Homily for 2d Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
2d Sunday of Lent

Feb. 28, 2021
Rom 8: 31-34                                                
Holy Name of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.                                                   
“God did not spare his own Son” (Rom 8: 32).

The reading from the Book of Genesis this morning shocks us with God’s command to Abraham to offer his only as a sacrifice, even if God intervenes at the last second to stop him from killing Isaac (Gen 22).  That story is a fitting backdrop for St. Paul’s words about God’s care for us, God’s protection of us.

For God sent his Son into the world to live among us and even to die among us, to be entirely one of us.  God “handed him over for us all” (8:32), left him in the hands of evil and unjust men, Jerusalem’s powerful religious leaders and Rome’s imperial authorities.  Paul asserts that Jesus’ life and death is evidence that “God is for us” (8:31); he’s on our side in our struggles against whatever’s evil and unjust in this world.  Jesus Christ is proof of God’s solidarity with the human race, with each of us individually.  As St. John writes, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (3:16).

Christ carrying his cross

(St. John of the Cross Monastery, Segovia)

It’s true that “Christ Jesus died” (8:34) when he submitted to sinful men.  But God raised him from death and raised him to an exalted place in heaven—foreshadowed by Jesus’ transfiguration, as we hear in today’s gospel (Mark 9:2-10).  There he now “intercedes for us” (8:34).  If God has done that for Jesus, who is our human brother but who was faithful to God always—as we are not—we may be sure that God, who sent his Son among us to lead us back to faithfulness, will “give us everything else along with him” (8:32).

What is “everything else”?  Paul tells us that when we sinful human beings stand before God for judgment, God will acquit us thru Jesus, “who is at the right hand of God” and “intercedes for us” (8:34).  Even if Satan, God’s unrelenting enemy, the bitterest enemy of our souls, should “bring a charge against” us, we are “God’s chosen ones” (8:33).  God has chosen us to belong to his Son, and as long as we cling in faith to the Son, no one, not even Satan, can condemn us to eternal death.  God’s Son has been raised, and he’s been raised that we might live with him.  “Everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Therefore we need not fear death, need not fear to stand before God.  “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (8:31).  Not Satan, not all the demons in hell, and not our sins that we’ve brought penitently to Christ our Lord “who intercedes for us” and whose death has obtained redemption for us.

“If God is for us, who can be against us?”  The political powers of this world may oppose us, as they did Jesus.  We remember that Christians in Paul’s time endured religious persecution, like many of our fellow believers today.  In 2019 almost 3,000 Christians were killed for their faith, and last year over 2,000 were killed by jihadists just in Nigeria, while an estimated 260 million face various forms of persecution and religious discrimination from Communists, radical Muslims and Hindus, and various revolutionary regimes.  In our own country, we face harassment and discrimination, e.g., by having our churches vandalized and statues of our saints torn down.  We run the risk of fines and the loss of livelihood—like the Little Sisters of the Poor, like Catholic hospitals, doctors, and adoption agencies, like Christian bakers, florists, and photographers—if we refuse to go along with widely prevailing, immoral cultural and political policies, such as those concerning abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and transgenderism on some college campuses and those that would be imposed by a bill which passed the House of Representatives on Friday with the full support of the Biden Administration.   It’s harmlessly titled the “Equality Bill” but has little equality about it for a Christian conscience.

The Responsorial Psalm proclaimed, “I believed, even when I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted.’  My vows to the Lord I will pay in the presence of all his people” (116:10,14).  Our belief in Christ Jesus is the faith that sustains us against anyone “who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones” (8:33) in this world or in the next, against any affliction.  God didn’t spare his own Son from combat against Satan and against human injustice, and God will enable us, his chosen ones, to overcome our personal sins and whatever other evil may come at us, so that we may prevail with Christ and pay homage to our Father in heaven forever.

Homily for Friday, Week 1 of Lent

Homily for Friday
1st Week of Lent

Feb. 26, 2021
Collect
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

We prayed in the Collect that we might “be conformed to the paschal observances.”  We know well that Lent is intended to prepare us for Easter, for the paschal observances.  In those observances, in the Easter Triduum, we participate with our Lord Jesus in his passion, death, and resurrection.  But our prayer today is that we be “conformed” to those observances.

Christ Crowned with Thorns (Caravaggio)

How can we be conformed to the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus?  By suffering, by dying, and by rising.

Jesus didn’t seek suffering.  He prayed that his Father let him escape it.  But when that couldn’t be, when he had to drink the cup of suffering, he embraced it (cf. Matt 26:39).  All of us suffer.  We suffer physical pain and emotional pain.  We suffer the psychological pain of observing so much injustice wreaked by ignorant and evil persons and unmerited suffering from disasters and illness, and we’re powerless against all that.  These kinds of suffering embraced with Christ conform us to his paschal sacrifice.

