Michael A. Boccardi Memorial Trek-o-ree 2015

Michael A. Boccardi
Memorial Trek-o-ree 2015

This year's Boccardi Trek-o-ree--an annual activity of the Algonquin District of the Boy Scouts of America, Westchester-Putnam Council, took place Nov. 6-8 at Durland Scout Reservation in Putnam Valley, N.Y. The hiking (trekking) component, naturally, was done on Saturday the 7th. I was told by one of the trek organizers that some 165 Scouts were on the trail during the day, and total registration for the event (including adults) was over 200.

Unfortunately, your faithful blogger couldn't get there until about 4:30 p.m. on Saturday because of a Salesian day of recollection (previous item). He camped, as usual, with Troop Forty from Mt. Vernon, his "home troop," and got his tent pitched as the sun set and daylight totally disappeared.

After a supper of tin-foil chicken, potatoes, and veggies with the five or six Scouts and four other Scouters from the troop, I celebrated Mass in the camp's pavilion for about 65 Scouts and Scouters--an unusually large turnout, and a very nice surprise. We barely had enuf hosts for Communion!

One of the Scouters present took a few photos at Mass with my camera.

Singing the opening hymn at Mass

After Mass we had a traditional Scout campfire with songs, skits, and Scout Vespers; there was also a solemn "retirement" of a well-worn American flag.

Scouts and Scouters at start of campfire.  Troop 40’s Scoutmaster, Tunji Renner,

and an Assistant Scoutmaster, Jimmy Douvres, are standing at right.

Preparing to retire a flag

Scout Vespers

And after the campfire with all the Scouts still in camp, Troop Forty returned to our camp to enjoy our own little fire--and to toast marshmallows.

Fr, Pascual Chavez Leads Day of Recollection for Salesian Family

Fr. Pascual Chavez Leads

Day of Recollection

for Salesian Family

Fr. Pascual Chavez, SDB, rector major of the Salesians from 2002 to 20014, led a day of retreat on Saturday, November 7, for the Salesian Family at Mary Help of Christians Academy in North Haledon, N.J. More than 150 SDBs, FMAs, Don Bosco Volunteers, and Cooperators from New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts were present, and groups from Florida, Illinois, and Louisiana (as well as infirm FMAs at the provincialate in Haledon) took part through live-streaming parts of the program.

The key element of the day’s program was a conference on the prophetic role of consecrated persons in awakening the world to Christ (above). In a presentation that took about an hour, Fr. Pascual he summarized reflections that filled 13 single-spaced pages (which he gave out to those present). His audience much appreciated both the oral summary and the written text, which will continue to supply fodder for meditation.

The day’s schedule also included Mass, a meeting of the Rector Major emeritus with SDBs and FMAs in formation, a question-and-answer period for everyone, opportunity for the sacrament of Reconciliation, and dinner.

Fr. Pascual’s address to the entire group picked up on Pope Francis’s message to the Union of Superiors General: today’s religious must be witnesses of Christ to the whole world; they must go out to the peripheries of society to reach everyone with the Gospel. He repeated what he has often said, that consecrated life begins with God’s loving those whom he chooses and calls, and the consecrated person responds to that love. He continued by emphasizing the call to holiness through love for God and neighbor, i.e., to have the mind, the heart, and the sentiments of Jesus; when one is holy, he or she will be happy.

In his meeting with the young confreres and sisters (below), Fr. Pascual addressed formation issues and took questions; his key messages to them were that they should live wisely, reflect deeply, and love generously, and that Jesus is worthy of one’s whole life.

The day’s Mass was a votive Mass of Mary Help of Christians with Marian-themed readings. Fr. Pascual began his homily on John 2:1-11 by observing that for Don Bosco “Mary wasn’t a devotion but a living presence.” He urged confreres, sisters, and affiliated Salesians to give themselves to her docilely, heed her advice to listen to her Son, and to direct others also to him. In imitation of Mary at Cana, sharing in the joy of a couple’s wedding and fearing their embarrassment, Salesians need to be with people in all the joys and sorrows of their lives, he said. In those joys and sorrows, and in all of life, our concern must be to discern Jesus’ presence because he’s the one who can address life’s problems.

