Fr. Tim Ploch Elected to General Council

Fr. Tim Ploch Elected to General Council
Second American Currently Serving on GC

The Salesians’ 27th General Chapter met from early March until April 12.  In addition to considering a major theme that the entire Congregation had mulled over for more than year, “Salesians as Witnesses to a Radical Way of Living the Gospel,” the chapter also had the responsibility of electing a new Rector Major and general council.

On March 25 Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime, SDB, was elected Rector Major, the 10th successor of St. John Bosco.  See http://sdbnews.blogspot.com/2014/03/fr-angel-fernandez-10th-successor-of.html

In the following days, GC27 elected the RM’s vicar, Fr. Francesco Cereda; councilors for the Congregation’s departments (or sectors) of government: youth ministry, missions, formation, communications, and finances; and councilors for the seven geographical regions into which the Salesian world is divided (2 in Europe, 2 in Asia, 2 in the Americas, and 1 for Africa).

For the 1st time in the history of the Congregation (founded in 1859), a native-born American was elected to the council, Fr. Timothy Ploch, who since February 2009 has served as provincial of the U.S. Western Province, based in San Francisco.  Fr. Tim is also a former provincial of the New Rochelle Province (1991-1997).  As of March 28 he has been councilor for the Interamerica Region, which encompasses the 2 U.S. provinces and the provinces of Mexico (2), Central America, the Antilles, Haiti, Colombia (2), Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia.  He succeeded Ecuador’s Fr. Esteban Ortiz, who was term-limited after 12 years.



Fr. Tim Ploch in 2010

On the council Fr. Tim joins U.S.-born Fr. Guillermo Basañes, an Argentinean who enjoys dual citizenship.  He went to Africa as a missionary and was elected regional councilor for Africa in 2008 and at GC27 was elected councilor for the missions.

Two Italian-born American citizens served earlier on the general council (known as the "superior chapter" at that time):  Fr. Alvin Fedrigotti from 1947 to 1971, and Fr. Ernest Giovannini from 1958 to 1971.

Tim was born in 1946 in Paterson, N.J.  He says that he was born with Salesian spirit in his blood because the Salesian Sisters raised his mother, Dolores, who was an orphan.  Tim entered Don Bosco Juniorate in Haverstraw in 1960.  The Juniorate moved the following year to Goshen, N.Y., and became Salesian Junior Seminary, when Tim graduated in 1964.  He entered the novitiate in Newton, N.J., that fall and made his first profession on Aug. 16, 1965.

He did his practical training at the Salesian High School in Cedar Lake, Ind. (1969-1972), followed by theological studies at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, from 1972 to 1976, where he earned a master’s degree in theology.  He was ordained in Westerville, Ohio, in 1976.

Fr. Tim’s Salesian priestly ministry has taken him to Salesian Junior Seminary in Goshen as principal (1976-1981), Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J., as principal (1981-1985), Salesian Center in Columbus as director of the students of theology and Salesian Boys & Girls Club (1985-1991).  After his term as U.S. East provincial, he had a sabbatical in Guadalajara, Mexico, to improve his Spanish.  On his return to the province in 1998, he served as coordinator of campus ministry at LaSalle HS in Miami (1998-1999) and then was named pastor of Holy Rosary Parish in Port Chester, N.Y., and director of the Salesian community in that village (also including Corpus Christi Parish).   From 2003 to 2006 he was a member of the New Rochelle provincial council with responsibility for the Salesian Family and communications.

Fr. Tim took part in GC22 (1984) as one of the province’s elected delegates and in GC24 (1996) and GC27 (2014) as provincial, and he served on the precapitular commission for GC27.

Homily for 5th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
5th Sunday of Easter
May 18, 2014
1 Pet 2: 4-9
Iona College, New Rochelle

“Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God thru Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2: 5).

Psalm 118 (v. 22) speaks of a stone rejected by builders that becomes the cornerstone of a building anyway, by God’s design rather than by the builders’ planning.  Jesus cited this verse with reference to himself (Matt 21:42).  St. Peter quotes it in his preaching in the Acts of the Apostles (4:11) and St. Paul in his letters (Rom 9:33).  It’s quoted yet again in Peter’s 1st Epistle, our 2d reading this evening.

Jesus is the cornerstone of a spiritual house, a temple, that God’s building for his own glory.  Jesus is a living stone—we don’t think of stones as living, but we’re dealing with a metaphor.  Nor do we think of the dead as living.  But God the Father raised Jesus from the dead and made him into this living stone, “chosen and precious in his sight” (2:4).

Jesus isn’t just any stone, but the cornerstone.  A whole spiritual house rests on him.  Upon him, risen, fully alive forever in the heavenly kingdom, God will rest all of redeemed humanity,  the spiritual house of the entire people of God, the house of the new Israel.  In a well-known passage of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells Simon son of Jonah that the community of his Church will be built upon Simon as the petros, the rock or stone foundation (Matt 16:18).  And in Revelation the 12 apostles are the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem (21:14).  In short, the Christian Church is the temple of God, and Jesus is its cornerstone.  In the Church God is worshipped more perfectly than he ever was in the earthly Temple of Jerusalem while it existed, from its 1st building by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. to its rebuilding by Nehemiah in the 5th century B.C. to its final destruction by the Roman army in 70 A.D.

