October 20 2023 - St. Paul of the Cross - The Cross is the School of Love

 The saint we honor today was born the son of a wealthy merchant near Genoa Italy, in 1694.  He received his early education from the Capuchin Franciscans.  As a young boy he was marked with great sanctity.  Not only did he excel in his studies, but he was deeply reverent, and devoted to prayer, especially the Holy Mass.  Shortly before his confirmation, he had a miraculous vision: the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Him wearing an all-black habit.  This became the habit of the religious order he found later in life, called the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, known today as the Passionists.  

When he was 26 years old, Paul had a series of prayer-experiences which made it clear to him that God was inviting him to form a community who would live an evangelical life and promote the love of God revealed in the Passion of Jesus. It was his life-long conviction that God is most easily found in the Passion of Christ.

“It is very good and holy,” today’s saint said, “to consider the passion of our Lord and to meditate on it, for by this sacred path we reach union with God. In this most holy school we learn true wisdom…love is a unifying virtue which takes upon itself the torments of its beloved Lord. It is a fire reaching through to the inmost soul.”

The Cross is the school of love—how much God loves us, and how our lives are to be redeemed, transformed, and transfigured by imitating that love and growing in that love. Love requires self-donation, love requires daily sacrifice, love requires forgetting ourselves in order to give ourselves more fully to others—there is no greater love than for one to lay down his life for a friend. 

In our moments of weakness and failure, it is easy to grow discouraged and to lose hope. That’s why in our sinfulness it is so important to meditate on how much we are loved by God. He didn’t die for the perfect, he died for us. He embraced us in our most unlovable state. Meditating on the cross of Christ, then, is to be a key which opens up and transforms our hearts and makes them more like the one who embraced the cross for our salvation. 

The love Christ showed on the cross is, as the first St. Paul—St. Paul of Tarsus—wrote in our first reading this morning, is a love which surpasses all knowledge. God’s love surpasses our human understanding, if you think you understand God’s love—his love is greater still. But also, seeking to grasp and experience God’s love is more valuable than any other knowledge we can gain in this earthly life. “More precious than gold, than fire-refined gold” is the law of God’s love. The psalmist is not just speaking poetically here, but rather, calling us to realign our priorities—to seek to truly value God’s love over everything else. 

May the Passion of Jesus Christ be ever in our hearts. May we meditate often on the cross of the Savior, and encounter “the breadth and length and height and depth” of God’s love for us, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

 

For unity in the Church, faithfulness to right teaching, detachment from worldly vices, generosity in the works of charity, and courage in the Church’s evangelizing mission. 

Through the intercession of St. Paul of the Cross, we pray for the spiritual good of the Passionist Orders—and that all members of the Church may be more deeply conformed to the Cross of Christ.

For all victims of war, for peace in the Holy Land, an end to the violence and suffering, and healing for those whose lives have been tragically disrupted. May God come to the assistance of the communities and families devastated by the horrors of terrorism and war; and may world leaders work together for peace. 

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation, addiction, or disease: that they may know God’s consolation, healing, and grace.

For the repose of the souls of our beloved dead, the deceased members of our families friends and parishes, for those who fought and died for our freedom, and for N. for whom this mass is offered.

Graciously grant our petitions, we beseech thee, O Lord; may your grace sustain us always in your service, through Christ Our Lord.

 

 

Good Friday 2023 - Morning Prayer - Weep for your sins

 

Following the Last Supper, Jesus and the disciples left the Upper Room, and processed to the Garden of Gethsemane up on the mount of olives. 

And there on the mountain he began to pray. He asked his disciples to stay awake with him and pray. But they kept falling asleep. Even Peter, James and John, his inner circle, who had witnessed his transfiguration on Mount Horeb, could not keep their eyes open.

And so, the Lord suffered, agony alone. St. Matthew tells us that his suffering was out of sorrow. Sorrow for who? Sorrow for Judas. Sorrow for Peter. Sorrow for his disciples’ indifference. Sorrow for the souls of those who would reject him ultimately, and spend eternity in hell. Suffering for those who call themselves Christians, yet persist in indifference to their vocation to holiness. Sorrow for priests who break their vows. Sorrow for married couples who break theirs. Sorrow for children whose hearts turn hateful toward their parents. And sorrow for parents who drive their children to such hatred. Sorrow for all the sins of the world. He took on himself not simply our sins, but the sorrow we should pay for them.

