31st Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021 - A priest's rosary

 You may remember, all the way back at the beginning of the month, I shared how the month of October is traditionally devoted to the Holy Rosary, and how the Holy Father and the Bishops encourage us to pray the rosary daily during this month. 

Pope Francis offered a message about the rosary recently. He said, “I invite you to pray the rosary, and to carry it in your hands or in your pockets. The recitation of the rosary is the most beautiful prayer we can offer to the Virgin Mary; it is a contemplation on the stages of the life of Jesus the Savior with his Mother Mary and is a weapon that protects us from evils and temptations.”

Catholics often get frustrated because of the many difficulties that arise in prayer, how difficult it is sometimes to pray. But, the Rosary is easy enough that a child can pray it, profound enough for a mystic to pray it, and they do, and concise enough that a busy person with a lot on their minds can pray it.

I’d like to share with you a method of praying the rosary that I’ve been using for a number of years now. I offer each decade of the rosary, each set of 10 hail mary’s for a particular intention. No matter which set of mysteries I am offering: the joyful mysteries, the sorrowful mysteries, the luminous mysteries, or the glorious mysteries, I offer each decade for a specific intention. 

The first decade I offer for my greatest challenges. If I have a difficult decision to make, or if I am having a difficult time being patient or charitable with a particular person, I offer that decade for them. The Lord says, pray, pray, pray for those who persecute you. So I offer that first decade for an expansion of my heart to love those it is difficult for me to love.

The second decade I offer for those who are sick and suffering. As pastor, many parishioners ask for my prayers, and during this second decade I bring to the Lord those of you who are sick and suffering. Those who are lonely, those who are addicted, those who are anxious, those who are preparing for surgery or dealing wit heavy burdens, those who are dying or grieving.

The third decade I offer for a flourishing of spiritual gifts in the parish. In the third glorious mystery, the holy spirit descends upon the church and in the third joyful mystery the christ is born into the world. So I pray for the Holy Spirit’s gifts, and the life of Christ to fill this parish, to make us more effective in our Gospel mission.

In the fourth decade, I pray for priests. Priests need to support each other in prayer, priests need prayer, constantly. For, the devil hates priests and is bent on the corruption of priests and undermining the holy faith of priests. So I take up the mighty spiritual weapon of the Rosary to pray for the protection of priests from evil and temptation and the flourishing of their ministry.

In the fifth decade, I pray for myself. We need to pray for ourselves—to humbly admit what we need from the Lord, and to pray to by docile to the divine will—to be humble and holy.  I pray for the grace to be crucified with Christ, like in the fifth sorrowful mystery, to honor our lady as queen of heaven and earth like in the fifth glorious mystery, to be broken and shared like the Eucharist as in the fifth luminous mystery, and to find Jesus in the hidden events of my life as he was found in the Temple in the fifth joyful mystery.

I invite you to use and adapt this method, to see if it work and helps to focus your prayers. Our Lady will assist every soul who prays the rosary to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as we heard in the Gospel today. 

On Thursday, I was making my holy hour and about to offer my rosary when I was moved to adapt my method slightly. Since, on holy Thursday, the Lord gathered with his apostles and made them the first priests of the church, and, since this weekend being priesthood Sunday, I thought I would offer my rosary particularly for priests.

So, as I said, I adapted my method a little bit. In the first decade of my rosary, I prayed for the priests that I am challenged to love, the priests who have left active ministry, the priests who have been found guilty of crimes, the priests who spread heresy, the priests whose personalities just rub me the wrong way. I prayed for them by name, and prayed for the grace to love them.

In my second decade I prayed for the priests who are sick and suffering: the priests, I know, who are very sick or dying or diminished by old age, the priests who struggle with substance abuse, addiction, or who are unjustly treated by their bishops, by their parishes, the media, or government. The priests who may be struggling with the promise of celibacy, priests who may be finding it difficult to pray daily as they ought, the priests that may be on the verge of leaving ministry without proper discernment, and priests with clinical depression, and the like.

In the third decade I prayed for a flourishing of the spiritual gifts in the priests of our Diocese. We need priests on fire with the Holy Spirit. We need priests filled with wisdom, who are not timid in speaking the truth, who are tireless in ministry, who are prophetic, who are able to discern and call forth the Spirit’s gifts from their parishioners. We need priests who will preach, like Jesus, in the third luminous mystery,  throughout galilee, going to the margins as Pope Francis would say, to bring the Gospel to the farthest ends of the earth.

In the fourth decade of my rosary, I prayed for the priests who died. Like the fourth luminous mystery, where the Lord shines in Transfigured Light, I prayed for the priests I have known who have died, that the perpetual light of christ may shine upon them, and that their time in purgatory, if any, will be lessened. I have known many good and holy priests who have gone onto their eternal reward, and I’m sure you have as well. Please do not forget them in your prayers.

Lastly, as I do in all my rosaries, I offered the last decade, again, for myself, especially that I may good be a holy priest and receive a share of the spirit that has animated the priesthood of so many of our good and holy priests in the diocese of Cleveland. I prayed for the prudence of Bishop Pilla, the keenness of mind of Fr. Jack Murphy, the warm compassion of Fr. Jim O’Donnell, the indefatigable energy of Fr. Pete Colletti, the liturgical reverence of Fr. Mike Woost, and piety of Fr. Sean Donnelly, and the fortitude in suffering of Bishop Richard Lennon, those close to him know how he suffered for the church of Cleveland like very few have suffered.

On this priesthood Sunday, I ask once again for your prayers for priests. If there have been priests who have insulted or hurt you or your families, please pray for them, and pray for the grace to forgive them, that any lack of forgiveness might not keep you from deep engagement in the life of the Church. Please pray too for an increase in vocations to the priesthood. I do not know the last priestly vocation to come from this parish, but we do well to pray that God may raise up good holy priests from the young men in our midst. The Church will need good and holy priests until the Lord’s return, and it is the duty of every Catholic to promote healthy priestly vocations through prayer and encouragement.

Priest seek to help the church love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. So please pray for priests, Pray the rosary, pray for vocations for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

30th Week in Ordinary Time 2021 - Friday - The Lord feeds, heals, and quenches

 All four Gospels contain accounts of the Lord eating and dining. All four record the last supper, for example. But Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the Lord’s supper in the house of the tax collector Levi and St. John is the only to record the Lord’s attendance at the wedding feast at Cana.

St. Luke is the only evangelist to record the meal in today’s Gospel passage in which the Lord heals the man with dropsy in the house of a pharisee on the sabbath.

This story is not the first time that the Lord has healed someone on the sabbath, but it is the first time he heals someone at a meal. He combines healing and eating. It’s also interesting who he heals. He heals a man with dropsy. Dropsy is a condition in which there is a build-up of fluid in a persons tissues, and so because of this imbalance with fluid, the person with dropsy is always thirsty—they are perpetually thirsty. And so here the Lord combines healing and eating and satisfying unending thirst.

What does that makes you think of? I don’t know about you, but this certainly makes me think of what we’re doing right now. In the celebration of Mass, the Lord feeds, the Lord quenches thirst, and the Lord heals

In the Eucharist, the Lord feeds us with his body and blood, giving us spiritual nourishment for the work of the Gospel and the pilgrimage to heaven. In the Eucharist, the Lord heals us of sinfulness, pride, grief, loneliness, division, and estrangement from God. And in the Eucharist the Lord quenches our thirst for the infinite God—like a dry weary desert our souls thirst for Him, and here that thirst is quenched.

Commenting particularly on the healing properties of the Eucharist, Pope Francis, said a few years ago, that the Eucharist is “powerful medicine for the weak”. We have many weaknesses: fear in preaching the Gospel, timidity in doing the work of the Lord, weaknesses of the flesh, the lack of willingness to suffer for Christ, temptations to sin, concupiscence. And the Eucharist is medicine for these weaknesses. And those who deprive themselves of the Eucharist, refusing to go to mass, deprive themselves of real medicine the Lord wishes to apply to their souls.

The Eucharist is also medicine for the greatest of our weaknesses: mortality. 

