On Retreat

On Retreat

Last week, Aug. 12-18, I was on retreat at DB Retreat Center in Haverstraw with 43 other SDBs (if I counted the list correctly), besides our preacher and Fr. Tom Dunne (the provincial)--and, I think, 2 confreres from the local Marian Shrine community.  In addition, we had with us from the start on Sunday evening until very early Tuesday a.m. our 5 prenovices, and making a parallel retreat the 18 young people completing their 3 weeks of orientation as Salesian Lay Missioners (SLMs), 4 more Salesian Domestic Volunteers (SDVs), who might be better called Home Missioners, and the 4 SLM-SDV staff guiding their orientation.  It was a crowd!

The prenovices left on Tuesday for Rosemead, Calif., where they were inducted into the novitiate on Aug. 15.

More about the SLMs and SDVs once I get their press releases done!  This past week has been crazy with other press releases.

Our retreat preacher was Bp. Luc Van Looy, SDB, of Ghent, Belgium, who is a very good friend of our province.  A former missionary to Korea, he was superior of the Korean delegation when the SDBs in that country were still part of the Japanese Province, then in 1984 was elected general councilor of the missions; 6 years later, general councilor for youth ministry; and in 1996, vicar of the Rector Major.  In these capacities he made a number of visits to our province and got to know many of us.  When Fr. Juan Vecchi died in 2001, he guided the Congregation to our 25th General Chapter in 2002, where he was given a strong chance of being elected RM.  Instead, Fr. Pascual Chavez was elected, and Fr. Luc continued as vicar until 2003, when John Paul II named him bishop back in his native Flanders.  As bishop he has presided over 2 ordinations for us, most recently last July 1 (q.v. below) of Frs. Mike Leschinsky and Matt DeGance.

Twice I had a pleasure of visiting Bp. Luc's cathedral and episcopal city, in 2007 and 2009 (also covered somewhere down below).  On the 1st occasion, I visited with him--he kindly invited me to lunch, as well as any family members who might have come along with me from Hautrage (none did), and then showed me around the cathedral and into the cathedral's artistic treasure, Van Eyck's Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.  Too bad no photos allowed in that little chapel!

I'd say that the bishop's theme for the retreat was "witness," altho I'm not sure about that.  He used the Gospel of St. John primarily, hitting on the ideas of (1) remaining with Jesus; (2) Jesus is someone/something new who puts us into a new relationship with the Father; (3) obedience to the Father's will; (4) the Eucharist; (5) the Church as a witness of Jesus; (6) the Church as missionary; (7) preaching the Gospel today: thru presence, thru presenting Jesus, thru living what we believe; (8) the Church as witness to Jesus; (9) St. Francis de Sales; (10) Don Bosco

The bishop loves music and plays piano and the accordion.  He didn't bring his accordion with him, but we supplied a keyboard so that he could use music (a hymn) as part of his presentation of each conference.

Another important part of every SDB retreat is the provincial's Good Nite talks and his Friday evening "open session" with the confreres.  Since he had just received the RM's letter of commendation and recommendations after our extraordinary visitation (q.v. below), he referred constantly to that as well as to Fr. Esteban Ortiz's longer preliminary report, given to all of us at the end of the visitation in May; and to the themes for our next general chapter (2014), which tie in very closely with the recommendations for our province.  Fr. Tom promised us a lot of hard work this year as we begin to reflect on all this.

This retreat was special because on Aug. 15 six of our youngest brothers renewed their temporary vows at Mass.

All renewed! Bros. Eddy Chincha, Paul Chu, Minh Dang, Juan Pablo Rubio, Marc Stockhausen, and Adam Dupre', with Fr. Tom Dunne

On the 16th we visited the province cemetery to pray for our deceased confreres.  That's been part of every retreat at Haverstraw for about 20 years now.

Some of the confreres moving around the various grave sites, recalling men they knew and loved.

Fr. Tom leading a prayer service at the cemetery.

On the 17th, again at Mass, our new missionaries were commissioned, with Bp. Luc presiding.

The bishop blesses the missionaries' crosses before presenting them to each individual. He's assisted by Fr. Tom Dunne, Megan Fraino, and Adam Rudin--the latter 2 the directors of the SDVs and SLMs, respectively.

As is customary at every SDB retreat, on Friday evening there was a festive dinner followed by a thank-you for the preacher and some musical, theatrical, and comic entertainment.  In this instance, most of it was supplied by our enthusiastic and talented young women and men. Two samples:

The retreat ended at breakfast on Saturday, but most of us stayed for the perpetual profession Mass of Bros. Mike Eguino and Rob Malusa later in the morning at the Marian Shrine chapel.  I should have a blog post about that in a day or two; all the press releases about it have been sent out.

As usual, I used our after-lunch free time to do some hiking in Harriman SP:  up the Dunderberg, up the Seven Hills and Hillurn-Torne-Sebago trails to Ramapo Torne, and down the Long Path for a couple of miles.  Didn't see a single other hiker except in the parking lots, and Bro. John Rasor, who came along with me on Tuesday.  On Friday I brought a couple of the confreres to the Stony Point Battlefield, which they hadn't even known of.

At one scenic overlook along the Ramapo-Dunderberg Trail, someone left a fire pit. Beyond, Indian Point power plant and various bends in the Hudson River, with Stony Point Bay at the right. In the far distance, center, the piers of the Tappan Zee Bridge can barely be discerned.

I didn't meet any hikers on the trail, but on the Long Path I did meet this young fellow, about 50' feet away; there was a young doe with him.

Homily for 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the

20th Sunday

of Ordinary Time

Aug. 19, 2012

John 6: 51-58

St. Timothy, Greenwich, Conn.

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (John 6: 56).

Who’s heard of St. John de Brebeuf?

Fr. John de Brebeuf was one of the 8 North American Martyrs, 6 Jesuit priests and 2 lay missioners, killed by the Iroquois in what is now Auriesville, N.Y., and various parts of Ontario  between 1642 and 1649.  The one best know to us Americans is St. Isaac Jogues, who incidentally was the 1st priest to set foot in New York City—which was still New Amsterdam.

