Homily for 1st Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
1st Sunday of Lent

March 1, 2020

Gen 2: 7-9; 3: 1-7
Holy Name of Jesus, Valhalla, N.Y.

3 days ago most of us were signed with ashes, and many of us heard the ritual formula, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  (Others were told, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”)  The “dust” formula evokes the story of man’s creation, read to us a few minutes ago:  “The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen 2:7).

Virtually all Scripture scholars today will tell us that this isn’t a scientific or a historical account of human origins.  For that, we have to rely upon paleontologists and other scientists.  None other than St. John Paul II stated that we may put a Christian interpretation upon the hypothesis of evolution.

That, however, isn’t the point of what the sacred author of Genesis teaches us.  Rather, we are to see that we are God’s handiwork—however it may have been that God made us—and there’s something divine in what makes us up.  In what we call the 1st version of Genesis’s creation narratives, ch. 1 teaches us that we—both men and women—are made in God’s image (v. 27).  The version that we heard a snippet of this afternoon says the same thing in different language:  God put his own divine breath—his spirit, if you will—into us, “and so man became a living being” (2:7).

Temptation and Fall of Man

(Michelangelo)

The Scripture goes on to tell us in story form how we sinned, how we fell from grace, how we spoiled the divine image in our souls.

That story is rich in human psychology, as we know from our own experience.  It’s also consistent with today’s gospel story about how Satan tempted Jesus.  The Gospel tells us bluntly that the Devil “is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44) and has been a liar from the beginning.  So if you want to be truly demonic, tell lies.

The serpent—Satan—begins with a lie posed as a question:  “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” (3:11).  In verses omitted from our reading we read God’s actual command:  “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad.  From that tree you shall not eat” (2:16-17).  God’s plan, his wisdom, for human beings was that we should not know anything of evil but be surrounded and familiar only with the goodness and beauty of what he’d created for us, and with himself.           

Responding, the woman speaks a half-truth of her own:  “God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die’” (3:3).  But God’s command concerned only eating, not touching.  So the woman is misstating God’s command—even if it would truly be wise not to come near enuf the tree to touch its fruit and so be severely tempted.  As we all know, the longer we dally with a temptation, the more alluring it becomes.

The Devil, that liar, proposes a doubt.  Why would God keep this one tree, this one form of knowledge, from his creatures?  If he’s their friend, why would he not want them to know the secret of the tree’s fruit?  Could he be hiding something from them, or protecting his own power?  It’s a subtle temptation, isn’t it?

Then the serpent springs his trap, tells his fatal lie:  “God knows well that the moment you eat of it yours eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil” (3:5).

There is the real temptation:  not to eat a piece of fruit, not even to amplify our knowledge—for God did create us with minds meant to seek and know the truth.  The temptation is to desire to be gods, to desire to rank with God himself.  That, incidentally, is Satan’s own aspiration.  His 3d temptation of Jesus involves Jesus’ worshiping him:  that Jesus should submit himself to Satan’s lordship rather than to the lordship of God his Father.

And that, brothers and sisters, is the lie that the Evil One ever uses to try to deceive us:  that our own wisdom is wiser than God’s wisdom, God’s plan for us as individuals or as the human race.

Satan lies to us about stealing or cheating in this or that case—such a small thing, who would care or even notice?  He lies to us about the goodness of pornography or some sexual escapade; or about the benefits of some drug or about the threat to our well-being presented by people who are different from ourselves or about the justice of getting even with someone because of a wrong done to us.  Satan proposes to us that we are godlike enuf in our wisdom to pursue our own goals and purposes, to make our own life-rules.

Satan has succeeded marvelously in so deceiving our society.  We’ve made ourselves into gods by deciding who is human and who is not, who is fit to live and who is not; thru our laws allowing abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment and a culture that praises them as moral goods.

On the flip side, Satan has deceived into thinking we can be like God and create human life—manufacturing human beings in a lab thru cloning, in vitro fertilization, and other forms of technology, and that this is good.

Satan has deceived us into thinking we’re gods who may treat other people with disdain, as subhuman, because of their race, religion, national origin, or poverty.

Satan has deceived us into defying science and natural law by destroying slowly the created world God gave us, for the sake of an immediate economic profit; and by denying the biological facts of maleness and femaleness and denying the nature and purposes of human sexuality.

Part of the serpent’s temptation was, “You certainly will not die!” (3:4).  St. Paul shows that for the lie it was:  “Thru one man sin entered the world, and thru sin, death, and thus death came to all men” (Rom 5:12).  How can humanity thrive when we make ourselves into God, which plainly we are not, and seek truth, goodness, and happiness where they’ll never be found—in our own willfulness, in the worship of our own powers?

During Lent we’re invited to examine our lives, starting with our interior attitudes, to acknowledge our offenses, as the responsorial psalm (51) said; to take Jesus Christ as our model of complete fidelity:  “The Lord, your God, shall you worship, and him alone shall you serve” (Matt 4:10).  That commitment of Jesus is what compels Satan to leave him (4:11) and allows Jesus to give us “the abundance of grace and the gift of justification” and “to reign in life” thru him—to be redeemed, restored as images of God, children of God for eternal life.

Homily for Ash Wednesday

Homily for Ash Wednesday         

Joel 2: 12-18

Feb. 26, 2020                             
Christian Brothers, Iona College, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“The Lord was stirred for his land and took pity on his people” (Joel 2: 18).

We can agree that our land is in trouble—great political unrest, worry about an epidemic, all manner of social concerns—and the latest polls on Catholics are hardly comforting.

Yet the Lord invites us to return to him to receive his pity (Joel 2:12-13), and Paul tells us this is an acceptable time (2 Cor 6:2)—which is the reason for our Lent, for today’s ritual.

