Homily for 4th Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
4th Sunday of Lent
John 3: 14-21
NYLT, Putnam Valley, N.Y.
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.
March 18, 2012

“The light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil” (John 3:19).

Have you ever gone into a kitchen or pantry, turned on the light, and seen a couple dozen cockroaches scurry into a dark corner and under the baseboards? (If you haven’t, you’re not from New York!) They don’t like the light at all. They do whatever icky things cockroaches do in the darkness.

Jesus uses a similar image. It’s one we’re all familiar with. More criminal activity takes place at nite, in the dark, than in broad daylight. In the Middle Ages, and in our own colonial period, no one went out at nite without real necessity, because they believed that evil spirits roamed about in the darkness, perhaps like the Dark Lord and his Death Eater friends. Moviemakers know how to use darkness and shadows to give us the creeps.

Not only criminals and movie monsters love the dark. So do all of us sinners. When we do something wrong, something evil—lying, cheating, stealing, bullying, premarital sexual activity, acts of cruelty, and a long list of other sins—we try to do it secretly and keep it secret. When we admit to ourselves that we’ve sinned, we’re ashamed and don’t want anyone to know about it. It’s even hard for us to go to confession.

St. John Bosco sometimes had the gift from God of reading consciences. His biography has a dozen pages of testimonies about that (Giovanni Battista Lemoyne, SDB, The Biographical Memoirs of Saint John Bosco, trans. Diego Borgatello, SDB, vol. 6 [New Rochelle, 1971], pp. 257-267). On the positive side, this enabled him to help boys confess their sins—he could just name a sin, and they could nod or say “yes.” His biographer tells us: “So deeply convinced were the boys that Don Bosco could see in their consciences not only external sins but even innermost thoughts, that nearly all wanted to go to confession to him. ‘With him we are surer to make good confessions and Communions,’ they claimed. ‘If we forget any sin, he will surely recall it to us.’ It is a fact that his confessional was always crowded with boys.” (p. 258).
Photo (posed, in fact) of DB hearing confessions at the Oratory, ca. 1860

But those still “living in the darkness” didn’t like that. The biographer also tells us: “Some boys kept their distance from him. If they had to go near him for some reason or other, while respectfully doffing their caps, they still tried to shield their foreheads with them or with their hair, as if that were enough to hide their consciences…. ‘Don Bosco reads our sins on our foreheads,’ they said.” (p. 265).
But “the light came into the world”—Jesus Christ—in order to bring life, to bring joy, not fear, not punishment. There are a very few creatures living in the very deepest, darkest parts of the oceans and in the deepest, darkest caves in the earth who never see light or feel the sun’s warmth. But just about every living creature needs light, and the warmth associated with light, in order to live and to grow: flowers and crops and even people. Think of how hard it is for you to get going on a gloomy day; not even 16 cups of coffee helps. And how alive you feel when the sun’s shining brightly, like today. And now that the days are getting longer and warmer, you can look around and see the daffodils and the crocuses are starting to pop out, the forsythia and the magnolias to bud, and the trees to leaf out.

That’s an image of what God wants for us. In his 1st chapter St. John writes, “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. To those who accepted him, he gave the power to become children of God” (1:9,12). In the passage we heard a few minutes ago, he says further, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (3:16); and “God sent his Son into the world that it might be saved thru him” (3:17).

The Collect or opening prayer of today’s Mass observed that God “reconciles the human race” to himself “in a wonderful way.” That wonderful way is the gift of his Son. It’s the call for us to bask in the light of the Son—turning away from the darkness in our hearts and letting God’s love, God’s forgiveness, envelop us and fill us with light. When God so envelops us and fills us with light, we become luminous. In the words of the book of Daniel, “The wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever” (12:3). You always wanted to be a star, didn’t you? That’s why when you were baptized you were given a baptismal candle, lit from the Easter candle: you share in the light of Christ, Christ who is the light of the world, and you are to enlighten the world with his light.

You have perhaps heard the little story of a boy being shown the wonders of the parish church by his mom. When she pointed out to him the stained glass windows, filled with images of the saints, she asked him whether he knew who the saints were. “Yes,” he assured her. “They’re the people the light shines thru.” That’s who God calls all of us to be: “the light came into the world…. Whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God” (John 3:19,21). No running for a dark corner like a cockroach; no pulling hair over our foreheads to hide our consciences!
Stained-glass window of St. Ann with her daughter, the Virgin Mary (Holy Rosary Church, Port Chester)
“God is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us” and has “brought us to life with Christ,” St. Paul reminds us (Eph 2:4-5). God wants so much to give us this grace, this undeserved gift (cf. 2:5-9)! Nothing on earth and no power of darkness “can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Paul says elsewhere (Rom 8:38-39).
So in this sacred season of Lent, this season of conversion and re-conversion, of recommitment to Jesus, light of the world, we need have no fear of examining our consciences, of admitting our faults, our sins, our guilt, and bringing them to Jesus—in the person of his priestly minister—and letting Jesus’ love warm us up and keep us growing into that “handiwork” that God created us to be, “created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph 2:10) and for eternal life (John 3:16).

Baby Ransomed!

Baby Ransomed!

Those of us of a certain age--you may remain anonymous--remember when some Catholic missionary association or other used to urge the faithful to "ransom a pagan baby" by donating to the association so that it help missionaries preach the Gospel. In a book called What Is the Mission of the Church (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2008), Roger P. Schroeder remembers "collecting pennies in a little cardboard coin box to 'ransom a pagan baby' [in the 1960s]. I wrote the baptismal name a child would receive at baptism by a missionary in a faraway land on the outside of the box. My classmates and I proudly processed with our 'mission boxes' to the front of the classroom."

During my seminary days, while we were doing weekend ministry at a certain parish in the Columbus suburbs, there were often Baptisms after the last Sunday Mass. The kindly pastor didn't much like doing Baptisms and generally charged the deacon-in-training with them. So some of the confreres serving there, both deacons and others, took to referring to the Baptisms as "ransoming pagan babies."

Which in a real sense is exactly true. Jesus himself says, "The Son of Man came...to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45).

So last Sunday I had the privilege of "ransoming" Anita Mae, claiming her for Jesus against the real Dark Lord (not the fictitious one in Harry Potter).
The pastor of St. Lawrence Church in Shelton watched as I poured the water and spoke the sacred words over Anita (and later anointed her with chrism). Fr. Jones did 3 Baptisms himself in the same ceremony.

Mom Meghan, Dad Pete, Godfather Ben, and Godmother Stephanie are happy as can be. Aunt Margot took this photo and the one above.

How many Baptisms have Dixieland music? Grandpa Fred (at left) and his Sportin' Life combo played "When the Saints Go Marching In" as the rite finished (they played a couple of other pieces at the beginning and as an interlude).

Congrats, Anita Mae, and welcome into the community of God's people! May Christ's light brighten all your days and your eternity!

Dom Savio HS Holds "Great Savio Reunion"

Dom Savio High School
Holds “Great Savio Reunion”


Caselli Hall, the main school building of St. Dominic Savio HS and Savio Prep
An estimated 450 former students and faculty of St. Dominic Savio HS and Savio Prep in East Boston showed up for the Great Savio Reunion on Saturday night, March 10, at what is now the Salesian Boys & Girls Club of East Boston. The SDBs operated Dom Savio from 1958 to 1993. A group of alumni set up Savio Prep a couple of years later and ran it until 2007.

There were even a few alumni of Don Bosco Trade School, which preceded Dom Savio at the site (1946-1955) before relocating to downtown Boston as Don Bosco Tech.

The reunion was planned over the course of several months by alumni Steve Fielding and Fr. John Nazzaro, both of the Class of 1972. Steve is now the director of development and communications for the Boys & Girls Club, and Fr. John is executive director as well as director of the local community of four SDBs who serve at the Club.

