Homily for Pentecost Sunday

Homily for the
Solemnity of Pentecost
May 24, 2015
Acts 2: 1-11
Gal 5: 16-25
John 15: 26-27; 16: 12-15
Holy Cross, Fairfield, Conn.

“When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.  And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were.  Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit…” (Acts 2: 1-3).



Coming of the Holy Spirit (source unknown)

As you know, our lectionary supplies us with a 3-year cycle of Scripture readings for  Sundays.  But on Pentecost we always read from Acts 2 for the 1st reading, which tells the dramatic story of the Spirit’s coming upon the disciples and converting them from “mere disciples,” i.e., those learning from Jesus (which is what “disciples” means), into apostles, those sent forth to proclaim Jesus to the world.  Then for each of the 3 years of the lectionary cycles we have different optional 2d readings and gospels, which we’ve used today.

Pentecost is also one of the 3 Sundays of the year when we have a sequence that follows the 2d reading.  The sequences were originally intended as hymns to accompany a long procession with the book of the gospels from the altar to the ambo.  Our processions usually aren’t very long any more, if there’s a procession at all.  The liturgy has preserved 3 sequences—for Easter, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi—which are magnificent poetically, musically, and theologically.

About the Spirit’s coming recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, we can note these points:

1st, the Spirit descends upon the entire Church gathered as one, i.e., upon the community.  There is no Spirit and no Church without community, without our gathering as one body of Jesus Christ.  We must come together to worship; we must believe together the one faith proclaimed in the Scriptures and taught to us by the apostles.

2d, the Spirit “rests on each one of them,” upon the 120 individuals gathered together in that upper room.  Altho the Spirit comes upon the group, the Spirit also infuses himself into the heart and mind and soul of each of them.  Each Christian, each baptized person, has a share of the Spirit and must do as this 1st body of Christians did:  go out and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus.  Each Christian is a public witness of the resurrection of Jesus and the eternal life that Jesus offers to us thru the forgiveness of our sins.  “You also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning,” Jesus says in the gospel (John 15:27).

3d, the Spirit is a force for unity.  Jesus prayed that all his disciples would be one, one with himself and the Father, one among themselves.  It’s the Spirit that draws us all together.  You were brought here by the Holy Spirit!  Filled with the Holy Spirit, the Church goes out to bring the whole world—represented by all the different nationalities evidenced in the reading—into union with God thru Jesus.  No one can be excluded from God’s redeeming love—not on account of ethnicity or language or color or gender or culture or place of birth.

In the reading from Galatians, St. Paul reminds the Christians of the Roman province of Galatia—in modern Turkey—that the Holy Spirit is opposed to sinful attitudes and behavior, what Paul calls “the flesh.”  The “flesh” means not just impurity and lust and gluttony and drunkenness, but all sorts of selfishness and idolatry; Paul provides a list in what we read, and he has other lists in other letters.

That famous phrase of Pope Francis, “Who am I to judge?” is usually quoted out of context.  The context—in that press conference on the plane returning from Rio—was, “If someone is truly trying to follow the Lord,” who am I to judge his failures?  Only the Lord knows the heart.  None of us knows any individual’s standing before God.  In fact, St. Paul tells the Corinthians that he doesn’t “even pass judgment on” himself (I, 4:3).  God alone can judge our attitudes, motivations, words, and actions.

And he will!  “The Spirit and the flesh are opposed to each other” (Gal 5:17), and “those who do the works of the flesh … will not inherit the kingdom of God,” Paul tells us (5:19,21), whereas “those who belong to Christ Jesus,” i.e., who “live by the Spirit” of Jesus, “have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires” (5:24).  The Spirit helps us to know right and wrong attitudes and behaviors, helps us correct the wrong ones, helps us live in accordance with the teaching of Jesus.

In fact, if we were to continue reading Acts 2, we’d hear St. Peter preaching to all those “devout Jews from every nation under heaven” who, hearing the roar of the Spirit’s “strong driving wind,” came running to the house where Jesus’ disciples were staying—Peter preaching that God had raised Jesus from the dead, and therefore they should “repent and be converted, that [their] sins may be wiped away” (2:15,19) and they be granted salvation.

We noted above that the Spirit is a spirit of unity.  Repentance, conversion, is necessary for unity.  If we continue in our selfishness, in the works of the flesh—be they sins of sexual immorality or of ethnic hatred or of financial greed or whatever else—we work against unity:  our unity with God’s goodness, our unity with the rest of humanity.  In some fashion we all sin against that unity, and the Gospel calls us to constant conversion.  The works of the flesh are evident in the mayhem of the Middle East, in the drug trade, in human trafficking, in racism and sexism, in abortion, in the porn industry, in the abuse of children, in adulterous and homosexual and non-committed relations, and in a whole lot of social ills.  Pope Francis would add gossip as a work of the flesh.  Here are a few things he’s said about that:

      It’s so rotten, gossip.  At the beginning it seems to be something enjoyable and fun, like a piece of candy.  But at the end, it fills the heart with bitterness and also poisons us.

