Homily for 22d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
22d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Aug. 31, 2025
Heb 12: 18-19, 22-24
Luke 14: 1, 7-14
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

Mt. Sinai and its wilderness
(Picture Study Bible - Exodus. Bible History Online)

“You have approached Mt. Zion and the city of the living God” (Heb 12: 22).

Our passage this afternoon from the Letter to the Hebrews contrasts the experience of the Hebrews whom Moses led out of Egypt with the experience of Jesus’ followers, and the eloquence of the blood of Abel with the blood of Jesus.

In the book of Exodus, Mt. Sinai, site of the old covenant, is described as a terrifying place, with thunder, lightning, fire, and the sounds of trumpets signifying God’s awful presence, in the sense of inspiring awe, “so that all the people trembled” (19:16).  God commanded that no one except Moses should approach even the base of the mountain under penalty of death (19:12-14).

But God has come down to us in the humble person of Jesus of Nazareth.  He’s not only approachable, but he invites us, “Come to me, for I am gentle and humble of heart” (Matt 11:29).  He wants our company.  “God’s dwelling is with the human race,” the Lord proclaims to John the Visionary in the book of Revelation (Rev 21:3).

Jesus, companion of the 12 apostles—the root of the word companion means one you break bread with and share a meal—Jesus, our companion, mediates a new covenant in which God redeems us with love and calls us to the heavenly wedding banquet:  “Blessed are those who are called to the wedding feast of the Lamb” (Rev 19:9).  At that feast, all are invited to ascend to a higher position (Luke 14:10), to a place of honor with Jesus, and to break bread with him, to celebrate the union between Christ our bridegroom and his bride the Church.

We already break bread with Jesus because he’s gifted us with his body and blood in the form of bread and wine.  Sharing in this heavenly food is a foretaste, an appetizer, of the heavenly banquet.

Mt. Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God—we approach that already when we come to the table of the Eucharist.  Jesus tells us, “Come!”  Everyone who follows Jesus is invited to approach, to partake in the bread of the new covenant, unlike the Hebrews at Mt. Sinai who, in spite of the old covenant, had to keep their distance.  The only caution to our approach, St. Paul reminds the Corinthians, is that we come worthily:  “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.  A person should examine himself” lest he “eat and drink judgment on himself” (I, 11:27-29).

The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that we “have approached the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect” (10:23).  “Assembly” translates εκκλησία, which in other contexts we render as “church.”  The church is the assembly of God’s chosen, gathered first on earth and eventually to be gathered in “the heavenly Jerusalem.”

The “firstborn” is, in the first place, Jesus.  At his birth, he was identified as Mary’s “firstborn son” (Luke 2:7), and at his resurrection he became “the firstborn from the dead” (Col 1:18), “the firstborn of many brothers and sisters” (Rom 8:29).  Here in Hebrews, “firstborn” is plural, i.e., all who’ve been baptized into Jesus Christ are God’s firstborn:  beloved, privileged children who have been “enrolled in heaven” as citizens in “the city of the living God.”

The New Jerusalem
(Armenian ms., 1645)

Our weekly assembly as God’s εκκλησία brings us already into God’s presence; we stand here in God’s house, on the threshold of “the heavenly Jerusalem.”  Partaking of the divine banquet here, we are stepping toward the banquet that won’t end, among “countless angels in festal gathering … and the spirits of the just made perfect” (12:22-23).

To speak briefly of the reference to “sprinkled blood”:  As part of the ritual by which the Hebrews at Mt. Sinai ratified their covenant with God, Moses sprinkled the blood of a sacrifice upon the altar and upon the people, binding both parties, God and the people, to the terms of the covenant.  We’ve been sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, which gushed from the wounds of his passion.

In the book of Genesis, when Cain murdered his brother Abel, Abel’s blood cried out to God from the soil, cried to be avenged (3:10-11).  The blood of Jesus, however, doesn’t call for vengeance; it calls for forgiveness, for the redemption of us sinners.  It speaks to our Father in heaven “more eloquently than Abel’s blood.”  We were washed in Jesus’ blood at Baptism, and we drink his blood in the Eucharist—more richly symbolized when we share also in the chalice, and not only in what looks like bread (no longer bread, as we know, but Christ’s living body and blood).  His blood cries out to “the judge of all” for mercy and for our enrollment among the just.

Homily for Saturday, Week 21 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Saturday
21st Week of Ordinary Time

Aug. 30, 2025
1 Thes 4: 9-11
Matt 25: 14-30
Provincial House, New Rochelle

“On the subject of fraternal charity, you have no need for anyone to write to you” (1 Thes 4: 9).

Addressing his dear disciples in Thessalonica, Paul voices satisfaction with their practice of charity both within their church community and beyond it, to “all the brothers thruout Macedonia” (4:10), the region of Greece where Thessalonica and Philippi are located.

