The Calm Courage of Dominic Savio

The Calm Courage of Dominic Savio

by Fr. Morand Wirth, SDB

The Salesian Family ordinarily celebrates May 6 as the feastday of St. Dominic Savio, adolescent. Since May 6 falls on Sunday this year, the feastday’s omitted.

Each year I try to present something a little different for the province newsletter on our Salesian saints and blesseds. Usually that means copying and editing something published elsewhere. This post is an example of that.

The steady energy of this saintly young lad was obvious. At a tender age he willingly undertook difficult tasks like assisting at Mass early in the mornings in the middle of the winter, long hikes to and from school, or silent acceptance of undeserved reproach. At Valdocco his strength of mind found many opportunities for expression. Without faltering he endured “the rather hard life at the Oratory, not only the scarcity of food but also the hardships of a winter without heat.” In spite of his own great courtesy and amiability, he sometimes had to put up with “insolence and threats and even insults” from his companions. He would blush deeply yet remain calm and forgive quickly. His courage in suffering, so evident during his last illness, made him, according to Don Bosco, “a model of sanctity.”

This strength of character was not just passive. It manifested itself in the exact performance of all his duties and, when necessary, in actions which greatly impressed all who witnessed and recorded them. We have already mentioned the brave intervention when he stopped a duel with stones between two students, at the risk of getting hurt himself, or his remark to a soldier who refused to kneel when the Blessed Sacrament was passing by, an act that could have been considered very provocative, or when he reproached Don Bosco himself with regard to a misdeed that ought to have been punished.

Dominic had enormous will power. Don Bosco says that he had found in him “a great human strength supported by grace.” This strength of will was directed toward a great ideal: “to become a saint,” a strong expression which well illustrates his attitude.

Having learned from Don Bosco that penance was necessary for a boy who wanted “to preserve his innocence,” he voluntarily practiced all kinds of mortifications with regard to food, rest, conversation, and strict control over his senses to the point of “suffering bad headaches.” Eventually his director had to intervene in order to moderate this thirst for penance and to help him regain his usual cheerfulness that he had been about to lose. Dominic valued his advice highly.

This devotee of the crucified Christ left behind him a memory of a smiling lad, kind and serene, with an unalterable purpose behind his smile.

From Don Bosco and the Salesians, trans. David de Burgh, SDB (New Rochelle: Don Bosco Publications, 1982), pp. 65-66.

Homily for 6th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
6th Sunday of Easter

May 8, 1994

Acts 10: 25-26, 34-35, 44-48
John 15: 9-17
St. Vincent, Hunters, Grand Bahama Island
St. Agnes, Eight Mile Rock, GBI

“The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were surprised that the gift of the Holy Spirit should have been poured out on the Gentiles also” (Acts 10:45).

Peter baptizing Cornelius (Wikipedia)

We read in the 1st chapter of Genesis (v. 27) that God created human beings in his own image.  Sinners that we are, we often try to reverse that, to make God in our image.  So it is in the story of Cornelius and his household.  Unfortunately, in their concern for brevity the editors of our lectionary have hacked the story to pieces (so we have read it in its entirety straight from Acts).

Cornelius, tho personally devout and a friend of the Jews, was one of the Roman occupiers, a Gentile, not part of God’s covenant, not an heir of God’s promises.  He was inspired to send for Peter, and Peter saw a vision in which God declared all things clean, in contrast to the Jewish law.  Peter went to Caesarea and preached Jesus to Cornelius and his whole household and friends, and they believed.  For Peter had begun to grasp what some of his companions did not:  that God is in love with every person and plays no favorites.  “The man of any nation who fears God and acts uprightly is acceptable to him” (10: 35).

And God bore out Peter’s words by pouring out the Spirit upon these despised Romans, these foreigners, these people whose empire so oppressed the Jews.  They were the 1st Christians who were not Jews.  No longer would Christianity be just another sect or party with Judaism, like the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots.  Christ is meant for the whole world.

It took a while for many Jewish Christians to accept that basic.  In fact, we read in Acts 15 that a council of all the apostles and elders met to decide the issue after long and serious debate.

You see, many people believe in their hearts, and speak and act accordingly, that God has chosen them specially and looks down on everyone else.  They may be one tribe butchering another, as in South Africa and Rwanda; or Moslems killing Christians, as in the Sudan; or Christians killing Moslems, as in Bosnia; or Catholics and Protestants going at each other in Northern Ireland; or Arabs and Jews shooting each other in Palestine; or whites putting down blacks, Latinos, and Asians in the U.S.; or Bahamians putting down Haitians.  But the truth of the Gospel is crystal clear.  No Christian can discriminate against any person.  Every man is our brother, every woman our sister—especially if, like most of the Haitians, they profess the same faith we do.  And all the more if they are the poorest of the poor.  If God does have a special liking for anyone, it’s the poor; that’s written on almost every page of the Gospel, from Mary’s Magnificat to Jesus’ parable of the last judgment in Matt 25.

