Homily for the Feast of the Holy Trinity

Homily for the Feast 
of the Holy Trinity

May 30, 2021
Rom 8: 14-17
Holy Name of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Rom 8: 16-17).

National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.

We’re celebrating today the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, that core dogma of Christian faith that God is one and 3:  one God of 3 Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit existing in communion with each other from eternity.

We can’t understand, much less explain, this mystery of faith; we can only state that it’s so.  The sacred Scriptures affirm it, like those we just heard from Paul’s Letter to the Romans and Matthew’s Gospel (28:16-20).

Part of the wonder of this mystery is that God has called us into communion with himself.  In the Old Testament he spoke to one particular people, “took one nation for himself from the midst of another nation” (Deut 4:34), called Israel out of Egypt to make them his own in a relationship sometimes compared to a father and child; e.g., in God’s voice the prophet Hosea exclaims, “Out of Egypt I called my son” (11:1); or compared to a husband and wife, as in the Song of Songs.  God has created and ardently desires an intimate, family relationship with his people.

That family relationship has been intensified by the coming of Jesus Christ and his gift to us of the Holy Spirit.  We’ve been born again of water and the Holy Spirit; we’ve been adopted into the divine family.  We have “received a Spirit of adoption, thru which we cry ‘Abba!’” (Rom 8:15), which means “Papa” or “Daddy.”  By the association of the Son of God with us, by the gift of the HS, God the Father has adopted us as his own children, his sons and daughters alongside Jesus Christ “and joint heirs” (8:17) with Christ of all the joy and glory of the kingdom of heaven.

In the Creed we recite a phrase that some people find troublesome—not because they disagree with it but because they don’t understand it.  We affirm that the “Lord Jesus Christ” is “begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.”  As a human being, of course, Jesus of Nazareth was born in time, which we celebrate at Christmas; his humanity was begotten, as the Creed itself states further on.

But God’s Son who was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary and from her assumed our human nature already existed, existed forever in his divine nature, his divine self:  begotten by the Father, not created, not made.  If he had been created, he would have had a beginning; and if he had a beginning he is not God.  St. John begins his Gospel:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (1:1,14).  The Word, the Father’s self-expression, is eternally begotten as a distinct Person, the Son.  Just how the Father begets the Son, we can’t say.  Obviously it’s not the same way that human beings or other animals beget their offspring.

The Creed states further that the Son is “consubstantial” with the Father.  I.e., he is of exactly the same substance as the Father; whatever the Father is as God, so is the Son.  That substance is divinity, as your substance and mine is humanity, and the substance of your pet is dog-ness or cat-ness or parakeet-ness, etc.  (I don’t intend to run thru the whole Bronx Zoo.)

Our adoption as God’s children doesn’t make us Christ’s equals.  We’re not “consubstantial” with the Father or with the Son, however much we share human nature with Christ.

How many of you have pets?  Pet owners, dog owners especially, are prone to call their pets members of the family.  They may even have gone thru an adoption process at the Human Society.  The owner become doggy’s mommy or daddy (and after some training doggy becomes more obedient and docile than the little humans in the household; cats are another story).  We all know, however, that the pet isn’t human, isn’t really a son or daughter by nature but only by adoption, so to speak.

Graham (by Elisa Donahue)

Our relationship to God thru Christ is different.  We are God’s adopted children, and we really are his daughters and sons by grace.  Baptism makes a definitive difference in who we are, such as no Humane Society paperwork can do for puppy or kitty.  God thru Christ really makes us heirs with Christ of the heavenly kingdom.  We may laugh, or maybe cringe, when we hear that some—dare we say “crazy”?—person has left a big inheritance to a pet.  Our inheritance is something firmer, more substantial, and everlasting.  God loves us far more substantially—everlastingly—than any man or woman ever loved a dog or a cat.

Tinkerbelle (by Jo Ann Donahue)

St. Matthew tells us that, even after Jesus rose and appeared to the 11 apostles and they worshipped him, “they doubted” (28:17).  Does that astonish you?  We need have no doubts that God truly loves us, loves us passionately, and ardently desires us to belong to his family.  His gift of the Holy Spirit binds us firmly to his own Trinitarian life and entitles us, as the liturgy reminds us before holy Communion, to “dare” to call him, in union with his Son Jesus, “our Father” and to look with “blessed hope” to the Son’s return on the Last Day to escort us to our place in our Father’s home,

Homily for Memorial of St. Augustine of Canterbury

Homily for the Memorial of
St. Augustine of Canterbury

May 27, 2021
Collect
Psalm 33
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

Today’s Collect notes simply that “the preaching of St. Augustine of Canterbury led the English peoples to the Gospel.”

http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.com/2012/05/

st-augustine-of-canterbury.html

The story began, we’re told by the Venerable Bede, in a Roman slave market, where a monk named Gregory beheld some handsome fair-haired youths up for sale.  Asking who they were, he was informed that they were Angles from Britain, which had once been at the farthest reach of the Empire but had since been overrun by various Germanic tribes.  Gregory replied, admiringly, “Not Angles but angels”  He began to think about evangelizing Britain.

