Homily for 3d Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
3d Sunday of Easter

April 22, 2012
Luke 24: 35-48
NYLT, Putnam Valley, N.Y.

“The two disciples recounted what had taken place on the way, and how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35).

The 2 disciples referred to in that opening to this evening’s gospel story about a resurrection appearance of Jesus are the 2 disciples who were going from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus that same Sunday afternoon, lamenting how Jesus had been betrayed and crucified—and already aware that the women had found his tomb empty that morning. As they walked along, Jesus came up to them, but they didn’t recognize him. He played dumb about everything that had just happened in Jerusalem, and when they had filled him in, he filled them in about what all that really meant. St. Luke says, “Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures” (24:27). But they still didn’t recognize him until they got to Emmaus and invited him to join them for supper. “While he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight” (24:30-31). And they hurried back to Jerusalem, even tho it was already “nearly evening” (24:29), and came to the 11 apostles and other disciples gathered in the upper room.

Jesus on the way to Emmaus with 2 disciples: art from the Tempio di Don Bosco, Castelnuovo Don Bosco

That’s where our gospel tonite picks up. You have to know that preceding story to know what the 1st verse means. And it’s an important verse—also for us who are disciples of Jesus today. The key phrases are “on the way” and “in the breaking of the bread.”

“What had taken place on the way” was that these 2 disciples had met Jesus, spoken with Jesus, been accompanied on their journey by Jesus, even tho they didn’t know it at the time. Jesus was walking with them; he was sharing in their sorrow; he was offering them encouragement; he was helping them see the events of their lives in a new light.

This is true for us too. We’re often unaware of his presence, but Jesus is our traveling companion. He walks with us on our journey, our pilgrimage, from conception thru birth and growth till death. He is with us in our achievements and our failures, in our joys and our sorrows. He wants to talk with us about everything that we experience and help us see all that we experience in the light of eternal truths, in the light of a plan that God has for us, that will finally bring us to a happy eternity.

There are, moreover, people who help Jesus in that role of companion, people who accompany us on our way: our parents, our Scout leaders, priests (I hope!), teachers, and other mentors. They may guide us and offer us insights in purely secular terms, from when our parents potty-trained us to developing our leadership skills to selecting a college to attend. More important is the spiritual guidance they may offer us: teaching us to pray, showing us God’s love, helping us see in our experiences the hand of God leading us forward (sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently), discerning God’s vocational call for our future.

Mosaic of loaves and fish: Simon Peter's house at Capernaum

“That the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name” (Luke 24:46-47) became clear to the 2 disciples in hindsight, when Jesus “broke bread” with them. “Breaking bread” with someone means to have a meal with them. But it means much more when the 2 disciples say that they recognized Jesus “in the breaking of bread.” All 4 Gospels tell how Jesus multiplied loaves when he took them, blessed them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to distribute. St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke tell us that at the Last Supper Jesus “took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to” the apostles (Mark 14:22). And St. Luke reports that at Emmaus, “while he was with [the 2 disciples] at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (Luke 24:30-31). In short, “the breaking of bread” is a phrase loaded with mystery in the Christian sense of that term, loaded with sacramental overtones, loaded with the implications of God meeting us, God feeding us, God interacting with us, God giving us himself.

“The breaking of bread” is used thruout the Acts of the Apostles to mean the celebration of the Eucharist—the most fundamental sacramental meaning of the phrase. When we read that “the 2 disciples recounted…how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of bread,” we’re reading how we meet Jesus today: at the celebration of the Eucharist. This is the most intimate way that we encounter him, eating his flesh, drinking his blood, allowing him to become part of our bodies and souls; committing ourselves to be and to act as his living body in the Church and in the world. Participation in the Eucharist is necessary for a complete knowledge of Jesus as our Lord and Savior, as the One who died and rose for our salvation, the One who is our companion in life. He himself says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day” (John 6:54).

The weekly celebration of the Eucharist with our parish community is a total experience—not limited only to taking the Sacrament but much more, all that the revised liturgy often calls “these sacred mysteries.” The “breaking of bread” includes our community gathering, our listening to God’s Word, our faith profession, our praise of our heavenly Father for offering us his Son as our Savior, and it culminates in our sacramental union with the Lord Jesus.

There’s another meaning to “the breaking of bread” besides the sacramental one. God says in Deuteronomy, “Man doesn’t live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (8:3)—which Jesus quotes when the devil is tempting him to turn stones into bread to satisfy his hunger (Matt 4:4). Bread is a metaphor for the Word of God. In John 6, Jesus 1st refers to himself as “the bread of life that has come down from heaven” to give life to the world (6:33,35,41)—Jesus who is “the Word made flesh,” and “whoever believes [this Word] has eternal life” (6:47).

Deacons breaking Hosts at the communion rite of Mass

When we come to Mass or celebrate most of the sacraments, we are presented with readings from the Word of God. The Word is “broken open” for us, like bread being broken, and it’s offered to us to consume, to chew on, to take in. (That’s what the homily is supposed to help us do.) When Jesus met the disciples on the way to Emmaus, he explained the Scriptures to them so that they would understand him and what had happened to him and what all that meant for them. So it’s important for us to take up the Scriptures, especially the Gospels (but not only), and read them, reflect on them, let Jesus speak to us thru them, let him put light on our lives: what’s happened to us, how we’re treating people, what we’ve done right or wrong, what decisions we might have to make. What does God want of me at this moment in my life? Jesus is “made known to us in the breaking of bread,” in our opening ourselves to his holy Word. “Whoever keeps his word,” St. John said to us this evening, “the love of God is truly perfected in him” (1 John 2:5).

Provincial Announces Appointments for 2012-2013

Provincial Announces 
Appointments for 2012-2013

On April 19 Fr. Tom Dunne announced that Fr. Steve Ryan (at right) will become director of the Salesian community and apostolic work at Mary Help of Christians Center in Tampa. The effective date is Sept. 1.

The Tampa community includes the 3 SDBs who serve at Mary Help of Christians Parish and 6 helping at Garry & Mavis Smith Salesian Boys & Girls Club and/or the MHC retreat center, and 6 retired SDBs at St. Philip the Apostle Residence plus 2 SDBs who assist them.

Fr. Steve will succeed Fr. Dennis Donovan, who has completed two 3-year terms as director.

For the last 9 years Fr. Steve has been the province's "delegate for youth ministry" and a member of the provincial council. His oversaw YM projects thruout the province, including vocation "recruitment," and organized several new ones at province level--most notably the Gospel Roads program and pro-life rallies (Washington every January, in conjunction with the March for Life) and for high school students in the spring at Seton Hall University.

Fr. Steve (in red stole) with the group of young SDBs and other volunteers who accompanied him to El Salvador  for Gospel Roads III earlier this month.  The Gospel Roads programs for high school and older adolescents combine a retreat experience with service to the community in both the U.S. and overseas.

Fr. Tom also announced the re-appointment to new 3-year terms of Fr. Steve Dumais as director of the provincial residence community, Fr. George Hanna as director of the community in Washington (Nativity Church and Don Bosco Cristo Rey HS), and Fr. Richard Authier as director of the community in Montreal (Maria Ausiliatrice Church).

Earlier in 2012, on Feb. 29, Fr. Tom announced that Fr. Dumais and Bro. Tom Dion had been confirmed for new 3-year terms on the provincial council--Fr. Dumais continuing as vice provincial, and Bro. Dion switching from province treasurer to a "general" councilor. Fr. Donovan will replace him as treasurer. Also, Fr. Abe Feliciano, presently serving as YM at DB Cristo Rey HS, will become a councilor with YM oversight responsibility (replacing Fr. Ryan). Also stepping down from the council is Bro. Bernie Dube of the Toronto community.