But he urges them “to progress even more” (4:10) by “aspiring to a tranquil life,” “minding your own affairs,” and “working with your own hands” (4:11), which might seem to suggest a kind of spiritual and even practical withdrawal from attending to the wider community—to other residents of the city and the region.  His words could be read as a bit contradictory.  How are they to progress in their love for all their Christian brothers and sisters, let alone the city and the region, while minding their own business and seeking quiet lives?

The master settling accounts
(Willem de Poorter)

Jesus’ parable, too, seems to contradict seeking tranquility and minding one’s own affairs; rather, it seems to urge civic engagement—“trading with” the talents entrusted to you.  A talent is a unit of money, a quite considerable one, equal to 15 years’ wages, according to The Paulist Biblical Commentary[1]; not some natural endowment or aptitude.

That parable is one of the 3 parables of judgment in Matthew 25, preceded by the parable of the 10 virgins and their lamps, and followed by that of the Son of Man’s separating the sheep and the goats on the basis of their practical charity.

The master has given each of his servants a precious gift with the expectation that they use that gift to further his interests.  That gift, I think, is the Good News; or, if you prefer, faith in the Lord Jesus.  In any case, it’s not a gift to bury in the ground or to hide away.  The so-called Benedict Option is not an option for a follower of Jesus.  “Embracing exile from the mainstream culture and constructing a resilient counterculture” in some hidden valley or behind the walls of a compound isn’t the way to further the master’s interest in spreading the Good News or multiplying the number of believers.  That’s not what the founders of the Cistercians did, even if take their name from Citeaux, probably meaning “a swampy place.”  Tho monks, they were hardly secluded or buried away; they were, rather, active in affairs both ecclesiastical and civil, like St. Bernard, Thomas Merton, and the martyr monks of Tibhirine, Algeria.

“Aspiring to a tranquil life” and “minding your own affairs” sounds like the Benedict Option, not like going out to the whole world and making disciples of all nations (cf. Matt 28:19).  That is the Jesus option.  That is the “even more progress” in charity to aim at, bringing God’s love and love for all his children to the wider world.  That’s what we do when we train good Christians and upright citizens.  An upright citizen will be engaged in promoting a more just society and in preserving God’s creation for the common good of all, including future generations; a good Christian practices his faith openly and simply for others to see.

Being a good Christian and upright citizen isn’t a path toward tranquility.  It takes one beyond his own affairs to the affairs of “all the brothers thruout Macedonia,” as it were, toward garnering interest on the master’s investment in the Good News delivered to us.

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[1] Brendan Byrne, SJ, “Matthew,” in the PBC (New York: Paulist, 2018), p. 960.

Homily for Memorial of St. Augustine

Homily for the Memorial of
St. Augustine

Collect
Aug. 28, 2025
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

A statue of St. Augustine stands atop
the facade of the Sacred Heart Basilica in Rome

In the collect we prayed that we might be filled with the “same spirit” Augustine had, to “thirst for” and to “seek” the Lord, “fount of true wisdom” and “author of heavenly love.”

Augustine’s whole life was a thirsting for and a seeking of wisdom and love.  As we know, initially he looked in the wrong places—in sensuality, from stealing pears to living with a mistress; and in false philosophies and human learning.

But his search was sincere, and eventually he found the beginnings of wisdom and love in his Creator and his Redeemer.  His search was facilitated in 3 ways.  1st, as we were reminded yesterday, by the years-long prayers of his mother.  2d, by his reading of the Scriptures, culminating, we might say, in the famous “take and read” episode in which he opened the New Testament randomly to Rom 13:13-14.  3d, by the preaching of St. Ambrose, whose eloquence showed the half-converted teacher of rhetoric that Catholicism embraces the good, the true, and the beautiful (as Dante, Chaucer, Giotto, and Michelangelo, among many others, did later and Bp. Robert Barron tries to do now).

The collect asked God to “renew in” his Church Augustine’s spirit.  Augustine’s pursuit of wisdom wasn’t only for himself but for everyone.  He was no ivory tower theologian.  He was a shepherd:  teaching his clergy and others in his circle how to live as Christians (the roots of the Augustinian monastic rule), engaging in extensive correspondence, offering a liberal hospitality, taking great care of the poor with his personal funds and those of the Church.

We might dare to call Augustine a contemplative in action, a man whose love for God and divine truth led him to practical love of neighbor—the 2 great commandments to which the Gospel calls us.

Learning from Augustine’s experience, we commit ourselves to prayer for our families, confreres, and others, that they be open to God’s grace.  We take up the sacred Scriptures to find God’s truth and wisdom addressed to us.  We use the finest characteristics of culture to assist in the presentation of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Homily for Tuesday, Week 21 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Tuesday
21st Week of Ordinary Time

Aug. 26, 2025
Ps 139: 1-6
1 Thes 2: 1-8
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

David, traditionally regarded
as author of many psalms
(St. Mary's Church, Fredericksburg)

“You have probed me and you know me” (Ps 139: 1).

Today’s psalm acknowledges how deeply, how intimately, the Lord knows us.  He knows us inside out:  “you understand my thoughts from afar” (139:2).

