Salesians Commission Volunteers for 2011-2012

Salesians Commission
Volunteers for 2011-2012
The Salesians of Don Bosco in the U.S. have commissioned 14 lay volunteers for mission during 2011-2012. Thirteen will serve as Salesian Lay Missioners (SLMs) in Salesian missions overseas, and one will serve as a Salesian Domestic Volunteer at Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School in Takoma Park, Md.

The volunteers received two weeks of orientation at Maryknoll and a Salesian summer day camp in Port Chester, N.Y., followed by a week of retreat with Salesians at Haverstraw-Stony Point, N.Y. The 14 were commissioned during Mass closing out the retreat on August 6. Fr. Tom Dunne, provincial of the SDBs in the Eastern U.S. and Canada, presided over the commissioning.

The 14 volunteers include 11 women and 3 men. They come from California, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia.

Pictured with the newly commissioned SLMs and SDV are Adam Rudin, SLM program director (back row at left), and Jayne Feeney, his assistant (back row center); Fr. Steve Ryan, in charge of the Province Office of Youth Ministry (arm on Adam); Meg Fraino, SDV program director (back row, 3d from left); Fr. Mark Hyde (in vestments), director of Salesian Missions, to which the SLMs are attached; and Fr. Tom Dunne (back row, at right).

Eight volunteers are in the their 20s, recent graduates of Aquinas College (Grand Rapids), Catholic University of America (Washington), Gettysburg College, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers (New Brunswick, N.J.), Texas A & M (College Station), or finishing up at Texas Tech (Lubbock). Three are in their 30s and three in their 50s, leaving behind or taking temporary leave from careers in education, health care, youth ministry, and business.

Six of the overseas volunteers will serve in Bolivia, two in Cambodia, three in Ethiopia, and two in the Far East. Some will teach English in Salesian schools, some will teach other skills, some will care for orphans, some will do community outreach, and one will help in a parish. Not all the sites are Salesian, but all look after poor young people who are at risk.

Seven of the volunteers left for their missions by the end of August and one on Labor Day. Another four expect to depart in the third week of September. The last two will take leave after Christmas.

The commissioning Mass was attended by almost two dozen Salesians, by the family of one SLM, by friends of others, and by three returned SLMs who had served in Rwanda and Ethiopia. Taking note of the presence of all these, Fr. Tom said in his homily, “No one goes overseas alone.” They go, he said, with the support of many other people and with contact with others.

Fr. Tom observed that at the Transfiguration of Jesus (the feast of Aug. 6), Peter, James, and John had nothing with them when they met God on the mountaintop. When they and the rest of the apostles went out to preach the Good News, God was all they had to depend upon; they had to leave behind all their extra “tools” like extra clothes and money. He told the soon-to-depart missionaries that they also would have to leave a lot behind when they went out to be evangelizers. He cited the examples of people he knew who did just that and had life-changing experiences: meeting the Lord in their own emptiness and in the joy of the people to whom they were sent.

The Salesian Lay Missioners include:

Aubrey Brewis is from Plymouth, Mich. After graduating from the University of Michigan with majors in sport management and communications, Aubrey worked as a celebrity consultant with Octagon in Washington, D.C. She left on August 28 to serve at Hogar Sagrado Corazon, a girls orphanage, in Montero, Bolivia. Aubrey says that she hopes to “grow closer to God through serving my brothers and sisters in Christ.”

Katie Chandonnet is from Fremont, Mich. She just graduated from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, majoring in Spanish and minoring in teaching ESL. Katie left on August 28 to serve with the Salesian Sisters at Colegio San Francisco Javier in Okinawa, Bolivia, teaching English and doing community outreach. She says, “I joined the SLMs in order to work and live in a community where I get the opportunity to challenge the youth and myself both physically and spiritually, creating an environment that encourages growth in faith, hope, and love.”

Marnie Commins is from Fairfax Station, Va. Her older brother Christopher was an SLM in India in 2009-2010. Marnie just graduated from Gettysburg College, majoring in health sciences. She left on August 29 for Don Bosco Mekanessa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to serve as an English teacher, with the intention of “serving Christ through the young and the poor.”

Kaitlin Darnell is from Henrietta, Tex. She is a senior at Texas Tech in Lubbock, majoring in exercise sport science and education, and planning to graduate this fall. She expects to depart just after Christmas for Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to serve with the Salesian Sisters at Don Bosco Skills Training Center, working with young girls. She says that she’s becoming an SLM “to serve, to share God’s love.”

Marcelle Farhat is from North Brunswick, N.J. She is a graduate of Rutgers University, where she earned a B.A. in math and an M.A. in math education. Marcelle will leave on September 5 to serve with the Salesian Sisters at Colegio San Francisco Javier in Okinawa, Bolivia, teaching and doing community outreach. She wants to “love Christ by serving and loving the least of us” and “to give a year back as I’ve been given so much.”

Carmen Hilmes is from Atlanta. She is taking a leave from her job as operations manager for the TAS Group in Alpharetta, Ga. She is planning a September 21 departure for Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to serve with the Salesian Sisters at Don Bosco Skills Training Center, teaching young girls. Carmen wishes “to experience service and immersion into another culture” and help others, sharing “her life talents in any way God is willing to use [her] open hands.”

Angela Marie Maiorano is from Claremont, Calif. She’s a passionate Dodgers fan. Angela has volunteered with the Olancho Aid Foundation as a junior high school teacher in Honduras and was a chaperone for World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008. She’s planning to leave on September 21 to serve at Hogar San Francisco, a girls orphanage in Cochabamba, Bolivia. She says, “In order to meet Jesus fully, I need to be with my brothers and sisters in various situations” and “community is also important.”

Judy Mathias is from Beaverton, Ore. She has taken a leave from her supervisory position with Legacy Health in order to serve at Hogar San Francisco, a girls orphanage in Cochabamba, Bolivia. She has done several short overseas mission trips in recent years. Judy says: “The Salesian spirituality touched my heart. I want to live out that spirituality of joy and service, working with youth with the support and prayers of the Salesian community.” She’ll leave for Bolivia on September 23.

Paul Miller is from Marietta, Ga. After retiring from the airline industry, Paul recently completed a certification course in ecclesial ministry at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala., and will begin practicing ministry with the Salesians at Don Bosco Catholic Church in Dilla, Ethiopia. He plans to depart on September 20 and expects to teach and to help in the health clinic and feeding center there. He want “to serve youth by my example and to radiate the love of Christ.”

Marie Prosser comes from Ellicott City, Md. Marie has already done a year of domestic volunteer service with the Capuchins. Marie earned a B.S. in chemical engineering at the University of Delaware and then an MAT in secondary science from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. Influenced in part by participating in World Youth Day at Cologne in 2005, for some time she has wanted to teach in Africa. After a seven years’ teaching experience, including two at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Baltimore, she believes she’s ready now to teach overseas. Planning a January 2012 departure, she’ll teach English at Don Bosco Mekanessa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Marie says, “Don Bosco is awesome!”

Mona Rominger is from San Antonio, Tex. Mona attended Texas A&M, majoring in sociology. She left on August 29 for her mission at Hogar Sagrado Corazon, a girls orphanage, in Montero, Bolivia. As an SLM she hopes “to grow in love, to surrender myself and my life for the greater good of my brothers and sisters, to love fully and give graciously.”

Cathleen Soltis is from Julian, Pa. She graduated from Lock Haven University with a major in math. As a Salesian Domestic Volunteer, Cathleen will teach and engage in youth ministry at Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School in Takoma Park, Md., which is co-sponsored by the Salesians and the Archdiocese of Washington. Already a deeply committed Christian, she entered the Catholic Church last spring. At DBCR, where the school year began late in August, she hopes to deepen her faith as she helps the students grow in theirs. She’ll be working with another Domestic Volunteer, Kelly Schuster, who went to DBCR last year and loved the ministry so much that she’s doing a second volunteer year.

For information about the Salesian Lay Missioners: http://www.salesianlaymissioners.org/

For information about the Salesian Domestic Volunteers: http://www.salesianym.com/domesticvolunteers/

Homily for 23d Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the
23d Sunday
in Ordinary Time
Sept. 4, 2011
Matt 18: 15-20
Christian Brothers, Iona College, N.R.

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone” (Matt 18: 15).

Matthew’s 18th chapter, composed some 5 decades after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, deals with some practical matters of church life.

The passage immediately preceding our gospel reading this evening is the parable of the lost sheep (18:10-14), which instructs the shepherds of God’s flock to go looking for those who stray and to restore them to the safety of the flock and its shepherds. It also confirms the identity between the shepherds and heaven by comparing the shepherd’s joy when he recovers a lost sheep with the rejoicing in heaven over one sinner’s repentance.

Then we come to our passage on fraternal and ecclesiastical correction, i.e., to a passage that speaks of how someone actually goes about recovering a strayed sheep.

