June 1, 2021: Our Lady of the Angels Province friar Fabian Adderley, OFM Conv. renewed his Simple Vows in the Chapel of the San Damiano Friary – House of Formation (San Antonio, TX), where he has been in residence as a student friar, since 2018. The vow renewal took place at the hands of his Friary Guardian, Post Novitiate Director and Our Lady of the Angels Province friar ~ Fr. Gary Johnson, OFM Conv. His Simple Vows are now renewed for 14 months. The friary is one of several Houses of Formation in the USA, and is of the Province of Our Lady of Consolation. As such, two friars of that province, Friar Richard Kaley, OFM Conv. & Friar Tim Unser, OFM Conv., served as friar Fabian’s witnesses. Friar Fabian first professed his Simple (Temporary) Vows on July 16, 2018. Simple Profession is for a term of three years, so friars often have to renew their vows, during their Post Novitiate stage of formation. During this time they are continuing their studies and moving into their Fraternal Apostolic Year of formation prior to their Solemn Profession of the Vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. This stage usually, but not always, takes more than initial three years. Soon, friar Fabian will being his own Fraternal Apostolic Year of formation, with our friars in Toronto, Ontario.
Please keep him, and his formation journey, in your continued prayers.
Presented by Franciscan Voice, “Behind the Quill” is a series of living history stylized conversations with the authors of the Synoptic Gospels.
The 1st in the series was a 30 minute interview with ST. MARK, the 1st Evangelist, as he stoped by to talk about his Gospel, with our own Friar Tim.
This 2nd presentation, “Lunch with Luke” delves into what we know about St. Luke and how he came to know so much about Jesus and the early Church?
May 31, 2021: Our Lady of the Angels Province Vicar Provincial, Fr. Michael Heine, OFM Conv.(2nd row, 3rd from right – photo from The Catholic Review) concelebrated at the Mass on the Feast of the Visitation, in celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the dedication of Baltimore’s National Shrine of the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Mass concluded with the dedication and opening of the Pope Saint John Paul II Eucharistic Adoration Chapel for perpetual adoration, in the undercroft of the Basilica.
May 27-19, 2021: The Very Revered Fr. James McCurry, OFM Conv. (center), Minister Provincial of our province, traveled to the InterProvince Novitiate (Arroyo Grande, CA) to visit with the Novices and Formators, and to present classes on the Blessed Virgin Mary and on Franciscan & Celtic Spirituality. It was a great time of fraternity, telling stories and sharing many laughs, for which the Novitiate community of friars is grateful. Friar James’ visit also coincided with the 56th anniversary of priesthood ordination, for our own Fr. Julian Zambanini, OFM Conv. (center left), who serves on the Formation Team as a friar in residence. Ad multos annos, frater Iulianus!
Memorial Day in the USA, a Federal Holiday celebrated the last Monday of May each year, honors American Military Personnel lost while fighting in the Civil War, World War I, World War II, The Vietnam War, The Korean War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For our Canadian friars, the day – known as Canada Day – is held on July 1st. They celebrate Remembrance Day on November 1th.
June 2014: Our Lady of the Angels Province Minister Provincial, the Very Reverend Fr. James McCurry, OFM Conv. visited the Normandy American Cemetery at Omaha Beach (Cimetiere Americain de Normandy), where the graves of 9,387 soldiers, a chapel, memorials and garden can be visited to honor the courage, skill and ultimate sacrifice made by those who are laid to rest there.
While our friars hold in prayer all those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, of laying down their lives in times of war, we remember especially our own Paratroopers’ Chaplain, +Capt. Father Ignatius Maternowski, OFM Conv. +Friar Ignatius was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1912. He joined the Franciscan Friars Conventual and was ordained a priest, in 1938. He and several of his confreres enlisted as chaplains in the US Army, in 1942, and +Fr. Ignatius volunteered for the Parachute regiment. Deployed to Ireland and England, he celebrated one last Mass for his troops on June 5, 1944; the Eve of D-Day, giving them General Absolution, in anticipation of the peril awaiting them all the next day. He died on June 6, 1944 attempting to negotiate with the Nazi occupiers of Gueutteville-les-Grès (a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France) to establish a “safe-zone” where a common hospital could be used for all of the American, German, and French casualties. +Friar Ignatius was the only United States military chaplain to die on D-Day.
Memorial in Gueutteville commemorating the charity and heroism of +Friar Ignatius
Although Memorial Day is traditionally observed in honor of those who have died in times of war, faith communities often hold special Memorial Services and Masses around this same time, to honor all men and women who are serving or who have served in the US Military. Our province would like to take this opportunity to remember our friars who have served in the Military, and have been welcomed by Sister Death in the past couple of years:
This year’s Class of Novices will complete their “year and a day” at the Novitiate this July 2021. They are grateful to Friar Tim, for his great ministry to our Order and for spending some quality time with them, at the Novitiate. Keep them in prayer as they Profess their Simple (Temporary/First) Vows this summer. Pictured above from left to right with Friar Tim at center: friar Wayne Mulei, OFM Conv. (St. Joseph of Cupertino Province), friar Bram De Backer, OFM Conv., friar Jonathan García Zenteno, OFM Conv., friar Michael Boes, OFM Conv., friar Edgar Varela, OFM Conv. (Our Lady of the Angels Province), and friar Anthony Ruffolo, OFM Conv. (St. Bonaventure Province).