We die in 2 ways.  In God’s time, we’ll leave this world; like Jesus, we may surrender to the Father’s plan for that, even now, as well as when the moment comes.  St. Alphonsus includes such a prayer in his Stations of the Cross (5th Station).  Before that moment, every day brings us opportunities to die to ourselves by resisting temptation and by overcoming our natural selfishness.

In those 2 ways, suffering and dying, we seek to be conformed to the paschal observances.  Thru such conformity, we hope—ah, there’s that strenna word again!—to be raised to Christ’s eternal life, our ultimate conformity to the paschal mystery.

Two Important Publications on Salesian Meditation

Two important publications on Salesian meditation released

(ANS – Rome – February 26, 2021) – At the beginning of Lent, the Formation Department of the Salesian Congregation released two important publications on Salesian meditation. Below is the letter with which Fr. Ivo Coelho, general councilor for formation, presents the two texts to the provincials and provincial delegates for formation.

Dear confreres,

I am happy to be able to present to you The Practice of Meditation in the Prayer of the Salesians of Don Bosco (accessible by clicking here), fruit of a seminar organized by the Formation Sector in Rome, May 10-12, 2018. The aim of the seminar was to clarify the place of meditation in the tradition and life of the Salesians of Don Bosco and to offer guidelines in this area. We asked ourselves three fundamental questions: what is Salesian meditation? Why should we meditate? And how do we meditate? To our pleasant surprise, the seminar had surprisingly positive echoes from around the Salesian world, and not only from those involved in initiating novices and young Salesians into the art of meditation. This strengthened us in our determination to make available the fruits of our seminar, and this is what we are happy to be able to offer you at this moment.

The book includes, obviously, the four main papers presented at the seminar: Notes for a “brief treatise” on meditation at the origins of the Society of St. Francis de Sales, by Giuseppe Buccellato; Learning to meditate with St. Francis de Sales, by Eunan McDonnell; Meditation as Lectio Divina, by Giuseppe M. Roggia; and Three perspectives on the importance of Christian meditation, by Xabier Blanco. These have been revised by the authors and edited by Giuseppe Buccellato.

Buccellato is also responsible for the Pointers and Suggestions for Daily Meditation (accessible by clicking here) that form a second contribution to the process, an aid for initiating people to meditation in the early phases of initial formation. It can be used with profit both by formation guides and by those going through these phases, but also by anyone, individuals or communities, who would like to renew their way of practicing the half hour of meditation that is part of our Salesian way of life.

Our little seminar was a beautiful learning experience for us who participated in it. It began with a sharing of our own experiences of meditation, which was then illuminated by the four papers. This process led to a rather rich discussion and to some practical conclusions, which were shared in a letter sent to all the provinces and which may be found also in the present book. From Buccellato we learnt that Julius Barberis, the first master of novices of the Congregation, used to dedicate the first period of the novitiate, no doubt at Don Bosco’s urging, to initiation to meditation. Don Bosco insisted on the affective dimension of meditation – something that, as Eunan McDonnell reminded us, is at the very heart of the teaching of St. Francis de Sales. In turn, St. Francis’s insistence on the place of the Word of God in meditation has been “canonized” by Vatican II, as Giuseppe M. Roggia pointed out. Salesian meditation today, therefore, is very much lectio divina: listening to, reflecting on, praying over and allowing ourselves to be carried by God’s Word and his Spirit. Xabier Blanco in his turn took us to the person and example of Jesus himself. Jesus prayed because he felt the need to pray, because he loved. People today, including the young, seem to be rediscovering the need for silence and for prayer. This is what the young people told us during the Synod on youth, faith, and vocational discernment. The Salesians of today are, therefore, certainly invited to give an adequate response to them. When the people of God ask for bread, we cannot give them stones.

Dear confreres, the practice of meditation, as Don Bosco saw, is fundamental to our vocational fidelity and to our mission. Our Constitutions put it beautifully: “For us mental prayer is essential. It strengthens our intimate union with God, saves us from routine, keeps our heart free and fosters our dedication to others. For Don Bosco it is a guarantee of joyous perseverance in our vocation.” (C 93)

The Practice of Meditation in the Prayer of the Salesians of Don Bosco is being made available at the moment in digital format. This does not exclude the possibility of some provinces or regions going into print, though this would obviously entail a further checking of the text. Since all of the material included in the book is original, so there is no question of seeking further copyrights: it would be enough to indicate your intentions to us in the Formation Sector. 