In recent years the Church has certainly seen the immense cost—in financial, moral, and pastoral terms—of our failures in fraternal correction. Those failures may have been due to ignorance, poor judgment, cowardice, misplaced priorities, or some other reason, but failure to protect and guide the flock of God there was.

Correction is one of the hardest tasks one can have. Every parent of a teenager knows that only too well. So does any English teacher who’s tried to straighten out kids’ grammar. How much greater the challenge of that moral correction of which Jesus speaks: “if your brother sins….”

The 1st challenge most of us face, whether parents or religious, is the acute awareness of our own shortcomings and sinfulness. Jesus, after all, also tells us to remove the 2x4 from our own eye before trying to get a splinter out of someone else’s (Matt 7:5). Parents talking to teens and tweens about alcohol or cigarettes may be challenged about their own habits; and perhaps challenged also about their youthful experimentations when counseling about sex and drugs. Religious superiors calling their confreres to renewed poverty, more prudence regarding chastity, more willing obedience may be challenged about their own habits, past and present. Humility, tact, and more are demanded of whoever would practice fraternal correction.

The 2d challenge is to discern when to correct. The Gospel speaks of “sin,” not of every annoying habit that a confrere or family member might have. What is serious enuf to warrant intervention, and at what level of intervention? Jesus speaks of one-to-one intervention, of small group intervention, and of action by the entire community. The one considering another’s fault would do well to weigh matters carefully and to pray over the situation.

A 3d concern is the seriousness of this issue. I alluded already to the scandal caused by the Church’s failures to correct straying sheep. In the 1st reading, Ezekiel compares the prophet to a watchman, a sentry (33:7-9). The sentry is responsible for protecting an encampment or a city against its enemies, and the results of his failure to be alert, his failure to challenge any encroachment, could be disastrous. His speaking out against all who approach, his providing of warning to all within, are a practical act of that love of which St. Paul speaks today: all the commandments are summed up in love of neighbor (Rom 13:8-10).

Correction of a brother or sister who’s doing something wrong is a practical act of love for that brother or sister. It may also be an act of love for the larger community, protecting it from physical or moral harm, from bad example, from false doctrine. Thus a family member has a serious responsibility to intervene if a parent, a son, a guest is using alcohol before driving; a superior or a brother has a responsibility to intervene when a confrere is flouting some aspect of the Rule; the Church hierarchy has a responsibility to intervene when someone publicly teaches false doctrine or advocates immoral behavior.

A 4th consideration is the purpose of such interventions. Note that Jesus says, “If he listens to you, you have won over your brother” (18:15). The aim of fraternal correction is the restoration of harmony, of good order, in the community, in the family; it’s the salvation of someone who’s wandered off the way of Jesus. Many a parent has, with sorrow, punished a child “for the child’s own good.” Sometimes parents have to resort to tough love because nothing else has worked, and sometimes religious superiors and bishops have to do so too. The burden on them all is that the motive must be love and not retaliation, not venting their frustration, not compelling the sinner to conform to some personal ideal of the parent or superior, not some other self-interested motive.

Finally, Jesus instructs the disciples to treat a recalcitrant sinner “as you would a Gentile or a tax collector” (18:19). The brother who refuses to listen to the Church is no longer to be considered a brother but an outsider, cut off from fellowship, from communion.

This, however, doesn’t mean to utterly abandon the sinner; for Jesus doesn’t abandon tax collectors and Gentiles. Even if we should have to separate a brother from the community because of some grievous fault; even if the Church should have to excommunicate someone because of his behavior or doctrine—we remain obliged to imitate Christ’s love for that person in our own behavior, to pray for him, to continue to offer the hope of redemption. This runs counter to our instincts, as Jesus’ treatment of tax collectors and sinners ran counter to accepted practice among his fellow Jews; we want to cut off completely people who disagree with us or who’ve grievously offended us, to give them up as hopeless, lost, irredeemable.

Not so Jesus. Even as he recognizes people as outsiders—cf. his treatment of the Syro-Phoenician woman in the gospel 3 weeks ago—he still invites them to come to faith, to repent, to join or rejoin the community. He never withholds forgiveness from those who are open to the grace that’s ever on offer. And forgiveness will be the subject of Jesus’ teaching as this 18th chapter of Matthew continues—ironically, or providentially, in our gospel reading next week: Sept. 11.

When Unexpected Guests Drop In

When Unexpected Guests Drop In
One of the ministries of our community here at the provincial house is hospitality. We receive guests from all over the Salesian world, coming to the New York area on business or pleasure; and family members, friends, alumni, members of the Salesian Family, friends of friends, et al.

Sometimes unexpected guests drop in--like Fr. Benedict Groeschel late one nite when there'd been very heavy rain and he couldn't get to his own home at nearby Trinity Retreat House because the street was flooded.

And then there are the flying squirrels (photo). Five of them have dropped in on us without any prior announcement (who even knew they were in the neighborhood?).

On Aug. 26 I found what turned out to be such a critter in a 5-gallon catch-bucket that I keep under a broken drainpipe in Salesiana Publishers' book storeroom. I took it to the New Rochelle Humane Society, who were entranced and, with the help of the Wildlife Help Hotline, soon found it a home--as I learned this morning when I found 4 more, siblings of the 1st presumably, in the same bucket and called the NRHS for advice. They directed me to the WHH, which in turn connected me with the adoptive mother of sib no. 1, to whom I delivered them late this a.m.

They're cute, but no one here wants to raise them. Even after we had a mouse problem a couple of months ago, I can't convince the guys to get another cat to replace Tinkerbelle,

who dropped in unannounced and hungry one morning, and stayed for 12 or 15 years (no one remembers exactly when she showed up) after Bro. Andy and I fed her, and attempts to find her owner failed--she was wearing a NRHS license. She passed on to the Happy Mousing Grounds on Feb. 7, 2009.

God Bless the Salesians!

God Bless the Salesians!

Last year around this time, Fr. Steve Leake, director of the house of formation in Orange, N.J., blogged that the house was full (http://salesianity.blogspot.com/2010/09/salesian-vocations-2010.html)--with candidates to SDB life; young, recently professed SDBs; and of course their staff/guides ("formators").

This year five of those candidates have moved on to the novitiate (http://sdbnews.blogspot.com/2011/08/five-new-novices-for-new-rochelle.html), five of the young SDBs have gone off to practical training in one of the houses, and one has been ordained (http://sdbnews.blogspot.com/2011/07/fathers-matt-de-gance-and-mike.html) and come to Salesian HS here in N.R. In their places have come one young SDB starting his theological studies, four who just finished their novitiate and made their 1st professions (http://sdbnews.blogspot.com/2011/08/three-new-brothers-for-new-rochelle.html), and a new batch of candidates.

The net result is a host of 22 men in the various stages of formation in the house at Orange: 7 young professed SDBs (from both U.S. provinces) and 15 candidates (for the Eastern Province), as seen in the photo above, sent out by Fr. Dominic Tran, our vocation director.

God is indeed blessing the Salesians in recent years.

Homily for 22d Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the
22d Sunday
in Ordinary Time
Aug. 28, 2011
Matt 16: 21-27

I was scheduled to celebrate 2 Masses at St. Michael's in Greenwich again on Sunday, but Hurricane Irene changed a lot of people's Sunday plans. Here's the homily I prepared but didn't get to preach.


“Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly” (Matt 16: 21).

Last week, in the gospel passage immediately preceding this one, Simon Peter identified Jesus as the Christ, the Anointed One of God. Jesus admitted to that identification and brought out some of the implications of who he is. The passage ended with an admonition from Jesus that the apostles should “tell no one that he was the Christ” (16:20).

Why tell no one? Isn’t Jesus’ message “Good News”—which is the literal meaning of Gospel? For now, tell no one because no one understands what being God’s Anointed really means. They don’t understand the nature of this Good News. Not even the apostles. Not even Simon Peter.

Jesus today begins to explain his mission as the Christ. He is to suffer, to be subjected to the cruelty of the rulers of the earth, to be killed—and to rise.

Peter and all the apostles, and every other 1st-century Jew, expected that the Christ, the Son of David, Anointed of God, would be a worldly ruler who would deliver Israel from foreign oppression and exalt Israel above all other nations. The Messiah would bring hope and change; would inaugurate an unending golden age.

So the apostles, Peter included, don’t understand this suffering stuff, and they’re not ready to accept it.

Furthermore, they see and reject the implications: if our leader should suffer and die, what about us?

That’s right, Jesus says: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (16:24). The way to the glory that you seek—a different kind of glory than you imagine, entirely different because it’s not worldly at all—is the way of the cross. And everyone who belongs to the Christ must walk that way with him in order to attain the glory—resurrection, the “saving” of your life (16:25) for eternity. Everyone must suffer and die before rising and attaining the glory of the kingdom of God when the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and repay everyone according to his conduct” (16:27).