Painting of the Jesuit martyrs at the Shrine of the North American Martyrs, Auriesville, N.Y.

Fr. Brebeuf, his mission companion Fr. Gabriel Lalement, and a number of Christian Hurons were captured in an Iroquois attack in 1649 and put to horrible tortures—mutilations, hot coals, “baptism” with boiling water, and more—all of which the 2 priests bore heroically, speaking only to praise God or to encourage their fellow sufferers.  The Indians very much admired such bravery under torture.  It was a tribute of sorts on their part to finish off the missionaries by cutting out their hearts while they were still alive and to eat them, and drink their warm blood.  Thus the Iroquois hoped to imbibe some of the courage that their victims displayed.

I think that cultural anthropologists—I’m not a cultural anthropologist; I’m a historian—would tell us that most cannibalism that has been practiced in the world has been of a ritualistic sort, like what the Iroquois did with Brebeuf’s heart—unlike some modern examples that you may have heard of, like the survivors of an Andean plane crash in 1972 (made into a book and a movie called Alive!), the 1820 crew of the whaling ship Essex sunk in the South Pacific (chronicled by Nathanael Philbrick in a page-turner of a book published in 2000 called In the Heart of the Sea), or the survivors of the Donner party trapped in the snows of the Sierra Nevada on their way to California in 1846.  All these cannibalized their dead comrades to survive; they ate human flesh that they might live.

The Iroquois and others sought something less tangible, more “eternal,” if you will.

And so Jesus speaks today.  What he says today in these 8 verses from John 6 mark a change in what he’s said earlier in the chapter.  As you know, this is the 4th Sunday in which we’ve read from this chapter; and we have 1 more Sunday to go.  In the 1st passage, Jesus multiplied bread and fish to feed a crowd of thousands.  That led us to a long discourse (which we’re reading only a part of in these weeks) in which Jesus identifies himself as the Bread of Life.  In the 1st part of this discourse, he means that his teaching and his example are food for our souls that will nourish us, nourish our relationship with the Father, so as to preserve us for eternity, unlike the Hebrews who ate manna in the desert after Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea and led them to Mt. Sinai to give them the Ten Commandments (I wanted to see whether you’re paying attention), but who perished in the desert before they could reach the Promised Land:  “unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,” Jesus says today (6:58).

But in the 2d part of v. 51, which concluded our gospel reading last week and was repeated this week at the beginning of the reading, we have a transition.  Jesus stops using a metaphor—his word is bread—and comes to what we’ll eventually call a sacrament:  a reality hidden under an outward sign.  That reality is his Body and his Blood—not symbolized as bread and wine, not represented by bread and wine, but transformed (transubstantiated, changed in substance), from bread and wine into his flesh and blood and only appearing to be bread and wine, fooling our senses but not our faith.

The people listening to him understand at once that he really means his own flesh and blood when he says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.  My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink” (6:53,55).  He’s not speaking metaphorically.  He’s not speaking symbolically.  If they are to come to eternal life, they’ll have to eat his flesh and drink his blood.  Of course they don’t realize that he’s speaking of the sacrament of the Eucharist; not even the 12 apostles realized that:  “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (6:52).  Only at the Last Supper will he reveal the answer to that question to his disciples and to the Church that will be built up by those who do eat his body and drink his blood, who become his body and his blood, who pursue eternal life thru sacramental, ritualistic, spiritual union with him.

Fr. Pascual Chavez and Abp. Alfred Hughes distributing Communion in Westwego, La., in 2007 (photo by Romaguera)

Note that Jesus says 1st, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day” (6:54); then he says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (6:56).  Eternal life he equates with remaining in him, with a full union with him.  At the Last Supper he’ll pronounce himself “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

Remaining with Jesus, staying with Jesus—isn’t that what we want?  Isn’t that the goal of our lives?  Isn’t that eternal life?

It’s a key theme in John’s Gospel.  When the disciples of John the Baptist 1st go to Jesus, they ask him, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” (1:38).  He invites them, “Come and see.”  “So,” John tells us, “they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day” (1:39).  They’re so impressed that they invite others to do the same, to come and see, to listen and to stay with Jesus.

After the wedding at Cana and Jesus’ 1st miracle there, John reports, Jesus “and his mother, his brothers, and his disciples went down to Capernaum and stayed there” (2:12).  I.e., they stayed with him.  When Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman at the well and the townspeople come to hear how he has read her soul, they invite “him to stay with them,” and many of them become disciples, recognizing him as “truly the savior of the world” (4:40-42).  At the Last Supper, he tells the apostles, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (14:23).  Using a metaphor of a vine and its branches, he tells them, “Remain in me, as I remain in you….  Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit….  Remain in my love” (15:1-10).

The Eucharist, the Bread of Life, is our invitation to remain in the Lord’s love, to remain in love with the Lord.  The Eucharist nourishes us to practice love, to bear good fruit in our deeds and words.  The Eucharist is our communion with Christ, and thru him with his Father, so that they already dwell in us, and we in them.  This indwelling is already a foretaste of heaven, of that eternal life where we’ll truly remain with Jesus.

Stained glass, St. Mary's Church, Fredericksburg, Va.

Homily for 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the

19th Sunday

in Ordinary Time

Today I preached without a written text.  So here’s an oldie:

Aug. 11, 1991

1 Kings 19: 4-8

John 6: 41-51

Holy Cross, Fairfield, Conn.

 “Elijah prayed for death:  ‘This is enough, O Lord!  Take my life, for I’m no better than my fathers’” (1 Kings 19: 4).

Does anyone know why Elijah has gone into the desert?

It may seem strange, but he’s running for his life. Most of us wouldn’t try to save our lives by taking off into the desert without food or water.  But wicked Queen Jezebel wants Elijah’s head.  Although he has demonstrated the power of the true God, Elijah has gotten scared and run.  A day into the desert, he apparently realizes his predicament and is ready to call it quits.  He will not yield to Jezebel, however, but to his master, the Lord God.