I hope this work will serve to awaken a renewed interest in and appreciation of the very important element of Salesian prayer that is our daily meditation. The season of Lent that we are just beginning is a favorable time to listen to and meditate on the Word, which calls and moves us to conversion.

A warm thanks once again to all those who contributed to the seminar: our four contributors, Giuseppe Buccellato, Eunan McDonnell, Giuseppe M. Roggia, and Xabier Blanco; our editor Giuseppe Buccellato; the many confreres who helped in the translations; and the members of the Formation Sector, most especially Silvio Roggia, who has been the driving force behind the arduous efforts of gathering the contributions, seeing to the translations, and bringing the whole project to completion.

Affectionately,

Ivo Coelho, SDB

 

Homily for 1st Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
1st Sunday of Lent

Feb. 21, 2021
Ps 25: 4-9
Mark 1: 12-15                                                     
Holy Name of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“Your ways, O Lord, make known to me” (Ps 25: 4).

Blogger-hiker on a fallen tree

bearing a Ramapo-Dunderberg Trail blaze

When I go hiking in Harriman State Park or elsewhere, it’s crucial to keep a sharp lookout for the trail markers (called “blazes”) on trees or rocks.  The trails are usually well marked, but sometimes the blazes have faded or are more widely scattered or are on a tree that has since fallen down in a storm.  More than once I’ve lost the path and had to double back to re-find my way.  Once in a while I’ve gone so far off that I’ve had to resort to map and compass and bushwhack my way back to a trail or familiar spot.

As you know, we’ve just begun Lent.  Many of  you probably came here on Wednesday to be signed with ashes, signed in repentance, signed in a desire for conversion.

What is conversion?  Turning toward the Lord, turning away from sin.  In the Responsorial Psalm, we prayed for the Lord to make his ways known to us, to teach us his paths.  We aren’t always walking on the right road—sometimes because it isn’t clearly blazed for us, sometimes because we’ve wandered off it by missing the marks.  The most common NT word for “sin,” harmartia, means “missing the mark” or “going astray.”  When we’re off the Lord’s road, that’s when we need conversion—turning ourselves around or getting reoriented.

Maybe Jesus was doing something like that when he went out into the desert for 40 days, driven by the Spirit (Mark 1:12).  I don’t mean that he needed to recover his way from sin.  He’d just been baptized by John and heard the Father’s voice, “You’re my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (1:11).  Perhaps Jesus needed to ponder that.  What did it mean?  What did God want of him?  Which of the possible paths open before him was he supposed to take?  St. Mark tells us he battled Satan, without providing us any of the vivid pictures that we get from St. Matthew and St. Luke.  We may be sure that the Prince of Darkness was trying to lead him astray (1:13).  Satan might have been happy had Jesus decided to go back to Nazareth and resume the carpenter’s trade and life with his mother and extended family.  In the 1st song of Jesus Christ Superstar, Judas suggests:

Nazareth, your famous son should have stayed a great unknown
Like his father carving wood He’d have made good.
Tables, chairs, and oaken chests would have suited Jesus best.
He’d have caused nobody harm; no one alarm.

Christ in the Wilderness (Ivan Kramskoy)

Out there in the desert, we may suppose Jesus was looking for the right path, the ways of the God his Father for himself.  And when he left the desert after those 40 days, he knew that his road was back to Galilee—but not to “tables, chairs, and oaken chests” and not to family life.  He also knew that John had been arrested and imprisoned.  He knew that his path was to begin preaching the kingdom of God, preaching repentance; to pick up where John had left off, and quite possibly to run the same risk that John had run and to end up as John did.

In the psalm, we pray that God will put us on the right path, that he will guide us in his truth and keep us away from the Devil’s lies.  When we renew our baptismal promises at Easter, we’ll reject all of Satan’s empty promises—his lies, his false roads that direct us away from the fulfillment of our lives and the happiness that God intends for us.

All of us have listened at times to the Devil’s lies.  We’ve been selfish, told our own lies, watched TV and movies that use violence to degrade human life or use sex to tear down the dignity of human beings.  We’ve treated family members and others badly, nursed grudges, cheated our employers.  Maybe we’ve done worse.

So we plead in the psalm, “Remember your compassion, O Lord” (25:6).  The Lord’s love for us is “from of old” (25:6).  He created us out of love and for love and never stops loving us.  May his love enlighten us to see our sins and errors.  May it show us sinners the way, put us back on the right track, on the trail that leads us securely toward our Father’s house, our eternal home, where with our Lord Jesus we hope to live forever and ever.

