Homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost

Homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost

May 31, 2020

Acts 2: 1-11
1 Cor 12: 3-7, 12-13
Provincial House, New Rochelle, livestreamed              

INTRODUCTION TO MASS

   Altho churches in some dioceses have been reopening in recent days, that’s not so in New York, and we continue to welcome everyone to our Mass at the Salesian Provincial Center and Salesian High School in New Rochelle.  We continue to pray for you, your families, health care providers, first responders, and providers of essential services.  We pray for the sick, those who’ve lost their jobs, those who are hungry.  We pray for the more than 103,000 who have perished in our country and the hundreds of thousands who have died everywhere else during this Covid-19 pandemic.  By God’s grace and our own prudence, may it end soon.

   Today we celebrate Pentecost, the feast of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Church gathered in prayer in the Upper Room.  We reflect on the vocation that the Spirit gave each of us at Baptism and Confirmation to continue Jesus’ work.  As the Lord renews us by his grace, we pray that thru us he will renew humanity.

   Let us call to mind our sins.
   Lord Jesus, you lavish your Spirit upon us:  Lord, have mercy.
   Lord Jesus, your Spirit gives us strength and courage:  Christ, have mercy.
   Lord Jesus, you send us into the world with the Good News of salvation:  Lord, have mercy.

HOMILY

If you take out a dollar bill, you’ll find on its reverse side the Great Seal of the U.S.  The seal has several Latin inscriptions that were important to our Founding Fathers’ understanding of the new nation they’d just created.  One of those inscriptions, emblazoned on the ribbon around the eagle’s head, is E pluribus unum, which means, “Out of many, one.”  You might need a magnifying glass to read it.  For many years it was the U.S.’ unofficial motto.  (For the record, the official motto, since 1956, is “In God we trust.”

“Out of many, one.”  Many what?  It might mean the many states, 13 of them, that came together to form one nation based on common principles, ideals, laws, and purpose.  It might mean the many national groups—English, Scottish, Irish, German, French, Dutch—that made up most of the people of the new nation, fought for its establishment, and subscribed to its founding principles.  To our shame, one group also comprised of many ethnic peoples was long excluded from national participation, even tho numerically and economically they were very significant, namely, those of African heritage.  We have witnessed in the last week that our national shame has not been entirely cleansed.

“Out of many, one” also describes what we celebrate today.  120 disciples of Jesus were gathered in the Upper Room, and on them the fire and the wind of the Holy Spirit descended and settled, fusing them into one confident, vigorous Church ready to proclaim the redemption that Jesus Christ has won for us.  “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit” (1 Cor 12:4), St. Paul teaches.  “As a body is one tho it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, tho many, are one body, so also Christ” (1 Cor 12:12).

“Out of many, one.”  The account in the Acts of the Apostles lists 15 ethnic groups, representing most of the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and Rome itself, all of them hearing the preaching of the apostles in their own native languages.  It must have been what Ellis Island sounded like at the turn of the last century every time an immigrant ship arrived from Hamburg, Le Havre, or Liverpool—only then no one, not even the immigration officials, understood much, which is why so many immigrants had their names changed when they registered.

“Out of many, one.”  The peoples of many tongues who passed thru Ellis Island and other ports of entry—San Francisco, Brownsville, Boston, and dozens of others—eventually learned one tongue that helps unite Americans into one people.  The book of Genesis tells the famous story of the tower of Babel (11:1-9).  “The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words,” we’re told, until their pride led them to challenge the place of God in heaven, and God thwarted their pride by dividing their languages so that they could no longer speak to or understand each other.  Out of one, many! -- the opposite of our American experience.

And the opposite of the Pentecost experience, by which the Spirit of God undoes the confusion of Babel and reunites the human family as one people of God, all sons and daughters of our common Father thru the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The Church, Christ’s one body, unites all believers of whatever nation to Christ and to one another, “hearing … of the mighty acts of God” (Acts 2:11), and as one, responding to those mighty acts by acclaiming “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor 12:3).  St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit” (12:13).

St. Cyril of Alexandria early in the 5th century wrote: “With regard to our unity in the Spirit, we may say … that all of us who have received one and the same Spirit, the Holy Spirit, are united intimately, both with one another and with God.  Taken separately, we are many, and Christ sends the Spirit, who is both the Father’s Spirit and his own, to dwell in each of us.  Yet that Spirit, being one and indivisible, gathers together those who are distinct from each other as individuals, and causes them all to be seen as a unity in himself.”[1]

So today in God’s Kingdom there is no distinction of class—the CEO and the day laborer are one; black and white, brown and red, all are one in Christ; Anglo and Latino, Asian and African, all are one—joined to Christ by the Holy Spirit, bond of love.

“Out of many, one.”  Sin, pride, and ambition separated humanity from God.  The Holy Spirit brings us back to God, incorporates us thru Christ into the life of the Holy Trinity.  St. Cyril said as much:  “all of us who have received one and the same Spirit, the Holy Spirit, are united intimately, both with one another and with God.”  The presence of the Spirit makes us many sinners into saints, one holy people, one with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

            Come, Holy Spirit, come!  And from thy celestial home shed a ray of light divine.
            O most blessed Light divine, shine within these hearts of thine, and our inmost being fill!
            Heal our wounds, our strength renew; on our dryness pour thy dew; wash the stains of guilt away. (from the Sequence)

            Amen!

BEFORE THE CREED

   On this last day of the Easter season, we remember our baptismal commitment, which we’ve renewed every Sunday.  We hope that all those who were looking toward Baptism at the Easter Vigil will realize their hope soon and be most firmly united with Christ our Savior.  Now we renew our profession of faith using the Church’s ancient baptismal Creed, the Apostles’ Creed.