Without our being prophets, life gets us pretty discouraged sometimes.  We can’t land a job. Our health is shot.  The neighborhood or the city or the state is going to pieces.  We’re fighting with the boss or with someone in the family. We have a bad habit or an addiction that’s enslaving us.  Someone is slandering our reputation.  It’s the time of year when a lot of mothers are counting the days till school starts!

And if we are prophets, what problems we have!  Breaking our backs or our bank accounts or exhausting our psychic energy on behalf of the homeless or the unborn or Catholic schooling or the hungry, or racism or sexism or war or pornography.

There are a lot of days when a long walk into the desert sounds pretty good.  We all have those days.  Probably, most of us have quite a few of them, for a lot of different reasons.

God came to Elijah’s rescue.  He sent an angel with food and drink, strong encouragement and strong nourishment, enuf to sustain him until he came to the sacred mountain where Moses, his prophetic ancestor, had encountered God.              

During these 5 weeks when we’re reading from ch. 6 of John’s gospel, we’re hearing how God comes to our rescue too.  Last week and this week Jesus announced himself as the bread from heaven.  He means himself, his teaching.  When we believe in Jesus and turn to him, we find encouragement and nourishment for our tired, discouraged selves in our hot, arid world, when people or circumstances seem to be against us.  We meet Jesus in the scriptures.  We have to make the scriptures part of our prayer, our daily bread, “else the journey will be too long” for us (1 Kings 19:7).

In the last verse of today’s gospel (John 6:51) and in all of next week’s (6:51-58), Jesus goes further.  The bread that he offers us and commands us to eat is his flesh.  Ch. 6 is where John presents the Eucharist, instead of at the Last Supper like the other evangelists and Paul.  The Eucharist is our communion with God thru the body and blood of Jesus.  Unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we do not have life in us.  We lose all heart, and we wither and die in the desert.

St. Francis de Sales, the patron of the SDBs, taught that there are 2 types of people who need the Eucharist.  People who are holy need it, that they may remain holy.  People who are not holy need it, that they may become holy.  For all of us, the Eucharist is our fundamental food, our essential food, for the journey.  We cannot reach the sacred mountain where God dwells unless we are nourished on the food that Christ himself gives us.

There’s one more aspect we should note about Elijah’s experience in the desert: God does not come to him personally, directly, at least not on this occasion.  God sends an angel, a messenger.  The angel brings the instructions and, apparently, the food and drink.  The angel restores Elijah’s courage.

The role of the angel or messenger from God in one that God gives to each of us.  We all know what it’s meant when someone has been an angel for us.  To be a Christian, a disciple of Jesus, means not only to hang tough thru our own deserts but also to guide and assist others on their journey.  We need to be sensitive to the folks around us, to their burdens, their fears, their weaknesses, their guilt, and bring them the bread of Christ’s presence and Christ’s strength.  “Be imitators of God as his dear children.  Follow the way of love, even as Christ loved you,” Paul enjoins us.  “Be kind to one another, compassionate, and mutually forgiving, just as God has forgiven you in Christ” (Eph 5:1; 4:32).

Salesians at the Olympics

Salesians at the Olympics

This post is based mostly on ANS reports, but other sources were used as well.

At least 6 Salesian past pupils took part in the 2012 Olympic games in London.

One was among the opening nite superstars; in fact, filmmaker Danny Boyle produced the four-hour, universally acclaimed spectacular on July 27. Two others took home medals—a gold and a bronze.

Danny is a “Salesian Old Boy” of Thornleigh Salesian College in Bolton, England (1973-1975), who, in the words of the New York Daily News, “conjured” the “five-ring extravaganza” of an opening program for the Games.

Danny considered entering the seminary in his youth, but one of his Salesian teachers told him, “You’re not ready for the priesthood, and the priesthood’s not ready for you.” Not long after, he discovered his vocation in film. ANS reported on him after he won an Oscar for best director for Slumdog Millionaire: http://www.infoans.org/1.asp?sez=1&sotSez=13&doc=3627&lingua=2 His 201o movie 127 Hours also won high praise.

Ruben Dario Limardo Gascon, a Venezuelan fencer from Ciudad Bolivar, won a gold medal in the men’s individual épée on Aug. 1 by beating Bartosz Piasecki of Norway, 15 points to 10. His victory gave Venezuela its 2d gold medal in Olympic history, the first in 44 years. “My childhood dream has come true,” Ruben commented.

Salesians from the East Polish Province have contributed to his growth and human development. Since 2003 he has been living in Lodz, where he began his university studies at the Salesian university college in the city, specializing in administration. He continued to attend there, alternating his studies with sporting competitions, until 2005. He trains with and competes for the Piast Gliwice team.

In an interview after his victory, the Olympian showed his appreciation for the country where he developed as a professional and declared that half the medal belonged to Poland. In this half of the medal, there are Salesian traces.

Swimmer Cesar Augusto Cielo Filho, 25, won a bronze medal in the 50-meter freestyle; in addition, he was world champion in this event in 2009 and 2011, and at the 2008 Olympics he won the gold in a record time of 21.30 seconds. He attended Instituto Salesiano Dom Bosco in Americana, Brazil, from 1994 to 1996, and he always remembers his old school with affection. Last year, for example, he returned to it with a TV crew to talk about his childhood in the school, and he used the occasion to greet the teachers and encourage the students.

Another fencer was Daryl Homer, a native of Jamaica who graduated from Salesian HS in New Rochelle in 2008 and has been fencing at St. John’s University in New York City since then; he was red-shirted during his senior year while training for the U.S. Olympic team.

In the opening round of the Games, Daryl bested a Romanian opponent in the saber competition, 15-11, and in the round of 16 defeated a Russian, 15-14. The road to glory ended, tho, in the quarterfinal round when he lost to another Romanian, 15-13.

Daryl is ranked no. 1 in the U.S. in saber.

Marcos Chuva

Marcos Chuva, 23, an past pupil of Salesian School in Manique, Portugal, represented Portugal in the long jump. Marcos began his sports career in 2003 at the Salesian school, which he attended until October 2006. In 2007 he became an athlete with SL Benfica. In 2011 he came in 10th in the world championships and 2d in the European under-23 championships. He has kept in touch with the Salesians, and this year carried the torch at the 19th National Salesian Games. He wasn’t able to advance beyond the qualifying round on Aug. 3.

