48th Pilgrimage to Shrine of Ceferino Namuncura

48th Pilgrimage to Shrine of Ceferino Namuncurá

(ANS – Chimpay, Argentina – August 28) – On August 26, the 48th annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Blessed Ceferino Namuncurá took place. This year’s theme was “Like young Ceferino, let’s renew history.”

Homily for the Passion of St. John the Baptist

Homily for the Memorial of the
Passion of St. John the Baptist

August 29, 2018

Collect
Don Bosco Cristo Rey, Takoma Park, Md.

The Collect for this memorial of the Passion of St. John the Baptist, i.e., his martyrdom, recalls that he was “a martyr for truth and justice” and then asks for us the grace to “fight hard for the confession” of divine teachings.

The Beheading of St. John the Baptist

(Pierre Puvis de Chavannes)

In our time there’s certainly a mass of divine teaching under assault, maybe none more than the teaching that figured in John’s martyrdom.  That’s the divine teaching about chastity.  Recent events bring home to us that church people must model that virtue.  But it’s not only a matter of protecting God’s children, as important as that is.  It’s that we have to show them the beauty, the wholesomeness of chastity in itself, and its place in the divine plan for our happiness.  Chastity isn’t only priestly celibacy but also marital chastity and the chastity of teenagers and single young adults.  Chastity is safeguarded by such old-fashioned practices as modesty in dress and manner and custody of the eyes and ears and thoughts.  In our age, these are hard teachings—not as hard as John’s preaching to King Herod, to be sure.  But it seems like an uphill battle to teach them, preach them, and practice them in our culture.

Our teaching begins with our own manner of life, our own example, in our interactions with our students, with each other, in our families:  the language we use, what we watch on TV, the movies we see, how we use social media, the respect we give to one another.  Against the prevailing culture, it’s a kind of martyrdom.  But as you know, martyr means “witness.”  Like John the Baptist, we bear witness to the truth:  the truth of who we are as God’s children, to how Jesus teaches us to live.

Homily for 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

Aug. 26, 2018

John 6: 60-69
Josh 24: 1-2, 15-18
Collect
Nativity, Washington

“Do you want to leave too?” (John 6: 67).

How many times have you heard that this is a period of crisis?  There’s a crisis in the Middle East!  There’s a crisis in Korea!  Every 4 years the Democrats and the Republicans tell us we’re facing the most important election of our lifetime; it’s a political crisis!  We have an economic crisis, an immigration crisis, a leadership crisis.  We have a vocations crisis, an abuse crisis, an episcopal crisis.  The Church is in crisis!

In today’s gospel there’s a crisis—maybe 2 crises (that’s the plural).  A crisis is a decision point or a time of judgment.

Christ Teaching in the Synagog

(source unknown)

It seems that Jesus faces a crisis:  lots of his followers are abandoning him.  After his teaching on the Bread of Life—the Eucharist—many of his disciples mutter, “This is too much; this teaching’s too hard.  Who can accept it?  This is crazy!” (cf. John 6:60)  What’s Jesus to think?  Has he gone too far or too fast or not explained himself well?  Should he have doubts about his mission or his understanding of his Father’s will?  But, no, he stands firm, decisive:  “Does this shock you?  What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?  [He knows who he is!]  It’s the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.  The words that I’ve spoken to you are spirit and life.” (6:61-63)

He turns to the 12, his closest disciples, his friends.  For them, as for the mass of disciples, it’s a decision point.  Will they listen to what Jesus has been saying?  Can they believe he’s the Bread of Life, that the spirit gives life and the flesh is useless?  Will they remain with him? (cf. 6:67)

There’s a famous line in the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup, spoken by Chico:  “Who ya gonna believe?  Me or your own eyes?”  Bring that to our gospel:  “Can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (6:52)  Is Jesus truly “the bread that came down from heaven,” and “whoever eats this bread will live forever”? (6:58)  Or is he only a carpenter from Nazareth who’s been out in the sun too long?