The world would undoubtedly be a much improved place if professed Christians would only start to treat their fellow men and women as images of God, children of God, beloved of God.  And that’s as true of the Bahamas as of anywhere else.  In any case, we live in the Bahamas, and this is the world in which we have to be Christians.

“God shows no partiality,” plays no favorites.  In fact, God in Christ calls everyone, Jew and Gentile, male and female, black and white, young and old, rich and poor, to friendship.  “There is no greater love than this:  to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  I no longer speak of you as slaves….  Instead, I call you friends…” (John 15:13-15).

Part of the scandal of Christianity to Jew and Gentile alike was that God could come close to us.  Sure, he walked with Abraham and spoke face to face with Moses like an old friend.  But would God do that with just anybody?  with smelly fishermen and dirty farmers and a traitorous tax collector from Galilee, for instance?  or with you and me?

Jesus has answered that question for us.  God not only would come close to us, but he has actually done it.  God not only loves us, but he even likes us.  “Greater love than this no one has….”

If God is our friend, we can talk to him anytime.  We can speak as informally as we like.  We don’t have to put on an act.  We can open our hearts to him.

If God is our friend, we respect him.  What belongs to him—his name, his house, all his children—is sacred.  We treat them all with reverence.

If God is our friend, we trust him.  We don’t always understand him, but we know we can count on him to have our best interests at heart.  Not everyone will lay down his life to save our lives.  But the Son of God has done just that.

If God is our friend, we listen to him.  In our prayer we don’t do all the talking.  We listen quietly, too.  That’s why we have quiet moments at Mass, why we all need some quiet time every day.

Listening includes obeying.  God commands, but as a friend, not as a master.  He commands what is best for us, and we trust that.  He commands like a parent telling a child to stay out of the street or not to touch the stove.

If God is our friend, we thank him for his gifts and praise him for his accomplishments.  We ask his pardon when we offend him—which, of course, we try not do to.

If God is our friend, we love him and everyone whom he loves.  “This command I give you:  love one another.  Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:17,12).  He loves us all, without partiality, without limit.  “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

"Global" Novena to Mary Help of Christians

“Global” Novena to Mary Help of Christians

(ANS – Rome – May 3) – This year the Salesian Family celebrates the 150th anniversary of the consecration and opening of Turin’s basilica of Mary Help of Christians (1868-2018). To mark this important anniversary, Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime, with the support of the Communications Department, has launched an initiative to unite the whole Salesian Family in prayer around Mary: a “global” novena to Mary Help of Christians in view of the festivities (May 24) via videos to be made available in the next few days on various channels.

Each day the structure of the novena will include:

• the presentation of the daily theme by the Rector Major;
• the narration of one of Don Bosco’s dreams, selected among the main dreams in which the Virgin Mary appears, published in texts edited by Fr. Bruno Ferrero, director of the Italian Salesian Bulletin;
• the Rector Major’s commentary on the dream;
• a brief testimony of a member of the Salesian Family;
• concluding invocations.

Produced thanks to the collaboration of the communications team of the Southern Italy Province, the videos have been designed to be shared, broadcast, and used in moments of community prayer in Salesian and Salesian Family houses all over the world, as well as in the traditional moments of the Salesian “good morning” or “good night” in parishes and youth centers.

The novena videos will be available in Italian, English, and Spanish as early as May 10 on various channels: the sdb.org site, the ANS page on Flickr and the ANS channel on YouTube.

Starting May 14, they will be placed daily on the ANS website and made available also in French and Portuguese.

On ANSChannel there is a video presentation of the novena.

Homily for Memorial of St. Athanasius

Homily for the Memorial of St. Athanasius

May 2, 2018

Collect

Our Lady of Lourdes, Bethesda, Md.

“Almighty ever-living God, you raised up the Bishop St. Athanasius as an outstanding champion of your Son’s divinity” (Collect).

If you think there’s been a lot of contention in the Catholic Church since Vatican II, it’s nothing compared to the unhappy experience of the Church after the very 1st ecumenical council, the Council of Nicaea, which took place in 325.

Nicaea was convened so that the Church could settle a debate over just who Jesus Christ was.  A priest named Arius from Alexandria, Egypt—the 2d-most important city in the Roman Empire—was teaching that Christ was more than an ordinary man but less than God. Arius and his followers, in the words of Pope Benedict, “reduced [Christ] to a creature ‘halfway’ between God and man,” which is something many people today also like to do because they can’t grasp how God himself could become a human being, or how a human being could at the same time be truly the Son of God.

The bishops who assembled at Nicaea didn’t agree with Arius.  They confirmed as the belief of the Church that Jesus Christ was fully divine:  “God from God, true God from true God, consubstantial with the Father,” as they stated in what we now call the Nicene Creed.  By “consubstantial,” the Church means that whatever God the Father is by his nature, his substance, that also is God the Son, who became human as Jesus of Nazareth.

