Voices from the Valley

Mike Camoin shares how he first connected with the Mountain and how he brings the Mountain to his work and family.

How I connected with the Mountain:
My connection to the Mountain goes back just before the Mountain came into being. I remember first attending an off-campus retreat as a freshman at Bonas. The setting was a rustic facility on Plum Bottom Road. The rural vista was tremendous and the discussion even better. Plans to purchase a permanent property to host off-campus retreats soon became a reality and as students we visited the farmhouse which is now called “The Other House.” Here, Mass and discussions were celebrated on the porch that today overlooks the small pond near the gardens.

In my senior year, my father came to visit the Mountain and we spent an overnight at a retreat. In my early years as a Student for the Mountain I had attended many overnights and day trips with the Mountain community. Perhaps one of the stronger impressions for me was sitting around the wood-burning stove at the farmhouse being introduced to upperclassmen and women who were seriously considering a deeper calling to Franciscan life. Many of us answered that call in a variety of ways. Some, like myself, entered into married life, though it was not without much contemplation.

Where I am now:
I live with my wife, Linda, and our two children, Isabelle, 10, and Jacob, 9 in Albany, N.Y. I am an independent filmmaker with a desire to create stories that might offer a cultural impact on our society. I have founded other community organizations and resources for other filmmakers to cultivate and advance their works closer to completion.

How the Mountain had an impact and how I keep the connection with the Mountain alive:
The Mountain has had such a positive impact on my life and touched me in many ways. First, the Mountain community has helped in the formation of my faith. Over the years when the Church was in such turmoil, I found the Mountain to be a tremendous source of open dialogue as it had been some 20 years prior in my college years. If not for the Mountain, I perhaps would have drifted from the Church entirely. I had already stopped going to Mass regularly and found that other parts of the Church weren't structured to engage many of us in open dialogue.
 
The Mountain continues to grow in my life. My wife visited the Mountain with me, and later, our two children. We've enjoyed the Mountain's continued outreach to us now in our own distant communities. While our schedules get crowded with family obligations, keeping the Mountain in my life is important. Together with fellow Franciscan Sojourners we gather today here in our Albany homes in the manner of Mountain life, with prayer and discussion over a meal or light refreshments. 

Favorite memory at the Mountain:
I have a memory of the Mountain that perhaps occurred more than once. We were in the van that shuttled us as students to and from our Allegany campus to the Mountain for an evening Mass and meal. Upperclassmen who likely would have been in the van included guys like Chris Domes, Dennis Coleman, John Ducey and Harry Monaco. Someone said something so funny, we couldn't stop laughing and Fr. Dan had to pull the van over he was laughing so much. It was those early formative years that made the impression that Franciscan life is a life of joy, inclusion and celebration.

A simple prayer …
I'd like to share a simple prayer that came to me immediately following my last visit to the Mountain with my family. It's simple and is something we now share regularly before meals:

May Love fill our hearts
And our homes
And may we walk in Peace
Now and forever. 

Amen.

With this prayer, the Mountain indeed is carried in our hearts in our own way wherever we go.

What Is Mine To Do?

Br. Kevin Kriso, ofm, reflects on the working relationships that sustain the Mountain and its ministry.

Recently a group of us reflected on the questions, “Why is Mt. Irenaeus popular, even among people who have never been here?” “What attracts people to the Mountain?”  

We came up with a few answers. The first is our ministry is very basic and uncomplicated; it is really just the cultivation of one-on-one relationships. Community building and hospitality with warmth, love and unconditional acceptance is the main ministry of the Mountain. This approach satisfies a deep need all people have to feel welcomed and accepted. And they respond.

The second answer we came up with is people feel a need to contribute and feel their presence matters. They “count” and belong to something larger than themselves. This may be part of what separates the Mountain from retreat centers and other facilities. At the Mountain we work with people who visit as partners. We don’t do things “for” them (and they do not do things “for” us). We work together as partners. We welcome people in and connect with them, so in a sense everyone who is here hosts everyone else. We call this a Gospel manner of life and ministry. It is the way we do things. It is important everyone connected with the Mountain needs to understand and be formed by this connecting thread.

We are formed into this way of life by reflecting that Christ is the Center with his Great Commandment to Love. In the Great Commandment to Love, all relationships matter. We continually need learn to treat everyone with equality and acceptance and that includes partnering with people in big and small tasks. This reflection and action leads to ongoing transformation; ongoing conversion if you will. We grow together into this way of life: Resident Community, Board of Trustees, Secular Franciscans and part-time and even single-time volunteers.