---

      [1] Commentary on the Gospel of John, lib. 11, 11, in LOH 2:890.

Homily for 7th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
7th Sunday of Easter

May 24, 2020

Ps 27: 1, 4, 7-8
Acts 1: 12-14
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle, N.Y.

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear” (Ps 27: 1).

Psalm 27 voices extreme confidence in the power of the Lord to save the individual who is praying.  Attributed by its inscription to David, it’s the prayer of a faithful individual and not of the entire people.  Fiercely pursued by enemies and afflicted by the anger of God that he’s aroused—by Saul in his pre-monarchic period; in midlife by his rebel son Absalom; and late in life when he thoughtlessly orders a military census of the nation, against the advice even of his general Joab, no icon of piety—David always finds his refuge and protection in the Lord (2 Sam 24).  Therefore he’s not afraid of his enemies or of his troubles.

It may be that today’s liturgy means for us to see a kind of parallel between David and the apostles.  Returning to Jerusalem after the ascension of Jesus, they repair to the upper room (Acts 1:13).  This most likely is the same upper room where they’d celebrated their last supper with Jesus, and the same place where they’d hidden in fear after the crucifixion.  It’s their place of refuge, and probably a regular safehouse in dangerous times, as when James has been martyred and Peter arrested to face trial and death (cf. 12:1-17).  The Lord Jesus told them to remain in the city to await “the promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak,” their baptism with the Holy Spirit (1:4-5).  It’s a familiar place to stay, with a certain amount of trepidation and a good deal of uncertainty.

Model of the Temple of Herod (https://vhoagland.wordpress.com/tag/temple/)

Not so much fear that they can’t still act like faithful Jews.  There’s a hint of their faith in the reference to the Mount of Olives being just “a sabbath day’s journey” from the city, i.e., about 2/3 of a mile, the distance a pious Jew might walk on the sabbath.  When “all these”—the apostles, Mary and the other women of the company, Jesus’ kinsmen, and the others, to the number of about 120, Luke tells us (1:15)—“devoted themselves with one accord to prayer” (1:14), we may guess that they frequented the Temple like pious Jews—not as a large group but singly, social distancing as it were—longing for the presence of the Lord, like David, so long in exile from the Ark of God:  “One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek:  to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate his temple” (Ps 27:4).  “To dwell in the house of the Lord” means to have access to it as a place of special closeness and contemplative prayer; we know this was a vital part of the life of Jesus’ earliest disciples (cf. Acts 2:46).

There’s another kind of longing suggested here.  When they will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, they will become temples of the Lord.  “To dwell in the house of the Lord” then becomes a turnover, as the Spirit comes to dwell in them, and “the loveliness of the Lord” will fill them.  They don’t know or understand that as yet; the descent of the Spirit on Pentecost will make it known.

The words of the psalmist speak to us, too.  The Church at large is experiencing in these months an absence of the Lord—unable to gather for the Eucharist, in many cases unable even to access our churches for adoration and other forms of private prayer.  We religious have been much blessed in having our Eucharistic Lord always accessible.  But we hear so much about how the Catholic faithful long for that deeper connection of coming to the Lord and having the Lord come to them sacramentally.

Even we who have had Mass and Eucharistic services in our communities have a longing.  For the Sacrament is a foretaste, an anticipation, of the heavenly banquet, of our  “dwelling in the house of the Lord all the days of [our] life,” eternal life.  It’s becoming common to speak of deceased Christians going “to the house of the Father,” to that heavenly home that Jesus has gone to prepare for us:  “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  If there were not, would I have told you that I’m going to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I’ll come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be” (John 14:2-3).  So much more than even the psalmist could imagine; it’s our intense longing, the “one thing I ask of the Lord” (Ps 27:4), the one thing necessary that Mary of Bethany sought as she sat at the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:39).

Those who study the Psalms discern a change in tone in the 2d half of Ps 27, beginning with “Hear, O Lord, the sound of my call; have pity on me, and answer me” (v. 7).  Now the psalmist is in trouble and requires the Lord to rescue him again.  So it may be with the apostles and the others in the upper room, feeling lost without Jesus and nervous about their situation so soon after the Lord’s passion and death, so physically near his foes.  So their prayer is for the Lord to fulfill his promise of the Spirit.  It’s our prayer too, that we might persevere in seeking the Lord, in recognizing his indwelling presence even as we continue our pilgrimage thru an often hostile world toward the place that Jesus has prepared for us.

Homily for Friday, Week 6 of Easter

Homily for Friday
6th Week of Easter

May 22, 2020

Acts 18: 9-18
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle, N.Y.

“One nite while Paul was in Corinth, the Lord said to him in a vision…” (Acts 18: 9).

Isaiah's Vision

Visions (or dreams) play a prominent role in the Scriptures.  In the Old Testament Joseph is famous as a dreamer an interpreter of dreams.  Jacob has his famous dream of the ladder or stairway into heaven.  Isaiah, Amos, Ezekiel, and other prophets see visions, and chunks of the book of Daniel are constructed around dreams and visions.  In the New Testament, of course, there are the dreams of St. Joseph and the visions of Cornelius, St. Peter, and St. Paul.

Many cultures attach great meaning to one’s dreams, such as the Lakota for the giving of personal names and Sitting Bull’s prophetic visions of battles with the U.S. Army.

s you know, St. John Bosco was famous for dreams revealing his vocation, his apostolic ventures, and the future of his boys.

Our recent rectors major—and Pope Francis too—tell us to dream and to act on what we see.  They mean Josephite or Pauline or Bosconian-type visions, which are special gifts from God—we may call them charisms—but they do mean something more than daydreaming.

For young persons, such dreaming means envisioning a path for their future and their place in society and in the Church, under the guidance of the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Obviously, you and I have to do a different kind of dreaming.  Our future is something else entirely (doh!).  What might be the dream or vision for an Ursuline of a certain age?