Friar Louis Maximilian signing the Book of Profession, witnessed by Friar Jude and Friar Andrzej.
May 19, 2021: In the presence of his confreres (below) & witnessed by his Friary Guardian ~ Fr. Jude DeAngelo, OFM Conv. (above) and Fr. Andrzej Brzeziński, OFM Conv., Fr. Louis Maximilian Smith, OFM Conv. professed his Solemn Vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience, as a friar of Our Lady of the Angels Province, at the hands of our Minister Provincial, the Very Reverend Fr. James McCurry, OFM Conv. (at right), in the chapel of our SS. Francis & Clare Friary (Washington, DC). Originally from Albany, NY, Friar Louis Maximilian first professed his vows as a friar of another Franciscan Order. After 15 years, he discerned the desire to transfiliate to our Order, specifically our province, and has been serving as Associate Chaplain for University Faculty and Staff in The Catholic University of America – Campus Ministry Office, while living as an active member of our community, since August 2018.
Congratulations, Friar Louis Maximilian!
Photo Cred: the Very Reverend Fr. James McCurry, OFM Conv. – Minister Provincial of OLA Province. Other friars on hand for the celebration: Fr. Albert Puliyadan, OFM Conv. – Associate Chaplain for Liturgy and Worship at CUA, Fr. Michael Heine, OFM Conv. – Vicar Provincial of OLA Province, Fr. Antony Varghese Vattaparambil, OFM Conv. (Student at CUA via Our Lady of Consolation Province), Fr. Richard-Jacob Forcier, OFM Conv. – Province Secretary of Our Lady of the Angels Province, Friar Louis Maximilian Smith, OFM Conv. – Associate Chaplain for University Faculty and Staff at CUA, Fr. Andrzej Brzeziński, OFM Conv. – Associate Chaplain for Faith Development at CUA, Fr. Angelo Geiger, OFM Conv, – Parochial Vicar of Our Lady of Hope Parish / Mother Cabrini Catholic Church / St. Patrick Parish in Pennsylvania, and Fr. Jude DeAngelo, OFM Conv. – University Chaplain & Director of Campus Ministry at CUA.
Fr. Edward J. Ondrako, OFMConv.
Golden Jubilee of Priesthood, May 22, 1971-2021 Year B. Acts 2:1-11; (1st Option) 1 Cor 12: 3b-7, 12-13; (2nd Option) Jn 15: 26-27; 16:12-15
Living in a Post-Christian Culture Theme: “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit” Acts 2; Subtheme: “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given….” 1 Cor 12; Subtheme: Jn 15: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you to all truth.”
On Pentecost the mission of the Son links definitively with the mission of the Holy Spirit. The Son, Perfect Love became incarnate, was willing to suffer, die, and rise from the dead. By taking on our human nature, He suffered beyond description in His humanity, but not in His divinity because our eternal God cannot suffer. To say God suffers is a metaphor. By participating in the sacraments we are filled with the Holy Spirit for God’s purpose. Before God we are equal. No one gets a free pass.
The Spirit of truth will guide us to all truth. What is truth? Something cannot be true and false at the same time. What is true and what is a lie? We do not like it if we have been taken by lies. What is truth in a broken world (le monde cassé)?
God is the Creator who intends human solidarity and gave the love of the woman to Adam. God knew man would sin but created humans from a single ancestor, Adam, not for the male to dominate the female, but to foster harmony, spousal harmony. The imperial lie is that love does not exist, there is no spouse, only those who conquer or cancel others matter. To read history with a spousal vision is to read with a biblical vision.
Christ’s self-giving love is spousal. It dismantles every lie. To recognize the sacrificial love of Christ the Bridegroom explodes confidence in myths that hide pride and deception. The Spirit of truth guides us to all truth. In a complex universe we cannot be intellectually lazy but have the duty to think about what is true, what is false, and to make judgments. Can anyone hold out for a better spouse?
Sts. Francis, Bonaventure, and Bl. John Duns Scotus lived in premodernity, a time when stresses, in general, were felt less than in modernity. Sts. John Henry Newman and Maximilian Kolbe lived in modernity. Two world wars left lasting scars which the Second Vatican Council analyzed while renewing the whole Church. I was ordained in this euphoria, while the sober eyes of Pope St. Paul VI saw dark clouds of atheism. I wondered what he meant. Then I began to see the thinning of religion. How to respond? Not by blaming external forces alone such as social platforms, political untruths, or absorbing educational theories that hide ideologies. Internal forces count such as taking too long to respond by authorities is part of the thinning of religion. Inviting in new ideas without competence to guide them Christianly, is part of the thinning of religion. These facts converge into complicity for our post-Christian culture.