What does it mean to take up Christ’s cross and deny yourself? Jesus draws out a distinction between saving one’s life in this world, profiting in this world, and carrying his cross, following him, even losing our lives for his sake. The way of the world is not the way of Christ. The way of the world is power and pleasure, self-seeking and wealth; the way of Christ is self-emptying, seeking God, service, building up and assisting our sisters and brothers.

At World Youth Day a few days ago, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated the Way of the Cross with hundreds of thousands of young people from around the world. Among other things, he told them: “Christ’s passion urges us to take upon our own shoulders the sufferings of the world, in the certainty that God is not distant or far removed from man and his troubles,” because Christ became human himself, enduring suffering and death. The Pope prayed that Christ’s love would “increase your joy and encourage you to go in search of those less fortunate. You are open to the idea of sharing your lives with others, so be sure not to pass by on the other side” of the road “in the face of human suffering, for it is here that God expects you to give of your very best: your capacity for love and compassion.”[1]

Further, to follow Christ we may have to say and do things that aren’t popular, that aren’t politically correct, that are counter-cultural: about the dignity of every human being, about local and national priorities, about what our children should be taught, about family life. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, our hearts will be where our treasure is (Matt 6:21). We have to decide what we treasure: the values and pseudo-truths that society and the culture promote— Hollywood and slick magazines and advertising in general, the New York Times and politics and academia; or the values and authentic truths that the Bible teaches, and the successor of St. Peter and the bishops and the entire Catholic tradition. From what will we seek to profit? “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (16:26).

There’s another truth about carrying the cross with Jesus. We’re going to suffer in this world, whether we like it or not, whether we choose it or not. And we’re going to die eventually. We don’t have to like those facts, and we shouldn’t like them, but we can’t deny them. We can accept inevitable suffering—not seek it out, and trying to mitigate it as best we can—but what’s unavoidable, we can finally accept with grace, and inevitable death as well as part of our personal union with Jesus Christ. Jesus accepted these as part of the human condition, the deepest evidence of how close God is to us, how much God wants to be with us, and to have us be with him forever. In the patristic reading for the Divine Office today, St. Augustine writes:

Let us then follow Christ’s paths which he has revealed to us, above all the path of humility, which he himself became for us. He showed us that path by his precepts, and he himself followed it by his suffering on our behalf. In order to die for us—because as God he could not die—the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The immortal One took on mortality that he might die for us, and by dying put to death our death.[2]

We reciprocate by saying, “Yes, Jesus, I will walk along with you, carrying my own cross”— anxiety, pain, illness, bad news, spoiled plans, loss, betrayals, all “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” all the unpleasantness life throws at us. Whatever we suffer, whether it be because we’re disciples of Jesus or simply because we’re frail human beings, we can turn our sufferings into Christian worship. That’s what St. Paul says in the 2d reading today: “I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1). We don’t offer our bodies as literal holocausts on an altar, as various pagan religions have done thru human sacrifice; we offer them in a spiritual sense—offer whatever is related to our bodies, our emotions, our minds: pain, illness, anxiety, bad news, and, yes, resistance to temptation, because oftentimes (we all know it) our bodies make war on our souls; many of the 7 deadly sins are bodily-based.
Whatever life throws at us is no worse, no less fair, than the cross of Jesus, his “great suffering from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes” (Matt 16:21)—the suffering of the most innocent human being who ever was. But if we’ll follow him with our own cross, then surely we’ll end up where he did: passing from the cross to resurrection and everlasting life.

[1] As reported by Catholic News Service, 8/19/11.
[2] Sermon 23A, LOH 4:189.

Good Night, Irene

Good Night, Irene

We did a lot of prep on Friday and Saturday to get ready for Hurricane Irene's arrival in the early hours of Sunday a.m. Her leading edge--off-and-on rain squalls--started already on Saturday a.m.

By the time she got here, tho, she wasn't a hurricane any more--"only" a tropical storm. Not much consolation to the people in upstate N.Y. and Vermont, according to subsequent news of flash floods and marooned communities.
In N.R. we had lots and lots of rain and occasional strong gusts of wind. The photo above, taken from our porch at 8:54 a.m., shows rain driven sideways and most of the screening on the outfield fence ripped up.

The wind and rain knocked down a lot of little branches from our maples, pines, spruces, oaks, and beeches, and a couple of good-sized limbs in the row of trees along Lefevre Lane. Directly in front of our front door, over the driveway, a very large limb was severely cracked (above, shot from above) but didn't come down. We'll have to have our tree doctor come in and remove it. On Monday Bro. Andy and Fr. Terry spent hours clearing and chipping the debris from along Lefevre.

Then there was the tide, which peaked around 10:30 a.m. It came over the seawall and about 10 feet into center field. Actually, that's not the farthest some of us have seen it reach--but the most, recently.

And by 11:30, Irene was pretty much gone. From our tower, this shot shows the undisturbed construction site (county water treatment plant) across Lefevre Lane, and the municipal marina beyond. At center left you can even see that Air Canada is flying again.

We thank God that we had no major disruption to our lives--only the minor one of not being about to go out for our regular Sunday Masses; and only very minor damage on the property. We pray for those who weren't so blessed.

Following Up on World Youth Day

Following Up on World Youth Day
Offer young people a path to holiness

On Aug. 26, five days after the conclusion of WYD in Madrid, Fr. Fabio Attard, the Salesian general councilor for youth ministry programs around the world, offered a personal reflection on what the experience meant for the 7,000 Salesian youths who took part, and for the Salesian Family in general.
 
(ANS - Rome) - World Youth Day in Madrid is now over in terms of an event. But what is not over are the effects the experience would have aroused in the hearts of many young people. Listening to and re-reading Benedict XVI's addresses, I think there are four key terms in this celebration of faith.

The first word is one that invites young people to “be not afraid.” The Pope repeatedly urged young people not to be discouraged by an environment hostile to faith, an environment which even ridicules the very choice of faith. His words were comfort, not confrontation. The Pope opened the door of consolation that comes with the choice of faith to those who welcome it with courage and simplicity.

Along similar lines, the second goal that the Pope indicated to young people was to “overcome mediocrity.” On at least three occasions Benedict expressed simple yet profound thoughts on the need to overcome the culture of emptiness that people find themselves swamped by. Anyone who accepts the challenge of faith leaves the merely horizontal level behind and discovers the beauty of the mystery that gives meaning to time and history.

It is here, then, that the Pope offers a way forward, by being anchored in Christ, which means to build one's house, one's own life story, on rock, steadfast in the faith. Pope Benedict's invitation does not come as something alien to young people and their story. Young people seize this invitation at the heart of their plans for their lives. Someone like me who spent several hours in the confessional at El Ritiro Park during the days in Madrid knows how young people welcomed the Pope's words. The experience of forgiveness and reconciliation that the young pilgrims had in Madrid was not a once-off experience. They have good experience of the sacrament of Reconciliation, and frequent it often.

The last key point of World Youth Day in Madrid, then, was the Pope's invitation to them to go back home happy, but not only in themselves. Someone who has had the good fortune to encounter Christ cannot keep him selfishly to himself. Someone who has had the experience of discipleship now has to proclaim it, has to be an apostle. And the Pope asked young people to be faithful and happy witnesses – the two sides of a life of faith. Whoever believes seeks to be faithful, and fidelity finds true joy, true happiness.

Madrid was an “upper room” experience for a week, where one sensed the faith of a generation of young people who are tired of emptiness. It was a joyful place for many young people who are in search of truth, beauty. We met young people of all languages, races and cultures. They are happy young people who seem to be friends forever – friendship that is faith in Jesus Christ.

For us Salesians now is the time to offer them true and lasting experiences, not just events – experiences that will mark their lives and not just entertain them for a while. Don Bosco invites us to give them the true happiness that is the path to holiness. And holiness, for the young pilgrims, is no longer a word that brings shame, but only strength! The challenge is ours!

Homily for 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the
21st Sunday of Ordinary Time
Aug. 21, 2011
Matt 16: 13-20
St. Michael, Greenwich, Conn.

“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father” (Matt 16: 17).

Jesus continues to travel with and instruct his disciples. Today he asks them who people think he is, then what they think. Simon Peter gives the correct answer, but he doesn’t advance to the next round. He has no idea what his answer means, as we’ll hear next week. Being the Messiah puts Jesus’ physical life in jeopardy, and the physical lives of all who follow him. But this is no game; the prize is eternal life.

We don’t know whether Simon Peter is speaking for the 12 or only for himself. What is clear is that he’s speaking under divine inspiration: “You’re blessed, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood hasn’t revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” Probably without his realizing it, Simon has been granted revelation, an insight into divine truth. Jesus isn’t just any human being, not just any prophet. He’s the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One of God; still more, he’s “the Son of the living God” (16:16).