St. Ursula, by Benozzo Gozzoli

Dream 1:  to deepen her relationship with her spouse, our Lord Jesus, thru personal prayer, thru the celebration of the liturgy (Mass, Reconciliation, the Hours), thru an awareness or attentiveness during the day—the practice of the presence of God, maybe more real than when you were a novice.

Dream 2:  to continue to be an apostle of the Lord, not a disciple gawking up to heaven like those whom the angels chided as Jesus ascended (Acts 1:11), but an apostle carrying out the “great commission” to make Jesus known and loved (cf. Matt 28:19).  You’re not in a classroom any longer, but you interact with people all the time, even in this time of pandemic, sometimes face to face, otherwise by phone, email, social media, letter-writing (do some of you still practice that marvelous art?):  with each other here, perhaps with some house staff, with sisters in your other communities, with your families, with your past pupils, and so on.  Envision how to lead all of these to a deeper life in Christ.

“Do not be afraid.  Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you” (Acts 18:9-10)—a vision not only for Paul, but for us too.

May Crowning in New Rochelle

May Crowning in New Rochelle

In a typical year, the Salesian Family of the New York area celebrates the feast of Mary Help of Christians on a Saturday close to her feastday, May 24, at the Marian Shrine in Haverstraw, N.Y.  That includes Mass, inspirational talks, opportunity for Reconciliation, a Rosary procession, and finally the crowning of the great statue of the Virgin Mary (designed by Lumen Winter), with the cooperation of the Stony Point Volunteer Fire Department.  For 2019, see https://sdbnews.blogspot.com/2019/05/salesian-family-celebrates-marian-day.html

During this year of the Covid-19 pandemic, such an external celebration isn't possible.  The Marian Day planning commission came up with various ways to celebrate in families and religious communities.  See https://www.marysmonth2020.org/

At the provincial house we decided to do a special crowning of the statue of the Help of Christians on our front lawn--not something we've done within my memory (since 1986).  Well, the statue wasn't even there that far back (it was brought here from Ipswich, Mass., after our retreat house in that lovely old town was closed).

So last Sunday, May 17, our whole community of 13 SDBs gathered on the lawn at 4:45 p.m. and very simply placed a floral wreath (of plastic) around the Madonna's head.  It was a bit tricky working around the marble crown that's already part of the statue itself.  Fr. Paul Chu, our youngest (and most agile?) member, was appointed to go up the step ladder and do the job.  Then we concluded by singing "Hail, Holy Queen" and went indoors for our regular Sunday ritual of Evening Prayer (Vespers).

Photo by Fr. Dennis Donovan

Homily for Ascension Thursday

Homily for Ascension Thursday

Thursday, May 21, is the solemnity of the Ascension in the northeastern dioceses of the U.S. and in Nebraska.  Here's Deacon Greg Kandra's homily for the feast, already posted at his blog.  We can't be missionaries to the wider world at this time, he says, but we have a commission from Jesus to build up the Church in our own homes.

https://thedeaconsbench.com/missionaries-at-home-homily-for-may-21-2020-the-ascension-of-the-lord/

Homily for Tuesday, 6th Week of Easter

Homily for Tuesday
6th Week of Easter

May 19, 2020

Acts 16: 22-34
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

This homily also takes note of priestly anniversaries occurring in these days, including your humble blogger’s on this date.

“The crowd in Philippi joined in the attack on Paul and Silas” (Acts 16: 22).

When we left our 2 heroes yesterday, they’d just made a promising start at evangelizing Philippi, an important Roman colony in the Greek region of Macedonia—their 1st step in bringing the Good News to Europe (Acts 16:11-15).

The lectionary skips the passage that follows (16:16-21), in which our apostles managed to get into trouble.  Paul cast a demon out of a slave girl.  Since the demon used the girl to tell fortunes and so earned money for her owners, they were angry about the demon’s departure, and with it their income.  (No sympathy, obviously, for the plight of that 1st-century victim of human trafficking.)  So they instigated an anti-Jewish riot, identifying Paul and Silas as the chief culprits.  Our reading today resumes the story.

Copied from https://drivethruhistoryadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/5_Paul-and-Silas-in-Prison-at-Philippi-A8.jpg

In 2 Corinthians Paul asserts his apostolic bona fides by listing what he’s suffered on account of his preaching:  imprisonments, floggings, the ineffective stoning at Lystra that was recounted last Tuesday, shipwrecks, perilous river crossings, dodging bandits, dealing with hunger and thirst, heat and cold, and always facing obstinate opponents:  Jews, Gentiles, and those he labels “false apostles.”  Today’s episode at Philippi tells of just one of those beatings and imprisonments.  Paul gladly suffered all these pains for the sake of the Gospel, for a share in Christ’s cross and in hope of a share in Christ’s glory.

We remember the warning Mama Margaret gave her newly ordained son:  “to begin to say Mass is to begin to suffer.”[1]  “Begin to say Mass,” of course, sums up the whole priestly ministry.  Where did that unschooled peasant woman come by such insight?  Probably by her shrewd observance of the country priests she knew in Capriglio, Castelnuovo, and the rest of the neighborhood.

Today’s the 42d anniversary of the ordination class of 1978, of whom Frs. Steve Dumais, Jack Janko, John Puntino, Ken Shaw, Roy Shelly, and yours truly are still around, while Jon Parks suffered and went prematurely to the Salesian Garden.[2]

A look at the community calendar reveals that we have 8 other anniversaries in these days:  Fr. Rich yesterday, Fr. Dennis on Thursday, Frs. John and Tom on Friday,  Fr. Dominic on Sunday, Frs. Dave and Tim on the 26th, and Fr. Gus on the 28th.