Maria Elisa Antonelli, who graduated from São José Institute in Resende, Brazil, in 2001, was part of the Brazilian beach volleyball team. Maria Elisa teamed with her usual companion in the doubles, Talita Antunes da Rocha. Last July they the Women’s World Beach Volleyball Tournament in Quebec; the win moved them up from 5th to 2nd in the world rankings at the time.

“We are going to London with a real chance of a gold medal with all four pairs. Certainly the unexpected can always happen, but the preparations have been excellent and we are ready to see the results of all our efforts,” the president of Brazil’s beach volleyball team declared. There are in fact four Brazilian pairs, two women’s and two men’s.

For Maria Elisa, it is a dream come true. “I watched the Beijing Olympics from the couch. This year I am taking part! I am among the best in Brazil, so it is a great joy but also a great responsibility, in that it is not just I and Talita, but we are representing our country in the most important of international sports competitions,” she said in an exclusive interview on the site of the São José Institute.

She also spoke about the Salesian contribution to her successful sports career. “It’s a different sort of school, offering the students a privileged path, and it was there that I first began playing volleyball. It’s amusing to think that I always tried to be the best in the competitions in school, and now I can try to be the best in the London Olympics!”

She also realizes that she is a role model for the young people at the Salesian school and feels the responsibility. “It’s a further encouragement to work harder for victory. I’m very proud and grateful for all those who have been and are part of my development in volleyball. If I have got where I am, I owe a lot to the Salesians, and now I count on all their support,” she concluded.

Maria Elisa and Talita won several matches but lost to the Czech team and were eliminated on Aug. 4.

A Great Day for the Salesian Family

A Great Day 

for the Salesian Family

Fr. Tom Dunne introduced his homily today (Aug. 5) with a phrase something like that.  (I scribbled notes on the homily as best I could in a little notebook with me in the concelebrants' pew, and I hesitate to throw quote marks around anything I scribbled.)

The occasion was the 1st religious profession of 2 Salesian sisters of the FMAs' Eastern Province at Mary Help of Christians Academy in North Haledon during a Mass attended by several hundred sisters, SDB priests, diocesan priests, relatives of the newly professed, and friends of the FMAs (Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, aka Salesian Sisters).

Fr. Tom prays for the candidates (foreground) just before they individually pronounced the vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty.

The newly professed were Srs. Merissa Loucks and Joo Yun Park, who had just completed 2 years of novitiate at Sacred Heart Novitiate in Newton.  They have several classmates who are members of the FMAs' Western Province, based in San Antonio, and who made their 1st vows closer to their families' homes in the Western U.S.

Salesians, both female and male, make their first vows a year at a time for 3 years, generally, then a set of triennial vows, and finally--God willing and the discernment process so indicating--perpetual vows.

At the end of Mass, the 2 newly professed sisters thanked God and various people for guiding them in their vocations. Sr. Joo Yun Park is at left, Sr. Merissa Loucks at right.

Sr. Mary Jackson made perpetual vows in North Haledon this afternoon in a separate sacred rite.

In his homily, based on the 3 readings chosen for the profession Mass (Deut 6:4-13; 2 Pet 1:3-11; Matt 6:24-34), as well as on the occasion, Fr. Tom brought out that the religious vocation is a gift from God, and the 2 new sisters have responded to that gift by saying "yes," like the Virgin Mary, 1st disciple of Jesus.  Altho they must, by rule, profess for just 1 year at this time, they are committing themselves totally to God:  to seeking his will, to loving him wholeheartedly, to simplicity of life after the example of Jesus.

Their "yes" is an encouragement to the older sisters and the Salesian priests present, as well as to all the members of the 2 Salesian congregations, to continue to grow in their own relationship with God.

Fr. Tom also pointed to the Constitutions of the FMAs as a sure guide to the newly professed as they strive to deepen their relationship with God within the religious community and the Salesian mission to young people.

The sisters hold copies of the FMA Constitutions just blessed and presented to them

For more photos, go to http://fmafirstprofessions2012.shutterfly.com/3

Joined by Sr. Karen Dunn, provincial, Sr. Merissa (left) and Sr. Joo Yun prepare to cut a congratulatory cake during the reception that followed the profession Mass. The sisters' proud parents flank them.

Homily for 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the

18th Sunday

of Ordinary Time

Aug. 5, 2012

Collect

Eph 4: 17, 20-14

Christian Brothers, Iona College, N.R.

“Restore what you have created and keep safe what you have restored” (Collect).

The Collect or opening prayer today invokes God as our “creator and guide” and pays tribute to his “unceasing kindness.”  It also notes that we “glory” in him.

We glory in him precisely because he has been and is kind to us, and his kindness is manifest in his restoration work.

What has God restored?  A beat-up old house, if you’d like a metaphor, which he’s turned into a magnificent temple.  That’s us, of course, created in his image, wrecked by sin, made new and better by grace and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  We are God’s home improvement project.

A house needs protection—a solid roof, a good veneer of brick or shingles or paint.  It might also need security systems against fire and burglary.  So we ask God to keep us safe from anything and anyone that could harm us:  “keep safe what you have restored,” viz., your own image within us, your own divine life within us.  For our safekeeping we need his “unceasing kindness” that we invoked.  We need his guidance in our discernment of good and evil, of wisdom and folly, as we try to find and to follow the path he has planned for us; or, to return to the metaphor, as we maintain the house he’s built and restored for us. 

A homeowner hopes and prays that devastating storms will stay far away—tornados, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and such.  We need God’s protection to keep the power of the Evil One away.  Jesus tells a short parable about a demon driven out who eventually returns to its “home from which [it] came [and] finds it empty, swept clean, and put in order.  Then it goes and brings back with itself seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they move in and dwell there; and the last condition of that person is worse than the first” (Matt 13:43-45).  So our house need’s God’s ongoing protection after it’s been restored and cleaned up.

Note that Jesus says the demon finds the house “empty” when it returns.  We have to fill our house with Jesus—the strong man, fully armed, who will keep all intruders far away (cf. Luke 11:21-22).  In today’s gospel we hear that Jesus offers us himself, the Bread of Life, to fill our emptiness and be our strength.

