Yes! It is a great gift to be traveling through the season of Lent! Let me share a little of my own personal travels in this season. I began Lent by traveling to the desert. However, it was not the desert of Judea, where Jesus fasted and prayed, but the desert of southeastern New Mexico surrounding the small city of Artesia, where it has not rained since the month of September. This is a place where no one laments the rain falling, for it is a matter of life or death.

Yes, and that is also true about this Lenten season. Lent, with its emphasis on prayer, fasting, and charity is as important as the cross of Jesus to our salvation. Wasn’t that so very clear when we had our foreheads smeared with ashes on Ash Wednesday and heard the words: "Repent and live the Gospel."?

I came to a community of Sacred Hearts religious that was very familiar to me. Just two years ago, I was serving there, together with two brother priests and three sisters from our Congregation of the Sacred Hearts. What a great reunion it was to be again with these special people that I so love. With me on the trip was Fr. Benedict Folger SSCC, who also was there. Serving with verve, praying with fervor, beloved by the people, he would never have left, if it were not for health problems. So I rejoiced to see him again in this place where his spirit fit so well.

Fr. Benedict Folger SSCC

This community in Artesia is distinctive, in that it is called a C.I.M., a Community in Mission, meaning that it aims at the renewal of our religious and communal life with a spark of our original spirit, given to us by our two founders: Fr. Pierre Coudrin SSCC and Sr. Henriette Aymer SSCC, who began our religious life by taking their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in 1800.

Fr. Pierre Coudrin SSCC- the "Good Father"

Sr. Henriette Aymer SSCC- the "Good Mother"

Because of them, whom we call our “Good Father” and our “Good Mother”, we are a true family, and that family spirit is part of our mission to renew ourselves and the world through God’s Love.

Each person in that community had and still has a unique and priceless function. For example, Sr. Damien Dang SSCC is part of the St. Jose ministry that serves food to bereaved families after funerals.

Sr. Damien Dang SSCC (with green apron)

Sr. Marie Lemert SSCC serves as an advocate for the protection of children. See the picture of Marie showing off her fifty cent jacket. Go Marie! Get those bargains!

Sr. Marie Lemert SSCC

And Fr. Paul Murtagh SSCC, is the softspoken, but ever caring servant-leader of five diverse communities.

Fr. Paul Murtagh SSCC

St. Catherine's Church in Hageman, N.M.

Pardon me for not showing photos of Sr. Dominic Reantaso SSCC and Fr. Brian Guerrini SSCC., who are equally special. I just didn't get around to photographing them!

I felt a deep connection once more with our people as I celebrated masses in all five churches.






And though it hurt to tell them I was visiting, not staying, we shared tremendous joy in seeing each other again.






In a mission like this, one learns to treasure the small things that others may not notice, like the sign at the entrance to Artesia that reminds one of the “scent of success.”






Do you think that sign shows the wrong end of the cow?





The nearby oil refiner, though ugly and a bit scary when its refuse flames surge like the fires of hell, it is a beautiful sight at sunrise and at night, when its lights twinkle and serve as a lighthouse in the pitch-black darkness.

refinery with refuse flame

refinery at sunrise

refinery at night

One shouldn’t forget that this refinery’s activity provides hundreds of jobs and produces the fuel that powers our airplanes. It reminds me of the refinery of spirit that is our religious life when we show our "light." at special times. If only more could see and know how beautiful this life is!

And yet this life must always change. Just eleven short days after arriving, we had to leave, but it was all right, knowing that we would be remembered and loved, and, of course, we would do the same. In that way, we are trying to be Christ’s missionaries, coming when we are needed, though not always wanted, and leaving when we are not needed as much, though perhaps still wanted . We come and go with Jesus, and that’s all right! Don’t you want to travel with us?

Being a vocation director necessarily limits the kind of ministry I do, but recently I had an experience that may resonate with some of you who desire a way to follow in the footsteps of Father Damien in this country and in this particular time of economic distress. My experience began when I learned from a newspaper article in the local New Bedford newspaper, that the local Homeless Service Providers’ Network was seeking volunteers for a 24 hour mission of contacting and counting all the homeless people in the city of New Bedford, the city I see across the Acushnet river from the town of Fairhaven.

The official reason for the count was to provide a reliable, current statistical figure of homelessness demanded by the federal government from every city and locality in the USA one day a year as a means to determine funding for the homeless. But for those who volunteered in this one day mission, there was another motiviation: to contact and to help the poorest of the poor. Looking at my photograph of Damien, I knew that I had to say “yes.” I had to be a volunteer. For weren’t the homeless the ones whom Damien would be assisting, if he were present now?

Because I lived at one time in the South End of the city

I was made part of a team to reconnoiter the South End in what must have been one of the coldest days of the year. I was part of a team of three. The others, Rosemary and Jessica, were much more experienced than I, since they work with the homeless on a daily basis in one of New Bedford’s homeless shelters.

Left:Rosemarie, Right: Jessica

Our first step was to report to the hall that was being used that day as launchpad for over 70 volunteers who were contacting the homeless that day. The large room had nametags, food, maps, flashlights, pamphlets, and some articles of clothing to offer any homeless persons we encountered.

But the best gift they gave us were some coupons from McDonald’s that we could offer to those who were in need, even if they refused to be interviewed.

We began by setting out for Fort Tabor, the bathhouses, and Salisbury Street, all places where the homeless had been sighted before. We didn’t find any homeless people, but we did find a place where they had slept under the bathhouse.

And we gave to anyone who had seen and talked to homeless people our “Street Sheets,” that listed all the resources in the city for people who were homeless or were threatened with homelessness. At one point, while casing the rundown area of County Street, we heard about an older Hispanic man who had been hanging around, but we never found him. We could only hope that the bar owner who sometimes fed him would share the Street Sheet information written in Spanish that we gave him. In the previous year, three homeless people had been approached and convinced to come off the street during the street count. Jessica and Rosemarie told me that there was always a danger that one of the homeless people would otherwise freeze to death,which happened to one unfortunate homeless man last year. The problem is that many of the homeless fear being “outed” or arrested, and therefore avoid having contact with anyone with the look of the official establishment.

When we returned after three hours of a mostly futile search, we were greeted and thanked by the managers of the project, Lisa and Fred, who thanked us for our effort, despite the fruitlessness of our search.

But I was impelled to ask why a cold day in winter was selected for this yearly count, since obviously the homeless, during the coldest times, would find a way to be indoors by sleeping in someone’s basement or doubling up in a friend’s apartment. One cynic among the volunteers told me that HUD forced them to choose that day, because the low street count made the government look more effective than it was. Could this be true? Perhaps. After all, we do live in a country that gives millions to distressed millionaires and a pittance to those who are at the bottom of the barrel. Damien knew the same reality, which is why he was sometimes called a “troublemaker.” May we find more troublemakers with the same passion for the poor that Blessed Damien of Molokai had.