The event invited "alumni, former teachers, administrators, and coaches of both schools to attend and renew acquaintances, recapture memories, and rebuild relationships." Steve and Fr. John also hoped that interest in the current Boys & Girls Club would be stirred, including "the club's impact on youth in the East Boston, Revere, and Winthrop communities."
Fr. John said that about 280 alumni and staff had indicated that they would come, and more were expected. More, indeed! Volunteers registering participants at the front desk had 400 name tags, and they ran out. More seriously, downstairs in the kitchen they were running out of liquid refreshments!

Steve and Fr. John had arranged for a band, the North Shore’s Hardest Working Band, made up of Savio alums (Chris Snow ’84; Joe Maraio ’98, Vinny Schettino ’04, and others), to perform on the stage in the gym. Unfortunately for the Hardest Working Band, about 98% of the crowd preferred to stay down in the old cafeteria, working on the free sandwiches and plates of fruit and veggies, and staying close to beer, soda, and water at the cash bar.
The Voice of the (“17-time NBA champion”) Celtics, Eddie Palladino ’75 (above, center), welcomed everyone to the evening and credited Dom Savio with giving him a chance to develop his announcing skills. Then he introduced Fr. John (above with mike), who likewise made everyone feel at home. That was the end of the speechifying, which was a good thing because not many people were listening, not even when the winner of the 50-50 raffle was announced around 10:00 p.m.
The alumni and staff spent most of the four hours of the evening—actually, it went longer than the announced 11:00 p.m. closing time—talking with one another, catching up on families and careers, reminiscing about school days, and asking about some of the Salesians they’d known. Many of them voiced their deep appreciation for what the Salesians and other faculty had taught them, and not only in an academic sense. There were a lot of fond memories of Fr. Joe Caselli, Bro. George Sheehan, Fr. Don Zarkoski, Fr. Pat Diver, and many others.

If there had been a prize for the participant who traveled the farthest to get to the Great Reunion, the winner, hands down, would have been former SDB brother Pat Whalen, who did his practical training at Savio, 1968-1971, and came all the way from Brisbane, Australia, to catch up with some of his former students (and with former SDBs Tom Lennon, who taught at Savio, and George Stanton, who attended Savio). Pat moved “down under” shortly after leaving the SDBs and had a 40-year teaching career in both public and Catholic schools.

The Class of 1977 claimed the biggest representation at the evening, with at least 17 attendees—not counting their freshman dean/English teacher, who came up from New Rochelle for the evening. Big question from them: "How old were you when you taught us? Only 24! Wow!" (Boy, are freshmen green!)
Most of the Class of 1977 who were in attendance, with your humble blogger

Homily for 2d Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
2d Sunday of Lent
March 4, 2012
Collect
Mark 9: 2-10
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle

“Nourish us inwardly by your word” (Collect).


The Collect for this 2d Sunday of Lent is based on the gospel reading, which is always one of the Synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration. The key idea seems to be “listen.” The prayer alludes explicitly to that command from heaven: “Listen to my beloved Son” (Mark 9:7).

Then the prayer itself is uttered: “Nourish us inwardly by your word.” Pardon the pun, but there’s a play on words there.

God’s word is food for our souls: “Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Deut 8:3). God’s word feeds us, as Jesus tells the people in the synagog at Capernaum (John 6:41-51) the day after he’s miraculously fed the huge crowd with 5 barley loaves and 2 fish (John 6:1-14). God’s word elevates us, inspires us, captures us, converts us, transforms us into his holy people—but only if we listen to it, take it in, absorb it, let it become part of us, as our bodies do with food.

It’s not only a written word or a spoken word that the prayer refers to, however. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14); it’s of this Word that the Father commands, “Listen to him.” Jesus is the ultimate nourishment of our hearts, our minds, our souls —whatever the Collect means by “inwardly.” The food that is Jesus comes to us in his teaching that we read in the NT and hear in preaching, true; more important, he comes to us in a personal relationship: “Rabbi, it’s good that we’re here!” (Mark 9:5)—not to mention that he comes to us in the Holy Eucharist and all that implies: “Say but the word, and my soul shall be healed!” (Communion rite).

All of that healing and nurturing and transforming of us from what St. Paul calls “the earthly man” or “the flesh” into “the spiritual man” (cf. 1 Cor 15:36-49; Gal 5:16-26), into God’s redeemed person, has to begin inwardly. Well aware of that, Jesus warns us that all manner of sins—and he has quite a list—begin in the heart, and it’s those desires, those aspirations, those intentions that render a person unclean in God’s eyes (cf. Mark 7:20-23). St. James says something similar: “Where do the wars and conflicts among you come from? Isn’t it from your passions…? You covet but don’t possess. You kill and envy but you can’t obtain. Don’t you know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God?” (4:1-2,4).

So our inner person, our deepest self, needs to be converted, needs to submit to God’s Word and be fed by him. “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”

The Collect continues: “…that, with spiritual sight made pure, we may rejoice to behold your glory.” When I clean my glasses, I see better. The word of God cleanses our vision: Christ is our light, as catechumens will celebrate on the 4th Sunday of Lent when they hear, in the A Cycle of readings, the gospel of Jesus curing the man born blind, and as we’ll all proclaim in the solemn Easter liturgy. When the word of God takes root in our inner selves, we see and judge the world differently. Unconverted—blind—Peter objects to the Messiah’s future passion and death, and Jesus rebukes him severely: “Get behind me, Satan! The way you think isn’t God’s way but man’s” (Mark 8:31-33). When our spiritual sight has been purified, we see people as God’s daughters and sons. We see God’s hand at work in our life circumstances. We see God leading us as rapidly as we’ll allow him toward a closer and closer union with him—a union that will culminate in what we call the beatific vision: “we rejoice to behold your glory.”

Till then we see flashes of his glory, as Peter, James, and John did on Mt. Tabor. We see or experience flashes of divine glory in the goodness of so many people in our lives, and people we only read or hear about. We see or experience it in deep friendships. We see it in the quiet beauty and the awful power of nature. We see it in the sublime work of artists, musicians, even writers, with their power to transport us. We see it in the peace that comes to us when we encounter him in prayer or in rising “purely” above our own passions to forgive someone or to put aside our selfishness and pride in service of our sisters and brothers. We see it in the sacred liturgy when it’s done well; one reason why these rites are often called “mysteries” is their unexplainable power (“ineffable” power, to use a word from the revised Missal) to bring us into another world, into the divine presence. The Prayer after Communion will allude to this, as we thank the Lord “for allowing us while still on earth to be partakers even now of the things of heaven.”

Even now it is “good for us to be here,” to stand before the Lord, to listen to the beloved Son, and to open our minds and hearts and souls to his grace—to be renewed, to be nudged a little further along on the path toward heavenly glory.

Illustration: Mosaic of the Transfiguration in the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.

Homily for 1st Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
1st Sunday of LentFeb. 26, 2012
1 Pet 3: 18-22
Gen 9: 8-15
Christian Brothers, Iona College
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.

“A few persons, 8 in all, were saved thru water. This prefigures Baptism, which saves you now” (1 Pet 3: 20-21).

All of our readings this evening point to Baptism in some fashion. That isn’t obvious in the story of Noah, but St. Peter makes the connection thru typology, that traditional Christian way of reading the OT and seeing in it foreshadowings of Christ, or as the Petrine text puts it, it “prefigures” some aspect of the Christian mystery.

“Baptism saves you now,” Peter says, by “appealing to God for a clear conscience” (3:21). That is, it cleanses us of sin and thus makes us appealing to God and worthy of the resurrection—that feast, that greatest of the Christian mysteries, which thru our Lenten observance we’re preparing to celebrate, and that final act of our personal salvation which we look forward to.

In Noah’s time, the flood cleansed not the human conscience like Baptism, but the world, by destroying all those who had been perverted by sin. “The Lord saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that [men’s] heart conceived was ever anything but evil, [and the Lord] regretted that he had made man on the earth,” Genesis says as it introduces the story of the flood (6:5-6). So God cleansed the earth, leaving only one upright man and his family to start human life, human society, human culture afresh. When Noah and his family and all the animals emerge from the ark, we’re presented with a new creation, and Noah is even given the same command that was given to Adam, to “be fertile and multiply and fill the earth,” and he’s given all the creatures as food, as Adam was (9:1-3).