The Lord doesn’t know us so as to find fault with us—tho of course he knows our failings better than we do.  Paul commented to the Corinthians:  “I’m not conscious of anything against me, but I don’t thereby stand acquitted; the one who judges me is the Lord” (I, 4:4).

But the Lord doesn’t exclaim at us, “Woe to you, Brothers!” (cf. Matt 23).  He loves us.  He’s judged us “worthy to be entrusted with the Gospel” (1 Thes 2:4)—to hear the Gospel, to be converted by the Gospel, to be saved by the Gospel—and, by his grace, to live by the Gospel.  Living by the Gospel, we are gentle with one another “as a nursing mother cares for her children” (2:7) and “share our very selves” with one another (2:8), as Jesus has shared himself with us.

Argentine Provincial's Message on Bl. Ceferino Namuncura'

Fr. Dario Perera’s Message for the Memorial of Bl. Ceferino Namuncurá

(ANS - Buenos Aires – August 26, 2025) – August 26 is the liturgical memorial of Blessed Ceferino Namuncurá. On this day, which marks the 139th anniversary of the Blessed’s birth, Fr. Darío Perera, provincial in Buenos Aires, sent a message to the Salesian community, inviting them to “celebrate the feast of Blessed Ceferino, committing ourselves to realizing his dream.”

To this end, in the context of this year in which the Salesian Family celebrates the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first Salesian missionary expedition to Argentina, sent by St. John Bosco in 1875, Fr. Perera proposes the question: “Who are we? What does the fact that our patron is Ceferino Namuncurá tell us about our identity?” And he invites us to look for the answers in two very significant features of the Blessed’s life.

“The first thing Ceferino tells us,” the provincial said, “concerns the choices made by the missionaries who introduced the Congregation to our land: the choice of the poorest young people. Ceferino is an example of youthful holiness, of those boys and girls who suffer, who are the result of a society that marginalizes people. In reality, Ceferino had to walk a complex and difficult path. We Salesians are here for the poorest young people. Ceferino shows us that his holiness is the fruit of the most complex and difficult contexts that can exist in our culture.”

Second, Fr. Perera continues: “The other element that Ceferino points us to has to do with that strong experience of God’s ministry of the original peoples. The mystery of God is not enclosed in a culture or in the West. It is very beautiful to discover that God was also waiting for us in the religious experience of the original peoples. Therefore, to our Salesian youth spirituality, Ceferino offers an extraordinary contribution, which we still need to deepen, that has to do precisely with this original experience of God’s being born in the context of his people.”

Fr. Perera then went on to say that, as a province, we cannot fail to reflect on the experience lived by Ceferino Namuncurá, who is at the very origin of the South Argentine Province and who today sustains it as its patron.

And to his Salesian confreres and to all the members of the Salesian Family, he wishes “that we may celebrate the feast of Ceferino by committing ourselves to realizing his dream.”

The video-message is available on the YouTube channel Don Bosco Sur, at the following link.

Homily for 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

Aug. 24, 2025
Luke 13: 22-30
Collect
Is 66: 18-21
The Fountains, Tuckahoe, N.Y.
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

Gate into the stockade at Fort Necessity (reconstruction)
Fort Necessity National Battlefield
Great Meadows, near Farmington, Penn.

“Jesus answered, ‘Strive to enter thru the narrow gate’” (Luke 13: 24).

It’s a fact that God wishes to give eternal life and eternal happiness to every man and woman he’s created.  The catechism that many of us studied in our youth taught us that “God made us to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next world.”

God expressed his universal desire more than once thru the prophet Isaiah, e.g., in our 1st reading:  “I come to gather nations of every language; they shall come and see my glory” (66:18).

God wisely planted that desire also in our hearts, so that our desires and his should be in harmony.  St. Augustine famously wrote, “You’ve made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

We prayed in the collect that God grant his people the desire for what he promises, the desire for eternal life, the desire to “recline at table in the kingdom of God,” as Jesus says today (Luke 13:29), the desire to take part joyfully in the banquet of eternal life—the “supper of the Lamb,” as we say before Holy Communion.

But there’s only one way to get into the kingdom:  “Strive to enter thru the narrow gate.”  In one of his sayings about being the Good Shepherd, Jesus tells us, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep” (John 10:7), which is similar to his telling us at the Last Supper:  “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except thru me” (John 14:6), which we heard a moment ago before the gospel.  Jesus’ way of life, his way of journeying to the Father, is the narrow gate.

Further along in today’s gospel, he warns that at a certain time the master of the house will lock the door (Luke 13:25), and when he does, no one else will be admitted.  Those locked out he doesn’t know, he calls evildoers, and he orders to depart (13:27).  Colloquially, we can say he commands them to get lost; and they are, indeed, lost.