How do priests share in the cross of our Lord, as Mama Margaret so wisely understood?  How do they share in the sufferings and toils of Paul, Silas, and the other apostles?  Not from physical beatings or prison (in this part of the world), or from shipwrecks (except maybe for Fr. Dennis[3]).  But all of us could tell our own tales.

We’ve celebrated Mass when not feeling well or after a short nite’s sleep, or when conscripted at the last minute.  We’ve spent hours in uncomfortable confessionals.  We’ve answered sick calls in the middle of the nite.  We’ve made emotionally draining rounds of visits to the hospitalized, the homebound, and the grieving.  We’ve been verbal punching bags for every parishioner or parent with a gripe against the Church—and sometimes from complete strangers.  We’ve been looked at askance, perhaps verbally abused, because of the failings of other priests.  We’ve borne the sufferings, worries, and losses that our students, parishioners, and families have entrusted to us.  We’ve had misunderstandings and disputes with other clergy, parish councils, school boards, even provincials.  One online column I read recently, and now can’t locate for the life of me, stated that in the mystery of sacramental Reconciliation, in the mystery of being alter Christus, who bore our sins to the cross, confessors take on the sins and atonement of their penitents.

On the other hand, can we imagine the joy of Paul and Silas as they revealed the Lord Jesus to their jailer and his family and baptized them?  Yes, we can imagine, because as priests—and Bro. Bernie knows this too—we’ve been privileged to share sacramental joy with so many students, parishioners, friends, and family members.  How many times has someone said to us after a homily or liturgical celebration, “That really touched me,” or “That was just what I needed right now”?—and we know it wasn’t our work but the Holy Spirit flowing thru us, like that living water Jesus promised to the Samaritan woman (John 4:10).

            We can truly praise God along with the psalmist (138:1-2,8):

            I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with all my heart,
                        for you have heard the words of my mouth;
            I will worship at your holy temple,
                        and give thanks to your name.
            Because of your kindness and your truth,
                        you have made great above all things
                        your name and your promise.

---

    [1] Biographical Memoirs of St. John Bosco, vol. 1 (New Rochelle, 1965), 388.

    [2] The reputed place of members of the Salesian Family in paradise.

    [3] Fr. Dennis serves as a chaplain on cruises 2 or 3 times a year.

Homily for 6th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
6th Sunday of Easter

May 16, 1993

Acts 8: 5-8, 14-17
Christian Brothers, Iona College, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“Philip went down to the town of Samaria and there proclaimed the Messiah” (Acts 8: 5).

In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke shows how the Good News spread from Jerusalem to Samaria to the Jews outside Palestine to the Gentiles of the Greek world, and finally to Rome, center of the political and commercial world (as far as the 1st Christians were concerned).

So here in Acts 8 we come to the 2d stage of the Gospel’s spread.  Philip—this is not Philip the Apostle but one of the 7 original deacons who were introduced in ch. 6—goes down to Samaria.  “Down” is quite literal:  down from Jerusalem, which is built atop a mountain ridge 2,500 feet above sea level.

The Holy Spirit pouring down upon disciples of Jesus

(National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington)

The Acts has been called the Gospel of the Holy Spirit because of its dozens of references to the Spirit, 2 of which show up in our reading this morning.  We believe the Spirit works to draw good from evil.  When we read ch. 7 and the opening verses of ch. 8, we see that Philip went down to Samaria because anti-Christian violence had broken out in Jerusalem.  Stephen, the most prominent of the 7 deacons, was murdered—the 1st Christian martyr; “a severe persecution of the church in Jerusalem broke out, and all were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles” (8:1).  Saul, that zealous Pharisee, was going house to house in Jerusalem looking for Christians and arresting them.  That’s why Philip was in Samaria.

The Spirit of God didn’t cause or sponsor the persecution of Stephen and the earliest believers.  But the Spirit uses the actions, attitudes, talents, and even the sins of men and women to produce good to advance the kingdom of Jesus Christ.  We address God as “almighty” so often in the liturgy not only because he inspires whatever is good in us and creates whatever is good around us, but also because his goodness overcomes every evil.

You may have seen the movie Blackrobe a couple of years ago.  If you didn’t, I recommend it.  It’s about the efforts of the 17th-century Jesuit missionaries in Canada, emphasizing the cultural clash between them and the Indians they were trying to evangelize.  In the opening scenes, we visit their log chapel at Quebec, and we see a dozen or so Indians crowding in.  One of the priests takes out a handsome clock, such as would have adorned an elegant French mantle, and sets it on the altar.  The hour strikes with majestic chimes and the Indians are overawed, almost in worship.  The Jesuits all but tell them there’s a god speaking inside the clock.  Evidently the missionaries are trying to win converts to French civilization and especially to the Christian Gospel by showing wonders.

Later in the film, the young Jesuit priest who is the protagonist is challenged by an Indian shaman, a stunted, ugly, and malevolent character who wields great influence because of his knowledge of spirits and of medicine.  Still later, the priest finally reaches his mission station among the Hurons, only to find the village being destroyed by plague and his Jesuit predecessor about to die.  He is pressured into telling his would-be parishioners that if they accept Baptism God will remove the plague.

Signs and wonders, exorcisms and cures, were part of the apostolic ministry, as we heard concerning Philip’s mission in Samaria and as we read throughout the Acts and of Jesus himself.  Power over the spirit world, power over the evil of sickness and injury, are convincing signs that one carries a divine message or enjoys divine favor.  Such power in Philip brought joy to Samaria, and the early American missionaries would have liked to have had it to combat the powers of Satan that they saw all around them in the wilderness and in the native culture.