Saints' Causes Promoted by Salesians

Saints’ Causes Promoted by Salesians

(ANS – Rome- January 28, 2021) – “From now on, let it be our motto: let the children’s holiness give evidence of the father’s holiness,” wrote Fr. Rua after Don Bosco’s death. This wish has found particular confirmation over time. In fact, from Don Bosco to the present day, a tradition of holiness is attested that deserves attention, because it is the incarnation of the charism that originated from him and that expressed itself in a plurality of states of life and forms, which made the Salesian charism shine of particular light and constitutes a patrimony for the Salesian Family, the community of believers, and people of good will. Moreover, it is necessary to express deep gratitude and praise to God for the sanctity already recognized in the Salesian Family and for that in the process of being recognized. The Salesian postulator’s office involves 173 persons: 9 canonized saints, 118 blesseds, 18 venerables, and 18 servants of God. The causes followed directly by the postulator’s office are 58 (plus 5 extra).

The dossier, where the list and status of each cause is reported, presents the events that took place in 2020, among which the following deserve to be remembered: the extraordinary fact of the consent given by Pope Francis to the opening of the cause of Bp. Joseph Cognata, the closure of the diocesan inquiry of Fr. Rudolph Lunkenbein and Simão Bororo, the opening of the diocesan inquiry of Fr. Silvio Galli, and the venerability of Fr. Ignatius Stuchly.

Then follows the presentation of some dimensions of Salesian holiness, with the offer of good practices.

Finally, the call to spread the knowledge, imitation, and intercession of the members of the Salesian Family’s candidates for canonization, valuing and taking care of various aspects: liturgical-celebratory, spiritual, pastoral, ecclesial, educational, cultural, historical, social, missionary, etc.

The pastoral aspect touches on the effectiveness of the figures of saints, blesseds, venerables, and servants of God as successful examples of Christianity lived in the particular socio-cultural situations of the Church and the Salesian Family. The spiritual aspect implies the invitation to imitate their virtues as a source of inspiration and planning or life-project. The accompaniment and promotion of a cause is an authentic form of the pedagogy of holiness, to which, by virtue of the charism, we are called to be especially sensitive and attentive.

The journey of holiness is a journey to be made together, in the company of the saints. Holiness is experienced together and achieved together. The saints are always in company: where there is one, we always find many others. The sanctity of everyday life makes communion flourish and is a “relational” generator. Holiness is nourished by relationships, trust, communion. Truly, as the Church’s liturgy affirms in the preface of the saints: “In their life you offer us an example, in intercession a help, in the communion of grace a bond of brotherly love. Comforted by their testimony, we face the good fight of faith, to share the same crown of glory beyond death.”

The Poster and the dossier of the postulator’s office may be downloaded – in Italian, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese – updated to December 31, 2020.

Download attachments: 

• Poster_2020.pdf 
• 2020_Dossier_Postulazione_ITA.docx
• 2020_Dossier_Postulazione_EN.doc
• 2020_Dossier_Postulazione_ES.docx
• 2020_Dossier_Postulazione_FRA.docx
• 2020_Dossier_Postulazione_POR.docx

Homily for 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
6th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Feb. 14, 2021
1 Cor 10: 31—11: 1
Blessed Sacrament, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“Do everything for the glory of God” (1 Cor 10: 31).

Many years ago, the Baltimore Catechism taught those of us of a certain age that God made us to know, love, and serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next world.  “To know, love, and serve him” is to “do everything for the glory of God.”  Verbally, that simplifies things, doesn’t it?

The saints said the same.  St. Irenaeus wrote that the glory of God is a human being fully alive, i.e., alive in Christ.  St. Ignatius of Loyola’s motto was “Ad maiorem Dei gloriam” (For the greater glory of God), which the Jesuits retain.  St. John Bosco concluded many a letter with “for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.”  The salvation of souls—of whole persons, we’d say today in theological terms—is God’s glory.

Simple, but not so easy in our everyday lives.  In St. Paul’s context, for example, the discussion was about the morality of eating meat or drinking wine that had been offered as a sacrifice in a pagan temple, to Athena, for example, and then sold in one of the public markets or used at some gathering of friends.  Did that meat or wine become unclean and unfit for Christian consumption?

St. Paul’s answer is multi-layered.  1st, he states that there’s only one God, and all Christians know and worship him.  Therefore the so-called gods of the Greeks are not gods; in fact, they’re nothing.  Whatever’s offered to them is offered to nothing.  There’s nothing sacred—or tainted—about that meat or wine (8:4-6).

2d, he asserts, therefore, that Christians may freely eat and drink what they buy in the public markets or some host sets before them (10:25), provided only that they give glory to God for it.  All of creation belongs to him (10:26).  Grace before meals!