All the appointments required the approval of the Rector Major; in addition, the RM's council must consent to the nominations of provincial councilors.

Homily for 2d Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
2d Sunday of Easter
April 15, 2012
Collect
John 20: 19-31
Ursulines, Willow Drive, N.R.

“God of everlasting mercy, who … kindle the faith of the people you have made your own, increase the grace you have bestowed” (Collect).

The Collect brings together—“collects,” if you will—the theme of divine mercy that’s now attached to this 2d Sunday of Easter, and at the same time echoes themes from today’s gospel reading—a passage always read on this Sunday regardless of our A, B, and C cycles.

The Collect 1st names God as our source of “everlasting mercy.” That’s a theme running thru the OT, our responsorial psalm being just one example: “His mercy endures forever” (118:2-4). But that mercy has been personified for the people of the New Covenant—“the people you have made your own”—in Jesus Christ, “by whose blood they have been redeemed” and who lives now and forever as our intercessor at God’s throne (cf. Heb 7:25, 4:16).

God’s mercy is shown, God’s mercy comes to us, in his kindling our faith—that verb is suggestive of the Easter fire, which bursts out of the darkness to illumine and warm the nite, as faith bursts out of our sinfulness to illumine and warm our souls. Our faith doesn’t arise from within ourselves but comes to us as God’s gift. It’s a grace he bestows. By this faith, by the fire kindled in our hearts and minds to make us, too, the light of Christ, we are made into God’s people, a people enlightened by his mercy.

Photo by Rosalind Chan, "stolen" from The Deacon's Bench (thank you, Deacon Greg)

We pray that these graces—faith, forgiveness, incorporation with Christ—be increased. When our faith is deepened, when we become more intimately united with Christ, it’s divine mercy working again.

Our increase in faith may be like the apostles’, who were slow to believe that Jesus was risen—as we heard emphatically in yesterday’s gospel (Mark 16:9-15). But they received him with joy and, as we know, became courageous witnesses of the resurrection and of God’s mercy, conveyed by the forgiveness of sins. In how many ways are we slow to believe? to believe that God really loves us? that he has a unique plan for our lives, leading us toward a heavenly home? that Christ’s way of acting toward and speaking about other people is the way of holiness, the way of happiness, the way of wholeness, the way of community and societal well-being? Our faith has room for increase, for growth, that God’s grace bestowed on us may bear its intended fruit in holiness of life and in public witness to our Lord Jesus.

The Collect prays that the people whom God has made his own in Christ might “rightly understand in what font they have been washed, by whose Spirit they have been reborn, by whose blood they have been redeemed.” The who is obviously Jesus: his blood, his Spirit. Both are highlighted in today’s gospel, in which he breathes his Spirit upon the apostles (John 20:22) and shows his wounds to Thomas (20:27).

Doubting Thomas, by Rembrandt

The font, I would say, is the Church. We are washed clean in Baptism, which the Church preaches and administers, exercising that very charge which Jesus gave to the apostles when he breathed his Spirit upon them for the forgiveness of sins. Linked to the font of the Church, we have access to forgiveness in Baptism and in whatever other forms this font of grace makes available to us, sacramental or otherwise. The Father bestows his grace on the people he makes his own in the Church, he gives birth to new children by water and the Spirit in the Church, he offers to us the saving blood of his Son in the Church’s Eucharist. Jesus Christ comes thru water and blood (1 John 5:6), thru Baptism and Eucharist—sacramental actions of the Spirit—to forgive us, to bond us to himself, to shape us into God’s holy people.

May we be among those whom Jesus blesses because, tho we have not seen his risen body nor touched his wounds, we believe (John 20:29). And thru this belief may we have life in his name (20:31)!

Homily for Easter Sunday

Homily for Easter Sunday
April 8, 2012
Sequence
Ursulines, Willow Drive, New Rochelle

“Christians, to the Paschal Victim offer your thankful praises” (Sequence 1).

The Easter Sequence in the lectionary doesn't have verse numbers. It is divided into unnumbered stanzas, and for ease of reference I cite the stanzas as if they were numbered.

I dare say that you’ve never heard a homily based on the Sequence. In 34 years I've preached on it just once, according to all the homilies stored in my binders and on my computer.

This poetical and musical masterpiece, the Victimae Paschali Laudes, opens with a theme of gratitude: Christians, offer your thankful praises to the Paschal Victim! Then it enumerates the reasons for our gratitude: Christ reconciles us sinners with his Father (v. 2); the Prince of life reigns immortal (v. 3); Christ our hope is arisen, our new life obtaining (vv. 7-8).

Resurrection of Christ & the women at the empty tomb, by Fra Angelico

How Christ reconciles us isn’t spelled out but is implied. He is the Paschal Victim (v. 1), the Passover Lamb who has redeemed us (v. 2), like the lambs whose blood protected and saved the Hebrews on the nite of the 1st Passover, as we read in the liturgy of Holy Thursday. St. Paul makes this link when he writes, “Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7), which is echoed in the 1st Preface of Easter.
In biblical terms, redemption can mean buying back someone or something; for example, the 1st-born son must be redeemed by a sacrifice (Ex 13:2,12). It can also mean championing or defending the person or the rights of a member of one’s clan or of the underprivileged; for example, Boaz is Ruth’s redeemer; God is the redeemer of the widow, the orphan, and the alien in the land; and Abraham is the redeemer of his kinfolk after the 4 Canaanite kings make a raid and carry them off with their livestock (Gen 14).

In this latter sense, Christ has been our champion and defender, fighting back for us against Satan, against sin and sin’s mark on the human race, viz. death. “Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous” (v. 3). Christ alone is sinless (v. 2) and in a position to go up against Satan, and he is the stronger. He conquers, returning victorious from death: “The Prince of life, who died, reigns immortal” (v. 3). He did so for us: “Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining” (v. 8). We die, paying the price of our sins—“the wages of sin is death,” in Paul’s famous phrase (Rom 6:23). But death cannot keep down the sinless One, cannot bind him in the tomb (cf. Acts 2:24). Christ bursts those bonds, like Samson shedding the sturdy ropes Delilah had tied him with (Jgs 16:10-12). Christ’s burial shroud is left, useless, at the tomb (Seq 6; John 20:7).

Like all 4 gospels, the Sequence credits Mary Magdalene as the 1st witness that the tomb is empty and Jesus has risen (vv. 4-7). If we were to discount the preludes to Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels, the infancy narratives, this Mary would be the most prominent woman in the gospels. Not because Jesus cast 7 demons out of her and she was among the women who ministered to the needs of Jesus and the 12 out of their wealth (Luke 8:1-3)—the only biographical detail about her given to us in the gospels; and not because she stayed with Jesus on Calvary, as all 4 gospels inform us; but because she found the tomb empty, she saw the Risen Lord, she was commissioned to inform the apostles of the Good News, she was “the apostle to the apostles,” in the immortal wording of some medieval Christian writers. “Mary, declare what you saw wayfaring” (v. 4).

The Sequence doesn’t say that she saw Christ, but it makes plain that she believed the “bright angels attesting” that “Christ my hope is arisen” and will meet the apostles in Galilee (vv. 6-7). By contrast, as various gospel stories report, the apostles are slow to believe. John’s gospel, emphatically, describes Jesus’ appearance to Mary and her “announcing” that “to the disciples” (20:11-18). Mark’s gospel more matter-of-factly says that too (16:9-11). It’s interesting that the Sequence, however, doesn’t mention the apostles at all—maybe because they were such skeptics. Here Mary is the sole witness to us that “Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining.”