St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing to the Ephesians said that the Eucharist is the “medicine of immortality…and the antidote  which  wards  off  death.” It “yields continuous life  in union with Jesus Christ.”

May we dispose our souls as often as possible to this food from heaven, the food that heals, the food that quenches for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For those who are deprived of the Eucharist, for lapsed Catholics, for the unbelieving, for those who doubt the Lord’s real presence, for those who have hardened their hearts toward God, and for a deeper appreciation of the great gift of the Eucharist among all God’s people. Let us pray to the Lord.

That young people will be blessed with good Christian example from their parents and fellow Christians, and that the word of God might be cherished, studied, and practiced in every Christian home. 

During and following this month of October, dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary, Catholics may take up this devotion with renewed vigor and trust in Our Lady’s never-failing intercession. 

For the healing of all those afflicted with physical, mental, emotional illness, for those in hospitals, nursing homes, hospice care, those struggling with addictions, for those who grieve the loss of a loved one, and those who will die today.

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

30th Week in Ordinary Time 2021 - Wednesday - Strive to enter through the narrow gate

 “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.”

The Greek word translated “strive” in this morning’s Gospel is agonizomai, from which we get the English word agonize. The implication here is that those who seek to enter the narrow gate must do so by struggle and strain, like a running athlete straining toward the finish line, all muscles taut and giving his all in the effort.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that Jesus’ passion begins with the “agony” in the garden, where he strives, and agonizes, to do the Will of the Father.  

The narrow gate of faithfulness is difficult for us because of our human pride, our attachment to sin, our attraction to worldliness and sensual delight, and of course the opposition of Satan.

Despite the difficulty and opposition, Jesus urges us to strive—to agonize—to enter the narrow gate.

Notice Jesus doesn’t say, stand at the gate, look at it, and complain about how narrow it is.  Some Christians look at the commandments of God and teachings of the Church and reject them, claiming that they are too narrow, too rigid or outdated.  They seek to refashion the gate, and make it wider.  But that’s not what Jesus asks.

Entering the narrow gate requires us to change.  Sometimes we are clinging to things that just can’t pass through the narrow gate: our selfish clinging to worldly delights, our grudges, our fears.  We are called to make the adjustment to our minds and hearts, to let go of all that keeps us from following Christ more wholeheartedly.  

Through the Eucharist we celebrate today, may God give us the strength to strive to follow the way of Christ amidst all obstacles and worldly temptations for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the faithful of our parish may strive for holiness in their personal habits, their relationships and daily endeavors.

That young people will be blessed with good Christian example from their parents and fellow Christians, and that the word of God might be cherished, studied, and practiced in every Christian home. 

During and following this month of October, dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary, Catholics may take up this devotion with renewed vigor and trust in Our Lady’s never-failing intercession. 

For the healing of all those afflicted with physical, mental, emotional illness, for those in hospitals, nursing homes, hospice care, those struggling with addictions, for those who grieve the loss of a loved one, and those who will die today.

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

30th Week in Ordinary Time 2021 - Tuesday - Mustard Seeds of Charity

Yesterday, in the Gospel we heard of the healing of a crippled woman in a synagogue. There was a woman who had been inflicted with a crippling spirit for 18 years, and the Lord delivers her from this spirit, and she is able to stand and glorify God.

After dealing with a bit of criticism from the pharisees for performing this healing on the sabbath, the Lord immediately offers the two parables we heard today, that of the mustard seed and the yeast.

The healing miracle serves as a sort of spark for today's teaching about the kingdom of God. And it may be a bit confusing how the these two short little parables and the miraculous healing are connected. But it’s really not that hard. The kingdom of God starts out small, almost undetectable, like a mustard seed, a bit of yeast, or the healing of poor afflicted woman. 

An act of kindness, an act of goodness, an act of charity appears so small and insignificant, but it can transform the world. 

This is why Catholics must take acts of mercy, acts of charity seriously. Because this is how God wants to spread his kingdom, through small acts with great love, as st. therese the little flower would say, whom we celebrated at the beginning of the month.

We must not discount or underestimate the power, the seed, of giving a coat to a shivering stranger, a hot meal, a listening ear. This is why Pope Francis is constantly urging us to get out of our houses and out into the world to engage in the works of mercy. Couch potatoes do nothing for God. But the Christian who is quietly trying to bring relief to the suffering, the sick, and the lonely, they are transforming the world, souls are being touched, the consoling and blessing hand of God is being extended…for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the faithful of our parish may engage ever more fervently in small acts of charity with great love for God and neighbor.

That young people will be blessed with good Christian example from their parents and fellow Christians, and that the word of God might be cherished, studied, and practiced in every Christian home. 

During and following this month of October, dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary, Catholics may take up this devotion with renewed vigor and trust in Our Lady’s never-failing intercession. 

For the healing of all those afflicted with physical, mental, emotional illness, for those in hospitals, nursing homes, hospice care, those struggling with addictions, for those who grieve the loss of a loved one, and those who will die today.

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

30th Week of Ordinary Time 2021 - Monday - Crippled by sin, healed by Christ

 The miraculous healing of the crippled woman in the synagogue is a story only found in Luke’s Gospel. While teaching in the synagogue, the Lord notices this woman, hunched over, unable to stand upright. St. Luke tells us that she was afflicted by an unclean spirit for 18 years. Her physical affliction is certainly symbolic of the moral and spiritual state of sinful humanity. We are crippled by sin. Sin cripples our minds, our bodies, and our souls.

Well, the Lord, notices the crippled woman, goes to her, and sets her free from her infirmity. Through this miracle she is immediately able to stand erect and immediately glorifies God. 

This healing, again, is symbolic of the Lord’s entire mission. God has compassion for the waywardness that is ours, humanity’s fallen state. We are crippled by sin, unable to walk in the freedom for which we were created—our intellect is darkened, our wills are weakened. And Through Christ we are liberated, healed, set free, able to walk upright again, and worship God in spirit and in truth. 

In the Epistle we heard of the way of the spirit that leads to life and the way of the flesh that leads to death. St. Paul shows his concern in many of his letters that Christians, who have been baptized, were returning to the ways of the flesh. They were putting their eternal souls at risk, by abandoning the way of uprightness, but returning, willingly to that crippled spiritual state. 

Paul models what it means to be a true pastor here. He doesn’t just want people to get baptized. He doesn’t want Christians in name only. He wants Christians alive in the spirit, free from those temptations to sink back into the immoral muck of sin. 

The spirit of the flesh will always be trying to cripple us, to the point that we are hunched over by self-absorption, addiction, selfishness, materialism, and the like. So we must be vigilant against them by continually remembering our identity as Children of God set free from sin. And when we have willingly given in to these evils, we must allow Jesus to heal us through the Sacraments, especially any serious sins in the Sacrament of Confession.

Healed by Jesus, the woman stood up straight and glorified God. In all spiritual and moral uprightness, may we too glorify God in all of our words and deeds this day, for the glory of God and salvation of souls. 

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That the effects of sin may continue to be healed in us, that we may walk in the moral uprightness God desires for his children. 

For the healing of all the wounds of division afflicting the Church, for an end to heresy and schism, for turning away from all doctrinal error and hardness of heart.

For spiritual healing and mercy upon all those who have fallen away from the Church, those who have fallen to mortal sin, for those who blaspheme, for the conversion of atheists and non-believers.

For the healing of all those afflicted with physical, mental, emotional illness, for those in hospitals, nursing homes, hospice care, those struggling with addictions, for those who grieve the loss of a loved one, and those who will die today.

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

Heavenly Father, hear our prayers. May the grace of Christ Your Son, the Divine Physician, bring healing of our sinfulness, and make us worthy of the kingdom of heaven, through the same Christ our Lord.

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021 - Discipleship lessons from Blind Bartimaeus

The 10th Chapter of Mark is a long chapter, the longest in the entire Gospel until we get to the Passion narrative in chapter 14. We’ve hearing from chapter 10 all month. It began, you might remember with Jesus’ teaching on marriage and divorce, then we heard of the rich young man who goes away sad when challenged by the Lord to leave his possessions and follow Him; had we not celebrated our patronal feast last weekend, we would have heard the story of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, vying for a high position in the Lord’s kingdom. This week we conclude chapter 10 with a beloved story, the healing of blind Bartimaeus. This is the very last healing miracle in Mark’s Gospel, and a very significant one, at that.