But he was called to papal diplomatic service and then to the papacy itself, in 590.  So any hope of a missionary career was finished.

But not Gregory’s dream of evangelizing England.  It took a few more years, but he organized a large band of monks from his old monastery of St. Andrew—40 of them, I recollect—and sent them on their way in 596 under the leadership of Augustine, their prior.

The journey thru Gaul was hazardous in that period often called the Dark Ages, but they persevered and reached the Saxon kingdom of Kent in southeast England in 597, where the local ruler, one Ethelbert, had a Christian wife from Gaul and received them favorably.  He bestowed land on them for a church and monastery, so the great establishment of Canterbury came to be.

Meanwhile, Gregory had made Augustine a bishop; Canterbury became the primatial see, as it remains for the Anglicans.  Augustine converted Ethelbert and had great success in preaching the Gospel thruout England’s southeast.  He created suffragan sees at London and Rochester.

He was less successful in another mission Gregory had given him.  You know that Christianity had come to Britain long before, when Rome ruled much of the island.  Think St. Patrick.  Those Celtic Christians had their own customs, including a different date for Easter, that Gregory hoped to reconcile with Roman usages.  Augustine was no diplomat, and reconciliation failed until decades after his death.  He died in the 1st decade of the new century, exact year uncertain.

Augustine’s legacy was a strong, vibrant Church that produced numerous saints, missionaries, and martyrs.  He enabled the Anglo-Saxon peoples of Britain, and the Jutes and Danes who followed their invasive trails, to “sing a new song” to the Lord (Ps 33:3) and to spread the word of the Lord’s kindness (33:5) thruout the island and back to still-pagan Europe—think St. Boniface.  Augustine and his monks and those they inspired helped “all the earth fear the Lord,” and “all who dwell in the world revere him” (33:8).

The rest of our Collect—its actual petition—was that “the fruits of his labors may remain ever abundant in your Church.”  That’s where we come in, continuing to preach the same Gospel, still living, that Augustine brought to England 1,424 years ago.

Homily for Solemnity of Pentecost

Homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost

May 23, 2021
Gal 5: 16-25
Holy Name of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.            
St. Joseph’s Home, New Rochelle[1]                       

“Brothers and sisters, live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh” (Gal 5: 16).

Today we celebrate God’s great gift to the disciples of Jesus, the gift of the Holy Spirit.  In 2 of the Scripture readings we heard accounts of how the Spirit was given:  the very dramatic and public rushing of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-11), and a quiet, private bestowal of the Spirit on Easter nite (John 20:19-23).

Either way of reading how Jesus has given us this wonderful gift, the gift is, as the Collect says, for the sanctification of the “whole Church in every people and nation.”  We pray that “the hearts of believers” today may be filled with “divine grace,” as the hearts of the apostles, the Virgin Mary, and the other 1st believers were.

by Jean Restout

The Church, the community of all believers, needs the sanctifying gift of the Holy Spirit.  As individuals and as a larger community, we are in mortal combat daily against what St. Paul calls “the works of the flesh” (Gal 5:19).  His catalog of those works is long and would dishearten us—“immorality , impurity, lust, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like” (5:19-21)—were it not that the Spirit of Christ is stronger.

The Spirit of Christ offers us forgiveness, as we heard in the gospel, and then gives us the power to think and live differently.  “In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (5:22-23).

St. Paul may say, “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires” (5:24).  If only it were that straightforward!  Those passions, those works that St. Paul lists, afflict us all so terribly.

But Jesus gave us his Holy Spirit when we were baptized and when we were confirmed.  We know we are temples of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit will help us tackle those passions—our penchant for gossip and passing judgment, our addiction to gambling, drink, or pornography, our readiness to snap at our spouse or our children, our need to compare our house, our car, or our wardrobe with someone else’s.  The Spirit will help us practice the virtues that we and the whole world need so much:  to be faithful, to be gentle, to be joyful, to be life-affirming; will help us bring our Lord Jesus to our families, friends, and acquaintances.  How much the world needs that!  In the Holy Spirit, we can do our little part for the world.

That work in the Spirit can begin today.  Which of those 9 virtues in Paul’s list do you think you really need?  Focus on it.  Concentrate on it.  Decide that you will live that virtue today.  Follow up tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.  Keep thinking about—and praying for—gentleness or patience or self-control or whatever virtue you chose.  Jesus is eager for you to grow closer to him, to be a more faithful disciple.  He gives you (and all of us) his Holy Spirit to strengthen and guide us.