Jesus acknowledges the truth of what’s been revealed to Simon, and he recognizes the blessing that’s been granted to his outspoken disciple. God the Father has singularly chosen Simon, has blessed him with this insight, this revelation.

Not everyone’s favored like Simon. Not everyone’s granted the gift of faith, of knowing who Jesus is, of being chosen to be one of his followers, to encounter “the Son of the living God.”

At this point in the gospel, that faith and that blessing are rather limited. Maybe Simon speaks for all 12 apostles. The blessing is his alone as Jesus speaks it. But it’s no longer his alone. All who today recognize that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, have been favored by revelation from the heavenly Father and are blessed. God has chosen us, as much as he chose Simon Peter, to be blessed with the faith to know Jesus, to follow him, to belong to him, and—as the Gospel promises—to prevail even against death. This is a rare blessing, even today, calling for our gratitude as well as our efforts to be faithful.

How rare is this blessing? Consider that, by a very rough estimate, only 1 person in 6 of the world’s population is Christian in name, and even fewer in practice.

Jesus doesn’t stop with recognizing how his heavenly Father has blessed Simon son of Jonah. He builds upon the Father’s choice. “And so I say to you: you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church” (16:18).

The 1st point in Jesus’ words here is that he gives Peter a new name, a new persona—as Abram became Abraham when he entered a new and special relationship with God (Gen 17:5); as Saul will become Paul when he becomes Christ’s apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 13); as many religious take a new name when they become monks or nuns; as a newly elected Pope takes a new name. Simon son of Jonah’s new identity is “the Rock,” Kephas in Aramaic and Petros in Greek, the sturdy foundation on which Jesus will be able to build his Church, on which the whole community of Jesus’ disciples will rest firmly and securely. The faith that Peter speaks he will share and guarantee for all who follow Jesus.

St. Peter, holding keys, steers his ship, symbol of the Church

(main altar, St. Patrick's Cathedral, N.Y.C.)

The 2d point is that Jesus intends his teaching to last, to be preserved and followed in a permanent community. The word “church,” ekklesia in Matthew’s Greek, means a group of people who’ve been gathered together. Jesus is calling together a great assembly of people whose Rock will be Simon—Simon who’s received divine revelation and given voice to that revelation. This revelation isn’t private but communal. Being a disciple of Jesus is no private affair but a public one.

Nor does Jesus stop there in the charge or mission he gives to Peter: “the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against” this community, this church. “Netherworld” is hades in Greek, the world of the dead. In biblical language, it’s where God’s enemies belong; it’s the world of the devil and his allies, malignant spirits and malignant human beings. An alternate English translation is hell.

Jesus is giving a rock-solid assurance that his eventual victory over death—his resurrection—will be shared with the community of his followers, with the faithful members of his Church. No earthly power—and, Lord knows, many have tried, including Roman emperors, Protestant reformers, Japanese shoguns, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and countless lesser tyrants—no earthly power will subdue or overcome Christ’s Church. Sin cannot defeat, conquer, crush, sink his Church; not even the sins of the Church’s own members, however many or terrible those sins may be—because Christ is stronger; he’s “the Son of the living God.”
Finally, Jesus will give to Simon Peter “the keys to the kingdom of heaven,” with the power to open and shut, to bind and to loose. Jesus is bestowing upon Peter real authority, an authority we often refer to in jest when we speak of Peter as the doorman at the pearly gates.

What is the nature of this authority Jesus gives to Peter? One commentator—a Protestant, incidentally—writes: “An authority has been given which extends from the work of Jesus…. This responsibility includes the making of decisions. Decisions on earth have to be made which have validity in heaven. . . . They may include decisions about the Christian way or about the life of the church.”* The Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 553) is more specific: Peter has “authority to govern the house of God, which is the Church,” and “the authority to absolve sins, to pronounce doctrinal judgments, and to make disciplinary decisions in the Church”—an authority that Jesus gives generally to the apostles (Matt 18:18) but particularly to Peter; and only to Peter does he give the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

The Church’s authority to forgive sins offers to men and women in every age and all places the possibility of prevailing over the netherworld, over death. Victory over death can come only from the defeat of sin, the removal of sin, cleansing from sin.

Well and good that the sins we have committed be forgiven. Thank God! But teaching authority—the teaching of truth, the teaching of the authentic way of living as Jesus wishes—this is related to defeating sin. Followers of Jesus also want to avoid sin in the 1st place. Jesus pronounces “blessed those who hear the word of God and observe it” (Luke 11:28); he compares the person who obeys his teachings to a wise man who builds his house on a solid rock foundation (Matt 7:24-25)—an image like what he says to Peter today. We need to know how to live virtuously. And for that, we’re assured by Jesus’ promise, Peter speaks authoritatively, opening heaven to those who listen to what Peter says on behalf of Christ’s Church, closing it to those who separate themselves from Peter and the Church. The Church, with Peter in the lead, teaches us what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s moral and what’s immoral, so that the gates of the netherworld might not prevail over us, so that the devil might not claim our lives and lead us into the realm of death.

If Peter died in 67 A.D., crucified upside down in Nero’s amphitheater on the Vatican hill, but “the gates of the netherworld,” the powers of hell, are not to prevail against Christ’s Church founded upon Peter, then somehow Peter must remain the Rock beneath this permanent community called the Church. Peter’s office as the keeper of the keys, as the guarantor of the apostolic faith Peter professed to Jesus, has indeed continued. The men who succeed Peter as bishops of Rome keep the keys to the kingdom of heaven; the man we call “Pope” is now the foundation Rock of the Church that Christ built on Peter. That’s why a million youths have welcomed Pope Benedict XVI in Madrid as if he were a rock star. He is a Rock star, with a capital “R”—Peter’s successor, the rock on which rests Christ’s Church, guiding us toward eternal life in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Fresco painting, above: St. Peter holding keys

Church of Quo Vadis, Rome

* Ivor Jones, “Matthew,” in Sowers & Reapers: A Companion to the Four Gospels and Acts, ed. John Parr (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997), p. 94.

Five New Novices for N.R. Province

Five New Novices
for New Rochelle Province

SDB Novices Christopher Carlson, Kyle Zinno, Steven DeMaio, John Langan, and Travis Gunther pose with provincial Fr. Thomas Dunne (3d from right) in front of a statue of St. John Bosco at the provincial house in New Rochelle, Aug. 18.

Tonite, Aug. 20, the new Salesian novitiate for the U.S. was (re)inaugurated at Rosemead, Calif., in the presence of the provincials of both provinces, Frs. Tom Dunne and Tim Ploch.

God has blessed the American provinces with 7 novices this year, 2 for San Francisco and 5 for New Rochelle. They began their novitiate year this evening and, God willing, will be ready to make their religious profession next year on Aug. 21.

Fr. Bill Keane of the N.R. Province continues to serve as master of novices.

Someone remarked to this blogger this morning that the U.S. novitiate has been a little like Don Bosco's "wandering Oratory" (in the period 1841-1846 before it stabilized at what became the motherhouse of the Salesian movement). Since the sale of the former novitiate building at Don Bosco Seminary in Newton, N.J., to Sussex County in 1989, our novices have been formed in Rosemead, London, New York City, and Port Chester; and now back to Rosemead. There was also a separate novitiate in Canada for a time.

Three New Brothers for N.R. Province

Three New Brothers
for New Rochelle Province
Bros. Eduardo “Eddie” Chincha, Adam Dupré, and Marc Stockhausen made their first religious profession as Salesians on Aug. 16 during an evening Mass at Holy Rosary Church in Port Chester, N.Y.

The church was nearly full with the families of the newly professed, 37 Salesian priests and brothers, led by two provincials, Fr. Tom Dunne of New Rochelle and Fr. Tim Ploch of San Francisco, 23 Salesian sisters and novices, 1 Don Bosco Volunteer, 1 Salesian Lay Missioner, and numerous Cooperators, parishioners, and other friends of the Salesians.

During the last year the four novices, including Jared Anderson from Los Angeles, who will make his first profession on Aug. 21 in Bellflower, have been an intimate part of Holy Rosary parish life through their presence and their ministries.

Bro. Marc Stockhausen, 24, comes from Cleveland. His parents are Robert and Barbara, and he has two siblings. He was introduced to the Salesians by another candidate and counts a number of religious priests as his mentors. He entered the candidacy program at Orange in 2008 and also stayed with the Salesians in Tampa for a time.

Bro. Marc Stockhausen with his parents

Bro. Adam Dupré, 24, from Cranston, R.I., is one of Robert and Patricia Hickey’s six children. After learning about the Salesians from an Internet search, he went to Orange in 2007 and has found particular support from Fr. Steve Leake, Fr. Dominic Tran, and Fr. Bill Keane.