In this miracle story, we get a lot of details leading up to the miracle: Mark includes where Bartimaeus was standing, what he was doing when the Lord made his way out of Jericho, how he got the Lord’s attention, the annoyance of the other members of the crowd, the exuberance with which Bartimaeus leaped up, shedding his cloak so that nothing may hinder, the tender dialogue between Jesus and the blind man, and then Bartimaeus’ response of gratitude. All this in six verses!

Consider this story in light of the other stories in this chapter. Where the Pharisees harden their hearts against the teachings of Jesus and his identity as Messiah at the beginning of the chapter, Bartimaeus acknowledges Jesus as the Son of David and recognizes that Jesus has the power of God within him. Where James and John seek a position of power to lord over others, Bartimaeus approaches Jesus as a beggar, seeking nothing but healing. Where the rich young man refuses to follow Jesus and goes away sad, Bartimaeus joyfully follows the Lord on the way.

Bartimaeus is a model of the true discipleship that seems to elude just about everybody else in Mark’s Gospel, including Peter and the Apostles. Since he is a model of discipleship, what do we have to learn from him?

Firstly, we must recognize that like him, before meeting the Lord Jesus we are blind. Without Jesus, we are standing on the side of the road, not knowing which way is which, blind and not going anywhere. We might not be physically blind, but without Jesus, something is missing, we are without the light that is meant to guide our earthly lives. St Paul writes to the Corinthians: “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel.”

Through sin, Satan has placed a blindfold on the eyes of the world. And even among the baptized, he is always trying to get us to put the blindfold back on, so that without the light of the Gospel, we walk not toward heaven, but toward hell. Sadly, there are members of the baptized who have let him, or perhaps have blindfolds because their parents had them baptized but never raised them to see Jesus and follow Jesus. But there are people in the world, in our neighborhood, in our workplaces, who like Bartimaeus, are blind, but want to see. So we need to ensure that the light of Christ is shining brightly in our lives. 

Secondly, Bartimaeus models for us what it means to prioritize faith. He makes looking for Jesus his highest priority. And he does so with a sort of courageous recklessness. On the side of the road, he starts making a commotion. He doesn’t care what people think of him, he wants to get Jesus’ attention, he wants to encounter Jesus, and he pursues Jesus with a praiseworthy singlemindedness. When people tell him to quiet down, he cries out all the more for Jesus. He might have been labeled as a fanatic, or a zealot, or obnoxious; he doesn’t care. He cries out and keeps crying out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” with perseverance, intensity, and passion. Bartimaeus recognized that searching for Jesus must be our highest priority. And so must we. As Christians, are days and our weeks are to be structured around Jesus. Seeking him in prayer, engaging in the works he commands. Sunday Mass without compromise. Daily prayer without excuse.

Thirdly, Bartimaeus shows us that we must throw off our cloaks to approach Jesus. The thick, heavy cloak of the people of Israel was among their most prized possessions. It was protection against the rapid and frequent temperature changes, insulation against the harsh Judean winds, and at night it doubled as a blanket, especially for the poorer residents of the Holy Land, like Bartimaeus.

For these reasons, the Fathers of the Church have seen in this cloak a symbol of self- sufficiency, a symbol of our deep-seated tendency to think that we are capable of solving all of our problems on our own.

The cloak symbolizes all those things that we wrongly depend on for happiness, that we tend to idolize: good looks, intelligence, athletic ability, money, good education, success, popularity. You’ll never regret giving up television in order to pray and engage in charity, like taking part in our parish St. Vincent de Paul group. Don’t be afraid to rearrange things, to make prayer and charitable service a more deliberate part of your life.

Fourthly, notice how Bartimaeus is specific in his prayer. I want to see. Daily, we need to make specific petitions to the Lord. Bring to prayer that sick family member, pray by name for that clueless politician, for the return of lapsed Catholics, and like Bartimaeus, don’t give up and enunciate your petitions clearly: Master I want my son to be saved from addiction. Master, I want peace in my family. Master, I want healing for my friend. Master, I want a good job. 

Lastly, having persisted in crying out to the Lord, throwing off his cloak, clearly enunciating his request to the Lord, he is healed, and then in gratitude, he abandons all that he has to follow Jesus.

There are a lot of people who cry out to God, they pray for healing, for peace, but when the prayer is answered, they go their own way. They are like the nine lepers, who healed by Jesus, fail to recognize and show gratitude to Jesus. Or the lame man at the pool of Bethesda. He received healing then went on to a life of sin. There are those who pray in desperate moments and then when the crisis is passed they return to their virtually faithless lifestyle.

But, not Bartimaeus. “Bartimaeus received his sight and followed Jesus on the way.” His physical blindness was healed, but more importantly the eyes of his heart were enlightened. Bartimaeus is the only recipient of a healing whose name is recorded by St. Mark, certainly suggesting that Bartimaeus continued to follow the Lord after his healing, and was a disciple known to the early Church. 

I recommend some time this week, opening your bibles back to chapter 10 of Mark’s Gospel, reading through this story again, and asking the Lord to help you identify your blindnesses, how you can better seek Him in your life, what cloak, what safety blanket, you need to throw off, in order to follow the Lord with greater trust, and shine with the light of the Lord for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

October 22 2021 - Pope St John Paul II (school mass) - Lives of holiness

 The last time the school was gathered over in Church we were celebrating the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis lived and died over 800 years ago, yet we celebrate him to this day because of his holiness, his example of love for God, his willingness to bear the sufferings of Jesus in his body and in his life.

Today we celebrate a saint, who lived and died not 800 years ago, but just 16 years ago. He was the Pope at the turning of the 21st century, the Pope for the majority of my life and many of your teachers and parents: Pope John Paul II.

Not every Pope is a saint or will be canonized as a saint. But Pope John Paul II was one of the holiest men who lived in the last 100 years. 

He was Pope for 26 years, 5 months, and 17 days, the third longest papacy in history.  He traveled the world more than any Pope before or after, visiting 129 countries: he was the first pope to visit the White house.  He spoke latin fluently, but could also converse in Slovak, Russian, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Ukrainian, English, and of course, his native Polish.  

He had one of the most prolific pontificates in history: publishing, 14 encyclicals, 15 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions, 45 apostolic letters and 28 motu proprios.  And he canonized more saints than any other Pope in history.  He played a decisive role in the downfall of communism in eastern Europe. The list of accomplishments goes on and on.  

And yet, his personal holiness could be felt by those around him. I was in Rome back in 2004, and attended a Mass with John Paul. And, I remember locking eyes with the Pope as he came up the aisle in the procession for Mass, and he looked at me, and smiled at me, and it was like I could see the light of Jesus in him and his deep love of God and for the people of the world. His love for God, his devotion to the Blessed Mother Mary, his love for the Church infused his life and radiated from Him.

Holiness is real, saints are real. And becoming holy, becoming a saint, is the most important thing you could do in life. It’s more important than wealth, riches, fame, popularity. You can be poor as dirt, you can be sick as a dog, but if you are holy, you have everything.

Again, the fact that John Paul was Pope was nothing compared to his holiness. He can be a brilliant scientist or the best athlete or most famous moviestar in the world, but it is all nothing, if you do not have the life of Jesus in you.

This is what Jesus was talking about in the Gospel today. In the Gospel, Jesus says, there are people who are brilliant at predicting the weather, they can look at the sky, and know what kind of weather we are going to have. But it is all a waste of time if you have this great ability, but do not learn the difference between right and wrong, evil and righteousness, and strive to live a life of grace. You can learn to speak all the languages of the world, but if you do not have God’s love in you, you are just going through life making a bunch of noise.

John Paul remained deeply united to God amid the many demands of his ministry, of his life, and in his sufferings. May Pope St. John Paul II, through his heavenly intercession help us to seek the deep union with God through a life of holiness that will make our lives complete for the Glory of God and salvation of souls.