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      [1] Text published here was adapted somewhat for the elder Christian Brothers.

Vol. IX of Critical Edition of Don Bosco's Letters

Vol. IX of Critical Edition
of Don Bosco’s Letters Presented

Frs. Motto & Anchukandam

(ANS – Rome – May 21, 2021) – On Wednesday, May 19, 2021, the ninth volume of the critical edition of Don Bosco’s Epistolario was presented at the School of the Science of Communication of the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome. This volume collects 469 letters written by the saint in the three years 1884-1886.

After a greeting from the dean of the School of Educational Sciences (FSE), Fr. Mario Llanos, SDB, who stated that he felt emotionally involved in reading the volume, the editor of the letters, Fr. Francesco Motto, SDB, director of the Istituto Storico Salesiano (ISS), spoke. He illustrated the particular methodology followed in the critical edition of the letters and, through summary tables, indicated the correspondents, the anecdotal classification, the archives consulted, the chronological and topical dates, etc., of the letters published in volume IX.

Prof. Giancarlo Cursi, sociologist and professor of pedagogical methodology at the FSE, then spoke. He identified the salient features of the relationship between Don Bosco and his lay correspondents, highlighting Don Bosco’s different attitude toward men and women: from being a collaborator in a shared project to a person humanly sensitive to the needs of the “orphans”; a different attitude that emerges from the very beginning of the letter, to return also in the farewell letters.

The call to Heaven, present in all the letters to the laity, is obviously at the center of those addressed to clerics, priests, and missionaries, with whom Don Bosco established a paternal, soothing, merciful relationship, but also firm and aimed at the spiritual and vocational growth of the correspondent. The third speaker, Fr. Carlo Maria Zanotti, SDB, professor of the history of vocational pedagogy and the pedagogy of consecrated vocations, also at FSE, dealt explicitly with this subject.

In turn, Prof. Andrea Farina, a professor at FSE and an expert in laws regarding minors and in the legislation and organization of personal services, captured in Don Bosco’s letters the typical elements of his relationship with civil and religious authorities (emperor, ministers, mayors, pope, bishops, religious superiors, et al.): a courageous, frank, self-confident relationship, expressed in different tones and ways according to the person and the occasion, but always attentive to the smallest details, aimed at the proposed objective: the service that the Salesian Congregation intended to offer aid to young people in difficulty.

The meeting was moderated by Fr. Thomas Anchukandam, SDB, director of the ISS, and was followed in livestreaming by viewers from various continents. It can still be viewed at the following address: https://youtu.be/l6X0wL_LKkM 

Don Bosco's Mission in Liberia

Don Bosco's Mission in Liberia

(ANS – Monrovia, Liberia – May 21, 2021) – Liberia is a country of freedom, but 14 years of civil war (1989-2003) devastated the social, physical, and psychological fabric of this West African state. The conflict left the country in economic ruin. In addition to the conflict, the outbreak of Ebola in 2014, which led to the death of the parents and breadwinners in many families, rendered many young people homeless and hopeless. British and American Salesians came to Liberia in 1979 and are currently working in the capital, Monrovia, and in Tappita, a rural town located in Nimba county in the eastern part of Liberia.

The Sean Devereux Don Bosco Youth Center was founded in 1991 to care for former child soldiers and other young people in Monrovia. The youth center with its dynamic activities and the friendly spirit of Don Bosco helped many young people to recover from the effects of the war and to be rehabilitated into society.

The youth center is situated in Matadi, among some of the poorest residents of Monrovia. Most of them are petty merchants, but many others are jobless and struggling to provide for their families.

Most of the youths of Matadi come from families that can barely afford a single meal a day. Homes are poor and overcrowded, with parents sharing a room with their children, or children sharing a room with many other children. Matadi has no electricity supply. Many of the people live in darkness by night because they cannot afford a generator.

Many of the young people call the Sean Devereaux Don Bosco Youth Center their home. Every evening the youth center is packed with over 500 young people. They come to the center to acquire life skills and engage in sports and cultural activities under the guidance and supervision of Salesians, trained staff, and volunteers. The guidance of the Salesians empowers young people and helps them to regain their confidence and set positive goals for their future.

The second Don Bosco youth center is in the rural town of Tappita. 60 miles of the road to Tappita is not tarred and is very rough. Tappita is not accessible for long periods during the rainy season. It is isolated from the capital, and commercial activities are brought to a standstill. This causes great hardship for the local people: the impossibility of access to a hospital, having to travel long distances by motorbike, difficulty in procuring provisions, and an increase in the cost of fuel and other basics. The extreme material poverty in Liberia causes a wide range of physical and psychological consequences. Young people suffer many hardships.  Many are from broken families and are left to care for themselves. The youth center provides a home-like environment for them where they feel welcome, a school where they can learn, and a playground where they can make friends and interact with others.

