The month of October has been amazing for the Church, not only the Universal Church with Pope Benedict XVI canonizing six saints in recent days, but also for my parish and for central Indiana. Let me explain.
On October 17th, Pope Benedict XVI presided at Saint Peter's Basilica with the Canonization Liturgy. The six news saints canonized for the universal Church included the first Australian ever canonized (Saint Mary MacKillop of the Cross - founder of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart - 1842-1909) and the first native American Male (Saint André Bessette - Canadian professed religious of the Holy Cross - 1845-1937). The other saints included Stanislao Soltys, called Kazimierczyk, Polish professed religious of the Order of Canons Regular Lateranense (1433-1489); Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola (nee Juana Josefa), Spanish founder of the Congregation of the Daughters of Jesus (1845-1912); Giulia Salzano, Italian founder of the Congregation of Sisters Catechists of the Sacred Heart (1846-1929), and Battista da Varano (nee Camilla), professed nun of the Order of Poor Clares (1458-1524). Please visit here to learn more about these wonderful new saints.
Of particular interest to me is Saint Mary MacKillop because I learned about her for the first time at World Youth Day in Sydney Australia in 2008. We visited the tomb of Saint Mary MacKillop and had a Mass there as well. It was such a blessing for our group and was a special memory for me. If you would like to learn more about her, please visit http://www.marymackillop.org.au/.
Also, this month of October included a wonderful Women's Christ Renews His Parish (CRHP) Weekend experience October 2-3. I have enjoyed being part of the CRHP program since I came to my parish of Saint Alphonsus Liguori in 2008. We had almost 20 women attend the retreat. They enjoyed the time with Jesus, bonding, talks and especially the food. Please visit http://www.zionsvillecatholic.com/index.cfm?load=page&page=214 to learn more. Please pray for our parish, specifically that more and more people will attend a CRHP. It is so very powerful. It is a great way to help people to grow in their faith and get to know other people from the parish.
Finally, two weeks later October 14-17, I was spiritual director at the Women's Cursillo Retreat held in Indianapolis at Saint Bernadette's Parish. God showed up powerfully to the almost 30 attendees and our team members who put the retreat on. I enjoy helping with Cursillo retreats, especially since my own Cursillo experience had such an impact on my in my own life. I attended Cursillo 81 in 1999. Imagine, that same year I decided to enter seminary. God is so very good! If you are interested in attending the next Cursillo weekend, please sign up soon because they usually fill up quickly. The next Men's Cursillo Weekends will be March 3-6, 2011 and September 29-October 2, 2011. The next Women's Cursillo Weekends will be March 17-20, 2011 and October 13-16, 2011. You can visit the Central Indiana Cursillo Center's Website at http://www.cursillo.org/indy/ .
I mention to you CRHP and Cursillo retreats in this blog entitled "Saints, Saints and Still More Saints..." because we are all "Saints" in the making or what I like to call "WORKS IN PROGRESS." God is helping us with His grace to ALL become saints. The canonized saints, those declared blessed, venerables and servants of God are all awesome role models indeed. However, each and everyone of us is called to sanctity and to one day enter into our eternal reward in Heaven. So, we all have opportunities in our lives to work on this. Retreats are one great way to do this. We also have the daily opportunities to grow in faith, hope and love including daily prayer, the Eucharist, Reconciliation, reading Sacred Scripture (Lectio Divina) and spiritual reading. With all this in mind, I am heading to our Blessed Sacrament Chapel to get some prayer in myself. I will say one for YOU.
God bless you,
Fr. Joshua Janko