Fr. Pascual also noted that after pointing the wedding servants to Jesus (2:5) she disappeared from the scene. The message there, he said, is that our proper focus always must be on Jesus.

Finally, he advised Christians to be believers who are credible in their actions and words; that’s how we can lead others to faith in Jesus, as Mary helped lead the disciples of Jesus to begin to believe in him (2:11).

Your faithful blogger had to depart North Haledon after the session with the SDBs and FMAs in formation in order to fulfill his duties as a Boy Scout chaplain.

Homily for Solemnity of All Saints

Homily for

the Solemnity of All Saints

Nov. 1, 2015
Preface
Iona College, New Rochelle
Provincial House, New Rochelle

“Today by your gift we celebrate the festival of your city, the heavenly Jerusalem, our mother, where the great array of our brothers and sisters already gives you eternal praise” (Preface).

The forerunners of Christ with saints and martyrs (ca. 1424)

The Preface for today’s feast lays out what we’re celebrating:  God’s gift and the great array of the saints.  It will further outline the place of the saints in our lives--which the Collect also touched upon.

God’s gift:  our salvation is a gift, a grace from God.  We never deserve his pardon; we have no title to heaven.  God freely and lovingly grants it to us thru Jesus Christ.  St. Paul writes to the Romans, “All are now undeservedly justified by the gift of God, thru the redemption wrought in Christ Jesus” (3:24).  Those who accept his gift he transforms into saints—the great ones whom everyone knows and admires like Mary, Peter and Paul, Francis, the Little Flower, and so on; and the innumerable, anonymous ones we’ve never heard of and never will—except the ones in our own lives.  We might think of our parents or some of our confreres in religion who were close to God, who reflected God’s love to us and who, we trust, now enjoy an intimate relationship with him in eternity.

These holy ones constitute God’s city, “the heavenly Jerusalem, our mother.”  The earthly city Jerusalem was God’s dwelling place, his holy city, the site of his temple, the center of the world.  It was the city where our redemption was effected by Jesus and the mother Church of Christendom, whence the apostles set out to preach the Good News.  It became in the Revelation of John the symbol of heaven, where God dwells on high with all his people around him, “the great array” of the saints.  So today we refer to the saints as “the heavenly Jerusalem,” not a city of bricks and mortar, of streets and marketplaces, but a city of “living stones” (to quote 1 Pet 2:5), i.e., Jerusalem’s population, God’s holy people.

This heavenly Jerusalem is called our mother because it gives birth to us.  The saints in heaven with Christ as their head, bonded into a union by the Holy Spirit, is bonded also to the Church on earth, and the whole Church bears new children in the font of Baptism, introduces neophytes to the divine life of grace, presented to us as God’s gift.

The Preface reminds us that we “rejoice in the glory bestowed upon those exalted members of the Church.”  They’re exalted because they have already conquered the world, have already won the victory of life.  They’re exalted because they’ve been raised on high to be with Christ, not yet in the resurrection (except the Virgin Mary) but in Christ’s glory—like Moses and Elijah at Jesus’ transfiguration.  Peter, James, and John on that occasion experienced the glory of heaven, a joy, a euphoria, a warmth, a sense of belonging, a fulfillment—“it’s good for us to be here” (Mark 9:5)—hard for us to imagine and impossible for us to replicate.  But all the saints now enjoy that glory.  We rejoice for them, rejoice in their victory, their everlasting safety from the dangers of our earthly pilgrimage (cf. Preface); we feel a sense of kinship with them based on our shared humanity and our shared faith.  This glory is like the sense of pride, belonging, and elation that one feels when the victorious home team or some national hero returns for a ticker tape parade, or like the way Catholics in general and Irish-Americans in particular celebrate the triumphs of Notre Dame.

The Preface continues:  “thru them you give us, in our frailty, both strength and good example.”  We’re well aware of our own frailty—our sinfulness, our proneness to inadvertent errors of one sort or another.  In recent weeks we’ve been reminded often of that in discussions of whether Junipero Serra ought to be canonized, given how he sometimes treated the mission Indians.  We might also think of how stubborn Don Bosco could be, e.g., in his relationship with Abp. Gastaldi.  We recall the necessary conversions of Paul, Augustine, Ignatius, and 2 notables whom Pope Francis highlighted in his address to Congress:  Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day.  But God’s gift of grace is more powerful than our weakness!  We rejoice in what God has done in the saints, and seeing them we hope for what he might do in us.