Bro. Adam Dupre with his parents

Bro. Eddie Chincha, 22, his parents Alberto and Lucia, and his three siblings are long-time members of Holy Rosary Parish. With much encouragement and support from Fr. Ploch when he was Holy Rosary’s pastor and from Fr. Rich Alejunas, Eddie became a candidate in Orange in 2009.

Bro. Eddie Chincha with his parents

Jared Anderson, 24, will make his profession on Sunday, Aug. 21. The Los Angeles native met the Salesians when he attended St. John Bosco H.S. in Bellflower. His parents are Richard Rakitis and Alison Anderson, and he has one sister. At Bosco, Jared says, Fr. John Roche “was a huge influence on me,” showing “me just how fun faith was,” guiding the future candidate and giving him opportunities for ministry. He entered the Western Province’s candidacy program at Rosemead in 2009.

All four newly professed brothers look forward to serving the young and the poor through Don Bosco’s charism.

The rite of first profession, while not as solemn as that of perpetual profession, includes some of the same elements: the calling of the candidates for profession, their response, an examination of their intentions, prayer for them, the profession of vows, signing the document of profession, and the presentation of a Salesian medal. In addition, newly professed “clerics” (or seminarians or students for the priesthood) receive and put on their clerical garb. (All three of the newly professed brothers, and Jared Anderson too, are students for the priesthood.) And all the newly professed receive a copy of the Constitutions of the Salesian Society.

The theme of two of the Scripture readings that the brothers chose for the Mass was the Good Shepherd (Ezek 34:1-16; John 10:11-18). Fr. Dunne, presiding and preaching, expressed his joy with that theme but began his homily with a quotation from St. Francis de Sales about the liberty with which one responds to the love that God shows us. Fr. Tom referred to “God’s seductive call of love” and said that the three about to make their vows were returning that love fully and freely by committing themselves to live the evangelical counsels in community for the sake of carrying out a mission of Christ.

Turning then to the Good Shepherd theme, Fr. Tom called it an icon of who we are as Salesians. We identify our calling as that of being good shepherds. In fact, the first Scripture quoted in our Constitutions is partly from the Ezekiel reading of the Mass (34:11,23). This icon, he said, is indelibly placed on our hearts by our vocational response. And Fr. Tom commented on the Good Shepherd image of the cross given to members at their perpetual profession.

But, he went on, we’re not really shepherds. We’re among those following the Good Shepherd; we’re part of the flock.

A shepherd, said Fr. Tom, knows each of his sheep by name and leads them to safe pastures. The sheep recognize his voice and the sound of his tin whistle. Accordingly, we listen to the tune of the Lord and to his words as we follow him. This listening, of course, begins in prayer.

And we call other sheep to join the flock through our community life and through our mission. We help lead the young away from danger and toward safety—by playing the tune of the Lord, resonating it for the young. We lead the young toward holiness by how we live out poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Fr. Tom Dunne preaching in the nearly filled church

Our fidelity, Fr. Tom said in conclusion, means more than just “sticking around”; it means growing in holiness ourselves.

At the beginning Mass, Fr. Tom noted that one reason for choosing Aug. 16 as profession day is that it’s Don Bosco’s birthday.

Bro. Eddie was chosen by his classmates to offer words of thanks at the end of Mass. He began by observing that it was Fr. Tom’s 50th anniversary of profession. The congregation responded with sustained applause. Then Bro. Eddie thanked the families of the new brothers, the people of Holy Rosary and all of Port Chester, and their Salesian brothers and sisters for their help and support.

Fr. Tom added some thanks. He called upon the parents of the newly professed to stand and accept the applause of the congregation. He thanked the Holy Rosary staff and parishioners for the example of their lives and the support of these Salesian vocations.

And then, since the U.S. novitiate will be moving to Rosemead this week, Fr. Tom “handed off” the prenovices—Chris Carlson, Steve DeMaio, Travis Gunther, John Langan, and Kyle Zinno, all of whom were in the sanctuary as servers—to Fr. Tim Ploch; and he added Fr. Bill Keane, master of novices, to the list of gifts. Fr. Bill flew to Los Angeles on the 17th; the prenovices and Fr. Tom are scheduled to fly out on the 19th. The new novitiate will be formally inaugurated on the 20th at 4 o’clock.

Homily for 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the
20th Sunday
in Ordinary Time
Aug. 14, 2011
Is 56: 1, 6-7
Matt 15: 21-28
Christian Brothers, Iona College
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.

“The foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, ministering to him, loving the name of the Lord, and becoming his servants—them I will bring to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer” (Is 56: 6, 7).

The mission of bringing the Lord God to the Gentiles is the common thread of the readings this evening/today. Altho Jesus makes it clear that his mission was to the Jews, when he elicited faith from the Canaanite woman and treated her with mercy, he was beginning the fulfillment of what Isaiah had prophesied centuries earlier about foreigners—Gentiles—becoming part of God’s people, coming to worship the Lord on Mt. Zion and finding joy in the temple of the Lord. In his commentary on this passage from Matthew’s Gospel, William Barclay writes: “There are tremendous implications in this passage. Apart from anything else, it describes the only occasion on which Jesus was ever outside of Jewish territory. The supreme significance of the passage is that it fore-shadows the going out of the gospel to the whole world; it shows us the beginning of the end of all the barriers.”
Jesus and the Canaanite woman (image lifted from The Deacon's Bench)
One of the implications that Barclay draws out is that this Canaanite woman was more than merely some foreigner, some non-Hebrew. “She belonged to the old Canaanite stock, and the Canaanites were the ancestral enemies of the Jews. Even at that very time, or not much later, Josephus could write: ‘Of the Phoenicians, the Tyrians have the most ill-feeling towards us.’” Jesus is really pushing the barriers, opening a path that Peter and then Paul will follow in a few years, to bring God’s mercy to the Gentiles (Rom 11:13,30,32). Jesus’ mission is truly to be universal.

That universality is expressed, e.g., in our 3d Eucharistic Prayer: “From age to age you gather a people to yourself, so that from east to west a perfect offering may be made to the glory of your name.” It will become more evident when we start using the new translation of the Roman Missal in the fall. That passage is taken from the prophet Malachi: “From the rising of the sun, even to its setting, my name is great among the nations; and everywhere a they bring sacrifice to my name, and a pure offering” (1:11). “From the rising of the sun to its setting”: this is geographical universality, covering the whole earth; it’s temporal universality, covering all day, every day.
Without the breaking of these barriers, Christ’s mission of salvation would have been very narrowly constrained. Not only were—and are—the Jews a very small people among all the people of the earth; but very few of them listened to Jesus and accepted him as the living Word of God, then or in succeeding centuries. If his mission were only to the Jews, then God’s salvation would hardly be universal.

Like the Canaanite woman, however, in Peter and Paul’s time the Gentiles came actively seeking that Word of life: Cornelius the Roman centurion sending for Peter and his Good News, the Greeks listening to Paul’s preaching in the synagogs and the streets of one town after another and seeking to “join themselves to the Lord, minister to him, love his name, and become his servants.”

So from its earliest days the Church, the assembly of God’s holy people, has been outgoing; has been missionary. [Your own Christian Brothers roots are missionary, resting spiritually and culturally as it were, on the island of Iona.] When the entire American Church was still officially a mission territory under the curial jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (which it was until 1908), the Salesians came here as missionaries—missionaries to pastorless Italian and Polish immigrants. For generations American dioceses have been manned by the FBI—the “foreign-born Irish” clergy who went out in wave after generous wave of missionaries all over the world, making real the mandate of our Lord to preach the Good News everywhere. Six weeks ago Maryknoll, the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, celebrated its 100th anniversary—a celebration of the mission to the Gentiles: the Chinese, and then the Japanese, the Africans, priestless Latin Americans.

[You do so well to pray for your young confreres in India, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Papua New Guinea, and Latin America—the fruits of your missionary endeavors, the future “apostles to the Gentiles” of your congregation; and to bring young confreres here to Iona to broaden their educational experience and their formation as brothers. This is one way in which we, here at home, can indirectly follow Christ’s example of eliciting faith from the nations, can carry out his command to spread the Good News.]

If we can’t go to the missions, we can still be missionaries: by prayer for missionaries, after the example of St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, patroness of the missions who never left her convent in Normandy; by financial support of missionaries and specific missions; by encouraging people to consider a missionary calling. Just last Saturday we Salesians commissioned 13 lay missionary volunteers who will be going out for a year of service in Bolivia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and elsewhere. We’ve been doing this for years, and many of these young people—and some aren’t so young—find their service among orphans and in our schools so fulfilling that they sign up for a 2d year; this year a young woman in Cochabamba, Bolivia, signed up for 3d year.

Finally, and most important, we can be missionaries by faithfully living out the Gospel of Jesus ourselves, for that is silent preaching that we have found joy in the Lord’s house of prayer, a house whose doors are open to everyone everywhere.

