By Julie Godfrey Miller
Catholic Herald

Centennial event: Fr. Bruce Nieli talks on the Holy Spirit

CABLE -- As part of the diocesan centennial celebration, people gathered in three different places in the Diocese of Superior, Sept. 29 and Sept. 30, for a faith forum, with Paulist Fr. Bruce Nieli speaking on the theme: "The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Me."

Nieli is founding director of the Center for Spiritual Development of the Archdiocese of New York and has worked on evangelization at many levels, including working for the Texas Catholic Conference and as director of evangelization for the U.S. Bishops. He is now a Paulist national Catholic evangelist and missionary.

Bishop Raphael M. Fliss attended the daytime session Sept. 28, at Telemark Lodge in Cable and gave a short welcoming message.

In her introduction of Nieli, Sr. Eileen Lang, FSPA, said she first met him at a conference and knew at once that the diocese should ask him to make a presentation. He gave his first talk in the diocese in 1995, and later returned to speak at a diocesan priests' retreat.

During his presentation, Nieli said, he would discuss how "devotion to, responding to and submitting to the Holy Spirit helps us be a prophetic people today."

He began by talking about the 1960s. He said the night before the presentation he watched a documentary about Bob Dylan on PBS, and he called Dylan a modern-day prophet. He said John F. Kennedy's inaugural address was the beginning of a era of tremendous idealism and the Second Vatican Council was the "beginning of a tremendously idealistic period in the history of our church."

Nieli said, "For many, the idealism of the '60s gave way to cynicism" over the Vietnam War and expectations of Vatican II that were not realized.

Nieli recounted his recent experience in Texas, where he was preaching a parish mission and witnessed how the people opened their arms to those fleeing the devastation of the Hurricane Katrina -- people from the Superdome, the convention center and other places.

Nieli said he offered his services to minister to the people housed in the Houston Astrodome and had never been hit with such a massive concentration of poverty before -- people with "literally nothing."

He said he ministered by listening to the people and felt it was important for them to see somebody who represented the Gospel. People asked to be prayed over and he said he felt it was one of the most prayerful gatherings he had ever experienced. He said there was a wall with notices of parents looking for children, children looking for parents, friends looking for friends. "I'm still processing it," he said, and added that one way he does that is to tell others about it, as he was doing at the presentation in Cable.

Nieli then talked about the three movements or paths of the Holy Spirit.

The first is the individual or the soul. Jesus in the desert seems to be by himself, but he's not, Nieli said. He's led by the Holy Spirit.

Then there is the community, or the church, Nieli said. Jesus goes to Nazareth and preaches from the Book of Isaiah in his hometown synagogue -- with mixed reviews. People marveled at Jesus' words, "but what happened when he tried to get them to do something?" Nieli added, "As a prophet, don't expect to be cheered all the time; expect to be booed some of the time. ... What should you do? Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. The Spirit of the Lord is upon us."

From Nazareth Jesus goes out into the world, Nieli said, and does what he read about in the Isaiah -- healing, proclaiming liberty to the captives.

Nieli said, "The ministry of Jesus continues through people like you because we open up our hearts to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is moving all over this land."

In the afternoon, Nieli talked about the rivers of the Holy Spirit. He was born and raised in New York and, he said, when the World Trade Center was attacked on Sept. 11, he felt anger and rage. He had friends who worked in the buildings and he felt hatred against the terrorists, which he admits was not a nice feeling, and not a very Christian feeling.

"The Holy Spirit is not about hatred," he said. He felt a movement outside of himself to do something in loving service and the movement in his heart took him as close as he could get to ground zero.

Through a series of what might be considered odd coincidences, but were likely the work of the Holy Sprit, Nieli found himself at the World Trade Center site when the largest discovery of bodies was made and there was no fire department chaplain available. He offered to help. He said he worked for five and a half hours, blessing the bodies and escorting each one on a Jeep that was serving as a hearse. He said people along the way were absolutely respectful, saluting or praying.

At the end of the five hours, he said, he felt no more anger, no more hate, only love.

Nieli introduced the afternoon portion of the presentation by talking about the transcendentalists in the 19th century, who came up with four things the soul thirsts for: unity, truth, goodness and beauty. Nieli calls these the rivers of the Holy Spirit.

Nieli named four American Catholics he thinks swam in these rivers:

* Unity -- Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who had the gift of bringing contradictory people together to reach consensus. He came up with the idea of the consistent ethic of life -- seeing every creature, from conception to natural death, as part of the seamless garment of life.

* Truth -- Thomas Merton, who in searching for truth looked at different religions and found himself at Mass. There, Nieli said, he saw multiple ethnicity, but all were one, all praying. During the sermon, Nieli said, Merton saw truth being articulated in a way that it had been articulated for 2,000 years.

* Goodness -- Dorothy Day, who had been living a promiscuous life in Greenwich Village in New York, hanging out with radical socialists, but felt something was missing in her life. "She was looking for love in all the wrong places," Nieli said, but she began looking for a love that lasts, where the shepherd gives his life for his sheep. She found the church and, Nieli said, the doctrine of the mystical body really turned her on. She saw what could be. Day went on to take in the homeless and founded the Catholic Worker.

* Beauty (universal love) -- Sr. Thea Bowman, an African American who grew up in Mississippi. She became a Catholic at age 10 and at 15 went to LaCrosse, Wis., and became a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration -- the only Black person in the convent. Nieli said Bowman could relate to everybody. She knew the spirituals, which, he said, are the work of the Holy Sprit. The spirituals have the passion of Christ, the passion of slavery, he said.

Nieli made a similar presentation in Ladysmith the evening of Sept. 28, and the following day made two presentation in Amery.

Recommended reading

During his presentation at the faith forum on the Holy Sprit, Fr. Bruce Nieli, CSP, recommended four books:

* Mission of the Redeemer, a 1991 encyclical letter by Pope John Paul II, published by Pauline Books and Media

* Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace of the USCCB. (Nieli noted that this document is inspiring, and can be used for meditation.)

* Faithful Citizenship, on themes of social teaching, published by the USCCB every four years

* Challenge of Faithful Citizenship, a summary of Faithful Citizenship, also published every four years by the USCCB.

< Local Archives

© Superior Catholic Herald, 2005