Where is the light? It shines in the innocent. My sister Margie with Down Syndrome just turned 64. I dedicated a book[1] to her with an inscription from Dante. “Whoever sees the Light, is soon made aware that such a Light would be impossible to set aside for another sight; because the good, the object of the will, is fully gathered in that Light; outside that Light, what appears good, is hollow.”[2] By turning to light, knowledge, beauty, and peace, Dante represents heaven and says the unsayable. God is Light and Love. Love exists. Love matters. Love is the woman given by God to Adam. Union with a person who is as beautiful as Margie says the unsayable about heaven.
The point is: Pentecost shouts out: “The Spirit of truth guides us in all truth.” The Spirit of truth assists us to think, to judge, to love. Truth always goes forward. May we allow a spousal vision of the Love of God to operate where we do not expect to see it! May we see with the eyes of the Bridegroom who did not eschew mixed company. The sinless one mixed himself with sinners. His nakedness is a self-emptying spousal love mediated through the sacraments. May we see the whole world, its history, and the future with eyes formed by the Bridegroom’s love. May we see his Bride, the Church as “a Church marked by being pliant and stubborn, holy and always straying into scandal.”
May we understand the sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist as forming a solidarity always being built up to counter the cynicism since the time of Adam and Eve. May we see with Christ’s eyes, our failings, those of other Catholics; of separated Christians; of those drifting away and of people outside the Church. A narrative of freedom is emerging from the captivity of empire, a narrative released from the domination by the lust for domination.[3] The Church does not exist to add to another imperial myth to compete with others. May we be fair in understanding our post-Christian culture.
I can make these points with conviction because on Pentecost Monday we honor the Mother of the Church, who to the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘mothers every new grace.’[4] Since I left St. Cyril’s sixty-two years ago and fifty years as a Franciscan priest, the Immaculate Virgin has mothered every grace. “Sancta Maria Virgo, non est tibi similis nata in mundo, in mulieribus,” wrote St. Francis of Assisi. “Holy Virgin Mary, among all the women of the world, there is no one like you.” He [5] got it.
Delivered on Pentecost at SS. Cyril and Method, Binghamton, N.Y.
[1] E. J. Ondrako, Rebuild My Church (Hobe Sound, FL: Lectio Publishing, LLC., 2021). [ISBN 978-1-943901-18-0 To order, call (513) 677-3554 or contact eric.wolf@lectiopublishing.com [2] Adapted from Dante, Commedia, Paradiso, Canto 33, 100 (written by 1316). 2021 is the 700th anniversary of his death in 1321. [3] St. Augustine, The City of God, Preface. [4] Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ, “The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe.” (1883). [5] St. Francis of Assisi, “Antiphon for the Office of the Passion.”
Earlier in the year, as part of Catholic School’s Week 2021, Our Lady of the Angels Province friar, Fr. Christopher Dudek, OFM Conv. was honored as the Archbishop Curley High School Teacher of the Year.
“Fr. Chris has worked so hard this year to bring the Curley family together during this unprecedented time through community prayer, ativities etc. He continues to speak faith in to these young men and it’s more important now than ever before.”
From Curley’s Facebook Page post ~ Fr. Donald Grzymski, OFM Conv. ’70, president of Curley, said the following: “Fr. Chris has abundant energy and creativity, and a real desire for Curley’s young men to grow in their relationship with God, and to build the spirit of brotherhood among all students. This year, through prayer services, spirit-building activities, service projects and class retreats he has helped the Curley spirit to survive and to thrive. In January, during Catholic Schools Week, Fr. Chris was recognized as Curley’s Teacher of the Year, which put him in running for this award. We don’t think the Department of Catholic Schools could have made a better decision!”
MORE: In addition to this great honor, on Saturday, March 22, 2021, Friar Chris graduated from Fordham University with an MA in Pastoral Care. This was a great program that was both challenging and useful for ministry. I am very grateful for the friars providing me the opportunity to study and obtain my masters. It was very life-giving and will help me to become a better minister.
June 1, 2021: Our Lady of the Angels Province friar Fabian Adderley, OFM Conv. renewed his Simple Vows in the Chapel of the San Damiano Friary – House of Formation (San Antonio, TX), where he has been in residence as a student friar, since 2018. The vow renewal took place at the hands of his Friary Guardian, Post Novitiate Director and Our Lady of the Angels Province friar ~ Fr. Gary Johnson, OFM Conv. His Simple Vows are now renewed for 14 months. 
The friary is one of several Houses of Formation in the USA, and is of the Province of Our Lady of Consolation. As such, two friars of that province, Friar Richard Kaley, OFM Conv. & Friar Tim Unser, OFM Conv., served as friar Fabian’s witnesses. Friar Fabian first professed his Simple (Temporary) Vows on July 16, 2018. Simple Profession is for a term of three years, so friars often have to renew their vows, during their Post Novitiate stage of formation. During this time they are continuing their studies and moving into their Fraternal Apostolic Year of formation prior to their Solemn Profession of the Vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. This stage usually, but not always, takes more than initial three years. Soon, friar Fabian will being his own Fraternal Apostolic Year of formation, with our friars in Toronto, Ontario.
Earlier in the year, as part of Catholic School’s Week 2021, Our Lady of the Angels Province friar, Fr. Christopher Dudek, OFM Conv. was honored as the 