Writing to the Ephesians, St. Paul uses a different metaphor to express the same basic truth:  “Put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth” (4:22-24).  Here we’re changing clothes, putting on new garments, neater and more resplendent than the threadbare and patched ones we’ve been wearing.

In the old SDB ritual of investiture, when the novices received their cassocks, the provincial quoted that verse from Ephesians (in Latin, of course—but I’ll spare you that), reminding us that we were taking on a new way of life and a new persona as we entered religious life and the path toward the priesthood.*

Similarly, and more fundamentally, the rite of Baptism calls for the newly baptized, whether adult or infant, to be clothed in a new, white garment, symbolic of the new life of divine grace in which he or she has just been invested, and the neophyte is urged to bring that new garment, his or her Christian dignity, “unstained (by sin) into the everlasting life of heaven” (Rite of Baptism).

This is also one possible interpretation of Jesus’ parable of the wedding garment—in which a guest is cast out of the wedding banquet “into the darkness outside” because he isn’t properly dressed (Matt 22:11-13).  No one may approach the Eucharistic feast without having been baptized, clothed in Christ.  No one may enter the heavenly banquet, of which the Eucharist is the sacramental sign, without having lived “in righteousness and holiness of truth.”

This new garment that we’re given at Baptism, this share in God’s own life thru Christ, is a gift of the Father’s “unceasing kindness.”  It’s the 1st and most essential step in the process by which he “restores what [he has] created,” viz., his own image in us, the creatures of his hand, creatures called “for eternal life, which the Son of Man gives” us (John 6:27).

---

               * Practices of Piety for Use in Salesian Houses (New Rochelle: Salesiana, 1953), pp. 295-296.

Interview with Mother Yvonne Reungoat

Interview with Mother Yvonne Reungoat, FMA

The state of health of the FMAs, prospects for the future, the world of young people, and her own story

(ANS – Rome -- August 2, 2012) – ANS has asked Mother Yvonne Reungoat, Superior General of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (better known as the Salesian Sisters), about that religious congregation, which Don Bosco held to be a “living monument” to Mary Help of Christians, and about her role as Superior.

You have just carried out an evaluation. What is the state of health of the FMA Institute? What challenges face it in the future?

At the moment there are two groups of interprovincial conferences that have yet to carry out their evaluation of GC22, where the experiences and reflections of their provinces will flow together. I think I can say, however, thanks to what I have found out also in my visitations, that the Institute is in good shape. The desire and commitment to revive our charism is alive and well in all the sisters. They feel the need to deepen their personal spirituality and to strengthen their prophetic message, basing it on its mystical roots. They have also noticed the need to focus on the evangelical nature of their relationships as FMA communities and as educating communities. The journey with lay people is becoming more apparent not only at the level of working together, but also in co-responsibility for the educational mission. They have become more committed to a renewed option for the poor, in a world becoming more and more impoverished, and they recognize the importance of building communities that are truly vocational, where young people feel welcomed and listened to and where they can clearly see the beauty and the energy of our charism.
To sum up: the journey of the Institute is somewhere between the “already” and the “not yet.” But I think that the greatest challenge, embracing all the others, is that of hope.

The FMA Institute is celebrating 140 years of existence. What changes have there been in its identity and mission?

140 years of the Institute’s life is an important occasion for the entire Salesian Family. For us FMAs it means the celebration of God’s fidelity and of our response to his love, a reason for joy and thankfulness. Don Bosco’s idea of giving girls the same opportunities that he was offering to his boys was realized thanks to the response of some young women in the Association of Mary Immaculate in Mornese who took up his suggestion of consecrating themselves to the Lord as religious following the Salesian spirit. In that little place in Monferrato, just as from a seed cultivated in good and fertile land, the Institute sprang forth; it was August 5, 1872.

The FMA identity was clear from the start: women consecrated for the mission of evangelizing through education, with a strong Marian identity. Don Bosco provided a powerful witness, and Maria Domenica Mazzarello felt totally in harmony with his project of life and his method of education, the Preventive System. The Institute grew in a remarkable way and expanded to a presence which now reaches 94 nations in the world and numbers about 14,000 members who live and work in all six [inhabited] continents.

The secret is in the energy of the Spirit which has given our religious family a missionary dimension and a universal appearance. This identity has become richer over the years, and our educational mission today embraces new frontiers, new fields to meet young people and reawaken in them a search for meaning, bringing them up to be good Christians and honest citizens, as Don Bosco wanted them to be. This program has been taken up wholeheartedly by the FMAs since their beginnings, and today it is more and more linked to promotion of their fundamental rights and commitment to their evangelization.

What are the expectations and challenges of today? Does the world of youth still have a geography, or has globalization unified everything?

There are certainly challenges specific to youth depending on their socio-cultural situations. In areas of greatest economic poverty, young people are more motivated to raise their social status, and they know how to profit from the opportunities offered to them. Those in richer countries are less motivated and take longer to reach human maturity. But these are only generalizations.

Globalization has to some extent unified their needs and brought about new needs. At a world level, young people today are alike in many more ways than they are different. Languages, consumption, expectations, news media, and new technologies have all been globalized.

I am not referring only to the negative aspects of globalization – secularism, relativism, consumerism – but also to the positive aspects. For example, solidarity has been globalized, volunteering has become more popular, and there is a new awareness about human rights and the dignity of each person. The deepest needs of the young are the same as ever: to love and be loved, to find meaning and happiness in life, to work for the common good, to make the world a home where all can live. Today young people want to be themselves: not just making their voices heard in protest, but making their resources available as committed youths. I believe that we are preparing to enter a new season, so long as we know how to listen to them and accompany them in their journey of human and Christian growth.
There is not just one language of youth, “cryptic.” There is another language consisting of simplicity, concreteness, freedom, and gift. There is an often implicit question about meaning that needs to be brought to light, and there is a hidden request from young people to be accompanied by significant adults in a world that is ever more multiethnic, multicultural, multireligious, without points of reference. The challenge for us is to accompany them to open themselves to others and to the Other, leading up to the explicit proclamation of Jesus.