Unfortunately, that didn’t settle the issue, partly because the Arians—including a good number of bishops—refused to go along with what the council had said, and partly because theology became also a political issue.  The Emperor Constantine and his successors wanted a united empire—no dissension in politics or religion—and thought that Arianism was easier for people to understand and accept.  So those who held to the orthodox teaching of the Church—the creed of Nicaea—had a hard time of it.  Theological arguments very often led to riots and bloodshed—a 4th-century Christian version of what we see going on in parts of the Islamic world today as Shiites, Sunnis, and adherents of other forms of Islam fight each other.

Athanasius took part in the Council of Nicaea as a young priest, and not long after was made bishop of Alexandria. He became “the pillar of the Church,” a model of orthodox teaching for the whole Church in both its Eastern and Western branches.  Pope Benedict called him “the impassioned theologian” of the Word made flesh, “the most important and tenacious adversary of Arianism.”  Altho some bishops and the emperors would settle on a theological compromise, there could be no compromise on the truth of the Creed with Athanasius, in his preaching, his pastoral letters, and his theological writings.  He and the Arians became implacable enemies, and it cost Athanasius greatly.  The threat of violence and imperial hostility forced him into exile from Alexandria 5 times in 30 years, sometimes running for his life.  Only in 366 was he finally able to settle down in his diocese and live his last 7 years in peace.

In his book The Incarnation of the Word, Athanasius wrote that the divine Word was made flesh, becoming like one of us for our salvation—“was made man so that we might be made God … and he endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.”  Thru our communion with Christ we can truly be united to God; he has really become God-with-us and God-for-us.

Homily for 5th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
5th Sunday of Easter

April 29, 2018

John 15: 1-8
Nativity, Washington, D.C.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower” (John 15: 1).

Anonymous - from ruwiki, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5720443

In Palestine and many other parts of the world, including significant parts of our own country, vineyards are important to people’s way of living and to the general economy.  You and I probably don’t relate to that so much—at most you might have put a little trellis with a vine in your back yard.  But we can appreciate Jesus’ analogy—even if we’ve never even tried to raise some tomatoes.  We understand that our beautiful cherry trees and dogwoods and magnolias (like the one outside the side door) won’t blossom if their branches are broken off from the trunk.

Jesus’ words today—taken from what he said to the apostles at the Last Supper—remind us, 1st, that Jesus has come to us from God the Father:  “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.”  That is, the Father has planted this vine; he has sent Jesus his Son, into the vineyard of the human race.  And we know from other verses that the Father’s reason for doing that was love, e.g., that most famous verse:  “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” (John 3:16).

2d, this vine, Jesus Christ, has branches, attached parts of the vine.  Those branches are what St. Paul calls the members of Christ’s body (1 Cor 6:15), viz., the Church—us.  We are the branches of this vine, and as long as we remain attached to it, we’re alive.

This life, of course, isn’t our physical life—altho our attachment to Christ includes the promise of the resurrection of our bodies on the Last Day, as we profess every week in the Creed.  But immediately, this life is our spiritual life, the life of our innermost selves, the life of our souls.

How do we maintain this interior life?  How do we remain firmly attached to the true vine?  By prayer, by reading the Scriptures, by participating in the sacraments.  Just as the branches of a vine or a tree need life-giving sap to feed them, our souls need the life that flows from our daily conversation with the Father, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit in prayer.  We need the nourishment that comes from letting the Holy Scriptures seep into our hearts and souls; this is the dew of the Holy Spirit moistening and refreshing us as nothing else can.  We need regular contact with Jesus himself, the Person of Jesus, in the Eucharist and Reconciliation (the sacrament of Penance), and we need to draw on the graces that come from living the unique sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation that we received, most of us, so long ago, graces that aren’t “once and done” but forever-lasting.  Most of us also have available the graces of a vocational sacrament to nourish us thru life, to enable us to “live Jesus,” as St. Francis de Sales phrases it:  the sacrament of Christian marriage for many of you, or most of you, and the sacrament of Holy Orders for me.

3d, the Father has planted this vine and enabled its branches to flourish in order that those branches may bear fruit:  “Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.  By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit” (15:5,8).  The branches don’t exist for their own sake but for the sake of bearing fruit.  What good would a vineyard be without grapes?

So what is the fruit that the Father desires us to produce?  What does the life of Christ flowing thru us produce?  Virtue.  E.g., in Gal 5:22-23, St. Paul lists as “fruits of the Holy Spirit” the virtues of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”  Obviously there are numerous other virtues:  the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity; the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude; the religious virtues of chastity and obedience; the virtues that Jesus puts into prominence in the Sermon on the Mount, and Pope Francis stresses in his recent apostolic exhortation:  poverty of spirit, meekness, humility, sympathy with others in misfortune, purity of heart, peaceableness, and other virtues too: perseverance, patience, a sense of humor, boldness, passion.

That is by no means an exhaustive list of virtues.  The point isn’t to list them or to define them, of course, but to practice them—to be fruitful thru the working of grace, the divine sap running thru us branches of Christ the true vine.  That’s how we glorify the Father, which is the purpose for which God made us.