Any resolution of our concerns begins with us individually—as followers of Jesus, as faithful religious, as evangelizers of the communities of the young whom we serve.  But it has to start with our own hearts—“return to me with your whole heart, says the Lord” (Joel 2:12)—with our commitment to prayer, to fasting from vice, to giving the alms of our brotherly love.

First of Many Salesian Martyrs

Feb. 25, 1930: 1st of Many Salesian Martyrs

90th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Sts. Louis Versiglia and Callistus Caravario

 (ANS – Rome – February 24, 2020) – In one of his dreams Don Bosco saw two large chalices rise to Heaven, chalices with which his children would water the Salesian mission in the Orient: one was full of sweat, the other of blood. A few decades later, Fr. Louis Versiglia wrote from China to another Salesian who had given him a chalice: “May the Lord ensure that I return the chalice that has been offered to our Pious Society. May it overflow, if not with my blood, with at least my sweat!”

Louis Versiglia was born in Oliva Gessi (Pavia) on June 5, 1873. At the age of twelve, he entered the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales at Valdocco (Turin), where he met Don Bosco. After ordination in 1895, he was master of novices at Genzano (Rome), then was chosen in 1906 by Fr. Michael Rua to lead the first Salesian missionary expedition to China. In 1918, the Salesians were given the mission of Shiu Chow in southern China. Soon after, Fr. Versiglia was appointed vicar apostolic, and on January 9, 1921, he was ordained bishop. He was a true shepherd, entirely devoted to his flock. He gave the vicariate a solid structure with a seminary, houses of formation, and various residences and shelters for the elderly and needy. He looked after the formation of catechists with true conviction.

Callistus Caravario was born in Cuorgné (Turin) on June 8, 1903, and was a student at the Valdocco oratory. In 1924, still a cleric, he left for China as a missionary. He was sent to Macao, and then for two years to the island of Timor in the East Indies. He edified everyone with his goodness and his apostolic zeal. On May 18, 1929, Bp. Versiglia ordained him a priest in China.

On February 25, 1930, the two missionaries were travelling by boat for a pastoral visit to Fr. Caravario’s mission at Linchow when a gang of Communist pirates intercepted them. They boarded the vessel and, finding three young women catechists, wanted to take them away with them. The two missionaries interposed and were attacked and tied up, while the pirates ransacked their possessions. One of the bandits, snatching crucifixes from a catechist, shouted: “Why do you love these crosses? We hate them with all our souls!” The young women, who were left aboard after all, saw the missionaries hear each other’s confession before being shot in the woods onshore. Thus the two chalices dreamed by Don Bosco were raised to Heaven!

St. John Paul II beatified them on May 15, 1983, and canonized them on October 1, 2000. On the occasion of the beatification, the Pontiff said: “The blood of the two blesseds is at the foundations of the Chinese Church, just as the blood of Peter is at the foundations of the Church of Rome.”

Because of this 90th anniversary, the provincial of the China Province, Fr. Joseph Ng, based in Hong Kong, is promoting a series of commemorative events from February 25 to November 13. He issued a message in which he said: “I hope that through the various activities that we are organizing this year we will know how to learn the spirit of martyrdom from these two saints.... Every Christian participates in a ‘white martyrdom’ [distinguished from blood martyrdom] if he puts the Gospel into practice and carries his own cross. Let’s model ourselves on the example of Sts. Louis Versiglia and Callistus Caravario!”

The saints' feastday is February 25.

They were the 1st of many martyrs, as this post's title indicates.  95 Salesians (including FMAs and lay colleagues) were martyred during the Spanish Civil War and have been beatified.  6 Polish victims of the Nazis also have been beatified, and others are under study, including most of the clergy assigned to Karol Wojtyla's parish in Krakow.  2 martyrs under the Communist persecutions in Eastern Europe have been beatified.  Others suffered imprisonment.  In more recent time, Salesians have been killed in mission lands including Brazil and Burkina Faso for reasons related to the faith and its practice.  The bloody chalice that Don Bosco foresaw is flowing over.

SDBs Begin 28th General Chapter

SDBs Begin 28th General Chapter
GC28’s work sessions officially open

(ANS – Turin – February 22) – The official opening of the Salesian Society’s 28th General Chapter took place on February 22 in Valdocco (Turin), the Salesian motherhouse, altho a week of work had already taken place.  The chapter members number 242 and come from 132 nations.  Each of the almost 90 provinces and vice provinces sends its provincial and 1 or 2 elected delegates (depending on its size); the Rector Major, Rector Major emeritus, members of the general council, and several other confreres take part ex-officio.

The morning began with Mass in the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, presided over by Cardinal João Braz de Aviz (above), prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life.

At 10:30 a.m., the chapter assembly met in the house’s theater and began work with prayer and singing of the “Veni, Creator Spiritus.”  Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime is the presiding officer, but Fr. Stefano Vanoli, moderator, coordinates the work of the assembly.

At the opening Mass and chapter assembly there were many Salesian guests, including Cardinals Oscar Rodriguez, Tarcisio Bertone, and Ricardo Ezzati, and some bishops. Turin’s archbishop, Cesare Nosiglia, and Mayor Chiara Appendino sent messages of greeting.

Ms. Appendino recalled that “seed which, in just over two centuries of history, has left indelible marks and strongly contributed to connote the character of our city.” And today that character is still present in Turin: “Like the activities of the Salesian Congregation, it’s reflected in the continuous commitment to educate young people, to teach, to be supportive and attentive to the weakest, to welcome without prejudice those who leave their own country of origin and dream of building a new life for themselves.”

Archbishop Nosiglia highlighted the current relevance of Don Bosco’s educational experience: “From the wealth of experience that Don Bosco has left us, today we can also draw several fundamental features of each educational action: the authoritativeness of the educator, the centrality of personal relationship, education as an act of love (‘a matter of the heart,’ as Don Bosco would say), the integral formation of the person, co-responsibility for constructing the common good.”

