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Saturday, December 1, 2012

Today We Celebrated Jack Meehan's Life/Funeral in Falls Church

Almost two hundred people attended the celebration of Jack Meehan's life in Falls Church on Friday and Saturday.
Mourners watched a beautiful slide how of photos of cherished memories while Jack's music played in the background. On Friday, we had a prayer service which included a time of  open sharing and a touching tribute/eulogy by Grandaughter Katie at our Prayer Service, the reading of a letter of commendation by the Irish Ambassador for Jack's major musical contributions.
I presided at the Wake and Funeral Services. Jack's granddaughter, Katie, delivered a touching eulogy at both services about the magic of growing up with Grandpa and his stories of Ireland. The legacy of his mystical, humorous tales of banshees, fairies and real people that occured a long, long time ago will live on in the hearts of Katie and Danny and all of us for years to come.
At the funeral on Saturday, family members and friends carried up symbols from Jack's life including trumpet, wrench,  a cottage music box, photos. The funeral service included  beautiful readings from scripure, prayers, and recordings of Jack playing on trumpet and sax some of his favorite spirituals: "How Great Thou Art," "Amazing Grace,"  "Peace if flowing like a River", and  "When the Saints go Marching in".
We are grateful for all the prayers  and message of sympathy that our family received from all over the United States, Latin America, Ireland and Australia.
Eternal rest unto you, Dad, may your soul and all the souls of the faithfully departed rest in peace. Amen.

Friday, November 30, 2012

"in the Arms of Family Forever" by Dr. Judy Lee/ Celebration of Jack Meehan's Life//Wake Today at Everly Community Funeral Home, Falls Church 2-4pm, 6-8pm



Born in Ballyroan

In County Laois

Rooted in Ireland,

Rooted in love,

Rooted in Christ

Rooted in music-

Strong in the roots,

Intertwined in the

Branches and the

Beautiful blossoms

Growing, making

New in Katie and in Danny

Born of the love of Sean and Nancy

Nurtured by them

and Jack and Bridie,

Grandpa and Grandma,

and Aunt Mary too

and Uncle Patrick and Val,

and Aunt Molly too-

 as well as timid

beautiful Molly

their dog after

beloved Belle

and Shep and Candy,

All the family of Jack,

 and he was so proud

of each one,

and of Mary, his Sister, daughter and priest.

And all the family of Jack

Were by his side

Day and night

In shifts and

All together,

praying, crying,

laughing, waking

 loving, loving

loving him, their gentle love.

And the first time

they were told

God was calling

They waked him

So good, he began

To eat and live again.

He moved his toes to the tunes of

the Ballyroan Band

And squeezed their

hands to the tune of his

Memory Aires, his

trumpet and his sax

for he was music, and music cannot die.

And yes he hummed

To the Rose of Mooncoin

and is free in Inishfree.

And while his homes were in Coolkerry and

Northern Virginia

He would go Back

Home to Indiana with dear

Nancy who lovingly,

with friend Dawn

Fed them all.

And remember his

Beloved Bridie Beale

With In the Mood

And let me call you Sweetheart,

And all the family and dear friends

With Irish eyes are

Smiling and

Danny Boy,

So for them

Happy days were

here with him

and they will come again

when he blares it

out and gathers them in, with him,

when the Saints Go Marchin’ In.

(Dr. Judy Lee, 11/8/12)

 

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Watch "Implosion" -You Tube Video on Need for Transformation of Clerical Structures by a Vatican Journalist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyPUzfJ8X50&w=420&h=315

Help, Thanks, Wow, by Anne Lamott, A Must Read -Wise and Funny!

"My personal belief is that God looks through Her Rolodex when She has a certain kind of desperate person in Her care, and assigns that person to some screwed-up soul like your or me, and makes it hard for us to ignore that person's suffering, so that we show up even when it is extremely inconvenient or just awful to be there." Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow, p. 25.