Simon Peter, as usual the leader, the most perceptive of the 12, or at least the most impetuous, answers for all of them—or maybe all except Judas (cf. 6:64):  “Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life” (6:68).

Certainly Simon doesn’t fully comprehend what Jesus means in his teaching about the Bread of Life, about his Body and Blood.  But he knows Jesus well enuf to trust him implicitly.  He makes a fundamental decision:  Jesus, I’m sticking with you.  Jesus, you will lead me to eternal life.

In the 1st reading, the Israelites also had to make a fundamental decision, which Joshua, successor of Moses and their leader in the invasion of the Promised Land, put before them.  Will you revert to the worship of “the gods your ancestors served beyond the River” (Josh 24:15), i.e., in Mesopotamia, whence Abraham had migrated?  Or will you adopt the worship of the gods of your new neighbors in Canaan—the Amorites and other peoples?  Or will you adhere to “the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt”? (24:16)  The gods beyond the Euphrates and the gods of Canaan were visible—idols—and enticing in their fertility rites, and not morally demanding; whereas the God of the Sinai covenant is invisible, chaste, very demanding, and intolerant of deviations.  Joshua left them free to choose—as tribes or clans—but compelled a decision (24:15).

So does God compel us, speaking to us thru his Son Jesus Christ, thru the voice of the Church of Jesus—I mean the authentic voice of the Church, not the misleading voices of false shepherds—and thru the events of our own life experience.

I just made a retreat in which the preacher warned us against what he calls the 8 Ps of the false self, 8 temptations that try to convince us that they’re our way to happiness and fulfillment.  All of us to some extent buy into 1 or more of them:  power, prestige, possessions, productivity, popularity, people, pleasure, and praise.  Those, of course, are the idols, the false gods, that we worship—against which Jesus challenges us to choose, to make our fundamental decision.

As we’ve seen again in recent weeks—Church history has shown it repeatedly—even the clergy are susceptible to the enticements of the 8 Ps.  But St. Paul cautions us, “Whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall” (1 Cor 10:12).

At the beginning of Mass we prayed in the Collect about our fundamental decision:  “amid the uncertainties of this world, may our hearts be fixed on that place where true gladness is found.”

For our personal experience has shown us time and again, hasn’t it, that power, prestige, possessions, productivity, popularity, people, pleasure, and praise are very uncertain matters, as fleeting as the morning fog, as unsatisfying in the long term—even in the medium term—as an ice cream cone.  Our hearts want more—true gladness, lasting gladness.

St. Peter

(St. Waltrude Collegiate Church, Mons, Belgium)

St. Peter tells us where to find that:  “Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”

Don’t be sidetracked, then, by the glitter you see with your physical eyes or easy teachings that tickle your ears; to quote St. Paul again, “The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and they will turn away from listening to the truth” (2 Tim 4:3-4).  The world around us is full of baloney:  in politics, in public morality, in economic selfishness, in the fear of people who differ from us, in slogans like “Grab all the gusto you can,” “Look out for #1,” “Get the other guy before he gets you,” “Greed is good,” “I did it my way.”

Jesus, instead, tells us that our joy—our “true gladness”—lies in serving others, in fidelity, in putting God 1st in our lives, in establishing a firm and trusting relationship with him.  “Master, to whom shall we go?  Where else can we go?  You have the words of the eternal life.”  You are “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

Province Sends Out Another 7 Lay Missioners

Province Sends Out Another 7 Lay Missioners

(Haverstraw, N.Y. – August 17) – This year’s crop of Salesian Lay Missioners was unusually small; but we all know that it’s quality that counts. Fr. Mark Hyde, director of Salesian Missions, and Adam Rudin, director of the SLM program, are confident that the 7 missioners commissioned on August 17 are of top quality.

One recreational activity of the SLMs’ retreat week is a day hike in Harriman State Park or Bear Mountain. This year the schedule allowed the hike only on Monday, which was the only day of the week it rained—but not until your humble blogger/veteran Harriman hiker got them to the Stockbridge shelter, where they celebrated Mass and ate lunch.  They got pretty wet on the hike back to the bus.