The cleansing by water signaled by Baptism is a new start for every Christian—most obviously for catechumens with real personal histories to be wiped clean when they receive the sacraments at the Easter Vigil. The new start isn’t so obvious for the innocent newborn bearing only original sin. But in either case it’s a fresh start, a union with Jesus Christ, the 2d Adam, the inaugurator of the new creation.

All of us, at whatever point in life we commit ourselves to follow Jesus Christ, continue to pass thru a world aptly compared to a desert—a place where, like Jesus, we may meet God but also a place where, like him, we confront evil and are tested (Mark 1:12-13). Unlike Jesus, we often fail the test, succumb to evil. And so we remain in need of cleansing. Conversion is never a done deal, never a once-and-for-all matter. So Lent beckons us every year to “repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15).

Jesus Casting Out Satan, by Carl Heinrich Bloch

Baptism isn’t mentioned explicitly in the gospel reading, but we all know that Jesus’ baptism by John immediately preceded his going out into the desert to fast and pray. It’s noteworthy that Mark says, “The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert” (1:12). That’s the very Spirit that had just descended upon him “like a dove” as the heavenly voice declared, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (1:10-11). The Spirit “drives” God’s “beloved Son,” compels him to go, into the desert. Just anointed by the Spirit, just identified as the Son of God, Jesus must go out alone into the wilderness to be with his Father, must go into the wilderness like Israel coming out of Egypt and like the prophet Elijah, for a deeper encounter with God. But Jesus won’t really be alone out there, because the desert is also where the demons lurk and where Jesus must confront himself, all his human urges and feelings that might distract him from his mission as the Anointed One of God. He was tested in every way that we are, yet did not sin (Heb 4:15).

In the early centuries of Christianity, many devout men and women, like St. Anthony, imitated Jesus by going into the deserts of Egypt and Syria for the same reasons: to seek God in prayer and in labor and in silence, to pray, “Your ways, O Lord, make known to me; teach me your paths, guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior” (Ps 25:4-5); to wrestle with their demons, all the temptations that our flesh is inclined toward; to purify their minds, their intentions, their desires, their wills thru unrelenting self-denial and submission to God.

Jesus and the desert fathers and mothers of the early centuries remind us that our own commitment to God—in Baptism or by religious vow—is never finished. We have to continue to seek God, and we have to do that ourselves even if we have guidance and support. No one can seek God for us. We have to struggle against temptations, no matter how “pleasing” we may be to God so far; the Father was “well pleased” with Jesus, but Jesus still had to prove his obedience by resisting sin. No one can substitute for us in fighting against sin. Unlike Jesus, who defeated all the lures of the devil, we have to repent repeatedly. No one else can repent for us, and renew our belief in the Gospel, in the Father’s love for us, in the sureness that his way is the right way, the only way, toward happiness and salvation.

Homily for 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the
7th Sunday
in Ordinary TimeFeb. 19, 2012
Mark 2: 1-12
NYLT, Putnam Valley, N.Y.
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.

National Youth Leadership Training (NYLT) is a Scouting program to help boys in leadership roles in their Scout troops to develop their leadership skills. This weekend the team of experienced Scout leaders and adult Scouters was planning a course to be given in April. Some other Scouts who were in camp also joined us for Mass on Saturday evening.For a couple of Sundays we’ve been hearing how crowds and crowds of people have been coming to Jesus. E.g., last Sunday, in the verse that immediately precedes today’s gospel we were told: “It was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places”—camping, but surely without a tent—“and people kept coming to him from everywhere” (Mark 1:45).

Why do you think people came to Jesus from everywhere? [seeking healing, witnessing the wonders he worked]

We have a further example today. Jesus has come home—to Capernaum, where he’s made his HQ, so to say, because it’s alongside the Sea of Galilee and on the main road between Judea and Syria; Nazareth, on the other hand, is off the beaten track. Jesus has come home, and again a huge crowd has gathered: in the house, around the door, down the street. And what’s he doing? [preaching the word]

So people came by the hundreds—by the thousands, even, as we know from the stories of how he multiplied bread and fish for them—not merely to see miracles but just to hear him preach the word of God. He must have been a far more interesting preacher than someone else you know! But I’ll bet he went on a lot longer.

That a talented and convinced preacher would attract thousands of listeners isn’t that unusual. I doubt that your American history textbooks cover the Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s. Throughout the British colonies, from Georgia to Massachusetts, the Great Awakening was probably the most significant event in the 18th century, up till the Revolution. It was a religious revival preached by men such as Jonathan Edwards (you’ve read a snippet of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in your American lit), John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, and George Whitefield (pictured below). Even today on U.S. 17 north of Myrtle Beach, S.C., there’s a roadside historical marker noting that Whitefield preached near that spot on Jan. 1, 1740. Newspapers and letters of the period tell us that people traveled 20, 50, even 100 miles, to hear these preachers, and you could tell where the preachers were from the clouds of dust that the wagons and horses raised on the roads as they converged on the preaching place.

Ben Franklin, who is in your history textbooks, was a great skeptic in religious matters, writes in his Autobiography of George Whitefield’s visit to Philadelphia. He relates how he walked as far as it was possible still to hear the preacher and how he then calculated that the number of people who might fill the space between where he stood and where Whitefield was would amount to more than 30,000 listeners.

From 1952 to 1957 perhaps the most popular show on TV, with as many as 10 million viewers each week, was Bp. Fulton Sheen’s half-hour program, Life Is Worth Living, in which he taught religion and preached the word, with no other prop than a blackboard. I was too young to appreciate him at the time, but my mom and dad watched, as I’m sure the parents of many of your Scouting leaders did. The bishop won an Emmy in 1952, too! You can still watch many of his programs on YouTube.

Throughout the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s evangelist Billy Graham traveled the country and the world, preaching to tens of thousands of people at a time in auditoriums, arenas, and stadiums, including Yankee Stadium.

So Jesus initiated a great preaching tradition. People came to him to hear him preach the word of God and to seek physical healing, including “casting out demons,” as we heard in the gospels 2 and 3 Sundays ago.

Now let me ask: do you remember the very 1st words out of Jesus’ mouth in Mark’s Gospel? We heard them on Jan. 22: “Jesus came to Galilee,” Mark writes, “proclaiming the gospel of God” (1:14). And what Jesus proclaimed, Mark tells us, was, “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (1:15). (Gospel is a very old English word that means “good news,” and it’s a literal translation of the Greek word that Mark uses, euanggelion. The word evangelist means, literally, one who preaches the Good News.)

Jesus’ 1st words link “fulfillment,” the presence of “the kingdom of God,” and repentance. Those 3 elements add up to “good news.”

What’s being fulfilled? [all God’s promises thru the prophets, promises of deliverance and protection]

How is the kingdom of God made present? [thru the preaching and the actions of Jesus, and thru how those 2 things lead people to change their lives for the better]

What does “repentance” mean? Mark’s word is metanoeite, which means “change your mind,” “change your outlook,” “change your attitude.” When a change of mind or attitude leads to a change of behavior, in religious or moral terms we have conversion or repentance. People’s lives will be changed for the better—the kingdom of God will be made present—when they undergo a conversion of heart, a repentance for their sins with a resolve to change their behavior, to act in a more God-like manner.

St. Augustine in one of his commentaries has a fine passage that speaks of this. Using the example of filling an empty container, he writes: “God means to fill each of you with what is good; so cast out what is bad! If he wishes to fill you with honey and you are full of sour wine, where is the honey to go? The vessel must be emptied of its contents and then be cleansed. Yes, it must be cleansed even if you have to work hard and scour it. It must be made fit for the new thing, whatever it may be. We may go on speaking figuratively of honey, gold or wine—but whatever we say we cannot express the reality we are to receive. The name of that reality is God.”[1]

In other words, before we can be filled with God—with his love, with his grace, with his mercy—we must empty ourselves of whatever would keep God out: sin. Only then can the kingdom of God be in our hearts.