The youth centers in Matadi and Tappita have many amazing success stories of young people who endured hardship during their childhood, and with Don Bosco’s helping hand have achieved success.

One of these is Amy Karpu, now a 21-year-old student at the Starz College of Science and Technology. As a child, she had to overcome fear and isolation. With the help of the Salesians she has improved, got back her confidence, and is now one of the most hardworking and committed animators of the youth center. She constantly expresses her gratitude to the Salesians for their support and guidance during her education.

Amounchen Dossen is currently studying economics in Stella Maris Polytechnic University. He started his journey in the youth center in 2005, after his father couldn’t pay his school fees. He received a scholarship from the youth center from 2005 to 2010 and took part in various activities and training programs. He was also very active along with other animators in reaching out to the community during the Ebola pandemic and that of Coronavirus. Amounchen is very happy with the positive impact of the Don Bosco Youth Center on him and is proud to be able to reach out to others as an animator.

Hardworking Salesians and dedicated lay people in the Don Bosco youth centers continue to bring hope. They make a great impact on the lives of poor and needy young people in Liberia.

Source: Salesians Ireland

Homily for Thursday of 7th Week of Easter

Homily for Thursday
7th Week of Easter

May 20, 2021
John 17: 20-26
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“I pray … that they may all be one…” (John 17: 21).

At the Last Supper, we have Jesus’ last will and testament, as it were.  In the Synoptics, that’s his gift of himself, the Eucharist.  In John, it’s a long discourse, which includes a long prayer.  Jesus speaks of love:  his love for his Father and the Father’s love for him; his love for his disciples there at the table and in future generations; and his disciples’ love for one another.

(by Meister des Hausbuchs)

In our Johannine passage today, the conclusion of his priestly prayer, he offers unity.  As Jesus and his Father are one, he wishes to take his disciples—his friends—into that unity.

In our patristic reading on Sunday, St. Gregory of Nyssa identified the Holy Spirit as “glory.”  He cites Jesus’ words today in this prayer to his Father:  “I have given them [his disciples] the glory you gave me” (17:22).[1]

The Spirit is the principle of unity, the bond between Father and Son.  Giving this gift to us enables us disciples to “be one” as Father and Son are one (17:21).  We become one with them, bonded by the glorious gift from Jesus.  In our familiar prayer ending, we the Church are “the unity of the Holy Spirit” which makes its prayer to the Father thru Jesus Christ, in which Jesus Christ lives and reigns forever.

Jesus gives us his Spirit out of love to enable us to love—to love him, to love his Father, to love one another:  “that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them” (17:26), and that we may so testify to the world in the power of the Spirit he gives us.

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    [1] From a homily on the Song of Songs, LOH 2:958.

Pastoral Assignments for 2021-2022

 Pastoral Assignments for 2021-2022

On May 15, Fr. Tim Zak, provincial of the Eastern U.S. and Canada Province, announced 19 obediences, of which 12 are for the triennium 2021-2024.  This was the 2d round of assignments for the coming pastoral year.

Fr. Tim also informed the province that 3 of our confreres had been approved for priestly ordination (in June):  Deacons Lenny Carlino, Steve DeMaio, and Craig Spence; Bro. Ky Nguyen was approved for diaconal ordination (also in June), and Bros. Branden Gordon and Josh Sciullo were approved for the ministry of acolyte.  In fact, Bro. Josh had been installed on May 7 in Jerusalem, where he's studying theology (as are the 3 deacons).

Several of the assignments announced concern men who are advancing to their next steps in Salesian formation:  Dan Lee was admitted to the novitiate, which he'll enter on Aug. 15 in Richmond, Calif., and Pascal Mukuye and John Taylor were admitted to the pre-novitiate program in Ramsey, N.J., to commence in August.  3 young men were accepted as candidates for Salesian life in Orange, N.J.

Fr. John Serio

4 of the assignments affect our provincial house community.  We already knew that Frs. John Serio and Bill Ferruzzi would be moving out; we just didn't know where to.  Now we know:  both have been assigned to the Marian Shrine community in Haverstraw, N.Y., for shrine and retreat ministry.  Fr. Dominic Tran, who's already here (vocation director) and whose appointment as vice provincial (2021-2024) was announced in January, will also become the province's delegate for formation.  That is, he'll oversee our formation program, including retreats, and the men in formation.  He remains vocation director, as well.  But he'll have an assistant, newly ordained Fr. Steve DeMaio, who will join our community.  Generally speaking, these assignments are effective July 1.