This new, spiritual temple built upon the cornerstone of Jesus Christ and the foundation stones of the apostles also needs us, “living stones,” for its completion.  To continue the metaphor, we disciples of Jesus are the walls and the roof and the decorative work on this great temple.  Like Christ risen, we are alive.  That refers not to our physical life—not yet, anyway, until our bodies are made new and Christ-like on Judgment Day.  No, we’re already “living stones” when we enjoy God’s grace, when we recognize his love for us in Christ and share that love with all God’s children:  with our families, with the people we work with, with people we meet on the street and in the supermarket, with people on the other side of the world (thru our prayer and, at times, our financial generosity).

St. Peter seems to switch metaphors, calling us also “a holy priesthood,” the priests who worship in this temple built upon Christ.  That also is an Old Testament allusion, quoted at greater length toward the end of today’s reading (Ex 19:6).  All baptized persons share in Christ’s priesthood by virtue of our having been anointed with sacred chrism—an anointing reinforced or confirmed in a 2d sacrament of our Christian initiation, with sacred chrism again.

The holy oil that we call chrism, which can be consecrated only by the bishop in a special Mass, the Chrism Mass, during Holy Week, conforms us to Christ, the Anointed One of God, in his triple office of priest, prophet, and king.  That oil is used only in the 3 sacraments that can’t be repeated, the 3 sacraments that permanently seal or brand a person—tattoo him or her, if you will!—as belonging to Christ, viz., the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders.

So, you who’ve been baptized and confirmed share in Jesus’ priesthood.  While that priesthood isn’t the same as the ministerial priesthood conferred by ordination, it does empower you to worship God “in spirit and truth,” as Jesus says in John’s Gospel during his conversation with the Samaritan woman (4:23).  It empowers you to offer sacrifice—which is what priests do—to offer an “acceptable sacrifice,” as we say during Mass, thru the hands of the ordained priest.

St. Peter tells us that as holy priests we offer “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God thru Jesus Christ.”  “Thru Jesus Christ,” because it’s in his priesthood that we participate, and ultimately it’s his sacrifice that we offer to the Father—his Body and Blood offered for our redemption.

Our sacrifice is spiritual now, as we offer up Christ on this altar thru his sacred mysteries that place us, all at once, in the Upper Room at the Last Supper, at Calvary, at the empty tomb, and at the eternal banquet.  No longer do God’s people offer physical sacrifices of animals and first fruits of their crops as they did in the Temple at Jerusalem.  We are the new temple of God offering a new sacrifice, under the terms of the new covenant that Christ established as he founded a new people of God.

This Eucharistic sacrifice we all offer to God, according to our respective offices, and we all confirm our participation in the sacrifice by consuming the offering—the Body and Blood of Jesus.

Our offering Jesus in sacrifice isn’t the only spiritual sacrifice that we Christian priests offer to God.  We also offer ourselves:  our lives, our virtuous actions, our pains and sufferings, our hopes and fears—in short, everything about ourselves except our sins.  Our priesthood thus encompasses our whole selves, all our lives, every day—whatever we can offer to God in union with Jesus Christ.  This union with Jesus makes everything except our sins “acceptable to God” as a sacrificial offering, and makes us holy—“a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own” (1 Pet 2:9), to the glory of God.

Homily for 4th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
4th Sunday of Easter
May 11, 2014
Acts 2: 14, 36-41
Iona College, New Rochelle

“Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2: 36).

During the Easter season our 1st reading at Mass, on both Sundays and weekdays, always comes from the Acts of the Apostles, the narrative of the 1st proclamation of the resurrection and of God’s gift of salvation offered to everyone.

This evening’s reading is from the very 1st such proclamation, from St. Peter’s address to the crowd on Pentecost.  We hear just the final verse of his sermon, then some dialog when the people react to it.

Peter accuses the whole of Israel of crucifying Jesus.  In a literal sense, that’s an exaggeration.  In a moral sense, it doesn’t go far enuf, for everyone who has committed sin has crucified Jesus.  The people whom Peter is addressing accept the accusation, implicitly admit their guilt.  So do we, with our penitential act at the beginning of Mass and, indeed, with our participation in the Eucharist, this memorial of the Lord’s Body given for us, his Blood shed for us.

This Jesus whom we’ve crucified, “God has made both Lord and Christ,” Peter says.  This is the climax of his sermon:  Jesus is Lord!  Jesus is the Messiah!  It’s one of the most fundamental confessions of our faith that the Crucified One is Son of God—Lord—and Savior of the world—Christ.

When Peter says, “God has made him” such, he means that, thru his death and resurrection God has enabled us to recognize Jesus as Lord and Messiah.  “Lord” is a title of divinity; Jesus is God in the flesh.  “Christ” or “Messiah”—Greek and Hebrew words meaning “Anointed One”—is a title of function or mission; Jesus is Savior, Redeemer, Ruler, High Priest.

We acknowledge all that at the beginning of every Mass:  Lord, have mercy!  Christ, have mercy!  Lord, have mercy!  These acclamations are an expression of the apostolic faith 1st preached by Peter on Pentecost.