Then how are we to pass thru that narrow gate and gain admission to the master’s table and enjoy “the supper of the Lamb”?  We prayed earlier that we might love what God commands.  Jesus told his disciples repeatedly that if we love him we’ll keep his commands, and his principal command is that we love God and one another; that we praise God, serve God, give God glory, seek to do his will—“thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”; and that we be compassionate and merciful to our fellow men and women, to all God’s children, like the Good Samaritan in Jesus’ famous parable (Luke 10:29-37).  In that way, “our hearts are fixed on that place where true gladness is found” (Collect)—fixed on the heavenly table and on Jesus and his way of love.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches:  “The gate is wide and road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter thru it are many.  How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life.  And those who find it are few” (Matt 7:13-14).  Like the Marines, Jesus wants “a few good men”—and women too, obviously.  The wide road to destruction—to the loss of one’s soul—is the way of selfishness, greed, lust, deception, and vengeance.  The narrow gate of Jesus’ chosen few is the way of loving and serving our families, neighbors, and even the “nations of every language,” “all your brothers and sisters from all the nations,” as Isaiah says (66:20).  Enlist among his few; “strive to enter thru the narrow gate.”

Homily for Thursday, Week 20 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Thursday
20th Week of Ordinary Time

August 21, 2025
Jgs 11: 29-39
Matt 22: 1-14
Ps 40: 5, 7-10
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

The Return of Jephthah
(Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini)

The book of Judges recounts stories of Israel’s repeated infidelities, of the Lord’s allowing them in consequence to be harassed and oppressed by their enemies, and of his repeatedly raising up tribal leaders known as judges to deliver them when they finally turn back to him.

The judges by and large reflect their times and culture.  Like Jephthah today, they’re stirred up by the Spirit of the Lord (Jgs 11:29) to save one or another of the Hebrew tribes.  But they remain flawed heroes.  So Jephthah is ready to practice human sacrifice, one of the grievous practices of the nations round about Israel that for a very long time tempted them to infidelity.

It took many generations for Israel to be converted to the Lord in spite of prophets and good kings like David and Josiah.  Jesus was still calling for their repentance 1,200 years after Jephthah, and one could argue that still today they need a conversion to respect for human life.

You and I aren’t exempt from the temptations of our time and culture.  We’re vowed to God more profoundly than Jephthah and his daughter were, yet our conversion to the ways of Jesus remains incomplete.  Tho we’ve accepted the King’s invitation to his Son’s wedding feast (Matt 22:2), we’re not yet fully garbed for it (22:11).

So each day we recommit ourselves to our Lord Jesus.  Each day we make a fresh start to follow him.  We pray that he give us ears open to obedience (Ps 40:7), that he help us to greater fidelity to his ways and make his law our constant delight (40:9).

Message of the Rector Major for September

THE MESSAGE OF THE RECTOR MAJOR

Fr. Fabio Attard, SDB

PROPHETS OF FORGIVENESS AND GRATUITOUSNESS

In these times, when the news reports day after day about experiences of conflict, war, and hatred, there’s a great risk that we as believers could end up being drawn into an interpretation of events that’s reduced solely to the political level, or that we limit ourselves to taking sides in arguments that have to do with our way of seeing things and with our way of interpreting reality.

In Jesus’ discourse following the Beatitudes, there’s a series of “little/great lessons” that the Lord offers us. They always begin with the verse “You have heard it said.” In one of these, the Lord recalls the ancient saying, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Matt 5:38).

Beyond Gospel logic, this law isn’t only uncontested but can also be taken as a rule that expresses how to settle accounts with those who’ve offended us. Taking revenge is perceived as a right, even a duty.

Jesus takes a stand before this logic with a completely different, totally opposite proposal. In response to what we had understood, Jesus says, “But I say to you” (Matt 5:39). As Christians, we must pay close attention here. The words of Jesus that follow are important not only in themselves, but because they express his entire message in a very succinct way. Jesus doesn’t come to tell us that there’s another way of interpreting reality. Jesus doesn’t approach us to broaden the spectrum of opinions about earthly realities, especially those that affect our lives. Jesus’ isn’t just another opinion; he himself is the incarnation of the alternative proposal to the law of revenge.

The phrase “But I say to you” is of fundamental importance because now it is no longer a word merely expressed, but it is the person of Jesus himself. Jesus communicates to us what he lives. When Jesus says: “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matt 5:39), we know that he himself lived those very words. We certainly can’t say that Jesus preaches well but his message will do us harm.

Returning to our times, these words of Jesus risk being perceived as the words of a weak person, the thoughts of someone no longer capable of reacting but only of suffering. In fact, when we look at Jesus offering himself completely on the wood of the Cross, this is the impression we may have. Yet we know very well that his sacrifice on the Cross is the fruit of a life that begins with the phrase “but I say to you.” Everything Jesus told us, he took fully upon himself, and by taking it on fully, he managed to pass from the Cross to victory. Jesus’ logic is one that seemingly displays the personality of a “loser,” but we know very well that the message Jesus left us, and that he lived fully, is the medicine that this world needs today.

Being prophets of forgiveness means taking up good as a response to evil. It means being determined that the power of evil will not condition my way of seeing and interpreting reality. Forgiveness isn’t the response of the weak. Forgiveness is the most eloquent sign of that freedom which is capable of recognizing the wounds that evil leaves behind, but that those same wounds will never be a powder keg that fuels revenge and hatred.