[Bracketed passages only at Iona College]

Salesian Sisters: New Novices, New Sisters, and More

Salesian Sisters:
New Novices, New Sisters,
Perpetual Vows, & More

The first year novices of the Salesian Sisters (FMAs) have put together a 9-minute YouTube show of their reception into the novitiate and several events related to the religious professions of their "older" sisters: the blessing and presentation of the habit to the novices about to make their first professions; the first professions of 5 sisters; the renewal of vows by a large number of young sisters; and the perpetual professions of several. Enjoy! Here's the link: http://youtu.be/p4AvEc8FDNA

Preparing for Don Bosco's Bicentennial

Preparing for
Don Bosco's Bicentennial

On Aug. 16, the birthday of St. John Bosco, the Salesian Family will launch a 3-year period of preparation for celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth. Fr. Pascual Chavez, the rector major, announced the plan last Jan. 31 in a letter to the Salesians.

Today ANS (the SDB international news service based at HQ in Rome) published a short interview with Fr. Francesco Motto, director of the Salesian Historical Institute at HQ, about what it means to get to know DB.

Just a few days before the beginning of three years of preparation for the bicentennial of Don Bosco’s birth in 2015, ANS asked Fr. Francesco Motto, director of the Salesian Historical Institute in Rome, to suggest how we can learn more about this saint from Turin.

For Fr. Motto there are three stages in getting to know Don Bosco better:
-- Read the themes of the historical Don Bosco, whether religious, moral, dogmatic, political, cultural, economic, etc., in the light of analogous problems and recent events, so that they can be useful to us today.The Salesian historian starts from the simple question: “Which Don Bosco?” because “there are dozens of images of Don Bosco in books, reviews, journals, videos, film, and fiction.” He quotes the remark of Fr. Chavez’s in the strenna for 2012: “Our approach to Don Bosco, using appropriate methods of historical research, has led us better to understand and assess his human and Christian greatness, his practical brilliance, his skills as an educator, his spirituality, and his work, which are fully understood only if deeply rooted in the history of the society in which he lived.”

Understanding Don Bosco is a subject dear to the heart of the Rector Major, Fr. Pascual Chavez. Taken up in the first theme of the Salesians’ 26th General Chapter in 2008–“Return to Don Bosco”–it was put forward again to Salesians in his letter of January 31, 2011, in which he outlined the journey of preparation for 2015: a knowledge of Don Bosco’s life story, his educational method, and his spirituality.

Fr. Motto’s suggestions – available in the Service section of ANS – are not limited to the mere knowledge of the historical data; as outlined by the Rector Major, they include consideration of the educational and spiritual context.

-- Go back to genuine and certain sources, “meaning authentic texts from Don Bosco, his writings, published by him or by his sons, on-line or on paper”;

-- Go further into the sources – even those which are most certain and valid–going beyond “a superficial and simplistic reading. It is necessary to understand the ideas and mental constructs of Don Bosco, his own values and those he adopted, his style of written and spoken language, his method of drafting and re-drafting.... A theological reading of the sources can be enhanced by a social, economic, or political reading. The supernatural must take account of natural factors. Don Bosco is not an ‘island’ in the sea of his times.”

Fr. Motto ended by explaining that “when he has understood, indicated, and explained the context, the events, the causes, and the consequences, the historian has completed his task. To his ‘historical’ interpretation there needs to be added the ‘existential.’”

Salesian Pilgrims to World Youth Day

Salesian Pilgrims
to World Youth Day

Several groups of young pilgrims accompanied by SDBs, FMAs, and youth ministers, have left for Madrid to take part in WYD. (From around the world some 7,000 members of the Salesian Youth Movement are converging on the Spanish capital.)

The group organized by the New Rochelle Province's Youth Ministry Office in South Orange has set up a blog to record their travels, thoughts, and experiences, which they've invited me to share with anyone interested in following them: http://symmadrid11.tumblr.com/

Bro. Miguel Suarez Makes Perpetual Profession

Bro. Miguel Suarez
Makes Perpetual Profession
Bro. Miguel Suarez, SDB, made his definitive commitment to God in the Society of St. Francis de Sales on Saturday, Aug. 6. The solemn Rite of Perpetual Profession of the vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity took place within Mass at Holy Rosary Church in Port Chester, N.Y.

Fr. Tom Dunne, provincial, presided and preached. Eighteen Salesian priests concelebrated. The congregation also included members of Bro. Miguel’s family, Salesian brothers and sisters, Cooperators, Salesian Lay Missioners, Holy Rosary parishioners, former students of Bro. Miguel from Salesian High School in New Rochelle, and friends.

Miguel, whose parents are deceased, was born in Mexico City and came to the U.S. with some of his family in 1985. They settled in Port Chester and joined Holy Rosary Parish, which was Miguel’s first contact with the Salesians.

He soon became very involved in the parish’s youth ministry program. Influenced by Fr. Tim Zak, coordinator of youth ministry, and the late Fr. John Murphy, coordinator of ministry to the Hispanic community, Miguel eventually realized that he would like to work with young people and immigrants as they were doing.

So in 2001 Miguel applied to enter the Salesians and joined the candidacy program at Orange, N.J. Two years later he was admitted to the novitiate at Mary Help of Christians Parish in Manhattan, and on Aug. 16, 2004, he made his first profession of religious vows there.

Bro. Miguel returned to Orange for postnovitiate formation, during which he completed a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Seton Hall University in 2007. During his practical training at Salesian High School, he taught religion and coordinated the intramural sports program. As part of his religion teaching he took up John Paul II’s theology of the body, on which he speaks occasionally to parish and youth groups.

In 2009 Bro. Miguel resumed his studies for the priesthood at the Salesian Theological School in Tlaquepaque, Mexico. After a year he transferred to Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall and re-entered the formation community at Orange. There he directs the RCIA program for Spanish-speakers at Our Lady of the Valley Church, to which the formation community is attached, and serves as a general assistant to the young candidates first trying out Salesian life.

He anticipates ordination to the diaconate next spring and to the presbyterate in 2013.

Bro. Miguel says, “God’s call is a blessing for me, for my family, for my friends who’ve supported me all these years.”


Holding a baptismal candle just lit from the paschal candle (right), to show the link between the call to Christian discipleship received in Baptism and the call being answered in religious life, Bro. Miguel Suarez pronounces perpetual vows before Fr. Tom Dunne and two witnesses (Fr. Steve Shafran and Bro. Tom Dion).

In his homily at the profession Mass, Fr. Tom noted that it was the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. He said that the apostles had followed a “vocational path” to meet God on the mountain with Jesus, and in a similar kind of way Bro. Miguel is following a path with Jesus in poverty, chastity, obedience, community life, and the Salesian mission of bringing the Gospel to all people.

Fr. Tom said that the Lord had chosen Bro. Miguel and led him by a myriad of experiences and circumstances to this day. “The Lord worked hard, and Miguel responded,” making a commitment to listen to the Lord always, as the Father’s voice instructed the three apostles on the mountain.

Fr. Tom also pointed out that perpetual profession is not the end of one’s commitment, but is a commitment to continued growth in discipleship, one day at a time, forever. He urged Bro. Miguel never to lose his sense of being consecrated to God, of serving the young, of living in community.

Then, noting the death earlier that same morning of Fr. Pat Diver (see post below), after 48 years of Salesian life—the last year spent in illness, unable to do anything but offer his sufferings to God on behalf of the young—Fr. Tom reminded Bro. Miguel that the vocation of a consecrated person is a vocation “to be,” not just “to do.”

Homily for 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the
19th Sunday

in Ordinary Time Aug. 7, 2011
Matt 14: 22-33
Willow Towers, New Rochelle
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison

“He went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone” (Matt 14: 23).

Have you noticed that whenever Jesus prays, he’s alone? Even when he takes disciples with him, when he asks them to keep vigil and pray with him, they fall asleep and leave him, in effect, alone (26:36-45).

In one sense, this is fitting. As important as community is, as important as Church is—each of us must be in a personal, one-to-one relationship with God. No one else can keep vigil for us. No one else can be a close friend of God on our behalf. Each one of us has to stand alone before God and account for himself or herself.

One of the changes in our translation of the Mass texts next Advent is going to reflect this singular relationship to which God calls us. No longer will we profess “We believe in one God, we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, we believe in the Holy Spirit.” Reflecting the Latin text, Credo in unum Deum, etc., and reflecting the individuality of our Baptism, we’ll say, “I believe.”

I am responsible before God for confessing the Catholic faith, for living as a genuine disciple of Jesus, and for praying—for being in a relationship of praise, of penitence, and of gratitude with my Father in heaven. So our prayer, in this sense, is always an isolated act and state of being, even when we’re surrounded by our fellow believers, as we are right now; even when we’re praying for others and others are praying for us—all of which is very important.