When Jesus promises the apostles toward the end of this evening’s gospel, “Ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you” (15:7), he means primarily to ask to remain faithfully united with him, to be his faithful disciples, to remain fully alive in him—in this life and in eternal life.

A Lay Missioner's Day

A Lay Missioner's Day

By coincidence only, your humble blogger is happy to note that this is his 1,000th post since this site was born in April 2009 (with a post noting a bloody "missionary" excursion into the wilds of the Catskills).

From the Democratic Republic of Congo, Salesian Lay Missioner Andrew Wood, commissioned last August, in an email sent on April 28 answers questions on the minds of all his friends:  "What do you eat there in the missions?" and "What do you do all day?"

The second most common question I receive in life is: “Andrew what is the food like in Africa?” (the most common question is “how do you manage to be so handsome, intelligent, and entirely lovable at the same time?”).

Because of this, I’ve been wanting to write a FOOD episode for a long time. Also because food is important, and I eat it every day.

Before we jump in, I should give a small update in my life. This last month has been relatively calm, excepting a very busy and happy Easter weekend, my first time swimming since I arrived (I went to a swimming pool!), and having a tussle with malaria (excepting exhaustion, a fever, and a headache, there was nothing much wrong with me). AND I hit my 6 month mark in the Congo a few weeks ago! I think that is quite exciting.

Also, I recently created a video showing a day in the life of both myself and the other American volunteer here in the city, Barbara [Brzeski]. It’s the best look at what my life is really like here! Check it out here, and other Africa videos I’ve made (I don’t email you all of my videos… so you should really subscribe to me to keep up to date!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXFMLEiQE-A&t=24s

SO WHAT DO YOU EAT, ANDREW???

I eat Congolese food, every. single. day. "What is Congolese food?" you may ask. To answer this question, I suggest you flip to Appendix A, the photo I have attached to this email showcasing a plate of Congolese food, taken directly before I ate. Here’s what’s on that plate (starting at the top and working clockwise):

1. Bukari. Dominating the skyline of Congolese cuisine is the heart and soul of every meal: bukari. That is an imperfectly formed baseball made out of cornflour and water, boiled together. It’s flavorless by itself, but it goes well with most other Congolese foods. It’s common to eat it with fish, meat juice, or vegetables. You can use silverware, but the common Congolese fashion is to eat it with your hands. IT’S POLITE TO EAT WITH YOUR HANDS OKAY!!! Don’t judge me.
2. Fish. Fish is a super big part of the diet here. Situated to the right of the hunk of bukari in this photo, this is a pile of tiny little fish dudes, which taste awesome. However, more common is a big ol’ fish. I used to never eat these because trying to remove the bones was slow and tedious and not worth it. That was before I learned that you can: a) eat with your hands; and, b) eat a staggering amount of fish bones without unbalancing your digestive tract. Now I love eating fish.
3. Vegetables. In this photo, it’s tomatoes (yes I know they’re technically a fruit). However the usual Congolese vegetable dish is a bunch of leafy greens, ground down and boiled together to make an almost mushy mixture. Some of it is decent. Normally you eat this together with bukari.
4. Kikanda. This is a fake meat made out of peanuts. It’s pretty good usually, but occasionally saltier than the Dead Sea.
5. Rice. While it’s not as ubiquitous as in many other countries, I definitely eat my fair share of rice. The community keeps one bottle of ketchup, and it’s kind of become my thing to eat rice with ketchup. It’s how I keep in touch with my American roots.
6. Meat with juice. One of the pillars of the Congolese cuisine is meat. Notice I don’t specify the type? I usually don’t know, but sometimes it’s chicken and sometimes beef and sometimes I don’t ask. The juice is then used to flavor things and clog your arteries. It’s quite decent most of the time.

Things not shown that are common:

1. Soup. We eat soup here before every lunch and dinner, a remnant of Belgian culture. Often salty but quite comforting. I try not to slurp but no one is perfect.
2. Bread. Our breakfast every day, and many of my snacks, consists of: bread. After six months of daily excessive bread consumption, I’m pleased to report that I’m nowhere near sick of it. How is bread so good?
3. Salad. A rare but exciting member of the menu, salad is always a welcome treat, despite the only dressing being mayonnaise.
4. Caterpillars. I have eaten quite a grand number of caterpillars in my day, and I’m pleased to say that they’re not half bad!
5. Fries. Basically fried potatoes, these rarely resemble American fries and yet still get me excited! Still I miss the high-quality heart-attack-factories that are McDonald’s fries.
6. Fruit. Almost always my favorite part of the meal. Domestically, my life-long love, bananas, are common. And mangoes, when they were in season, became my addiction. However, we also occasionally eat apples and peaches and other fruits that are less common here.

This is not everything I eat here, but it is the majority. It’s mostly pretty good, and I’m so lucky to have food on a consistent basis, which is by no means guaranteed here. Still, that doesn’t mean I’m not terribly excited when I have a chance to eat something foreign! I’m planning a list of food and restaurants I need to go to when I get home.