Speakers representing the groups of the Salesian Family were Mother Yvonne Reungoat, FMA, and Renato Valera, President of the “primary” Association of Mary Help of Christians (ADMA).

Mother Reungoat (above) highlighted the opportunity and necessity of each Salesian Family’s chapter assembly: “They are precious opportunities to revive today the apostolic and missionary passion that nourished the beginnings of the Salesian Family and that we try to keep alive today.”

On behalf of all the laity of the Salesian Family, Mr. Valeria thanked participants for their presence and offered his best wishes for “a strong [intense] time of meeting, prayer, and discernment.”

Cardinal Braz de Aviz offered his message to speak of an ecclesial horizon open to the present moment. It is in this context that a renewed document dealing with the relationships of consecrated life in the Church (mutuae relationes) is now at the final stages. He continued with the presentation of some current challenges for consecrated life.

First of all, he mentioned, those involving formation choices. Then he stressed the attention that must be paid to give a just and renewed importance to male-female reciprocity. Another open challenge is what concerns the service of authority. Last, but not least, is the challenge that awaits the management of ecclesiastical assets dependent on institutes of consecrated life.

Fr. Fernandez formally opened the work of GC28 and, immediately afterwards, gave the opening speech. He began with words of thanks for the many guests, Salesians and representatives of the groups of the Salesian Family. For Fr. Angel, too, the first focus is that of a prophetic and hopeful gaze for an especially significant commitment: “responsibly guiding and animating a charism of the Church, for the Church and for the world, aroused by the Spirit.”

And it is with this focus and this task that Salesians are challenged to renew “the responsibility of guiding communion and unity of life in the Congregation” with a single interest: taking care of the interests of God.

As Fr. Luigi Ricceri stated at GC20: “Ours is not an assembly of shareholders of an industry; it is not a political assembly with factions with conflicting interests that are economic, prestige and ambition. We are here as Church – better, as an assembly of consecrated men, gathered in the name of the Lord, totally devoted to a supernatural ideal.”

Moving on to the specific theme and objectives of the GC28, the Rector Major focused on a few objectives.

First of all, by underscoring that we must “give absolute priority to the Salesian mission with today’s young people, and among them giving priority to the neediest, poorest, and most abandoned.

Who is the Salesian who goes to meet young people today? What is his profile? The one that has Don Bosco as a model.

With Don Bosco as a model, saying “Salesian” today should be the same as saying:
- consecrated man of deep faith;
- apostolic passion for young people;
- son of God who knows he is and feels like a father to young people;
- charismatic identity of everyone who enriches the Church with the charism of Don Bosco and creates ecclesial communion;
- always faithful apostle of young people, always flexible and creative;
- always educator, always friend of young people.

Today, even more than in other times, the Salesian lives together with the laity in mission and formation. And in this area we have further to go, and Fr. Angel hopes that the general chapter “will perhaps consider some of these points on which to push our discernment,” to overcome resistance in the mission shared with the laity, to grow in reciprocity in relations between Salesians and lay people, with a joint formation.

GC28 is a great appeal or summons at this hour, as already indicated in its convocation letter: “We shall be called to discern with realism, courage, and determination the orientation of the path to embark upon in this 21st century, in a very special ecclesial moment of renewal and purification.”

The “business” started by Don Bosco has to be continued, as he himself said to Fr. Julius Barberis in 1875: “You will complete the work which I begin. I sketch; you will spread the colors.... I make a rough draft of the Congregation, and I will leave it to those who come after me to make the good [beautiful] copy.”

Fr. Angel concluded: “I think that with GC28, which we start today, we will clean up other parts of the sketch that Don Bosco left us, since the Holy Spirit continues to illuminate us even today to be faithful to the Lord Jesus in faithfulness to the charism of the origins, with the faces and music and colors of today.”

Homily for 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
7th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Feb. 23, 2020

Lev 19: 1-2, 17-18
1 Cor 3: 16-23
Matt 5: 38-48
Christian Brothers, Iona College, New Rochelle

Moses

(Library of Congress)

“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them:  Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy’” (Lev 19: 1).

This verse, v. 1 of Lev 19, introduces a detailed section of laws, part of Israel’s moral and ritual code, including elements of what we call the 10 Commandments and some rules concerning care for other members of the community, each particular injunction concluding with “I am the Lord.”  Observance of these laws is an expression of Israel’s holiness, of their close relationship with the Lord God.  In our abbreviated passage today, these laws are summed up in “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  I am the Lord” (19:18).

The responsorial psalm (103:1-4,8,10,12-13) immediately follows with a confession of the Lord’s mercy.  The psalmist knows he has sinned, and so do we know we have.  Our sins might be directly against God, e.g., by abusing his holy name, by failing to honor him with prayer, or by presuming on his willingness to pardon us.  More often, probably, our sins are against our neighbor.  I don’t need to suggest examples because we know them too well from both our own failures and our experiences of being sinned against.  But the reading from Leviticus does make a suggestion or 2.

Whatever our sins, against God or against neighbor, they separate us from God’s holiness.  St. Paul warns the church at Corinth about this.  God’s Holy Spirit makes us temples of God (I, 3:16), but sin destroys the temple and earns God’s destructive wrath (3:17).  Paul encourages his disciples, therefore, to embrace the wisdom of God, which they’ve learned from Christ thru Paul or Apollos or Cephas, i.e., Peter (3:18-23).

Jesus teaches us divine wisdom, and as Paul writes, it’s assuredly not “the wisdom of this world” (3:19).  Jesus counsels us to suffer evil—at a personal level—and to give generously (Matt 5:39-42), to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors (5:44)—to imitate our heavenly Father by wishing good to all and striving to do good to all (5:45-48).  All of this runs counter to the wisdom of the world, which urges us to do unto others before they do unto us, and to retaliate when they have done unto us.  Where this leaves the world you can see by observing the cycle of violence and vengeance in the Middle East.  But it’s just as destructive at the personal level.

