St. John Summer Conference Video Contest

Part of my work during the Eagle Eye Institute is toward our St. John Summer Conference: June 17-20, 2010. The Eaglets thought it would be fun to have a video contest, that we would kick off with our own ridiculous video. The winner of the contest gets a free pass to the Summer Conference.

I've also been working on Podcasts that are featured on the St. John Summer Conference Website:

www.saintjohnsummerconference.com

Who Am I?

This is a 2:00 ad I worked up for the St. John Summer Conference. If you'd like to forward it on to any young people who might be interested in attending the Conference, I'd appreciate it.

The st. John Summer Conference is: June 17-20, 2010 for young people ages 16-30, and the cost is $100.

Scarface Pometto??

I’ve had a lot of strange nick-names in my time, some of them endearing, some of them just plain funny. Most of them are pretty normal, “Mar Bear”, “Mar” some of them are entire sentences, “Mary Mary Quite Contrary…” and so far one stands out as my favorite: “Bloody Mary.” “Bloody Mary” was given to me by a softball coach, derived from the fact that every time I slid (I slid a lot during a game) I would re-open the wounds that never seemed to heal on my knees, which would call for band-aids. It became sort of a scare tactic when I was on third heading home, “Get the band-aids ready girls, Bloody Mary’s coming in.” It still brings me joy to think of it.

Well, recently, I went on a trip with Fr. Nathan, a few of the Eaglets and Br. Gabriel Maria to a Youth 2000 in Owensboro, Kentucky, where I picked up yet another remarkable nick-name: “Scarface Pometto.”

Need I say more? Oh, I suppose you’d like to know how I acquired such a strange nick-name. I mean, to look at me, it’d be the last thing you’d expect to go along with my Scottish red-hair and feisty Italian ways.

It all began as part of what could be called the “normal routine” of retreat mode. Since this trip came up in the last minute due to a date mix-up at the priory (they occasionally happen) the Eaglets were the guests of Ann Brawly, who runs Youth 2000 in the US. If any of you have met Ann (I’m not sure if that’s how she spells her name) you are aware of how loved you feel when you’re in her presence and how effortlessly it comes to her. Ann is a woman who knows how to get things done. She does it with a smile and in a way that even the most cross and arrogant of people are pleased to do anything she asks. She’s exactly the kind of woman I pray that the Lord gives me the grace to become.

As Anne Brawly’s guests, we stayed at the Hampton Inn. The Hampton Inn is my Dad’s favorite place to stay while we’re on vacation because they serve hot breakfast in the morning and it changes every day. The first morning of our stay, there were these amazing egg and sausage patties. Add a little hot sauce and you might as well be in heaven. While Becca and I were finishing our breakfast, a family with three little boys came in to eat. The husband was sporting a Youth 2000 name tag, so we of course introduced ourselves. We came to find out that Matt was leading the music for the weekend.

My retreat routine was broken and the box I’d slid into shattered when Br. Gabriel Maria beckoned me into the hall during the first talk of the morning. Praise the Lord, because it was getting stuffy inside that box. I followed the impish monk to the cafeteria, where he produced two McDonald’s sandwiches from his pocket and offered me my favorite one. Now I know I just told you that about the breakfast I’d eaten at the Hampton Inn, but when a monk pulls McDonald’s out of his habit pocket, you don’t just say, “No thank you.”

In any case, I spent the rest of the day wandering in and out of the talks, and helping where necessary. I helped lead a small group with some lovely nuns from Cincinnati and had several good conversations with Becca outside in the gorgeous Kentucky weather.

During one of these chats right before lunch, the Gill family, whom we met at the Hampton Inn, came parading into the yard toward a picnic table. I watched them chatter and eat their Chick-Fil-A, all the while missing my nephews so much that it was hard to look away. Noticing my distress, Br. Gabriel Maria suggested I play with them. So after they were done eating, they meandered toward us with their mom. Having heard the names of the two older boys, Sebastian and Maximilian we asked about the one-year-old. Angela Gill told us that they’d all been named after martyrs and so I guessed Ignatius, which was correct. I then shamelessly asked if I could run around with her boys.