Okay people, signing off. I hope all of your lives are dazzlingly magnificent!

Peace,

~Andrew

For more information about the Salesian Lay Missioners: http://salesianlaymissioners.org/ 

Homily for Thursday, 4th Week of Easter

Homily for Thursday
4th Week of Easter

April 26, 2018

Acts 13: 13-25
Nativity, Washington, D.C.

“From Paphos, Paul and his companions set sail and arrived at Perga in Pamphylia” (Acts 13: 13).

Parts of the middle section of Acts of the Apostles, where we are now, read like a travelog, and you probably wonder where all these strange places are.  St. Paul and his fellow missionaries are roaming all over the territory that is now Turkey and then on to Greece.

Paul Preaching in Athens, by Raphael

On the feast of St. Mark yesterday we omitted the reading from Acts that describes how St. Paul and St. Barnabas were commissioned as missionaries by the Church at Antioch in the Roman province of Syria—the 3d-largest city in the entire Roman Empire and the site of a major Christian community, where—as we heard in the reading on Tuesday, the Gospel was beginning to be preached to pagan Greeks and not only to Jews.  Thus St. Luke, the author of Acts, is showing us the gradual expansion of the faith.  In fact, we believe that Luke himself was a native of Antioch.

We’ve already heard of the 1st steps in that expansion to the Gentiles with Philip’s preaching in Samaria and to the Ethiopian, and Peter’s receiving the household of Cornelius into the Church.  That expansion continues as Paul and Barnabas, accompanied by John Mark, undertake what we now call Paul’s 1st missionary journey.  In the 1st lines of ch. 13, which we didn’t read yesterday, they go to Cyprus—where Barnabas was from (Acts 4:36)—and preach the Gospel with some success.  Today it’s back to the mainland.  They land at Perga on the coast of southern Turkey, in the province of Pamphylia, then make their way about 100 miles inland to another town called Antioch in the province of Pisidia.  (These different cities with that name were all named for members of a Greek dynasty that ruled the region after Alexander the Great until they were conquered by Rome, in the 3d and 2d centuries B.C.)

We’ll hear often how Paul and his companions go into the synagogs on the Sabbath in different cities and preach Jesus Christ.  The sermon that begins today will continue tomorrow, and it’s similar to the long sermon that St. Stephen delivered back in ch. 7 before his martyrdom.  Luke presents these sermons as typical Christian preaching, showing how Jesus of Nazareth brings to completion all that God has been doing in Israel, starting with Abraham and continuing thru Moses and David.  Jesus is the Son of David who fulfills what God promised, the salvation of his people.  And John the Baptist—whose disciples also had spread around the eastern Mediterranean—pointed to Jesus as the savior of Israel.

Thus far today’s reading.  What does it tell us?  1st, Jesus comes forth from a people, a people with a definite, God-directed history.  He’s not a myth, like the stories of the Greek and Roman gods.  2d, Jesus fulfills a plan that God set forth thru that people, Israel.  3d, by referring to that people and their history and showing forth God’s plan, Paul more effectively preaches the Gospel.

Of course that message holds true for us in the 21st century, and not just for the people of the 1st century.  It would mean even more for us if we were more familiar with Israel’s history and the words of Israel’s prophets—for they truly are our own history, our own ancestors; the Old Testament is our own Scriptures.  Our Scripture reading has to begin with the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament; but then we have to reach back to the Torah, the prophets, the Psalms, etc.

The reading, or more generally, the preaching set forth in Acts, can also point out to us that it’s important for us to know the history of Christianity after the apostles—the story of the Church from the 1st century to today.  Who are we, how did we get here, how has God continued to direct the history of his people?  How is what we believe and teach as true today in continuity with what Paul, Barnabas, Peter—and Jesus—preached?

Intensive Training to Benefit Poor Youngsters

Intensive Training to Benefit Poor Youngsters

(ANS - Vien Kham, Laos – April 25) – Laos is a country characterized by a rapidly growing economy, based mainly on investments from neighboring countries, and a very young population. For some years now, it has also become a territory where the spiritual sons of Don Bosco are active. The Salesians now intend to increase their educational offer to help the poorest young people thru a new vocational training course.

On May 24, 2004, under the auspices of Mary Help of Christians, 5 past pupils of the Salesian vocational training schools of Thailand, a teacher, and Fr. Tito Pedron – an Italian Salesian with over 40 years of missionary service in Thailand – rented a house to start the Laos Project. They started with 12 students; the year later, there were 24. When the inspectors sent by the Ministry of Labor visited, they were very impressed by the teachers’ professionalism and the students’ level of learning.

Given that the country has a Communist government, the Salesians, while enjoying the esteem of the authorities for their work in the field of formation, cannot spread the Gospel. But they can spread Don Bosco’s Preventive System thru education.