That’s why Jesus says what he says and does what he does in today’s gospel. A paralyzed man is brought to him. But the healing of our bodies isn’t what we really need in order to be filled with God. Physical healing doesn’t go to the heart of our problems, of our hurts. We all need deep within us spiritual healing, forgiveness, the cleansing of our souls. Without peace of heart, the best of health, good looks, power, all the money in the world will not satisfy us.


When Jesus drives out demons or heals sick people, like the leper in last Sunday’s gospel and the paralytic today, he’s showing outwardly what God’s mercy does for us inwardly. Ultimately, the most complete healing of our bodies will be our resurrection from the dead, a resurrection unto eternal life if we have turned away from our sins in repentance and accepted the forgiveness that Jesus offers us: thru Baptism, thru Reconciliation, thru a changed attitude and way of behaving toward God and our neighbor.

This Wednesday we’ll begin the Church’s great annual season of repentance, of conversion—Lent. It’s a season for us, once again, to commit ourselves to Jesus: to his teachings, to his way of living, to his Person, and therefore to reject, turn away from, repent of anything that’s inconsistent with his way of living, with his teachings, with a healthy relationship with him—whether those inconsistencies are selfish behavior, snotty attitudes toward our peers, disrespect for our parents, lying, cheating in our schoolwork, stealing from our employer, laziness, sexual immorality, failure to pray and to go to church on Sundays, reckless behavior on the highway or in our use of alcohol, etc.

Every one of us is invited by Jesus today to turn away from our sins—which begin inside, in our opinions and attitudes—and to be healed; invited to recommit ourselves as “Christians,” people who belong to him, who walk with him, who with him are headed toward the kingdom of God.

[1] Tractates on the first letter of John, tract. 4: LOH 3:221.

Homily for 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the
6th Sunday
in Ordinary Time
Feb. 12, 2012
Mark 1: 40-45
Ursulines, Willow Dr.

“Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, ‘I do will it. Be made clean’” (Mark 1:41).

In one verse you have a summary of the entire Gospel.

“I do will it,” Jesus says. His will is to heal, to save men and women. His will is to make us all clean and whole. God is neither the Great Policeman in the sky, nor the Eternal Scorekeeper, playing “Gotcha!” with humanity, waiting for us to fail so that he can condemn us. Sorry, John Calvin. Sorry, Cornelius Jansen. St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “This is the will of God, your holiness” (1 Thess 4:3), our cleanness in all respects, our transformation into likenesses of him who made us, of him who saves us thru his cross and thru the workings of the Holy Sanctifier.

Jesus is “moved with pity.” The Greek word means that Jesus was deeply touched, was moved with heartfelt compassion. One commentator calls this pity “gut-wrenching.”[1] Jesus encounters humanity at its most wretched—not merely sick with a disease that is, at that time, incurable, but a disease that cuts its victims off from the community, excommunicates its victims, renders them physically, emotionally, and socially “untouchable.” Recall the terrible experiences of Judah Ben-Hur’s mother and sister in Lew Wallace’s famous novel and its William Wyler version of 1959.

This man has no business coming anywhere near Jesus. Evidently he’s desperate for healing, more than any of the other people whom Jesus has so far encountered in the 1st episodes of Mark’s Gospel. The leper’s probably looking for healing of more than his body. The heart of Jesus, who has come to save us from every manner of evil—as he’s already demonstrated in this 1st chapter—can’t help but be touched.

Then Jesus does the unthinkable. Not only is his spirit touched deep within—the leper has touched him psychologically—but “he stretched out his hand and touched him.” He touches the leper; we’re not told how or where, as for example we were told that he took Simon’s mother-in-law by the hand (1:31). But however he touches this diseased man—on the hand, the shoulder, the arm, the head—he’s risking his own health. He’s incurring uncleanness himself. Implicitly, he’s breaking the Mosaic Law, just as the leper’s doing by approaching so close. But Jesus is encountering this desperate man; he’s giving him the 1st touch of humanity he’s felt, probably, in a very long time. That already would offer him a kind of healing. He’s giving the healing he’s about to effect an intensely personal “touch.”

Altho both the leper and Jesus are breaking the law in this interaction—Jesus showing in action what he’ll later verbalize, that the Law is made to serve humanity, and not humanity to serve the Law (Mark 2:27)—Jesus shows his respect for the Law and the values it expresses by directing the man to “go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed” (1:44). The man wishes to return to the community of Israel, and so he must take upon himself and observe what makes Israel a community: their faithfulness to their covenant with God, their faithfulness to the Torah. For any community, law, and the values to which it gives voice, is an essential binding force and can’t be set aside without jeopardizing both those values and community cohesion.

Jesus’ stretching out his hand and touching this man who is diseased and unclean, and thus becoming unclean himself, is also a metaphor. Mark has a subtle way of showing how Jesus takes upon himself the burden of our sins and the degradation of our human condition. In accordance with the Law of Moses, as we heard in our 1st reading (Lev 13:44-46), the leper has been cast out of the community, out of civil society, and is obliged to “dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.” Jesus heals this man, who’s restored to the community. But Jesus’ fame renders it “impossible for him to enter a town openly,” and he must “remain outside in deserted places” (Mark 1:45). Jesus has become a sort of leper in this man’s stead, just as he will later be the sacrificial Lamb offered in our place.

The scene displays what St. Paul lauds in the hymn that he quotes in Philippians: “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God…emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; …he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death” (2:5-8). God’s Son stretches out his hand—his very Person, in fact—and touches the human race by becoming one of us. He risks the uncleanness of a race of sinners; he becomes a social outcast thru the opposition and hatred of the religious and public authorities; he risks death. The Son of God, in a manner of speaking, becomes a leper by extending himself to us and our condition thru his incarnation.

But in doing so he’s healed us. He elevates all those he touches, raising us to a new status, a new dignity, as children of God.

The same commentary that I alluded to earlier links Jesus’ touching the leper with the sacraments.[2] All of the sacraments—those “outward signs instituted by Christ to give grace”—use sensual components (words, physical elements, our 5 senses) to effect the healing that Christ wills for us (“I do will it. Be made clean.”). Four of the sacraments in fact use the laying on of hands as a explicit part of their rites: Baptism, Confirmation, Orders, and Anointing; two include an implicit laying on of hands thru the extension of the hand or hands: in Reconciliation over the penitent as she’s absolved, and in the Eucharist over the bread and wine as the Holy Spirit is invoked for their transubstantiation. The 7th sacrament involves its celebrants’ entire bodies. In the sacraments, then, the healing touch of Jesus is extended to the whole body of believers, making us part of, or restoring us to, community with the Holy Trinity.

The Letter to the Hebrews, in a well known passage, exhorts us “confidently” to “approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace for timely help” (4:16). Like lepers, we sinners come to Jesus—desperate, if we truly consider our condition without grace—to be made whole, to be made new, to be restored to communion with God. And Jesus with heartfelt compassion always receives us outcast offspring of Adam with words and deeds that effect his will to save us.

[1] Days of the Lord: The Liturgical Year, vol. 5—Ordinary Time, Year B (Collegeville: Liturgical Press), p. 56.[2] Ibid., p. 57.

Province Begins Extraordinary Visitation

Province Begins

Extraordinary Visitation

By rule, every 6 years each province in the Salesian Society is to be visited by the Rector Major or someone he delegates.

Ordinarily, the provincial formally visits each house and meets with each confrere annually.

In either case, the visitor meets with each SDB and with the local council, reviews the community's apostolic and religious life in their many aspects, etc. At the end the visitor prepares a report of commendations and recommendations.

The extraordinary visitor also meets with the province's leadership and, naturally, prepares a report for the province as a whole, which he'll bring back to the Rector Major and general council.

This year our visit is being conducted by our regional councilor, Fr. Esteban Ortiz (photo), whom we know well. He arrived Friday evening, and the formal visit began this afternoon when he met with the provincial council. It will go on until late May, with a 2-week interruption in late March-early April, when the general councilors return to Rome for some meetings.

