Secretum Meum Mihi Press

Meet: Amy Uelmen, Finding an Alternative Path

Written by Kristen West McGuire

(Amy Uelmen is the Director of the Institute on Religion, Law & Lawyer’s Work at Fordham University. Formerly an associate at large law firm, she also is a consecrated member of the Focolare community house in New York
City.)

Kristen: Where did you grow up?
Amy: I grew up in Los Angeles, and then headed east for college and law school and then pretty much stayed east.

Kristen: And your family was Catholic?
Amy: Yes. We went to Catholic school and were very active in our local parish. But the fabric of my spirituality comes from the Focolare Movement, a set of strong ideas that has permeated how I think about myself and my faith. We got involved in Focolare when I was 8 years old. Later, a Focolare house opened in L.A. and my sister and I were very involved with the youth there.

Written by Kristen West McGuire

I Corinthians 12:4-13

Now there are varieties of gifts,
but the same Spirit;
and there are varieties of service,
but the same Lord;
and there are varieties of working,
but it is the same God
who inspires them all in every one.
To each is given the manifestation
of the Spirit for the common good.
To one is given through the Spirit
the utterance of wisdom, and
to another the utterance of knowledge
according to the same Spirit,
to another faith by the same Spirit,
to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
to another the working of miracles,
to another prophecy,
to another the ability to
distinguish between spirits,
to another various kinds of tongues,
to another the interpretation of tongues.
All these are inspired by one
and the same Spirit, who apportions
to each one individually as he wills.
For just as the body is one
and has many members, and
all the members of the body, though many,
are one body, so it is with Christ.
For by one Spirit
we were all baptized into one body--
Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--
and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
(Revised Standard Version)

Jerome's Temper

Written by Kristen West McGuire

Jerome and the girls When you consider the nasty personal insults Jerome wrote during his long years of scholarship, the friends he managed to keep are notable evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit. For example, he sent St. Paula a letter rebuking her for her lack of faith in the resurrection while mourning the death of her daughter Blaesilla in 384:

“When you were carried fainting out of the funeral procession, whispers such as these were audible in the crowd. “She weeps for her daughter, killed with fasting. She wanted her to marry again, that she might have grandchildren. How long must we refrain from driving these detestable monks out of Rome...They have misled this unhappy lady; that she is not a nun from choice is clear. No heathen mother ever wept for her children as she does for Blæsilla.” What sorrow...Christ endured when He listened to such words as these!”