Mother Yvonne with Fr. Pascual Chavez, SDB Rector Major

The word crisis is used in various circumstances, from economic to social, from values to the youth situation. What hope can the FMAs offer?

The hope we can offer depends on what animates our own lives. The first sign of hope for young people is to find adults who are capable of hoping. The crisis, mostly seen in the West, is economic and social, a crisis of cultural and educational values. The “educational emergency” can be interpreted as an emergency of fathers and mothers, of family homes, of upbringing.

The task of educating can be more difficult and our efforts hampered in a society that too often makes relativism its creed, that swamps the new generations with emotional gratification and exalts the ephemeral. I am convinced that we can offer hope to young people only if we overcome the crisis of authority into which many adults fall, often abdicating their responsibilities.

If, as FMAs, we witness to the beauty and joy of our vocation, if will be easier to set up a vast network of communion and dialog with all those who care about the education of the young and with young people themselves.

In the name of all the FMAs, I want to express our desire that many young women will discover the call to follow Jesus in our Institute. The field of educational need is immense. We can get through the current crisis, which is also vocational, if we are able to hand on the Salesian charism to new generations for them to develop and enrich. One hundred and forty years from our foundation, I can see a broad and open horizon where our religious family can continue to write pages of joyous fidelity, with the help of young women who are not afraid to commit their lives to following Jesus.

Can you tell us a little about your own vocational story?

In our family there was an uncle who was a Salesian missionary in Canada, and we regularly received the Salesian Bulletin. That was how my parents discovered the existence of an FMA school in Dinan, in Brittany, France, where I could continue my studies. I was struck by the family spirit that reigned in the community. One day the superior asked me, “Have you ever thought about religious life?” This direct question reawakened my desire to become a religious. It had been in my heart before I knew the sisters, but I had let it slip, thinking that I could never achieve it. I must acknowledge that the superior in Dinan truly accompanied me and that the educational atmosphere in the community supported my journey. The FMAs had the knack of turning us into leaders. They gave us little responsibilities, geared to our ability, in order to guide us toward the service of others. This accompaniment helped me to bring my vocational response to maturity. I felt gripped by God, but without that question, perhaps I would never have become a Daughter of Mary Help of Christians.

My time as a missionary in Africa enriched my vocation, which then developed in a surprising way with my election as visiting councilor, vicar general, and finally Superior General. From the start I thought that this mission would totally overwhelm me and that I could fulfill it only because I could count on the help of the Lord and of Mary Help of Christians.

Being the ninth successor of Mother Mazzarello is a task that can be undertaken only with the grace of God and through entrustment to Mary Help of Christians, who has done everything in my life. I am convinced that the Lord asks of us only our availability for him to work freely in us and make us instruments of his anticipating love.

Homily for 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the

17th Sunday

in Ordinary Time

July 29, 2012

John 6: 1-15

St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.

“Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted” (John 6: 11).

From the Book of Hours of the Duc du Berry, ca. 1413

Altho we’re reading from the Gospel of St. Mark during this liturgical year—from what’s labeled as the “B” cycle of readings—you may have noticed that our gospel this morning is from St. John.  It’s kind of like, “We interrupt this program to bring you an important news bulletin.”

Not that Mark’s Gospel isn’t important!  But 2 factors are at work here.  1st, Mark’s Gospel is rather short, so that we don’t need the whole of Ordinary Time (roughly 32 Sundays) to hear most of it.  2d, John’s Gospel isn’t assigned to one of our 3 cycles of Sunday readings; he’s read during the Lent and Easter seasons—and for 5 weeks during Mark’s year, i.e., starting today, specifically from John 6, which is all about Jesus, the Bread of Life.

Last week, you may remember, Mark told us how Jesus took the apostles away for some R&R—or he wanted to.  But a huge crowd beat them to their destination, hungry for Jesus’ attention—his teaching and his healing.  And, Mark says, “he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (6:34):  lost, directionless, imperiled.  “And he began to teach them many things” (6:34), that gospel reading concluded.

From there Mark goes on to recount how Jesus fed the huge crowd, which he, like St. John today, numbers at 5,000 men without counting women and children—by multiplying 5 loaves and 2 fish.  But we’ve switched to John’s account of that, which reports some details not found in Mark’s version (or Matthew’s or Luke’s, for that matter).  This is the only one of Jesus’ miracles reported by all 4 gospels.  It’s that important!

One detail that John mentions is that this multiplication took place “near the Jewish feast of Passover” (6:4).  Thus he links the bread that Jesus supplies with Passover, which uses unleavened bread in remembrance of the Hebrews’ hasty departure from Egypt many centuries earlier.  Theologically we view yeast in some sense as corruptive; St. Paul, for instance, writes, “Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough…. Let us celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor 5:7-8).  Jesus is a new, unleavened bread, without any corruption, and our celebrating the feast of the Eucharist with him leavens us with his truth, presents us with salvation, inaugurates the resurrection of the dead, which will be the final triumph over earthly corruption.

The loaves that Jesus multiplies are symbols of the Eucharist—not only because they’re bread and the Eucharist is bread transformed into the Body of Christ; but also because the Gospels use Eucharistic language when they tell us that Jesus took the bread, gave thanks (or “blessed” it), broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to distribute (Mark 6:41, Matt 14:19, Luke 9:16, and John 6:11), altho John omits “breaking.”  Those are the very same 4 verbs—took, blessed, broke, and gave—that we use at the consecration of every Mass as we remember what Jesus did at the Last Supper:  “On the night he was betrayed, he himself took bread, and giving you thanks, he said the blessing, broke the bread and gave it to his disciples, saying….” (EP III).  The Greek word for “give thanks,” moreover, is eucharisteo, “Eucharist.”  At the Eucharist we imitate what Jesus did on this occasion of multiplying loaves and fish.  We don’t imitate what he did at the Last Supper, however, because when we do in his memory what he did, HE is actually the one doing, and we become sharers, partakers, of what he did at the Last Supper as well as what he did on Calvary and what he did when he abandoned the tomb and returned to his heavenly Father.