Fr. Bill Ferruzzi

At St. Benedict's Parish in Etobicoke, Ont., Fr. Dave Sajdak, pastor, will be leaving and Fr. Jim Berning will take over.  Fr. Dave has been assigned to St. John Bosco Parish in Chicago as assistant pastor.  Fr. Jim has been in Etobicoke already as vocation director for Canada.  Fr. Sean McEwen, who also has been at St. Benedict (for several months), will become the SDB community treasurer and the province's delegate for mission animation (replacing Fr. Tom Brennan of New Rochelle in that responsibility).

Bro. Rafael Vargas (photo by Bro. Travis Gunther)

In addition to the candidates who'll be in Orange, Bro. Rafael Vargas will be moving in as part of the formation team in the house.  Bro. Tom Sweeney will depart, transferring to the staff at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey.

Also moving to DBP is one of the school's distinguished alumni, Fr. Jim McKenna.  Fr. Jim is completing a long period of service as director of the Marian Shrine and will now serve in DBP's advancement office.

3 of the assignments affect our Maryland community, Don Bosco Cristo Rey.  Bro. Don Caldwell will move in there as community treasurer and a guidance counselor at the school, coming down from the Marian Shrine.  Newly ordained Fr. Craig Spence will become a teacher at the school.  Fr. Tom Provenzano, who has been studying liturgy at the Catholic University, will move out and become an assistant pastor at St. John Bosco Parish in Port Chester, N.Y. (where Fr. John Grinsell died from Covid on March 12, and whence Fr. Manny Gallo will leave to become director in Maryland, as announced in January).

Fr. Lou Aineto

Another "assignment" is the "retirement" of Fr. Lou Aineto, 86, after many years as assistant pastor in Chicago.  He'll move to the SDB assisted living home in Tampa, the St. Philip the Apostle Residence.  He'll have the opportunity there, health permitting, to continue some pastoral ministry at Cristo Rey Tampa and/or Mary Help of Christians Parish.

The last assignment of this round (another is promised at some future date) is that Bro. Dan Glass, completing one stage of his initial formation in Orange, has been accepted by the Rector Major to go to the foreign missions--destination to be determined.  Bro. Dan has already been a missionary, having served as a Salesian Lay Missioner in South Sudan in 2012-2013--an experience that helped spark his vocation as an SDB.

Homily for 7th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
7th Sunday of Easter

May 16, 2021
Acts 1: 15-17, 20-26
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle, N.Y.                                   

“Peter said, ‘The Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke…” (Acts 1: 15-16).

By Workshop of Simone Martini - https://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/european_paintings/saint_matthias_workshop_of_simone_martini//objectview.aspx?OID=110002131&collID=11&dd1=11, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12167838

The infant Church’s 1st decision—except the decision to continue hiding out in the cenacle—concerned filling Judas’ place in the apostolic college.  To make the decision, immediately they placed themselves under divine authority, in 2 steps.

1st, they assessed their situation in the light of the Scriptures.  They acknowledged the Scriptures to be the inspired Word of God, the voice of the Holy Spirit.  They took that Word as their guiding rule.

From the very beginning up until today, the Church is under the Word of God for our guidance and governance.  E.g., Vatican II refers to the Scriptures thru and thru, and one its most important documents was in fact the Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum.  Likewise, subsequent papal and curial documents consistently refer to the Scriptures for what they teach.

What holds for the Church universal is valid for us too—as a religious community and as individual disciples of the Lord Jesus.  We need to read the Bible, pray with the Bible, refer our life situation to the Bible.

2d, the infant Church placed their decision in God’s hands.  This they did in part by what our Holy Father calls the “synodal way.”  Peter initiated the discussion of how they should fill Judas’ place, but all participated, eventually putting forward 2 candidates:  “they proposed 2, Joseph[1] called Barsabbas…, and Matthias” (1:23).  And they did it in part by explicit prayer:  “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these 2 you have chosen” (1:24).

Here, too, is a guide for us:  consultation, seeking advice; discussion of options, implications, means, intentions; and then prayer.  This, also, holds for both communities and individuals.

The 120 in the upper room left the choice to God by drawing lots, however they did that.  Sometimes it seems that we—the Church, the community, ourselves—make a decision by a figurative roll of the dice.  If we’ve invoked God 1st, I guess you could say it’s a biblical way of determining God’s will.  Should we close this work or open that new one?  Whom should we assign to this particular responsibility?  Is sister ready for a move?  Should I or should I not accept what’s proposed?  What should we do about such-and-such a situation in the community or the school?  After all the “synodal way,” and prayer, maybe our way of casting lots is to vote.  There is an adage, at least as old as medieval Scholasticism, “Vox populi, vox Dei.”

Of course, sometimes the superior alone has to decide.  We need to pray she’s listening to God.