Responding to evil with evil only widens and deepens the wounds of humanity. Peace and harmony don’t grow in the soil of hatred and revenge.

Being prophets of gratuitousness requires us to regard the poor and the needy not with the logic of profit, but with the logic of charity: the poor don’t choose to be poor; those who are well off have the opportunity to choose to be generous, good, and full of compassion. How different the world would be if our political leaders, in this scenario in which conflicts and wars keep increasing, had the good sense to look at those who pay the price for these divisions – namely, the poor and marginalized who can’t escape because they’re unable to do so.

If our starting point is that of a purely horizontal reading, there’s cause for despair. All that remains for us is to be imprisoned in our murmuring and our criticisms. But, no! We are educators of young people.

We know that the young people of our world are looking for healthy role models, political leaders capable of interpreting reality based on the criteria of justice and peace. But when our young people look around, we know that all they see is the emptiness of an impoverished vision of life.

Those of us who are committed to the education of the young have a great responsibility. It isn’t enough to comment on the darkness left by an almost complete absence of leadership. It isn’t enough to say that no proposals exist capable of igniting the memory of young people. It’s up to every one of us to light that candle of hope in this darkness by offering examples of a true humanity that wins out in everyday life.

It’s truly worth the effort to be prophets of forgiveness and gratuitousness in today’s world.

Salesian Missions Builds School Cafeteria in Angola

Salesian Missions Builds School Cafeteria in Angola

(ANS – Moxico Velho, Angola – August 20, 2025) – Salesians at the School of Agriculture and Rural Volunteering, located in Moxico Velho, Luena, Angola, were able to complete construction projects thanks to donor funding from Salesian Missions in New Rochelle. With the funding, Salesians rehabilitated the kitchen and created a school dining room for the students.

“This construction project will make significant improvements to the school and allow us to have a dedicated space to feed our students,” said one Salesian. “We appreciate the donors who support this project. Our school primarily serves students in conditions of poverty, and these changes will have a positive impact on them.”

This project directly impacted 36 youths, aged 17-23, who are undergoing volunteer training, with some preparing for the seminary. 2,000 villagers who rely on subsistence farming will also be able to use the new facilities.

The school works to develop volunteers experienced in agriculture, the general culture of the area, social development, and seminary studies. Salesians will look at new educational initiatives in forestry and beekeeping.

In Angola more than a third of the population could be living on less than $2.15 a day, according to the World Bank. Although the country’s recession ended in 2021, economic growth has lagged behind population growth, resulting in negative per capita growth for 9 years. Unemployment has remained high and has impacted women disproportionately; they experienced an unemployment rate of over 33% in the first quarter of 2024, compared to about 31% for men.

Salesians continue to rebuild infrastructure that was damaged during the civil war of 1975-2002. Much was destroyed during the conflict including schools, medical buildings, and churches. Living within the communities in which they work, Salesians have been perfectly positioned to respond to local needs and lead projects for community betterment.

Source: MissionNewswire

Homily for Tuesday, Week 20 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Tuesday
20th Week of Ordinary Time

August 19, 2025
Jgs 6: 11-24
Matt 19: 23-30
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

Gideon's Call (Schnorr von Karolsfeld)

“Go with the strength you have and save Israel” (Jgs 6: 14).

The book of Judges offers us a typical annunciation scene.  An angel comes with a divine message for someone who has no standing and no confidence and gives him a mission for salvation, with the assurance that God will guide and help him.  That’s “the strength” he has.

“God doesn’t call the qualified.  He qualifies the called.”  You’ve heard that.  You’ve probably experienced it.  It’s our own vocation story.

God hasn’t called us to religious life because of our talent, our social standing, or our merits.  How many times have we looked at one of our brothers and wondered, “God chose him?”  Not to mention superiors!  He has reasons and ways we don’t fathom.

If we’ve been faithful religious, more or less, and if we’ve been effective apostles, more or less, it’s because God’s given us the strength.  He’s always the Savior—of our souls and of the many souls whose lives we’ve touched by his grace.

The Lord gives us a sign that he’s with us.  As Gideon brought the angel an offering which was consumed by fire (6:18-21), so do we bring our offerings to the Lord; but they’re transformed by the fire of Christ’s love into his body and blood for our consummation, assuring us that his love remains with us and his strength empowers us to resist our enemies—the enemies of our souls.  “For men this is impossible,” that we should defeat sin and death, “but for God all things are possible” (Matt 19:26).

5 New Salesians for New Rochelle Province

5 New Salesians for New Rochelle Province

On August 15, Bros. Carlos Cerda Gutierrez, Lorenzo Carlo D’Alessandro, Nicholas Kurt Jandernoa, Christo Ruben Philistin, and Jieo Aleksander Tecson made their first religious profession as Salesians of Don Bosco during a celebration of the Eucharist in the chapel of the National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians in Haverstraw, N.Y.