29th Week in Ordinary Time 2021 - Wednesday - Is this parable meant for us or everyone?

 “Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?”

This parable about consequences for servants being negligent in their duties seems to be aimed particularly at the apostles. After all, they have some serious responsibilities in caring for the master’s house, the Church. 

The bishop, St. Ambrose wrote, that this parable: seems to be set before priests, whereby they know that they will suffer severe punishment…if intent on worldly pleasure, they have neglected to govern the Lord’s household and the people entrusted to them.”

And yet, are there really any parables in the Gospels that aren’t applicable to everyone? If we are reflecting on a parable, and think, he’s probably not talking about me, you better read it again.

By virtue of our baptism, we all have a certain responsibility in the Lord’s household. We are all servants with responsibilities. Spouses have responsibilities for each other and for their children. Consecrated religious have responsibilities to fulfill their vows. Single people have to keep the commandments just like everyone else. So, this parable, like all the parables, are meant for everyone.

Now, there are a lot of Christians these days, perhaps even bishops, the successors of the apostles, who believe they will get special treatment on judgment day—a free pass, perhaps, for all the hard work, for their sparkling personalities. There’s a tendency to act as if we are special, or above the laws of God. 

St. Paul clarified this point in his letter to the Romans, when he said each and everyone will give an account to God at his judgment. God’s love for us is universal, the invitation to repent and believe is universal, but so is the fact that all will be judged.

We will be judged on the basis of our faith in the Lord, the measure of our love for Him, our neighbors, the poor, and our enemies. Did we extend mercy as we have been shown mercy? We will be judged based on our knowledge of the Lord's wishes and the particular tasks he gave us. And, we will be particularly judged based on how we used the talents the Lord has given to us.

This parable is certainly a call to conversion, a call to ensure that our single endeavor is to live for their lord in faithfulness to responsibilities he has given to us and the time that we have been given, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That religious indifference in our country and around the world may be transformed to radical commitment to the Gospel of Christ.

For the transformation of all attitudes which lead to war, violence, racial hatred, and religious persecution.

For the conversion of Atheists, hardened sinners, the religiously indifferent, lapsed Catholics, and the conversion of all hearts.

“That our parishes, animated by a missionary spirit, may be a place where faith is communicated and charity is seen.”

That the love of Christ, the divine physician, may bring healing to the sick and comfort to all the suffering. 

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased clergy and religious, 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.

October 19 2021 - St. Isaac Jogues & Martyred Companions - Our single endeavor

 In 1636 the Jesuit Priest Isaac Jogues traveled to Quebec to preach the Gospel to the Huron Indians.  The Hurons were a pretty peaceful group, and many Hurons converted to Christianity through Father Isaac and his companions missionary activity.  However, the Hurons were constantly attacked by the Iroquois, and during one attack, Father Isaac and his missionaries were captured by the Iroquois and imprisoned for 13 months.  They were led from village to village, beaten, tortured, and forced to watch as the Huron Christian converts were mangled and killed by the Iroquois.

Fr. Isaac was able to escape from imprisonment and returned to France. And, he had to receive special permission from the Pope to continue to celebrate Mass because several of his fingers had been cut, chewed, or burnt off.  

Fr. Isaac could have stayed in Europe to live safely and die peacefully. But he burned with zeal for the Gospel. In 1646, the Iroquois signed a peace treaty with the Hurons, and Fr. Isaac thought it a good opportunity to begin preaching now to the Iroquois.  However, on his way to evangelize the Iroquois he was captured by a war party of Mohawk Indians, and on October 18, 1646, Father Isaac was tomahawked and beheaded.  His companions were killed the next day.

Many Iroquois saw his courageous faith as proof of the authenticity and power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Many Iroquois converted to Christianity and welcomed missionaries with open arms.  Moreover, the faith began to grow amongst the Mohawks as well.  Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks, could trace her faith to the preaching of Isaac Jogues.

St. Isaac wrote a letter before his death.  He wrote: “Our single endeavor should be to give ourselves to the work of the spread of the Gospel and faithfulness to God, and to not let our own desires get in the way of doing God’s work.” Our single endeavor. At every moment, doing the Lord’s will, doing the Lord’s work…it’s not our first priority, it’s our only priority. 

What would my prayer life need to look life, in order to support that belief? How might I need to better discipline my time? What would I need to cut out of my life, in order to make the work of the spread of the Gospel my single endeavor? 

May St. Isaac Jogues help us to pursue this endeavor, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That religious indifference in our country and around the world may be transformed to radical commitment to the Gospel of Christ.

For the transformation of all attitudes which lead to war, violence, racial hatred, and religious persecution.

For the conversion of Atheists, hardened sinners, the religiously indifferent, lapsed Catholics, and the conversion of all hearts.

“That our parishes, animated by a missionary spirit, may be a place where faith is communicated and charity is seen.”

That the love of Christ, the divine physician, may bring healing to the sick and comfort to all the suffering. 

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased clergy and religious, 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.

October 18 2021 - St. Luke - The Holy Evangelist

 

St. Luke, as you likely know, was not one of the twelve apostles or one of the Lord’s original disciples; Luke was a Gentile convert.  He may be the only non-Jewish writer of any of the books of the entire Bible, of which he wrote two: his Gospel and the Book of Acts. Luke spoke and wrote classical Greek, but he could also converse and write in Hebrew, Aramaic and Hellenistic Greek. He was a linguist, and a very learned man, Paul calls him “the beloved physician” as he was trained in the science and medicine of his day.

The opening lines of his Gospel show his scientific attention to detail and also his love for Christ. He says, “many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled…but I have decided to investigate everything anew.” So Luke goes to the eyewitnesses of the Lord’s works and deeds: the apostles, perhaps mary Magdalene, martha and mary, zacchias, and cleopas who appear in his Gospel, perhaps even Our Lady, for Luke includes so many details from the Lord’s infancy not found in any other Gospel. 

A few years ago, an excellent film was released about St. Paul, titled, “Paul, Apostle of Christ”. The movie shows Luke, played by Jim Cavizel, is at the side of Paul who is in prison. In second Timothy, Paul explains that Luke alone came to his side while in prison. There Luke learns the details of Paul’s life, which he details in the Acts of the Apostles.

After the death of Paul, Luke wrote his Gospel and the Book of Acts, likely from Rome, then went on to spread his Gospel in Italy, Dalmatia, Gaul, Macedonia, and Egypt. In March of 84 AD, he was crucified to an olive tree in the city of Thebes, in central Greece.

Of all the passages from his Gospel, we read on his feast the passage of the sending of the 72 disciples. Luke recognized that the announcing of the kingdom, the spread of the Gospel, belongs not just to the Apostles, but to all who call themselves Christian. 

Luke was studious and meticulous with his narrative of Christ and the apostles. We, too, are to exercise care in how we speak to and write about others. We should be careful that we always "speak the truth in love." Luke was thorough and comprehensive, unwavering in his commitment to the truth. He didn't assume things. He carefully checked things out. Certainly an important lesson in this era of fake news. Luke was a learned man, as a physician and author. Likewise, Christians should cultivate their minds, seeking to educate ourselves, never assuming we already know everything. He was faithful to Paul as a trusted and loyal friend, standing by him in good times and bad. We, too, can aspire to this kind of faithfulness and loyalty. Most important, Luke was faithful to God, to Jesus, to His teachings and to the apostles.

In seeking holiness, we do well to cultivate our entire selves, mind, body, and heart, in order to place all that we have and all that we are in the service of the Gospel, like St. Luke, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That all Christians may be faithful to their vocation to spread the Gospel in word and deed.

During this month of October, dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary, Catholics may take up this devotion with renewed vigor and trust in Our Lady’s never-failing intercession.

That on this feast of St. Luke, patron of medical doctors, all doctors may have a reverence for life, and for the conversion of all who do not believe.  

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. 

God of mercy, hear our prayers, ease the sufferings and comfort the weakness of your servants, and bring us to eternal life, through Christ our Lord.