3d, he goes on:  “Avoid giving offense” (10:32).  I.e., if someone’s conscience is more tender than yours, don’t offend him by eating that meat or drinking that wine.  Freely choose to abstain from it as an act of charity toward your more sensitive brother (10:28-29; cf. 8:7-12).

So Paul draws the conclusion that he “tries to please everyone in every way” (10:33), meaning his Christian brothers and sisters.  He respects their sensitivities regarding food associated with the temples.  He’s afraid that if he doesn’t do so, they may transgress their own consciences by eating what they believe they shouldn’t, because Paul does it.  By way of comparison, those like me who are beyond the age of mandatory fasting should be careful around younger Catholics lest we lead them to violate the principle of Lenten fasting (on one of the 2 days when it is mandated).

Paul winds up this section of the letter with a startling directive:  “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (11:1).  That’s rather bold!  Who of us would dare to proclaim, “Be like me because I’m so virtuous”?

Paul’s statement is quite different that of Prof. Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady following the unexplained disappearance of his protegée Eliza Doolittle.  During a dialog with his friend Col. Pickering, he exclaims:

Pickering, why can’t a woman be more like a man?

Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;

Eternally noble, historically fair; ...

Why can’t a woman be like that?

Why does ev’ryone do what the others do?

Can’t a woman learn to use her head?

Why do they do everything their mothers do?

Why don’t they grow up like their fathers instead?

Why can’t a woman take after a man? . . . .

As the dialog about the 2 men’s friendship continues, Higgins asks, “Why can’t a woman be like us?”  Then he turns to his housekeeper and asks her,

. . . .

Why can’t a woman be more like a man?

If I were a woman who’d been to a ball,

Been hailed as a princess by one and by all;

Would I start weeping like a bathtub overflowing?

And carry on as if my home were in a tree?

Would I run off and never tell me where I’m going?

Why can’t a woman be like me?[1]

Prof. Higgins’s idea of a model has progressed, if you’d call it that, from men in general, to fathers, to himself and Pickering as buddies, finally to just himself.

Why is St. Paul worthier of imitation than Henry Higgins?  Aside from the professor’s egotism, of course, we know that Paul—despite his faults—was sincerely trying to imitate Christ and gave Christ credit for having rescued him from his sins.  The debate about sacrificial meat induces him to forgo meat entirely (8:13)—an act of self-denial, of Christ-like self-emptying.

So Paul presents himself as a model for imitation.  What people see in him that’s Christ-like, they ought to imitate.  Thereby Paul challenges us to look to him, to the virtues evident in his letters and his missionary activity, and to make those virtues and that activity part of our own lives as disciples of Jesus, to the extent that’s feasible.  He also challenges us to be models ourselves who are worthy of imitation.  Within our families, do we model Christian behavior in our words and actions, whether we’re dealing with spouses, parents, children, siblings, or other relations?  At school or work, on the street and in a store, others observe our words and actions; do they see someone they might recognize as a follower of Jesus?  While many an athlete has said something like, “I’m a ballplayer, not a role model,” we can’t say that.  As Christians we are role models of what it means to be a good, virtuous person.  If we always keep that in mind, we’ll “do everything for the glory of God.”

---

      [1] My Fair Lady, Act II, scene 4 (pp. 113-116).

Homily for Wednesday, 5th Week of Ordinary Time

Homily for Wednesday
Week 5 of Ordinary Time

February 10, 2021
Gen 2: 4b-9, 15-17
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“The Lord God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden” (Gen 2: 15).

(by Thomas Cole)

The man won’t be given a wife until tomorrow’s pericope, but the word used in today’s reading is the generic man, “human being”:  adam in Hebrew and homo in the Vulgate.

Human beings are formed out of the clay of the earth by the hand of God; God is the supreme potter.  They receive their life from him.  If in the 1st creation story male and female are created in the image of God, as we heard yesterday (1:27), here they’re inspirited by God’s life-breath.  Human beings have a quasi-divine dignity in both versions of the creation story.

In today’s passage God has created this marvelous garden with various delightful trees and abundant fruit for the man, and he’s put the man in the garden for a purpose.  It’s not so that he can lounge all day, watch Netflix, and eat pizza—or even take pleasant hikes.  “The Lord God … settled the man in the garden … to cultivate and care for it” (2:15).  Even before the Fall, there was work to do, not as punishment but as collaboration with God in creation.