Yet signs and wonders don’t really go far toward convincing people and making believers of them.  The power that really convinces them is the power of goodness, the power of a life that is filled with Jesus and imitates him.  We have received the Spirit of Jesus in order to be like Jesus:  gentle, reverent (1 Pet 3: 16), patient, chaste, peaceable, hopeful, helpful, and so on.  There is no more convincing argument of the truth of the Gospel than an authentic Christian.  Very few of us are called to be wonder-workers.  All of us are called to be authentic witnesses.

St John and St Peter

from a 1526 altarpiece

Generally, when someone is baptized into Christ in the Acts, he immediately receives the Holy Spirit.  That does not happen in Samaria.  Instead, 2 of the apostles come down from Jerusalem, Peter and John, to lay hands on the newly baptized and so to confer the Spirit on them.

A scholastic theologian might use this text to prove that Confirmation is a distinct sacrament from Baptism, which it completes.  While that’s sound enuf theology, it’s not the point at all.

The point is the unity of the Church founded on the apostles.  No community, no parish, is complete by itself.  It’s complete only when it’s united with the apostles, with their teaching and with their practice, when it is placed under apostolic authority.  The Father sends the Spirit of truth, the Paraclete (John 14:16-17), to his children through the apostles.  In other words, the Church is necessarily hierarchical, founded on, centered on, the college of the apostles—the 12 at Jerusalem.  Their successors now spread all over the world.  Whoever is in communion with the bishop—communion of doctrines, practice, and liturgy—is in communion with the apostles and has access to the Spirit whom the Father sends.  Whoever abandons the bishop—and this is a consistent teaching of the New Testament and of the Fathers—cuts himself off from the Church and from the Spirit.  (Jesus said the only sin incapable of forgiveness is the sin against the Holy Spirit [Luke 12:10], and it’s a form of that sin to cut oneself off from access to the Spirit by abandoning the Church.)

But the message of Jesus is forgiveness and joy.  We run to Jesus—Jesus whom we know through the Church in his word and in the breaking of the bread.  We run to him to be made whole, to be taught love, to be filled with joy, and to sing the glory of God’s name (Ps 66:22).

Fr. Joseph Santa Bibiana, SDB (1933-2020)

Fr. Joseph Santa Bibiana, SDB (1933-2020)

Fr. Joseph (José) Santa Bibiana Gisbert, SDB, died on the evening of May 15, 2020, at Wellington Regional Medical Center in Wellington, Fla., where he’d just been brought to the emergency room. The immediate cause of death was heart failure. He had been undergoing rehab for a few months related to treatments for pancreatic cancer at Royal Palm Beach Rehabilitation Center.

Affectionately known by students, parishioners, and confreres as “Father Santa,” he had been a professed Salesian for more than 63 years and a priest for 54 years. He was 87 years old. He followed into the “Salesian Garden” by less than three weeks his compatriot and classmate Bishop Emilio Allué, SDB, emeritus auxiliary bishop of Boston, who died on April 26.

Fr. Santa Bibiana was born in Valencia, Spain, on April 25, 1933, to José Santa Bibiana and Josefina Gisbert. He was baptized four days later in the family’s parish church, Our Lady of Lepanto.

Although he attended public schools, José attended the local Salesian youth center and was very impressed by the young Salesians there. In an interview in 2018, he told Salesian News: “At the age of 14, I started working in a bank and going to night school. On Sundays I went to the oratory with my friends. We rode our bikes about three miles to the Salesian oratory. In the morning there would be Mass and games, and in the afternoon there would be more games, religious instruction, Benediction, and a movie or a play on the stage put on by the students and ‘oratorians.’ I would say that I came to like the life of the Salesians by ‘osmosis.’ I especially liked the way the Salesians befriended us.

“At the age of 20 I was ready to join the Salesians. I already had the idea of becoming a missionary. The Salesian magazine Juventud Misionera had a lot to do with it, as well as the visits of some Spanish missionaries like Fr. Jose Luis Carreño (missionary in India) with his accordion and missionary songs. I still remember some of them today!”

In his vocation he was also encouraged by his confessor. He entered the candidacy program in August 1954 at Mataró (Barcelona), whence he was admitted to the novitiate at Arbos del Penedes a year later. There were 63 novices at the start of the year! (As an indication of the abundance of vocations in Spain at that time, the Spanish Salesian provinces had two additional large novitiates at that time.) Fr. Santa recalls, “During my novitiate I volunteered to go to the missions, and after our first profession I was sent to our Salesian Province of St. Philip the Apostle in the U.S.,” i.e., the New Rochelle Province.

Bro. Santa made his first profession of vows at Arbos del Penedes on August 16, 1956. Then together with his newly professed companion, Bro. Allué, he came to the U.S. as a “missionary” and began philosophical (and language) studies at Don Bosco College in Newton, N.J., on October 1, 1956. He graduated with a B.A. in 1959.

Fr. Santa (right) with Fr. Jeremiah Reen, 

long-time parochial vicar in Belle Glade, in 2009

Bro. Santa did his three years of practical training at the Salesian middle school in Tampa, Mary Help of Christians, in 1959-1962, where he was fondly remembered by his pupils. He made his perpetual profession in August 1962 and commenced theological studies at Salamanca, Spain, where he was ordained on March 6, 1966.

Upon his return to the U.S., Fr. Santa was assigned again to Tampa and served first as campus minister for two years, then as principal for a further two years. In 1970 he was transferred to St. Dominic Savio High School in East Boston as principal for three years. In 1972 he earned a master’s degree in education from St. John’s University in New York. He was also certified as a school administrator in both Massachusetts and New Jersey, as well as an English and Spanish teacher.

It’s proverbial in Florida that one “gets sands in his shoes” and wishes to stay there. So Fr. Santa returned to Mary Help of Christians as principal in 1973, but after just one year was appointed treasurer of the school, serving until 1976.