Truly, in the Eucharist we celebrate Christ’s Passover, his death and resurrection.  We celebrate our delivery from bondage—not in “the hard labor of bricks and mortar and all kinds of field work,” as the book of Exodus says of the Hebrews in Egypt (1:14)—but from bondage to our sins and the punishment that our sins merit.  Jesus’ Passover is offered also to us; in the Eucharist we join him on his journey from death to life and to the freedom of God’s children.

Another detail in John’s version that’s a little different from the reporting of Mark, as well as Matthew and Luke, of this event is that John has Jesus himself distributing the multiplied loaves to the crowd.  The 3 tell us that Jesus gave the loaves to the disciples to distribute, but John reserves that to Jesus himself:  “Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them” (6:11).  That may be unlikely, historically, for 5,000 men, plus women and children.  But John makes a theological point that our nourishment, our salvation, and of course the Eucharist, comes ultimately from Jesus.  It is he, and not the priest, not the bishop, not the Church itself, that saves us; clergy and sacraments and the Church are only the means Jesus uses.

I’ll mention one other unique part of John’s story.  “When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, ‘This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world,’” and they were about to acclaim him as king (6:14-15) and, presumably, start some sort of uprising against either Herod or even Rome.  The “prophet” is a messianic reference; Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the Christ, as all the signs he performs, to use John’s language, indicate.  But he’s not the kind of Messiah the people are expecting.  He’s not going to save them from political oppression.  As he’ll tell Pontius Pilate during his trial, his “kingdom is not of this world” (18:36).  His kingdom is spiritual:  a kingdom of truth, a kingdom of interior liberation, a kingdom in which people belong to God and freely act in God, and not as the Roman emperor may command them to act, nor any other earthly power.  Those who belong to his kingdom are set free also from Satan’s rule:  from their sins and from everlasting death.  Jesus will speak more about that as we continue to read from John 6 in the next 4 weeks.

Mosaic from floor of St. Peter's house in Capernaum. Photo by Bro. Tom Dion.

By the Shores of Gitche Gumee

By the Shores of Gitche Gumee

Actually, it was the shore of Skenonto--Lake Skenonto in Harriman State Park.

Yesterday (Saturday) I was assigned the Sunday vigil Mass for the Christian Brothers (and attending layfolk), after which I was free for the weekend.  There was a fine forecast (no rain, clear sky, nite temp ca. 65 in Manhattan, which would be 5-10 degrees lower in Harriman; and Sunday temp going up to mid-80s).

So, after checking with Fr. Provincial (the director not being home, and not wanting to abuse my own office of v.d.), I headed off to the woods immediately after Mass.  An hour's drive brought me to the Victory Trail head along Rte 106; I was a little chagrined to see 7 cars lined up at the parking spot (and had passed another 7-8 a half-mile back at another trail crossing).

My destination might be a little crowded.

So it was a bit of a relief a short distance up the trail to see 4 guys camped up on a rise, having a good time.  I also figured some of the people parked there might have gone up to the Tom Jones Shelter via the Ramapo-Dunderberg Trail, which crosses the Victory about a quarter mile in.  I was more relieved when I met a couple of guys coming from the lake who said there weren't many people there.

A vigorous pace got me to the northern head of Lake Skennonto in less than an hour.  I went down the eastern shore--a paved road--for the 1st time (after 3-4 other trips to or by the lake, always on the western side), to get an idea of how to access camping sites I knew were there.  But they seemed occupied, so I returned to the unpaved woods road down the western shore.

There were several unoccupied camping sites, but I headed for the one I'd used a couple of times with Fr. Jim Mulloy, way down near the southern end, past where the Victory Trail bends away westward and you're on Triangle Trail.  But 3 sites, including the one I wanted, were taken.  So I doubled back to one I'd noted in passing, close by the 1st occupied site (by 2 Army-looking chaps--not surprising, so close to West Point).

By then the sun was near the horizon, but I had plenty of daylight to pitch my backpacking tent and go down to the water (steep descent) for a pot of water and a short, refreshing dip.  It was dusk by the time I put the pot of water on the stove for my freeze-dried chicken stew (not particularly luscious, but nutritious I suppose), followed by 2 little tangerines and washed down with Crystal Lite.  It was too late to make a fire, in my reckoning, which in a sense was too bad because there was loads of firewood around; my 2 neighbors had a little one going.  I hung the more obvious foodstuffs (like an apple) from a tree limb, prayed Nite Prayer, and retired around 10 o'clock.  Such a fine nite, no need for a rainfly; I looked up at the stars, which weren't many, I'm afraid; maybe the sky wasn't so clear after all.

In fact, it seemed to cloud over during the nite, with only 1 star visible now and then.  But it was dry, and I was snug enuf, even if (as usual) I didn't sleep well.  So nice and quiet, with only occasional bird calls (and early in the evening while I was still setting up, I thought I heard a coyote).  Couldn't even hear any traffic, which is unusual wherever you may be in Harriman.


 I got up at 6:15, with the sun just coming over the mountain on the opposite shore

and a lovely mist drifting over much of the lake.  At the far end you may be able to see the dam that's responsible for the lake's creation.

 

The lake is just pretty--with the mist or in the full sunshine.



It was actually chilly enuf for me to put on a sweater!  But that didn't last long; as soon as the sun was over the mountain it burned off both the chill and the mist.

I had coffee, oatmeal, an apple, and almonds for breakfast, after another trip to the lake for water.

After Readings and Morning Prayer, I just loafed:  reading magazines from my "I'm way behind" stockpile, taking another short dip, and catnapping.  The ideal camping trip?  A couple of hours after breakfast, another cup of coffee and more almonds.

A late morning view of my camp and the lake beyond/below

Dozens of day hikers passed by.  The 2 guys next door packed up and left.  So did a couple of guys on the far shore.  Two pairs of day hikers were so brazen as to come into my site--the 1st pair just to look around and take pictures (only of the lake, I think), the 2d pair coming up from the lake, which they'd approached right along the rocky shore, and he'd gone swimming.  But I was really surprised at the breach of camping etiquette, especially by the 1st pair.  You just don't invite yourself into someone else's space.