He sweat blood because we have failed to even shed sufficient tears for our sins.

Likely around 4am, the Lord was arrested and brought before Annas and Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin who brought false witnesses to testify against him. 

Around the time most of us were getting up this morning, between 6 and 8am, the Gospels are not clear Jesus was brought before the governor Pontius Pilate who found no reason to condemn Him, but sent him to the puppet-king Herod, who also failed to find a crime. 

Now with the crowd stirred up by the Sanhedrin, Pilate has Jesus scourged and then agrees to have him crucified, out of fear of a rebellion. Around 8am, Jesus begins to carry his cross through the streets of Jerusalem, and probably around the time you were starting your rosary, around 8:30am, Simon of Cyrene is tasked to help this stranger with the heavy burden.

Around 9am, the time we began our morning prayer, Jesus was nailed to the cross.

Following morning prayer we will depart in silence, but we will return to Church at the hour of the Lord’s final breath—“the ninth hour of the day”.

The Lord was sorrowful for us, and tells us that we ourselves should be sorrowful. He told the women of Jerusalem, “weep not for me, but weep for your sins and the sins of your children.”

Today, rightfully is a day of sorrow. We fittingly weep for our sins today. And we plead God’s mercy for ourselves, for all mankind, for priests and religious, for those who reject God, for those who seem to be stuck in cycles of sin, for those who have become lukewarm, for those who near death, especially those in danger of hell, that maybe, just maybe, if God wills it, a last opportunity for repentance may be given to them.

There is a tradition that of praying the Seven Penitential Psalms today: Psalm 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143. Today also begins The Divine Mercy Novena, which is prayed from Good Friday until Divine Mercy Saturday. 

We plead God’s mercy today through the passion and death of our Lord, to help us grieve our sins sufficiently, and to save souls by bringing them to repentance, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Palm Sunday 2022 - The Messianic King who reigns from the Cross

 Many times throughout his ministry, Jesus refused public recognition for his miracles and holy works. For example, after healing the deaf man in Mark chapter 7, the Lord orders the onlookers not to tell anyone about the miracle, but the more he ordered them, the more they proclaimed it. Another example, after his first public exorcism in the synagogue of Capernaum, Mark tells us that the Lord “warned them sternly not to make it known.” And another example, in John’s Gospel, after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, the people wanted to crown him king right then and there, but he withdrew into solitude. 

Why did the Lord so often guard his Messianic identity and refuse public fanfare? Part of it had to do with the expectations of many of his fellow Jews. In those days, when you said the word Messiah, it conjured up the image of a political revolutionary who would overthrow Israel’s enemies through military force. Much of Israel was expecting a Messiah King to liberate the Jews from Roman domination. So the Lord distances himself from this political, earthly understanding of being Israel’s Messiah and refused efforts to make him King of Israel.

So how do we understand what happened on Palm Sunday? As we heard in our gospel at the beginning of mass today, the Lord allowed the people of Jerusalem to give him this kingly reception: waving palms, singing sacred hymns, laying down cloaks. Palms were the symbol of military victory. 

Well, there is certainly some irony to all of this. Most of these people thought that the triumphal entry marked the beginning of the end for Rome. They likely imagined that this Nazorean carpenter would soon be meeting with other revolutionaries, planning the violent overthrow of Israel’s oppressors, beginning perhaps with Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor. But, the Lord enters the holy city in triumph, not to begin a military campaign, but to signal that the time had come for his campaign against sin and death

He is a king, but not the king they expected. He is the Messiah—the anointed one of God—but he has not come to carry out the violent overthrow of our political enemies, but to overthrow evil itself, by carrying our sins with him as he carried his cross, and allowing our sins to be crucified with him in his Passion and death.

This is why we proclaim both the gospel of the triumphal entry and the reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday. You cannot have one without the other. The waving of palms is a misguided gesture if you believe Christianity is about establishing an earthly kingdom through any means necessary or that Jesus came to usher in some earthly utopia or some supreme form of temporal government. No. He has not come for that. 

The Messiah goes to the cross for you and me and for all people of all places of all times to pay the price for our sins, to redeem our fallenness, without which there is no hope of heaven for anyone ever, no hope of reconciliation with God, no hope of eternal life. 

