the unseen good that will come from those actions?
- What relationships of mine are sustained by my faith in the other person?
- Who believes in me?

Select one line from "About De La Salle" or "De La Salle’s Words" and pray it slowly and repeatedly. Let the meaning and the feelings of the line sink in.

Look ahead to tomorrow’s work and to the interactions you will have with other people. List five activities you will do and five people with whom you will be involved. Next to each activity and name, describe how you should act if you are motivated by the spirit of faith.

Pray a litany for an increase in faith, naming specific ways in which you want to grow; for example, "When I become skeptical about the goodness of people, give me faith," or "When I have doubts about Jesus’ message of love, give me faith," or "When I become discouraged in the face of difficulties, give me faith."

God’s Word
Only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for, or prove the existence of realities that are unseen. It is for their faith that our ancestors are acknowledged.

It is by faith that we understand that the ages were created by a word from God, so that from the invisible the visible world came to be. . . .

It was by faith that Abraham obeyed the call to set out for a country that was the inheritance given to him and his descendants. . . .

It was equally by faith that Sarah, in spite of being past the age, was made able to conceive. . . .

It was through faith that the walls of Jericho fell down when the people had marched round them for seven days. It was by faith that Rahab the prostitute welcomed the spies [of Israel] and so was not killed with the unbelievers. . . .

. . . Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection: for the sake of the joy which lay ahead of him, he endured the cross, disregarding the shame of it, and has taken his seat at the right of God’s throne. Think of the way he persevered against such opposition from sinners and then you will not lose heart and come to grief. (Hebrews 11:1—12:3)

Closing prayer: "My God, I offer you all my thoughts, words, and actions of this day, that they may be wholly consecrated to you and that they may procure for me your holy love, which is all I desire. I offer you the new life, which you have given me by waking me from sleep. Let it, I ask you, be to me a life of grace so that I may henceforth be able to say that it is no longer I who live, but that it is Jesus Christ who lives in me." (Adapted from John Baptist de La Salle, Manual of Piety, p. 4)

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
November 7, 2010
Luke 20:27-38

Opening Prayer
Jesus, thank you for helping us understand your promise of life after death and the resurrection of the body and soul. Continue to grace us with your understanding so that we will always be people of hope in this world. Amen.

Context Connection
In Sunday's Gospel Luke introduces another religious group--the Sadducees. Sadducees were aristocrats who were very conservative in interpreting the Mosaic Law. The Sadducees accepted only what was written in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, as the official law and understanding about Judaism. They did not believe in resurrection or in the existence of spirits. The Sadducees believed that there was nothing after death. They believed in posterity, in living on in their children.

The Gospel begins with the Sadducees' asking Jesus a hypothetical question about a woman who married seven brothers. In accordance with Mosaic Law, if a man died without a son, the brother of the dead man was obliged to marry the woman to continue the family lineage. The brother was supposed to father an heir for his childless dead brother so that the property would not leave the family and the deceased brother's name would continue in his posterity (see Deuteronomy 25:5-6). All seven brothers preceded the woman in death without ever begetting children. Then the Sadducees conclude the scenario with this question, "In resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her" (20:33). The Sadducees pose this question because they hope to trick Jesus into either denying the existence of resurrection or condoning polyandry (having more than one husband at the same time). Polyandry was considered immoral by Jews.

Jesus's response is not what the Sadducees expect: "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage" (20:34-35). Jesus explains to them that marriage, a reality of the human world, brings about the continuation of the human race. However, marriage is not a reality for those worthy to live in the resurrected state of life. In this statement Jesus affirms the reality of resurrection after death. In verse 36, Jesus speaks of the eternal nature of life after death: "Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection." Jesus poses a second challenge for the Sadducees by stating that the resurrected person will be like an angel. The Sadducees did not believe in spirits, and angels were considered spirits. Jesus goes one step further by quoting the Torah to the Sadducees, who were committed to a literal interpretation of the Torah, to prove resurrection--life after death. Jesus uses the example of Moses to verify his argument: "And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive" (20:37-38). By the time of Moses the patriarchs were long deceased. Therefore, if God claims to be the God of the patriarchs and only the living can have a God, it stands to reason that God somehow sustains Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in life after death.

Tradition Connection
Each Sunday during Mass we profess in the Nicene Creed that "we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, page 50). Resurrection is a keystone belief of Catholic Christians. Saint Paul expresses it this way: "If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain" (1 Cor. 15:14). For followers of Jesus, the understanding of resurrection is revealed in Jesus's being raised from the dead. We proclaim that Jesus has died, Jesus has risen, and Jesus will come again. At death, we believe that if we are found worthy, our spirit or soul will pass into the world still to come, and in that world, we will experience new life in the presence of God. Then, at the Second Coming of Jesus, our soul will be reunited with our body to live with God eternally:
In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus' Resurrection. (Catechism, paragraph 997)

We also believe that all people will be raised from the dead on the last day: "All the dead will rise, 'those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to a resurrection of judgment'"1 (Catechism, paragraph 998).

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we no longer argue whether there is a resurrection. Our challenge, because we are limited by our human experience, is in understanding what resurrection will be like in the world to come.

Wisdom Connection
Luke wants his readers to consider the reality of life after death in a new light. The first step in understanding resurrection and life in the age to come is to avoid using earthly concepts. In resurrection, death becomes life, and marriage, which in life unifies relationships and sustains the human population, gives way to the praise and worship of God. The resurrected life is an experience of being in union with God. In Sunday's passage Jesus argues that there is resurrection beyond earthly death. Jesus also provides a new understanding of resurrection. It is a new life in the age to come, one that does not have the same limitations as the present world. Luke continues to teach about resurrection in his Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles in the many stories that follow Jesus's Resurrection. The new life that Jesus promises offers hope to all who, in their earthly lives, experience loneliness, fear, pain, or poverty. Sunday's Gospel speaks to the Christian hope in eternal life.

Acknowledgments
The scriptural quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition. Copyright © 1993 and 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

The quotations labeled Catechism are from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America. Copyright © 1994 by the United States Catholic Conference, Inc.--Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

The Lord's Prayer is taken from Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers. Copyright © 1988 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Inc., Washington, DC. All rights reserved.

Endnotes cited in quotations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church
1. John 5:29; cf. Daniel 12:2.

Saint Charles Borromeo

November 4 is the feast day for Saint Charles Borromeo.

Saint Charles Borromeo is the patron for bishops, catechists, spiritual directors, and seminarians. Among his many accomplishments in his life, Saint Charles participated in the Council of Trent, was the archbishop of Milan, and was the teacher and parish priest to Saint Aloysius Gonzaga. In addition, Saint Charles tirelessly ministered to the needs of God’s people by ministering to the poor, working with the sick, and founding schools, hospitals, and seminaries.

For more information on Saint Charles Borromeo, go to http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-charles-borromeo/