When Jesus tells us, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48), he’s echoing Leviticus with different words; he’s telling us to be holy because God our Father is holy.  Leviticus commands us not to bear hatred in our hearts for a brother or sister—meaning a fellow Israelite (19:17).  As we know, Jesus has expanded the meaning of “brother and sister” to include all the children of God, all who have been made in the divine image and likeness.

To suffer evil inflicted upon us—“turn the other cheek” is Jesus’ metaphor, and accepting an unjust legal judgment (5:39-40)—is very hard.  And we must note that this is personal, not communal; we’re obliged to defend the rights of the oppressed, the weak, and the defenseless among our brothers and sisters.  In fact, Pope Francis has just reaffirmed that obligation by recognizing the martyrdom in El Salvador of Fr. Rutilio Grande and 2 peasants assassinated with him in 1977 for teaching “peasants to read using the Bible, [and helping] rural workers to organize so they could speak against a rich and powerful minority that paid them meager salaries and confront the social maladies that befell them because they were poor.”[1]  This recognition of martyrdom means that Fr. Grande and his companions will be beatified in the near future.  They were imitating the Father’s holiness thru their “compassion on his children,” as Ps 103 says (v. 13).  They were trying to let the rain of the Father’s goodness fall on the poor as well as the rich.  They were practicing Jesus’ teaching to “give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow” (Matt 5:42), i.e., one who’s in need.  Many believe that Fr. Rutilio’s life and death inspired Abp. Oscar Romero to come out strongly in defense of El Salvador’s poor and oppressed. 

As for us, when we find it hard to forgive, we have 2 avenues to follow that are consistent with Jesus’ words.  1st, we can—and must—ask the Lord to open our hearts, to soften our hearts, so that we may eventually come to forgiveness, even if we can’t do so at this moment.  So we acknowledge our need for divine assistance, “that … we may carry out in both word and deed that which is pleasing to” God (Collect).  We desire a more complete conversion to the Lord Jesus, to become better likenesses of him.  Unless we bear his likeness in our soul, it’ll be hard for us to gain admittance to the kingdom of heaven as children of God.

2d, we can—and must—pray for those who’ve offended us or who are our enemies, either personally (we’re all tempted to hold grudges against someone) or on some larger scale (think politicians pushing repugnant policies, sexual predators, right-wing fanatics, terrorists, those who persecute religious or ethnic minorities, etc.).  Don’t we desire that our enemies undergo a change of heart, a conversion?

May God bless us all with his grace.

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    [1] https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2020/02/pope-clears-way-for-beatification-of-salvadoran-jesuit-companions/

Homily for Tuesday, Week 6 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Tuesday
Week 6 of Ordinary Time

Feb. 18, 2020

James 1: 12-18
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

Yesterday we changed channels, from the Hebrew royal network of David, Solomon, and their successors to the New Israel network on which St. James addresses “the 12 tribes” of dispersed Christians (1:1) across the Roman Empire.

His 1st concern is with how we handle life’s trials (1:2).  Perhaps he’s referring the harassment and persecution that were constants in the life of the 1st-century Church.  Certainly he refers to the common trials of everyday life that we’re all acquainted with.

Today’s reading sums all that up with the assurance that whoever perseveres in his faith in Christ will attain a divine reward (1:12)—an assurance we need as much as James’s original readers.

The 7 Deadly Sins (Bosch)

Then James shifts his thought from trial to temptation—which, also, we’re all familiar with.  Maybe some Christians blamed God for their temptations, or just blamed God for allowing temptations to afflict them (1:13).  Not so, James insists.  No, our temptations come from within, from our own desires (1:14).  Those 7 capital sins will always be lurking about, trying to snare us and “bring forth sin” (1:15).  But, James tells us, God’s good gifts—grace and truth and mercy—are always at hand, that we might be the 1st proofs of the new creation (1:17-18), in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus.

Salesian's Mike Breen Elected to Basketball HOF

Salesian's Mike Breen Elected 
to Basketball Hall of Fame
1979 Graduate of Salesian HS

Echo 1979, Salesian HS Yearbook

Salesian High School in New Rochelle is proud of Mike Breen, Class of 1979, and congratulates him on his election to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame's broadcasting section, as this year's winner of the Curt Gowdy Award.

Read about it in the New York Daily News: https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/ny-mike-breen-hall-of-fame-curt-gowdy-20200214-g6tqr2ruxjdgrjejhvdte7vijy-story.html

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Breen

The 1978-1979 Eagles went 16-6 for the season, and Mike Breen (kneeling, far right)

 was voted defensive player of the year. (Echo 1979)

Mike Breen is a the bottom left. (Echo 1979)

Homily for 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
6th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Feb. 16, 2020

Collect
Sir 15: 15-20
Matt 5: 17-37
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle, N.Y.

“O God, … you abide in hearts that are just and true…” (Collect).

Today’s collect pleads that God take possession of our hearts, that he come to dwell in them.  We ask this as a grace because it’s not within our natural powers completely to cast out sin.  Rather, we need the Holy Spirit to make his home within us.

In a sense, the Book of Sirach gives us false teaching today, shades of the Pelagian heresy in Christian theology.  The author tells us, “If you choose you can keep the commandments; they will save you” (15:15).  If only it were that easy!  Few are they who can keep the commandments flawlessly—especially when we take seriously Jesus’ commands about our hearts, when we hear him command faithfulness to every jot and tittle, every iota and dot of the Law (Matt 5:18.  Some older translations seem to me more elegant than the banality inflicted on us by the NAB).