Fr. Dominic Tran, SDB, provincial, presided at the Mass and received the vows of the 5 young men. They had completed a year of novitiate at the Salesian house of formation in Richmond, Calif., under the guidance of Fr. Joseph Thinh Nguyen, master of novices. (The novitiate is located on the campus of Salesian High School in Richmond.)

Bro. Carlos professed as a Salesian coadjutor brother, while the other 4 men will study for eventual ordination as priests (God willing). All 5 will continue their formation at the Salesian house in Orange, N.J., including studies at Seton Hall University in South Orange.

Concelebrating priests praying for those to be professed

Bro. Carlos Cerda, 25, was born in Moroleon, Guanajuato, Mexico, and entered the Salesians from Lockport, Ill.; he was a member of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in Joliet. He had been introduced to the Salesians by a Carmelite brother in the parish who was particularly close to the young people of the parish. He came to the Salesian formation house in Orange, N.J., in August 2021. His discernment also included a year of prenovitiate formation at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J., in 2023-2024.

Bro. Carlos discerned a calling to be a brother so that he can become “a friendly role model for other young people” and witness to the “call given by God to men who seek to dedicate themselves totally to God in community, living out the lay dimension of our Baptism,” particularly through the evangelical counsels. Bro. Carlos will pursue a bachelor’s degree in Spanish at Seton Hall, aiming eventually to teach at one of our Salesian schools. He aspires to touch the lives of many young people by listening to them and sharing their joys and challenges; to accompany young people at risk “by providing suitable trade skills”; and eventually to become a formator of men in initial Salesian formation.

Bro. Carlos found the best part of his novitiate year in the time spent in community with his novice classmates as well as the days designated for silence and prayer.

Parents of the new brothers stood and were applauded.

Bro. Lorenzo D’Alessandro, 27, comes from Vancouver, B.C., where he and his family belonged to St. Jude Parish. His parents are Robert D’Alessandro and Charlotte Carlos. He has a younger brother. Lorenzo came to the Salesians after 5 years as a diocesan seminarian, during which he earned a B.A. in philosophy. He had been influenced by one of his parish priests whose “example of holiness rubbed off on me, especially his love for sacred music and love for the liturgy as a whole.” In both high school and college, he found the Benedictine seminary rectors to be “men of great faith and intellect. Both showed me the beauty, ardour, and rigours of both consecrated life and intellectual life.”

Lorenzo desired to work with the young and to live a consecrated life in community, which he had witnessed with the Benedictines. A friend told him about the Salesians; he says, “It was as if God was saying to me, ‘There’s a religious order for that!’”

So Lorenzo began as a Salesian candidate in August 2022 at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey but had to return to Canada a few months later (visa issue), where he resumed his candidacy at St. Benedict, the Salesian parish in Etobicoke, Ont. He began prenovitiate there in 2023 but was able to return to Ramsey in January 2024 to complete the prenovitiate program. At the Prep, he was chaplain for some of the sports teams and the soup kitchen, and he also taught CCD at St. John Bosco Parish in Port Chester, N.Y., on a weekly basis.

During his novitiate year in Richmond, Lorenzo found greatest satisfaction in “being able to assimilate and live out Salesian values on a more concrete level, as well as being able to get to know the students in school, mainly through coaching.”

Following his religious profession, Bro. Lorenzo will take courses in school and sports psychology at Seton Hall while preparing spiritually for perpetual profession and intellectually “to implement his studies into daily life personally, ministerially, and communally.” He sees himself ministering as a teacher, coach, and counselor.

The Eucharistic Prayer

Bro. Nicholas Jandernoa, 26, is from Pewamo, Mich., where his family are members of St. Joseph’s Parish. His parents are Bruce and Gail Jandernoa, and he has one older brother and three younger sisters.

Nicholas spent two years as a NET Missionary, which helped him to be open to consecrated life: “I discovered that I had a passion for working with young people and that God has chosen to work through me to show his love to the young.” He already knew about Don Bosco and admired how the saint used sports and magic tricks to grab young people’s attention and then bring them to Jesus. So he was attracted to the Salesians, where “I could serve young people and be involved with sports and games while also being consecrated to God.”

Nicholas became a candidate in Orange in January 2021 and a prenovice at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey in 2022-2023. He continued prenovitiate in Orange in 2023-2024. He aspires in these next couple of years “to grow in my love for Jesus, to whom I am consecrated, and to live out the Salesian Constitutions, which I have professed to live.” He has found his religious vocation “anything but boring,” an “exciting adventure full of love” that he hopes other young people will consider.

Salesian sisters and novices

Bro. Christo Ruben Philistin, 23, was born in Cap Haitien, Haiti, and is the son of Amos and Lunie Joseph Philistin, who now live in Brockton, Mass. He has an older sister. An aunt who is a nun introduced him to the Salesians in his hometown. He writes that she “greatly influenced me through her spiritual way of life. The priest of my parish, as well as the Salesians from the community in my hometown, have also had a significant impact on me, particularly through their sense of family, which has left a deep mark on my journey.”