October 17 2021 - Feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch - Wheat and the Cross

 
Over a month ago already, we heard in the Gospel the Lord offered an invitation to anyone who wished to be his disciple. A stark invitation. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” To follow Jesus we must take up the cross. 

The cross is the common denominator for all modes of Christian life. Whether you are married, single, a priest, a consecrated religious, a widow, a teenager, a grandparent, or a stranger in a strange land, you are called to embrace the cross. All walks of Christian life take the shape of the cross.

If you are single, you are called to die to self-centeredness and live a life of love and obedience to God and service to others. If you are married, you are to sacrifice your life for your spouse and for your children. Priests are to pour out their lives in loving service to the Church through the duties entailed by their ordination: teaching, governing, sanctifying the Church. Consecrated religious carry the cross through their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and the particular works of their religious orders. 

In the Gospel, the Lord did not specifically mention the cross. But in teaching his disciples he did employ the image of the grain of wheat which is a veiled image for the cross. The grain of wheat that must fall to the ground and die is a symbol for the Christian life. The grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die, just like our Lord had to go to the cross to die on Good Friday, just like we his disciples must go to the cross and die, and in a sense live out Good Friday, every day.

We hear this Gospel passage on the fifth Sunday of Lent, the Sunday before Holy Week. During Lent this Gospel helps us to understand why the Lord must suffer and die. This Gospel passage is also used for the liturgies for the Ordination of Priests and for the profession of Vows for consecrated religious. Consider, as the priest lays down on the cold marble of the cathedral this image of the dying grain of wheat is presented to him. And also, as the religious novices kneel before the bishop or abbot and make those promises of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they hear the Lord telling them, that they must become a grain of wheat and die.

And yet, this image doesn’t just end in death, it contains a promise: if it dies, it will produce much fruit. Here is the complete image of the Paschal Mystery. Good Friday is not the end. The Lord’s death on the cross is not a victory for the powers of death, but for the goodness of heaven. Jesus dies on the cross and is buried in the tomb, in order to be raised by the Father on Easter, destroying death. He is lifted up from the earth, in order to draw everyone who believe in Him to God—to eternal life.

So too in the life of the Christian, when our life bears the shape of the cross, when we put pride and lust and disobedience and envy and selfishness to death, the grain of wheat produces much fruit. Good Friday is to be lived out every day, but so is Easter, and so is the Fruit Bearing Feast of Pentecost.

A single person, whose life is devoted to self-sacrificial service enriches the church with spiritual fruits. A married couple who loves each other with Christ-like sacrificial love, draws each other to God, they become blessings to each other, their children, the church, and the world. Priests, though celibate, become instruments of new life in the church. Religious by living out the evangelical counsels infuse the Church with learning and healing and compassion and joy.

Why is this Gospel passage proclaimed particularly on the Feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch? Listen to the words our patron, the holy bishop Ignatius wrote to the Romans as he was being marched to his death in the Roman Circus, “I am writing to all the churches to let it be known that I will gladly die for God… Permit me to imitate my suffering God…Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God’s wheat.” This Gospel, this teaching of the Lord Jesus, echoed in the mind, and heart, and soul of this holy bishop. He willingly embraced becoming wheat, crushed in martyrdom, so that he may obtain the promises of the Lord. In willingly going to his martyrdom, Ignatius sought to imitate the suffering and death of Jesus. 

Now many Christians, most of us, are scared to death of death. Most of us run away from suffering. We seek to avoid any conversations or posturing or activity that might result in our martyrdoms. We hide our faith.

But not Ignatius. Ignatius demonstrates the freedom from fear that belongs to those who have grown mature in faith, hope, and love. Faith that Christ is God. Hope in His Promises. Love that impels us to Imitate Him even in suffering and death, that the Christian faith might be spread. 

And that’s a freedom—freedom from fear—the Lord wants for all of us because that’s a freedom we need to fulfill our Gospel mission. We need freedom from fear in order to stand up for our Catholic faith when it is being attacked in the public sphere and to teach that faith amidst so many cultural errors. We need freedom so that the sinful tendencies of our flesh do not control our lives. We need freedom from fear in order to bring the light of the Gospel into the dark places of the world.

“Do not have Jesus Christ on your lips, and the world in your hearts” St. Ignatius writes. On this feast of St. Ignatius our patron, we celebrate his witness, his faith, his freedom, his conviction, that those holy fruits may be produced in us for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

October 11 2021 - Columbus Day - To the farthest Reaches

 Today we celebrate Columbus Day, remembering when Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas on October 12, 1492. It is fitting that on this day, we celebrate a Mass for the Evangelization of Peoples, that the true faith may be spread across the earth and embraced by all. 

For Columbus, his voyage of discovery was a work of evangelization. On board his ships were missionaries; his first act upon landing in the New World was to plant the cross, claim the new lands for Christ and His Church, and ask the missionaries to offer Mass. In fact, upon first sighting land, he and his crew prayed together the Salve Regina.

On this Columbus Day, we began to read a new letter from St. Paul, who no doubt, Columbus modeled himself after. We’ll continue to read from Paul’s letter to the Romans until almost the middle of November. Samual Taylor Coleridge called Romans “the most profound book in existence.” It was not the first of Paul’s epistles to be written, though it is placed in most bibles first, only because it is the longest, but also because of its tremendous import. It was not however the first of Paul’s epistles to be written.  

We heard today how Paul was called by God to be an apostle—one who would carry the message of Christ and proclaim the Good News beyond Jerusalem into the far reaches of the Roman world.  

Like St. Paul and the Apostles who braved great dangers in fidelity to Christ’s great commission, to spread salvation to the ends of the earth, Columbus willingly endured the violent storms of the Atlantic to bring the Gospel to an unknown land.

Columbus utilized his Italian genius, his masculinity, his excitement and energy, to bravely venture into the unknown to fulfill the will of God. How dangerous, and yet, how authentic! How inspiring. In 2021, we need more Christopher Columbus’ don’t we? 

Despite what our popular culture says, or what lies are spread about this great man by modernists in journalism and college campuses, Christopher Columbus was not racist or imperialist or sexist or genocidal for wishing to spread Christianity to an unknown land and foreign people. And neither are we. We do not need to apologize for believing that Christianity should be spread to all corners of the globe and to all people. Rather, we must allow great figures like Columbus, and St. Paul and the apostles to rouse us out of complacency and lend us courage to ensure we are doing everything we can to spread the gospel, to live the gospel, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That Catholics around the world will be ever more zealous in their preaching of the Gospel.

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

For those whose love for Christ has grown cold, for those who have fallen away from the Church, for those with unrepentant hearts, for their conversion and the deeper conversion of all people.

For the Knights of Columbus and all who look to the inspiration of Christopher Columbus, may they continue in good works and be examples of virtue and faith.

For the sick and the suffering, and all persecuted Christians, that they may come to experience Christ’s healing and peace amidst their illnesses and needs.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased clergy and religious, 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.

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021 - To inherit eternal life

 

“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” We heard this question from the lips of a young jewish man in the Gospel today. It’s an important question. And one of the great concern many priests and probably many of you have is that so few of today’s young people and so few of our family members consider this question important.  It’s certainly one of the symptoms of the secularism and materialism of our age: this indifference to eternity.

Many ask questions  like, “what must I do to get into Harvard, what must I do to be a famous athlete, what must I do to make my first million by the age of 30?” Some sadly, are concerned only with, “what must I do to have as much pleasure as I can?”  These are all valid questions if one is merely concerned with earthly happiness and temporal success.  But, there is something more, something more important. Not just temporal reality, but ultimate, eternal reality. It’s quite possible, the Lord says elsewhere, to have all of these earthly desires fulfilled, while losing one’s soul: what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but to lose one’s soul. Our eternal soul is of incomparable value to any earthly reality.

So the question beginning this Gospel, is a good question, the most important. “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 

When asked the big question by this young man, the Lord begins his answer by enumerating the commandments, specifically the commandments from the second tablet of the law of Moses, the ones that have to do with morality--the “thou shalt nots” thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery.  You want to attain eternal life? How you treat people matters. The moral choices you make matter. There is an inextricable link to the moral choices we make in this life and how we will spend eternity. 