The Salesian Lay Missioners Program has been a missionary project of the New Rochelle Province for more than 30 years.

As usual, the candidates had a long discernment process that included weekend visits to New Rochelle and a general introduction to the program. Those who eventually applied were evaluated, and those who were accepted were invited to the 3-week orientation program that began in late July and culminated in their commissioning during Evening Prayer on August 17.

During the commissioning rite, in the presence of some 40 SDBs in the retreat house chapel, 

Fr. Tim Zak prayed over the SLMs first and later blessed them.

The candidates received lots of information and visited some Salesian works in the first week of orientation, did service work at St. John Bosco Parish in Port Chester in their second week, and made a retreat (with paperwork to do and more information thrown at them) in the final week. The retreat, as usual, coincided with the SDBs’ August retreat at Don Bosco Retreat Center in Haverstraw, so that they were able to meet and get to know more than 30 SDBs by praying, eating, and recreating with them. They also witnessed six temporary professed confreres renew vows during Mass on the solemnity of the Assumption and Bros. Dan Glass and Tom Junis make their the first profession of vows on August 16—two rites that duly impressed them.

Fr. Tim places the missionary cross over the head of Steve Stafstrom.

Finally, on the 17th Fr. Tim Zak presided at their commissioning during Evening Prayer, blessing them and their crosses and bestowing the crosses upon them. This year each SLM read a personal statement of commitment, hope, and/or prayer concerning her or his mission—rather than a formal commitment read by the entire group.

The new SLMs are Katie Braun from Florida, going to Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Katie Church from Indiana, to Phnom Penh; Eden Gordon from Florida, to Montero, Bolivia; Alaina Mikulcik from Kentucky, to Montero; Matthew Nguyen from Washington state, to East New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea; Stephen Stafstrom from Florida, to East New Britain; and Eamon Webb from Florida, to Da Lat, Vietnam. We’re pleased to note that Katie Church is an alumna of Mary Help of Christians Academy in North Haledon, N.J.

After the first profession of Bro. Dan Glass, who was an SLM in South Sudan in 2012-2013, the new SLMs demanded a group photo with him. The women (l-r): Clare Pressimone, returned SLM (Cambodia)-member of the orientation team; Katie Braun; Alaina Mikulcik; Katie Church; Eden Gordon. The men (l-r): Steve Stafstrom; Bro. Dan; Adam Rudin, SLM director; Bro. Craig Spence, former home missioner (Paterson, NYC)-member of the orientation team; Matt Nguyen; and Eamon Webb.

Bros. Dan Glass and Tom Junis Make First Profession

Bros. Dan Glass and Tom Junis Make First Profession

On August 16, Don Bosco’s 203rd birthday, the New Rochelle Province welcomed Bros. Dan Glass, SDB, and Tom Junis, SDB, as new members consecrated by temporary vows.

Bro. Dan Glass, SDB

The two new brothers pronounced their vows before Fr. Tim Zak, provincial, during a Mass celebrated in the Marian Shrine chapel at Haverstraw, N.Y. It was an intimate Salesian gathering of 35 concelebrants (including two priests from Philadelphia, friends of Bro. Dan), 2 deacons, 12 coadjutor brothers, 8 clerics, our 2 prenovices, 9 Salesian Lay Missioners, and numerous family members and friends of Bros. Dan and Tom.

Bro. Tom Junis, SDB

The new brothers had made their novitiate in Richmond, Calif., under the guidance of Fr. Tom Juarez, master of novices, and his assistant Fr. John Puntino.

Bro. Dan and Fr. Tom are the first newly professed in the New Rochelle Province since 2015.

Bro. Dan Glass’s Vocation Story

Bro. Dan was born in 1988, the son of David and Maryann Glass. He was raised in Malvern, Pa., where the family are members of St. Patrick Parish. His pastor greatly influenced his vocation. He says, “Fr. Chris Redcay’s dedication to serving the parish and his love for the parishioners was a beautiful example of what it means to be a pastor, to be devoted to Christ and the service of our brothers and sisters.”

