August 6 2021 - Transfiguration - Luminous Mystery Par Excellence

 

In the Year of the Rosary 2002, Pope St. John Paul II made history.  He proposed five new mysteries to the devotion of the Holy Rosary, the five luminous mysteries.  So, in addition to the 15 joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries, now, we would add meditation upon Jesus Baptism in the Jordan, his self-manifestation at the wedding at Cana, his call to conversion through the preaching of the Kingdom, his Transfiguration, and the institution of the Eucharist.  

Pope St. John Paul explained that each of these luminous mysteries “is a revelation of the Kingdom now present in the very person of Jesus,” and that “The mystery of light par excellence is the Transfiguration, traditionally believed to have taken place on Mount Tabor. The glory of the Godhead shines forth from the face of Christ as the Father commands the astonished Apostles to "listen to him" and to prepare to experience with him the agony of the Passion, so as to come with him to the joy of the Resurrection and a life transfigured by the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus’ face radiating his majesty as the Son of God was burned into the minds of Peter, James, and John, who would play such important roles in the early Church. This event shed its light upon who Jesus was, his mission, and also who his followers were called to be and how they were called to follow in his footsteps.

“To look upon the face of Christ,” the saintly Pope said, “to recognize its mystery amid the daily events and the sufferings of His human life, and then to grasp the divine splendor definitively revealed in the Risen Lord...is the task of every follower of Christ" 

Why is this our task?  Because we need the light of Christ to guide us through the trials of life, just like they guided Peter, James and John in the trials of the early Church.  We need to remember who He is, so that we remember who we are called to be. When we contemplate the glorious divinity of the Lord, we are filled with his light, and become ready to face the trials of our life and the difficult task of witnessing to the Gospel and building up the Church in our own dark age.  

Like the apostle, each of us has to walk through dark valleys at times, sharing in the agony of the Passion, and yet this luminous mystery is a light in the darkness, a foreshadowing of the resurrection for Christ’s faithful ones. 

So, by the Transfiguration of the Lord may we be filled with the light of Christian Hope, and radiate that light for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That Holy Church may radiate the light of the transfigured Jesus through her preaching, teaching, works of mercy, and suffering for the sake of the Gospel.

That the Holy Father and all the ordained may find in the Transfiguration the strength and courage needed to bear the crosses which their mission entails.

For those who doubt or deny the divinity of Christ: May the Transfiguration help them believe that Jesus is true God and true man. 

That those whose lives have been disfigured by vice may find in the transfiguration the inspiration they need to begin a new life. 

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation or illness: that the glory of the Transfiguration may bring them hope and consolation.

For the deceased members of our families and parish, for all deceased priests and religious, and all the souls in purgatory, that they may come to the destiny revealed in the Transfiguration of the Lord, and for N. for whom this Mass is offered.

Heavenly Father, hear the prayers of your pilgrimage Church, and grant us what we truly need that we may follow your Son in His Passion and Death and become heirs of his glorious Resurrection. Through the same Christ Our Lord.

7th Week of Easter 2021 - Tuesday - Self-Donation and Heavenly Glory

 At this point in the Easter season, you’ve heard me say a time or two that Chapters 14-17 of the Gospel of John comprise the Lord’s Farewell Discourse—his instruction to the apostles on the night before he was to be crucified, given at the Last Supper. 

Today we begin the final chapter of the Farewell Discourse, where Jesus turns from addressing his disciples to addressing his Father. Chapter 17 consists of a prayer.

And within this prayer you will find five specific petitions. Today’s Gospel contains the first two: First there is a petition for glory—that as the Father has been glorified through the Lord’s earthly ministry, that glory may reach a culmination as the mission of Jesus is completed upon the cross. The Second petition is a prayer for his disciples—the Lord lifts up his disciples to the Father as a way of uniting them to himself.