As the Popes have taught in their social encyclicals, work has a dignity by which we share in God’s care for creation and put our own stamp on it, acting as his agents.  Gerhard von Rad comments that man “was called to a state of service and had to prove himself in a realm that was not his own possession.”[1]

That the garden isn’t his own possession becomes clear in the next verses.  The Creator makes a gift to the man of the fruit of all the trees but one, and the gift is a mark of freedom:  “you are free to eat” (2:16).  That he’s not the master but the recipient of a gift is clear from the one prohibition, concerning the tree of knowing good and evil (2:17).

This is foreshadowing, of course.  You know how kids are.  You know how we were!  Tell them one thing not to do amid a thousand other possibilities, and what do they want to do?

The man has an almost unlimited grant of freedom, a freedom that people regard as a birthright, a human right—as we see in Hong Kong and Burma (the generals renamed the country, and I don’t want to use their term).  What is the sure destruction of our gift of freedom?  Knowing evil—not as an intellectual idea but as an experience.  In the gospel we heard a long list of evils (Mark 7:21-22); we know that those behaviors are addictive; they restrict our freedom.  The God of the Bible, like the mythical gods who addressed Pandora, wants to save the man from destroying himself by learning evil.  In the garden under God’s rule, he’ll know only good and he’ll be free.

That seems like a no-brainer.  Yet we know our own experience of dealing with evil and the misery it inflicts upon us.  I don’t mean BIG evil like crushing democracy or carrying out genocide.  I mean the everyday evils of our own lives.  The freedom of the children of God is laid before us, the freedom to acknowledge God’s lordship and to do and say only what he’s put us into our metaphorical garden to do:  whatever garden it is that we are charged to cultivate, and the human dignity we are to cultivate.

---

        [1] Genesis: A Commentary, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972), p. 80.

Homily for 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
5th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Feb. 7, 2021
Mark 1: 29-39
Ursulines, Willow Dr.

“He went into their synagogs, preaching and driving out demons thruout the whole of Galilee” (Mark 1: 39).

The 11 verses of today’s gospel summarize the public ministry of Jesus.  Last week we were introduced to that ministry when Jesus cast out a demon in the synagog at Capernaum (Mark 1:21-28), a specific example of the combat against hell he’s engaged in.  Today’s passage begins with another specific example, the cure of Simon’s mother-in-law from a fever.  Jesus displays his power to make people whole, to save the whole person.

Then come more generic remarks about his healing power and his combat with demons.  That combat receives emphasis; Mark mentions it 3x in the space of 8 verses.  Driving out demons manifests the power of God at work in Jesus:  “The kingdom of God is at hand” (1:15).  The power of evil must be broken.

In that context, healing the sick is secondary.  Illness is an evil, but not as devastating as sin, as being in the grip of the Devil.

It’s a triumphant evening for Jesus, during which he surely got little rest.  Except for Simon’s mother-in-law, he doesn’t start these healings and exorcisms till after the Sabbath is over, after sunset (1:32).  How long did they go on?  It must have involved individual dialog with each sick person and each demon and the people who accompanied them.

So we can imagine how exhausted Jesus must have been.  And after the crowds went home, Simon and Andrew and their family were still there, and likely James and John.  Do you think they just said, “Jesus, you need to get some rest”?  More likely, they had lots of questions and comments for a long time.

So we may assume it was a late nite for the Lord, maybe much later than a lot of us will be up tonite.  For sure, it was an early Sunday:  “Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place” (1:35).  I’m struck here by the commentary of one of my Scripture profs:

    “This paragraph reveals the great gulf separating Jesus, not only from the crowd but from his disciples.  The distancing is theological; that is, it occurs not because of any difference between Jesus and other human beings but because of his relationship to God.

    “The key word in the text is ‘prayed.’  The word is evocative and comprehensive.  It intends to suggest the fundamental and pervasive response of persons to the reality of God ruling.  The reference to time, ‘in the morning, a great while before day,’ and to place, ‘went out to a lonely place,’ emphasize the priority and the focusing power of the relationship.  The life of Jesus as the agent of the Kingdom of God is controlled and simplified by his submission to the will of God.  Prayer, then, is the basic attitude of his life which is manifest in all that he does and says.”[1]

Jesus masters the demons and whatever afflictions they visit upon human beings—the Book of Job (cf. 1st reading, Job 7:1-7) lays all that man’s woes upon Satan—because Jesus lets God be his master.  He can be the agent of God’s kingdom because he’s in complete synch with God, a relationship that he intensifies thru regular prayer.

The disciples, of course, don’t see that—not here or anywhere in Mark.  They hunt Jesus down, like hunters after their prey, not to join Jesus in prayer but eager for him to perform more wonders.  There seems to be an implication that they want to keep Jesus there in Capernaum—what a great way to keep illness, woe, and even Satan far away.  Certainly easier than repenting and believing in the Gospel! (cf. 1:15)

Jesus will have none of that.  Healings and even exorcisms are in service of God’s reign.  So he must go off to preach God’s word, to announce God’s presence, elsewhere, “thruout the whole of Galilee” (1:39).  He invited Simon, Andrew, James, and John to leave their boats and nets and to follow him.  It will take him a long time to teach them what kingdom he serves and who is its master and what it will cost them.