St. Paul repeatedly takes us this theme in his epistles. To the Corinthians Paul writes that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” And in our second reading today, Paul speaks about this accounting. All people of all time will have to render an account of our actions, our choices. Those who walked in righteousness will go on to their eternal reward, the Lord says in Matthew 25, while the wicked will go on to eternal perdition.

The Catechism synthesizes this teaching saying, “eternal retribution” will be “received by each soul at the very moment of death…either with entrance into the blessedness of Heaven…or immediate and everlasting damnation” What we do in this life matters. 

There is of course forgiveness for our immorality, for our sins, through Christ and Christ alone. For those who seek forgiveness, and seek conversion from immorality, forgiveness is given. But like the young man in the Gospel today, Christians must seek obedience to those “thou shalt nots” and seek constant conversion from sin. 

After the Lord enumerates the commandments, the young man confidently tells him, “Teacher, I’ve observed all these from my youth”.  Not only is this young man asking the right questions, seeking answers from the right person, he has brought his life into conformity to the wisdom and truth of God. He shows that he is serious about eternal life. 

The Lord then acknowledging that in this young man, the fundamental are in place, the aspirations are right. And then St. Mark offers one of the most beautiful lines in his entire Gospel, did you catch it? “Jesus looking at him, loved him”. This is the only time in the Gospel of Mark, that Jesus is said to have looked with love on an individual. This is a very special moment. This is the gaze of divine love with which Jesus looks upon all of us—the burning love of the Sacred Heart he has for each one of us. God looks upon us, he wants salvation for us, he wants eternal life for us..

This is the gaze of divine love that has captivated the hearts of generations of Christian to live for Christ; this love has captivated the saints to pour their lives out in service, to spend their lives growing in the experience of that love through prayer, penance, and charitable works. It is the love that captivated the holy martyrs, who recognized in that gaze, the most important thing in the world, that which is worth dying for, knowing, loving, and being loved by God in this life and for all eternity.

Sadly, like so many today, it seems this young man in the Gospel was too preoccupied with his earthly treasures to detect Jesus’ love for him.

“You are lacking in one thing” Jesus says…what’s that one thing? It wasn't obedience to the commandments, he had that. The Christian life requires more than this. The young man lacked faith that corresponds with the willingness to give up earthly things to obtain heaven. He is unwilling to let go of his old way of life to follow Jesus. We go from hearing the most beautiful words in the Gospel, to the saddest words: Jesus called the man to holiness, but at this statement, the young man’s face fell, and he went away sad. 

When Jesus calls us and we do not follow, sadness and regret, will always ensue, that’s true for this life, and that’s true for eternity. Eternal sadness, eternal regret is the consequences for rejecting God’s invitation, which he will not force upon us, or else it is not an invitation.

But we never regret following Him, accepting his invitation on the great adventure of Christian discipleship. We never regret refusing to settle for spiritual mediocrity, seeking conversion from selfishness, impurity, pride, and anger. We never regret the time we set aside each day to meditate on his holy word, listening to his voice, seeking his face, engaging in holy works prescribed by Him. 

Even when there are social consequences for being a following Jesus and remaining firm in his truth, there are no regrets, only perhaps, that we weren’t more fervent.

As the Lord invited the young man to give up his possession to follow him, the Lord invites us to give up the things, the possessions, the habits, which might obstruct our entrance into eternal life. We do well to identify the earthly attachments, the vices, the sinful habitual behaviors and ways of treating people, and the fears, that keep us from the life of freedom and joy the Lord wants for us.

He looks upon us each of us with ineffable love and invites us to follow Him on the great adventure. May we set aside all that keeps us from growing in the life of grace, all that is hindering us on the path of wisdom and love, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

27th Week in Ordinary Time 2021 - Friday - Irrational hatred of the Gospel

 As the Lord’s mission progressed, the Jesus faced mounting opposition. His critics even began to criticize the good he was doing. When Jesus forgave the sins of the paralytic, the Jewish leaders accused him of blasphemy; when he allowed the sinful woman to anoint and honor Him, a Pharisee was upset that he allowed such a woman to touch him.  Jesus was constantly being ridiculed for reaching out and eating with tax collectors and prostitutes. And, we heard in the Gospel today, when he cast out a demon, the Pharisees accused him of being in league with demons.

To accuse Jesus of casting out demons by Satan’s power shows the level of resistance against him; it also reveals the lack of sound judgment of his opponents. If you can’t recognize that casting out demons is a good thing, a holy act, than your logic is all messed up. You are calling evil “good” and good “evil”. 

The Lord’s teaching is certainly echoing the condemnation of the wicked by the Prophet Isaiah centuries before, who said, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who turn darkness to light and light to darkness, who replace bitter with sweet and sweet with bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.”

This certainly says something about who twisted the human mind and heart can become, how fallen. It is possible that we become so blind we cannot recognize goodness, so deaf we cannot recognize truth. 

The Lord was saying this about the Pharisees, but if it could happen to them, it could happen to anyone. 

The grace and truth of the Gospel is a remedy for the pride and the sin which twists, and wounds, and perverts the human soul. Jesus is the light which shows us the way out of the darkness of error and self-delusion. 

Sadly, some people will never recognize an authority higher than themselves. And they will criticize and perhaps even persecute the Church because she challenges their authority, like Jesus challenged that of the Pharisees. 

There will always be irrational resistance towards the Church, toward the Christian message, until the end.  But that doesn’t mean we stop preaching or compromise the Truth.  Like the Lord, we continue to make the invitation to conversion, even to those who reject it, even those who hate it. God willing they’ll wake up before it’s too late.

Lord heal us from our delusions, our irrationality, and our lack of love. Give us patience when we face resistance in laboring for your Gospel, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That Christians may be faithful to evangelization, especially in the face of opposition.

For those who have fallen into error, for Catholics who have grown lukewarm in their faith, for those who have left the Church, for their conversion and the conversion of all hearts.

For an increase in devotion to Our Lady’s Holy Rosary, and that we may all come to more fully imitate Our Lady’s faith and purity.

That the love of Christ, the divine physician, may bring healing to the sick and comfort to all the suffering. 

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased priests and religious, 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.

October 6 2021 - St. Bruno - While the world changes, the cross stands firm

 St. Bruno had a very impressive ecclesiastical career. As a priest of the French Archdiocese of Reims, he was named by his bishop as director of a prestigious school for nearly two decades, acquiring an excellent reputation as a philosopher and theologian. Among his students would go on to become abbots, prelates, bishops, cardinals, and even a Pope. 

In 1075, he was appointed Chancellor of Reims, and was nearly on the verge of being named a bishop, himself, when he and two fellow priests took a vow to withdraw from the world in study and prayer as hermits. They became known as the Carthusians, named after the Chartreuse mountains where they built their first hermitage.

He refused being named bishop and archbishop many times, seeking Christian perfection as a monastic. At the time of his death, his fellow hermits extolled Bruno’s fervent prayer, extreme mortification, and his undying devotion to the Blessed Virgin.   

Since its founding by St. Bruno, the Carthusian way of life has gone unchanged, following Bruno’s ideal of penance and prayer for almost 950 years, following the motto set by St. Bruno: Stat crux dum volvitur orbis.  “While the world changes, the cross stands firm.”  While cultures change, while civilizations rise and falls, while technologies spring up to provide conveniences, the cross remains the way to salvation and the road to perfection.

Though they withdraw from the world, Carthusians see themselves deeply united to the Church, united to all of us through their prayer and penance. In the statutes for the order we read: “separated from all, we are united to all for it is in the name of all that we present ourselves to the living God.”  They offer their lives for us, praying for us, and doing penance for us, that we may know God deeply and do the work of the Church in the world.

Consecrated men and women like the Carthusians win great graces for us, and we mustn’t let those graces go in vain. We do well to remember them, and to lift them up in prayer, and consider how the Lord calls us to stand apart from the changing world, its values, its errors, and remain close to the unchanging cross of Christ through prayer and penance, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

 

That the contemplative religious orders of the Church may inspire all Christians to seek God in moments of prayer, silence, and solitude. 