Again, He is a Messiah and He is a King, but it is not on Palm Sunday that his identity as messiah is most manifest, his identity as king is most glorious. To those with eyes of faith, his procession through the streets of Jerusalem, bloodied and beaten, weak and on the verge of expiring, with the burden of our sins and the sins of the world on his shoulders, is more beautiful, and more glorious, than the palm Sunday entrance five days prior.

We sing Hosanna to Him because what he does on Good Friday. Hosanna, offered to a king, not as an earthly platitude or lip service, but as divine worship, in gratitude for our salvation.

He goes to the cross to make the humble, total immolation of himself for our salvation. And this week, we at least owe it to Him, to keep our eyes and hearts fixed on Him. These are the High Holy Days of our Christian Faith. These are the days where we are to pray with the greatest intensity, fast with the greatest intensity, to show our love, to show our respect, to show our gratitude, to our King reigns not from some earthly throne, but from the cross, to our Messiah who defeats evil not through military means, but through self-emptying humble obedience to God. 

He gave all, he sacrificed all, he gave the best he had, for us.  May we do the same for Him this week, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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.

Holy Week 2021 - Good Friday Morning Prayer - Sanctifying the Hours

 Following the Lord’s Supper, he went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, where after a period of agonizing prayer, he was approached by Judas who kissed him as a sign of betrayal. Likely around 4 to 6am he was arrested and brought before Annas and Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin who brought him up on trumped up charges. Around the time most of us were getting up this morning, between 6 and 8am, the Gospels are not clear about the exact timeline, Jesus was brought before the governor Pontius Pilate who found no reason to condemn Him, but sent him to the puppet-king Herod, who also failed to find a crime. Now with the crowd stirred up by the Sanhedrin, Pilate has Jesus scourged and then agrees to have him crucified, out of fear of a rebellion. Around 8am, Jesus begins to carry his cross through the streets of Jerusalem, and probably around the time you were starting your rosary, around 8:30am, Simon of Cyrene is tasked to help this stranger with the heavy burden.

Around the time we began morning prayer, with the words, “God come to my assistance”, “at the third hour of the day” as St. Mark puts it, Jesus was nailed to the cross, and experienced those first excruciating agonies as we prayed the penitential psalm 51 calling for God to have mercy on us in our offenses. Considering our own responsibility for the crucifixion of Our Lord, this prayer, psalm 51, is certainly an appropriate response.

Following morning prayer we will depart in silence and return to Church at the hour of the Lord’s final breath—“the ninth hour of the day” as Matthew calls it for the Good Friday liturgy of the Lord’s Passion. 

Today is a powerful day for pleading God’s mercy, for ourselves, for all mankind, for priests and religious, for those who reject God, for those who seem to be stuck in cycles of sin, for those who have become lukewarm, for those who near death, and the souls in purgatory. Today also begins The Divine Mercy Novena, which is prayed from Good Friday until Divine Mercy Saturday.

There is a tradition that  the Penitential Psalms, Psalm 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143 are prayed until we gather again at 3pm, sanctifying the hours with recollection of what the Lord is suffering. We do well to fast and pray, pleading to God for the purifying and washing that only he can accomplish, that he does accomplish, through the passion and death of His Son, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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.

Palm Sunday 2018 - The Mystery of God's Love

Joy and Sorrow. Excitement and Numbing Frustration. Praises and Lamentations.

Holy Week, and Palm Sunday in particular, is filled with many contrasting emotions.

As Jesus enters Jerusalem, he is met with such exuberance. Riding on a donkey like King David entering the Holy City, they thought him to be the royal Messiah who would once and for all bring victory over the enemies of Israel. The itinerant preacher, the miracle working son of the carpenter is greeted like a prize fighter, a military hero, a conquering king.

But then Hosannas are replaced with calls for his crucifixion.

Why? What happened? How were shouts of joy transformed into demands for death?

God’s love happened! But God's love was quite different from how it was expected, as it often is!

The Jews expected the Messiah to bring about their deliverance by the sword. But Jesus came not simply to bring political advancement for a particular people, but for the salvation of all people, of all nations, of all times.

Hosanna’s turned to calls for crucifixion when Jesus revealed that he was not the hero fallen humanity wanted, he was the hero fallen humanity needed. He is the bitter medicine we refuse to take, the uncomfortable truth we need to humble ourselves in order to believe.