      Those who live judging their neighbor, speaking ill of their neighbor, are hypocrites, because they lack the strength and the courage to look at their own shortcomings.

      I tell you the truth:  I am convinced that if each one of us would purposely avoid gossip, at the end, we would become a saint!  It’s a beautiful path![1]

When one is converted, then the works of the Spirit become evident; Paul list 9 of them, including peace, kindness, and faithfulness.

Speaking to the apostles at the Last Supper—which is where today’s gospel reading comes from—Jesus calls the Spirit “the Spirit of truth” (John 15:26) and promises that the Spirit “will guide you to all truth” (16:13).  The Spirit that descended upon the Church at Pentecost guides the Church in knowing and proclaiming the truth.  The Church has that mission:  to proclaim the goodness and mercy of God, to name sin and call us to conversion, as Peter did on the 1st Pentecost, as Paul did thruout his long career, as the Church has been doing for 20 centuries.  Every Christian is called to stick to the truth of the Gospel, to live it, to testify to it, to try to infuse it into society, e.g., thru respect for the dignity of every human being, thru forgiveness of those who injure us, thru generosity toward the needy, etc.

If we “follow the Spirit,” as Paul urges us, then we may be confident that the Spirit will (in the English translation of today’s Sequence) “give us virtue’s sure reward; give us his salvation, give us joys that never end.”  Our union with God and with all God’s people will be perfected in eternal friendship, eternal life, eternal joy.

---

        [1] Quoted in “The Tyranny of Talk,” America, Dec. 1, 2014, p. 5.

Homily for Friday, 7th Week of Easter

Homily for Friday,
7th Week of Easter
May 22, 2015
Collect
Provincial House, New Rochelle                   

In the Collect we prayed about “partaking of so great a gift.”  From the structure of the prayer, it appears that the gift in which we partake is having “the gates of eternity unlocked for us.”

It sounds a bit strange—to me, anyway—that the gates of eternity (which in context means heaven in particular) are unlocked for us.  We’re still here, and I’ve never had a mystical experience that transported me thru those gates—nor have you, I dare say.

Yet we learned in the earliest days of our catechism—those of us who cut our teeth on the Baltimore Catechism—that one of the effects of Baptism is that the gates of heaven were opened for us.  Does that mean they’re open only when we die, only when we arrive at the proverbial pearly gates?

I don’t think so, and neither does the Collect, which speaks of our “partaking of so great a gift,” present participle.  So we already partake of or have a share in this “great gift” of open gates.

What opened those gates for us?  According to the prayer, “the glorification of Christ and the light of the Holy Spirit.”  Christ’s glorification—his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension—burst open the gates of the underworld, we know, setting free souls till then bound by sin and condemned to death.  But then the gates of heaven must also have been unlocked for those souls to enter:  out of the underworld, into the upper world!

But what do the “unlocked gates of eternity” mean for us who are still here?  And how does “the light of the Holy Spirit” figure in this heavenly mystery?

Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (Jan van Eyck)

Heaven is open to our prayers, our prayers brought by the glorified Christ, one of us in his humanity, to the Father’s throne.  Heaven is open to shower grace from the Father upon us thru the Son, and thru the intercessions of the saints, with whom we have communion thru those open gates.

Heaven is open to us so that God’s holy ones may reach down to us as our patrons, protectors, and guides, like Mary, the powerful Help of Christians, and our individual patrons:  Abraham “our father in faith,” Andrew the 1st to answer Christ’s call, Anthony the Preacher, Bruno the Carthusian, Dennis patron of France, John the Beloved, Kenneth patron of Kilkenny, Kevin the Noble Abbot, Mark the Evangelist, Michael God’s right hand, Richard the Bishop, Robert the Cistercian, Stephen the Protomartyr, and Thomas the Doubter.  Redeemed by the glory of Christ, joined to us now by the Holy Spirit, bond of love, they labor spiritually to draw us toward themselves thru those pearly gates.

And “the light of the Holy Spirit”?  The Spirit is Holy Wisdom, let loose by the Father and the Risen Son to pour his fire and light upon our hearts and minds so that we may know and desire spiritual goods, things divine—starting with the mystery who is Christ our Savior.  Following the Spirit’s light, we’ll come to Christ in Person on the other side of those heavenly gates.