You and I are probably still learning, too.  One sure way to learn is to follow Jesus into a deserted place, into our secret, interior chamber, and to pray, to work on our relationship with him and his Father—or let them work on us.

---

    [1] Van Bogard Dunn, Forming Ministry Through Bible Study:  A Reader’s Guide to the Gospel of Mark (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1987), p. 16.

Homily for Memorial of St. Blaise

Homily for the Memorial
of St. Blaise

Feb. 3, 2021
Collect
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle, N.Y.

Unlike most collects for the saints, today’s for St. Blaise is almost entirely generic.  He’s called a martyr, which he was in Armenia, a part of the Roman Empire so remote that Constantine’s edict of toleration didn’t penetrate there, according to the legend of Blaise’s life.  He’s supposed to have been martyred several years after the Edict of Milan.

The Martyrdom of St. Blaise (Caspar de Crayer)

He’s invoked as a patron.  Based on the well-known legend of his saving a child from choking on a fish bone, he’s invoked against any kind of ailment of the throat, as we shall do here, seeking “peace in this present life,” as the Collect says.

Blaise’s legend reports that before he was beheaded for refusing to sacrifice to idols, he was tortured by having his body raked with wool combs, the tools used by wool workers to straighten sheared wool before it’s dyed and woven.  So the Middle Ages Blaise also became the patron of wool combers.  If you have a fine woolen sweater, hat, or scarf, you might turn to Blaise for protection—or for assistance in living in praise of Jesus—“finding help for life eternal,” as the Collect says.

Living for life eternal while we still tread the earth is what gives us “peace in this present life.”  Living for life eternal, with our focus on Christ our Lord, of course, is also supposed to keep us aware of the life around us, which is to say, of the people around us.  Blaise died by decapitation.  Living aware of our sisters and brothers, of their needs and concerns, is a kind of decapitation—losing our lives in attention to and service of others, and so imitating our Lord Jesus.

Rector Major's February Message

THE MESSAGE OF THE RECTOR MAJOR

Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime

LORD, HELP ME NEVER STOP BEING AMAZED,

NEVER TO BECOME HARDENED TO REALITY

“This is my prayer after having visited over 100 nations around the world where there are Salesian presences, where I came to know realities that are so incredible, fascinating, precious, and often so painful.”

Cordial greetings, my friends, readers of Salesian media. Surely we have begun 2021 with a strong desire that it be a better year than the previous one. Perhaps there is still much fear, but perhaps we also feel deep down that we have to cultivate hope because it does us good and helps us to live better and more meaningful lives.

On the last Sunday of January, we celebrated the feast of Don Bosco. This also took place in a different way from previous years because the pandemic has not yet disappeared and continues to condition our life. Still, even in this situation we have to know how to see the light and the buds of hope that are present.

In this context I chose these reflections to share with you this month. The title expresses the way in which I have prayed many times throughout these last seven years – and continue to do so. Very often, almost daily, I pray in this way: “Lord, help me never stop being amazed or become hardened to reality.” Let me explain what I mean by these words:

In the past six years, before the pandemic, I had the precious yet demanding (as you will readily understand) opportunity to visit over 100 nations around the world where there are Salesian presences. The Salesians of Don Bosco and various branches of the Salesian Family minister in these places. I came to know realities that are so incredible, fascinating, precious, and often so painful that my daily prayer and my thought upon returning to Rome, was, “Lord, help me never stop being amazed.”

¨      May I never stop being amazed at having witnessed the dignity of hundreds of women in the refugee camp of Juba in South Sudan who were left alone to care for their children after their husbands had died or disappeared. This camp is located on our property, surrounding our Salesian house in Juba. May we never stop appreciating the decision that our Salesian confreres made to welcome, stay with, and accompany all those people who have nothing and, surely, no one.

¨      May I never cease to be amazed at the joy that I experienced upon meeting the teenage boys and girls who live in Don Bosco City in Medellin, Colombia. In this Salesian house, they were able to resume their studies months, or maybe years, after having been forced to become child soldiers in FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). Those young people who have been rescued and saved from the guerrillas now live with a smile on their faces and with hope.