Dan served as a Salesian Lay Missioner in South Sudan in 2012-2013, first at Wau and then at Maridi. He came to know Don Bosco and the Salesians through the SLM discernment process, orientation, and living in community with and ministering alongside the Salesians for a year.

Continued discernment after his return from South Sudan led Dan to apply to join the Salesians. He was accepted as a candidate and entered the formation program in Orange, N.J., in August 2015. He says: “At first it was the apostolate that attracted me to the Salesians. I loved the missionary focus and my time in South Sudan. I also loved working with young people while I was the director of religious education at St. Patrick Parish.

Bro. Dan Glass makes his profession, backed by his parents Maryann and David Glass. 

Deacon Juan Pablo Rubio and Fr. Dominic Tran served as witnesses.

“As I continued to learn what it means to be a Salesian and what the spirit of a Salesian is, in addition to the apostolate, it was the joy, loving kindness, and prayer life that continued to inspire me.”

The novitiate in Richmond is adjacent to Salesian College Preparatory High School. So, in addition to doing what novices do—learning to pray, studying the Constitutions, living the vows, etc.—he found tremendous joy in “spending time with the students and feeling at home in the school environment. In a year that gave me extra time to pray and explore the Salesian Constitutions, it was a huge blessing to have Salesian College Prep next door to help me see the spirit and joy of the Constitutions come alive. With the students present each day, we were able to see everything that we had been learning come to life.”

Bro. Dan is thinking of eventually returning to the foreign missions. He says, “It is my hope to appeal to the Rector Major as a missionary to the nations; to help build the Salesian Congregation where it is in most need, to bring the Gospel and to serve the young and the poor who are most vulnerable and in need.”

Bro. Tom Junis’s Vocation Story

Bro. Tom is the youngest son of Mitch and Margie Junis. He was born in Bloomington, Ill., in 1992. The family are members of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Bloomington.

Bro. Tom earned a degree in early childhood education from Illinois State University in Bloomington before becoming a Salesian candidate at Orange on January 1, 2016. His education studies had already led him to St. John Bosco, whom he took as a patron for his educational efforts. In college, he says, “I really found my passion for working with young people and finding God in them and wanting to give my life to God.”

The influences in shaping Bro. Tom’s vocation were his parents, the religious sisters at the ISU campus Newman Center, and the late Msgr. Greg Ketcham, a Salesian Cooperator.

The sisters at ISU also urged Tom to contact the Salesians at the University of Illinois Newman Center in Champaign. He did so and started meeting monthly with Fr. Bill Bucciferro to learn more about Don Bosco and the Salesians. Fr. Bill encouraged him to go on the Don Bosco bicentennial pilgrimage to Turin in 2015 as part of his discernment. That pilgrimage was decisive; he prayed that Don Bosco let him know whether he was called “to offer my life to God and the young … as a Salesian.” On his return to the U.S. he learned of his acceptance as a candidate—the sign he desired.

Bro. Tom Junis makes his profession, backed by his parents Margie and Mitch Junis. 

Frs. Abe Feliciano and Bill Bucciferro served as witnesses.

For Bro. Tom reports that “the best part of novitiate was accompanying the students [of Salesian College Prep] when we had free time and really finding God in them and trying to be a sign of God’s love to them, and the friendships made with them.”

Eventually, he says, “I would like to work at a boys and girls club or youth center to be able to use my gift of working with younger kids and use what I learned from my Early Childhood Education degree. I would also love to specialize in college campus ministry; it was something I enjoyed during my time in college, and I know our Salesian charism would bear great fruit in a college setting in helping students discern their vocation.”

Our Life Project: To Share God’s Love

Fr. Tim Zak’s homily pointed to Don Bosco’s encounter with Bartholomew Garelli on Dec. 8, 1841, as a key moment in his discernment of his life’s project of making service to the poorest young people his apostolic passion. The lessons that John Bosco learned from his mother—God’s presence all around him in nature and in daily life—and his training at the Convitto Ecclesiastico in how to be a priest assisted him in this discernment of what God was asking of him.