Heaven is open to us, comes down to us, is with us in the sacred mysteries, actions of both Christ and the Spirit.  A story from medieval history—probably legend—illustrates this well.  It tells how the Rus, the ancestors of Russia, became Orthodox Christians.  According to the story, Vladimir, prince of Kiev, toward the end of the 10th century wanted to convert his people from paganism but was unsure which faith they should adopt.  Accordingly, he sent ambassadors to the Crimea, where a Muslim people dwelt, to investigate their religion.  The envoys weren’t much impressed.  He sent other ambassadors to Germany to look at Latin Christianity and, sad to say, they weren’t much impressed either.  He sent a third delegation to Constantinople, where the ambassadors witnessed the glories of Byzantine liturgy:  fine vestments, majestic icons, golden vessels, incense, chanting, and all the ritual—and they were very much impressed, reporting to Vladimir, “We didn’t know whether we were in heaven or on earth.”  So Vladimir and his people converted to Eastern Christianity.

How wonderful if our celebration of the liturgy does transport us mystically to heaven; but of a certainty it does bring heaven down to us.  For the time being, in these moments when we’re still in time and history, “may our devotion grow deeper” and “our faith be strengthened” by our partaking in the heavenly gift we have received.

Homily for 7th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
7th Sunday of Easter
May 17, 2015
Collect                                                                        
Holy Cross, Fairfield, Conn.                                     

In the Collect a few minutes ago, we prayed that “we, who believe that the Savior of the human race is with [God the Father] in [his] glory, may experience … his abiding presence among us.”  We prayed that we might always know and feel and benefit from the presence of Jesus with us, alongside us, leading us, guiding us, acting as our rearguard, enlightening us, helping us.

The Ascension of Jesus expresses our belief that our Lord is in heaven, body and soul.  Yet we expect him somehow to be present with us.  And he did promise to remain with us always until the end of the world (cf. Matt 28:20).  The gospel verse today quotes from John’s Gospel:  “I will not leave you orphans, says the Lord.  I will come back to you, and your hearts will rejoice” (14:18).

So we might ask how we “experience his abiding presence among us.”

The Eucharist. Window in
provincial house chapel, New Rochelle

The 1st way that we’re all familiar with is the sacraments.  The very Christ who is enthroned in heaven resides with us in the Holy Eucharist, body and soul, humanity and divinity.  He is literally our companion, someone we break bread with (that’s the etymology of companion).  In the sacrament of Reconciliation, we experience the personal forgiveness of Jesus as much as did people in the gospels, like the woman who bathed his feet with her tears, the tax collector Zacchaeus at Jericho, the paralyzed man lowered on his pallet thru the roof.  Jesus abides with us in his priests, who share in the one priesthood of Jesus, consecrating us in Baptism, offering Jesus’ sacrifice that atones for our sins, blessing our activities, consoling us in our sorrows, preaching the word of God so that we might be fully “consecrated in the truth” (cf. John 17:17).

The 2d way that we “experience his abiding presence among us” is thru the Spirit.  In our 1st reading today (Acts 1:15-17,20-26), we saw the “Lord who knows the hearts of all” showing which disciple he had chosen to take Judas’ place in the apostolic ministry (cf. Acts 1:24-25)—and this before the Holy Spirit dramatically descended upon the Church on Pentecost Sunday.  If God was guiding that decision even before the Spirit filled the Church, how much more does God now lead and guide the Church thru the Holy Spirit!  That guidance, that assurance that we walk with God, is vitally important for our “consecration in the truth,” for our knowing how Jesus wants us to live in the 21st century.  We have to deal with immensely complicated moral issues, don’t we?  What is right?  What is true?  We count on the Spirit to help us figure that out and to speak thru the apostolic ministry, i.e., the Pope and the bishops, as the Spirit did when Peter and the others were discovering who should take Judas’ place.

The 3d way that we “experience his abiding presence among us” is thru the love that the disciples of Jesus show toward everyone—not only toward one another but toward the whole world (consider, e.g., how Catholic Relief Services has leapt right into bringing aid to the victims of the earthquake in Nepal, a country that’s 81% Hindu, 9% Buddhist, 4% Muslim, only .2% Catholic.  We try to love everyone!  “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.  God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him” (1 John 4:16).  We reveal that we remain in love by practicing love, that same love that Jesus demonstrated when he walked among us and taught us.

Students from Don Bosco School in Katmandu, Nepal,
bring food and other supplies to earthquake victims (ANS)

That love, of course, can’t be practiced only toward distant people like those of Nepal.  “Charity begins at home,” we say, and that means the 1st people whom we must love are our families and the people whose paths we cross every day.  If we don’t love them in practice, not just in words, then our providing relief to Nepal doesn’t mean a whole lot.

As the gospel reading indicates, love is consistent with truth.  In the gospels Jesus isn’t “lovey-dovey” and mushy; he called a spade a spade; he denounced injustice, hypocrisy, and hardness of heart; he called everyone to repentance (you and me, too, dear friends).  He reminded us that he doesn’t belong to the world, and neither can his followers belong to the world, behave as the world behaves, value what the world values, think as the world thinks (cf. John 17:14-16).  Rather, Jesus taught the truth about God—his universal love for everyone, for example—and showed God’s love for the least in society and forgave his enemies; and he invites us, challenges us, to “go and do likewise” (cf. Luke 10:37).