In this prayer, Jesus opens a window into his relationship with the Father, and we see that it is marked by complete selflessness. His only desire is to glorify his Father and do his Father’s will. Everything that the Father has given to the Son, the Son, in turn gives back to the Father. It is in this total giving of self that we come to some understanding of that mysterious statement that “God is love”.

And that the Lord prays for his disciples in the very next breath after praying to do his Father’s will is also profound. He prays that God may be glorified through Jesus’ loving self-donation, and then he prays for us, that we may come to share in that very same glory by remaining united with the Son by imitating his self-donation, his self-sacrifice.

The Christian life consists of imitating the Love Jesus has for his Father, love that is manifested in self-sacrifice.

This section of John’s Gospel is perhaps the most theologically dense, but that is because it is so theologically rich. We begin to pear into the very mysterious heart of God, and begin to see how Jesus’ own love for his Father is intertwined with his love for us. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that we may believe in Him and have eternal life” for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

 

Let us pray to our Heavenly Father, confident that He is generous to those who call upon Him with faith.

For our young people preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation this weekend—that they may open their hearts to the gifts God has in store for them. Let us pray to the Lord.

For our President and all elected government representatives, may the Holy Spirit grant them wisdom and guide them to promote domestic tranquility, national unity, respect for religious freedom, and a greater reverence for the sanctity of Human Life. Let us pray to the Lord.

Like the apostles gathered with Our Lady in the Cenacle, may the Church grow in Marian devotion this month, especially in devotion to the Holy Rosary. Let us pray to the Lord.

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation, addiction, or disease: that they may know the peace and consolation of the Good Shepherd. Let us pray to the Lord.

For the repose of the souls of our beloved dead, for all of the poor souls in purgatory, for the deceased members of our family, friends, and parish, for those who have fought and died for our freedom, and for …for whom this mass is offered. Let us pray to the Lord.

Gracious Father, hear the prayers of your pilgrim Church, grant us your grace and lead us to the glory of your kingdom, through Christ Our Lord.

32nd Sunday in OT 2019 - Courage in the face of suffering

I attended a prayer group recently, and the group began with an icebreaker question: what is your favorite inspirational movie? A fun, yet poignant question! The first person his favorite inspirational movie is Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” though he had to admit that some of the graphic violence is hard to watch. The second person mentioned a movie I had never heard of, called “Glory” about the U.S. Civil War’s first all-black volunteer company, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, detailing the prejudices they faced from both their own Union Army and the Confederates, and the sacrifice they made for the cause of freedom and national unity. The third member of our group mentioned the movie “Unplanned”, the story of Abby Johnson, a former director for planned parenthood, who is confronted with the grizzly evil of abortion, joins the ranks of the pro-life movement and the ensuing backlash she experienced.

I have a hard time with the topic of “favorite movies” because I really do enjoy a good film, but I immediately thought of the movie “A Man for All Seasons” the story of St. Thomas More who stood up to King Henry VII when the King rejected the authority of the Catholic Church’s teaching on divorce. Sir Thomas More, as you might know, was Chancellor of England and a good friend of the Kings. The movie wonderfully depicts St. Thomas More’s jovial personality, his cunning mind, strong family life and devout faith. But when the King demanded that Catholics, clergy and laity alike, bow to his claim that he was the head of the Church in England and therefore able to refashion Church doctrine, Thomas More refused to acknowledge the king’s claim. For this he was stripped of his office, arrested, separated from his family, imprisoned in the tower of London, and eventually beheaded. Here’s a man who refused to compromise his faith when faced with the pressures of family, friends, and political authorities. He is certainly an inspiration to Christians of every age.

And reflecting on the four movies shared by members of our prayer group, I don’t think it is a coincidence that all four movies share a common theme: “self-sacrifice”. The self-sacrifice of Christ of course in the passion movie, the self-sacrifice of the black infantrymen willing to fight against prejudice and even to die for those who hated them in “Glory”. The self-sacrifice of Abby Johnson, having her name dragged through the mud, receiving death-threats for exposing the evils of planned parenthood and the abortion industry. Movie Theater owners in fact have received death threats for showing her movie. And the self-sacrifice of Thomas More, a martyr for the truth of the Christian Gospel. Stories of self-sacrifice are most inspirational.