The crowd reacts to Peter’s preaching.  They’re “cut to the heart” (2:37), stricken with remorse by the realization of what they’ve done.  We’ve just read v. 36 of Peter’s sermon, which begins with v. 14—aren’t you glad we didn’t hear the whole thing?  It includes extensive quotations from the Old Testament showing how Jesus fulfilled the prophecies, plus testimonies to his resurrection.  Thus the people’s reaction.

They ask, “What are we to do?”  Peter’s answer is simple:  “Repent and be baptized” (2:38).  Repentance indicates one’s admission of guilt and desire to reform one’s life.  Baptism seals one’s repentance by joining one to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

These words are addressed today also to believers, to us.  We’ve already been baptized, but that doesn’t end our need to repent.  Our conversion is incomplete as long as we remain sinners, as long as we resist the grace of the Holy Spirit in our lives—which pretty much means that our need to repent never ends, not until we die and stand before Christ to have the depth of our repentance tried by his judgment.

Fortunately, Christ is most merciful.  Peter tells the people, “Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (2:38).  After our Baptism, Christ’s grace remains available to the repentant in the sacraments, especially the sacrament of Reconciliation.  The only limit on his mercy is our own sincerity in turning from our sins and striving to stay close to Jesus, whom St. Peter—in our 2d reading—calls “the shepherd and guardian of [our] souls” (1 Pet 2:25).

St. John XXIII and the Salesian Charism

St. John XXIII

and the Salesian Charism

(ANS – Rome) – On April 27 Pope John XXIII was declared a saint. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was born in Sotto il Monte (Bergamo) on Nov. 25, 1881, elected Pope on Oct. 28, 1958, and died on June 3, 1963. He is best remembered as the Pope who called the Second Vatican Council.

John XXIII liked to recall often that as a boy he read the Catholic Readings (something akin to The Catholic Digest, founded by Don Bosco), which he called “the first and most effective complement to my religious and civil education.” He also read Don Bosco’s biographies of the adolescents Dominic Savio, Michael Magone, and Francis Besucco, and when he was still a child he learned about Don Bosco’s death from the Salesian Bulletin, which came into his home.

He cultivated a special devotion to Mary Help of Christians. He took a picture of her from the Salesian Bulletin and hung it on the wall near his bed. He proclaimed her patroness of the Council with the titles of Auxilium Christianorum and Auxilium Episcoporum. On May 28, 1963, when he was already seriously ill, with deep emotion he blessed the two crowns intended for the picture of Mary Help of Christians in the basilica of the Sacred Heart in Rome.

During his life and throughout his pontificate he always showed great love for Don Bosco and the Salesians. He admired their prodigious spread all over the world. He spoke of Don Bosco as “the son of Mama Margaret, in whom God’s grace brought about a simple, good, and innocent nature that inspired great deeds that still amaze mankind” (Jan. 31, 1959). His love for Don Bosco had roots deep in his heart. A wonderful spiritual affinity existed between the two great men of God, both of them optimistic, open to all that is good, always understanding and lovable.

In a talk he gave to the Salesian Cooperators on May 31, 1962, the Pope revealed the charm that St. John Bosco always exercised over him: “Don Bosco was the perfect churchman in his practice of prayer, personal witness, and action. His deeds aroused such enthusiasm in me as a young man that I decided at the age of 14 to enter the priesthood in order to emulate his example.” In 1960 at the solemn conclusion of the Roman Synod in St. Peter’s Basilica, he said: “Today, Sunday, Jan. 31, marks the liturgical commemoration of St. John Bosco. This name is a poem of grace and apostolate. From a small village in Piedmont he brought glory and great deeds of Christ’s love to the farthest ends of the world.”

But the most extraordinary manifestation of Pope John’s love for Don Bosco was given in 1959, when he decided to honor Don Bosco along with St. Pius X. Emotions were already high on Sunday May 3, 1959, when, to the joy of a vast multitude, the Pope went to St. John Bosco Church at Cinecittà (Rome) to pray to the saint who had influenced him so much in his youth. But the emotion and joy reached their peak on May 11, when the Vicar of Jesus Christ decided that Don Bosco be carried in triumphal procession along with St. Pius X through the streets of Rome and St. Peter’s Square. Speaking to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope altered the sentence often said of Don Bosco by his sons, “Rome admires you, Turin loves you!”; turning to St. John Bosco, the Holy Father exclaimed, “The whole world admires you, the whole world loves you!”

St. John Paul II and the Salesian Charism

St. John Paul II
and the Salesian Charism 

(ANS - Rome) – On Sunday, April 27, Pope John Paul II was declared a saint. He was born in Wadowice, Poland, on May 18, 1920, was elected Pope on October 16, 1978, and died on April 2, 2005.

Karol Wojtyla attended St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, the Salesian parish in Krakow, when he resided in the Debniki neighborhood as a university tudent and then under the German occupation in 1938-1944. He often prayed in the chapel of Mary Help of Christians. In February 1940 at St. Stanislaus he met the Servant of God Jan Tyranowski, who used to take part in religious meetings of young people organized by the Salesians. In this church, on Nov. 3, 1946, Fr. Wojtyla celebrated one of his first Masses with the faithful.