During a hiatus from ministry in Florida he moved to Don Bosco Technical High School in Paterson, N.J., to teach from 1976 to 1978 while also engaging in pastoral ministry on weekends for the Hispanic parishioners at Mary Help of Christians Parish in Manhattan. In 1978 he returned to East Boston as treasurer of Savio High School for two years.

In 1980 the Salesians assumed pastoral care of St. Philip Benizi Church (founded in 1961) in Belle Glade, Fla., on the southeast shore of Lake Okeechobee. Fr. Santa was sent south again as St. Philip’s first Salesian pastor. In 1987 he moved up the road (still on the lakeshore) to Pahokee as pastor of St. Mary’s Church. He also served as director of the Salesian community staffing the two local parishes from 1988 to 1993.

In 1993 Fr. Santa was assigned to St. Anthony’s Church in Paterson as director and pastor. In 1998 he was called to serve as treasurer of the New Rochelle Province, until 2003. He ministered to Spanish-speaking parishioners at St. Anthony’s Church in Elizabeth, N.J., on weekends from 2000 to 2003.

Fr. Santa was assigned again as pastor and director in Belle Glade in 2003, remaining until 2013. According to the South Florida Sun Sentinel (9/21/10), “About 90 percent of Santa-Bibiana’s parish consists of migrants who live in substandard apartments and trailers in Belle Glade, one of the poorest and most violent communities in Florida. Many leave each May for farm work in the Northeast and return in September to harvest sugar cane and vegetables.”

But during his 2 pastorates, his proudest material accomplishments were building a catechetical center for the youngsters, and in 2008 carrying out a renovation of the church. He also oversaw a vibrant youth ministry program (see The Florida Catholic, 4/18/08), fortified periodically by missionary service trips from some of the Salesian province’s high schools and by the province’s Gospel Roads program.

In March 2016, Holy Cross Parish was visited by Salesian Fr. Pablo Abreu (leftmost)

from the Dominican Republic, who posed in the sacristy with Fr. Santa

and parishioner Bernie Hammel and Fr. Bill Bucciferro, SDB

When the Salesians accepted an invitation to take parochial and campus ministry responsibilities in Champaign, Ill., the province tapped Fr. Santa to be director of the three-man community there, parochial vicar at Holy Cross Parish, and pastoral minister to the local Hispanic community, particularly in Rantoul.

His 50th anniversary of ordination occurred in March 2016, and he was feted by Holy Cross parish and parochial school. At that time he told the Peoria Diocese’s Catholic Post (2/28/16): “I thank God that wherever I’ve been I’ve been happy. I enjoy the people, especially the young people in schools. You give yourself to them. The joy is knowing that through you God gets to them. You bring God alive through your dedication to them.”

Fr. Santa was more than happy to transfer the director's keys for the Champaign community to his successor (your humble blogger)--but anticipated the change a bit, posing for this photo-op at the provincial chapter in April 2016.  He had to wait 2 more months.

A feature article on him for his anniversary in Champaign’s News-Gazette (3/6/16) was headlined “Joyful Servant.” The article noted his difficulty with central Illinois’s winter weather, and his obedience to what God asks of him. He told the newspaper, “I’m going to do this as long as God wants. It’s God’s grace that keeps you going.” Again he commented on the youngsters: “You learn something every day, especially from the kids. That makes you change. The effort you make to be a better person, a better priest, that makes you change.”

The people of Rantoul and Champaign certainly responded to Fr. Santa and greatly regretted his leaving Holy Cross Parish in the summer of 2016. He received a tremendous send-off on July 10 (https://link.shutterfly.com/hzbIu21Fx6). 

Fr. Santa celebrating his farewell Mass at Holy Cross, July 10,

assisted by Deacons Bob Ulbrich (left) and Ed Mohrbacher (center).

He left behind a piece of his heart, keeping in regular touch with many of the people. On learning of his death, Holy Cross parishioner Dave Devall wrote: “He was a good and gentle shepherd, and I remember him loving to be around children especially ... a true Salesian!”

Fr. Santa exchanging good-byes with the Devall family

and some other parishioners on July 10.

Indeed, the desire for warmer weather, as well as his age (83) and, perhaps, Florida’s sand, drew him back to Belle Glade as parochial vicar in his old parish in 2016. In January 2019 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which he combatted optimistically, still helping when he could in the parish and maintaining contact with many friends from his former apostolates.

Fr. Santa is survived by two nieces in Spain.

A former Salesian, Bob Breault, comments, “Now we can truly pray and sing: ‘Santa Bibiana, ora pro nobis.’ He always had a smile for us.” That invocation of St. Bibiana was often on Fr. Santa’s lips.

Holy Cross Parish’s former secretary, Gloria Fellers, said: “I had wished him Happy Birthday in a text and he texted back on May 1st. He said he was praying for all of us. I know he suffered but never said a word about it. He was a wonderful holy priest.”

A former pastor of St. Mary’s in Pahokee, Fr. John Mericantante, said, “Because of Father Santa-Bibiana, I was assigned to St. Mary! He will always be my 'Hero of the Glades!' Many parishioners from north to south have made similar remarks that Fr. Santa was a shining light and beacon of hope to all in need."

The current pastor of St. Philip Benizi, Fr. Matt DeGance, affirms, “Santa will be sorely missed here. He was a zealous Salesian and faithful priest. Beginning as pastor three years ago, it’s hard for me to imagine learning the ropes from a better teacher, father and friend. He has taken a piece of many hearts with him to heaven including my own.”

Services were held on Wednesday, May 20, in a drive-by memorial in front of St. Philip Benizi Parish (710 S. Main Street in Belle Glade) from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. A Requiem Mass was celebrated on Thursday, May 21, at 11:00 a.m. by Bishop Gerald Barbarito and concelebrating priests. The faithful were invited to follow it via livestream on the parish Facebook page.