That world leaders may look upon the Son of God, believe in him, and seek the peace and justice that only he can bring.

That our young people may take seriously the missionary call of Christ, that they will turn away from the evils of our culture to spread the good news of Christ’s eternal kingdom.

For all whose lives are marked by suffering may come to know the healing and peace of Christ.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased clergy and religious, 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.

27th Week in Ordinary Time 2021 - Tuesday - The problem with anxious worrying

 

October began with the feast of the Little Flower, St. Therese. St. Therese teaches us that power of doing little things with great love—doing the ordinary, day-to-day chores and responsibility mindful of God’s presence with us, embracing the little inconveniences with greater and greater patience.

In the little, ordinary events of the day, there are opportunities to grow in grace and focus on God, but that means there is also the temptation to turn away from him. If you can become a saint through these small events, why aren’t we all saints?

So often, it is our anxious thoughts and our impatience which keep us from knowing the peace of God.  Proverbs says, “Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down”, it causes us to sink from grace to bitterness. Anxious worry about what other people are doing, minding other people’s business instead of focusing on your own can cause us to miss out on grace.

Like Martha in the Gospel today, who misses the whole point of Jesus’ visit, we miss out on opportunities to grow in grace because we are consumed with anxious busyness. You can imagine Martha cursing Mary the whole time she was doing her chores, “why is she just sitting there, doesn’t she know how much work there is to do?”

Ruminating in self-pity, “why am I the one stuck doing this?” certainly doesn’t bespeak of the prayerfulness that is to accompany our work. Perhaps, Martha’s complaining was even a sign that what she really wanted was to control her sister, and was using housework as an opportunity to manipulate or dominate. Nagging, after all, can be a form of subtle domination. Or, what kind of old resentments was Martha carrying around with her, that she could not imagine that her sister Mary could be doing something good?

Martha’s grumbling sure doesn’t lead us to believe that she was doing these small things with great love. Rather, we do well to begin our work prayerfully offering it to God, seeking to glorify God even by the way we do our work—with peace, humility, perhaps even cheerfulness.

The Lord responds to Martha: “you are anxious and worried about many things.” Psalm 139 says that God searches us and knows our hearts, he tests us and knows our anxious thoughts. And Jesus shows himself to be keenly aware that Martha was not doing her work with peace in her heart. Jesus in this Gospel isn’t condemning housework, but he is certainly teaching that we must let go of our anxieties, worrying what everybody else is doing all the time, if it keeps us from being at peace.

May we relinquish our anxious attitudes or domineering behaviors, and focus in our work and throughout the day on the Lord's Holy Will for our lives, for the glory of God and salvation of souls. 

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That hearing the call to repentance preached by the Church, all men may turn away from their sins to the mercy of Christ.

That world leaders may look upon the Son of God, believe in him, and seek the peace and justice that only he can bring.

That our young people may take seriously the missionary call of Christ, that they will turn away from the evils of our culture to spread the good news of Christ’s eternal kingdom.

For all whose lives are marked by suffering, may they come to know the healing and peace of Christ.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased clergy and religious, 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.

October 4 2021 - St. Francis of Assisi - Pilgrimage, Stigmata, and Holy Poverty

 As I’ve shared in the past, a few years ago, I was able to make pilgrimage to Rome with our Bishop at the time, Bishop Perez, with my priest classmate on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of our priestly ordination. After our time in Rome, we made a spiritual retreat in Assisi.

Daily we celebrated mass and visited the churches and locations that were significant in the life of St. Francis. We visited and prayed at the Cathedral of San Rufino in Assisi where both Francis and Clare were baptized. We visited the town square where Francis famously stripped off his clothes, renounced his inheritance, claiming to belong only to Christ. The group went to the Portiuncula, the tiny chapel in which Francis heard the Lord speaking to him to rebuild his church.

And of course, I visited his tomb. I had taken with me about 150 prayer requests from our parishioners, and I offered each of them at the holy tomb of St. Francis.

One of my favorite parts of the retreat was when we ventured to La Verna, the mountain where Francis took his retreat, withdrawing from the world to pray. It is there that in 1224, Francis received the Holy Stigmata. We had the great privilege of celebrating mass in the chapel built on the very spot where he received those holy wounds.  

Like St. Paul, Francis received the marks of the Jesus on his Body. In this way he was conformed even more to his Lord, who he sought to imitate in, preaching, prayer, and of course poverty. For his embrace of holy poverty, he was given the title “Il poverello”—the little poor one. Among all his works, even probably more than bearing the stigmata, francis is known for his poverty.

“Poverty” Francis shared with his brothers, “is that heavenly virtue by which all earthy and transitory things are trodden under foot, and by which every obstacle is removed from the soul so that it may freely enter into union with the eternal Lord God. It is also the virtue which makes the soul, while still here on earth, converse with the angels in Heaven. It is she who accompanied Christ on the Cross, was buried with Christ in the Tomb, and with Christ was raised and ascended into Heaven, for even in this life she gives to souls who love her the ability to fly to Heaven, and she alone guards the armor of true humility and charity.”

If anything, St. Francis reminds us of the great importance of stripping away that which keeps us from loving Christ. There needs to be an element of holy poverty in the life of every Catholic, where strip away what is not necessary, what hinders us in the spiritual life, and keeps us from imitating our Savior. Through the intercession of il poverello of Assisi, may we be generous in seeking simplicity, practicing poverty, and carrying our crosses, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For Pope Francis on this his patronal feast, for the grace to bring renewal to those parts of the Church which are crumbling—a renewal of true faith, where faith has diminished or been corrupted.

For blessings upon all members of the Franciscan Orders, for vocations and that their witness may bring renewal to the Church.

For hope for the despairing and all those who suffer.

For the grace of perfect charity to fill our hearts for those in need.

That all God’s Holy People will be filled with the wisdom and discernment needed to know and obey God’s Holy Will.

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

Incline your merciful ear to our prayers, we ask, O Lord, and listen in kindness to the supplications of those who call on you. Through Christ our Lord.

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021 - Marriage in God's Plan

 
I mentioned to Cara, our Parish Secretary this week that the lazy days of summer have certainly come to an end here at Saint Ignatius.  RCIA is off and running, monthly Taize prayer services will be beginning this month, PSR is in session, the day school is already half way through its first quarter.  Our Clambake is coming up next Sunday, the basketball league is beginning sign-ups, weekly bible study is ongoing, , legion of mary and st. Vincent de paul continue to meet, our new monthly young adult group draws young catholics from across the diocese, we’re going to begin a repair project on our stained glass windows, and don’t tell our music director, but advent is only two months away.

And all this on top of the normal rhythm of parish life: the joy of celebrating daily Mass, confessions seem to be a bit more popular than when I arrived two and a half years ago, anointings, marriages, baptisms, parish staff meetings, even, really aren’t that bad. But, one of the highlights for me each month is our first Friday Eucharistic Holy Hour.

Last night, I had a wedding rehearsal, for one of our last weddings of the year and then we had our holy hour. And after a very long week, that holy hour really hit the spot. And realizing I hadn’t really come up with anything for my weekend homily, I so I asked the Lord what he might want me to preach on this weekend: both at our Saturday wedding and then for our weekend masses. And I began to see a little overlap.

Our first reading and the Gospel this weekend are readings chosen often by couples for their wedding Mass. I always think it’s rather profound that the era of livestreaming and twelfth generation iphones, couples choose for their wedding a passage from this 3500 year-old ancient text from the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. And in it, we find that the ancient biblical vision for marriage, God’s vision, is not outdated, it’s not a relic of the past we have yet to discard—like an embarrassing photo from our teenage years. It’s as relevant as ever, because it is truly God’s word.  

In this passage, our first reading, we read of the origin, the genesis of the first marriage in human history: a match made in the earthly paradise, in the Garden of Eden. 

Adam had been created first. And while working and laboring in the Garden, Adam experienced this deep longing: this longing not just for a friend, but a wife. The Creator acknowledged that this longing was by design—he says it’s not good for man to be alone…this longing for a wife was placed in the man’s heart by God from the beginning. It’s all part of the plan.  So God gets to work again, in order to complete his Creation. He puts the man into a deep slumber and creates a wife for Him.