On this visit Fr. Ortiz is being assisted by Fr. Nestor Impelido, a Filipino SDB who happens to be a professor of Church history, and a friend of mine from several meetings of Salesian historians. In fact, he chaired the session when I presented my paper in Turin on Fr. Michael Rua and the Eastern U.S. in Oct. 2009 (see post date 11/15/09).

The 2 U.S. provinces are taking advantage of Fr. Ortiz's presence also to hold their annual interprovincial councils meeting with him on Monday and Tuesday at the Marian Shrine in Haverstraw.

Poppin' Up the Popolopen

Poppin' Up the Popolopen

We've been having a pretty mild winter in N.Y. State, so far anyway. Last Sunday (Feb. 5) was a bright, sunny day with temps hitting the low 40s--fine hiking weather. So after Mass and breakfast, Bro. Tom Higgs and I packed lunches (and other useful gear) and headed to Bear Mountain State Park.

The only time I'd hiked up Popolopen Gorge from its mouth--or from the 9W bridge over it, anyway--was on Aug. 17, 2001. I thought it was time to do it again. We parked conveniently at the Ft. Montgomery State Historical Site around 11:15 a.m. and set off.

There was a surprise when we'd crossed the bridge and come to the trailhead: a sign announcing that the trail was closed. Of course we wondered why (trail washed out by summer storms?) and proceeded anyway, there being no other trail right in the gorge. (The 1777W and 1779 trails skirt part of its northern rim.) We soon came to the old dam that, according to the Harriman Trail Guide, was built to furnish water to a 17th-century grist mill that once stood in the gorge a little west of the present bridge. You can see some stone foundations down there that must have been the mill site.

Water was gushing over the dam from Roe Pond behind it, and rushing down the gorge toward Popolopen Creek's mouth into the Hudson.

After lunch overlooking Roe Pond (very serene), we continued. Above the pond it was rapids all the way up the creek--very few small pools of relatively calm water.

I got Bro. Tom to pose overlooking the 1st rapids above the pond.

Further up the gorge, Popolopen Torne comes into clear view (it's also clearly seen from the parking lot). It's a pretty impressive height--and, from experience I can say, a quite strenuous climb even when you start from the closest parking spot, along the road on the north side of the gorge.
Rapids after rapids explain why the whole section of the creek above Roe Pond and below the hikers' bridge is known as Hell Hole (so marked on the trail maps). One can only imagine what it's like during the spring thaw or after a really heavy rain.

About 3/4 of a mile along the trail, it climbs uphill to the left, partly out of the gorge up to an aqueduct-woods road (the aqueduct supplies Bear Mt.), just a little below the Palisades Pkwy. That's when Brother and I found out why the trail was "closed." The Park is doing a major construction project along the aqueduct, apparently putting in a new water line. The trail is now a construction road up there, there's pipe everywhere, and several pieces of heavy equipment. Fortunately, since it was Sunday, all was quiet, and we just walked along.

It was so quiet, in fact, that along our hike we didn't see a single other person, and hardly any wildlife either. But there were plenty of people around the Ft. Montgomery museum.

At 1.4 miles the Popolopen Gorge Trail is intersected from the right by the 1777W, 1779, and Timp-Torne Trails, all of which have just crossed over the creek down below. I suspect this is the only place in the whole complex of Harriman and Bear Mt. SPs that 4 or even 3 trails run along together--which the 4 of them do for something like a mile, all the way up to the edge of Queensboro Lake.

But it was our intention to cross the creek if we could and return to Ft. Montgomery along the 1777W-1779. I thought I'd read in the Trail Conference newsletter that the bridge had been washed out by Hurricane Irene in July, so we weren't sure whether we'd be able to cross.

I knew well that the simple old wooden bridge had been washed away years ago. Its mortal remains are still lodged in the rocks on both sides of the creek (see photo).

The Trail Conference and the Park had worked together in 2003-2004 to build a new, stronger bridge--steel, in fact--and anchor it solidly to rocks well above normal water levels.

They didn't get it above Irene levels, however. The mass of the bridge is lodged solidly to rocks, all right, all on the south side of the creek (see photo), with small bits of it scattered downstream for a hundred yards. From a safe distance I'd like to have seen what the creek looked like in Irene's immediate aftermath!

Looks so quiet, doesn't it?

We looked up the creek a few hundred yards, and down the creek a few hundred yards more for a place where we might cross over safely and drily.

After my experience in the Catskills in April 2009 (see my earliest post, 4/19/09), I had no wish to test my footing on creek rocks, and I didn't especially want to strip down the way I did in September to cross a much smaller brook (see my "hiking vacation" post below)--this time on slippery rocks over a wider span. I think Bro. Tom was a little readier than I was, even to get wet. But the water wasn't much warmer than freezing, judging from the ice clinging to some wood a little out of the water. If we'd HAD to cross, we would have. But we didn't have to.

So, guided by discretion, we returned the way we'd come. The afternoon sun gloriously lit up the Bear Mt. Bridge, Anthony's Nose, and the lordly Hudson. Here's a photo taken from the 9W bridge.

Back to the car at 3:00 p.m., having hiked more than 3 miles, mostly easy trail but some clambering over rocks while we searched for that elusive crossing.

Homily for 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
5th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Feb. 5, 2012
Mark 1: 29-39
Collect
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle

“He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her” (Mark 1:31).



We can joke about Jesus having to heal Simon’s mother-in-law so that the men would have someone to “wait on them.” (You’ve heard the joke that asks how many men it takes to change a roll of toilet paper? No one knows, because it’s never been done.) Joking aside, that angle would miss one point Mark is certainly making in his telling of this episode, and another point he could have intended.

The certain point is that the cure of this woman—anonymous, unfortunately, like most of those whose lives Jesus touched, but more precisely described than the generic “all who were ill or possessed by demons” who were brought to him that evening, after the Sabbath rest was over—her cure is immediate (to use a favorite Marcan word) and complete. Mark is making a point about the awesome power at work in Jesus, his exercise of God’s power to make people whole, to defeat evil in any of its manifestations, whether that be the evil powers of the devil (the immediately preceding exorcism in the synagog as well as those done in the evening), the evil powers of disease, (later on) the evil powers of out-of-control nature, and finally the evil power of death.

The 2d point—which we may deduce from the story, whether Mark intended it or not—is the woman’s gratitude. She responds to what Jesus has done for her by doing what she can for him. She gives him her attention, her devotion, her service.

In the Collect today, we prayed that the Lord would “keep [his] family safe with unfailing care.” In effect, that’s what we see him doing here. If Simon has become his disciple, then Simon’s family has become part of Jesus’ family, and the Collect presents all of us disciples of Jesus as his family—for Baptism has put us all into a direct relationship with him as his sisters, his brothers, children of his Father. In this gospel story Jesus acts to care for his family—the immediate family of Simon, and the extended family of all the inhabitants of his adopted hometown, Capernaum: “When it was evening…they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at the door. He cured many who were sick…, and he drove out many demons” (1:32-34). (Note that use of many: it doesn’t mean anyone was turned away; it means lots of people, and not just a few.[1])

He acts to restore their health—a word that would be rendered as salus in Latin, which in turn could mean in English also “safety” or “salvation,” depending on the context. I expected that the Latin of the Collect for “keep your family safe” would use a cognate of salus, tying together the gospel text and the prayer, tying together the physical cures and our eternal salvation; but, alas, it prays, instead, “Familiam tuam continua pietate custodi,” literally, “Stand guard over [or ‘Keep watch over’] your family with your continuing care” (“unfailing care” in the official version).

In any case, that familial concern which Jesus showed for Peter’s mother-in-law and his Capernaum neighbors is what we appeal for ourselves, reminding our Father that we’re family too. One commentary on the Collect states: “The Christian family is God’s family,” and it notes that “the word translated as ‘care’ (pietate) refers to the devotion between a parent and child.”[2]

Furthermore, like the humble townsfolk of Capernaum—who probably couldn’t afford such meager medical care as may have been available there—we depend utterly upon “the hope of heavenly grace” (Collect) for relief of our ailments. Unlike them, we ought to have a greater sense of what really ails us—our sins and the various maladies of our souls, our spirits, our psyches; we depend on the Father to offer us in Christ salus, which is more than bodily health; it’s spiritual salvation and the ultimate physical health: resurrection on the Last Day.