Creamed Onions Recipe (Mountain Alternative)

Fr. Dan's Mountain addition/alternative to his Mother’s and Sister’s creamed onions recipe (as featured in the December e-newsletter) …     

Tender the peeled onions in a microwave or briefly in boiling water.

Place onions in the buttered casserole dish with their cut top up.  Prior to pouring the prepared cheese sauce over the onions, pour a mixture of a  tablespoon of vermouth or balsamic vinegar melted with an additional ¼ stick of butter and a ¼ cup of grated Parmesan cheese spooned on top of the onions.

Place a square of Swiss, provolone or Jarlsburg cheese on each onion to brown up during the baking (Bake at 350 at least 45 minutes, until nice and bubbly on edges).

Living on the Mountain

Joe Flynn, a current Mountain companion, shares his reflections on this important ministry and its limitless gifts.

Often, what seem like limits in our lives are actually signs pointing to a space outside of limits. God has shown me this many times, but never more so than in my coming to Mt. Irenaeus.

The relationships I formed in college at Geneseo awakened me to a vocation of serving the Church or another for-purpose organization as a lay person, but upon beginning graduate school at St. Bonaventure, I still had no clue where to begin.

The idea to live and serve at the Mountain this year couldn’t have been my idea. Fr. Dan Riley, ofm, who first invited me here, is a champion of drawing up people from every walk of life to meet their own needs by validating their capacity to serve the community as equals.

Each of the friars here model, in his own way, how true service is not oppressive, but communal. I learn from their example every day here. Whether in mowing the lawn, driving students to and from campus, leading prayer, or helping to represent the Mountain at an off-site gathering, every role I carry here is a freeing experience. The hundreds, or probably even thousands, of people who call the Mountain home energize me to be a better person than I ever could be on my own. It is your love that will strengthen me when I leave here to continue a career in ministry.

I encourage anyone feeling a call to greater freedom in rootedness, or a call to reach beyond the limits of our lives, to consider joining us for a while, in any way, from a silent walk in the woods to full-time ministry with us. You’ll find, as I’m still finding, that everyone who takes the time to break bread or split firewood with us is an important part of our community.

Blankets to Remember

Br. Kevin Kriso, ofm, tells the story of how the Christmas blankets laid at the final resting places of fellow Franciscan friars came to be.

When I was in seventh grade, my father passed away from cancer. It was a very difficult time to say the least, but there was also a gift that came from this time. His death forced me at a very young age to ask some of the “ultimate” questions such as, “Who is God?” “Where is my dad’s soul right now?” “What is heaven like?” Pondering these questions put me on a trajectory of wanting to be closer to God and ultimately becoming a Franciscan friar.

My mother was good about helping my three siblings and I face the reality of death and the afterlife. She brought us to visit our father’s grave at least twice a year – around Father’s Day and Christmas. Each Christmas we went to the Garden Center and purchased a “grave blanket.” A grave blanket is a flat, rectangular wreath-like arrangement of evergreen branches that might have a Christmas bow, pine cones and artificial Christmas flowers wired to it. To me they seemed like something only a trained craftsperson could produce. Years later I came to realize two things:

1)    They are not that hard to make
2)    Outside of the New York City area where I grew up, few people knew of them

Fast forward to a few years ago when we were decorating the Mountain’s chapel for Christmas. Looking at a pile of evergreens at my feet I realized, it would not be too hard to make a grave blanket from these. Fr. Dan Hurley, ofm, had died the winter before and it seemed good to make one for his grave. The next year Fr. Harry Monaco, ofm, a dear friend of the Mountain, died so I ended up making two grave blankets that year. Then Fr. Bob Struzynski, ofm, died and the following year I made three.

Last year, Fr. Dan Riley, ofm, and I brought the three grave blankets to the cemetery and he took a photograph of the three gravesites with the three blankets. As they say, the photo “went viral.” I cannot tell you how many positive responses came back to me. It was a bit overwhelming.

So it all goes back to my mother taking us kids to our father’s grave at Christmas 40 years ago. Maybe this year you will want to get a special vigil candle to burn this Christmas in honor of deceased loved ones. Maybe you can wire a bunch of evergreens together and bring them to the cemetery. Maybe you can buy a little figurine of a little lamb or some other creature to put in your nativity set in memory of someone.

Honoring deceased loved ones, feeling their closeness, knowing they rest in God and knowing that we ourselves will be welcomed into that heavenly home someday are all wonderful Christmas experiences.  Through the experience we come to know that Jesus is Emmanuel, God is with us.