In lieu of flowers, please make donations to St. Philip Benizi Catholic Church in memory of Fr. Santa.


Fr. Santa will be buried in the Salesian cemetery at Goshen on Wednesday, May 27, in a private rite (limited due to social distancing).

St. Mary Domenica Mazzarello

St. Mary Domenica Mazzarello

Cofoundress of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians

Feastday May 13

This brief account comes from www.sdb.org

“I entrust them to you”

Mary Domenica was born in Mornese, in the province of Alessandria, on May 9, 1837, to a large peasant family.

Equipped with an uncommon physical strength, even as a girl she worked in the fields with her father Joseph: “Because God does not let us lack bread, we must pray and work,” he said.

Thanks to the deeply Christian education received in the family, Mary made great sacrifices to meet Jesus daily in the Eucharist: “Without him I could not live,” she Said. In 1860 typhus arrived in Mornese. Her confessor Fr. Dominic Pestarino asked her for help in treating some relatives of the Mazzarello family. Mary accepted, but fell ill. She recovered unexpectedly, but she lost her previous physical strength; not her faith, however. Walking along the road one day, she saw a mysterious vision: a big building with lots of girls running in the courtyard; a voice told her, “I'm giving them to you.”

The Holy Spirit formed a motherly heart in her

Unable to be a farmer anymore, in agreement with her friend Petronilla she decided to become a seamstress, to teach poor girls to sew. The Holy Spirit formed a motherly heart in her. Prudent and wise, she educated the girls with preventive love. The small workshop opened and – as also happened to Don Bosco – the Lord sent her the first orphans to welcome. The first collaborators arrived; Fr. Pestarino called them the Daughters of the Immaculate.

Don Bosco came to Mornese with his youths in 1864, thinking about opening a school for the boys of the town. Mary looked at him and exclaimed, “Don Bosco is a saint, and I feel it.” Don Bosco visited the small workshop run by the Daughters of the Immaculate and was very impressed.

Daughters of the Immaculate – Daughters of Mary Help of Christians

Pius IX asked Don Bosco to found a female institute. Summoning Fr. Pestarino, he chose the Daughters of the Immaculate and sent them to the newly built school – which became a school for girls, not boys as the villagers had expected. Mary and her companions suffered hunger, also because of the initial hostility of their fellow villagers, but they were always cheerful and their faith never wavered.

In 1872 the first 15 Daughters of the Immaculate became the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. Mary was called to govern the group, but initially she called herself the vicar, because, she said, “the true superior is our Lady.”

The Institute grew, and the first houses were opened outside Mornese, and then the first missions in South America. Mary was called “the mother.” Despite everything, she remained simple and caring with everyone, and always gave the example even in the humblest jobs.

With her wisdom she directed the spirituality of the Institute, incarnating in the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians the charism given to Don Bosco.

She died at Nizza Monferrato on May 14, 1881, at the age of 44. At her death the Institute already had 165 sisters and 65 novices scattered across 28 houses (19 in Italy, 3 in France, and 6 in South America).

She was beatified by Pius XI in 1938 and canonized by Pius XII on June 24, 1951.

Homily for 5th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
5th Sunday of Easter

April 20, 2008

1 Pet 2: 4-9
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.          

As usual during the pastoral shutdown we’ve been undergoing, I offer an old homily for the current Sunday.

“Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God thru Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2: 5).

St. Peter mixes his metaphors here, 1st comparing the Christian people to the temple of God—living stones to be built into a spiritual house (v. 5)—and then reminding them that they are holy priests.

Most of us probably remember that Baptism made us into temples of the Holy Spirit.  God consecrated us to himself, as churches and temples are consecrated.  He dwells by grace within us.  He has set us apart for his service.

The Last Supper (Dagnan-Bouveret)

But most of us probably don’t think of ourselves as priests.  When we hear priest, we think of one ordained especially to minister to the people of God thru the sacraments and preaching.  Yet St. Peter calls all Christians, all the baptized, “a holy priesthood,” and he also quotes the book of Exodus (19:6) referring to all the Jewish people as priests.

This priesthood—the priesthood of the faithful or the common priesthood—is linked to the priesthood of Christ.  We share in his priesthood by virtue of our anointing with sacred chrism in 2 sacraments (Baptism and Confirmation) and by our participation in the Eucharist, the sacrifice of Christ and of his people, who offer the sacrifice in memory of him.  True, this priesthood is distinct from the ministerial priesthood of those who are ordained and anointed yet again with sacred chrism, viz., presbyters (like yours truly) and bishops.  We’re not quite sure how deacons—mentioned in our 1st reading (Acts 6:1-7) fit in here; they are in Holy Orders, ordained by the imposition of hands, like presbyters and bishops, but they aren’t anointed.  Be that as it may, the 3 sacraments that involve sacred chrism—Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders—conform us interiorly and at the core of our being to Christ the Priest, as well as to Christ the King and Christ the Prophet of God.

What does the priesthood in which we all share mean?  St. Peter refers to our “spiritual worship.”  In the Old Testament the Jewish people, like many ancient peoples, thru their priests offered animal sacrifices, food sacrifices, and incense.  It was very physical worship.  Yes, they offered oral prayers and hymns too—the psalms, for example.

But in the New Testament all our worship is spiritual and not physical, in that we don’t have animal sacrifices.  The only body involved is the Body of Christ, offered on the altar of the cross and present again, sacramentally, on our altar.  The only food sacrifice is the bread and wine that become the Body and Blood of Jesus.  We use incense—as we’ve seen these days in the Pope’s Masses in Washington and New York—but in the context of oral prayers and hymns, adding solemnity to them and as a sign of reverence for sacred objects like the altar, the Book of the Gospels, the priest, and God’s holy people—these are all things or persons that may be incensed in the liturgy.