A separate point brought out in the passage we read is the nature of the apostolic office that Matthias was chosen to fill.  This bears on our purpose as apostolic religious, and the purpose of our schools and catechesis and any other ministry; indeed, on who we are as disciples of Jesus.  “It is necessary that [the one chosen] become a witness to Jesus’ resurrection” (1:21-22).  However much we might talk about the public ministry of Jesus, his exorcisms, his parables, his miracles, the Sermon on the Mount—the fundamental truth of faith in Jesus is that God raised him from the dead, that he is our living Lord, that he is our life.

St. Paul writes to the Corinthians:  “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins.  If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all” (I, 15:17,19).  Without the resurrection, we have no hope of eternal life, and nothing we do, or don’t do, in this life matters.  As a cynical but very popular song in the ’70s said, “We’re just dust in the wind.”

But God created us for life, and in his Son Jesus Christ he has made it possible for us to live happily forever.  This has to be our hope and the basis for everything else we teach:  social justice, sexual morality, self-denial, humility, patience, love for our sisters.

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          [1] The Word of God is inerrant; not so the lectionary.  The edition commonly used in the U.S. today misprints his name as “Judas.”  Cf. the exact same passage for the feast of St. Matthias, May 14, as well as different editions of the Bible itself.

Homily for Solemnity of the Ascension

Homily for the Solemnity
of the Ascension

June 1, 2003
Collect
Resurrection, Riverview, Fla.
Most Holy Redeemer, Tampa           

In most of the U.S.--indeed, in most of the Catholic world--the solemnity of the Ascension is observed on the 7th Sunday of the Easter season (May 16, this year).  But in some places in the U.S. and elsewhere, it remains on its traditional Thursday of Easter's 6th week.  Here's an old homily to mark that festivity (on which I won't be preaching this year).

“May we follow your Son Jesus Christ into the new creation, for his ascension is our glory and our hope” (Collect).

(source unknown)

The opening prayer of the Mass always combines praise of God the Father with petition.  So this morning we acknowledge the Father’s saving power:  Christ’s ascension is our glory and our hope.  And we pray that we may follow Christ into the new creation.

According to one version of the origin of Satan and his demonic cohorts—the fall of Lucifer from angel of light to prince of darkness—God put all the angels to a test.  This isn’t in the Bible; it’s just theological speculation and carries no doctrinal weight.  The divine test was to reveal to them that God was going to create lesser creatures, but the angels would one day have to pay homage and be obedient to one of these creatures, a human being.  At such a scandalous idea, Lucifer and his allies revolted against God and the divine plan, and so they abandoned heaven and created hell.  And thenceforth they made perpetual war on both God and men.

Such is one theory of the origin of the devils.  That theory highlights one of the meanings of today’s feast:  Jesus Christ’s ascension is our glory and our hope.  The Son of God, the 2d Person of the Holy Trinity, was always in heaven.  Who ascended from earth to heaven was Jesus of Nazareth, the human being born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, God’s Son but the Son of Man as well.  The angels of heaven are obedient to Jesus Christ, God and man; “all things are beneath his feet,” St. Paul says (Eph 1:22).  The devils of hell he has conquered.

When Americans accomplish great deeds—at the Olympic Games, for instance—or when an American is honored by canonization as a saint, we’re all proud and bask in their glory.  When the Salesian bishop of Dili, East Timor, Carlos Felipe Belo, won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1996, his 17,000 Salesian brothers felt the same pride and joy.  And today we boast that Jesus has raised our human nature to divine glory, giving all of us hope of joining him.  Where one human being has gone, pioneering the way, so to speak, the rest of us may follow.  So today we celebrate the exaltation, the heavenly enthronement, of one of our own.  “God mounts his throne amid shouts of joy,” Ps 47 says (v. 6), but in Christ the divine is now inseparable from the human nature the Son took on by his incarnation.  The whole of humanity has been exalted by the triumph of Jesus Christ.  Our destiny has been changed, our hope has been raised, from the inevitable corruption and disintegration of the grave to the integrity and the glory and the joy of eternal life with God our Father.  The preface of the Mass for today says that Christ our Lord “was taken up to heaven…to claim for us a share in his divine life.”

So our prayer this morning was that we might follow our Lord Jesus into the new creation.  “New creation” is a New Testament concept for eternal life in Christ.  In Romans St. Paul writes that “creation itself would be set free from corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God” (8:21).  In the original creation described in the 1st chapters of Genesis, the 1st man and woman enjoyed immortality and walked in intimate friendship with God.  There was neither pain nor sorrow on the earth.  All those bless-ings they lost when they sinned, rebelling like Satan against the divine plan.

