About the Author
Many readers ask me to say something about my
myself, who I am, my credentials, and why I
write the “Daily Scripture Readings and
Meditations” website. Hopefully the
following will help. I welcome further
inquiries and I’m happy to supply references
to scholars, clergy, and friends who have
guided me and worked closely with me over the
past forty years.
To know God and his love for us more fully
One of the marvels of the “world-wide-web”
(www) is that it can link families, friends,
and communities near and far away across the
world. It’s a great resource for
visually communicating wisdom, knowledge, and
experience. When it is at the service of
truth and beauty it can enrich and ennoble
those who use it.
My aim and prayer is that the “Daily
Scripture Readings and Meditations” website
will inspire and call those who use it to seek
the truth of God’s Word in scripture with a
passionate desire to know God and his love for
us more fully. God loves an earnest
seeker and rewards those who “search
diligently” for wisdom and
understanding.
Brief biography
One of my
favorite verses from Scripture is Psalm 115:1:
"Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your
name give glory, for the sake of your
steadfast love and your faithfulness!"
Hopefully my brief biography will show how God
has been gracious and merciful towards
me.
I have known the Lord and tasted of his
goodness as long as I can remember since my
early youth. My father, who was born and
raised in Saginaw, Michigan (USA), came
from a German Catholic heritage. My mother,
who was born and raised in North Carolina,
came from a Methodist tradition. She
became Roman Catholic before she married my
Dad. I was born (December, 1947) and raised in
Saginaw, Michigan (USA). I have been a
Roman Catholic all my life and actively
involved in bible study, catechetics,
pastoral and evangelistic work, lay renewal
movements, and cooperative ecumenism with
Christians from other traditions and
denominations.
I thank my parents who raised me in the
faith, along with four brothers and one
sister, and taught me to love God with all my
heart through their example and faithfulness.
My dad loved to sing every Sunday at Mass in
the church choir, and I tried to sing along
with him as best as I could. My mother
loved to tell me stories from the Bible and
she inspired me to read biographies and
stories of great men and women of God, many of
whom were martyrs, missionaries, and heroes of
the faith. I am also grateful to the parish
priests and the Sisters of Charity who
inspired me with their faith and love for
God. They instilled in me a desire to
serve God and to be a missionary someday, if
that be God's will.
I went to St. Paul Seminary in
Saginaw, Michigan for six years (high school
and two years of college) and completed my
undergraduate degree in English and Fine Arts
at The University of Michigan in Ann
Arbor. I also studied at George
Washington University and the Corcoran
School of Art in Washington, D.C. for a
couple of summers. [Click here
to view some recent art work.]
The Lord
fulfilled my desire to be a missionary when I
joined a Catholic charismatic lay apostolate
movement in 1969 at the Newman Center
at The University of Michigan.
This movement, which began in the late sixties
(the "Hippie Era"), rapidly grew with the
development of numerous intentional Christian
communities worldwide, called "covenant
communities". From this movement also
grew a lay missionary brotherhood of men from
various Christian traditions living single for
the Lord, called The
Servants
of the Word. I have been a
member of The
Servants
of the Word since its beginning in
1970. I am deeply grateful for God's
call and grace to serve Him and his people
today. I can joyfully say as the
psalmist did in the Lord's temple: "Whom
have I in heaven but you, O Lord; and there
is nothing on earth that I desire besides
You. My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my
portion for ever" (Psalm 73). [Photo on
right: In a barn shed at the Trappist Abbey
of the Genessee, New York on Christmas
Retreat 2002; this is spot where I
decided in 1973 to make a life-long
commitment to live single for the Lord with
The Servants of the Word.]
In the 1980s I traveled extensively around
the world to help with the development of
Christian communities and with the training
and formation of young people in Christian
service and leadership. In the 1990s I
worked with a group of families and singles to
re-establish a covenant community in Ann
Arbor, called Word
of
Life, as well as the
development of an outreach program for
training youth in service and
leadership. In August of 2000, I moved
with twelve community members to Detroit,
Michigan to begin a new urban ministry called
Detroit Community Outreach (DCO). DCO
is an outgrowth of and partner with Youth
Works
Detroit (formerly known as Detroit
Summer Outreach). DCO works with local
clergy, families and singles to build
community environments for the evangelization
and training of young people for service and
leadership. DCO also networks with existing
urban ministries, such as Cornerstone
Schools and Highland Park Community
Outreach in Detroit. I attended St.