In his long and fruitful pontificate, Pope John Paul II expressed his paternal closeness to the Salesian Family, and he gave us many enlightened teachings. All the most important Salesian occurrences over the years of his pontificate were marked by his blessing, and often by his presence. This was seen particularly on the occasion of the celebration of the centennial of Don Bosco’s  death in 1988, and the “Year of Grace” enriched by indulgences and special gifts. On Sept. 2-4, 1988, he visited the Salesian “holy places” – the birthplace of Don Bosco and the shrine at Colle Don Bosco, where he beatified Blessed Laura Vicuña, the Cathedral in Chieri, and in Turin the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, Don Bosco’s rooms, and the church of St. Francis de Sales. On Jan. 24, 1989, he officially proclaimed Don Bosco “Father and Teacher of Youth.”

In his numerous meetings with the Salesians and other groups of the Salesian Family, such as his pastoral visits to Turin, the audiences granted to the members of general chapters and the general council, John Paul II offered an authoritative message on the originality of our Father Don Bosco as saint and founder, and the needs and challenges of today’s incarnation of the Salesian charism in the educational and pastoral commitment to young people, the apostolic zeal of evangelization and mission, and the charismatic and pastoral involvement of the laity.

The interventions of the Holy Father flowed simultaneously from his heartfelt pastoral concern and personal sympathy and gratitude to Don Bosco. He admired Don Bosco as a gift of the Spirit to the Church. He was convinced of Don Bosco’s prophetic greatness, lived in harmony with his predilection for the young. He admired his original methodology of education to the faith, the oratory criterion, his sensitivity to the world of work, his openness to laity and the involvement of women, his bold sense of universality, and affection for the little ones and the poor and the working classes. In particular he liked to emphasize Don Bosco’s strong devotion to Mary as helper of the Church in difficult times.

On the occasion of John Paul II’s canonization, we make our own his testimony and his call to holiness. During his pontificate he reminded us of our call to holiness through the beatification and canonization of several members of the Salesian Family. In particular, in 2004, the last year of his life, the Pope gave the Salesian Family a most beautiful gift when he beatified representatives of the different branches of our Salesian Family: Fr. August Czartoryski, SDB; Sr. Eusebia Palomino, FMA; Alexandrina Maria da Costa, a Cooperator and member of ADMA (all three beatified on April 25, 2004, in St. Peter’s Square); and Alberto Marvelli, a past pupil (Sept. 5, 2004, in Loreto).

Homily for 3d Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
3d Sunday of Easter
May 4, 2014
Luke 24: 13-35
Boy Scouts, WPC Camp-o-ree, Croton Point, N.Y.

“That very day, … two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village called Emmaus 7 miles from Jerusalem” (Luke 24: 13).

“That very day” is Sunday, the day when Mary Magdalene and the other women went to Jesus’ tomb to anoint his body and found the stone rolled away, the tomb empty, the guards gone, and angels announcing Jesus’ resurrection.

No one believed the women, even when they went to the tomb and saw it was empty.  Besides male prejudices against the credibility of women, who ever heard of someone rising from the dead?

So some of Jesus’ disciples left Jerusalem, greatly disheartened and even afraid, and headed home.  Our gospel this evening tells us about 2 of them, one named Cleopas, the other unnamed  —quite possibly his wife; St. John’s gospel tells us that among the women present at the crucifixion was “Mary the wife of Clopas” (19:25).

The Road to Emmaus
Basilica of St. John Bosco, Colle Don Bosco

Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus came and walked along with Cleopas and his companion and engaged them in a long, lively conversation; but they didn’t recognize him until they sat down for supper at their destination.  Risen from the dead, Jesus was clearly different; yet also the same.

I would propose to you 4 lessons from this gospel story.

1st, the disciples lament to this stranger who joins them on the road, “We were hoping that Jesus the Nazarene would be the one to redeem Israel” (24:21).  Aren’t they right about that?  Their mistake lies in the form of their expectations, in their understanding of Israel’s redemption.  It’s not a political or nationalistic or economic redemption—throwing out the Romans and re-establishing the kingdom of David, followed by prosperity for everyone.  It’s the redemption of our hearts and souls, freedom not from Rome but from Satan, the promise of everlasting life and eternal joy.  Sometimes we’re disappointed by what happens in life because our expectations are misguided, because we’re not looking at our lives from God’s perspective but from our own narrow, self-centered, time-limited perspective.  Such hopes will always fall short.  How many of you have seen the movie It’s a Wonderful Life?  George Bailey despairs of his life when he regards it in terms of material success; he’s saved when he’s given a different perspective, you might say, an other-worldly perspective, on the impact of his life on other people and on his community.  There’s no redemption in human institutions or in our own efforts to make ourselves happy.

2d lesson:  “He interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures” (24:27).  Jesus explains to Cleopas and his companion the events they’ve just witnessed or taken part in, from God’s viewpoint.  We find God’s viewpoint in his Word, in the sacred Scriptures.  Our individual life histories aren’t written out in the Old Testament and the Gospels, of course, but the human story is there:  the story of all our hopes and desires, of our sins and failings, of how much God loves us and how he’s shown us that love.  We place our lives, with joys and sorrows, their triumphs and disappointments, into the context of God’s Word, and then we begin to find the direction and the meaning of our lives.  God’s Word sheds light on what we experience, helps us see where we’re going.  As one of the Psalms says, God’s Word is a light for our path (119:105).