Christo became a candidate in Cap Haitien in February 2020. In September 2022 he became a prenovice in the Salesian house in Thorland, Haiti, then began a year of novitiate in Mexico, where the Haiti Vice Province sends its men. After his parents moved to the U.S., his provincial facilitated his transfer to the U.S. novitiate so that he could be nearer to them.

He adds: “I wanted to become a Salesian to answer a call greater than myself, something deep within my heart urging me to be completely with God and for God voluntarily. Additionally, out of love for being with and serving the young, it has been the perfect match” so that he can “be with God and serve youth in the footsteps of Don Bosco.”

He says that he thoroughly enjoyed his novitiate year—community outings, the novice master’s conferences, opportunities for ministry. “The best part was the time we spent simply being together as a community, hanging out, sharing laughter, and watching movies.”

Bro. Christo aspires to deepen his relationship with God and engage in apostolic service to the young. In particular, “I would like to be a music teacher because I truly believe that music can lead young people to Jesus. I also feel that I can use my talent to inspire and accompany them on their journey of faith through music.”

Fr. Dominic welcomes everyone as Mass begins

Bro. Jieo Aleksander Tecson, 24, is a native of Quezon City, Philippines. His parents are Gaudencio and Maria Cristina Tecson, and he has a twin sister and a younger brother. They immigrated to Calgary, Alberta, and became involved in St. Patrick’s and Holy Spirit parishes there.

Altho Jieo’s father went to a Salesian school in the Philippines, Jieo discovered the Salesians by reading about Don Bosco and then seeing the movie St. John Bosco: Mission to Love, which suggested to him that he might become a priest like Don Bosco, caring compassionately for the young. After he’d started at university, he was investigating possibilities for religious life and contacted the Salesian vocation director in Canada. In the Salesians he found 4 of his personal desires: missions, priesthood, youth work, and religious devotion.

Thus Jieo became a candidate at Orange in August 2022 and a prenovice at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey in August 2023. During his prenovitiate year, he taught catechism at St. John Bosco Parish in Port Chester, N.J.

“The best part of my novitiate year,” says Bro. Jieo, “was the spirit of brotherhood I experienced with my fellow novices, in moments both of praying and of playing.” He also found a lot of satisfaction in ministry to the students at Salesian College Prep, adjacent to the novitiate house.

Back in Orange for postnovitiate formation, he “hopes to deepen my relationship with God, better assimilate the spirit of Don Bosco, and continue cultivating my skills for ministry among the young. With God’s help, I wish to become more and more conformed to Christ, especially in his obedience, poverty, and chastity, and to learn truly what it means to be a sign and bearer of his love for young people.” Further down the road, Bro. Jieo hopes that he might become a missionary in some foreign land. “Most of my favourite saints were missionaries (the Canadian Martyrs among them!),” he states. But his ultimate aspiration is to become a saint.

The Eucharistic Celebration

Fr. Dominic starting the homily

40 priests concelebrated the profession Mass, assisted by over 200 members of the Salesian Family, family members of the newly professed, students from Salesian schools, and other friends.

Introducing the Mass of Our Lady’s Assumption, Fr. Dominic (in three languages) voiced thanks to God for calling us, thanks to our mother Mary, thanks to our brothers for their “yes” to God, and thanks to their parents—who were commended a couple more times during the rites.

Fr. Dominic’s homily focused on God’s initiative. On our own, he said, we’d never be ready to do God’s work. The Virgin Mary shows us that he can do great things in us, which he illustrated thru several of Mary’s virtues and applied them to religious life.

Fr. Dominic concluded by linking the day’s rite with two historical events of 2025: the 150th anniversary of the first Salesian missionary expedition (1875) and the Church’s jubilee year. Don Bosco told the first missionaries that they would be doing God’s work; doing God’s work unites all of us wherever we may be. The theme of the jubilee is hope. A Salesian, said the preacher, is always cheerful because he or she bears Good News. With God we have hope and can do great things.

A New Batch of Novices

Meanwhile, in Richmond, Calif., five men began a year of novitiate on August 14. Two of them are from the New Rochelle Province, one from the San Francisco Province, and two from the Irish Province.

Photos: https://link.shutterfly.com/SFm4RH03UVb

Most of the SDBs present posed after Mass.

Salesians Commission 10 Missionary Volunteers

Salesians Commission 10 Missionary Volunteers

Photos: https://link.shutterfly.com/H6QchlIUSVb

The Salesians of the New Rochelle Province commissioned 10 lay missionaries during Evening Prayer on Thursday, Aug. 14, in the chapel of the Don Bosco Retreat Center at Haverstraw, N.Y.

The 5 men and 5 women had completed 3 weeks of orientation for mission, including fellowship, prayer, paperwork, cultural preparation, introduction to St. John Bosco and the Salesian charism, recreation, and some practical experience in St. John Bosco Parish in Port Chester, N.Y. The final week was a retreat alongside two dozen Salesians at the retreat house, Aug. 10-16.

Fr. Dominic Tran, SDB, provincial, presided at the commissioning, assisted by Adam Rudin, director of the Salesian Lay Missioner program.