Finally the Sequence links a plea to its profession of faith: “Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning!” (v. 8). In faith we acknowledge Christ’s victory over death, over sin, over the Lord of Darkness, and Christ’s eternal reign as Prince of life. That faith avails us, tho, only if he extends to us his mercy, his forgiveness, and deigns to raise us up with him. Christ is our hope, for our individual redemption isn’t complete quite yet. We need his mercy to touch us personally, as it did Mary Magdalene.

Full of hope, we thank God this morning and cry out in praise with the Sequence, “Amen. Alleluia” (v. 8). May this Easter hope stay with us every day. May our lives give thankful praise to the Paschal Victim every day. May we join Mary Magdalene in declaring what he has done for us, what we have seen with the eyes of our faith, and in passing on the Good News that Christ is risen, Christ has reconciled us to the Father, Christ leads us to immortal life.

Art from ANS

Witnesses to a Radical, Gospel-informed Lifestyle

Witnesses to a Radical,
Gospel-informed LifestyleRM announces theme for GC27

A lightly edited version of what ANS published on April 4
Fr. Pascual Chavez, Rector Major, announced the topic for the next SDB general chapter on April 4 at the conclusion of a short plenary session of the general council. The Congregation’s 27th General Chapter will open in Turin on February 22, 2014 (before moving down to Rome), to consider how SDBs can be “Witnesses to a radical, gospel-informed lifestyle.”

The ninth successor of Don Bosco used a letter to introduce his confreres to GC27. He said, in part, “The chosen topic is concerned with witnessing to a radical, gospel-informed lifestyle, for which the motto ‘work and temperance’ is a practical formulation of Don Bosco’s plan of life, ‘Da mihi animas, cetera tolle.’ It is meant to help us to examine in depth our charismatic identity, so that we may be aware of our call to live Don Bosco’s apostolic plan with fidelity.”

The topic follows from that of GC26 (“Da mihi animas, cetera tolle”: Starting afresh from Don Bosco) and provides a good opportunity for further reflection on the Salesian vocation on the eve of the bicentennial of Don Bosco’s birth.

The RM proposes four particular areas for consideration:
1. living the Salesian consecrated vocation, which is a gift of God and a personal plan of life with the grace of unity and with joy;
2. having a strong spiritual experience, making Jesus’ way of living and acting one’s own – obedient, poor, and chaste – and becoming seekers of God;
3. building in our communities a fraternal way of life and action;
4. dedicating ourselves with generosity to the mission, walking beside the young in order to give hope to the world.

The fundamental objective of GC 27 is “to help every confrere and every community live Don Bosco’s apostolic plan with fidelity.” The fruits hoped for from GC27 are visibility, credibility, and vocational fruitfulness.

“Visibility is not mainly about looking after our image but is the beautiful witness of our vocation. If we were to bear witness with fidelity and joy to Don Bosco’s apostolic plan, that is to the Salesian consecrated vocation, then our life would become attractive, it would become fascinating, to the young especially, and therefore we would have a new vocational fruitfulness.”

GC27 will have other tasks also:
1. electing the Rector Major and general council for the period 2014-2020;
2. assessing requests made by GC25 and GC26;
3. rethinking the organization and structuring of the departments for the Salesian mission (youth ministry, missions, communications);
4. assessing the structure of the three regions in Europe;
5. assessing the role of the vicar of the Rector Major in relationship to the Salesian Family;
6. evaluating the structures for animation and central government of the Congregation.

Fr. Chavez named Fr. Francesco Cereda moderator of the general chapter, and he named six other members of the general council to the technical commission to assist him in the preparatory work.

Fr. Chavez concludes his letter by inviting every Salesian and community “to foster those attitudes and that climate which will give practical expression to ‘work and temperance,’” and to pray for the chapter’s success.

Homily for Holy Thursday

Homily for Holy Thursday

April 5, 2012
John 13: 1-15
Ex 12: 1-8, 11-14
1 Cor 11: 23-26
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Home, N.R.

“Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father” (John 13: 1).
The Last Supper, depicted in the Tempio di Don Bosco at Becchi (Castelnuovo Don Bosco, Italy)
We begin the Easter Triduum tonite. The Triduum makes much of its being “the Passover of the Lord” (Ex 12:11), the Christian Passover inaugurating a “new covenant” (1 Cor 11:25), inaugurating a new relationship with the Lord for a new people of God.
Our celebration is rooted in our Jewish heritage—our heritage, which underlies our Christian faith, our liturgy, our history—as well as being rooted in what our Lord Jesus Christ said and did on his last nite among us.
Our celebration makes Christ’s Passover a present reality. The Christian mysteries are here with us, and we actively share in them. Once and eternal they are, and we live in the mysteries. We take part in the Lord’s Passover, this “hour when he passed from this world to the Father,” as our Jewish brothers and sisters also every year relive—not re-enact, but are part of—that very Passover recalled in our 1st reading this evening and in another reading at the Easter Vigil (Ex 14:15—15:1).

Our celebration looks forward to the completion of Passover when Christ shall return (cf. 1 Cor 11:26) and we shall join him in the Promised Land, having passed over from death to life, having passed from this world to the Father’s mansions (cf. John 14:2); when we shall feast at the “eternal banquet of his love” (Collect and Prayer after Communion) signified in this sacrament of his Body and Blood.

The 1st Passover involved the ritual slaying of lambs or kids and the painting of the Hebrews’ doorposts and lintels with the blood of those beasts. That nite the angel of death swept over Egypt and struck down the 1st-born of every family not marked protectively by the blood of the lambs or kids. The angel passed over Egypt in full, deadly force the way locusts pass over a wheat field and leave it barren: “On this same nite I will go thru Egypt, striking down every firstborn of the land…, executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt” (Ex 12:12). At the same time, the angel passed over the Hebrews’ homes in the sense of skipping them: “Seeing the blood, I will pass over you” (12:13).

Death of the Firstborn, by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tedema (late 19th c.)

Then Pharaoh released the Hebrews from their slavery, and they escaped miraculously thru the parted waters of the Red Sea, which then crashed back upon and drowned their oppressors. The Hebrews passed over on dry land from slavery to freedom as the 1st stage of their journey toward the Promised Land: “You freed the people of Israel from their slavery and led them dry-shod thru the sea” (Exsultet, ed. 1985).
The Old Testament images the New, or in the traditional usage of the Fathers, the OT is a type of the New. Our new Passover Lamb is slain, and his blood paints the cross, the tree that supplants the fatal tree of Eden, and his blood also paints our lips in this Eucharistic sacrament, protecting us from the angel of death, promising us that we are redeemed and shall live.

The Blood of Christ paints the lips of believers...

A little known 2d-century Father of the Church, St. Melito of Sardis, writes in a homily used in today’s Liturgy of the Hours*:
He was led forth like a lamb; he was slaughtered like a sheep. He ransomed us from our servitude to the world, as he had ransomed Israel from the land of Egypt; he freed us from our slavery to the devil, as he had freed Israel from the hand of Pharaoh.
He is the One who brought us out of slavery into freedom, out of darkness into light, out of death into life, out of tyranny into an eternal kingdom; who made us a new priesthood, a people chosen to be his own forever. He is the Passover that is our salvation.