3d lesson:  “It happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them” (24:15).  Jesus traveled with them and discussed with them for several miles—as Scouts, we know how long that can take, especially when we’re talking.  Yet, St. Luke tells us, they didn’t recognize him—not his appearance nor his voice.  Nevertheless, he was with them, leading their discussion and gradually enlightening their understanding of the events they’d just lived thru.

We may not see him, but Jesus is our constant companion.  We’re walking a long journey—a pilgrimage, in fact—toward our Father’s home, toward eternal life.  And Jesus is always our companion, altho we don’t perceive him in any physical sense.  If we’ll open our hearts and our minds to his truth—not only in the Word of God as we saw already, but in personal conversation, i.e., in prayer, then he’ll help us as we travel, help us make sense of what’s going on in our lives.  Jesus once walked the roads of Galilee and Judea and the streets of Jerusalem with the apostles and many other people, and he continues to walk alongside us.

Breaking Bread at Emmaus
Basilica of St. John Bosco, Colle Don Bosco

4th lesson:  “While he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.  With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (24:30-31).  Do those 2 verses remind you of anything?  It’s the classic formula of the Eucharist.  With these 2 disciples Jesus probably was starting an ordinary meal and giving the standard Jewish meal blessing, but the Eucharistic language tells us that we recognize Jesus, we find Jesus, we come to know Jesus in the sacred liturgy.  It’s not enuf to read or listen to the Word of God, as important as that is; nor to pray privately, as essential as that is.  We also must take part in the Eucharist if we wish to know Jesus and be part of his company, be among his disciples.

In this Eucharist that we’re celebrating this evening, we meet Jesus—in the sacrament of his Body and Blood and in the sacred Scriptures.  We offer to him our lives, especially those parts of our lives that are most challenging, the parts that are mysteries to us, confident that he makes our difficulties and our mysteries meaningful.  And we ask him to be our constant companion as we go thru life, until we reach our final destination, our Father’s home in heaven.

Homily for 2d Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
2d Sunday of Easter
April 27, 2014
Collect
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.

“… that all may grasp and understand in what font they have been washed, by whose Spirit they have been reborn, by whose Blood they have been redeemed” (Collect).

The Collect or opening prayer of the Mass links us to 4 things:  1st, to God’s mercy—today is celebrated as Divine Mercy Sunday; 2d, to Easter, with its reference to “the paschal feast”; 3d, to our Baptism, with its reference to the font, being washing, and the Spirit; 4th, to the Lord’s passion and death, with its reference to his blood and our redemption.

Christ’s blood, of course, is the concrete expression of God’s mercy for us sinners.  Thru that blood and thru our Baptism, God has touched us with grace and made us his own people.

We celebrate all this at Easter, this wonderful “recurring feast” that evidences the effectiveness of Christ’s blood:  for God raised him to eternal life after his crucifixion, and he will likewise raise us who believe in Christ and follow Christ.

Our prayer is that we “may grasp and rightly understand” our Baptism.  The prayer alludes especially to those who were baptized just a week ago in the solemnities of the Easter Vigil—thousands of new adult Catholics just in our country.  But Lent and Easter also call every Christian back to Christ and to the meaning of our Baptism.  They call us to renew our renunciation of sin and our commitment to Christ.

The prayer tries to bring this to our attention in 3 ways, reminding us of and praying for our understanding of the font, the Spirit, and the blood.

Baptism banner
Holy Name of Jesus Church, N.R.

1st, we allude to “the font in which [we] have been washed.”  That font of course is the baptismal font in which cleansing water was poured over us.  But, as you know, that was no ordinary bath or shower such as we’ve taken thousands of times since.  In that font our sin—or our sins, if we were adults at the time—were washed away, flooded away by Christ’s overwhelming grace.

That is the literal font in which we were washed.  There’s also a figurative font, viz., Christ’s Church.  No one can be washed clean of sin except in and by the Church.  No one can belong to Christ except in the Church—the Church to which Christ has committed his Word and his sacraments, thru which he bestows his Holy Spirit on his people.

2d, the prayer alludes to that Spirit, “by whose Spirit [we] have been reborn.”  The Spirit—the Holy Spirit—is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, sent by them for our sanctification.  We must be reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, Jesus says (John 3:5).  We come to life spiritually only thru the Holy Spirit, and that Spirit is bestowed upon us lavishly in the anointing with sacred chrism and in the pouring of the water of Baptism.  This is the Spirit who descended on Jesus at the Jordan River, marking him as God’s beloved Son.  This is the Spirit conferred on the apostles—and thru them, on the whole Church—by the Risen Jesus, as we heard in the gospel this morning, the Spirit given for the forgiveness of sins (John 20: 19-31).  In Baptism our sin is truly forgiven, totally erased, and like Jesus we’re designated as God’s beloved children.  In Jesus’ case, that designation pointed out who he already was.  In our case, it’s a radical transformation of our identity, from people in Satan’s clutches into Jesus’ brothers and sisters, God’s dear children.  Likewise, the Spirit of the Father and the Son is at work in the sacrament that renews our Baptism by forgiving the sins we commit later in life, i.e., the sacrament of Reconciliation (“confession”).