Sermon on the Mount (Copenhagen altarpiece)

Jesus declares that the righteousness—or justice or holiness—of his followers must run deeper than what the scribes and Pharisees taught, or Sirach for that matter; or they “will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:20).  He proceeds to address not our actions but our hearts regarding anger and lust before turning to the specific actions of divorce and verbal deceit.

A great many people who come to confession accuse themselves of getting angry.  In their self-accusations, at least, they don’t distinguish between their feelings of anger and perhaps of having been abused or misused by a spouse, a relative, or someone they work with, and acting on what they feel by nurturing resentment, making attempts to retaliate, planning revenge, and of carrying out some of that.  Jesus cites the example of verbal abuse, calling someone a fool (5:22)—something most of us are quite willing to do, in various phrasings, some of which we may think are semi-polite:  “He’s an idiot.”  “She’s a moron”; and other names or accusations we don’t voice in polite society.  Jesus finds verbal assault on someone as sinful as a physical assault.  Giving way to the anger one feels is what’s sinful.  Unchecked anger, anger that simmers, is only the start of something worse.

Jesus speaks in a similar vein concerning lust.  The problem isn’t finding a person physically or emotionally attractive, or even feeling temptation.  The problem is letting those feelings lead to willed imagination and desires, looking at the other “with lust in the heart” (5:28), and perhaps allowing such desires to lead to some form of lust-driven activity.

When Jesus turns to truthfulness in our speech or writing, he demands complete transparency, no fudging the truth.  Not many of us are 100% true in our speech or writing, preferring a “white lie” or an omission or a “yes or “no” of convenience.  Of course, there are polite ways to evade a delicate subject or tell someone, “Mind your own business.”  But how many times the evasion or the fib is to protect our own pride or self-image, or to cover up some failing.  We laugh when Flip Wilson explains, “The Devil made me do it,” but we offer similar excuses.

So Jesus requires of us a supreme degree of holiness.  So we beg the Lord that “we may be so fashioned by your grace as to become a dwelling pleasing to you” (Collect).  We need the Holy Spirit to take control of our hearts, to guide our thoughts, our tongues, and our deeds.  “Immense is the wisdom of the Lord; he is mighty in power, and all-seeing,” Sirach says truthfully (15:18).

The Spirit who “scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God” (1 Cor 2:10) scrutinizes us, too.  But not only to condemn the anger, lust, or deceit we’re sometimes guilty of.  St. Paul writes to the Romans, “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness” (8:26) and “The Spirit intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will” (8:27).  For it’s God’s will to extend mercy to us who are weak, to us sinners.  “If you trust God, you too shall live”—again, Sirach is right (15:16).

Bro. Joseph Tortorici, SDB (1936-2020)

Bro. Joseph Tortorici, SDB (1936-2020)

Bro. Joseph Vincent Tortorici, SDB, died on Monday, February 10, 2020, at St. Philip the Apostle Residence in Tampa, Fla.  He had been in hospice care for a few days, suffering from pancreatic cancer.

Bro. Joe was 83 and had been professed as a Salesian coadjutor brother for more than 62 years.

Joe, the fourth of five brothers, was born in Manhattan on March 27, 1936, to Francesco and Francesca Tortorici.  He was baptized at Our Lady of Peace Church in Manhattan on January 24, 1937, and confirmed there ten years later.  His father worked for the city parks department; his mother was a housewife.  Joe placed them as a lower middle class family.

After his parents’ deaths, he lived with relatives in Scranton, Pa., attending Minooka Grade School (1948-1951) and South Scranton Catholic High School (1951-1955).  Handicapped already in his youth by very poor vision, he specialized in musical training.  In later years he explained to one of the staff in Tampa that he decided to become a Salesian after a Passionist priest encouraged him to go to the seminary in Newton, N.J., and check it out.  When he was welcomed right away, he felt the Salesians were the right fit.  He believes it “had to be providential” that he found the Salesians, where he felt at home for the rest of his years.

The clergy of his parish, St. John the Evangelist, recommended Joe for admission to Don Bosco Seminary in the fall of 1955:  “Joseph … has always shown a spirit of cooperation and helpfulness in parish activities.  His spirit of piety and sincerity has been an edification to the priests and people.”

Joe enrolled as a Son of Mary at Don Bosco Seminary in Newton on October 1, 1955.  He was admitted to the novitiate on September 7, 1956, at Newton, the house council noting his obedience, willingness, and intelligence.  Unable to do close work or to study because of his poor vision, he worked in the laundry and bakery.

Joe made his first profession of vows on September 8, 1957, at Newton.  He wasn’t noted especially for piety, but his musical talent was specially recognized.  His admission to perpetual profession six years later described him as “docile, cheerful, sincere, open.” It also noted that he was “good in bakery, band leader.” He made his final vows on August 24, 1963, at Mount Mongola in Ellenville, N.Y.

Bro. Joe served the confreres and other seminarians at Newton from 1957 to 1976.  His baking skills were outstanding; there was nothing in the world to compare with his bread hot out of the oven, and his cakes and pies, too, were unsurpassed.  He directed the novices’ band for ten years, and he also sponsored a ham radio club for the brothers.  Ham radio remained one of his apostolates for many years; thereby he helped missionaries and laity reach loved ones around the world.

He was always willing to provide music for the seminary community’s entertainment as well as religious services.  Given an opportunity, he was more than happy to take part in an entertaining skit.  He also entertained the novices (and others) with monologues he’d memorized from TV comedians; favorites were “The Italian Wedding” and “Noah.” Despite his terrible eyesight, somehow he persuaded one of the brothers to teach him to drive—an experiment that ended abruptly when Fr. Al Bianchi “caught them in the act” of practicing on the grounds of Camp Don Bosco.