He is the mute lamb, the slain lamb…. He was seized from the flock, dragged off to be slaughtered, sacrificed in the evening, and buried at night. On the tree no bone of his was broken; in the earth his body knew no decay. He is the One who rose from the dead, and who raised men from the depths of the tomb.Similarly, as the Vigil liturgy emphasizes, in Baptism we pass thru water, the waters divide (in a sense) as they’re poured over our heads or we are plunged into them, and that baptismal water drowns our sins, drowns our fearsome enemy the devil; it marks our passage from slavery to the freedom of God’s children, as Melito stressed.

Both Baptism and the Eucharist set us off on our journey toward the Promised Land, no earthly paradise but a heavenly one where our “teacher” and “master” (John 13:14) awaits us.

In this Eucharistic mystery we take part in Christ’s sacrifice. We “proclaim the death of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:26), and also his resurrection. We aren’t re-enacting Calvary or the empty tomb; they are eternally present to God, and we become sacramentally present with them, as today’s Jews are spared by the devastating angel and walk safely across the Red Sea with their ancestors in this “perpetual memorial feast” (Ex 12:14). Our Collect this evening reminds us that we are participating in the Lord’s Last Supper.

We join Christ our master also in his self-offering on the cross and are bathed in his life-giving blood, and we rise with him to a life that shall never end. The Prayer over the Offerings will note, “Whenever the memorial of this sacrifice is celebrated, the work of our redemption is accomplished.” Christ lives, and his sacrifice too lives on and on, accomplishing its purpose.

Christ is present and yet to come—that’s one of the themes of Christian liturgy. We “proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26), until he returns in all his glory and brings us fully into the Promised Land, leads us from this world to the Father, completing our Passover from darkness into light, from slavery to freedom, from death to life.

* Easter homily, Office of Readings for Holy Thursday, LOH 2:459.

Homily for Palm Sunday

Homily for
Palm SundayApril 1, 2012
Mark 15: 1-39
Christian Brothers, Iona College, N.R.

“When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God’” (Mark 15: 39).

I’d like to reflect with you on some of the minor characters in the story of Jesus’ passion that we just read: on Barabbas, Simon of Cyrene, and the centurion; and some of the major characters: on Pontius Pilate and the chief priests and scribes.

Barabbas, in Mark’s telling, is one of “the rebels who had committed murder in a rebellion” (15:7). Even tho all 4 gospels mention him, both the rebellion and this particular man are otherwise unknown to us. In fact, we don’t even have a personal name for him because “Barabbas” is a patronymic, i.e., an identification in terms of who his father is, like “Johnson.” Barabbas means “son of Abbas.” As you know, Abbas or Abba means “father.” This rebel, this murderer, is called “the father’s son.” It’s not hard for us to see this criminal, this sinner, as representing every child of God the Father. The Son of God goes to an undeserved death while another “son of the Father” goes free. Jesus dies, setting free one of God’s children. The Lamb of God is sacrificed to redeem all God’s children.

Simon of Cyrene surely didn’t expect to meet Jesus or to have anything to do with him. He’s named in the 3 Synoptic gospels in this role of helping Jesus carry the cross thru the streets to Golgotha. Only Mark identifies him further as “the father of Alexander and Rufus” (15:21), who must have been Christians well known in Mark’s community. One theory about Mark’s gospel is that he wrote it in Rome; if that theory’s correct, it could identify this Rufus with the Rufus among the people whom St. Paul greets at the end of his Letter to the Romans (16:13). Be that as it may, Simon of Cyrene is unexpectedly “pressed into service” to carry Jesus’ cross. Aren’t our lives filled with unexpected crosses, crosses that we’re pressed to carry against our wills? If Simon of Cyrene’s sons indeed became well known disciples of Jesus, was this unique encounter with Jesus on Simon’s part the beginning of his own discipleship? Can our own burdensome crosses deepen our relationship with Jesus and make us better disciples?

Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross (Titian, 1547)

All the Synoptics mention the centurion and some form of a profession of faith from him; St. John doesn’t mention a centurion specifically, but only a detail of soldiers, one of whom gives the coup de grace with a lance. Christian legend—insufficiently substantiated to merit inclusion in the latest edition of Butler’s Lives of the Saints—identifies this soldier as a centurion named Longinus, who became a believer and a martyr; there’s a big statue of him in St. Peter’s Basilica. As far as we know from the gospels, the execution of Jesus is the 1st encounter of this soldier with Jesus. Whatever he sees and hears from Jesus and from the surrounding people and events profoundly affects him. Mark says simply, “When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last….” No preaching; no miracles. Only the suffering of Jesus; Jesus’ patience; Jesus’ complete self-emptying, indicated by that last breath—somehow the centurion sees in all this testimony on Jesus’ part that he’s “the Son of God.” One observation is that thru what was done to Jesus, God’s identified with human suffering. God shows his love for humanity not in words or even in miracles but in his sharing our pain and our death. Another observation is that who we are in our suffering and pain, and in our dying, reveals who we really are, and it can be powerful testimony to the unbelievers of the world—the centurion was, presumably, a pagan—that God is real, and that we truly are his children. The martyrologies have many tales of the effect of such witness—which is what martyr means—on prison guards and bystanders. Catherine de Hueck Doherty says that we are icons of Christ, his visible representations. Our lives, day in and day out, in joy and in sorrow, eventually in our dying, are the most powerful preaching of the Gospel to the world, of letting the world know that Jesus truly is the Son of God.Statue of St. Longinus with his lance in St. Peter's Basilica,close to the high altar (Bernini, 1635)

Pontius Pilate’s role is so crucial to the entire story of our redemption that he is remembered forever in our profession of faith: Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate. Pilate was the Roman procurator of Judea from ca. 25 to 35 A.D. He was supposed to represent Roman justice and keeper good order in this piece of the Empire. Perhaps he was a selfish and cruel man, as Josephus and Philo describe him. Perhaps he was a reasonably capable politician and administrator but was temperamentally unsuited to the responsibilities of this particular imperial outpost—an early embodiment of the Peter Principle. But, like Barabbas, he stands for each of us, in a sense. Whatever our responsibilities, whatever our temperament, we sometimes come up against difficult choices and pressures in the situations we find ourselves in and from the people around us. Like Pilate, we’re supposed to stand for something, to defend and enact justice, to be protectors and builders of peace, to have the courage to do what’s right. Like Pilate, we sometimes fail: we look for an easy out, try to please everyone, put ourselves, our careers, our comfort zones ahead of what we know we should say or do. Historically, we don’t know what became of Pontius Pilate after he was recalled to Rome in 35. We still have a chance to write the stories of our own responses to the challenges that life brings to us.

Ecce Homo (Antonio Ciseri, 1880)

The chief priests and the scribes have heard Jesus’ preaching. They’ve heard reports of his miracles, even of his raising the dead (cf. John 11:1—12:11), and perhaps some of them have witnessed some of his healings. Unlike the centurion, however, they aren’t open to the plain evidence before their eyes and ears. “He saved others,” they acknowledge (Mark 15:31), but Jesus’ saving acts carry no weight with them. They are, rather, weighed down by their own political, financial, religious, and familial agendas. If “the Christ, the King of Israel,” did indeed “come down now from the cross,” would they really “see and believe” (15:32)? We may be skeptical about that. How easy it is for our own ideas, our personal goals, our own wishes to influence how we see other people, how we see events, how we see reality. We may know people whose philosophy of life and/or politics is governed by the adage, “Don’t confuse me with the facts.” Are we adept at reading the signs of the times, at finding God in all things (to use an Ignatian phrase), at looking for how God is speaking to us today thru the people around us, thru public and private happenings? If so, we’re more akin to the pagan centurion than to the pious priests and learned scribes; and we’ve got a chance of meeting Jesus in our crosses, like Simon; of making better choices than Pilate; of being saved as true children of the Father by the One who suffered crucifixion in our place.

