Beggars before God

We are all beggars before God.  There is nothing we can truly call our own.  Everything is a gift from God and everything comes from him.

However, not all beggars are alike.  Some are childlike, obsessed with their own needs and anxiously try to prolong their existence and fulfill their desires as much as possible.  They demand things from God in a timely fashion and if their prayer is not heard according to their will they do whatever is necessary to make sure their needs are accomplished. Another type of beggar is one who is humble, sincere and has realized their own helplessness and in humility has turned outside of himself for the answers and for the help he needs for his life.  His “nothingness” has not led him to despair but to hope in a loving and merciful God.

Which kind of beggar are we?

If our brokenness, sins, mistakes, regrets and fears do not make us humble than we will remain like the beggar who is never satisfied and who is always anxious and afraid.  Yet if in our poverty we can turn to God, honest about ourselves and our lives, we will experience the hand of a loving Father in our life.  He will change the rags that we as beggars have acquired and clothe us in the new and beautiful garments of the children of God.

God bless you,

Fr. Jeremiah Myriam Shryock CFR
St. Felix Friary, Yonkers, NY

Questioning in Luke 1

When I was growing up “y” was my favorite letter of the alphabet - my poor parents! We modern people love to question things. Faith can be a huge area of questions and doubts.

Zechariah and the Virgin Mary both question what the Angel Gabriel told them. Zechariah as an elderly priest in the Temple asked, “How can this be? My wife and I are past the child-bearing age?” Mary as a teenage girl asked, “How can this be? I do not know man?” Zechariah receives a nine month silent retreat as punishment for his disbelief. The Virgin Mary receives the Word incarnate in her womb.

What was the difference between their two questions? Evidently Zechariah questioned from a position of disbelief. Mary questioned from a position of  faith seeking understanding (the fides quaerens intellectum of St. Anselm).

So let us question like Mary, not from skepticism and suspicion, but rather from a trust which seeks to understand. The answers to some questions are so big and wonderful that we will need to wait for eternity to ponder them. If God was small enough for our minds, He wouldn’t be big enough for our problems.

Another helpful point to ponder: With God the penalty always contains the remedy. Nine months in silence was just what Zechariah needed to confront his unbelief. Silent prayer in the presence of the Lord will help our unbelief as well.

God bless you,
Fr. Luke Mary Fletcher, CFR
Saint Joseph Friary
Harlem, NY

Skepticism: Enemy of Your Vocation

A blessed Advent and Merry Christmas to all of you. This is such a beautiful time of the year, filled with memories and moving images of an amazingly humble God. Various TV channels usually run such classics as Dicken's A Christmas Carol (did you see the Disney - Jim Carrey version?), 1983 A Christmas Story, 1964 Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, 1969 Frosty the Snowman and the 1965 A Charlie Brown Christmas. Some people like the 2008 movie The Nativity Story. Many churches put on live nativity plays (see ours here). Saint Francis started it all! (read more here).

You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus (Luke 1:31)

Christmas and Easter are also times when it is popular for various TV channels to show documentaries on Jesus, etc. Many of these programs this year will focus on anything except the religious aspect of Christmas - or they will be presenting the story from a skeptical point of view using testimonies from various "scholars". Beware!! It is worth noting that we are often bombarded from so many different sources which plant seeds of doubt about our faith. This is the tactic taken by the serpent in the garden. We are all influenced by the secular culture. Beware!! Skepticism is the enemy of your vocation. Littleness of faith is a huge problem when it comes to discerning and answering your call from God. Let's say bah humbug to the sowers of secular skepticism.

Just say no to those skeptical Grinches!

P.S. Remember the Nativity story? It is all true.

May the newborn baby Jesus bless you,

Fr. Luke Mary Fletcher, CFR

Saint Joseph Friary, Harlem, NY

Check it out ...

+ Pope Lights World’s Largest Xmas Tree & Shares His 3 Xmas Wishes

+ Ultra Sound Baby Jesus Poster found here

+ Archbishop Carlson sees signs of encouragement for US vocations

+ Padre Pio's Christmas Meditation - from a hand-written notebook

+ GrassrootsFilms Superbowl Doritos Commercial - a must see from our friends

+ The Star of Bethlehem Documentary - really really interesting

+ [Advent Conspiracy] Enter the Story 2011 - a must see - 2:39 video - this Christmas

+ Videos: A Friar Tells His Story + Mother Teresa on Vocation + CFR Sisters 1 + CFR Sisters 2