Fr. John Nazzaro—now engaged in formation ministry—writes: “Who could never forget the smell of fresh bread in the gray house in Newton….  He got us all through formation with his bread and always playing his music.”

In 1976 Bro. Joe was assigned to Don Bosco Tech in Boston, where he helped with office work, especially as receptionist.  He continued as a receptionist at St. Anthony Parish in Elizabeth, N.J., from 1985 to 1994, adding ministry at the church organ.  In 1994 he was posted to Archbishop Shaw High School in Marrero, La., where he assisted with the school’s band program and provided music at St. John Bosco Parish in Harvey and at Wynhoven Apartments, an assisted living home in Marrero.

At a celebration of Bro. Joe’s 50th anniversary of profession in 2007 at St. John Bosco Church in Harvey, Father Jim Heuser’s homily focused on Brother’s 50 years of self-surrender in the different communities and ministries in which he served, “day after day, in season and out of season,” daily “placing his life at the disposal of God,” making his life a place where seminarians, parishioners, students, and others could meet God.

When Bro. Joe’s health began to fail, he was asked in 2014 to move to St. Philip the Apostle Residence for senior confreres at Mary Help of Christians Center in Tampa, where his music and good humor were valued by all the confreres.  A word that everyone would use for Bro. Joe is “lovable.”

Bro. Joe’s funeral will be celebrated first at Mary Help of Christians in Tampa and then at the Marian Shrine in Haverstraw-Stony Point, N.Y.

        In Tampa:
        Wake:    Wednesday, February 12, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
        Mass:    Thursday, February 13, 11:00 am

        In Haverstraw:
        Wake:    Friday, February 14, 2:00 p.m.
        Mass of Christian Burial:    7:00 p.m.

Bro. Joe will be interred in the Salesian Cemetery in Goshen on February 15 at 10:00 a.m.

Homily for 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
5th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Feb. 9, 2020

Is 58: 7-10
Matt 5: 13-16
St. Pius X, Scarsdale, N.Y.

“Thus says the Lord:  ‘Share your bread with the hungry’” (Is 58: 7).

Both the 1st reading and the gospel today speak of light:  light arising in the darkness of the world and piercing the gloom around us (Is 58:10), and Christians as the light of the world (Matt 5: 14).  Isaiah instructs the Jewish people in the particular ways in which they are to be light in the darkness.  Jesus isn’t as specific in today’s gospel passage, but he certainly is in other parts of his teaching.

Light in the darkness

(camping at West Mountain Shelter)

The particulars of Isaiah’s instructions comprise what’s often called the social gospel, viz., that the people of God—whether pious Jews or devout Christians—have a responsibility to care for their brothers and sisters and to act to help them improve their lives.  In particular, the Lord God says thru Isaiah that his people are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the oppressed and the homeless, and get rid of oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech.  It’s a program not only of social concern for the needy but also one of uplifting the social environment.  In our public discourse as well as our private social interactions, slander, gossip, rumor-mongering, perjury, and fake news have no place among us if we wish to be God’s own people—in the way we talk about our relatives and neighbors, about people in public life, or about people of different cultures, ethnicity, race, or social class.

There are people who call themselves disciples of Jesus who think such concerns as those voiced by Isaiah are merely politics; who say that the Gospel of Jesus is concerned only with our souls, not with the bodily needs of other human beings.  They say the Church shouldn’t be concerned about environmental policy or economic policy or immigration issues or nuclear weapons, and so on.

The widow of Zarephath shares her bread with Elijah

(Giovanni Lanfranco)

Dom Helder Camara was archbishop of Recife in the impoverished northeastern region of Brazil.  He played a prominent part at Vatican II and was well known for his opposition to Brazil’s military dictators in the 1960s and ’70s.  He said once, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.  When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”  This light in the Brazilian darkness was nominated in 1973 for the Nobel peace prize, but the Brazilian government and their conservative allies made sure someone else won.  (If you’re curious, as I was last nite, the prize that year went to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho).  Abp. Camara died in 1999, and the Church is considering the possibility of canonizing him. 

Your parish has various programs thru which you do actively try to care for the needy and the unfortunate, as the OT prophets and our Lord Jesus command us.  Such programs do cause “your light to break forth like the dawn” (Is 58:8).  That’s part of your being “good Christians and upright citizens,” in the timeless phrase with which St. John Bosco expressed what he was trying to teach his youngsters.

The followers of Jesus must necessarily be involved in social life, in culture, in political life so as to bring the light of the Gospel into the political and cultural life of our community and of our nation.

In a major address 3 days ago at the University of San Diego,[1] Bp. Robert McElroy of San Diego stated that voting is the primary means in which Catholics who are “rooted in conscience and in faith” can participate in “the just ordering of society and the state.”  Bp. McElroy noted that Pope Francis says political lives “must be seen as an essential element of our personal call to holiness.”  The bishop continued:  “We are called in our lives as citizens and believers to be missionaries of dialogue and civility in a moment that values neither.  And this requires deep spiritual reflection, courage, and judgment.  It demands a Christlike dedication to seeking the truth no matter where it may lie, and defining our politics and voting in the light of the Gospel.”

We need to remember, however, that social programs are one expression of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus; they aren’t the entire Gospel.  St. Paul reminds us today that “the mystery of God” is about “Jesus Christ crucified” (1 Cor 2:1-2).  While we must show practical love for our neighbor in this world, e.g., by feeding, clothing, and sheltering the poor and helping them provide for themselves, we also must be mindful that we are sinners for whom Christ suffered and died.  We must repent our sins and resolve to live for God’s glory so as to follow the crucified, risen Christ into eternal life.  Jesus says at the end of today’s gospel, “Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father” (Matt 5:16).  God created us to glorify him in both this world by our activity, and in eternity by our partaking in Jesus’ love for his Father.