What Christ Saw from the Cross--with priests and scribes at right

(James Tissot)

Homily for 5th Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
5th Sunday of Lent
March 25, 2012
John 12: 20-33
Jer 31: 31-34
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.

Mar. 25-31 was a hectic week in the office and with a family funeral. I totally forgot to post the homily! Sorry 'bout that.

“Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life” (John 12:25).

If you want to live, you have to die. If you want to be happy, you have to sacrifice yourself. If you want to be honored, you have to be a servant.* If you wonder why everyone in the world hasn’t become Christian, you might have a clue in these paradoxes, based on the teaching and the example of our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.

When Jesus presents these teachings, he’s presenting his own life: “Whoever serves me must follow me” (12:26), i.e. must follow his example; must follow the same path thru life and thru death—death to self, and finally physical death—in order to arrive where Jesus is now: “Where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me” (12:26).



As Jesus carries his cross, his mother meets him along the way--the traditional 4th Station of the Via Crucis, and an apt symbol of the participation of every disciple in the passion of the Lord. (Stations of Our Lady of the Point, Pittsburgh)

Jesus didn’t have to suffer persecution from the scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees—the leaders of the Jewish people. He didn’t have to be crucified by the Romans, to “suffer under Pontius Pilate,” as our Creed professes every Sunday. He could have backed off when people objected to what he said and did. He could have, as the politicians say, “gone along in order to get along.” He could have preached what everyone else preached, and done what everyone else did. Or he could have not preached or taught at all—just stayed in Nazareth working as a carpenter like his foster-father, married, raised a family, and been a good, religious Jew.

But that wasn’t what his Father sent him into the world to do and to teach. God sent him to “make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers” (Jer 31:31-32). This new covenant would not be written on stone but “upon their hearts”; it would be an internalized relationship and not one of merely external observance (31:33).

It would, moreover, be all inclusive: “All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the Lord” (31:34). It would even include disreputable people. It would even include Gentiles. “I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners shall return to you,” says today’s psalm (51:15).

Jesus would preach God’s universal love and forgiveness. He would preach and practice what we today call the dignity and worth of every person—male or female, rich or poor, Jew or Gentile—in God’s eyes, and insist that this is the “new law” written on the heart of all God’s friends, which they should believe and practice: “Whoever serves me must follow me.”

Jesus was persecuted by those who found such a teaching threatening—to their own status and power or to their comfort level or to their sinful ways. His adherence to the truth—to conscience, we might say today—and his practice of what he believed brought him what John’s gospel calls his “hour,” i.e. his passion and death; and thru his passion and death, his glorification: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23), which means to share in God the Father’s glory, in God’s life.

Jesus compares his impending passion and death with the sowing of seeds of wheat: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (12:24). If he’d just stayed in Nazareth making tables and doorframes; if he’d just taught the same interpretations of the Torah as everyone else did—then he’d just have been a grain of wheat in a jar or on a rock. By faithfully preaching God’s truth, and dying for that, “he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Heb 5:9). His Father “saved him from death” (Heb 5:7) by raising him from the grave, and his Father empowered him to save everyone who follows him: “Where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.” “When I am lifted up from the earth”—this refers to his crucifixion—“I will draw everyone to myself” (John 12:32).

To follow Jesus, we likewise have to die: which means not only our eventual physical death, but, as the gospel today says, “hating our lives in this world,” being willing to die to what the world counts as important, being willing to die to our own selfishness. What does the world think is important? Money! Power! Sex! Fame! These things drive politics. They drive international relations. They drive popular entertainment. They drive our family and business relationships. And they threaten to drive us—to where? To eternal life? You know that’s not true. In the news on Thursday, we learned that Whitney Houston drowned in a bathtub, with cocaine and other substances in her body. She had it all, didn’t she? Talent, fame, money, looks. But, evidently, not happiness, not joy, what we would call a satisfied life. You could find an endless parade of similar examples of divorce, suicide, substance abuse, criminal activity—and of war, genocide, the drug trade, human trafficking, racism—demonstrating that “whoever loves his life loses it.” Whoever lives for fame and fortune, for pleasure and for power, ultimately is miserable, lonely, living already in hell.

But, promises Jesus, if we live for others, if we respect others, if we serve others; if we listen to what he teaches, if we love truth and try to follow our consciences rather than what’s popular or politically correct—then we’ll find contentment and joy: “Whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. The Father will honor whoever serves me.”

* A little vocabulary note: in the Greek text here, the words for “serve” and “servant” are diakone and diakonos, whence our English word deacon.

Province of St. Philip Celebrates Fraternal Communion

Province of St. Philip the Apostle
Celebrates Fraternal Communion

The Salesian Rule stipulates that every community in the Congregation celebrate a day of fraternal communion--"community day"--each year, and that each province do so, as well.

So each spring, at the time of the annual meeting of the directors and pastors of the province with Fr. Provincial and the provincial council, as many confreres as can do so gather to celebrate Province Day.

This year the celebration for the New Rochelle Province, dedicated to St. Philip the Apostle, took place on March 24 in Our Lady of the Valley Church and in a nearby restaurant.

As noted elsewhere in this blog (Feb. 12, below), the province is going thru an extraordinary visitation by the regional general councilor, Fr. Esteban Ortiz. Fr. Ortiz completed the visitation of the Orange community on the morning of March 24 and, fittingly, was asked to preside at the Province Day Eucharist.

Fr. Ortiz, in violet chasuble, presiding at Mass, with Fr. Tom Dunne (provincial) and Fr. Steve Dumais (vice provincial) on either side. At the left are Fr. Steve Leake (director of the Orange community) and Fr. John Grinsell (pastor of Our Lady of the Valley).

About 85 confreres and candidates to SDB life came together for the Mass at 11:15 a.m. 51 priests concelebrated with Fr. Esteban. Young SDBs and candidates provided excellent music and served at the altar.

Fr. Tom Dunne, the provincial, preached the homily. Here's a summary of it, based on notes that your humble blogger took.

Fr. Ortiz, presiding today, is a link between us and the Rector Major, a sign of our intimate union with the entire Congregation.

I want to offer “a reflection on our gratefulness to God as a province,” to look at the gospel of the day (John 7:40-53) from the perspective of the province.

Jesus is in confrontation. There’s a division in the crowds, there’s suspicion on the part of the leaders, and the guards are caught in the middle.

Jesus perceives the threat he faces from the leaders (like the plot against Jeremiah [1st reading]).

The preaching of Jesus has been taking hold. But because of the threat he goes to Jerusalem quietly. When he is noticed anyway, he teaches—about “living water”—which gets a response: “This must be the prophet.” There’s a debate in the crowd, and the guards hesitate to arrest him: “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.” They recognize that something from God is here.

Jesus’ own “pastoral plan” of preaching in the hinterlands and of a guarded presence in Jerusalem doesn’t work out, as some of his other plans haven’t (“Let’s go aside and rest for a while…”; his wish to sit quietly by Jacob’s well).

Jesus knows what’s prudent, but when he meets people, “he’s filled with pastoral passion and can’t say no.”

In whose eyes do we find the energy to follow our vocation? For Jesus it was the people; for us it’s the young. The young brought out of Don Bosco the power expressed in the dream that he had at age 9.

The Rector Major tells us to go back to the playground in order to rejuvenate our vocation. The young give us our energy. We encounter the Lord Jesus together with the young. On Province Day we give thanks to God for our vocation.