St. Mary's Church
Fredericksburg, Va.

3d, we allude in our prayer to the blood that has redeemed us.  This is Christ’s blood, shed totally for us in his passion:  in his agony in the Garden, in his being scourged and crowned with thorns, in his being pushed and dragged thru the streets of Jerusalem under the weight of his cross, and in his humiliating, painful death on that cross.  All that was an agony of love for you and me, sinners, that we might be purified by his sacrifice.  We reverently come to his body and blood in the Eucharist, to be renewed in our purification, to be more closely, more intensely united with our Redeemer.

Our prayer is that we may “grasp and understand” all this.  To grasp it means to lay hold of it, to make it our own.  It means to live by what we believe and understand:  to live with Christ our Redeemer, rejecting sin, practicing virtue, imitating the goodness of Jesus in our words and actions; like Jesus, God’s beloved Son, submitting ourselves entirely, heart and soul, to whatever the Father asks of us.  May the Lord help us do that!

Homily for the Easter Vigil

Homily for the
Easter Vigil
March 29, 1997
Gen 1: 26-31
Provincial House, New Rochelle

I have Easter “off,” so to speak—just concelebrating at home without any “outside” obligation. Here’s an old homily delivered here at home.

“God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’  God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them.  God blessed them….  God looked at everything he had made and he found it very good” (Gen 1: 26-28, 31).

Adam & Eve in the Garden
by Lucas Cranach

On the 6th day God made creatures in his own image.  On the 6th day God found what he had created to be not only “good,” as on the 1st 5 days, but “very good.”

This exceeding goodness must be because God’s own authority, his order, his purposeful fruitfulness had become part of the created world, exercised by creatures—male and female humans—created in God’s own likeness:  full of life, holy, self-giving.  These human creatures were God’s viceroys, sharing in the divine dominion over the rest of creation.

That was God’s plan.  We know what happened next:

                        God’s plan made a hopeful beginning,

                        But man spoiled his chances by sinning.

                                    We trust that the story

                                    Will end in God’s glory,

                        But at present the other side’s winning.

The Exsultet—quoting St. Augustine, I think—calls our fall from grace a “happy fault”; not in itself, surely, but in the great consequence of our fall, namely, that God adapted his plan to give us new hope.  He made a new creation.  He restored the divine image and likeness in man, male and female.

That is what we celebrate tonight.

No longer are our chances spoiled.  No longer is the other side winning.

The Father of all things created a human body for his Only Son, with the cooperation of a human being, Mary of Nazareth.  Jesus Christ, the Only Son in his human body—and in all else that it means to be human—reversed the course of history, reversed man’s relationship with his Creator and our prospects for eternity.

Jesus Christ, son of God and son of Adam, by his obedience, by his passion and resurrection, has made all of us sons and daughters of Adam into a new creation.  He has restored the image of God, has once more made mankind the crown of God’s creation.

In the Easter collect, after the Gloria, we prayed that God “quicken the spirit of sonship” in his Church.  Quicken here is used in its old English meaning of “make alive,” “give a sudden renewal of life”; and indeed the prayer continues:  “Renew us in mind and body to give you wholehearted service.”

By our Baptism in the water that flowed from Christ’s pierced side, by our anointing with the holy chrism at Baptism and in Confirmation, we have been made new, made into the image of God’s Son, quickened like Adam when God 1st breathed life into him, quickened like the entombed body of Jesus himself, consecrated with Christ among all the created universe for service to God.

Christ is risen, and with him are we also.  Quoting Augustine now (for certain, this time):

Of ourselves we had no power to live, nor did he of himself have the power to die.  Accordingly, he effected a wonderful exchange with us, through mutual sharing:  we gave him the power to die; he will give us the power to live.[1]

Whether or not Adam’s sin was a happy fault, this is surely a happy exchange, that we gave the Son of God a mortal body, and he offers us everlasting life.

The Father was very pleased with his beloved Son.  May he look on his new children and see in us his Son’s image.  May he find us once again “very good” and bless is.

---

                [1] Sermo Guelferbytanus 3.

Homily for Good Friday

Homily for Good Friday

April 18, 2014
Is 52: 13—53: 12
Provincial House, New Rochelle

“The Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all” (Is 53: 6).

Christ's passion, death, resurrection
A medieval rendition

The heaviest burden anyone is asked to carry in life is probably guilt.  I’m not talking about the “guilt trips” that others lay on us from time to time but the authentic guilt of our own misdeeds, ill-spoken words, or omissions.

Last week there was a great deal of attention paid to the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.  Some of the attention noted the reconciliation achieved between some individual perpetrators and victims.  You may have seen the photo-essay in the NYT Magazine on April 6, titled “My Conscience Was Not Quiet,” which looked at 4 pairs of individuals photographed and interviewed within a larger project.  The common theme is one Hutu’s awareness of his criminal behavior, his conscience heavy with guilt, and his craving for peace and restoration to community; and one Tutsi’s granting him the pardon that enables them to live in peace again, and sometimes in friendship and mutual support.  The peace of soul of the perpetrator of the genocide depends upon his admission of guilt and the forgiveness extended by his victim—a victim of that perp’s specific murderous actions against that victim’s family.  At the same time, the victims attain a peace, set free from their own anger and bitterness.