Fr. Tim said: “As it was for Don Bosco, so it is for us and the young today. God calls each of us, with all the specificity and peculiarities of our lives. This is an action of God’s grace, to which we respond with our gifts and our limitations.” As indicated in the first reading of the Mass (from Isaiah 44), Fr. Tim continued, God calls Israel and us with a personal love; he calls us to be his “darlings” and to convey his love also to others who “are waiting for the announcement of the Good News, for someone to share with them the living water [of the Holy Spirit]. Our vocation is oriented toward mission. We don’t live for ourselves. . . . God’s love is to be shared with them also.”

This is the vocation of Bro. Dan and Bro. Tom and of every Salesian, as it was Don Bosco’s.

More photos from the celebration: https://pix.sfly.com/k5Rgg5

Newly professed Bro. Dan Glass (2nd from left) and Bro. Tom Junis (2d from right) 

with (l-r) Deacon Eddy Chincha, Fr. Tim Zak, Fr. Tom Juarez, and Deacon Juan Pablo Rubio.

Salesian priests and brothers gather around their newly professed confreres after Mass.

Homily for 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Aug. 19, 2018

John 6: 51-58
Nativity, Washington, D.C.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (John 6: 51).

Jesus speaks very clearly in the gospel we just heard that whoever comes to him in faith and eats his flesh and drinks his blood will have life.

In the last couple of months we’ve had our faith drastically tested—not in the Eucharist but in the Catholic Church.  The scabs of old wounds have been ripped off and the wounds rubbed and scratched painfully:  the wounds caused by disgraceful priests, brothers, deacons, and other church personnel and—to use a mild word—inadequate bishops, which we learned about in 2002 thanks to aggressive reporting by secular media.

We may wish that the reporting were just as aggressive in exposing sexual abuse and its cover-ups in other institutions such as the public schools and Planned Parenthood.  (Almost everyone[1] thinks abortion should be legal when the pregnancy is a result of incest, but PP and everyone else protects the abusers of those girls.)

But the secular media have done right to expose the shameful sins of Catholic clergy and others in positions of trust—and now, more than in 2002—of our bishops.  You as faithful Catholics and I as a priest feel betrayed and we’re angry.  Not to mention the terrible harm that’s been done to victims and their families by predators whom they trusted or who were in authority over them and were supposed to protect them.

There were truckloads of apologies in 2002, and there was serious action to protect the young and vulnerable thenceforth.  That serious action has been hugely successful.  More than 99% of abuse cases that have been revealed since 2002 concern incidents that predate 2002.

Even 1%, of course, is too many new incidents, too many new victims.  We are sorry, we are angry, we need to help victims heal, we need to be ever vigilant to protect our young people and the vulnerable.

And we need action from our bishops and from the Roman Curia, not more apologies.  We need them to obey the law—the secular law and the moral law.  We need them to come completely clean and to police themselves as much as they’re policed the clergy and teachers and church workers.  We have a God-given right to shepherds whose 1st priority is to tend their flocks with loving care.

As a priest in 2002, I was unhappy (putting it very mildly) that the Dallas Charter held priests and religious and other church workers to a very high standard of moral behavior—that was right—but ignored episcopal responsibility for what bishops had ignored or covered up or, as we’ve now learned, were actively doing themselves, at least in the case of Abp. McCarrick.

As a Salesian and a Boy Scout chaplain, I was in a quandary about how best to minister to young people.  Sometimes a touch, an embrace, is an appropriate pastoral action.  Dare I?  Sometimes you have to have a confidential conversation—or confession—but how “alone” can you be with a kid?  16 years after the Boston Globe blew open this scandal, I still feel a little awkward when a minor comes to confession face to face even tho that’s a beautiful way to celebrate Reconciliation.

I can hardly begin to imagine the hurt of those who’ve been abused by an adult they trusted, maybe admired at one point, or who was expected to be their shepherd and not a wolf.  Whatever I’ve experienced as a priest, whatever you feel as Catholic faithful, is nothing compared to what victims have endured, and their families.  May God help us all!