Our first reading from Second Maccabees certainly recounts an inspiring tale of self-sacrifice. Around two-hundred years before the birth of Christ, Greek culture had spread to Israel. Many of Israel’s leaders had allowed Greek cultural values and the promise of political power to replace their faith. The Greek King ruling over the Jews had tried to eradicate Judaism. If you were caught practicing the tenets of Judaism, you would be put to death. And in our reading today, seven brothers with their dear mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges because they refused an order of the Greek King inducing the Jews to eat pork in violation of Jewish law.

This family courageously refused to betray their faith even to the point of physical maiming and death. Why? Why didn’t they just give in?

Well, listen again to what one of the sons says to his executioner: “you accursed fiend,” he says, “you are depriving us of this present life, but the king of the world will raise us up to live again forever.” Yes, you are killing us, but the Lord will raise us up! 

They understood that the choices we make in this life affect our eternity. Our faith matters. The practice of our faith matters. Faith leads to eternal life, disobedience to death.

The next son, holds out his hands to his executioner who is going to cut them off.  He says, “it was from heaven that I received these…from God I hope to receive them again.”  This cruel executioner is going to cut off his hands, and the son says, fine, God gave them to me, and one day, God will give them back to me.  He believes that that even this present body is less important than eternal life.

The last brother, as he dies, says, “it is my choice to die at the hands of men, that God who gives life will raise me up.”

This family of faithful Jews foreshadow the self-sacrifice of Christ; they are certainly proto-martyrs, embodying what the Lord taught a few Sundays ago, “Those who lose their life for my sake, will gain it.” To be faithful to Christ is to do what these young men did, to keep our minds and hearts fixed on God and on his promises especially in the face of trial.

There are moments when our relationship with God will cost us. Depriving ourselves of some bodily pleasure because pursuing it would be sinful costs us something. Depriving ourselves of material gain because pursuing it would be to cheat or to steal costs us something. Deprive ourselves of some position of power because pursuing it would involve lying or exaggerating the faults of others costs us something. Refraining from sinful gossip when it would bolster our social status costs us something.  Going to mass every week, even when my family or my hobbies make demands on my time costs us something. Contributing to your financial needs of the parish, the needs of our neighborhood poor, committing time to prayer, all costs us something. And don’t we gain so much more, when we are generous with God and trust his plan?

When we speak of inspiring movies or inspiring scripture passages or inspiring stories from the lives of the saints, what are they inspiring us for? The inspire us for those moments when we have to make the choice. Will we do what is right, even when it brings us suffering, or not? Will we witness to our belief that God’s promises are real, that there is something beyond this earthly life, or not? The veterans our nation honors on Monday, veterans day, are so inspiring to us because they were willing to put their lives on the line for us, they we might enjoy freedom and peace.

There are many people who dismiss God as a distant cosmic force that has little bearing on every day life. But Christians, by living out our faith when it is costly to us, shows that God is more real than anything else.

Our own parish patron Saint, Ignatius of Antioch, realized this truth. When Bishop Ignatius had to choose between faith and escaping suffering and death, he chose faith. Ignatius wrote: “All the pleasures of the world, and all the kingdoms of this earth, shall profit me nothing. It is better for me to die on behalf of Jesus Christ, than to reign over all the ends of the earth. ‘For what shall a man be profited, if he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?’ Him I seek, who died for us: Him I desire, who rose again for our sake.”

Ignatius understood, as has every martyr, that if we are only concerned with this prospering in this world something in us is already dead. Rather, the Christian is to witness that the life to come is to be obtained by those who love God more than this present life.