Anne Lamott's book, Help, Thanks, Wow speaks to me because my prayer this year could be summarized by these three words, especially Help!
My Dad, Jack, died on Sat. after almost a year of debilitating illness. He was a devoted dad and my best friend. I will miss him more than words can say, but, I give thanks for his life, lived fully, especially his gift of music that was truly Wow! My Sister-in-law, Nancy, gave this book to me as an early Christmas gift and it is a keeper and a treasure! Poignant and funny at thee same time!
Bridget Mary Meehan, arcwp, www.arcwp.org

National Coalition of American Nuns Challenge Men of Maryknoll Over Fr. Roy Bourgeois

Alas, dear men of Maryknoll,
What icy fear so numbed your hearts
To make you throw your own good brother
Into jaws of cruel inquisition?

If truth to conscience be not honored
By you, but rather weak subservience
Then do you not dis-honor the very vows
That sent you once so boldly forth to mission?

Remember this: you did not go alone
Into the distant lands, but women, too, left all
To join you in the gospel call to love the world.
Why are they now not worthy of your voice?

Together stand with Father Roy today.
Display the courage that your lives proclaim.
Though our expressions be not all alike,
Shall we not trust each one’s integrity?

--From your sisters in the National Coalition of American Nuns

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

"In Hero of the Catholic Left, a Conservative Cardinal Sees a Saint"/Dorothy Day/New York Times

"Dorothy Day is a hero of the Catholic left, a fiery 20th-century social activist who protested war, supported labor strikes and lived voluntarily in poverty as she cared for the needy.

But Day has found a seemingly unlikely champion in New York’s conservative archbishop, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, who has breathed new life into an effort to declare the Brooklyn native a saint.
Cardinal Dolan has embraced her cause with striking zeal: speaking on the anniversaries of her birth and death, distributing Dorothy Day prayer cards to parishes and even buying roughly 100 copies of her biography to give out last year as Christmas gifts to civic officials including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg..."
..."Cardinal Dolan is, in one sense, the natural advocate for Day, because she lived most of her life in his archdiocese and her canonization was proposed by one of his predecessors. But promoting Day’s sainthood cause is also politically useful for him, and other bishops, at a time when the hierarchy is often described by liberal Catholics as caring more about reproductive issues than poverty, some Catholics said.
“...But some of Day’s closest supporters are critical of how conservatives interpret her message on the role of government.
“I think she would be appalled to have her commitment to voluntary poverty and works of mercy and charity in their deepest sense be used as cover for an agenda that I think she would see as part of a war against the poor,” said Mr. Ellsberg, a former editor of The Catholic Worker newspaper that Ms. Day founded with Peter Maurin in 1933. .."
To be canonized as a saint, Day will face several major hurdles, according to the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center. First, the Vatican must determine that two miracles have occurred as a result of prayers to her since her death. Second, she needs organizational support to keep up a lobbying effort for her, and the Catholic Worker movement she helped found is often ambivalent about the canonization process, fearful that her message will become oversimplified. Day herself once said, according to the church, “Don’t trivialize me by trying to make me a saint.”
Then there is simply the matter of time — the heavily bureaucratic canonization process can take decades. “Dolan is behind this, but it might take more than his lifetime to get this whole thing through,” Father Reese said. “And there’s no way of knowing if the next guy will place it as high on his agenda.”
When Cardinal Dolan talks about why he supports Day, he tends not to mention her arrests at protests of nuclear weapons or at a farm labor protest with Cesar Chavez. Instead, he describes her as a sinner whose life was transformed when she converted.
Describing for reporters at the bishops’ meeting Day’s life as a young woman, Cardinal Dolan offered a litany of concerns: “Sexual immorality, religious searching, pregnancy out of wedlock and an abortion.” But, he said, after her conversion, she not only flourished, but she also became an icon “for everything right about the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life.”
But her granddaughter, Martha Hennessy, 57, who volunteers in the East Village at Mary House, a Catholic Worker refuge for the poor that Day founded, said in an interview that she found the bishops’ increasing focus on her grandmother’s abortion uncomfortable.
“I wish we would focus on the birth of her child more than on her abortion because that’s what really played a role in her conversion,” said Ms. Hennessy, whose mother, Tamar, was Day’s only child. “It’s hard for me to hear these men talking about my mother and grandmother that way.”
Her daily work continues. The Catholic Worker, a newspaper she helped start has grown into a broad movement, and more than 200 Catholic Worker houses of hospitality continue to serve the poor around the country. Followers of the movement — who do not have to be Catholic — run soup kitchens, rooming houses and clothing distributions, and continue to hold protests, which these days are focused on torture, drone attacks and other aspects of the war on terror.
At St. Joseph House on First Street in the East Village on a recent Thursday, a kitchen full of volunteers rinsed down giant stockpots and bowl-size ladles after finishing the morning’s soup line for the neighborhood poor. Around 25 residents and volunteers live in the graffiti-tagged building, relying on donations for their work. More Catholic workers live two blocks away in Maryhouse, the refuge where Day lived the final years of her life.
As the volunteers gathered for lunch at St. Joseph House — in a simple dining hall hung with hand-drawn pictures of Day, a portrait of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a crucifix — Carmen Trotta, who has lived in the house for a quarter-century, said that while he believed Day’s message of pacifism and works of mercy should be the focus of discussions about her possible canonization, he was confident that anyone who read her writings would understand her priorities.
“None of us really have any doubt that she was a saint,” he said.