There’s another meaning in the gospel verse and passage, tho. Over and over again in the gospels, Jesus is the only one in a committed relationship with God. The apostles are good men, but they don’t demonstrate at all that they’re God’s men. They certainly aren’t ready to be canonized. One of them will never make it. Jesus tries to teach them to pray (6:6-13), but we never actually see them doing so until after his resurrection. So Jesus is alone, by himself, in seeking God’s will, in trusting God’s will, in acting on God’s will, in living for God.

Christ Walking on the Water, by Amedee Varin

All of which makes the situation of the disciples in the gospel story a wonderful metaphor. When we say that someone’s at sea, we mean he’s lost, wandering, entirely unsure of what to do or where to go or how to get himself out of some pickle. When someone’s swamped at sea, he’s in imminent peril. Such is our life—our spiritual life, our moral life, the very direction of purpose of our lives, unless we’ve integrated God into our lives. That requires prayer. The apostles will always be lost, always floundering, until they learn to turn to God, to trust in God, to put themselves into God’s hands (cf. 14:30-31).

And so will we. Like Peter, we need for Jesus to reach out a hand and save us—or guide us, forgive us, console us, strengthen us. Like Peter, we have to call out to God for that help. We have to pray.

Jesus saves Peter, by Rembrandt

Fr. Patrick Diver, SDB

Fr. Patrick Diver, SDB (1943-2011)

After a long bout with cancer, Fr. Patrick Diver, SDB, died early in the morning of August 6, 2011, at Fr. Hudson House, a hospice in Elizabeth, N.J. He was 68.

Fr. Pat (left) with Fr. John Grinsell in May 2006.

Father Tom Dunne, our provincial, said that in these final months of nearly 48 years of consecrated life Fr. Pat offered himself fully to God’s will and promise.

Fr. Pat was born in Boston on August 5, 1943, to Patrick and Mary Connolly Diver. Within the month he was baptized at St. Margaret’s Church in Dorchester, which remained the family’s parish.

Following his graduation from Don Bosco Tech in Boston in 1961, Patrick enrolled in Don Bosco College Seminary in Newton, N.J., as a candidate for Salesian life. In August 1962 he entered the novitiate, also in Newton, and made his first profession of religious vows on August 16, 1963.

Like all Salesian seminarians, Bro. Pat majored in philosophy at Don Bosco College, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in June 1967. He minored in classical languages.

Having volunteered for the foreign missions, Bro. Pat was sent to the Philippines, where he taught at Don Bosco Academy in Pampanga, the province’s high school seminary, from 1967 to 1970. The students greatly appreciated him as a teacher and friend. One of them, Fr. George Militante, is now provincial of the South Philippines Province, and on Aug. 9 he wrote: "We, especially those who were under him in Don Bosco Juniorate, San Fernando Pampanga, remember him fondly and are grateful to him for a job well done as practical trainee."

At the same time he undertook a master’s program in guidance and counseling at De La Salle College’s Graduate School of Education in Manila, completing his degree in May 1970. One of the papers that he presented for the degree was titled “The Counselor in the Salesian System of Education.”

Bro. Pat returned to the U.S. in 1970 to study theology at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Worthington, Ohio. He was ordained in Columbus on March 30, 1974, and awarded a master of arts in theology from the Josephinum in June of that year.

Fr. Pat’s first priestly assignment was as dean of students at Don Bosco College in Newton (1974-1976). Twenty-one years of school apostolate followed, during which he ministered as a guidance counselor at St. Dominic Savio HS in East Boston (1976-1980), treasurer at Dom Savio (1980-1984), and director of the school (1989-1995); he was treasurer at Mary Help of Christians School in Tampa (1984-1988) and then principal there (1988-1989), and guidance counselor at Don Bosco Tech in Paterson (1995-1997). He later had another short stint as guidance counselor at Savio Prep in East Boston (2003-2004).

Fr. Pat made a lasting impression on the young men at Savio. One alumnus, C. David Surface, writes: “He was the most honest and caring priest I have ever known. His influence helped to shape my life both professionally and from a family perspective…. I will never forget him and how he made my days at Savio truly special.”

During his first assignment in East Boston he was certified as a school guidance counselor in Massachusetts (1978).

Fr. Pat worked in parishes, too. He was pastor of Mary Help of Christians Church in Manhattan for a year (1997-1998), associate pastor at Nativity Church in Washington (2002), acting pastor of St. Theresa’s Church in Leeds, Ala. (2003), and pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Church in Elizabeth and director of the Salesian community there (2004-2010).

From 1998 to 2002 Fr. Pat was director of Salesian Missions in New Rochelle, coordinating a vast fundraising program in service to Salesian missionary activities all over the world.

In 2007, while he was pastor in Elizabeth, Fr. Pat was found to have colon cancer and went through a long treatment and recovery.

In the summer of 2010 Fr. Pat completed his pastorate and directorship in Elizabeth and was assigned once more to the formation of young Salesians as a very experienced and highly valued staff member at the Don Bosco Residence in Orange. Late in the spring of 2011 cancer returned in a very serious form. When treatment was unavailing, he entered hospice care.

Bro. Gus Ramirez, one of the young Salesians from Orange, said of him: “Fr. Pat Diver was a great example of perseverance and love for the young. I will always remember him as the vital man who loved the young to the last minute of his life.”

Fr. Pat is survived by his sisters Kathleen Tubman and Maureen Fitzgerald, both of the Boston area, and by his Salesian confreres of the New Rochelle Province.

Fr. Pat will be waked at St. Anthony Church in Elizabeth on the evening of Aug. 8 and the afternoon of Aug. 9. Fr. Tom Dunne will preside over the Mass of Christian Burial at St. Anthony’s on the 9th at 7:30 p.m., and Fr. Tom Ruekert will preach, at Fr. Pat’s request. On Aug. 10 Fr. Pat will be buried in the family plot at Newton Cemetery in Newton, Mass.

Homily for 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the
18th Sunday
in Ordinary TimeJuly 31, 2011
Rom 8: 35, 37-39
Willow Towers, New Rochelle
Ursulines, Willow Dr., N.R.

“What will separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom 8: 35).

In the 8th chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, we’ve been meditating for 5 consecutive Sundays—or at least have been invited to meditate—on the glorious destiny to which God has called us in Jesus Christ: a destiny all but guaranteed to us because God has given us the Holy Spirit as a pledge (cf. 8:15-16). We hold the title, so to speak, on a fine condo in the Father’s retirement community.

Last week Paul assured us that everything works out in God’s plan for our redemption (8:28-30). Today he asks what could possibly ruin that plan. What could possibly separate us from the saving effects of Christ’s love for us? The short answer is “Nothing.” Nada. Niente. Rien.

As you know, Paul’s not very good at short answers. So he goes into some detail about threats, or supposed threats, to our ultimate well-being, the salvation that God has planned for us based on his all-powerful love for us.

Can anguish or distress separate us from Christ? Can any anxiety over life’s problems or even over our own failings cause Christ to abandon us? No. If we’re sincerely searching for God; if we’re sincerely trying to maintain healthy and loving relationships with the people in our lives; if we’re sincerely repenting of our sins and striving to improve our practice of virtue—not only will Christ not cast us away, but he will even embrace us; he will even “be moved with pity for” us, as he was for the crowd in today’s gospel (Matt 14:13-21). Our prayer after the Our Father at every Mass, to be kept free from sin and protected from all anxiety, is a reminder that only one thing can separate us from God’s love—not anguish or distress but only sin.

Can any external problems remove us from Christ’s loving embrace—external problems like natural disasters? Paul mentions famine and nakedness, and we could think of others like hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, drought, wildfires, and tornados. Sometimes these cause people to doubt God’s love for them, his concern for them. Atheists often point to them as “proof” that there’s no loving God, no all-surpassing wisdom guiding creation for our benefit.

Paul, on the other hand, suggested earlier in this chapter (3 Sundays back) that creation, too, needs to be redeemed, to be brought into line with God’s design; that it, too—like humanity—has been in a state of rebellion against its Lord. We hope, Paul says, “that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God” (8:21). Till then, “all creation is groaning in labor pains” (8:22). Yet Jesus Christ is testimony to the Creator’s love and his commitment to fulfill creation’s destiny, which is the new creation, the “new heavens and new earth” spoken of in the last chapter of the Book of Revelation.

What about persecution, peril, or the sword? Only if we give in. But in themselves they can’t separate Christians from Christ. In Paul’s day persecution and peril were a daily reality, and he would himself give up his life for Christ thru the sword of martyrdom. That sword brought him to the fullness of union with Christ for which he had longed (cf. Phil 3:22-23).

In our day persecution and even martyrdom are still daily realities for believers in China, Pakistan, Egypt, Vietnam, and other places where churches are burned, Christians are assaulted, priests and bishops are arrested, converts face capital punishment.