When I read that photo-essay, I couldn’t help thinking of the Servant of the Lord.  We perps come to Jesus, the victim of our sins, and seek pardon.  We have done terrible things to him, but “he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses” (Is 53:12).

It’s true that none of us is guilty of genocide.  I dare say we haven’t committed any heinous crime.  But for sure we have our sins, and most of us aren’t in any hurry to make their public.  We feel our guilt and shame.

We’re familiar with St. Alphonsus’s version of the Stations, which speaks extensively of how Christ suffered for our personal sins—be they unkindness, ingratitude, impurity, lies, greed, or whatever else.

Jesus condemned to death
The Stations of the Cross enacted at Salesian school in Itajai, Brazil

I found this morning another reflection on our guilt and what it’s done to our Lord.  It’s a blog post by one of our SLMs, named Paula Rondon.  She titles her post, “He Was Crucified Under Paula Rondon”[1]; she identifies herself with Pilate, her character and typical behavior with his:  “He’s neither extraordinarily good nor despicably bad.  He’s right there in the middle like most of us.  He has the capacity in him for righteousness.”  But “he failed, as I would have failed, to see that the answer to his question …, ‘What is truth?’ was the Man staring right back at him.”  She goes on to speak of shirking responsibility, of “falling short all the time”—and of having Jesus as a substitute for the blame she deserves, “for God the Just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me.”

It seems to me that our shedding of our guilt and finding our pardon depends upon a process of claiming and disclaiming.

1st, like the Hutus of Rwanda and Paula, we have to claim our guilt, admit our sins—if not genocide, probably fratricide of a sort, offenses against our brothers and sisters:  our various forms of selfishness, laziness, unkindness, etc.  Not really we have to claim them, but I have to claim my own failures and not lose them in some generic we—it’s someone else’s fault, or we all do it.  Some of us, perhaps all of us, have done that today in Reconciliation, and we try to do it daily with an examen.

2d, having ID’d our faults, our moral failures, we disclaim them—by handing them over to Christ.  We do lay our guilt on him, and he does relieve it, lift it off us, make us whole, set us free, wash us clean.  Thanks be to God!

---

          [1] http://foryouandformany.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/he-was-crucified-under-paula-rondon/

Homily for Holy Thursday

Homily for
Holy Thursday
April 17, 2014
Collect
Wartburg Home, Mt. Vernon, N.Y.

“O God, who have called us to participate in this most sacred Supper…” (Collect).

With this evening’s liturgy, the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, we’ve completed the Lenten season.  Now we enter the Sacred Triduum of the Lord’s passion, death, and resurrection, the high holy days of our Christian faith.

Today’s Collect 1st brings out that we’re here to celebrate these mysteries because God has called us.  The initiative is his.  The gift of being here, of being among his chosen ones, is his.  How fortunate we are, how blessed we are, to be called to participate in the mysteries—“mysteries” meaning, 1st of all, the sacraments, the liturgical rites, and then also the truths of our faith.

God has called us tonite “to participate in this most sacred Supper.”  It’s the Last Supper, and we’re in the upper room with Jesus and the 12.  It’s no past event, no historical remembrance.  It’s a present reality.  At every Eucharist we participate in the Last Supper, in Calvary, and in an encounter with the Risen Lord; but especially so this evening.  We’re not re-enacting the Supper.  We’re at the Supper.

Jesus washing the apostles' feet
from the Bible of Tbilisi

Next, the Collect centers the Supper’s activity on Jesus, the “Only Begotten Son.”  1st, he’s “about to hand himself over to death.”  Usually we speak of Judas as the one who “handed him over,” and of course that’s true.  But the prayer as well as various gospel texts make it clear that Jesus is in command of the situation.  He surrenders himself to death, freely chooses what’s about to happen—because it’s the Father’s will, because Jesus is joined with his Father in willing our redemption.  He knows what’s about to happen and embraces it out of his love for his Father and his love for us.  “Greater love than this no one has, to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Then, the Collect notes, he “entrusted to the Church a sacrifice new for all eternity.”  This sacrifice is given to the Church in the persons of the 12, whom Jesus commanded, “Do this in memory of me.”  It’s given as a trust, which bespeaks both confidence—Jesus is confident of the 12, however unworthy they’ve proven themselves up till this point, and indeed however unworthily they’ll act on this nite; and it bespeaks something to be handled with care and respect because it belongs to another as a kind of legacy—in this case, belonging to Jesus and to be cared for as his legacy to us.

The sacrifice is new in that it’s the offering of his own body and blood, supplanting the animal offerings, the grain offerings, and the wine offerings of the Jewish Temple, and inaugurating a new priesthood and a new covenant.  It’s “for all eternity” because this one sacrifice is offered continually by the One who offers it, viz., by Jesus.  He offers it forever, till the end of time while creation lasts, and without end in the temple of heaven.  We are participants in that sacrifice, with the 12, with every Catholic who has ever lived, with even the saints in heaven who continue to present Jesus and themselves to the Father as an offering of love and praise and atonement.