But our redemption by Christ reversed our condemnation and the whole creation’s:  “Whoever is in Christ is a new creation:  the old has passed away; behold, the new has come,” Paul writes to the Corinthians (II, 5:17).  St. Peter affirms that “we await a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (II, 3:13).  In his risen body, Jesus of Nazareth is already part of that wondrous new creation—as also is his holy Mother, whom he raised from the tomb and assumed into heaven to be with him, as we also shall be at the end of time.  If we follow Christ in this life, we’ll join him in eternal life and be made new, whole, young, strong, joyful, and glorious like him.  Our prayer today is that we may indeed follow him.

Homily for 6th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
6th Sunday of Easter

May 9, 2021
Acts 10: 25-26, 34-35, 44-48
Blessed Sacrament, New Rochelle, N.Y.             
Holy Name, New Rochelle, N.Y.                        

“I see that God shows no partiality” (Acts 10: 34).

This morning’s passage from the Acts of the Apostles speaks to present crises in our country.

The Vision of Cornelius (van den Eeckhout)

The story of Cornelius and St. Peter is a story of conversion, but of more than that.  Cornelius was a Roman centurion stationed at Caesarea in Palestine when he had a vision that commanded him to send for Simon Peter (Acts 10:1-6).  A short time later, Peter also had a vision in which various foods unclean to Jews were presented to him, and from heaven a voice commanded him to eat.  He said no 3 times because the food was unclean.  But the voice ordered, “What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.”  And he was informed that a delegation from Cornelius was at hand, and he must go with them (10:9-20).

As you know, the Jews scorned the people of all other nations—the Gentiles—as unclean.  Peter should avoid the company of Cornelius and certainly not go to his house and meet his entire household.

But under God’s command, he went.  We heard excerpts from what followed.  The 2 men reported their visions to each other, Cornelius asked what message from God Peter had for him, and Peter told him about Jesus (10:34-43).  “While Peter was still speaking,” we heard, “the Holy Spirit fell upon those who were listening” (10:44), an experience quite like what the apostles, the Virgin Mary, and the other disciples had on Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4).

Peter and his companions were astounded (10:45), but, in combination with the 2 visions—of Cornelius and of Peter—they got the message.  In the matter of salvation thru Jesus Christ, “God shows now partiality.”  Jesus is not only for his own Jewish people but also for the Gentiles—Greeks, the despised Romans, and anyone else who will believe in the Gospel.  God created everyone “clean,” so to speak, or capable of being cleansed by grace; God created everyone in his own image, as his own children—a relationship meant to be deepened thru a relationship with Jesus Christ.  “In every nation whoever fears God and acts uprightly is acceptable to him” (10:35).

There are people in the U.S. who are not accepted.  While “God shows no partiality” in his gift of salvation—and it is a gift, not something we are due—too many Americans discriminate against other people because of their race, language, national origin, or religion.

Who isn’t aware of the violence inflicted unjustly upon blacks and Asians?  Who isn’t aware of anti-Semitic incidents?  I suppose that most church-going people strive to be fair and just to everyone.  Still, we ought to examine our hearts from time to time.  We ought to examine the language we use, the stories and jokes we tell.  Are they harmless and innocent, or offensive and demeaning?  How do we act in the presence of people who aren’t like us?  What lessons are we teaching the young people around us?

Sen. Tim Scott spoke after Pres. Biden 2 weeks ago and made the point that, altho he has personal experience of racial discrimination, America is not a racist country.  He’s black and from South Carolina, so he has credentials to say that.

But others, both black and white, disagree.  One black woman said recently:  “People of color, particularly African Americans in this country, have had the collective knee on the necks of our people since we were sold here, brought here.  Understanding that truth in terms of what happened with George Floyd became a vision that many of us will never forget and felt like even more of a betrayal because we’re supposed to be better. This is America, and we are not.”[1]

Evidently there are plenty of people with racist attitudes, attitudes at variance with the God-given dignity of every human being.  And sometimes those attitudes lead to terrible actions.

Every day we hear news that some Chinese or other Asian person has been assaulted on the streets—even in New York or San Francisco, places that supposedly are the most tolerant on earth.  How is it so?  Like St. Peter, some people need to be converted to the message of Jesus Christ.

We can say the same about how many in our society regard Jews.  There are outrageous incidents in France and Germany—and here too:  Jews murdered at their synagog in Pittsburgh, Jewish synagogs defaced in Riverdale.  The Church teaches us that the Jews are God’s beloved people; they are our elder brothers and sisters in their belief in God our Creator and Lord.

How many Catholics are completely compassionless for people from Central America and the Middle East who are fleeing from persecution, war and gang violence, natural disasters, or “simply” economic impossibilities?