Christ Blessing the World

(Melozzo da Forli)

And that’s the point:  our faith is in Jesus Christ, not in cardinals, bishops, priests, or any other human beings.  It’s for Jesus, the Bread of Life, that we come to church—not for Cardinal Wuerl, not for former Cardinal McCarrick, not for Fr. Evans, not for Fr. Mike, not for anyone else.  They haven’t poured out their blood on a cross for the redemption of your sins.  Only Jesus is our Savior.  Only he is the bread that has come down from heaven.  Only he in the Eucharist offers us communion with God and access to the banquet of eternal life.

Do what you can to let the bishops know that they have failed us and need to do far more to be shepherds of the flock.  Pray for them, and for Pope Francis and the Curia in Rome that they may see what needs to be done to purify the Church—not only in America but in too many countries, too many episcopates around the world.

And pray for us priests that we may be faithful shepherds, truly alteri Christi, other Christs who care for you, nourish you, and sacrifice ourselves for you.

Pray for the victims of abuse by church people, and pray for the perpetrators too.  May God’s grace be upon us all.

---

      [1] “Everyone” does not include the Catholic Church or the natural moral law.  Every unborn human being, no matter how he or she was conceived, has a natural right to life.  To interrupt that life on account of incest or rape is a crime against humanity and a grave sin.

Ten Confreres Renew Temporary Profession

Ten Confreres Renew Temporary Profession

(L-R) Bros. Simon Song, Travis Gunther, Ky Nguyen; Fr. Tim Zak; Bro. Steve DeMaio; 

Deacon Eddy Chincha; Bros. Sasika Lokuhettige and John Langan.

In the middle of their annual spiritual retreat at the Don Bosco Retreat Center in Haverstraw, N.Y., six young Salesians renewed their temporary vows on the solemnity of the Assumption (August 15) at a Mass presided over by the provincial, Fr. Timothy Zak. Fr. Tim also preached.

In anticipation of making their perpetual profession when the Rector Major visits the province next month, Bros. Steven DeMaio, Travis Gunther, and John Langan professed “until September 7, 2018.” Bro. Simon Song renewed his vows for 3 years and Bro. Sasika Lokuhettige for one year in accordance with their stages of postnovitiate formation. Bro. Ky Nguyen professed for one month while some paperwork gets processed.

On the same day, at Granby, Que., during the SDB retreat for (mostly) Canadian confreres, Fr. Derek Van Daniker and Bro. Branden Gordon renewed their vows for a 3-year period before Fr. Richard Authier, presider at the Mass and former provincial of Canada (which is now part of the New Rochelle Province, again).
And at Abp. Shaw HS in Marrero, La., Bros. Ron Chauca and Josh Sciullo renewed their vows for 3 years in the presence of the student body on August 15.  School's already in session down South.  Fr. Lou Molinelli, director of the SDB community on the West Bank, received their vows.

In the Mass celebrated at Haverstraw, Fr. Tim preached on the revolutionary nature of the Virgin Mary’s Magnificat (from the gospel of the day).  Herewith a summary from my notes:

The text is so familiar to us, Fr. Tim said, that we may miss the revolutionary ideas that she voices, such as God's putting down the mighty and raising the humble.

This "revolution" isn't Mary's doing but God's. Mary just announces the divine gospel of social renewal. She praises the radical works that God has been doing.

Mary's not a pious image; she's a woman of faith, the 1st disciple of Jesus.  Our young SDBs are making a revolutionary, radical step.  They, and we, lack the social supports that religious might have had in other times.

The renewal of our Congregation that we're called upon to make at this time, and the renewal of our vows, is an invitation to make a free and loving response to God's love, to enter a relationship with him.  Our personal weaknesses and past failures aren't obstacles to him; they so tiny compared with what he announces as his doings in the Magnificat.

Our invitation is to surrender to him even our "baggage" and to make an absolute commitment to be faithful to the young and accompany them into a relationship with the Lord.