May we witness to that faith in everything we say and do today and all days, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

30th Week in OT 2019 - Tuesday - Suffering and the Hope of Glory

In the course of her decades of self-sacrificial service, Mother Theresa, St. Theresa of Calcutta, witnessed tremendous suffering. She encountered the abjectly impoverished, the abandoned and forgotten. She saw the agonies of Jesus in the orphans and homeless and victims of war discarded by society. She was keenly aware of the suffering caused by disease and violence and the suffering we cause to each other through neglect and greed. And yet, this woman, this saint, was not discouraged, nor did she lose faith in a good and loving God. She kept her gaze fixed firmly on heaven, and so allowed heaven to permeate her life.

She knew that in light of heaven, suffering was temporary, and helped the suffering to have hope. She said, “In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth, a life full of the most atrocious tortures on earth, will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.”

Mother Theresa echoes the sentiment of Saint Paul in the passage from Romans 8 today, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.” Paul, too, knew what it meant to suffer. He suffered greatly for the Gospel. And he knew his audience knew what it meant to suffer. They suffered persecution for the Gospel as well, not to mention the ordinary sufferings of life.

But Paul dares to speak of our terrible earthly sufferings as “nothing” because his Christian hope was supreme. He says something similar to the Corinthians: “this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.”

Suffering when faced with Christian faith and hope, transforms into the blossoming of the Kingdom of God—like the blooming of a mustard seed into the largest of trees.

Benedict XVI wrote in his second encyclical on hope:  ”We can try to limit suffering, to fight against it, but we cannot eliminate it. It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater. It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.”

May we see our crosses today in light of eternity, and not flee from those opportunities to grow in truth, love, and goodness, despite the suffering that growth entails, and thereby witness to the power of the Christian faith for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For perseverance in holiness, especially for our Pope, Bishops, and Priests, and that the faith of Christians may lead unbelievers to Christ.

For Pope Francis’ prayer intention for the month of October, “that the breath of the Holy Spirit may engender a new missionary ‘spring’ in the Church

That young people be inspired to respond generously to God’s call to sanctity, and for vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

For all the sick and suffering, and for all those in hospitals, nursing homes, and hospice care, for all those who will die today, for their consolation and that of their families.

For the repose of the souls of our beloved dead, for all of the poor souls in purgatory, for the deceased members of our family, friends, and parish, for the deceased clergy and religious of our diocese, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom.

O God, you know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.

August 6 2019 - Feast of the Transfiguration - Glory through self-emptying

The Transfiguration of Jesus reveals the destiny of our human nature, a destiny which our first parents in the Garden of Eden failed to attain. They were meant for glory, but Adam and Eve headed the voice of temptation, which suggested to them that they had been forbidden to eat of the tree of knowledge because God jealously wanted to keep them in a state of immaturity. But knowledge in itself does not make us like God.

Knowledge needs to be accompanied by humility, obedience to God, thanksgiving, purity of heart, willingness to suffer for goodness sake. The glory indicated by the Transfiguration is only to be attained through the self-emptying of the Passion. St. Luke hints at this truth, by depicting Our Lord, in transfigured glory speaking to Moses and Elijah about his passion to come. And Immediately following the Transfiguration, in St. Luke’s Gospel, Our Lord teaches "If anyone wishes to come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

This teaching" St Cyril of Alexandria comments, "is our salvation". It prepares us for heavenly glory through the acceptance of suffering for Christ's sake. The converse is also true: the vision of heavenly glory granted to Peter, James and John prepares them to accept the suffering that is shortly to come upon them...To see the Transfiguration is to see the kingdom of God. The radiant humanity of the Lord shows the apostles the destiny that awaits them. The Lord can now go to his suffering and death and the apostles can follow him, confident in the glory that can only be attained through sharing in the Cross.

If we wish to attain the glory revealed in the Transfiguration, each of us has much suffering to do, many crosses to carry, penances, detachment from earthly pursuits and pleasures. We have hard work to do, in preaching the Gospel through word and dead, in many works of mercy. Glory is only attained through self-emptying, self-effacement, self-forgetting.