Upon awaking from his deep slumber, the man let’s out this joyous exclamation when he glimpses his bride. He says, “AT LAST!” 

When I prepare couples for marriage, I meet with them for a minimum of six months, for many of them sometimes over a year. After all those years of dating and marriage preparation, their wedding day has “At Last” arrived—the day when two become one.

So what we have here in the very first book of the Bible is God’s Word teaching us that marriage is not a mere human institution, but has been established by God from the foundation of the world. “This is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife”—a holy longing placed in our hearts is fulfilled in the holy union of matrimony. 

This passage is of such great importance that Jesus quotes this passage verbatim in the Gospels. The Lord quotes this passage from Genesis in his explanation of why divorce is not possible and not part of the plan of God. In lawful, Sacramental marriage, like Adam and Eve, Bride and Groom become One—a new creation. They are joined together by God and cannot be separated.  What God has joined man cannot separate.

Most couples, when asked, “Why get married?” give a two-fold answer: “Because we love each other and want to start a family.” This answer is consistent with Church teaching that the purpose of marriage is twofold: unity and procreation—to be joined in mutual love and to bear children.

The Sacrament of Marriage is powerful because it helps couples be faithful to these two ends. That can’t be said for a couple who simply enters into a so-called civil marriage before a Justice of the Peace. Through the Sacrament of Marriage, celebrated according to Church law, God abundantly blesses husband and wife, giving them the strength they need to love and honor each other, for better, for worse, through sickness and health in an indissoluble bond. It also gives them special grace for the tremendously difficult role of being Christian parents, especially in the 21st century. 

Raising a Christian child now, in a culture which is increasingly hostile to our faith, is no doubt, one of the greatest challenges Christian families have ever had face. But through the Sacrament of Marriage, God’s special grace is there.

Additionally, the Sacrament of Marriage does something that most couples probably aren’t thinking of when they approach the priest for marriage preparation. The Sacrament of Marriage turns Christian Husband and Wife into a sort of living Sacrament—visible signs of Love. Christian husband and wife shows us that in this broken world, love is possible—love is real. 

This is why the Devil hates Christian marriage and does everything he can to pervert it, break it up, and undermine it as an institution. He hates it because it is a reflection of God. No wonder he wants to deface it and promote disrespect for it, to spread lies like “God never intended one man to love one woman for the rest of his life.” It’s a lie having its genesis with the Father of lies, who himself refused to love God for the duration of his life. The Devil doesn’t want us to believe in love, not true love, only in counterfeit, perverted substitutes: to settle for less.

Marriage matters.  It is bound up with God's plan for the world.  The self-giving generative love of husbands and wives shows the world that permanent, exclusive, faithful love is possible; and by God's permanent, exclusive, faithful love for us, we are saved.

If any of you are in a civil, non-Sacramental marriage, please give me a call, so we can work on rectifying the situation. Or if you and your spouse are having some marital problems and are looking for marriage help, I can share with you some resources that you will certainly find helpful if you give them a try. And if you are civilly divorced, please know that there continues to be a place for you in the Church, and I invite you to consider giving me a call to discern if it is appropriate to seek an annulment.

The Church needs strong, holy Catholic marriages and holy families—in which the Word of God is practiced and cherished. 

The month of October is traditionally devoted to the Holy Rosary. The Holy Father and the Bishops encourage us to pray the rosary daily during this month, and what better intention than to pray for marriages and families. Pray your rosary for those couples in irregular situations. Pray for spouses going through marital difficulties. Pray for the divorced, that they can know God’s healing and discern their role in the Church.

For each of us, celibate, married, or single, have a role in promoting happy, healthy, holy Christian marriage for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

First Friday Holy Hour - October 2021 - St. Therese & the Eucharist

 On this Feast of the Little Flower, St. Therese of Liseaux, as we kneel in front of the Blessed Sacrament tonight, I would like to reflect a bit upon Therese’s profound Eucharistic Devotion, 

St. Therese was born into a family with a fervent Eucharistic spirituality.  Her parents attended Mass every day, and, as soon as the children were old enough, they would attend mass as well. 

Therese and her father went for a walk almost every afternoon, and they never came home without visiting one of the town’s churches or chapels to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. This is how she first encountered the Carmelite Order, during those daily visits to the Eucharist with her Father. 

During the school day, Therese would sacrifice her 15 minutes of recreation time e to pray before the tabernacle in the chapel, this occurred even before she made her First Holy Communion.

After she entered Carmel, she was saddened to discover that the Sisters did not receive Communion daily. But daily, she would kneel before the tabernacle and express her desire to receive the Lord. 

Once, her cousin wrote to the saint about the great temptations she was experiencing in Paris, and Therese, who was just 16 wrote back:  “Oh, my darling, think, then, that Jesus is there in the Tabernacle expressly for you, for you alone, He is burning with the de­sire to enter your heart ... so don't listen to the devil, mock him, and go without any fear to receive Jesus in peace and love… receive Communion often, very often. . . . That is the only remedy if you want to be healed.”

During the pandemic of the 1890s, her community’s policy regarding frequent communion changed, and Therese writes of “the unspeakable consolation of receiving Holy Communion every day”. After receiving Communion, she would ardently plead with the Lord: “Remain within me, as You do in the Tabernacle. Do not ever withdraw Your presence from Your little host.”

Near the end of her short life, when she had become quite ill, she dragged herself with great effort to receive Communion. One morning after Holy Communion, she was in her cell exhausted. One of the sisters remarked that she should not exert herself so much. The Saint replied, “Oh, what are these sufferings to me in comparison with one daily Holy Communion?” 

As we kneel before our Eucharistic Lord tonight, let us ask the intercession of the Little Flower to love him with an ever-purer child like love, to value more deeply the gift of being able to receive Him frequently, to seek the transformation of mind and heart that he wants for us, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

October 1 2021 - St. Therese, the Little Flower - Whoever humbles himself like this child...

 The month of October begins with the celebration of the feast of the Little Flower, St. Therese of Liseaux. “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven” we hear in our Gospel.

Therese is certainly one of the little ones loved by the Lord, held up for all of us to emulate.

Therese was blessed to be raised in a home where the practice of the faith was practiced and cherished. In the deeply religious atmosphere of her home, her piety developed early and intensively. All four of her elder sisters became nuns, and at the tender age of fourteen, Therese traveled to Rome with her father to request, at the knees of Leo XIII, permission to enter the Carmelite convent of LeMans.

Some might say, 14 is too young of an age to commit oneself to a life of poverty, prayer, and penance. But here is the enthusiasm of a child rushing into the arms of Jesus that we are all called to emulate.

Her life of simple holiness became known to the world, mostly due to her autobiography, "Story of the Soul" which the little, humble one wrote only out of obedience to her religious superior. But in it, we find detailed a powerful spirituality of love and service.

She writes: I ask Jesus to draw me into the flames of his love and to unite me so closely to him that he lives and acts in me.  I feel that the more the fire of love encompasses my heart, the more I shall say: "Draw me," and the more will those souls who are near to mine "run swiftly in the sweet odor of the Beloved."  Yes, they will run and we shall run together, for souls on fire cannot stay still

How does one develop this pure childlike love for the Lord and for souls? Well, like a child, we have to start small.  Therese wrote, “I applied myself above all to practice quite hidden little acts of virtue; thus I liked to fold the mantles forgotten by the Sisters, and sought a thousand opportunities of rendering them service.”

The Lord gives us many opportunities, every day, to practice this way of child-like love. May we humble ourselves like the child, Therese, in so many daily acts of love, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For blessings upon the members of the Carmelite Order, and that their witness of prayer and penance may continue to draw souls closer to Christ.

During this month of October, dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary, Catholics may take up this devotion with renewed vigor and trust in Our Lady’s never-failing intercession. 

That the sick and the suffering may know God’s healing and know the love of God in their trials.

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

Incline your merciful ear to our prayers, we ask, O Lord, and listen in kindness to the supplications of those who call on you. Through Christ our Lord.