A Litany for Salvation

Jesus save me from my pride that refuses help, even when I know I need it.
Jesus save me from the fear I have about the future.
Jesus save me from the desire to be my own savior or to find a savior in somebody or something else but you.
Jesus save me from lust and treating and seeing others only as objects of pleasure. Jesus save me from anxiety about decisions and circumstances in my life.
Jesus save me from my interior poverty and brokenness.
Jesus save me from my loneliness.
Jesus save me from my insecurities about myself, my body and my state in life right now.
Jesus save me from being overly concerned with what people say or think about me.
Jesus save me from the thought that my life has no meaning.
Jesus save me from despair and the temptation to think that You don’t love me and that I am beyond your help.
Jesus save me from disordered desires that cause imbalances in my heart, body and soul.
Jesus save me from being envious and jealous of others.
Jesus save me from blindness that prevents me from seeing the truth.
Jesus save me from mediocrity and only living life with half of my heart.
Jesus save me from the fear of being the person you call me to be.
Jesus save me from an attitude of “possession” that wants to take instead of receive life as a gift.
Jesus save me from laziness and an inordinate desire for worldly pleasures.
Jesus save me from the fear of death.
Jesus save me from not seeing the good you have placed within me.
Jesus save me from the million other things I cannot see or hear right now.
Most of all Jesus, save me from the thought that your love is not enough for me…


God bless you,
Fr. Jeremiah Myriam Shryock CFR
St. Felix Friary, Yonkers, NY

Fr. Mariusz is recovering well

(On Nov. 17, Fr. Mariusz suffered a heart attack and is now recovering well)

Dear CFR Associates and Friends,

With deep gratitude I write to thank you for your prayers for my recovery. Certainly this experience has reminded me again of the precious gift of life, and especially of the precious gift of our Faith.

On November 2, 2011, Pope Benedict spoke these words:

"If we reduce man exclusively to his horizontal dimension, to that which can be perceived empirically, life itself loses its profound meaning. Man needs eternity for every other hope is too brief, too limited for him. Man can be explained only if there is a Love which overcomes every isolation, even that of death, in a totality which also transcends time and space. Man can be explained, he finds his deepest meaning, only if there is God. And we know that God left his distance for us and made himself close. He entered into our life and tells us: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).

Be assured of my prayers for you and best wishes for a joy filled Advent Season. Please continue to pray for my recovery, that I will use this time as a time of prayer and renewal. Your intentions are in my heart at the celebration of Holy Mass. May God bless you abundantly!


Sincerely yours in Christ,

Fr. Mariusz Casimir Koch, CFR
Community Servant

A Collection of prayers: VII.

I cannot fathom my heart Lord.  It is an ocean I am unable to conquer.

I rebel underneath its waves.  I fight like a warrior against its currents.  I curse its temperature and fall exhausted on the shore gasping for breathe.  I plot revenge with a smile.  Am I proud or just a fool?  How long will I try and vanquish this mystery alone?

I was not made for this solitude.  My heart suffocates in isolation.

My wisdom has been imprudent and my hope in vain.

I lift my eyes to You Father, my only hope for communion.  You are the answer to the thousand questions that rage inside of me.

If only I am brave enough to surrender.

A collection of prayers: VI.

The rain obscures my vision.  The wind makes my body a fool.

If I run, I am prey to all that is wild.  If I walk, death comes like a slow winter.

Hear me, crying. 

A Collection of prayers: V.

(Adam’s Song)


If only I could return to that place where I once felt your hands, calm and serene, fashioning me in Your image.  That place where Your voice, tranquil and easy,
breathed over me.  That second where Your eyes, fervent and beautiful, revealed Yourself to me; that moment in time when I first saw her.

How different would I respond now; because this time, I am not afraid?

Even though I must toil and suffer here on this earth I will not leave her again.  She, my sister and my bride, reveals to me who I am and who I am supposed to be, because through our love we are led to You, the Author of love.

A Collection of prayers IV.

Whether I realize it or not I am constantly longing for You. My mind hungers for Your peace and my heart refuses anything but Your presence. I am numb without You, frozen in time, waiting for You to touch me and bring me back to life.

Where could I go if You were not here?  I could not find You on my own nor could I discover something more beautiful than You.  I have searched and found words, turned words into sentences, and sentences into poetry, only to become bored by its rhyme and meter.  But in Your Passion You have burned those pages and now You are the poet leading me into eternity.

Without You Lord my life is a tragedy, for in Your sonnets You have revealed to me the love that I yearn for.


God bless you,

Fr. Jeremiah Myriam Shryock, CFR
St. Felix Friary, Yonkers, New York

A Collection of prayers: III.

The leaves, once so strong and independent, have changed colors as they prepare for their end.

And here am I, watching the restlessness of my youth fade away.  Only You my God know when my end will be.  Like these autumn leaves all I can do is surrender to Your providence.  It is a simple act of faith in Your love.


God bless you,

Fr. Jeremiah Myriam Shryock, CFR
St. Felix Friary, Yonkers, New York