In his apostolic letter Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”), Pope Francis wrote:  “True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others.  The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness.”

At the Last Supper, Jesus said to the apostles, “By this will everyone know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).  By that love shall we know that Jesus still abides among us.

Homily for Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

Homily for the Solemnity
of the Ascension of the Lord
May 14, 2015

Mark 16: 15-20

Eph 4: 1-13
Christian Brothers, Iona College, N.R.
Wartburg Home, Mt. Vernon

“Jesus said to his disciples:  ‘Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature'” (Mark 16: 15).

Benvenuto da Garofalo (1481?-1559)

At the end of Mark’s gospel, as at the end of Matthew’s and the beginning Luke’s Acts (our 1st reading), Jesus gives his disciples the Great Commission.  That commission is to continue his own mission of proclaiming the Good News—what he announced in the 1st words of his ministry (Mark 1:14-15).  That commission is given “to his disciples,” not exclusively to the 11 (Matthias not yet having been chosen to fill out the apostolic college to its full number of 12).  So this commission is given to all the disciples, to the whole Church, and not only to the Church’s leaders.

Jesus continues ty commissioning them to baptize believers into divine fellowship and to perform signs that they are truly doing God’s work.  Mark refers to some spectacular signs of God’s assistance in the disciples’ ministry (16:17-18).  Most of Jesus’ disciples in fact don’t perform these sorts of signs.  Some sects go out of their way to work at them, e.g., handling dangerous snakes (but none, to my knowledge, deliberately drinks poison), and some charismatic individuals are given gifts of healing and exorcism, as we know.

Paul, on the other hand, refers to more ordinary indications of the presence of God’s Spirit:  humility, gentleness, patience, mutual forbearance, unity of spirit (Eph 4:1-3).  Doing this, brothers/sisters, in the long run may be more effective preaching and teaching than anything else.  Only this can truly evidence that Christ, tho not visibly present, is alive and active and working with us everywhere; these are the signs that confirm the Word (Mark 16:20).

Homily for 6th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
6th Sunday of Easter
May 10, 2015
1 John 4: 7-10
Iona College, New Rochelle

“Beloved, let us love one another because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God” (1 John 4: 7).

Our 2d and 3d readings this evening come from St. John, and they emphasize love.  This love isn’t Hollywood romance, the sentimentalism of pop culture, or the eroticism so common in the mass media these days.  Jesus teaches and John preaches something else entirely.

1st, this love is self-sacrificing, not self-seeking.  “God’s love was revealed” by his “sending his Son into the world so that we might have life thru him” (4:9).  God went out of his way, so to speak, to reach down to us—sinners—to lift us up to his own life.

This self-abasement of the Son of God, lowering himself to our state, was costly. He became “expiation for our sins” (4:10).  Became the sacrifice that atones for our evildoing, our malice.  He laid down his life for us (cf. John 15: 13).



Crucifix in the chapel
of Don Bosco Prep, Ramsey, N.J.

We don’t fully understand the doctrine of the atonement—why Christ had to die, how his death erased our sins and their punishment.  I think of it as an act of solidarity:  Christ loves us so much that he became all that we are and underwent all the injustice and sufferings that we do, so as to absorb human nature and the human condition fully into his Divine Person, and by conquering death to carry humanity along with him, “so that we might have life thru him.”  “Greater love than this no one has” (15:13).

2d, the love that God reveals to us in Jesus takes initiative.  God doesn’t love us in response to our love for him:  “not that we have loved God, but that he loved us” (4:10), loved us even when we were alienated from him by our sins.  The parable of the prodigal son is the image to call to mind, the image of that father ever loving his lost son, even when he was far away and thinking only of himself, and then eagerly, enthusiastically, welcoming him when he decided to come home.  When we truly love someone—God or another human being—our love doesn’t depend on that person’s response to us.  We call it unconditional love.  You who are parents, think of the love you had for your newborn, who—obviously—wasn’t capable of showing you any love in response to all the love that your poured out upon him or her; and the love you kept for your teenagers when, maybe, they were anything but positive about you, your ideas, your tastes, and your rules.



Return of the Prodigal (Rembrandt)

3d, a disciple who loves Jesus seeks to please him.  He commands us to keep his commandments (15:10), above all the commandment to “love one another” as he has loved us (15:12).  He calls us his friends, not his slaves (15:15), and friends are eager to please each other, to help each other, to do things for each other; in St. Paul’s words, to “bear one another’s burdens” (Gal 6:2).  “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (15:14).  Love after the example of Jesus is other-focused; we focus it on him, not on ourselves, the way that most mothers focus on their children, not themselves.  What will make Jesus happy?  That we keep God’s commandments, respecting and honoring his Father, respecting and honoring all God’s children, accepting his friendship, wanting to be part of his company of friends.