Monday, November 26, 2012

The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests Needs Your Generous Support this Advent/Christmas Season/ You Gift Will Make a Difference! www.arcwp.org


Dear Family, Friends and Supporters of ARCWP: 
As we draw near to Christmas and the close of 2012, we look back on this year with great joy and extreme gratitude. We give thanks for you, our supporters.  Together we are moving toward a renewed inclusive Christ-centered, justice seeking Catholic Church emerging in more and more places led by ordained women.   In 2012 five women were ordained as priests and another six women as deacons.  We anticipate the ordination of as many as nine women as priests in 2013.  In spite of the Vatican-imposed punishment of excommunication our movement for Gospel equality continues to grow.

ARCWP is a new vision rising up: one of inclusion, nonviolence and justice in our church and
world community.  We are active in ministries with those who are living on the margins due to homelessness, racism, poverty and difference.  We serve as pastors for house churches and inclusive Catholic communities.  We are educators and authors, retreat leaders and peace activists.  We provide pastoral care in a variety of medical settings. We work with youth, families, the elderly and the disaffected to heal and build community often in ecumenical settings. 


Our vision rose on November 17 when Jesuit Father Bill Brennan co-presided with our Janice Sevre-Duszynska at the Progressive Catholic Coalition liturgy at the School of the Americas (SOA) protest in Georgia.  In just a few days our joy was tempered by the news that the Vatican dismissed Fr. Roy Bourgeois from the Maryknoll order and the priesthood. But he will always be our courageous priest.  We have collaborated with Women's Ordination Conference and Call to Action in support of Fr. Roy who said.  “...it is my conscience that compels me to say publicly that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is a grave injustice against women, against our Church and against our Loving God who calls both men and women to the priesthood.”   

As we look ahead to 2013 we know that we will need increased financial support.  Our largest expense is for our ordinations and all the ways we spread the good news of the women priest movement: speaking to groups in colleges and universities and at showings of the documentary “Pink Smoke”, through our website, and by visiting and collaborating with our priests in South America.

That’s what ARCWP is about.  We work tirelessly to bring about the Kin-dom in local communities by the giving of ourselves in ministry and by challenging the powers that be.  We know that we can count on you to support our efforts. Please make your tax-deductible donation to:  ARCWP at the address below or on our website:www.arcwp.org

                                                              
We invite you to visit our website (www.arcwp.org) and Bridget Mary’s blog (bridgetmarys.blogspot.com) for the latest in our movement for a renewed inclusive church.

