Brother Cook

As the world finished downloading the year of our Lord 2009, I was being uploaded to Sybertspace, Pennsylvania. Since arriving at Holy Dormition Friary, I have enjoyed the responsibility of helping Fr Laurian cook for our community.

This week's menu included a beef roast (perhaps my first ever) and roast chicken. Roasts are now one of my favorite menus--almost everything fits in the roaster and anyone can take it out of the oven at the appropriate time. Already twice I've prepared cauliflower and peas according to an Indian recipe. I've inherited my Dad's love of sales, and I use my economics-gene to watch the produce sales from week to week, so we get the best deal possible. Sometime I should think to take a photo or two, but the first test of a cook should be the flavor and smell, not the sight. If you don't like how it looks, that's okay--more for me!

Fr Laurian is dedicated to making soup a couple times a week. I'm happy to be sous-chef for soups, and I think my recipe books are getting more use now than they got for the past six years while I was only occasionally a cook.

Transmitting from Sybertspace to Cyberspace...

Moving

With more baggage and technology than Joseph and Mary took to Egypt, I too am moving shortly after (the celebration of) the birth of Jesus Christ. Before the new year, I will depart from Pittsburgh and St Gregory parish for the hard coal region of Pennsylvania.



















Pictured here: St Gregory Church; blessing of animals on the Feast of St Francis.


I started this past year at St Basil's near Dallas, Texas. Mid-November I traveled to Louisiana to visit my sister Ruth and her family, so I served at St Nicholas mission in New Orleans; I was also able to visit the friars serving in Greenwood, Mississippi. So this is a year of travels. My ministry in Sybertsville will also involve travel to many parishes to help out when priests are sick or on vacation. I will also give retreats or days of recollection--Holy Dormition friary has beds for 12 guests, but most of our programs are one-day.

Pictured: people leaving Holy Dormition chapel

Holy Dormition Chapel Online:
http://hdbfm.com/index.html


May God bless your Christmas celebration with the peace that will help you to shine the light of Christ even in the midst of the consumer rush!

with love and prayers,
Jerome, ofm

Presbyteral Ordination

As a young child, I wanted to be like the adults around me. I wanted to eat what my parents ate and read what my parents read. Now the Church has ordained me to the order of presbyter, meaning elder, but usually called "priest." I was ordained on September 20, 2008, during the post-festive time of the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. This is meaningful: ministry is not just a professional endeavor, and ordination is not earned but a proclamation of the cross, a proclamation to which I have been called.

Serving at the Divine Liturgy feels very natural. I look forward to serving the Church in this way, even though I know that there will be times where this ministry will feel more like the cross than anything else.

I greatly appreciate the prayerful support of so many people as I approach this awesome ministry of service.

Christ is Born!

Merry Christmas to all!


In August I moved into Holy Family Friary here in Pittsburgh, graciously welcomed by brothers from the Cincinnati province of Franciscans who have ministered to people in this area since the days of the independent Slovak Franciscans. The six of us have a wide variety of ministries--social justice, hospital and police chaplaincy, sacramental service to Roman and Byzantine parishes and convents. I am serving as deacon at Holy Ghost parish in McKees Rocks, pictured left. We have a radio liturgy each Sunday and for Christmas as well--so the Archbishop will be with us on Christmas morning.

(Photo: Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church, McKees Rocks, PA)

Diaconal Service

In March, I was ordained deacon at the Byzantine Seminary by Metropolitan Basil, OFM. I'm enjoying serving at Holy Ghost Byzantine Church in McKees Rocks, PA--just across the river from Holy Family Friary where I'm now living. Holy Ghost Church celebrated its 100th anniversary in August this year, shortly after I started my assignment. I've been preaching almost every week, which takes a lot of preparation but is very worthwhile. Now that I've finished my coursework, I'm visiting parishioners in nursing homes and helping out with some of the other regular upkeep of the church buildings.

(Photo: Friars Camillus Janas, Bernard Kennedy, me, Ed Tlucek after my ordination)

Christmas in July

My Christmas celebration started this summer when I went to the Chapter for "young friars" in the Holy Land. The Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans) asked each province to send two friars solemn professed less than 10 years...and I was selected to go from my province, with Br Craig Wilking, OFM, who is a nurse in Chicago. It was a great experience! The last day of the chapter we spent in Bethlehem, so we reflected on the birth of Jesus Christ and the rebirth or recommitment we made to our vocations as friars. I served as one of the deacons at Mass that day. (This photo shows the Minister General holding the Christ child for veneration.)