¨      May I always be amazed at the good that is done by our Salesian community living in the heart of the Kakuma refugee camp in North Kenya. This is a U.N. refugee camp that could be considered a city unto itself, formore than 300,000 people inhabit it. We, too, have been living there – extraordinarily so – for many years. The reason I say “extraordinarily so” is because the regulation in these refugee camps is that in the evening no one extraneous to them (non-refugees) can stay there. But we are allowed to stay because of their fascination with the person of Don Bosco and the educational style of his sons and daughters. This is what has allowed us to have a house in the midst of these families and to run both a school to teach them a trade and a parish to minister to them in various places within the confines of the camp.

¨      May I never cease to be surprised by the closeness I felt with the good people of the villas (the slums) that surround the “great Buenos Aires” in Argentina. There, the one who today is known as Pope Francis very closely accompanied the “Villeros priests,” as the diocesan parish priests who minister there are called. Here, also, our SDB confreres and FMA sisters minister.

¨      May the smiles on the faces of so many boys and girls who have been rescued from the streets and welcomed into our homes never cease to amaze me. These are the street children of Colombia, Sierra Leone, Angola, so many of our presences in India, etc. In these places, I was able to see many miracles among the street kids, boys and girls, who come to our Salesian houses so they can get washed up, have something to eat, and sleep there for the night, if they wish. This work is very difficult. The Salesians walk the streets at night to find these children, establish contact with them, gain their trust (not easy to do on account of the abandonment and abuse received at the hands of so many other adults) and then make an invitation to them to come in off the streets. This mission has saved lives – so many lives – from the streets where they used to live and sleep (the boys more than the girls) and where they would destroy their lungs by sniffing chemicals, paints, and glue to mask their hunger pangs and emotional pain.

¨      I pray with faith that the hope and dignity that I found in so many young animators, high school and university students, in Damascus and Aleppo will never cease to amaze me. These young people, together with our Salesian confreres continue to gather hundreds of young people every day to help make the war in this, their country, “not so horrible.” Perhaps this is similar to what is narrated in the film Life Is Beautiful, in which a father is interned with his little son in a Nazi concentration camp. In Aleppo and Damascus, though, the reality is acutely painful because it is not a film, but real life. When I was there I didn’t hear any laments. Rather, I heard lucid arguments about the war and the diverse interests of so many nations. I found dignity and solidarity, brotherhood and faith. I asked the Lord not to stop surprising me with such dignity in the midst of the horror of a war in a city that has been 70% destroyed – something I had ever seen only in movies. Actually being in the midst of such a situation is very different.

       I also ask the Lord never to cease to amaze me at the beautiful reality of life which we have shared for years with so many indigenous peoples – whether they be the Yanomami, the Xavantes, or the Boi-Bororo of Brazil; the Ayoreo and the Guarani of Paraguay; or the Shuar and Achuar of Ecuador. When I came to know them, I did not stop marveling at their reality and that of my confreres and sisters who have spent so many years sharing life with them.

I could continue at length giving examples of why I ask our Lord to help me not to stop being surprised, because contemplating these realities raises up in me a sense of awe and wonder and makes me grateful to God, to life, and to those who have done so much for the good of others. Don Bosco’s missionary dreams have unfolded and have undoubtedly become reality far beyond what he himself could have imagined. I know that I have been but a witness to these realities, almost like a notary public, during my pastoral visits, but I am grateful for having had the opportunity to witness them firsthand.

At the same time, I am afraid of becoming hardened to many realities or just curious about, e.g., the number of deaths today from COVID when there are so many stories of pain (and quite often stories of wonderful lives) behind those deaths. I don’t want to become immune to the pain caused by refugees trying to reach a new land and ending up dead in the Mediterranean Sea or on the borders and rivers of various Central American nations.

I don’t want the knowledge of the abuse done by the mafias to stop being painful to me, for they exploit people, deceiving them with the promise of a better life, and subject them – most often women, children, and teens – to a life of prostitution and abuse with no hope of release.

I don’t want to get used to thinking that nothing can be done about this in our societies.

I don’t want to be hardened when I see lines and lines of people waiting for a plate of food in our big “first world” cities and come to know their very painful stories.

I want to remain sensitive to all these things – as sensitive as one is when touching an infected wound.

Dear readers, this is my simple and humble message to you. I know that many people are greatly aware of these realities and ones just like them. I also know that many of us believe that it is possible to change these situations and work to ensure that the changes happen.

As I continue to wish you a new year full of hope, of authentic and true hope, I also invite you to dream in 2021 and not to give up being surprised by the beauty and incredible things of life and by so many unique stories. At the same time, I pray you not “get used to” what should not be.

Thank you for continuing to stand by our side as friends, believing that a better world is always possible and that it is not a distant and unattainable utopia.

With great affection,

Fr. Angel