The Collect calls this eternally new sacrifice “the banquet of his love,” i.e., of Jesus’ love.  It expresses his love for his Father and his love for us, for it is his body given for us, his blood poured out for us, that we might be washed clean, be nourished, be given a share in his new and eternal life.  “Whoever eats the flesh of the Son of Man and drinks his blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day” (cf. John 6:53-54).  The sacrifice is also a sacred meal, with all that a banquet implies:  festivity, joy, a great occasion such as the giving of awards or a wedding.  And don’t we say at every Communion, “Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb,” echoing (and editing) the words of the Book of Revelation, “Blessed are those called to the wedding feast of the Lamb” (19:9)?  At this banquet, don’t we anticipate an award:  “Well done, my good and faithful servant.  Come and share your master’s joy” (Matt 25:21)?

All that tells us something of what we’re celebrating tonite.  Then the Collect gets to our humble prayer:  “Grant, we pray, that we may draw from so great a mystery, the fullness of charity and of life.”  The fullness of charity, i.e., of love, is already here:  “Greater love than this,” etc.; and as we read in tonite’s gospel, “He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end” (John 13:1), which may also be rendered as “to the utmost” to “to the nth degree.”  The mystery is this fullness of charity and of life, and—a kind of double meaning—we pray to be drawn into this fullness, to share in it, to be empowered to practice such full charity toward God and neighbor, empowered to live this charity.  Altho we’re not going to carry out the rite of footwashing tonite, we need to recall its meaning, which is that we should love and serve one another—not by washing others’ feet literally but, more expansively, by caring for one another, seeing what others’ needs are and doing what we can to meet those needs:  physical, emotional, spiritual.  Such service day in and day out, for everyone in our lives, is more than most of us are capable of, given our human weaknesses.  And that’s why we need the spiritual power of “so great a mystery,” of God’s love and God’s life, to help us.

May God indeed help us to live as Christ has shown us here below, and to live with him “for all eternity” at the great “banquet of his love,” at the “wedding feast of the Lamb.”

Homily for Palm Sunday

Homily for
Palm Sunday
April 12, 1987
Phil 2: 6-11
Holy Cross, Fairfield, Conn.

This weekend (April 12-13) I celebrated the Palm Sunday liturgy 1st with Boys Scouts and then at St. Vincent's Hospital, preaching both times without notes, briefly, on Matthew's version of the Passion.  Herewith an old homily on the epistle reading, which is the same every year.  If you're interested, you'll find the complete A-B-C cycle covered in homilies in the archive (2011-2013).

“Your attitude must be Christ’s” (Phil 2: 6).

In our times, it’s often hard to know how a Christian should act.  It seems to me that it’s harder now to act like a Christian than it has been for many hundreds of years—not because our fallen human nature has changed but because our culture has changed so drastically and is so much less supportive of Christian values.

But we have Christ’s example to imitate.  St. Paul instructs us to take on the same attitude as Christ.  An attitude is a state of mind and feeling that disposes us to act in a certain way.

What was Christ’s attitude?  He was humble and obedient.  “He emptied himself” (Phil 2:7), put aside the prerogatives and claims of his divine nature and joined us—not as a ruler, not as one of the rich and famous, not as one of the great “somebodies”—no, as a servant:  his Father’s servant, and our servant, ready to die if our human selfishness and malice should command him to, even to die a criminal’s death on a cross, stripped of clothes, friends, hope, and dignity.

But this attitude of humility and obedience, of service, of love of God and for us, produced the greatest turnaround in human history.  “God highly exalted him” and made him our Lord (Phil 2:9-11).  Humility, obedience, service:  these are the nature not only of Christian life in general, but of Christian authority in particular.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul portrays Christ as the 2d Adam (5:12-19).  The 1st Adam sinned when he tried to become like God and disobeyed God’s command (Gen 3).  Christ obeyed and in his human nature was raised to lordship over all creation “to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:11).

Christian authority is certainly a timely topic.  It seems that an awful lot of people are screaming for a share in it.  From the tone of their complaints, their demands, and their decrees, one might well ask whether it’s Christian authority they want, the authority of serving others in humility and obedience, or whether it’s power they’re after—either to keep it or to get hold of it, as the case may be.

But let’s come down to us.  Is Christian authority, the authority of humble service an issue for us?

Yes, it is.  In every household there’s authority.  Let it reflect that attitude which was Christ’s; let it be a self-emptying, a self-giving authority.

Some of you are employers, or managers, or teachers, or babysitters.  You wield authority.  What kind of authority is it?  Christian authority isn’t pansy authority, as Christ made clear on more than one occasion and as his moral demands on us still made clear.  But it is an authority of consideration for people and of personal integrity, for instance—practical ways of being humble, obedient servants in business, school, home; practical ways of putting God 1st in our lives, God’s children 2d, and ourselves 3d.

We’d have to look pretty far for a way of life that doesn’t have dozens of opportunities every week for us to imitate Christ’s attitude, to empty ourselves in order that God may fill us with his own glory, in order that God’s glory may be reflected through us.

God bless you.