But, Paul affirms, “in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly thru him who has loved us” (8:37). Christ has loved us, Christ has shared his Spirit with us, and Christ empowers us to face down any threat, any temptation, any trial that comes to us from the world of nature or from human malice. Threats, temptations, and trials not only don’t “separate us from the love of Christ,” but they unite us more intimately with him who was threatened by Pontius Pilate and the Sanhedrin, who was tempted by Satan, and who was tried by unimaginable corporal suffering, abandonment, and death. If we have suffered with him, we shall also be glorified with him (cf. Rom 8:17).

No, not even death can separate us from Christ’s love. Didn’t he die too? He died in the ultimate act of solidarity with the human race. And those who identify themselves with him by their verbal profession of faith and especially by their following his teachings—their lived profession of faith—will meet his love in the life to come and will be glorified by that love with the life of resurrection.

No unearthly power, no demon—no angel, principality, or any other creature, as Paul puts it (8:38-39)—can come between Christ Jesus and those whom he has chosen to be his own, and who have embraced him.

Fr. Adelard "Del" Labonte, SDB

Fr. Adelard “Del” Labonté, SDB (1925-2011)

Fr. Adelard Joseph “Del” Labonté, SDB, died early on July 24, 2011, at St. Joseph Senior Residence in Woodbridge, N.J., at age 86. He had been ill for a short time and was accompanied in his last hours by the prayers and the presence of his sister Antoinette Vacca and members of his Salesian community from Orange, N.J.


The 14th of 15 children, Del Labonté was born to Emile and Alexina Dionne Labonté in L’Avenir, Quebec, on July 19, 1925, and baptized two days later in the village church of St. Pierre. When he was a boy the family moved to Providence, R.I., and became members of Our Lady of Lourdes Church, a "French parish." Del was confirmed there when he was 12.

At 14 he started high school at LaSalle Academy, but he dropped out in September 1941 to join the Navy. He saw action aboard the battleship Arkansas in support of the invasions of Normandy and southern France in June and August 1944, and the landings on Iwo Jima and Okinawa in February and April 1945—memories that remained vividly with him for the rest of his life.

After the war Del returned to LaSalle and graduated in June 1948. A year later he started a liberal arts course of studies at Providence College but left after a year to enter the Salesians at Don Bosco College in Newton, N.J., in July 1950. He wished to study for the priesthood but found the study of Latin, especially, too daunting. He did, however, fall in love with St. John Bosco and with Mary Help of Christians. He decided to stay with Don Bosco as a coadjutor brother.

Del completed his novitiate year in Newton in 1953-1954 and made his first profession of vows as a brother on Sept. 8, 1954. After a further year of formation he was sent to Holy Rosary Church in Birmingham, Ala., along with Fr. Aloysius Trifari and Bro. Frank Tilton, to inaugurate the Salesian work there. The SDB presence later expanded to take in St. John Bosco parish (originally named St. Clement). While the parish’s clergy changed, for 36 years Bro. Del stayed on, serving the young and the poor of the parishes and of the city’s Gate City and Woodlawn neighborhoods, well known for his charity and his piety.

Bro. Del would leave the rectory early in the morning and return late at night. On a regular basis he visited the sick in hospitals and the homebound, bringing Holy Communion to the Catholics and spiritual comfort to non-Catholics. He drove Fr. Patrick Corcoran, pastor from 1968 to 1991, to the hospitals or wherever else he had to go to celebrate Mass.

A fervent devotee of the Blessed Mother, Bro. Del established “Mary’s Hour,” at which groups of parishioners gathered to pray the Rosary and sing hymns—a practice still in vogue at Holy Rosary. He had a passion for roses, which he grew near the rectory and brought to Mary’s shrine in the church.

Long before Mother Angelica became famous, Bro. Del advocated her apostolate and distributed her printed material.

To this day, local Protestants sometimes refer to Holy Rosary Church as “Bro. Del’s.” He was noted for handing out food to the needy at the rectory or bringing it to their homes, day or night, and for paying the bills of the poor.

Sally Crockett, a member of the Saint John Bosco Parish when the Salesians staffed it, writes: “I am so sorry to hear of Father Del’s death. I worked with Father (Brother) Del for many years with the youth of Saint John Bosco and Holy Rosary parishes. My family and I have many, many fond memories of him. Such a saintly man and an inspiration.

Another Birmingham parishioner, Michael Crockett, remembers Father Del this way: “I wish I could remember all the things and places he took me every Saturday and Sunday and nearly every day in summer for close to five years when I was about 12-17 years old. He opened up a spiritual world and love of the poor and elderly that have remained with me to this day. I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone else like him whom I admire so much and hope to imitate in loving others. He is still remembered and loved by everyone in this whole diocese.”

But Bro. Del hadn’t given up on the desire to become a priest. When the liturgical and seminary changes brought by Vatican II meant that a seminarian no longer had to be proficient in Latin, he received another opportunity. In 1991 he was assigned to the pastoral team of Mary Help of Christians Church on E. 12th St. in Manhattan to give him a very different parochial experience and start his transition to a possible seminary experience.

After two years at 12th St., he was enrolled in Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., where he spent four years studying theology, noted for both his piety and his dedication to studies. He was ordained to the priesthood at Mary Help of Christians on November 1, 1997, and assigned there for the remainder of the pastoral year as an assistant pastor.

In 1998 Fr. Del went to Don Bosco Tech in Paterson, where he served as a confessor for the students and a lively presence in the SDB community for four years. Following the school’s closure in 2002, he moved across town to St. Anthony’s Church to help with parish ministry and also to help with chaplaincy work for the Salesian Sisters.

Father Del’s superior at the Tech, Father Stephen Schenck, recalls: “I remember Del being a gentleman in all things, quick to serve anyone of whose need he became aware—from getting food, to helping carry a bag, to going to the store—whatever it was, Del was eager to serve.

“I remember him as a wonderful storyteller, or ‘raconteur.’ He could recall precise details of past events, and had an enormous vocabulary which he used exceedingly well. Phrases like, ‘Her voice had a delicate, charming timbre to it...’ fell easily from his lips. From anyone else they might have sounded rehearsed, but Del excelled in the adroit use of language, particularly when describing past events.”

In May 2004 Fr. Del suffered a serious stroke, which by the following year required him to move into Saint Mary’s Life Center, a nursing home in Orange, N.J., chosen in part because of its proximity to the community of candidates and young Salesians in formation (at Our Lady of the Valley Parish in Orange). As often as he could, he took part in community events and well as in events of the province community such as funerals, ordinations, and jubilee celebrations. The young SDBs and candidates enjoyed visiting him and helping him get out to events.
Bishop Luc Van Looy, SDB, stopped to chat with wheelchair-bound Fr. Del following the ordination Mass of Fr. Abe Feliciano in June 2006 at St. Anthony's Church in Paterson.


Gradually Fr. Del’s condition worsened, however, so that last February he moved to St. Joseph Senior Residence in order to have more appropriate care, including that of a Salesian chaplain at the residence.

His local superior, Fr. Stephen Leake, SDB, said, “Fr. Del will be missed for his great kindness, infectious joy, and deep devotion.”

Fr. Del was waked at Our Lady of the Valley Church in Orange on Tuesday, July 26, and the Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated that evening. He was buried in the Salesian Cemetery in Goshen, N.Y., the following morning.

We Don't Fight in the Back Seat Any More!

And We Don't Fight
in the Back Seat Any More!

Your humble blogger, brother Chris, sister Rita

Any parent who's every transported 2 or more siblings by car for any great distance knows the routine. Start arguing, whining, or poking each other after 10 minutes or so....

Imagine family vacations before the age of the Interstate, when everything was so much further away, at least in terms of hours needed to get there.

3 Mendl kids weren't any different on those 1950s 3-day drives from Tampa to Long Island to visit family, and back.

The family get-togethers are much more serene these days. Even Rita's kids have stopped the squabbling--pretty much.

We got together last weekend to help Rita celebrate a milestone birthday.

Volunteering to Serve

Volunteering to Serve

This week Salesian Missions, thru the Salesian Lay Missioners program, has been providing orientation to 14 new volunteers, most of them young (like right out of college) but a few apparently well beyond that. They're getting about a week of intercultural and other aspects of life in the missions, together with some young people from at least one other sponsoring organization, at Maryknoll.

That will be followed by a week or 10 days of experiencing Salesian youth ministry, and practicing it, at the summer day camp at our 2 Port Chester parishes, Holy Rosary and Corpus Christi. Finally, the new SLMs will make a 6-day spiritual retreat, together with about 20 SDBs who happen to making that particular retreat; they'll get some more theoretical orientation at the same time and complete on some of their final paperwork. On Aug. 6 Fr. Tom Dunne will commission them for their missions.

This morning I had the privilege of going up to Maryknoll to offer Mass for the SLMs and other trainees and then being available to them for Reconciliation.

Here's a photo of our 14 generous folks taken right after Mass. Most of them had their eyes open by then!