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      [1] https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2020/02/bishop-urges-catholics-to-exercise-prudence-when-voting/. CRUX of the News online, Feb. 8, 2020.

Homily for Friday, 4th Week of Ordinary Time

Homily for Friday
4th Week of Ordinary Time

Feb. 7, 2020

Mark 6: 14-29
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle, N.Y.

“John had said to Herod, ‘It isn’t lawful for you to have your brother’s wife’” (Mark 6: 18).

John the Baptist Preaching before Herod (Pieter de Grebber)

We’re all quite familiar with this gospel story.  It resonates thru the ages whenever and wherever the followers of Jesus preach the truths of God’s law, even when that law is self-evident, as Jefferson put it in our Declaration of Independence.

In our time, as you well know, truths about marriage are readily denied and defied thru divorce, cohabitation, and the legalization of same-sex unions.  It won’t be long before pressure builds—there have already been rumblings, and not only from fundamentalist Mormons—to recognize polygamous marriages because society’s standard has become personal freedom, not “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” (Jefferson again).

The same may be said of the truths of human sexuality.  Altho the secular media are quick to report glowingly what Pope Francis says about the environment or some possible opening to a married clergy, they totally ignore what he says about God’s gift of male and female sexuality as part of one’s fixed, personal, and immortal identity, not changeable at one’s own discretion or on the basis of “feelings.”

Our Christian teachings counter the tenor of the age on marriage and sexuality, as on much else connected with the natural law, including the human dignity which every person shares.  We certainly need the courage of fortitude of John the Baptist to preach truth “in season and out of season” (2 Tim 4:2).

Homily for Wednesday, 4th Week of Ordinary Time

Homily for Wednesday
4th Week of Ordinary Time

Feb. 5, 2020

Year II:  2 Sam 24: 2, 9-17
Salesian Missions, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“King David said to Joab and the leaders of the army …, ‘Tour all the tribes in Israel from Dan to Beersheba and register the people, that I may know their number’” (2 Sam 24: 2).

This chapter of 2 Samuel presents some challenges to us concerning David’s fault and his repentance.  It’s not entirely clear what he did wrong in ordering a census—after all, we do that every 10 years in our country.  We conjecture that its objective was to measure Israel’s fighting capacity; the results are presented to us in terms of the number of “men fit for military service” (24:9); and thus the census was an act of pride in David’s fighting strength and an act that implicitly expressed less reliance on God for protection—a power that David should have known well from his own life story.

In the verses skipped over in the reading, Joab objects to David’s directive (24:3).  It’s the only instance in the David stories in which Joab shows some religious sensibility; usually he’s quite unscrupulous, e.g., in slaying Absalom in yesterday’s reading (18:9-15).  But David doesn’t listen to him.

King David at Prayer

(The Art Bible,

wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons)

We’re not told what leads David to repent of what he’d ordered (24:10).  But he turns then to God for mercy (24:10,14).

Two lessons.  1st, in the worst of people, like Joab most of the time, there is still some good deep within.  It’s not ours to judge them, no matter how much we love to do that.  We might even find some good advice from them.  After all, Don Bosco said he’s tip his hat to the Devil if it would help him save a soul.

2d, in the best of people, like David—who’s a saint—there’s sin, especially pride.  It’s easy for us to forget God or let him slide into a lesser place in our lives.  When we do, eventually we suffer for it—not because God’s mean but because our sinful choices disrupt the harmony of the universe, the balance in our lives.  When we center the universe around ourselves, our desires, our worries, our daily concerns, then conflict, trouble, and unrest are inevitable.  When we let God rule, we find inner peace, which fosters peace around us.

Homily for Feast of Presentation of the Lord

Homily for the Feast of the
Presentation of the Lord

Feb. 2, 2020

Mal 3: 1-4
Luke 2: 22-40
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx, N.Y.

“Suddenly there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek, and the messenger of the covenant whom you desire” (Mal 3: 1).

The prophet Malachi has been asking, “Where is the just God?” (2:17).  He answers that the Lord will appear suddenly, right in the place where Israel believed he dwelt, the temple in Jerusalem, and he’ll come as a messenger of the covenant, of the special relationship between Israel and the Lord God.  He’ll come to refine and purify—to cleanse impurity and sin from even the priests of the temple.  Purified priests then will be able to offer clean, pure sacrifices pleasing to God.  God’s justice will be restored; it will be evident.  This is what Israel seeks.  This is the Lord whom Israel seeks.

Presentation of the Lord

Our Lady of the Valley Church, Orange, N.J.

St. Luke then shows us the Lord coming into his temple:  the infant Jesus brought in by his mother and St. Joseph.  He comes humbly and quietly, not like a powerful judge whom Malachi may have pictured.  He comes to bring salvation (Luke 2:30), which old Simeon perceives by a special revelation.  But Simeon also perceives that this Lord Jesus will become a sign of contradiction; i.e., many will oppose him as well as support him (2:34).  As Malachi had prophesied, there will still be a need for refinement and purification.

Later in this same ch. 2 of his Gospel, Luke will show us the boy Jesus coming again to the temple, amazing scribes, the wise men of Israel, with his wisdom (2:46-49).  In Jesus the wisdom of God is personified.  He is the messenger of God coming to purify wickedness from Israel, coming to renew the covenant relationship.

Still later, Jesus will re-enter the temple to purify it of the buyers and sellers who desecrate it by their presence and their profane activities.  “He is like the refiner’s fire” (Mal 3:2).  It’s Jesus’ mission to purify Israel, to drive out sinfulness, to keep God’s people in a healthy relationship with God.  He’s the wisdom of God in person.  He’s the messenger of the covenant whom Israel in its heart desires.

Each one of us has to choose whether we’ll find our wisdom in Jesus Christ, whether we’ll listen to his message.  He becomes for us a sign of contradiction because we must make a choice, for him or not.