It is, finally, against that Last Day that we beg the Lord to “keep your family safe,” to stand guard over us, to protect us—the same prayer that we make several times a day: “Deliver us from evil”—from the Evil One, whom the Lord powerfully drives away thru his exorcisms, and from the ultimate evil of everlasting death. We expand upon that plea at every Eucharist: “Deliver us from every evil, that by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin…as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ” (Embolism after the Our Father). The Lord’s “unfailing care,” his defense of us “always by [his] protection” is what we pray for in the Collect, a spiritual and eschatological extension of what Jesus has done in this beginning of his public ministry.

Mark shows us over and over Jesus’ power to deliver us from evil in all its facets. In today’s passage he also shows us what made Jesus powerful against evil: “Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed” (1:35). An interesting verbal link here: in the Greek text, “Rising very early” is πρωϊ λίαν αναστάς, words that Mark will use again in ch. 16, v. 2, to tell us when the faithful women went to the tomb (λίαν πρωϊ), and in v. 9 that Jesus αναστάς. The Greek word for the Resurrection is ανάστασις (whence the girl’s name Anastasia). Jesus rises—to commune with his Father, in ch. 1 thru prayer, and in ch. 16 thru his return to the Father’s side. Rising very early in the morning isn’t essential to our prayer life, of course, but that language from Mark and that practice of Jesus does more than suggest the priority of prayer, of communion with the Father on his part, and on the part of all who belong to his family. God’s “heavenly grace” and “unfailing care” sought in constant prayer, in communion of heart and mind with the Father and the Son and the Spirit, is the way to our own ανάστασις.

Returning to Simon’s mother-in-law: she “waited on them” after he “grasped her hand and helped her up.” “Helped her up” could be translated also as “lifted her up” or “raised her up”—another resurrection allusion, tho here Mark uses a different verb, the same one he puts in the angel’s mouth at the tomb in 16:6. In this unnamed woman—who is thus a kind of Everywoman for those who hope to be “helped up”—we find the response that’s “right and just” for us, as well, to God’s saving actions on our behalf, the right response to “the hope of heavenly grace” on which we rely so hopefully, so confidently. That response of course is service: the service of adoration and praise, which is the heart of all our liturgical actions and much of our personal prayer; the service of carrying out our daily ministry and our daily life in community as acts of love for him and for the members of his family; the service of humble submission to his will, exemplified in Jesus’ mother: “I am the maidservant of the Lord; be it done to me as you say” (Luke 1:28) and “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5); the service, finally, of longing to be with him, not as servant but as friend (cf. John 15:13-15)—and for the religious sister, more than a friend, also a spouse.

[1] Cf. the new wording at the consecration at Mass.
[2] Daniel J. Merz and Marcel Rooney, OSB, Essential Presidential Prayers and Texts: Roman Missal Study Edition and Workbook (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2011), p. 168.

Salesians Are Special

"Salesians Are Special"

A gentleman I did not know but who has some familiarity with the SDBs wrote to a relative of mine following the deaths of Fr. Vince Zuliani (see Dec. 30) and Fr. Frank Wolfram (see Jan. 26):

Fr. Vince, who said the noon Mass, died a month ago. The loss of Fr. Frank (I think he was in charge of the retreat center) a few weeks later must be especially difficult for the Salesian community.

While waiting in the office of an eye doctor, I met someone from my parish who said, "I love the Salesians. There's a difference between the Salesians and the diocesan priests." A fine compliment and one with which I would agree. Salesians are special.

Homily for 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the
4th Sunday
in Ordinary TimeJan. 29, 2006
Collect
Christian Bros., Iona

This weekend I preached (at St. Vincent’s Hospital) without a written text. Here’s an “oldie” for The Eastern Front’s readers.

“Lord our God, help us to love you with all our hearts and to love all men as you love them” (Collect). [In the new, more literal translation: “Grant us, Lord our God, that we may honor you with all our mind, and love everyone in truth of heart.”]

Our opening prayer this evening echoes Jesus’ teaching of the 2 great commandments, to love God and to love our neighbors—except that, in a bit of a twist, we pray not that we may love our neighbors as ourselves but as God loves them. That would seem to raise the bar more than a little.

We take it for granted that God loves all persons, even persons we wouldn’t consider lovable. We also take it for granted that we’re incapable of loving as God does: completely, unconditionally, so powerfully that our love might even purify and transform another. At its best, the sacrament of marriage images Christ’s love for us, his body, the Church, when a husband and wife come close to loving each other as God does. At its best, religious life leads us toward such a love for one another in our own communities.

But it’s always a struggle, isn’t it—in community; in marriages especially at their beginning, and often thruout? More so, in our dealings with all those persons beyond our religious or marital families.

What does it mean for us as religious to love all persons as God loves them? What does it mean for us as educators?

At Mass on Friday we heard the familiar story of David’s adultery and murder (2 Sam 11:1-17). The greatest of Israel’s kings was exemplifying the worst of the arrogance of power that Samuel had warned the people about when they 1st demanded a king (1 Sam 8:10-18). So many the stories of the clergy sexual abuse scandal, or the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker scandals (if you remember that far back), or the alleged thieveries of Msgr. Woolsey down in Manhattan offer us contemporary examples of the arrogance of power. Any of us who exercise power in community, in ministry, in an office, or in a classroom are susceptible to it—usually not to adultery or murder, but easily enuf to favoritism, to disdain of those who disagree with us, to the misuse of assets. If we’re fortunate, we’ll have a prophet Nathan to call us to account like David, and like David will respond in repentance (2 Sam 12:1-17). More fortunate still if we exercise our authority as superior, administrator, pastor, or teacher in the manner of Jesus, who came to serve, not to be served; that is, to love.

On a more personal level, most of us, probably all of us, have experienced what David did when he looked on Bathsheba. It isn’t divine love, is it? We’re all susceptible to lust, to looking selfishly upon other persons as objects to serve our pleasure. Obviously, Christ calls us to a higher standard, and so does our profession of chastity. Fittingly, we pray to God for his help in responding to Christ: “Lord our God, help us to love all persons as you love them”—purely.

A variation on seeing persons as objects: Probably all of us know someone who, when he calls, the 1st thing in our minds is, “What does he want me to do for him now?” There are people who are experts at using other people but never assisting others, always taking and never giving. “Lord our God, help us to love all persons as you love them”—disinterestedly.

As great a challenge, maybe even greater, as loving others with a quasi-divine love in community and from our own hearts is to teach others to do so. That challenge we accepted when we became educators. I gnash my teeth when I consider the distinguished Catholic politicians who graduated Catholic schools and went on to promote abortion rights, same sex marriage, embryonic stem cell research. (Truth in advertising, so to speak: The president of the Massachusetts State Senate [Bobby Travaglini], a Ted Kennedy Democrat thru and thru, is one of our alumni.) How could Catholic educators have failed so miserably to teach the Gospel?

It is a plus, of course, when our graduates stand authentically for the poor and the oppressed, whether in our inner cities, in the Third World, or in transit across our borders. They are following the teaching of our Savior, then. In the words of Pope Benedict, “God makes the choice to align himself in defense of the weak, the victims,” a choice that is “made known to all governments, to all of us that we, too, must know which side to choose… that of the humble, the least, the poor and weak.”[1] That concern—concretely applying it, e.g., to the elderly, the sick, the homeless, refugees, those who speak a different language or are of a different color, the inhabitants of the barrios and favelas of the world—is rooted in the God-given human dignity of the human person; in other words, in loving persons as God loves them.