Therefore, and always with the aim of providing local youths with more opportunities for the future, the Don Bosco Center in Vientiane, the capital, has decided to carry out a project in cooperation with the Youth Union (the Laotian Communist Party’s youth organization) of Vientiane and Vien Kham, the rural site of the initiative. Don Bosco will offer an intensive vocational course to train mechanics specializing in servicing motorcycles.

“Here, where the most popular means of transport is the moped or scooter, it’s certainly a winning choice from an occupational point of view,” commented Fr. Patrizio Maccioni, SDB, also an Italian Salesian with decades as a missionary in the Thai Province, to which the work in Laos is attached. 

The course, of brief duration, will be attended by 25 youths, selected from among the poorest in the area, due to their not being able to take longer courses in more distant cities. Many will also be hosted in a boarding school. In this organizational phase, they are also trying to raise funds to support the expenses related to food, accommodation, and training of future students.

Further information is available at: www.missionidonbosco.org

Pastoral Activity in Palabek Refugee Camp

Pastoral Activity in Palabek Refugee Camp

(ANS – Palabek, Uganda - April 20) – Pastoral activities in Uganda’s Palabek Refugee Camp are led by Fr. Ubaldino Andrade, one of the Salesian missionaries serving at this newest Salesian center. The Palabek Refugee Camp welcomes about 36,000 refugees from the violence in South Sudan.

Homily for Tuesday, 4th Week of Easter

Homily for Tuesday
4th Week of Easter

April 24, 2018

Collect
Don Bosco Cristo Rey, Takoma Park, Md.

In the Collect we prayed that we might “merit to receive the joy of our redemption” thru our “celebrating the mysteries of the Lord’s Resurrection.”

Pope Francis’s recent exhortation that all of us are called to be saints reminded us that holiness is the work of God’s grace, not something we merit by our knowledge of the faith[1] or our good deeds.[2]

So what is this “merit” in our prayer?  It follows from our “celebrating the mysteries of the Lord’s Resurrection,” i.e., our sacramental participation in the life of the Risen Jesus.  So the “merit” isn’t what we do but what Jesus does—just as we acclaim at every Mass:  “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”  The healing word of Christ cleanses our souls and makes us worthy to receive him.

Likewise, “the joy of our redemption,” i.e., our salvation, is made possible by the grace of Christ flowing from his mysteries—his passion and resurrection, his eternal life, accessible to us in Baptism, the Eucharist, Reconciliation, and the other sacraments.  May we merit the joy of being redeemed by our being bound to our Savior in his mysteries.

---

        [1] Gaudete et exsultate, nos. 35-46.

        [2] Ibid., nos. 35, 47-59.

Homily for 4th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
4th Sunday of Easter

April 22, 2018

1 John 3: 1-2
Visitation Convent, Georgetown, D.C.

“See what love the Father has bestowed on us” (1 John 3: 1).

The entire Gospel—“the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” as Mark announces in the 1st verse of his version of the Gospel—is that God loves us.  We acknowledge that perhaps a little bit more on this Sunday called Good Shepherd Sunday.

from Catacombs of

St. Callixus, Rome

The Good Shepherd lays down his life to protect his sheep (John 10:11)—a supreme act of love.  The apostles heal a cripple in Jesus’ name, an act which Peter equates with salvation (Acts 4:9,12), at least in a symbolic way, a symbolic healing pointing to the complete and eternal healing won by “Jesus Christ the Nazorean . . . whom God raised from the dead.  There is no other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved” (4:10,12).  God’s love is generously shared with a great multitude of people.  In fact, the Good Shepherd enlarges God’s chosen flock:  “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  These also I must lead and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16).  These are the Gentiles—the entire human race beyond the original chosen people.  The brave Shepherd has gone before us to heaven, guiding his humble flock thither (Collect).

Why all that?  “That we may be called children of God” (1 John 3:1).  Not just called his children, but in fact become his children:  “yet so we are” (3:1).  The humble flock guarded and led by the good and brave shepherd somehow becomes so identified with the Shepherd that they are enabled to assume his status:  to become God’s children thru a mystical union with the Son—a sacramental union.

The Good Shepherd’s supreme act of love expresses the Father’s love.  By giving us his Son, the Father “has bestowed [his] love on us,” has lavished his love upon us.  That love transforms us from sinners into saints, from vagabonds into members of the family.

And, as the TV ads say, “Wait!  There’s more!”  (You do watch TV, don’t you?)  What “more”?  We are already, here and now, God’s children (3:2) thru our participation in the sacraments, which unite us to the Son.  But “what we shall be has not yet been revealed” (3:2).  That there could be more is mind-blowing; it’s way more than we can imagine.  At least more than I can!  What could be better than being a child of God for eternity alongside Jesus?

I don’t know.  But St. John says, “We do know”—notice that word:  we know, not suppose, not guess, not hope, not wish—“that when it [whatever that more is] is revealed we shall be like him,” i.e., like God himself.