It started as a version of peek-a-boo. Maximilian was the first to giggle, which sparked Sebastian’s curiosity and too soon the games were afoot. Running recklessly around trees and through the grass, they chased me. Shortly after the games began, Maximilian, the three-year-old, was pretending to be a cat or maybe a lion and in his excitement at getting so close to catching me, accidently scratched me on the cheek. Being so young and having baby-claws, I chose to ignore the wound and continued playing. We played all sorts of games, they stole my sweat shirt and threw it into the empty fountain, we threw dirt clods at the ground, swung on a bench-swing, picked up sticks and played guns, and then ended with spinning in circles recklessly until we were too dizzy to stand. During that time, Angela had taken the opportunity to go to Confession, so I was glad to have been able to help out as well as fulfill my desire to run and play with the boys.

I finally came in for lunch tired and thirsty and discovered my group had welcomed Br. Maximilian of the CFRs into our lunch table. Aside from being a joy to encounter and interact with, Br. Maximilian is also good at coming up with nicknames. With the scratch fresh on my face, bleeding a little and swelling it was quickly a point of conversation. The idea began as calling me “Czestochowa” in honor of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Poland seeing as the scratch was advantageously on my cheek. The spirit of New York came out soon enough and the final decision was on “Scarface Pometto.”

My new nick-name means so much more to me knowing that it came as a result of stepping outside my comfort zone a little. A retreat I thought I knew everything about became a new and exciting means of encountering Christ in the way He had in mind for my weekend.

Mary Magdalene: "Woman, why are you crying?"

Easter Morning we had a Mary Magdalene Eucharistic Procession. It was beautiful.





<sup>John 20:10-17

"Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look in the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head adn the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman why are you crying?"

"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't knwo where they have laid him."

At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. "Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

Jesus said to her. "Mary."

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

Jesus said to her, "Do not hold onto me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"</sup>

Easter Vigil

The Easter Vigil is a time of Celebration. The Victory of the Cross is given to us through the words of the angels to those who came early in the morning to anoint his body "He is not here." The gospel account was read in 4 different languages during the Easter Vigil Mass with the Brothers. Words of hope drilled into our souls and reaffirmed in the sacrifice of the Mass.

After lighting the Easter Candle from a column of fire in a safe location, we processed into the darkness of the chapel with our own candles to illuminate the darkness, as Christ's light illuminates the world.

I can't really explain the exuberance and joy I felt after the Easter Vigil. This year's Triduum opened my eyes to my desperate need for a savior, and I couldn't be happier. For too long I've swallowed the lie that I'm not sufficient and stopped with the lie. Now I know that I'm made whole by Christ who has taken all of my sins upon Himself and carried them up a hill to die.

Christ's resurrection is the light that sends all the shadows running.

Ephesians 5:8-10 "For once you were in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of the light for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true, and try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord."

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday is a day of anticipation of the Easter Vigil. Christ has been laid in the tomb, and as such has been removed from the tabernacle. If you've never done this, I encourage you to spend some time in your Church on Holy Saturday, when the tabernacle stands open. To put yourself in the tomb with Christ and spend some time in silent anticipation.

Living with the Community of St. John afforded me the gift of spending two hours in the Chapel, living the mystery of Christ's entombment. Throughout the Triduum, Christ called me into the deep. I had become achingly aware that Christ didn't want part of me, he wants all of me, and he died for all of me.

To spend time waiting with him, I was caught up in my own anticipation and an inexplicable hope. I know Christ will wash me clean and heal me of all those things I've been holding onto. Those things that are "too big" to hand to him. I was given the desire to allow him to carry those things to the Father and be free once more. For the first time in years I was able to look at the new day in hope.

My hope is found in the victory of the Cross. Lord carry me.

Good Friday

"Behold the wood of the cross, on which your savior died."

Many of you are familiar with venerating the cross on Good Friday. We begin Lent with the words "Repent and believe in the Gospel." At the end of Lent, we're given an opportunity to kiss the wounds that brought us our salvation, offering our sins and allowing him to cleanse us as a libation to his wounded heart. He was pierced with a lance, so that we could receive his mercy.

In the morning on Friday, the Community of St. John journeys the Stations of the Cross together, carrying a life-size cross through the woods of the priory. It's a trek that takes 3 hours, the priests are available for confession throughout the stations, and the monks take turns leading the pilgrims in meditations.

I've walked the stations with the brothers every summer since I was 16, as living the Stations of the Cross is part of the Eagle Eye Summer Institute (the camp which introduced me to the Community of St. John.) This time, I didn't worry about keeping everyone together, didn't have to sing the songs as we walked, I could just pray.