Mary was a nobody attached to a nobody (Joseph) from nowhere (Nazareth). She has nothingness.  These are the people whom God chooses--like us.
We look to Mary as a woman of great faith, a sign of hope for us, a teacher for us and for the young.  We are signs of hope for the young.

Mary is a sign of transformation--of what God can do is a life that's open to him and to what he can do.

We ask for Mary's help or our mission as our teacher and guide.

The Joy of Miriam and Elizabeth (source unknown)

Photos: https://pix.sfly.com/Yh38g9

Homily for 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
19th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Aug. 11, 1985; Aug. 7, 1988

John 6:  41-51
St. Joseph, Florida, N.Y.
St. Catharine, Pelham, N.Y.

This weekend I’m at the Salesian retreat house in Haverstraw, N.Y.  Here’s an old homily that I thought was good enuf to give a 2d time 😊 (or was so pressed with obligations in 1988 that I resorted to the desperate measure of recycling it ☹).

“The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6: 15).

Miracle of the Loaves & Fish (James Tissot)

We’re right in the middle now of our 5 weeks of reading ch. 6 of St. John.

This chapter is critically important because it gives us John’s Eucharistic theology.  Jesus is the bread of life.  Like the manna which God sent from heaven in the time of Moses, Jesus means life and sustenance to those who receive him—receive his life-giving word, as we were told last week and again this week; and receive even his very flesh, which he tells us for the 1st time today.

What is the Eucharist, this sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord?  It’s the sign by which the living and risen Christ presents himself to us, making us present, by a sacred mystery, at his crucifixion, when he poured out his blood for us as a lamb of sacrifice, and at his resurrection, when he triumphed over death and over death’s roots, sin.  Thru the Eucharist, we share in his life:  now, by anticipation; later, by a like resurrection.  “You are what you eat” is never truer than when we partake of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Is it important for us to eat?  It’s essential.  He himself commands us to “take and eat,” to “do this in memory of” him.  He himself says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (John 6:53-54).

Many people ask, how can what looks like bread be really the body and blood of Jesus Christ?  Listen to the words of St. Ambrose in the 4th century:

We see that grace can accomplish more than nature....  If the words of Elijah had power even to bring down fire from heaven, will not the words of Christ have power to change the natures of the elements?  You have read that in the creation of the whole world, “he spoke and they came to be; he commanded and they were created” (Ps 148:5).  If Christ could by speaking create out of nothing what did not yet exist, can we say that his words are unable to change existing things into something they previously were not?[1]

And who would doubt the words of Jesus himself:  “This is my body, which is given for you” (Luke 22:19); “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:24);  “The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.  For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” (John 6:51,55)?

The Last Supper (Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret)

If we truly believe that the Eucharist is the body and blood of the Lord Jesus—and we aren’t Catholics if we do not believe it—then what?  We must approach the table of the Lord and share in his banquet, which is an invitation to the heavenly feast.  But we must approach worthily and reverently.

St. Paul already had to warn the Corinthians,

Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup unworthily sins against the body and blood of the Lord.  A man should examine himself first; only then should he eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  He who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks a judgment on himself. (1 Cor 11: 27-29)

We cannot come to the Lord’s table with serious sin on our conscience; we need 1st to be reconciled with him, restored to friendship with him and with his whole body, which is the Church.  (In fact, it’s good for us to confess even our less serious sins monthly).

Most of us approach the Eucharist with reverence.  Reverence begins with the Eucharistic fast from all food and drink except plain water or medicine, a fast of at least an hour before the time of communion.

In many parishes where I’ve been, there have been a few people who need practical pointers on reverence in receiving the Eucharist.  In fact, it seems to be a worldwide problem because the Vatican recently issued a letter just on this topic.[2]  Reverence means that you approach the Eucharist respectfully; in fact, we keep a respectful and prayerful silence thruout the church.  You approach usually with folded hands or with hymnal, singing.

When you reach the minister of Communion, you have the choice of receiving in your hand or on your tongue.  How do you receive reverently on your tongue?

(a)  Come close to the minister.

(b)  Open your mouth.

(c)  Put out your tongue.