The gospel ends with “each going to his own house.” We’ll do that later today. Some in the gospel went home changed from having met Jesus. We hope to go home renewed by meeting Christ and the young.

A view of most of the SDBs and candidates who celebrated Province Day at Our Lady of the Valley Church on March 24.

Durland Day

Durland Day

On St. Patrick's Day I was hiking, not marching; and then offering Saturday Vigil Mass for the Scouts and Scouters prepping for a NYLT (National Youth Leadership Training) program at Durland Scout Reservation in Putnam Valley, N.Y.
The Scout camp was called Clear Lake Reservation until a couple of years ago. This is a little portion of Clear Lake, one of 2 ponds in the camp. The area has many other lakes.

I hiked north on the blue trail--not from its starting point by Sperling Pond but after parking by campsite 38 and taking a woods trail to intersect it between Sperling Pond and Clear Lake. Going north after leaving the lake, you come to one of the many swamps along the trails--at this time alive with noisy peepers.

Entering the northern part of the camp, one's on trails accessible to the general public, e.g. from Fahnestock State Park. I went east on the white trail and met a large troop of not-large Scouts coming the other way. I'd already seen them twice on the road up to site 38 and then at site 38; they were making a very long hike. Good for them!

The white trail in the northeast section of the reservation seems to go thru old, old farmland, crisscrossed everywhere by stone walls.

A long stretch of the trail passes between these stone walls. I suppose the trail was once a farm road.

Behind some of the walls there are the ruins of foundations--whether of houses, barns, or root cellars, it's hard to tell.

The white trail twice crosses this brook, and between the crossings it's not far away much of the route.

My hike was only an hour and 45 minutes; mileage unknown. I had to be back at NYLT's cabin by 4:15 to change for sacramental ministry. Some Scouts had asked me to be available for Reconciliation, which I was at 4:30.
Then the Catholics doing NYLT (about half the gang) and Troop 312 from Island Park, N.Y., assembled for Mass.

The 4th Sunday of Lent, called Laetare Sunday from the 1st word of the Entrance Antiphon in Latin, meaning "Rejoice!", is one of 2 Sundays in the year when the celebrant has the option of wearing rose-colored vestments as a break from the more somber violet ones of Lent (and Advent), marking more or less the halfway point thru the seasons. As I vested, I explained each vestment to the Scouts; to my chagrin, even one of my former Ad Altare Dei boys didn't remember their names!--which reflects on teacher as well as on pupil.

My thanks to Donna Ragusa for using my camera during Mass; she wanted pix, and I was happy to oblige her.

It's not always easy to get teen boys to sing in church, but these lads joined in heartily with a Lenten hymn (instead of the "Rejoice, Jerusalem" antiphon).

They were even attentive during the homily! A slightly longer version of it is posted below.

Using the new Roman Missal....
At the end of Mass, Troop 312 asked for a photo with me. I joked that some CCD teacher must want proof that Confirmation students were at Mass. "No," they said, "we've got to show our priest!" Yes, Fr. Tutone, they attended Mass this weekend.

After Mass our excellent trio of chefs (Gordon Hamilton, Donna Ragusa, and Bob Ciralli) continued/resumed working on supper--not only the traditional Irish recollection of their immigrant misery (aka corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes) but also turkey breast, sauteed onions, and garden salad. Excellent! Topped off by "oreo cake," i.e. cheesecake with chocolate top and bottom (that they didn't make).

While Gordon, Donna, and Bob prepared supper, the rest of the valiant corps of adult guides relaxed on the porch: Jaime Feliberty, Mike Herbert, and Fred Gervat.

The NYLT Scouters and the Scouts are a great crew, and I've been privileged to minister to them for quite a few years (neither Fred nor I have kept count).

Homily for 4th Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
4th Sunday of Lent
John 3: 14-21
NYLT, Putnam Valley, N.Y.
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.
March 18, 2012

“The light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil” (John 3:19).

Have you ever gone into a kitchen or pantry, turned on the light, and seen a couple dozen cockroaches scurry into a dark corner and under the baseboards? (If you haven’t, you’re not from New York!) They don’t like the light at all. They do whatever icky things cockroaches do in the darkness.

Jesus uses a similar image. It’s one we’re all familiar with. More criminal activity takes place at nite, in the dark, than in broad daylight. In the Middle Ages, and in our own colonial period, no one went out at nite without real necessity, because they believed that evil spirits roamed about in the darkness, perhaps like the Dark Lord and his Death Eater friends. Moviemakers know how to use darkness and shadows to give us the creeps.

Not only criminals and movie monsters love the dark. So do all of us sinners. When we do something wrong, something evil—lying, cheating, stealing, bullying, premarital sexual activity, acts of cruelty, and a long list of other sins—we try to do it secretly and keep it secret. When we admit to ourselves that we’ve sinned, we’re ashamed and don’t want anyone to know about it. It’s even hard for us to go to confession.

St. John Bosco sometimes had the gift from God of reading consciences. His biography has a dozen pages of testimonies about that (Giovanni Battista Lemoyne, SDB, The Biographical Memoirs of Saint John Bosco, trans. Diego Borgatello, SDB, vol. 6 [New Rochelle, 1971], pp. 257-267). On the positive side, this enabled him to help boys confess their sins—he could just name a sin, and they could nod or say “yes.” His biographer tells us: “So deeply convinced were the boys that Don Bosco could see in their consciences not only external sins but even innermost thoughts, that nearly all wanted to go to confession to him. ‘With him we are surer to make good confessions and Communions,’ they claimed. ‘If we forget any sin, he will surely recall it to us.’ It is a fact that his confessional was always crowded with boys.” (p. 258).
Photo (posed, in fact) of DB hearing confessions at the Oratory, ca. 1860

But those still “living in the darkness” didn’t like that. The biographer also tells us: “Some boys kept their distance from him. If they had to go near him for some reason or other, while respectfully doffing their caps, they still tried to shield their foreheads with them or with their hair, as if that were enough to hide their consciences…. ‘Don Bosco reads our sins on our foreheads,’ they said.” (p. 265).
But “the light came into the world”—Jesus Christ—in order to bring life, to bring joy, not fear, not punishment. There are a very few creatures living in the very deepest, darkest parts of the oceans and in the deepest, darkest caves in the earth who never see light or feel the sun’s warmth. But just about every living creature needs light, and the warmth associated with light, in order to live and to grow: flowers and crops and even people. Think of how hard it is for you to get going on a gloomy day; not even 16 cups of coffee helps. And how alive you feel when the sun’s shining brightly, like today. And now that the days are getting longer and warmer, you can look around and see the daffodils and the crocuses are starting to pop out, the forsythia and the magnolias to bud, and the trees to leaf out.

That’s an image of what God wants for us. In his 1st chapter St. John writes, “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. To those who accepted him, he gave the power to become children of God” (1:9,12). In the passage we heard a few minutes ago, he says further, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (3:16); and “God sent his Son into the world that it might be saved thru him” (3:17).

The Collect or opening prayer of today’s Mass observed that God “reconciles the human race” to himself “in a wonderful way.” That wonderful way is the gift of his Son. It’s the call for us to bask in the light of the Son—turning away from the darkness in our hearts and letting God’s love, God’s forgiveness, envelop us and fill us with light. When God so envelops us and fills us with light, we become luminous. In the words of the book of Daniel, “The wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever” (12:3). You always wanted to be a star, didn’t you? That’s why when you were baptized you were given a baptismal candle, lit from the Easter candle: you share in the light of Christ, Christ who is the light of the world, and you are to enlighten the world with his light.