God’s commandments aren’t meant to be hassles, even if sometimes they challenge us.  Keeping them, in the long run, gives us satisfaction and fulfillment.  Jesus calls it joy:  “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete” (15:11).  Someone who’s greedy or envious or angry or lustful—those are 4 of the 7 deadly sins, you notice—is never satisfied, never content—never joyful.  Someone who lives virtuously, lives to please God, practices the commandments and the beatitudes, is always at peace, in harmony with God, humanity, and the universe; has one foot in heaven, you might say; and that person’s joy will be completed in the resurrection.  He or she already has God’s life, and will come to the fullness of life in eternal union with Jesus, who makes us his friends.

Pastoral Assignments for 2015-2016: Round 1

Pastoral Assignments for 2015-2016: Round 1

The new assignments for 2015-2016 are coming out much later than usual. This may be due in part to the transition from one provincial to another with some consequent shaking-up in the wider field of province leadership. In some cases, bishops also have to be consulted, and at least in the case of Port Chester, N.Y., the archdiocese is still evaluating the SDB proposal for serving the Catholics of that village, where the present 4 parishes are to be consolidated into 1 under SDB leadership.

Fr. Mike Conway

The 1st new pastoral assignment was announced by Fr. Tom Dunne, provincial, on May 5. Fr. Michael Conway will succeed Fr. Steve Shafran as president of Don Bosco Cristo Rey HS and Corporate Work Study Program in Takoma Park, Md. Fr. Steve will become provincial on July 1. The selection of Fr. Mike was made by the SDBs and the archdiocese of Washington, which share responsibility for DBCR.

Fr. Mike, from Winthrop, Mass., has been president of St. Petersburg Catholic HS and director of the SDB community there since 2008. He has previously been principal at Abp. Shaw HS in Marrero, La., and Don Bosco Tech in Paterson, N.J., and CYM at Salesian HS in New Rochelle, St. Pete Catholic, and Abp. Shaw and been executive director of the Salesian Boys & Girls Club of East Boston. He was ordained in 1992 by then-Bishop Oscar Rodriguez.

Fr. Tom's announcement noted Fr. Mike's "cheerful and encouraging presence in every phase of school life" at St. Pete Catholic and his diligent work "to animate the Salesian charism and infuse Don Bosco's educational system throughout the entire school environment."

Today the St. Petersburg Diocese announced Fr. Mike's replacement as president of St. Peter Catholic: Fr. Richard Rosin, who has been director of guidance there for the last 5 years. That appointment, of course, was made jointly with the SDBs.


Fr. Rich Rosin

Fr. Rich is a native of Queens, N.Y., and was ordained in 1995. He earned an M.S. in psychology from the College of New Rochelle in 2008. He has taught at Salesian HS in New Rochelle and Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J., been principal of Abp. Shaw HS, and assistant pastor of St. Benedict Parish in Etobicoke, Ont.

In a statement for St. Petersburg Catholic, Fr. Tom described Fr. Rich as "a Salesian priest who lives the charism of Don Bosco and can foster that charism among the educational community." He added that Fr. Rich "is well equipped to continue the implementation of a strategic planning process that has already been formulated by Fr. Michael Conway and members of the St. Petersburg Catholic High School administration."

At this time no SDB director (local superior) has been named for either the Takoma Park/Silver Spring community or the St. Petersburg one.

Homily for 5th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
5th Sunday of Easter
May 3, 2015
1 John 3: 18-24
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle

“Let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth” (1 John 3: 18).

St. John hits constantly on the theme of loving one another in practice, not only in words:  walking the walk and not just talking the talk, as they say today.  Don Bosco tells us Salesians that the young must see that we love them, beyond what’s in our hearts or our words.

St. John the Evangelist

John links our actions and our keeping the commandments with “the truth.”  We think of truth as something intellectual or dogmatic:  the truths of the faith, or “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”  But John speaks of “belonging to the truth” thru our loving “in deed” and acting according to what’s in our hearts.  We can understand that our truth—our integrity—depends upon a consistency between our thoughts and our deeds, between our beliefs and our actions.  As John says in the next chapter, anyone who says she loves God but hates her sister or brother is a liar (4:20).

A long biblical tradition also links truth with the divine law, or in terms of today’s readings, with the commandments.  God’s word is truth.  Christian philosophers of a later age also identify the natural law with truth.  To live the truth, then, means to conform our behavior with God’s word, whether that’s the word revealed on Mt. Sinai or in the Sermon on the Mount, or the word found in nature.  To love God “in deed and truth,” we speak and act as he wishes, in accord with our status as creatures made in his image, as sisters and brothers of one another because God is our common Father and all of us are bound together by our Lord Jesus.