Dominic's parish in Detroit and led a
weekly bible study group in the parish.
In 2001 I spent three months in Israel on
sabbatical with Fr.
Guido
Gockel, Director for the Pontifical
Mission for Palestine and Israel.
This was an invaluable time for study and
learning more about the land
of
the Bible and its people.
Servants of the Word household in London,
UK 2015 - members from Lebanon, Fiji,
India, Scotland,
Wales, England, Canada, and USA - author
far right
Current service
In September of 2003, I moved to London,
Great Britain to join our Servants of the Word
household there. Many of our members
there are directly engaged in mission to young
people. The activities our brothers are
engaged in vary greatly: university campus
evangelism, Bible studies, retreats, summer
camps, international conferences, community
projects, outings – in short, any event in
which young people can be challenged, trained,
and won over to a deeper life of discipleship.
Some of our brothers also work with Christian
communities throughout Europe, the Middle
East, and Africa, assisting in the training of
community leaders and youth workers, and the
development of community life, service, and
outreach.
I am currently engaged in publications work
for the Sword of the Spirit. I am editor for Living Bulwark,
a monthly online magazine of the Sword of the
Spirit. I am also engaged in some teaching and
community building work for the Student
Worker
Outreach Training (SWOT) program in Kairos
and the Sword of the Spirit communities in
Europe. In past years, I did some writing for
The
Word Among Us, a monthly prayer
and scripture publication.
How the “Daily Scripture Readings and
Meditations” website began
How did I get started with the Daily
Scripture Readings and Meditations web
site? Over the years I have worked with
many busy people – workers, students, mothers,
fathers, families, religious and missionaries
– who want to be nourished with God's word. We
can only give to others what we have already
received ourselves. Just as we need
daily food to nourish our bodies, so we need
daily spiritual bread to nourish our
souls.
A few years ago, I began to write a daily
scripture meditation booklet for our community
members. The goal was to provide a short and
easily readable guide for daily scripture
reading and meditation. The scriptural
meditations come from the experience of
prayerfully reflecting on God's word each day
along with the study of the early church
fathers and other Christian teachers who have
inspired and helped me grow in my love and
understanding of God's word. I have made it a
habit to read and reflect on a gospel passage
(usually the lectionary reading for the next
day) each evening before I sleep, and then
again to read and meditate on the passage the
next morning. I find it very refreshing
and restful to go to sleep with the word of
the Lord on my mind. I also make it a
habit to not eat breakfast, and I try not to
think about my work for the day, until I
finish my spiritual breakfast first – “Man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceeds from the mouth of God” (quote from
Deuteronomy 8:3; also Matthew 4:4).
Even when I read very familiar passages I have
known for many years, I discover that God
often has something new to show me or
something I need to hear again. His word
is inexhaustable.
References
Several scholars, writers, and clergy give me
guidance and support in the writing of the
meditations. Two close friends and scholars
give me ongoing support and guidance: Dr. Mark
Whitters, lecturer in ancient history and
religion at Eastern Michigan University and a
regional coordinator for the Society of
Biblical Literature, and Fr. Dan
Jones, a diocescan priest who is a
professor in patristics at Sacred Heart
Seminary in Detroit. Fr. Frank McGrath
(Pastoral Director for Clergy in the Diocese
of Bridgeport, Connecticut), Fr.
Guido
Gockel, former Director for the Pontifical
Mission
for Palestine and Israel,
Monsignor Lunsford, former chancellor for the
Diocese of Lansing, and Fr. John Wiley,
my former pastor for many years at Holy Family
Church in London and author of Preaching
the
Gospel, have also given me
invaluable support and encouragement. A
number of writers also give me
ongoing-support and help, including Jeff Smith
(President of The
Word Among Us), Jeanne Kun, and
Bob Bell. (I can give email addresses
for anyone interested in writing to any of the
above mentioned references.)
Prayer
May the Holy Spirit increase in all of us a
deep hunger for the word of God, that we may
be nourished and strengthened in it for our
daily lives. When we read God's word and
listen attentively, it is the Lord himself who
speaks to us personally and Who reveals to us
his enduring love. Ambrose, the 4th
century bishop who brought Augustine to faith,
wrote: "Are you not occupied with
Christ? Why do you not talk with him? By
reading the scriptures, we listen to
Christ."
Your brother and servant in Christ,
Don Schwager
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