The liturgy of Palm Sunday, “teaches us that the Lord has not saved us by his triumphal entry or by means of powerful miracles (Pope Francis).” Salvation comes at a price, and that price is the cross.

To quote William Penn: No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.

Salvation is found not in crushing one’s enemies through military might, but by the power of forgiveness and self-emptying on a cross. Salvation comes not from one more politician promising utopia or the military conquest of a warlord; it comes from self-emptying, from humility, from the mercy of God.

A few years ago Pope Francis explains how Jesus conquers through the cross, and we too must follow him in embracing the cross. Francis says, “God’s way of acting may seem so far removed from our own, that he was annihilated for our sake, while it seems difficult for us to even forget ourselves a little. He comes to save us; we are called to choose his way: the way of service, of giving, of forgetfulness of ourselves. Let us walk this path, pausing in these days to gaze upon the Crucifix; it is the “royal seat of God”.  to learn about the humble love which saves and gives life, so that we may give up all selfishness, and the seeking of power and fame. By humbling himself, Jesus invites us to walk on his path. Let us turn our faces to him, let us ask for the grace to understand at least something of the mystery of his obliteration for our sake; and then, in silence, let us contemplate the mystery of this Week” for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: Jan 5 2017 - St. John Neumann - Strengthened by the Passion of Christ

As his episcopal motto, today’s saint, St. John Neumann, the 4th bishop of Philadelphia, took the beautiful words from the Anima Christi prayer”, “Passio Christi, conforta me”, “Passion of Christ, Strengthen Me.

By the time he was made bishop, in the 41st year of life, he was already a man of deep devotion, faith, trust, simplicity and humility; yet, he still looked to the cross to be his strength.

As we heard in our first reading, Jesus’ Passion is the model for the love we are to show toward our fellow man: “The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”

“Deprive me of everything, my God,” Nuemann wrote in his diary, “but of the desire to unite my will to your will in perfect resignation!” For Nuemann, the purpose of the Christian life was to unite, to resign, to abandon the will to doing the will of God and furthering the kingdom of God.  he urged all those to whom he ministered, whether immigrant farmers or wealthy aristocrats, to detach themselves from their worldly cares and devote themselves to God.

“Our great mistake,” he said, “is that we allow ourselves to be deceived by the spirit of [worldliness], the desire for fame, and the love of comfort…The principles of faith fade out of our hearts in proportion as we allow the principles of the world to come in.”

“Zeal, he wrote, “consists in the effort to detest, flee, to prevent or repel everything opposed to the will of God or the glory of his name.” He hoped and prayed that his people would be filled with zeal for the will of God. At the time, of his episcopacy, the Diocese of Philadelphia was the largest in the country, consisting of 170,000 Catholics scattered among 112 churches throughout the eastern half of Pennsylvania, the lower half of New Jersey, and all of Delaware. With only about 100 priests to serve this vast population, Neumann’s zeal, enabled him to travel miles on horseback through the wilderness to preach the gospel to poor farmers. He also established the first Catholic School system in the country.

His sufferings were many: the departure from his family and loved ones in Bohemia, the trying life of a pastor alone in the extreme cold and difficult conditions of the north eastern US, the anti-catholic sentiment he witnessed, the loneliness of a diocesan priest, the struggles of being a pastor as a bishop, the criticism he had to endure regarding his personality and way of life as a bishop. Yet, through all these he kept steadfast in his resolve to unite his sufferings to that of Christ.

May we look to the Passion of Christ to be our strength, and be filled with zeal in our willingness to endure our own passion for the sake of the kingdom, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
 

For Bishop Daniel Thomas, our apostolic administrator, for all bishops, and for our future bishop, they may be men of great pastoral zeal, courage, and faith.

For our president-elect and all civic leaders, that they may work to lead and build our society in conformity with the will of God.

For the Pope’s intention “That all Christians may be faithful to the Lord’s teaching by striving with prayer and fraternal charity to restore ecclesial communion and by collaborating to meet the challenges facing humanity.”

For all of our young people attending Catholic schools and faith formation programs, that they may grow in union with Christ and knowledge of the things of God.

For all whose share in the cross overwhelms them, that they may know God’s grace and strength in their share of the passion.