John speaks of “whatever our hearts condemn” (3:20).  When we look into our hearts, of course, we discover our infidelities—in both desires and actions—and by God’s grace we’re moved to repent, to condemn our sins and our unworthy, unlawful temptations and desires and the actions to which they give birth.  “God is greater than our hearts” (3:20) and conquers our sins, absolves us, purifies us, and keeps us as his beloved children.

When John adds, “and knows everything,” don’t we hear an echo of Peter’s encounter with the Risen One at the lakeshore?  “Peter, do you love me?”  “Lord, you know everything.  You know that I love you” (John 21:17).  This is Peter the sinner speaking.  Yes, even when we love the Lord intensely, as Peter did, in our weakness we sin.  We trust the Lord to know our hearts—our fears, our anxieties, our frustrations, our flightiness, our uncertainties, our waverings—and our fundamental love and commitment, like Peter’s.  We trust that God not only knows our hearts but also can make them whole, as he did Peter’s.

“We have confidence in God and receive from him whatever we ask” (3:21-22).  Confidence means faith, trust.  The confidence we have is in God’s unfailing love.  “Whatever we ask”—in the gospel context, this seems to mean asking for mercy, forgiveness, redemption, the grace to live a Christian life, to live in “the Spirit he gave us” (3:24).  For Jesus tells us to ask for the Spirit, God’s great gift that brings us pardon, unites us to the Father and the Son, and keeps us in love with the One who made us and saves us.

Homily for 4th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
4th Sunday of Easter
April 26, 2015
Acts 4: 8-12
St. Ursula, Mt. Vernon, N.Y.

“In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene this man stands before you healed” (Acts 4: 10).

The 3d and 4th chapters of the Acts of the Apostles recount how St. Peter and St. John healed a crippled man in the temple, continued preaching the resurrection of Jesus, and were called before the Sanhedrin to explain what they’d done.

St. Peter with net
St. Mary's, Fredericksburg

The elders and leaders of the Jewish people realized that the apostles weren’t learned men; they were simple fishermen from Galilee.  But they’d done something stupendous and were drawing a lot of attention.  They were winning converts to this new way of practicing Judaism.  The leaders were puzzled and alarmed.

In today’s reading Peter gives a simple, straightforward explanation.  St. Luke tells us, moreover, that in giving his response, he’s “filled with the Holy Spirit” (4:8).  For he’s about to preach the Gospel, and, in preaching the Gospel the Church leadership always teaches under the influence of the Holy Spirit.  So Jesus promised.  In this passage, we see that in the apostles Peter and John; in our day, the Spirit works thru the apostles’ successors, the Pope and the bishops.

In the immediate context, tho, it seems that the work of the Holy Spirit is to fill Peter with courage and, to use a favorite word from Acts of the Apostles, with “boldness,” to proclaim Jesus to the very people who’d condemned him to death; to proclaim boldly that the crippled man has been made whole by the power of Jesus; that “there’s no salvation thru anyone else” (4:12).

Note that Peter says the crippled man “was saved” and that he announces “salvation” thru Jesus Christ.  There’s an intrinsic link here:  the man’s body has been saved, and a fuller salvation is offered to him and to everyone thru Jesus Christ.  The physical healings that Jesus performed, like the one that Peter and John have done here, are images of the spiritual healing that God works on sinners:  forgiving sins, restoring us to his favor, ultimately raising us to that same eternal life that Jesus Christ, risen from the tomb, already enjoys.

Our association with Jesus thru Baptism and the other sacraments, thru the life of the Church, thru our following Jesus’ teachings—all these associations with Jesus make us God’s children by adoption—as we learned in our catechism a long, long time ago when we reviewed the effects of Baptism.  St. John speaks of that today:  the love of God bestowed on us allows us to be called his children (1 John 3:1-2).

This is the restoration won for us by Jesus Christ the Nazarene.  Human beings were created in God’s image, which means we were meant from the start to be God’s children.  Sin destroyed that relationship, but Jesus has brought us back into it—as many people as are willing to come to him to be healed, forgiven, made whole in our deepest, essential selves.

Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd (John 10:11) because he’s totally devoted to God’s flock, God’s people:  to our well-being, our safety, our salvation.  He’s intent on keeping the wolf we call the devil away and on leading us all to safe pasture.  His laying down his life indicates how far he’ll go to protect his flock, and his rising from death shows his power to restore life to the flock’s members who’ve been injured and maimed by sin.