The gross ambition of the 1st couple in Eden is going to be realized.  The serpent’s duplicitous promise is going to be fulfilled, after all, tho certainly not due to anything the Evil One wished:  If you eat the forbidden fruit, he told the woman, you shall be like gods (cf. Gen 3:5).  Instead, we have been commanded by “Jesus Christ the Nazorean” to take and eat, take and drink, the fruit of the earth, the fruit of the vine, to eat his Body and drink his Blood.

And this is life-giving fruit, transformative fruit for eternal life.  “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:54).  Eating this commanded fruit changes us already into the Mystical Body of Christ, God’s daughters and sons thru a most intimate union with Jesus Christ the Son of God.  And it promises more when we finally enter our Father’s eternal home.  “What we shall be has not yet been revealed.  … we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

You’ve probably heard of Medusa from Greek mythology.  The story is that anyone who looked upon her was instantly turned into stone.  I dare say there was no basis in fact for that myth, altho there certainly have been prefects of studies or deans of discipline who could freeze students with a look.  St. John, however, is telling us that when we look upon the reality of God—what has traditionally been called the “beatific vision”—we shall be changed in some way into a likeness of him—certainly not into stone but perhaps into perfect images of our Lord Jesus; not in a physical sense, for we must keep our own identity, but in some manner, moral and spiritual, beyond what we can imagine.  And this transformation will be the perfect fulfillment of all our desires and yearnings; will give us that “share in the joys of heaven” for which we prayed in the Collect; will make us happy beyond our wildest dreams and hopes—beatifically happy!

So much does God love us.  So much does he long for us to be with him forever, like the father in Jesus’ parable who watched daily for his younger son to show up in the distance, coming homeward (Luke 15:20).  So much does he freely give this gift to us without our deserving it; rather, he bestows it, like the father’s lavish and unmerited love in the parable—in sign of which we come this morning to the great banquet of the Lord’s Body and Blood, to continue the process of our transformation in love.

Salesian Websites Renewed

Salesian Websites Renewed

Updates for Valdocco and the Catacombs of St. Callistus 

(ANS – Rome – April 20) – Valdocco, the beating heart of the Salesian world; and the catacombs of St. Callistus, a space rooted to the origins of Christianity, for decades entrusted to the care of the Salesian Congregation, are both places of great spirituality and pilgrimage, and both have recently renewed their websites.

The new website of the Salesian Motherhouse, www.valdocco.it, went online this month. Characterized by a fresh and simple graphic layout, it immerses the user in the generous complexity of Valdocco.  The first access screen to the site – designed specifically by artist Salesian coadjutor Bro. Luigi Zonta – immediately reveals the different co-existing realities via interactive hotspots.

The site is divided into several sections and can be viewed quickly by the scrolling of a single page, which immediately unveils the diverse richness of the cultural, religious, and formative offer of Don Bosco’s house.  Through the new website, it is indeed possible to reach the entire “digital galaxy” hosted within Valdocco:  the website of the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians with its reception and hospitality facilities and the services available to pilgrims [apparently this is the only one that includes an English-language option]; Missioni Don Bosco; the Salesian province of Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta; Mary Help of Christians Parish; the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales; the Valdocco Middle School; the province’s Youth Ministry Office; the Valdocco Technical School; and the Salesian University College.

The Catacombs of St. Callistus are one of the largest and best preserved of Rome’s ancient Christian burial grounds.  Sixteen popes, dozens of martyrs, and many other Christians were buried within the complex.  The Salesians have been entrusted to the care of all this enormous sacred, historical, and cultural heritage site since the pontificate of Pius XI.  The new website – www.catacombe.roma.it – ​​is a means to access this capital:  there is news on the history and symbolism of the catacombs, description of the itineraries and environments to be seen, references to inscriptions, historiographical anecdotes, archaeological interpretations, etc.  And, of course, there are sections with practical information for visiting pilgrims.

Characterized by a strongly visual compact and able to capture immediately the viewer’s attention with evocative images of the whole complex, the site is available in Italian, English, Spanish, French, German, and Polish.  It also contains special modules for booking groups and Mass celebrations.

Homily for Memorial of St. Anselm

Homily for the Memorial of St. Anselm

April 21, 2018

Collect
Nativity, Washington, D.C.

“Bishop St. Anselm sought out and taught the depths of divine wisdom” (cf. Collect).

National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

Washington

St. Anselm (1033-1109) embodied the universalism of the Church, at least in his own time.  He was born in Italy, became a monk in France, and was made archbishop of Canterbury in England.

His career also had a universalism about it.  In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, he was “a monk with an intense spiritual life, an excellent teacher of the young, a theologian with an extraordinary capacity for speculation, a wise man of governance, and an intransigent defender of the Church’s freedom … who was able to harmonize all these qualities, thanks to the profound mystical experience that always guided his thought and action.”[1]

When his father wouldn’t let him enter the Benedictines, young Anselm adopted a dissipated life and began to travel.  Arriving in Normandy, he regained his faith and morals under the influence of the great abbot and teacher Lanfranc and at age 27 became a monk.  In short order, he succeeded Lanfranc as the monastery’s master teacher.  He was remarked for his respect for the freedom of his students (“an excellent teacher of the young”).