At the Last Supper and on Mt. Calvary Jesus didn’t renew that old covenant of which Malachi spoke; he made a new one, a covenant sealed by the sacrifice of his own body and blood.  The Lord present among us in his flesh and blood by his incarnation in Mary’s womb now remains with us in his Eucharistic presence.  Thru his sacrifice and his continuing presence, he “destroys the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and frees those who … had been subject to slavery all their life,” the Letter to the Hebrews explains (2:14-15).  He has freed us by his resurrection from death and by incorporating us with himself thru the sacrament of his Body and Blood.  He invites us to enter the heavenly temple of God his Father along with him—and that’s what we celebrate at every Mass.  As we prayed at the start of the liturgy, “may we be presented to you with minds made pure”—not only our minds but also our hearts and souls, so that we may be purified and worthy of eternal life alongside Jesus our Savior.

Homily for Commemoration of Deceased Salesians

Homily for the Commemoration
of Deceased Salesians

Feb. 1, 2020

Heb 11: 1-3, 8-10, 13-16
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

In the proper calendar of the Salesians, Feb. 1 is the Commemoration of the Deceased Members of the Salesian Society—an SDB all souls day.

The reading from the Letter to the Hebrews testifies to the faith of “the ancients,” of “the men of old,” as the RSV phrases it, and “our ancestors” as other translations render hoi presbuteroi, literally “the elders” (11:2).  The selection we read cites only Abraham, mentioning Isaac and Jacob in passing.  Verses passed over pay tribute to Abel, Enoch, and Noah (11:4-7) before Abraham, and later in the chapter to Jacob, Moses at length (11:21-29), and quick mention of Rahab (the only woman in the bunch), the Judges, Samuel, David, and the prophets (11:31-38).  “All these died in faith,” the writer states (11:13), after living as aliens of one kind or another in the land to which the Lord pointed them, yet looking toward something better, looking in faith.  The sacred author posits—without historical accuracy but with Christian faith—that those heroes of the Old Law desired a heavenly homeland (11:16).  Today’s passage concludes with God’s “preparing a city for them” (11:16), which would be the new Jerusalem.

In her Jan. 23 WSJ column,[1] Peggy Noonan writes of our Founding Fathers, “It’s good to be reminded that for all our flaws as a nation and a people, we came from something magnificent and are the heirs of that magnificence.”  That’s true for us as Salesians, too.

On this day after the feast of our founder, we also remember the men of old, our Salesian forefathers, the presbuteroi, men of heroic faith, men who developed and left to us something magnificent.  How many of them, like Abraham, set off for an unseen land of which they’d only heard—Patagonia, New York, India, China—in many cases without any expectation of ever returning to their families or earthly homeland.  They did so as men of vision, carrying forward Don Bosco’s vision of evangelization, bringing God’s saving love to the young, to immigrants, to native peoples, to ancient civilizations older than the West’s but as yet ignorant of our Lord Jesus.

Bp. Ernest Coppo in 1922

We remember today our ancestors, the men who made our province, renowned men (among us, anyway):  men like Bp. Coppo, Abp. Pittini, Ambrose Rossi, Ernest Giovannini, Frank Klauder, Ed Cappelletti; saintly men like Bro. Nassetta, Bro. Gambaro, Bro. Oscar, Bro. Traina; men we were privileged to live with in this house like Bill Kelley, Diego Borgatello, Mark Ferrito, Andy LaCombe, and Bruno Busatto; and men all of us lived with in other houses—some of them saints, some men of awe-inspiring zeal and perspicacity, some of them difficult to live with and so helping us grow in patience and wisdom.

The ghosts of our provincial residence ancestors may still be with us.  If Richard ever feels a strange presence in his office (besides his own, I mean), it could be because Diego and his boys dwelt there for 25 years.  Dave works with the shadow of Bill Kelley over his shoulder, while Dennis has Jim Naughton and Gerald keeping tabs on him.  Bill Ferruzzi may hear an occasional liturgical cough or a whispered, “Good Father, let me explain something to you.”  I hope Phil and Bob are inspiring me in the archives.  We hope Tim is inspired by the giants whose images abide on the wall outside his office; they weren’t all giants, of course—but I named earlier 4 who were.

How many of our province ancestry we barely remember at all because they were here so very long ago, and at most we pass by their gravestones once a year; or not at all if they’re not in Goshen; or we don’t remember because they ministered so quietly, so humbly, maybe in a community we had no occasion to visit, or we saw them only when they came to Newton for the provincial’s feastday.  Who shall say how effective all these were, bringing God’s love to parishioners, students, parents, FMAs, Cooperators, DBVs, SLMs, and the peoples of mission lands?

Salesian Cemetery, Goshen, N.Y.

Heroic, faith-filled, visionary, unforgettable, humble—those qualities don’t mean these our confreres, American, Canadian, or of any other nation, don’t need our prayers.  We recognize that most of them were men very much like us in their strengths and weaknesses, their virtues and vices, and all of us would say that we need prayers.  That’s why we remember our brothers every day through the necrology; that’s why we have this special annual day of prayer for them, as well as one at every retreat.

Even as we pray for them, and undoubtedly later we’ll recall in conversation the wacky ways of some of them, or their faults (in spite of one point in our community plan of life about that), we can also discern what was admirable about so many of them—not only those we call saints but so many others—and discern them as models for our own behavior, speech, apostolic boldness, and far-sightedness:  hoping for what we haven’t seen (cf. 11:1), looking toward the heavenly Jerusalem and the Salesian garden within it, and asking their help that we, too, will be faithful to our calling and our mission.

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      [1] http://peggynoonan.com/impeachment-needs-witnesses-on-both-sides/, WSJ 1/23/20.