“In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene this man stands before you healed.”  If we desire healing—not of our bodies, at least not in the present world, but of our hearts, our souls, our deepest selves—we find that in Jesus Christ.  Whatever our wounds are, no one can heal them except Christ.  Whatever our hungers are, no one can satisfy them except Christ.  Sometimes it takes us a long time to learn this.  People waste time and energy pursuing health and beauty, pleasure and power, money and fame—and they come up empty every time, hungry, unsatisfied, lost.  Despite what you see on TV, a luxury car won’t bring you joy.  Neither will a case of cold beer, some bottle of shampoo, the next blockbuster movie.  Neither will Hillary or Jeb or Marco or any of their sort.

“There is no salvation thru anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”  The apostles believed that so deeply that they died rather than renounce that name.  The nitely news shows us our own contemporaries dying for the same reason in Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, and elsewhere.

Do we live each day as if we believe that?  Do our words and our relationships and behavior testify to our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, the only one whom we follow without any reservation?

Homily for 3d Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
3d Sunday of Easter

April 19, 2015
Acts 3: 13-15, 17-19
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle                                                                                   

“God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses” (Acts 3: 15).

St. Peter
Collegiate Church of St. Waltrude
Mons, Belgium

In the Acts of the Apostles, the apostles repeatedly make this twofold claim:  Jesus has been raised from the dead, and they are witnesses to this fact.  That very commission is given them in the last line of today’s gospel:  “You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:48).

Being a “witness” to Jesus’ resurrection and its implications takes on special meaning when we use that term, in Greek, martyr, to describe people thruout the ages like Stephen the Deacon; those being beheaded, crucified, and burned alive by ISIS and other fanatics; those being “re-educated” in Chinese prisons and labor camps; those being assassinated in Latin America for defending the poor or opposing the cartels.

To be a witness to Jesus, you know well, doesn’t mean only to die for him, be imprisoned for him, or go into exile for him.  We’re all supposed to be his witnesses—to witness by our lives that Jesus lives.

How do we do that?  Today’s Scriptures propose to us at least 6 ways.

1. We repent of our sins.  We admit that we have sinned and we pursue conversion (Acts 3:19).  If we’re not at the point where we need a dramatic conversion a la Augustine or Ignatius or Merton, we may need one from mediocrity; at the least, we need to turn away from our peccadillos, our gossip, our snide remarks, our loose adherence to truth, etc., and recommit ourselves to Jesus as our Risen Lord every day.

2. We seek knowledge; we foster learning.  Peter laments that his countrymen “acted out of ignorance” (3:17) when they demanded “the release of a murderer” (3:14), i.e., Barabbas in place of “the author of life” (3:15).  Knowledge and learning are goods in themselves:  knowledge of the created world, of the sciences and math; learning about people and cultures:  the arts and humanities; knowledge of the Scriptures, theology, and philosophy.  Jesus “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:25) so that they might know him and might know what God is doing in their own lives.  All these branches of learning enable us to be more and more what God created us to be, images of himself; and better and better to love and serve one another.

3. Related to knowledge and learning is pursuit of the truth.  We pursue it, preach it, stick to it.  Knowledge and learning ultimately are in service to the truth; they are supposed to lead us to God.  Peter upbraids his audience for “denying the Holy and Righteous One” (Acts 3:14), denying plain facts evidenced by Jesus’ life and ministry.  We all know people whose motto seems to be “don’t confuse me with the facts.”  If that’s serious in an academic setting—which as teachers you all can appreciate—or in matters of public policy, it’s still more important in matters theological and spiritual.  We adhere to the Word of God (both the Scriptures in general and the Person of God’s Son), to the Creed that we profess at least weekly, to the inalienable truth of human dignity.

4. We are witnesses to Jesus by keeping the commandments.  “The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3):  not only the Decalog but also the beatitudes and the 2 great commandments; and the commandment to serve one another.  “Whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him” (2:5).

5. We witness to Jesus thru our worship.  “The two disciples” who’d met Jesus at Emmaus “recounted … how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of bread” (Luke 24:35).  We come to the sacred liturgy to meet Jesus to testify publicly that we belong to him.  We proclaim the wonderful things that God has done for humanity in Jesus—for us personally too; and we go from our worship into the world recharged with his grace to be his agents in the world, his witnesses, by our actions and words.

6. We witness to Jesus by our joy.  In the Collect today we prayed that we might “exult forever in renewed youthfulness of spirit”; that we might “rejoice now in the restored glory of our adoption” as we anticipate the future joy “of the day of resurrection.”  How can we not be happy when our sins have been forgiven and Jesus has embraced us and made himself our companion and friend and savior?

Returned SLMs Reflect on and Share Their Experience

Returned SLMs Reflect on

and Share Their Experience

Salesian Lay Missioners Michael Gotta and Patrick Sabol were commissioned in August 2013 to serve at the Salesian secondary school, parish, and youth center in Gumbo, a suburb of Juba, capital of South Sudan. They’re both alumni of Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio.