May our faith, hope, and charity increase as empty ourselves of all willfulness and selfishness and bear our crosses in union with Our Blessed Lord for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
 
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That Holy Church may radiate the beauty of the transfigured Jesus through her preaching, teaching, works of mercy, and suffering for the sake of the Gospel.

That the Holy Father and all the ordained may find in the Transfiguration the strength and courage needed to bear the crosses which their mission entails.

For those who doubt or deny the divinity of Christ: May the Transfiguration help them believe that Jesus is true God and true man.

That those whose lives have been disfigured by vice and sin, may find in the transfiguration the inspiration they need to begin a new life.

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation or illness: that the glory of the Transfiguration may bring them hope and consolation.

For the deceased members of our families and parish, for all deceased priests and religious, and all the souls in purgatory, that they may come to the destiny revealed in the Transfiguration of the Lord, and for N. for whom this Mass is offered.

Heavenly Father, hear the prayers of your pilgrimage Church, and grant us what we truly need that we may follow your Son in His Passion and Death and become heirs of his glorious Resurrection. Through the same Christ Our Lord.

2nd Sunday of Lent 2019 - The Passion leads to the Glory of the Resurrection

On the 1st Sunday of Lent, every year we hear the Gospel story of Jesus’ 40 days in the desert, how he fasted for forty days, how he was tempted by the Devil, and how he remained faithful to his Father.

On the 2nd Sunday of Lent every year, we hear the Gospel story of Jesus’ transfiguration on Mount Tabor.

If the first Sunday of Lent is an especially striking reminder of Jesus’ solidarity with us in temptation, the second Sunday is meant to remind us that the glory that bursts forth from Jesus’ body on Mount Tabor is a glory that he means to share with all who are baptized into his death and resurrection.
In each of the Gospels, the transfiguration takes place immediately after Jesus’ first prediction of his Passion. The Messiah who has been preaching the Gospel and performing miracles, announces to his disciples that in order to fulfill the mission for which he was sent by the father, he must go to the cross and die.

We know how Peter reacted to that news. Peter, truly forgetting his place, rebukes Jesus for saying that he had to die. And Jesus says, “Get behind me Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Peter, like Satan in the desert, attempts to convince Jesus to abandon the cross and abandon his mission.

After rebuking Peter, Jesus teaches, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.”

To show that the cross is the culmination of his mission and the foundation for Christian discipleship, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to witness this wondrous event. As a foreshadowing of Jesus’ forthcoming climb of Mount Calvary, he first leads his closest disciples up this Mountain. St. Luke tells us that there on Mt. Tabor Jesus’ clothing became dazzling white and he began to speak with Moses and Elijah about his exodus which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.

Just as Moses led God’s people in exodus out of slavery in Egypt, and just as Elijah preached to those who had forsaken the covenant to return to God through repentance, Jesus would achieve the ultimate exodus, the ultimate reconciliation, in Jerusalem upon the cross.

For remember, Jesus was not simply an enlightened teacher offering a moral program to guide our lives. He came to achieve what we were powerless to do on our own. He came to save us from our sins, to reconcile us to God. As John writes, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins”. And the Transfiguration is a foreshadowing that though he goes to die, death is not the end. The cross leads to the resurrection, for Him and for us; the cross is not the end of the story, rather the beginning.

The preface for the Eucharistic prayer will summarize this truth so beautifully today. In just a few moments, the priest will pray on behalf of the whole Church: “For after he had told the disciples of his coming Death, on the holy mountain he manifested to them his glory, to show, even by the testimony of the law and the prophets, that the Passion leads to the glory of the Resurrection.”
The Passion leads to the glory of the Resurrection. This was the lesson he wished to drill into Peter, James, and John. For their faith would be tested when they witnessed their master undergoing his Passion. Our faith is tested, too when we face the cross, isn’t it?

When a loved one suffers, when we are betrayed by those we trusted, when we are beset with temptations, when our Christian faith has consequences in our social lives or financial success. These things challenge our faith. At the sight of the cross, many of us like Peter, flee. And so few of us, like John travel all the way to the cross, and stand there with complete self-identification with Him.