My soul wanted to pray the Consecration to Our Lady, the prayer that has been my heart-song for several months. Even though I've been praying it a lot lately, I still don't have it memorized, so I asked Fr. Nathan, my spiritual director, to pray me through it. I noticed a line I feel like I've never heard before and it took me so much more deeply into the Way of the Cross. So I'd like to share the prayer with you.

If Mary is someone you struggle with, let me know what you're questions are, I'd love to chat with you.

I, Mary Ann Pometto, a faithless sinner, renew and ratify today through you my baptismal promises I renounce forever Satan, his empty promises and his evil designs, and I give myself completely to Jesus Christ, the incarnate Wisdom, to carry my cross after him for the rest of my life, and to be more faithful to him than I have been until now. This day, with the whole court of heaven as witness I choose you, Mary, as my Mother and Queen. I surrender and consecrate myself to you, body and soul, with all that I possess, both spiritual and material, and even including the spiritual value of all my actions, past, present and to come. I give you the full right to dispose of me and all that belongs to me, without any reservations; in whatever way you please, for the greater glory of God in time and throughout eternity.

Accept, gracious Virgin, this little offering of my slavery to honor and imitate that obedience which the eternal Wisdom willingly chose to have towards you, his Mother. I wish to acknowledge the authority which both of you have over this little worm and pitiful sinner. By it I wish also to thank God for the privileges bestowed on you by the Blessed Trinity. I solemnly declare that for the future I will try to honor and obey you in all things as your true slave of love. O admirable Mother, present me to your dear Son as his slave now and for always, so that he who redeemed me through you, will now receive me through you. Mother of mercy, grant me the favor of obtaining the true Wisdom of God, and so make me one of those whom you love, teach and guide, whom you nourish and protect as your children and slaves. Virgin most faithful, make me in everything so committed a disciple, imitator, and slave of Jesus, your Son, the Incarnate Wisdom, that I may become, through your intercession and example, fully mature with the fullness which Jesus possessed on earth, and with the fullness of his glory in heaven. Amen.

Holy Thursday

There is an anticipation that settles on the air with the beginning of the Easter Triduum. Every day of the Triduum allows you to enter into the mysteries of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus. In Princeville, with the Brothers of St. John, you don't just enter the mysteries of the Triduum, you live them.

Holy Thursday offers the mystery of Christ's Last Supper with his Apostles and the Agony in the Garden (John 13:1-17:26.)

During the Last Supper Jesus knelt at the feet of his apostles and washed them. When I listen to Peter's reaction, I often think "Peter, why not? Why wouldn't you just let Jesus wash your feet? And then you go overboard... 'Wash my hands and head as well.'"

This Triduum, instead of looking at Peter from the outside, I truly discovered the man through identifying with his struggles. Peter was loved by Christ, even through his faults, through his pig-headed stubbornness and pride. It's just that Peter wasn't always willing to give those things to Him.

Too often, I keep the worst parts of myself: those faults that stand out and mark me as something less than worthy, as a shield against Christ. "Don't wash my feet Lord, there's too much I can't let you have." Jesus didn't wash Peter's feet because they were clean, he washed them because they weren't. This Holy Thursday, I was confronted with the question I had so long asked Peter, "Why won't you just let Jesus wash your feet?"

Jesus died on a cross, taking on a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8.) Not only did he take the little sins, I'm okay with giving him, but the ones I'd like to hold onto.


The fact of the matter is, that he can't take what I don't give him.

Jesus doesn't force anybody to love him. The real question behind what I've been asking Peter for years is, "How much do I love him?" The foot washing of Holy Thursday, threw me into the Triduum with the force of the Mercy of Christ as blood and water gushed out for the sins of his children.

"Wash not only my feet, but my hands and head as well."

Natural Surroundings

For Holy Thursday's evening of Adoration, the Contemplative Sisters enlisted the ladies of the Eagle Eye Institute to help them create the Garden of Gethsemene in our conference center. We spent the morning traipsing through the woods near the priory for moss and grass to use to make it more authentic. And then when we were finished we placed candles throughout. Sr. Theresa Marie and I ran over to the Conference Center at the end of Mass when they were processing over with the Eucharist to light the candles and then they had all-night adoration.

Cleaning up

Arranging the moss

Finished product

Close up of the finished product

Entrance of the procession

Lit up for adoration