I thought it would be good to shoot a video showing a bit of the lake and campsite:

You probably can tell that I haven't done this intentionally very often.  I didn't even think to comment.  So all you hear is some birds chirping (neat) and some crunchy-type noises, which may be my footsteps (otherwise, I have no idea).  And when I was done, I thought all I had to do was take my hand off the shutter button, but obviously that wasn't the case, and it keeps running till I eventually shut off the camera.

Around 11 o'clock I got the hungries, so prepared the 2d half of my freeze-dried meal for lunch, with just water to drink and a granola bar for dessert.  I read some more and did some of my packing.  After another little nap, I packed up sleeping bag, pads, tent, and the last of the gear.  I did a visual sweep of the area (I'd been picking up others' litter all along, but the site really wasn't too bad in that regard), and at 1:15 got on the homeward trail.

The trail in was pretty well blazed, and I had only one minor mistep that got me turned around and heading back whence I'd just come--which I quickly realized.  But coming out I went astray twice because of the lack of blazes, or of clear ones.  Still, it took only an hour, without hurrying, to get back to the car.  There was another long row of cars at the area.

Homily for 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the

16th Sunday

in Ordinary Time

July 22, 2012

Jer 23: 1-6

Mark 6: 30-34

Christian Brothers, Iona College, N.R.

“I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have driven them” (Jer 23: 3).

Jeremiah is the classic “bad news” prophet, the prophet of doom and gloom.  The shepherds of Israel—the kings of Judah and the priests of Jerusalem—have been leading the people astray.  They’ve tolerated, if not encouraged, idolatry.  They’ve made political choices at odds with God’s will.  They’ve thrived on social injustice, ignoring the needs of the poor.  For instance, 100 years before Jeremiah the prophet Micah had denounced those who “covet fields and seize them; houses, and they take them.  They cheat the owner of his house, a man of his inheritance” (2:2).  Jeremiah faulted nobles, priests, and people for adultery, slander, deceptive practices, and other crimes.

Consequently God has given Judah over to her enemies, the king of Babylon and his army, who have deposed one king and taken him, many of the nobles, army officers, and craftsmen into exile, and they’ve put a new king—intended to be their puppet—on the throne.  But the new king and the remaining leaders are no wiser than the old ones.

“You have scattered my sheep and driven them away,” Jeremiah decries, speaking in God’s name.  “You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds” (23:2).  Worse things are going to come upon Jerusalem, the priests, and the royal family at the hands of the Babylonians.

But Jeremiah also has good news, a promise of better days.  God will bring back together the scattered flock, and he will find them a good shepherd, “a righteous shoot” from David’s house, who “shall reign and govern wisely, shall do what is just and right in the land” (23:5).  “In his days,” Jeremiah continues, “Judah shall be saved, Israel shall dwell in security.  This is the name they give him:  ‘The Lord our justice’” (23:6).

Whatever Jeremiah may have thought God had in mind about a new and righteous king from the descendants of King David, and a restoration of the kingdom to peace, prosperity, and justice on all levels, we don’t find that fulfilled in the history of Israel between Jeremiah’s days, 600 years B.C., and the destruction of Jerusalem and the province of Judea by the Romans in A.D. 70; nor does it look like today’s state of Israel is fulfilling what Jeremiah promised.

St. Mark, however, finds its fulfillment in that Son of David whose “heart was moved with pity for the vast crowd, for they were like sheep without a shepherd” (6:34).  The apostles have just been out on a preaching and healing mission, as we heard last week (6:7-13); they’ve come back, excited and, presumably, exhausted—this is where this evening’s gospel picks up.  Furthermore, Jesus and the 12 have heard the terrible news that Herod the tetrarch has executed John the Baptist—the passage in ch. 6 preceding our reading (6:17-29)—which we may be sure unnerves them, shocks them.  It’s also Mark’s subtle contrast between the shepherding style of Herod and that of Jesus; Herod proves to be no better than the kings and leaders whom Jeremiah denounced, a “shepherd who misleads and scatters the flock of my pasture” (23:1), who causes the flock to “fear and tremble” (23:4), who disposes of those sent by God, like John the Baptist.

So it’s a good time for Jesus and the 12 to disappear for a while, to “go away to a deserted place and rest” (Mark 6:31), to evaluate what they’ve been doing, what Herod’s done, what the scribes and Pharisees are saying; to ponder what God’s asking of them at this point; to do some pastoral planning.

But life intervenes; reality shows up.  The vast crowd of abandoned sheep shows up at their “deserted place.”  And Jesus, a true shepherd, responds to their hunger by “teaching them many things” (6:34).  Unlike the evil shepherds of Jeremiah’s age, he cares for the flock, gathers them together instead of scattering them, leads them securely with his teaching, his gentle manner, and (tho Mark doesn’t say it here) his binding up their wounds.  As we’ll hear next week, he even feeds them when they’re hungry for physical food as well as for sound teaching (John 6:1-15; cf. Mark 6:34-44).

From an altarpiece in a church in Copenhagen

All of which is a sign, a prelude, to Jesus’ saving of Judah, his establishing Israel in security, his role as the Lord’s justice.  The ultimate salvation, the ultimate security, that he offers to the flock is a right relationship with God (righteousness, or justice in the biblical meaning of the term).  He heals more than bodies.  His teaching brings God close to the flock and makes the flock want to stay with God.  “He is our peace,” St. Paul will proclaim (Eph 2:14), who has “reconciled us with God” (2:16) and given us access to the Father (2:18).

Each celebration of the Eucharist (or any of the other sacraments) is an invitation from Jesus, our good shepherd, to “come away and rest a while,” to be with him and receive access thru him to the Father; to be restored to a good relationship with the Father thru the forgiveness of our sins and a close union with the Son who cares so much for us poor, directionless, and scattered sheep.  So at the beginning of Mass we acknowledge our sins and our humble need to be restored; and we open ourselves to God’s work—liturgy is literally a “public work” in classical Greek, but here it’s God’s work, the mysteries by which he acts to save us, give us peace, lead us to an eternal dwelling in security.