Such concern must extend also to bioethical issues, such as assisted suicide, euthanasia, stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, abortion. As one op-ed columnist wrote last Monday with reference to the March for Life, “humans are the images of God, regardless of what they can or cannot produce for the economy, what they look like, how they act. . . . Each man and woman is so unique, so capable, so intrinsically close to God that doing violence to a fellow man, killing and even aborting, can never be acceptable.”[2]

Some Salesian students at 2008 March for Life. (Photo: Fr. Abe Feliciano)

The same day a syndicated columnist wrote of assisted suicide: “The morality of care for the sick and aging in our society bears witness to how we see ourselves and the world we want our children to inhabit. How we answer this question tells us more about how we live than how we die, and tells us literally, who cares. We once depended on religion and laws of the spirit to determine how we put science and technology to use. That’s difficult today when secularism has been elevated to the status of religion, reality has become virtual and technology drives our sensibilities about what it means to be human.”[3]

I listed in vitro fertilization above along with more obviously destructive actions. Why? The Vatican instruction on the question in 1987 notes that every person deserves to be created by a human act of love and not by a laboratory procedure.[4] Just as every human act of love must be open to life —the teaching of Humanae vitae—so must every creation of life result from love. In plainer terms, producing human life in a lab is a 1st huge step toward turning life into a commodity to be manufactured. Indeed, there have already been several news stories of persons being conceived—artificially or naturally—as potential organ donors for their siblings. If that’s not using a human being as a commodity, I don’t know what is. It’s certainly not “loving all persons as God loves them.” Another, unavoidable issue resulting from IVF is the huge number of fertilized embryos stored unused in labs all over the world—and now the target of proposals for destructive stem cell research.

How do we convey to our students the fundamental humanity—because humans are made in the image of God and not of Dr. Frankenstein—of loving one another as God loves us rather than as science or technology loves us? That, fundamentally, is what your congregation and mine are about, Brothers. If we succeed at that, then we have indeed succeeded in our apostolic ministry. If we fail, then the number of accountants, MBAs, athletes, doctors, scientists, or whatever who come from our schools won’t matter much. For, in the end, “faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13).

[1] General audience, Dec. 7: CNS news brief, 12/7/05.
[2] John Carey, “Why they march,” Washington Times, 1/23/06.
[3] Suzanne Fields, “When society celebrates suicide,” Washington Times, 1/23/06.
[4] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day,” 2/22/87.

Feast of Don Bosco

Feast of Don Bosco
We've already begun to celebrate the feast of St. John Bosco (Don Bosco) with Evening Prayer I. (For the Salesian Family, the feast holds the rank of a solemnity, which--in liturgical terms--means that it begins with "1st Vespers" and the Mass has 3 readings and Creed.)

Catholic News Agency has a nice piece, and short, on him today:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/church-honors-st.-john-boscos-life-of-charity-on-jan.-31

In the photo, DB is seated in the center of the Oratory band. One of the priests to his left (as we look at it) is Fr. John Cagliero, a very accomplished musician who in 1875 would lead the 1st group of SDB missionaries (they went to Buenos Aires, thence to Patagonia) and in 1884 would become the 1st SDB bishop and in 1915 the 1st SDB cardinal.

Fr. Frank Wolfram, SDB (1932-2012)

Fr. Frank Wolfram, SDB (1932-2012)

Fr. Francis “Frank” Raymond Wolfram, SDB, died at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx early on the evening of January 25, 2012, after a long bout with cancer. The disease was first diagnosed in 2005 and recurred in May 2011. He was 79 years old and had been a Salesian of Don Bosco for more than 60 years and a priest for more than 49 years.

Fr. Frank was secretary of the New Rochelle Province of the Salesians and a member of the provincial residence community in New Rochelle from September 2004 until his death.

Fr. Frank was born to Frederick and Catherine Wolfram on March 18, 1932, and raised in Riverside, N.J., where the family belonged to St. Peter’s Church and Frank was baptized within a month of birth and confirmed at age 11. He attended St. Peter’s Elementary School in Riverside for eight years.

While he was a junior in high school, he had what was truly a chance encounter with Don Bosco. As he told the story, he was walking on the street near home one day when the wind blew a piece of paper against his leg. He picked it up and discovered a Salesian vocation flyer, “The Voice of Don Bosco.” He responded to it and received a personal reply from the vocation director at Don Bosco Seminary in Newton. That personal reply led to a visit to the Salesian school in Goshen, where Fr. Joseph Stella was a deep impression on him. Upon his graduation from Camden Catholic High School in May 1949, Frank applied to the seminary, which he entered in September 1949 as a Son of Mary (“late vocation”).

Frank was admitted to the novitiate at Newton the following year; his master of novices was Fr. Attilio Giovannini. He began his preaching career in May 1951 with a sermonette entitled “Mary, Queen of Apostles.” He made his first profession of vows on September 8, 1951, and became Bro. Frank Wolfram.

At Don Bosco College Bro. Frank was much involved in dramatics as well as in more academic pursuits. After his graduation (magna cum laude) in 1954, he did his practical training as a teacher at Salesian High School in New Rochelle (1954-1956), Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey (1956-1957), and Don Bosco Tech in Paterson (1957-1958). He didn’t explain why he had four years of training instead of the usual three.

Bro. Frank began his theological studies at the Salesians’ Theologate of St. Thomas Aquinas in Aptos, Calif., in 1958. When that institution was closed in 1960, Bro. Frank was only halfway through the program of studies. According to his telling of the story, Fr. Felix Penna, the provincial, assigned the theology students to their new schools without asking them where they would like to go. Seeing Bro. Frank’s German name, he assumed that he knew some German and so designated him for the Salesians’ Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule at Benediktbeuern, Germany. In fact, Bro. Frank didn’t know a word of German, was the only English-speaking student at Benediktbeuern, and had to learn the language by immersion. His knowledge of German later proved useful not only for teaching it at the high school level but also for preaching, confessions, and ministry at the German and Austrian consulates in New York City.

At Benediktbeuern Bro. Frank proved to be a valuable liaison with U.S. soldiers stationed at Bad Tölz, obtaining their help, for instance, in getting a basketball court built for the theologians. He, in turn, offered them lectures on the art of the monastery of Benediktbeuern, parts of which date back to the eighth century (it was founded by St. Boniface). Years later, Fr. Frank enjoyed telling the story of his first encounter with the soldiers, who admired his mastery of English and wondered where he had learned it.

At Benediktbeuern, Fr. Frank earned a master’s degree in theology and was ordained on June 29, 1962, by Bishop Josef Freundorfer of Augsburg.

Most of Fr. Frank’s priestly life was spent in the province’s schools: Salesian High School in New Rochelle (teacher and catechist 1962-1964, vice principal and principal 1966-1973, director 1978-1980), Don Bosco Tech in Boston (dean of students 1964-1966), St. Dominic Savio High School in East Boston (teacher 1973-1974), Archbishop Shaw High School in Marrero (principal 1974-1978), LaSalle High School in Miami (principal 1985-1990), Don Bosco Technical High School in Paterson (teacher 1990-1991), and Mary Help of Christians School in Tampa (director 1994-1997). He was a skilled teacher of religion, English, German, and world history at all levels of high school.

While he was principal in New Rochelle, Salesian High reached its peak enrollment of 567 boys, and Fr. Frank also noted with pride that, unlike some other Catholic schools in the area, Salesian never had to close because of student unrest in the late 1960s. He maintained relationships with many of the alumni for years, which he happily refreshed annually at the President’s Dinners, and he took pleasure in looking after “Diego’s Boys” (see E-Service 12/15/11)—many of them Salesian alumni—while he was at the provincial house in recent years.

During his directorship of Salesian High, Fr. William Keane was principal. He observes that Fr. Frank’s “fairness and love for the teachers as well as the students made my task that much easier. You could tell that he loved to teach. His students loved him and many returned to wish him well and recall the ‘old days.’ Some of the guys who at times found themselves in trouble were probably his best admirers. He knew when to set them straight.”