The 10 SLMs are Ambroise Curutchague, 23, of Bakersfield, Calif., who will serve as a teacher at Don Bosco Agricultural Training College in Lufubu, Zambia; Nathaniel Devlin, 20, of Moline, Ill., also sent to the school in Lufubu; Emily Durr, 22, of Cincinnati, will serve as a clinic nurse at the Palabek, Uganda, refugee camp; Edwin Feliberty Jr., 37, of Jersey City, N.J., will join the staff of the National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians in Haverstraw, N.Y.; Alexandria Foos, 25, of Westerville, Ohio, will work with young girls at the Instituto Maria Auxiliadora in San Pedro Sula, Honduras; Douglas Hinman, 30, of Littleton, Colo., will teach English at the Don Bosco Institute in Alexandria, Egypt; Jennifer Lopez, 26, of Austin, Texas, will serve first in Madrid and then in Bangkok; Angel Nuñez-Arce, 20, of Chicago, will assist with youth ministry and music at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J.; Sueshai Perez, 27, of Austin, will serve alongside Jennifer in Madrid and Bangkok; and Eileen Ramirez Quintana, 27, of Buckeye, Ariz., will teach English in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Fr. Dominic took his homiletic cue from the one-verse Scripture reading of Evening Prayer, Romans 8:30. That verse, he said, suggested John Calvin’s doctrine of predestination. But, he said, St. Paul’s wider context notes that God’s plan preceded creation and leads up to God’s predestining us to belong to him through Jesus Christ. The verse highlights Mary’s role in God’s plan. Her Assumption into heaven points to the call all of us have received as God’s children.

God has a plan for each of the lay missioners, Fr. Dominic stated, wherever they may be going. The Catholic understanding of God’s plan includes human freedom. We pray that God’s plan will go to and be fulfilled in all places on earth.

God’s Word is always alive and active, he continued. He told the volunteers that God has destined them to be missionaries of the Word, and as bearers of the Word to bring hope and life to the poor. This is God’s plan of love. “You are to be the instruments of God’s plan and God’s love,” Fr. Dominic told the ten women and men.

Every August, your humble blogger is recruited during the retreat week to guide the SLMs on a hike in Harriman State Park, which is very close to the retreat house.

On Tuesday the 12th, he brought them to Pine Meadow Lake, a 2-mile jaunt over a gradual ascent that mostly follows Stony Brook and Pine Meadow Brook to the lake. Photos: https://link.shutterfly.com/LPkR3eKXSVb

Celebrating Mass at Pine Meadow Lake

Homily for 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Aug. 17, 2025
Heb 12: 1-4
Jer 38: 4-6, 8-10
Villa Maria, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx

“Let us … keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith” (Heb 12: 2).

The Letter to the Hebrews pictures Jesus as our leader in faith, using the analogy of a race (12:1), as St. Paul also does in 3 of his letters (1 Cor 9:24; Phil 2:16; 2 Tim 4:7) and in Acts (20:24).  Most of us probably would consider our earthly pilgrimage more like a trek, a slog, a slow plodding along rather than as a race.  But the point’s the same.

One translation (RSV) calls Jesus the “pioneer” of our faith.  A pioneer, you know, is someone who opens the path into uncharted territory, like Daniel Boone or Lewis and Clark.

Jesus “endured the cross, despising its shame” (12:2), humiliation, and excruciating pain.  The word excruciating originates in the Latin crux, “cross.”  Jesus did that “for the sake of the joy that lay before him” (12:2), which is the joy of the resurrection and eternal life.  In this he is, indeed, our pioneer; or, as St. Paul calls him, “the firstborn of many brothers and sisters” (Rom 8:29), the 1st human being to rise from the grave to new, everlasting life.

On Friday we celebrated the feast of the Virgin Mary’s assumption into heaven, her entrance body and soul into eternal life alongside her Son.  That’s God’s promise to all of us who follow Jesus Christ, our leader, our pioneer, in this race or this trek, this long pilgrimage toward our eternal home.  In the collect (the prayer of the Mass), we prayed to God that “we may attain your promises.”

We take hope and courage from Jesus’ leadership, the “perfecter of our faith,” i.e., the one who completes it by bringing us where God wants us to be.  We take hope and courage from his cross, that we “may not grow weary and lose heart” (12:3), and from Jeremiah’s experience of being thrown into the mud and left to die by the faithless leaders of God’s people.  God saw that Jeremiah got rescued from the muddy cistern—let’s note that he was rescued by a foreigner, a Cushite, an African.  And God also saw that the bloody, battered body of Jesus was raised whole, entire, and renewed from the grave.

God has “prepared for those who love” him (collect) the same eternal life.  Even tho we suffer as we follow Jesus’ path, we know—as we’ll pray after Communion—that when we are “conformed to his image on earth,” God is making us Jesus’ “coheirs in heaven.”  Therefore, sisters and brothers, we work to “persevere in running the race that lies before us” (12:1), or slogging along the road, but at whatever pace following Jesus our leader, our pioneer.