We offer you our blessings as we move forward together,
 The Women of ARCWP 

Pleae make donations to ARCWP/Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, mail to or donate on our website at www.arcwp.org
:
ASSOCIATION OF ROMAN CATHOLIC WOMEN PRIESTS
18520 EASTSHORE DRIVE
                        FORT  MYERS, FL   33967


The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, Inc. is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt charitable organization.
Donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Jack Meehan, My Dad, Died On Sat. Nov. 24th/Wake And Funeral Will Be Held In Falls Church, VA.

"Down the corridor of time has travelled a man...whose Life and Spirit have changed our lives...and shaped our history with musicalutterances that touched our hearts.” 
"When Saints Go Marchin In"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bjl6Eke4Ac&feature=youtu.be
"Rose of Mooncoin" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVysE9BkBqc
 

Jack Meehan of Falls Church passed away peacefully at home with family members at his side after a long illness on November 24, 2012.  He was born on October 4, 1924, in Ballyroan, County Laois, Ireland. Jack was married September 25, 1946, to Bridie Beale, who preceded him in death. Jack was the beloved father of Sean, Patrick, and Bridget Mary. The family immigrated to the United States in 1956. A gifted musician, Jack played trumpet and saxophone and he and his band entertained in the DC area for over 40 years.  His band was the house band for Army-Navy Country Club for over 20 years and also performed for three US Presidents (Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon) as well as at Congressional and embassy functions.  Jack retired from the Brookings Institution in 1991 after 30 years of faithful service.  Along with his children, Jack is survived by his beloved grandchildren, Katie and Danny, and his daughters-in-law, Nancy and Valerie, as well as many family members and friends in Ireland, England and Australia as well as the US.  Services will be held at Everly Funeral Home, 6161 Leesburg Pike in Falls Church.  Viewing  from 2-4PM, 6-8PM on Friday, November 30. Funeral in Everly Funeral Chapel at 10:00 AM on Saturday, December 1, followed by interment at Oakwood Cemetery, Falls Church. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Jack’s name to Capital Caring Hospice, 950 North Glebe Road, Suite 500, Arlington, VA 22203.
 Our family is grateful for the outpouring of prayers and loving support from so many people who loved Dad and enjoyed his fabulous music. We will miss him more than words can say, but his spirit and music will live forever. May the road rise up to meet you, Dad, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm on your face, the rain fall softly on your fields and, until we meet again may God hold you in loving embrace!
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP
www.arcwp.org
sofiabmm@aol.com
 
 
  

"Elinah Wamukoya Said She Would 'Represent the Mother Attribute of God'"

Ellinah Wamukoya

Ellinah Wamukoya said she would "represent the mother attribute of God"

the Anglican Church of Southern Africa has consecrated its first woman bishop in Africa.
Ellinah Wamukoya, 61, will serve as the church's bishop in the small, conservative kingdom of Swaziland.
Her consecration comes as the Church of England is due to vote on whether to allow women to become bishops.
"We have taken this step, and we wish the Church of England 'God speed' as they deliberate this week," Cape Town's Anglican archbishop said.
The Most Revd Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town said in a statement: "The thunder is rumbling as I write: We have witnessed a great occasion, and now it does indeed seem that the heavens are about to fall upon us - the falling of rain, which this country and its people so desperately need.
David Dinkebogile led Saturday's ceremony and stressed that the gathering was to consecrate a bishop "not a black woman, not an African, not a Swazi woman".
"She was to be pastor to all, to men and women, to black and white, to Swazis and all others in her diocese," he said.
Bishop Wamukoya is a former mayor of Swaziland's economic capital, Manzini, reports the AFP news agency.
"I am going to try to represent the mother attribute of God," she told the AP news agency.
"A mother is a caring person but at the same time, a mother can be firm in doing whatever she is doing," she said.

Church Authority/Where are the people of God, including the women who are half of our church?

http://www.churchauthority.org/index.asp

Each of these recommendations but I think it does not go far enough:
1. Abolish the Curia.
2. Next Synod should include representatives, women and men, from all nations not just male bishops
3. Add more women in every category here so our church represents its members, not just the male, hierarchical, clerical system.
4. Include Roman Catholic Women Priests
5. Your ideas?...........
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP, www.arcwp.org