The monastic schools were the forerunners of the universities, and Anselm is considered the father of scholastic theology—that great system of thought, the “theology of the schools,” that flourished in the medieval universities in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries and whose finest examples are St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure.  It was Anselm who defined theology as “faith seeking understanding,” which is still as fine a definition as ever, and it was alluded to in today’s Collect, when we prayed “that our faith in God may aid our understanding.”

He wrote many books, the best known being those concerning the existence of God and the mystery of redemption.  Concerning our redemption, Anselm wrote a book titled Why did God become human? in which he said that since our sins have offended an infinite God, they require of us an infinite form of satisfaction or atonement, which, of course, we’re incapable of offering.  Only a Redeemer who combines the infinite nature of God and our humanity could do so—and that was the answer he posited to his question, “Why did God become human?”

After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, just a few years after Anselm entered the monastery, William the Conqueror, duke of Normandy and now king of England, brought many Norman monks and clergy to his new kingdom, including Lanfranc, whom he made archbishop of Canterbury.  So Anselm was elected abbot in his place and governed the monastery as wisely as he had taught there.

And following the deaths of both William and Lanfranc, the new king and the English bishops (who were all Normans) forced Anselm to become archbishop.  He was unwilling, but eventually he had to accept a papal command.  He was successful in reconciling the old Anglo-Saxon Church and the new, Norman-dominated one.  He was much less successful as a man of the world, as a politician, and soon had such great quarrels with 2 successive kings over the rights of the Church—concerning taxes, property, and episcopal appointments—that twice he had to go into exile (like his successor some 80 years later, Thomas Becket).  It seems that the liberty of the Church to carry out its mission to preach the Gospel in word and action is always in jeopardy from governments, which have a natural tendency to want to rule everything about the lives and even the souls of their subjects.  It was true in the Roman Empire, in Anselm’s England, behind the Iron Curtain, in Red China—and remains a danger in our own Western world.

Anselm was a great devotee of our Blessed Mother and a great man of prayer.  All of his study aimed at knowing God better, at entering more deeply into contemplation.  One of his prayers is:  “I pray, O God, to know you, to love you, that I may rejoice in you.  And if I cannot attain to full joy in this life, may I at least advance from day to day, until that joy shall come to [its fullness].”[2]  Perhaps that prayer was the inspiration for our Collect petition that our faith-aided understanding “may give delight to our hearts.”  For delight—eternal joy—is the final object of all our believing, our study, our following and loving Jesus.

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      [1] Church Fathers and Teachers from Saint Leo the Great to Peter Lombard (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2010), pp. 146-147.

      [2] Cited by Benedict XVI, loc. cit., p. 149.

Homily for Thursday, 3d Week of Easter

Homily for Thursday, 3d Week of Easter

April 19, 2018

Acts 8: 26-40
Nativity, Washington, D.C.

“The angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, ‘Get up and head south on the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza’” (Acts 8: 26).

The Philip whose apostolic activity is reported in Acts 8 isn’t the apostle Philip but the deacon Philip, one of the 7 chosen to serve the needs of the Greek-speaking widows in ch. 6.  Stephen was the 1st of those 7, followed by Philip.

Yesterday’s reading described some of his preaching in Samaria and the conversion of the 1st batch of non-Jewish believers.  Today we have a new episode in a different geographical zone.  Samaria is north of Jerusalem; the road to Gaza is southwest of the city.  Here Philip encounters a foreigner from—the scholars tell us—what is now Sudan, south of Egypt, and not the country that we know as Ethiopia.  However that may be, he’s some sort of convert to Judaism and has just been worshiping in the holy city.  Now he’s on his way home, and he’s reading from the Scriptures.

In the ancient world, people read aloud, not silently as we do.  So Philip hears him as he reads from Isaiah.  The passage is one of those that foretell the sufferings of Jesus—one of those texts so often referred to in Acts, and also Luke 24 (the disciples on the road to Emmaus), about the necessity of the Christ to suffer and so fulfill God’s plan.

So that point is made again—a most fundamental point of Christian teaching.  We follow a God-man who suffered and died, as we suffer and die, but who rose physically from the dead and who will raise us up too if we follow him faithfully.

The 2d point of the reading today is the continuing spread of Jesus’ message to the non-Jewish world:  1st Samaria, now to black Africa, and soon to Greeks and even Romans.  Jesus’ salvation is for the entire world.

The 3d point is the joy that the Ethiopian experiences as he proceeds, now baptized.  Yesterday’s reading about the Samaritan converts ended on that same note, and it’s a note mentioned repeatedly in Acts.  When students of religion and of history ask how it was that Christianity so quickly and so completely captured the Roman Empire, in spite of abundant prejudice and vicious persecution, one of the answers is the joy of believers.  What is it that makes these people so happy?  I want to know.  I want to be part of that.  And that, dear sisters and brothers, is still a powerful message, a powerful witness to Jesus that we ought to be giving to our families, friends, co-workers, and the whole world.