You have perhaps heard the little story of a boy being shown the wonders of the parish church by his mom. When she pointed out to him the stained glass windows, filled with images of the saints, she asked him whether he knew who the saints were. “Yes,” he assured her. “They’re the people the light shines thru.” That’s who God calls all of us to be: “the light came into the world…. Whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God” (John 3:19,21). No running for a dark corner like a cockroach; no pulling hair over our foreheads to hide our consciences!
Stained-glass window of St. Ann with her daughter, the Virgin Mary (Holy Rosary Church, Port Chester)
“God is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us” and has “brought us to life with Christ,” St. Paul reminds us (Eph 2:4-5). God wants so much to give us this grace, this undeserved gift (cf. 2:5-9)! Nothing on earth and no power of darkness “can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Paul says elsewhere (Rom 8:38-39).
So in this sacred season of Lent, this season of conversion and re-conversion, of recommitment to Jesus, light of the world, we need have no fear of examining our consciences, of admitting our faults, our sins, our guilt, and bringing them to Jesus—in the person of his priestly minister—and letting Jesus’ love warm us up and keep us growing into that “handiwork” that God created us to be, “created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph 2:10) and for eternal life (John 3:16).

Baby Ransomed!

Baby Ransomed!

Those of us of a certain age--you may remain anonymous--remember when some Catholic missionary association or other used to urge the faithful to "ransom a pagan baby" by donating to the association so that it help missionaries preach the Gospel. In a book called What Is the Mission of the Church (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2008), Roger P. Schroeder remembers "collecting pennies in a little cardboard coin box to 'ransom a pagan baby' [in the 1960s]. I wrote the baptismal name a child would receive at baptism by a missionary in a faraway land on the outside of the box. My classmates and I proudly processed with our 'mission boxes' to the front of the classroom."

During my seminary days, while we were doing weekend ministry at a certain parish in the Columbus suburbs, there were often Baptisms after the last Sunday Mass. The kindly pastor didn't much like doing Baptisms and generally charged the deacon-in-training with them. So some of the confreres serving there, both deacons and others, took to referring to the Baptisms as "ransoming pagan babies."

Which in a real sense is exactly true. Jesus himself says, "The Son of Man came...to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45).

So last Sunday I had the privilege of "ransoming" Anita Mae, claiming her for Jesus against the real Dark Lord (not the fictitious one in Harry Potter).
The pastor of St. Lawrence Church in Shelton watched as I poured the water and spoke the sacred words over Anita (and later anointed her with chrism). Fr. Jones did 3 Baptisms himself in the same ceremony.

Mom Meghan, Dad Pete, Godfather Ben, and Godmother Stephanie are happy as can be. Aunt Margot took this photo and the one above.

How many Baptisms have Dixieland music? Grandpa Fred (at left) and his Sportin' Life combo played "When the Saints Go Marching In" as the rite finished (they played a couple of other pieces at the beginning and as an interlude).

Congrats, Anita Mae, and welcome into the community of God's people! May Christ's light brighten all your days and your eternity!

Dom Savio HS Holds "Great Savio Reunion"

Dom Savio High School
Holds “Great Savio Reunion”


Caselli Hall, the main school building of St. Dominic Savio HS and Savio Prep
An estimated 450 former students and faculty of St. Dominic Savio HS and Savio Prep in East Boston showed up for the Great Savio Reunion on Saturday night, March 10, at what is now the Salesian Boys & Girls Club of East Boston. The SDBs operated Dom Savio from 1958 to 1993. A group of alumni set up Savio Prep a couple of years later and ran it until 2007.

There were even a few alumni of Don Bosco Trade School, which preceded Dom Savio at the site (1946-1955) before relocating to downtown Boston as Don Bosco Tech.

The reunion was planned over the course of several months by alumni Steve Fielding and Fr. John Nazzaro, both of the Class of 1972. Steve is now the director of development and communications for the Boys & Girls Club, and Fr. John is executive director as well as director of the local community of four SDBs who serve at the Club.

The event invited "alumni, former teachers, administrators, and coaches of both schools to attend and renew acquaintances, recapture memories, and rebuild relationships." Steve and Fr. John also hoped that interest in the current Boys & Girls Club would be stirred, including "the club's impact on youth in the East Boston, Revere, and Winthrop communities."
Fr. John said that about 280 alumni and staff had indicated that they would come, and more were expected. More, indeed! Volunteers registering participants at the front desk had 400 name tags, and they ran out. More seriously, downstairs in the kitchen they were running out of liquid refreshments!

Steve and Fr. John had arranged for a band, the North Shore’s Hardest Working Band, made up of Savio alums (Chris Snow ’84; Joe Maraio ’98, Vinny Schettino ’04, and others), to perform on the stage in the gym. Unfortunately for the Hardest Working Band, about 98% of the crowd preferred to stay down in the old cafeteria, working on the free sandwiches and plates of fruit and veggies, and staying close to beer, soda, and water at the cash bar.
The Voice of the (“17-time NBA champion”) Celtics, Eddie Palladino ’75 (above, center), welcomed everyone to the evening and credited Dom Savio with giving him a chance to develop his announcing skills. Then he introduced Fr. John (above with mike), who likewise made everyone feel at home. That was the end of the speechifying, which was a good thing because not many people were listening, not even when the winner of the 50-50 raffle was announced around 10:00 p.m.
The alumni and staff spent most of the four hours of the evening—actually, it went longer than the announced 11:00 p.m. closing time—talking with one another, catching up on families and careers, reminiscing about school days, and asking about some of the Salesians they’d known. Many of them voiced their deep appreciation for what the Salesians and other faculty had taught them, and not only in an academic sense. There were a lot of fond memories of Fr. Joe Caselli, Bro. George Sheehan, Fr. Don Zarkoski, Fr. Pat Diver, and many others.

If there had been a prize for the participant who traveled the farthest to get to the Great Reunion, the winner, hands down, would have been former SDB brother Pat Whalen, who did his practical training at Savio, 1968-1971, and came all the way from Brisbane, Australia, to catch up with some of his former students (and with former SDBs Tom Lennon, who taught at Savio, and George Stanton, who attended Savio). Pat moved “down under” shortly after leaving the SDBs and had a 40-year teaching career in both public and Catholic schools.

The Class of 1977 claimed the biggest representation at the evening, with at least 17 attendees—not counting their freshman dean/English teacher, who came up from New Rochelle for the evening. Big question from them: "How old were you when you taught us? Only 24! Wow!" (Boy, are freshmen green!)
Most of the Class of 1977 who were in attendance, with your humble blogger

Homily for 2d Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
2d Sunday of Lent
March 4, 2012
Collect
Mark 9: 2-10
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle

“Nourish us inwardly by your word” (Collect).


The Collect for this 2d Sunday of Lent is based on the gospel reading, which is always one of the Synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration. The key idea seems to be “listen.” The prayer alludes explicitly to that command from heaven: “Listen to my beloved Son” (Mark 9:7).

Then the prayer itself is uttered: “Nourish us inwardly by your word.” Pardon the pun, but there’s a play on words there.

God’s word is food for our souls: “Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Deut 8:3). God’s word feeds us, as Jesus tells the people in the synagog at Capernaum (John 6:41-51) the day after he’s miraculously fed the huge crowd with 5 barley loaves and 2 fish (John 6:1-14). God’s word elevates us, inspires us, captures us, converts us, transforms us into his holy people—but only if we listen to it, take it in, absorb it, let it become part of us, as our bodies do with food.