But, the way of the cross is the way of our salvation, it is the way of freedom. Paradoxically, the way of suffering is the remedy for our sin. The cross is the source of healing for the corruption so deeply rooted in our minds and hearts. It is the remedy for our self-destructiveness and shameful selfishness. God only knows how enslaved we are to the worst parts of our own personalities, how in love we are with our own sins, how attached we are to our own egos. It is through the cross, sacrificing our contentment in the present, that we can ever hope to attain the glory for which we were made.

We read from the Transfiguration every year to remind us that we must climb the mountain with the Lord, if we wish to attain glory with him. We must take up our crosses with Him, we must fast with him, pray with him, give of ourselves with Him, suffer with him, allow ourselves to be crucified and die with Him. For the Passion leads to the glory of the Resurrection.

Through our own Passion and coming to share in His, we become heirs to the promise St. Paul makes in the second reading today: “He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body”: his glorified body which shone in the darkness on Mount Tabor, his glorified Body which rose victorious over the grave at easter. We will experience this glorification, this transfiguration, we will become citizens of that eternal kingdom whose citizenship we forfeited in sin, when we do not flee from the cross, but embrace it.

“Stand firm in the Lord, beloved” St. Paul says. When your faith is tested, when your crosses grow heavy, when you are scandalized by weak church leadership, when the world mocks you for your Christian faith: stand firm. Endure the passion with him, that you may experience glory with Him, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

7th Week of Easter 2018 - Tuesday - The High Priest's Love for God and Man

There are many titles applied to Jesus throughout the Scriptures: he is the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God, the Son of Man.  He is also called the High Priest.  Each title focuses on a particular aspect of who Jesus is and what that means for us.  Today’s Gospel is from the final section of Jesus’ farewell discourse known as his High Priestly Prayer.

Jesus turns from addressing the apostles and begins addressing the Father, praying that his Father might be glorified in what he is about to do: namely his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, and that his disciples might receive eternal life through it.

In his High Priestly prayer Jesus opens a window into his relationship with His Father. The Father glorifies the Son, and the Son glorifies the Father. The Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father through his humble self-sacrifice. Jesus reveals the nature of God, that “God is love”, a reality St. John will reflect upon in his first New Testament Letter. Jesus reveals the inner nature of God and simultaneously calls his disciples to the same highest, purist form of self-giving. God’s life is to become our life, our lives must become characterized by divine love.

Whether you are an ordained priest,  a homeless beggar, a widow, or a farmer, like St. Isidore, whom the Church honors today, we are called to a life which glorifies God, a life in which the love that exists between the Father and the Son increasingly characterizes our own life.

Love isn’t easy. Love involves embracing suffering for the good of others, it involves self-sacrifice for those who have no way of repaying you. But by practicing this form of Christ-like love, our souls expand, our life obtains the purpose for which it was created.

Today each of us are called to bring God to others and bring others to God. God is to be glorified in us by accomplishing the work that God has given us to do, to bring others to believe in the one that God sent for our salvation.

May the entirety of our lives—our thoughts, words, actions, and attitudes, all be conformed this day to Jesus Our High Priest for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For Catholics in all walks of life, that we may glorify God through our daily labors in service of the Lord.

Through the intercession of St. Isidore, we pray for farmers, day laborers, and those who work by the sweat of their brow, that they may receive a just reward for their laborers, and for the unemployed and underemployed.

That spouses may help each other to grow rich in the treasures of heaven, and all those preparing for Holy Matrimony may do so rightly and chastely in the eyes of God.

That all families may seek to model themselves after the Holy Family and always know their guidance and protection.

For the sick, the suffering, the lonely, and the dying, that they may know the consolation of the grace of God.

For the deceased members of our family, friends, and parish, for all of the poor souls in purgatory, and for all those who have fought and died for our nation’s freedom.