Most of all, however, the sacrifice we offer is ourselves:  our hearts, minds, bodies.  As priests we offer to God our holy lives.  Every act of virtue —of honesty, or charity, of purity, of patience, etc.—is an act of worship of God.  Every temptation we resist is a sacrifice offered to God.  We’re spiritually linked with Jesus and his eternal offering of himself to the Father on our behalf.  Each Mass makes the sacrifice of the cross present again, and we join Jesus in offering that sacrifice.  Thru him, with him, and in him we offer ourselves to the Father, so that our whole lives are a prayer, an act of worship.

Surely you remember how the sisters used to tell us to “offer it up” when something bothered us—the weather, our plans getting messed up, a pain we were suffering (I still do that very consciously whenever a dentist works on me—thank you, School Sisters of Notre Dame!).  “Offering it up” is good spiritually for those things we must put up with whether we like it or not, like weather, thwarted plans, and pain.  In fact, it’s exactly the advice that St. John Bosco gave to little Dominic Savio, who was complaining that the priest wouldn’t let him perform any rigorous penances, which, the boy thought, was a requirement for growing in holiness.  Don Bosco told him to put up cheerfully with extremes of the weather, with food he didn’t like, with doing his schoolwork and house chores, with his rough companions (boys can be thoughtless and sometimes cruel, as we all know).

More particularly, we are priests as we worship God in our prayer.  All of us take part in offering the Eucharist to the Father; the ordained priest speaks in the name of every baptized person who is present and, indeed, in the name of the entire Church.  Your “amens” signal your share in the prayers.  All of us make those intercessory prayers we call the “prayers of the faithful.”  All of us who are baptized, free of serious sin, and in full union of faith are invited to come to altar and share in the Body and Blood of Christ.  We are priests when we sing or pray to God publicly or privately, praising God, thanking God, interceding for others.  All of these are our “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God thru Jesus Christ.”

May Jesus Christ, our great high priest, rejoice that we belong to him and share in his self-offering.  May our worship and our lives be sacrifices pleasing to God until we reach the inheritance that God has promised us in Christ (cf. Collect).

Homily for Saturday, 4th Week of Easter

Homily for Saturday
4th Week of Easter

May 9, 2020

Collect
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

The collects at Mass follow the general pattern of 1st stating some attribute of God the Father or some blessing he’s bestowed.  Then they make a prayer based on that attribute or blessing of the Father.  (With very few exceptions, the collects are always addressed to the Father.)

So, this morning we note that thru our “celebration of Easter” God has “graciously given the world … heavenly remedies” for what ails us or troubles us, heavenly “healing.”  He offers us what neither health care providers nor CVS nor social distancing can.

What is our ailment?  What troubles us?  The corona virus is only one manifestation of what afflicts humanity.  We all face the inevitable breakdown and dissolution of our bodies.  We fear the extinction of not only our physical persons thru death but also the extinction of our very selves, the totality of who we are.

The Last Judgment (Bosch)

Worse, we’re troubled by a fear that we might pass thru bodily death and survive into an eternity burdened by our sins, carried down by their weight into the remorseless pit to be tormented by gleeful demons (you’ve seen some of the fantastical paintings of Hieronymus Bosch) and by our own consciences.

St. Paul exclaimed, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24), from all these ailments, troubles, fears—and hell.  The answer, of course, is “the healing of heavenly remedies,” the remedies offered to us by the cross and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, the remedies of grace, the remedy of our participation in the paschal mystery—“graciously given to the world.”

We note in the Collect that God has given these remedies to the whole world.  In that we hear the apostolic mandate, to go to the whole world with the Good News of divine healing, as Paul and Barnabas do with enthusiasm in their missionary journey (cf. Acts 13:44-52).  (Altho we’re very used to calling the team “Paul and Barnabas,” we should note that Barnabas is the senior partner in this Gospel enterprise, Paul’s mentor in the 1st stages of his conversion.  (I’m a little partial to Barnabas.  My parish for the 1st 3½ years of my life, where I was baptized, and also from which I’ve buried several family members, is St. Barnabas in Bellmore, Long Island.)

In the 2d part of the Collect, we ask God, “Show benevolence to your Church.”  Show your good will, your kindness, your mercy, to the people whom you’ve called together (ekklesia, “the citizenry called to assemble”), called thru your Son Jesus, called for heavenly healing.  What God has worked in the past, e.g., at the hands of the apostles, means nothing to us unless “our present observance may benefit us for eternal life.”  So we pray.  We plead that God’s healing remedies may touch us too.  May our participation in the Easter celebration, in these sacred mysteries of the Lord’s death and resurrection, our sharing in his body and blood, benefit us, heal us, and lead us to eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2020-2021 Pastoral Assignments, 3d Announcment

2020-2021 Pastoral Assignments, 3d Announcement

Fr. Tim Zak's letter to the province on May 3 included more assignments for the next pastoral year, starting July 1.

Chief among them are the appointment of Fr. George Atok to a third term as director of the SDB community in Surrey, B.C., serving Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish, 

Fr. George Atok

and of newly ordained Fr. John Langan as CYM at Abp. Shaw HS in Marrero, La.  Fr. John's ordination is planned for June 27; he is presently completing his theological studies in Jerusalem.

Fr. John Langan

Other appointments include the naming of Fr. Sathiaseelan Kulandaisamy as pastor of St. Matthew Church in Edmonton, Alta.  He came to the province from India last fall and has been pastor of St. Matthew since March.  Fr. Richard Alejunas, pastor and director of St. John Bosco Parish in Chicago, has formally been named administrator of St. James Parish as well; the province assumed administrative responsibility for the parish earlier this year.  Bro. Tom Junis will begin his practical training as a teacher at Abp. Shaw HS.