(d)  Don’t lick or bite his fingers.

(e)  Stand still.

(f)  Don’t eat candy or chew gum just before Mass

[Comment on each point.]

And if you choose to receive Communion in your hand,

(a)  Put out your hand as your approach the minister.

(b)  Place one hand open upon the other, making it, in the words of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, “a throne for … the King.”  For it is the King of the universe whom you are receiving.

(c)  Let the minister place the Eucharist in your hand.  The Vatican letter says, in almost so many words, that the faithful do not seize the Eucharist from the Church but receive it from the Church thru the Church’s minister.

(d)  Step aside and consume the host.

(e)  It needs to be said, especially for youngsters, that your hands have to be clean.  You may not be wearing gloves, and I’d advise against receiving in your hand if you’re unfortunate enuf to have a cast on your hand.

As you come to Communion, the minister holds the host before you and says, “The Body of Christ.”  You answer, “Amen,” affirming your faith that this is indeed Christ’s body, the body in which he died and rose for your salvation.

“Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” (Resp. Psalm).  May we taste his goodness here and for eternity.

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     [1] On the Mysteries, 52 (LOH 3:511).

     [2] Congregation for Divine Worship, Notificazione sulla Comunione in mano, April 3, 1985 (BCL Newsletter, June/July 1985, pp. 27-28).

Homily for the Memorial of St. Dominic

Homily for the Memorial
of St. Dominic

Aug. 8, 2018

Collect
Our Lady of Lourdes, Bethesda, Md.

“May St. Dominic, who was an outstanding preacher of your truth, be a devoted intercessor on our behalf” (Collect).

When Ignatius Loyola was recuperating from the grievous wound he’d suffered in battle in 1521, the only books that could be found in the family castle were a life of Christ and a lives of the saints.  He was terribly disappointed there were no knightly romances such as he liked, but he set to reading what he had.  And he was entranced by the saints, especially the lives of St. Francis and St. Dominic.  These stories gradually led to his conversion from his scandalous ways, as he savored the joy that he found in the saints and aspired to imitate them.

Who was St. Dominic?  He was a Spanish priest born around 1170 who had the chance to pursue a career of prestige and comfort.  Instead, having seen, while traveling with his bishop, the need for the Gospel to be preached to the pagans on the borders of Christian countries in northern Europe and for the Church to address heresy rampant in southern France, he decided to devote his life to evangelization.  The Pope asked him to tackle the heretics of southern France who, in the description of Pope Benedict, “upheld a dualistic conception of reality, that is, with two equally powerful creator principles, Good and Evil.  This group consequently despised matter as coming from the principle of evil.  They even refused marriage and went to the point of denying the Incarnation of Christ and the sacraments, in which the Lord ‘touches’ us through matter, and the resurrection of bodies.”

Dominic preached with both the Sacred Scriptures and the example of his life, noted for his poverty and his practice of charity.  Before he died in 1221, he had gathered like-minded priests around him and formed the Order of Preachers—the Dominicans—who carry on the mission that he undertook.  In a radical move for the early 13th century, he insisted that his friars had to be men of learning, even going to those new institutions being raised in the cities, the universities.  They had to study the Scriptures and all things related to the culture of the times, the better to reach and evangelize the people of Western Europe as the period we call the Renaissance was beginning.  Like Dominic, they also had to live holy lives that exemplified what they preached.

Numerous orders and congregations of religious women have adopted the Rule that Dominic laid out for his friars.  The Dominican family has given us great saints like Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Rose of Lima, and Martin de Porres, among many others.

St. Dominic receives the Rosary

from the Blessed Virgin

Dominic believed very much in devotion to the Virgin Mary, and the Rosary is generally attributed to him.  And he preached and practiced prayers of intercession addressed to Christ, Mary, and the saints for the benefit of the Church and its apostolic mission—which is why our Collect asked the Father to allow him to “be a devoted intercessor on our behalf.”

So, Dominic teaches us that our intercessory prayer is important, that we need to be devoted to the Virgin Mary, and that our Christian lives are a powerful preaching of the Gospel.