December 2014: Mike Gotta, Tom Kelly (finishing a year and a half as SLM),
Pat Sabol, and another volunteer named Robin

They arrived in Gumbo on August 30, 2013, with two other SLMs, Ariel Zarate and Theresa Kiblinger, who were to go on to the mission at Maridi. They remained until mid-July 2014 but had to be evacuated for a month to Kenya at the height of South Sudan’s civil war in January 2014. (The Salesians remained, but both they and the SLM directors back here thought it prudent for the young volunteers to get out of harm's way when the war seemed likely to come to Juba.)

Both Pat and Mike (no, this is not the start of a joke!) assisted with an SLM discernment weekend in New Rochelle on April 11-12 (preceding post), driving up from Washington and Philadelphia. They enjoyed their reunion with SLM batch-mate Manny Mendez (Bolivia, and now at Holy Rosary in Port Chester), Adam Rudin, and Fr. Mark Hyde. The warmth of their reunion made a big impression on the seven SLM candidates.

I had a few minutes (too few) to get them aside for a little interview. No direct quotes here, but the substance of their answers.

What were your responsibilities in Juba?

Mainly we taught in the secondary school, which enrolls youths and young adults of both sexes between the ages of 14 and 30. That spread comes from the unavailability of schooling in much of the country, and its interruption by years of war. So when some teens or adults get a chance to start or return to school, they come. There’s no GED program!

Some of the students and the staff early in the school year

When the school year started, we had about 65 pupils, but when the fighting broke out in December, refugees flowed into the city and the Salesians welcomed everyone in our compound—which not all places did. Consequently, our school enrollment went up to 180.

We also had administrative duties; in fact, just two weeks into the school year the principal, Fr. Patrick, died very unexpectedly. Fr. David was named principal but was so busy with his other responsibilities that a lot of the administrative work was delegated to us. One of our particular duties was to interview prospective students. Entrance criteria weren’t very strict, but the kids did have to know English because that’s the language of instruction.

 

We helped out in the parish and ran the attached youth center. The parish has three Masses each Sunday, one each in Arabic, English, and Bari, the local language. The Bari Mass got the biggest crowd; altogether, about 1,000 people came to Mass each Sunday, and of course on major feasts like Easter there were many, many more.

What was your most rewarding experience?

Mike: Learning to love the people. They came from many different places and brought a great cultural diversity, which we got to experience. And we shared some of our own culture with them. This displayed the universality of the Catholic Church.

Pat: Seeing the relationships of the people there, the struggles they went through, and walking alongside them in their daily lives and seeing them grow.

Celebration of Baptism at the SDB parish

What was the most difficult or most challenging part of your mission?

Pat: Seeing the suffering, particularly when the fighting began again. We had so many IDPs (internally displaced persons) in our compound. When we arrived, they were still experiencing the joy of their newly won independence [after about 20 years of vicious civil war against the Sudanese government]—and then in December it all fell apart.

Part of an encampment for IDPs near the Salesian compound

Mike: Seeing the hardness of heart of the leaders (who instigated the war), and of some of the people too. Some members of the two main tribes, the Dinka and the Nuer, display great hatred for the other tribe, based on very deep hurts caused by injuries inflicted upon them or their families. It’s deeper than any racism or anything we can fathom as Westerners.

What’s been challenging about readjusting to life at home?

Pat: It’s been a big change to shift from living in a Salesian community to living on my own; from working with the Salesians in ministry to working a secular job in the Philadelphia area. My life is no longer so church-focused. I have to find different ways to bring my faith into my daily life.

Mike: I have to make an internal attempt to live more selflessly in my daily life, as I saw and was so much encouraged to do on mission. I have to try to understand the struggles others are facing here. I have to try to be intentional about what I do and why I do it. Living and working in the mission was much less distracting because there was so much less materialism around us.

Mike Gotta blogged at http://gottagotogumbo.blogspot.com/

Pat Sabol blogged at http://sabolsoulsafari.blogspot.com/

Photos from Pat's blog.

Seven Candidates Discerning SLM Call

Seven Candidates Discerning SLM Call

Over the April 10-12 weekend, five women and two men were in New Rochelle as part of their discerning a possible call to serve as Salesian Lay Missioners in 2015-2016. They came from Arizona, California, Florida, Nebraska, Nevada, and Pennsylvania and included a married couple with college-aged kids, a retired gentleman, and four collegiate women. Working with them were Adam Rudin, program director; Fr. Mark Hyde, director of Salesian Missions in New Rochelle; Fr. John Serio, Bro. Steve DeMaio, and returned SLMs Michelle Webb (India), Mike Gotta and Pat Sabol (South Sudan), and Manny Mendez (Bolivia). Photo above includes the seven candidates, Adam (far left), Fr. Mark (next to Adam), and Michelle (far right).