It’s not only a written word or a spoken word that the prayer refers to, however. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14); it’s of this Word that the Father commands, “Listen to him.” Jesus is the ultimate nourishment of our hearts, our minds, our souls —whatever the Collect means by “inwardly.” The food that is Jesus comes to us in his teaching that we read in the NT and hear in preaching, true; more important, he comes to us in a personal relationship: “Rabbi, it’s good that we’re here!” (Mark 9:5)—not to mention that he comes to us in the Holy Eucharist and all that implies: “Say but the word, and my soul shall be healed!” (Communion rite).

All of that healing and nurturing and transforming of us from what St. Paul calls “the earthly man” or “the flesh” into “the spiritual man” (cf. 1 Cor 15:36-49; Gal 5:16-26), into God’s redeemed person, has to begin inwardly. Well aware of that, Jesus warns us that all manner of sins—and he has quite a list—begin in the heart, and it’s those desires, those aspirations, those intentions that render a person unclean in God’s eyes (cf. Mark 7:20-23). St. James says something similar: “Where do the wars and conflicts among you come from? Isn’t it from your passions…? You covet but don’t possess. You kill and envy but you can’t obtain. Don’t you know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God?” (4:1-2,4).

So our inner person, our deepest self, needs to be converted, needs to submit to God’s Word and be fed by him. “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”

The Collect continues: “…that, with spiritual sight made pure, we may rejoice to behold your glory.” When I clean my glasses, I see better. The word of God cleanses our vision: Christ is our light, as catechumens will celebrate on the 4th Sunday of Lent when they hear, in the A Cycle of readings, the gospel of Jesus curing the man born blind, and as we’ll all proclaim in the solemn Easter liturgy. When the word of God takes root in our inner selves, we see and judge the world differently. Unconverted—blind—Peter objects to the Messiah’s future passion and death, and Jesus rebukes him severely: “Get behind me, Satan! The way you think isn’t God’s way but man’s” (Mark 8:31-33). When our spiritual sight has been purified, we see people as God’s daughters and sons. We see God’s hand at work in our life circumstances. We see God leading us as rapidly as we’ll allow him toward a closer and closer union with him—a union that will culminate in what we call the beatific vision: “we rejoice to behold your glory.”

Till then we see flashes of his glory, as Peter, James, and John did on Mt. Tabor. We see or experience flashes of divine glory in the goodness of so many people in our lives, and people we only read or hear about. We see or experience it in deep friendships. We see it in the quiet beauty and the awful power of nature. We see it in the sublime work of artists, musicians, even writers, with their power to transport us. We see it in the peace that comes to us when we encounter him in prayer or in rising “purely” above our own passions to forgive someone or to put aside our selfishness and pride in service of our sisters and brothers. We see it in the sacred liturgy when it’s done well; one reason why these rites are often called “mysteries” is their unexplainable power (“ineffable” power, to use a word from the revised Missal) to bring us into another world, into the divine presence. The Prayer after Communion will allude to this, as we thank the Lord “for allowing us while still on earth to be partakers even now of the things of heaven.”

Even now it is “good for us to be here,” to stand before the Lord, to listen to the beloved Son, and to open our minds and hearts and souls to his grace—to be renewed, to be nudged a little further along on the path toward heavenly glory.

Illustration: Mosaic of the Transfiguration in the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.

Homily for 1st Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
1st Sunday of LentFeb. 26, 2012
1 Pet 3: 18-22
Gen 9: 8-15
Christian Brothers, Iona College
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.

“A few persons, 8 in all, were saved thru water. This prefigures Baptism, which saves you now” (1 Pet 3: 20-21).

All of our readings this evening point to Baptism in some fashion. That isn’t obvious in the story of Noah, but St. Peter makes the connection thru typology, that traditional Christian way of reading the OT and seeing in it foreshadowings of Christ, or as the Petrine text puts it, it “prefigures” some aspect of the Christian mystery.

“Baptism saves you now,” Peter says, by “appealing to God for a clear conscience” (3:21). That is, it cleanses us of sin and thus makes us appealing to God and worthy of the resurrection—that feast, that greatest of the Christian mysteries, which thru our Lenten observance we’re preparing to celebrate, and that final act of our personal salvation which we look forward to.

In Noah’s time, the flood cleansed not the human conscience like Baptism, but the world, by destroying all those who had been perverted by sin. “The Lord saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that [men’s] heart conceived was ever anything but evil, [and the Lord] regretted that he had made man on the earth,” Genesis says as it introduces the story of the flood (6:5-6). So God cleansed the earth, leaving only one upright man and his family to start human life, human society, human culture afresh. When Noah and his family and all the animals emerge from the ark, we’re presented with a new creation, and Noah is even given the same command that was given to Adam, to “be fertile and multiply and fill the earth,” and he’s given all the creatures as food, as Adam was (9:1-3).

The cleansing by water signaled by Baptism is a new start for every Christian—most obviously for catechumens with real personal histories to be wiped clean when they receive the sacraments at the Easter Vigil. The new start isn’t so obvious for the innocent newborn bearing only original sin. But in either case it’s a fresh start, a union with Jesus Christ, the 2d Adam, the inaugurator of the new creation.

All of us, at whatever point in life we commit ourselves to follow Jesus Christ, continue to pass thru a world aptly compared to a desert—a place where, like Jesus, we may meet God but also a place where, like him, we confront evil and are tested (Mark 1:12-13). Unlike Jesus, we often fail the test, succumb to evil. And so we remain in need of cleansing. Conversion is never a done deal, never a once-and-for-all matter. So Lent beckons us every year to “repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15).

Jesus Casting Out Satan, by Carl Heinrich Bloch

Baptism isn’t mentioned explicitly in the gospel reading, but we all know that Jesus’ baptism by John immediately preceded his going out into the desert to fast and pray. It’s noteworthy that Mark says, “The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert” (1:12). That’s the very Spirit that had just descended upon him “like a dove” as the heavenly voice declared, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (1:10-11). The Spirit “drives” God’s “beloved Son,” compels him to go, into the desert. Just anointed by the Spirit, just identified as the Son of God, Jesus must go out alone into the wilderness to be with his Father, must go into the wilderness like Israel coming out of Egypt and like the prophet Elijah, for a deeper encounter with God. But Jesus won’t really be alone out there, because the desert is also where the demons lurk and where Jesus must confront himself, all his human urges and feelings that might distract him from his mission as the Anointed One of God. He was tested in every way that we are, yet did not sin (Heb 4:15).

In the early centuries of Christianity, many devout men and women, like St. Anthony, imitated Jesus by going into the deserts of Egypt and Syria for the same reasons: to seek God in prayer and in labor and in silence, to pray, “Your ways, O Lord, make known to me; teach me your paths, guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior” (Ps 25:4-5); to wrestle with their demons, all the temptations that our flesh is inclined toward; to purify their minds, their intentions, their desires, their wills thru unrelenting self-denial and submission to God.

Jesus and the desert fathers and mothers of the early centuries remind us that our own commitment to God—in Baptism or by religious vow—is never finished. We have to continue to seek God, and we have to do that ourselves even if we have guidance and support. No one can seek God for us. We have to struggle against temptations, no matter how “pleasing” we may be to God so far; the Father was “well pleased” with Jesus, but Jesus still had to prove his obedience by resisting sin. No one can substitute for us in fighting against sin. Unlike Jesus, who defeated all the lures of the devil, we have to repent repeatedly. No one else can repent for us, and renew our belief in the Gospel, in the Father’s love for us, in the sureness that his way is the right way, the only way, toward happiness and salvation.