Immigration and control of our borders are tremendously complex issues; they concern not only our hearts but also our social health and balance.  We who are descended from Irish, Italian, and Central European immigrants of just a century ago, however, have to see current migrants and refugees as God’s children, too, and try to find ways to address these complex issues, not just build walls and pack detention centers.  “The bishops along the border of the United States and northern Mexico released a joint statement last month saying, ‘Undoubtedly, nations have a right to maintain their borders. This is vital to their sovereignty and self-determination. At the same time, there is a shared responsibility of all nations to preserve human life and provide for safe, orderly, and humane immigration, including the right to asylum.’”[2]

Pope Francis has taken up this matter again and again—it’s not unique to our country, but to Europe and Australia too, because there is so much injustice in the world and so many natural disasters.

Are these questions—the treatment of racial minorities, religious minorities, immigrants and refugees—just political questions?  Not if we listen to Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan or his parable of the Last Judgment (which speaks of welcoming the stranger).  Not if we ponder the dignity that God bestows on every human being, from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.  He “shows no partiality,” and “whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.”  Even more, he reaches out to and loves even wrongdoers.  Jesus Christ died for sinners, for everyone.

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    [1] John Lavenburg, “By pledging $100 million for slave descendants, Jesuits are ‘owning’ their history,” CRUX online, May 4, 2021.

    [2] William Donohue, “Biden’s Border Problem Is Exploding,” Catholic League online, May 6, 2021.

Annual Meeting of North American Salesian Network

Annual Meeting of North American Salesian Network

(ANS – New York – April 30, 2021) - On April 12-13, the North American Salesian Network (NASN) held its annual meeting via Zoom at the DeSales Retreat Center in Brooklyn, Mich. The NASN brings together organizations that share the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales. For Don Bosco’s Salesian Family, they include the provinces of the Salesians and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, the three provinces of the Salesian Cooperators, and the Volunteers with Don Bosco. In recent years the NASN has been working toward the 400th anniversary of the death of St. Francis de Sales, to be celebrated in 2022, to draw attention to his spirituality and apostolic activity. On the initiative of Fr. Joe Boenzi and the NASN, a request signed by Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime and the generals of the OSFS and MSFS on behalf of each organization was presented to Pope Francis asking him to write an apostolic letter for the anniversary.

Diocesan Inquiry for Mother Rosetta Marchese Opens

Diocesan Inquiry for
Mother Rosetta Marchese Opens

(ANS – Rome – May 3, 2021) – The opening session of the diocesan inquiry on the life, heroic virtues, and reputation of holiness of Servant of God Rosetta Marchese, FMA, took place on Friday, April 30. During the opening session, the members of the diocesan tribunal were sworn in: the episcopal delegate, Msgr. Giuseppe D’Alonzo; the promoter of justice, Fr. Giorgio Ciucci; the actuary notary Marcello Terramani; the deputy notary Giancarlo Bracchi; and subsequently, also the postulator, Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni, SDB, and the vice postulator Sr. Francesca Caggiano, FMA.

Present for the Salesian Sisters were Mother Yvonne Reungoat, superior general, Sr. Chiara Cazzola, her Vicar, Sr. Piera Cavaglià, secretary general, and some sisters from the Generalate. In her speech, Mother Reungoat compared the faith witness of Mother Marchese to that of St. Mary Domenica Mazzarello: “Both – the only two superiors general, so far, whose holiness we have asked the Church to recognize – consciously offered their lives for growth and the sanctity of the Institute, in difficult times. Both lived their mission as a service to the life and vitality of the Institute, paying attention to the journey of each sister and of the Institute as a whole. Emblematic are the words she spoke when she was elected on October 24, 1981: ‘The Institute has always given me everything, but now it gives me all of itself.’ Both in their educational service were capable of intuition and mystagogy, they nourished their donation to the educational mission with a profound interior life, they were sisters and mothers for the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, for young people, for those who needed to be welcomed and accompanied in the response to God’s call.”

Mother Rosetta Marchese was born in Aosta, Italy, on October 20, 1922. She knew and attended the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians since childhood, thus maturing her faith and her ideal of total consecration to God. After her first religious profession in 1941, she completed her studies at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, graduating in literature. From 1947 to 1958 she was a teacher and vicar in the Mother Mazzarello missionary house in Turin, where she followed with particular attention the young sisters who were preparing to leave for the missions. From 1958 to 1974 she carried out tasks of animation and government in Sicily, Rome, and Lombardy.

In 1981 she was elected superior general, but just eight months after her election, the first signs of leukemia came. In a circular letter on October 24, 1982, Mother Marchese concluded her teaching by wishing that all her daughters let themselves be infected by Don Bosco “with acute nostalgia for ‘beautiful Paradise,’” to enter the path of holiness “with a will without return.” She said, “The destination is unique: to arrive in Heaven with all the young people for whom we have given and consumed our existence.” She died on March 8, 1984, in Rome.

You can see the opening celebration and a video presentation by Mother Marchese.