The current principal of Salesian High, John Flaherty, pays tribute to Father Wolfram as his mentor: “I had the great fortune of starting my teaching career when Fr. Frank was the prefect of studies in the ’60s. He was the man in full control of every aspect of school life. His energy was boundless. and he seemed to be everywhere at the same time. He shepherded his flock of young men intensely, and many of them have remained life-long friends. How fortunate I was that he also found the time to mentor his young staff. The blueprint he provided for us helped us to get where we are today. Proudly, I continue many of the practices that Fr. Frank started so many years ago. His legacy has become our traditions at Salesian High School.”

Salesian High honored Fr. Frank thrice, in 1984 as its first honorary alumnus, in 2003 with its Distinguished Faculty Award, and in 2005 with the St. Francis de Sales Award for Outstanding Service.

When he was a junior at Don Bosco Tech in Paterson in 1990-1991, Fr. Abe Feliciano had Fr. Frank as his theology teacher. He writes: “He…was one of my favorite teachers. He really ignited in us (the students) a greater love for Jesus, the Paschal Mystery and the continued presence of Christ among us.”

Having earned a master’s degree in educational administration and supervision (with distinction) at Boston College (1975), he served as the province’s superintendent of schools from 1979 to 1985. He also served on the provincial council in those years. Fr. Frank took additional courses in education at Fordham and Tulane universities. His practical ability as teacher and supervisor of instruction is indicated also by his having earned certifications in Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York based on both his education and his experience.

A long letter from Alvin L. Murphy, associate superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of New Orleans to Fr. Sam Isgro, the provincial, in 1976 testifies that he was “an outstanding administrator” who had “given a new and exciting direction to Archbishop Shaw High School,” enabling the school to make “great strides academically.” After noting many particulars concerning both students and faculty, Mr. Murphy wrote, “We…appreciate your assigning a man of such a caliber to Archbishop Shaw High School and we want to assure you that we could not be more pleased with Father Frank.”

Fr. Frank’s peers within the New Orleans Archdiocese, too, recognized his abilities, choosing him to serve a term as chairman of the Catholic Secondary Principals Association. He also belonged to the Archdiocesan Administrators Workshop and the Archdiocesan Finance Committee and served on the steering committee for the Archdiocesan Youth Rally at the Superdome in 1977. The Louisiana State Senate made him an honorary senator in 1976.

Fr. Frank was the first Salesian principal of the archdiocese of Miami’s LaSalle High School when the province agreed to take over its administration in 1985. It presented a different set of challenges as a co-ed school (with far more girls than boys), predominantly Cuban-Americans, and formerly run by a lay administration. Led by Fr. Frank, the Salesians quickly brought a Salesian style and spirit to the staff and students and deepened the school’s spiritual and sacramental life.

Fr. Steve Shafran holds a doctorate in education and is president of Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School in Takoma Park, Md. He is grateful for all that he learned from Fr. Frank. He writes: “I have been blessed to have had Frank Wolfram as a mentor and example, especially of Salesian education at different times in my Salesian life. His hardworking ethic, German precision and love for the Preventive System have been among some of the great qualities that come to mind. I was struck by how much he loved music, theater and literature, and it was from him that I learned more of Don Bosco’s love of the arts.”

Fr. Shafran notes that Fr. Frank sought a balance between the rapport demanded by Don Bosco’s educational approach and “the importance of the educator’s strong preparation and lesson planning for classes.” In his own teaching experience, Fr. Shafran found success from “borrowing” from Fr. Frank’s “excellent notes and lessons plans.”

Fr. Frank was director of the provincial residence in New Rochelle twice (1982-1985, 2005-2008) and of the Salesian Center in Columbus, Ohio (1991-1994), where he guided the students of theology, their pastoral ministries, and the Salesian Boys & Girls Club. His service in the field of Salesian formation also included preaching retreats to novices and giving courses in Scripture, Salesian history, and Salesian education to novices and prenovices.

Fr. Abe recalls beginning his novitiate in 1997 with one of Fr. Frank’s retreats: “It remains to this day one of the best retreats I’ve ever experienced in my Salesian life, and was a constant point of reference throughout my novitiate year.”

A member of the Don Bosco Volunteers secular institute wrote, “How I love the retreats that he gave us—down-to-earth, clear, full of spiritual gems that surely helped us to understand and live better our way of life as consecrated seculars.”

As a novice in 2008-2009, Bro. Paul Chu found Fr. Frank to be “a great teacher…. I enjoyed listening to his teachings on the Preventive System. He was kind, gentle, and always attentive to our needs.”

As regards the Preventive System, Fr. Frank told Fr. Shafran that it was part of who he was. “The Preventive System is our spirituality; it’s the way we have to live.”

At one period Fr. Frank chaired the province’s Formation Commission. Bro. Tom Sweeney served with him and paints a vintage portrait of him: “His meetings were very precise, well organized and right to the point. You knew he did his homework in preparing the necessary information and materials so that when a decision had to be made, you had all the necessary info to make the right decision. He always took the meetings very seriously and expected you to do the same. Though I do not care for meetings, I kind of look forward to his because of his excellent organization and preparation.”

He took part in nine provincial chapters, either ex-officio or by election, between 1980 and 2007.

For seven years Fr. Frank preached adult retreats at Don Bosco Retreat Center in Haverstraw (1997-2004), and until his final illness he remained a popular retreat preacher for both religious and parishes with constant requests for a weeklong or a weekend retreat for various groups. In fact, preaching retreats and parish missions was a staple of his long priestly ministry; the present writer first encountered him when he preached the mid-year retreat to the aspirants in Goshen in the winter of 1964.

As a spiritual director and confessor, he was a compassionate listener who was able to bring his broad experience to the assistance of penitents and counselees.

Fr. George Harkins’s “fondest memories of Fr. Frank will be his cheerfulness, his diligent devotion to duty and his ever-ready welcome which made you feel special.”

“Frank was a faithful, dedicated Salesian and priest and a wonderful man to have known,” Father David Moreno said.

Throughout his priestly years he enjoyed assisting in local parishes on weekends, including Holy Name of Jesus in New Rochelle; St. Boniface in Wesley Hills, N.Y.; St. Augustine in Larchmont, N.Y.; St. Michael in Greenwich, Conn.; St. Agnes in Key Biscayne, Fla.; St. Anthony in Columbus; St. Mary in Tampa. He took great care to celebrate the liturgy as Don Bosco insisted it be done, pie, devote, attente (“fervently, devoutly, attentively”—see BM 7:317), which parishioners, Salesians, and other religious alike very much appreciated. One of his last contributions to community life at the provincial house was a series of talks on the upcoming revised Roman Missal—as series that he never completed.

Fr. Frank blessing the creche in the provincial residence chapel in 2006

He was “a superb homilist,” Claudia McDonnell, a parishioner of St. Augustine, wrote in Catholic New York (March 24, 2011). She amplified that in a recent communication: “Father Frank was among the best homilists I’ve ever listened to. He always had a point to make or a message to convey, and he spoke in a way that made it easy to follow his line of thought. He went straight to the heart of the matter. Sometimes he used humor, sometimes he was very serious, but no matter what he said, he could hold a congregation’s attention in the palm of his hand. He always left you with something you could take away with you and think about. I’ll never forget the way he closed every homily, with a pause and then a quiet ‘May God bless you.’ He was an outstanding priest, and I doubt that anyone whose life he touched will ever forget him.”

Anne Silo, a parishioner at Holy Name of Jesus in New Rochelle, succinctly affirms that: “When he was director at Salesian High School, [his] Mass at Holy Name was packed because he gave terrific homilies.”

Fr. Frank is survived by two sisters, Margaret Picklo of Delran, N.J., and Mary Bernadette Kavanaugh of Dallas, Texas; a brother, Michael of Moorestown, N.J.; a sister-in-law, Mae Wolfram of Westmont, N.J.; and numerous nieces, nephews, grandnieces, and grandnephews. Two brothers, Joseph and Anthony, died earlier.

Fr. Frank was waked in the chapel of Salesian High School in New Rochelle, N.Y., on Friday, January 27. The Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated at St. Augustine Church in Larchmont, N.Y., on January 28. Fr. Tom Dunne presided, and Fr. Jim Heuser preached. Fr. Frank was buried in the Salesian Cemetery in Goshen.