Ignatius of Loyola wounded in battle

Then we look at the “good example” of the saints, the models of human holiness that they provide.  They show us how to live as disciples of Christ on our pilgrimage.  Their prayers for us give us strength and encouragement, which the Collect emphasized.

So for all these reasons—and perhaps others that you may think of—today we celebrate the great festival of God’s holy city, the great gift of God’s grace manifest in the human race.

Salesian Family Celebrates RM's Quick Visit

Salesian Family 

Celebrates RM’s Quick Visit

Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime, Rector Major of the Salesians, made a very short stopover visit in our province on Oct. 23-24, primarily to meet with the provincials of Interamerica at the end of their annual meeting, which our province hosted this year; secondarily, to introduce himself to the confreres of the province. Consequently, Fr. Steve Shafran, our provincial, invited as many SDBs as possible to come to the Marian Shrine in Haverstraw, N.Y., on Saturday evening for prayer, dinner, and entertainment with the Rector Major and a first acquaintance with him.

Although the invitation was directed specifically to the SDBs, the presence of two youth groups—Don Bosco Prep’s choir and Port Chester’s Amigos del Teatro—gave the gathering a greater “family” feel.  In his Good Night at the end, Fr. Angel pointed appreciatively to the presence of these young people, observing that “without the young we wouldn’t be who we are.”

Fr. Fernandez, 4th from right in back, with pupils from Don Bosco Prep, Ramsey, N.J.,

with SDBs Fr. Jim Heuser (just head showing in back) and Fr. Matt DeGance (far right).

It was estimated that about 150 SDBs and youths took part in the evening’s activities, which began with an hour-long prayer service in the Shrine chapel.  A social hour and buffet dinner followed in the retreat house cafeteria.  Throughout, Fr. Angel was solicited for group and individual photos and happily acquiesced, and he seemed to greet personally almost everyone in the room—in some cases trying out a little bit of English.

(Among other things, he praised our province newsletter—an opinion also expressed by general councilors Fr. Filiberto Gonzalez and Guillermo Basañes and several of the visiting provincials.)

When dinner was over, Fr. Steve initiated the entertainment by presenting a special stole to Fr. Angel.

Then the Bosco Boys (Bros. Steve DeMaio and Steve Eguino) rapped out a couple of their songs and gave the Rector Major a T-shirt that he immediately donned, and a copy of their just-released CD.

The Bosco Boys, Bro. Steve DeMaio (left) and Bro. Steve Eguino (right),
 flank the Rector Major, who holds a copy of their CD.

DBP’s choir performed two songs, one in Polish that they’d learned as part of the school’s centennial celebration and the other a light-hearted tribute to coffee.  Then they got Fr. Angel to join them for a photo and gave him a DBP jacket, which he put on over the Bosco Boys shirt.

Another pair of young SDBs were the next act:  Bros. Rafael Vargas and Simon Song break dancing.  Although they delighted the audience, it seems that Fr. Angel wasn’t tempted to join their act.

Port Chester’s Amigos del Teatro enacted scenes from Don Bosco’s life, most of it readily understandable even in Spanish.  The Rector Major posed with them as they gave him not one but two T-shirts—and a knapsack. He squeezed one shirt and the knapsack on top of the Bosco Boys shirt (he’d already handed off the Bosco jacket to his secretary).  Evidently he’s had a lot of practice at this sort of thing.

Fr. Angel procured a guitar somehow, took the stage, announced a Mexican folk song, and called on all the Mexicans on hand to join him, starting with Fr. Filiberto. All of the Port Chester youngsters and the Mexican SDBs responded, as did several SDBs of Hispanic but not Mexican origin. They gave themselves and the audience a couple of rousing songs.  This was the first one:

Fr. Angel wasn’t done, however. He “commanded” Fr. Steve to step up and sing “My Way” (not the first time that has happened), and to some extent he joined in, to everyone’s delight.

Fr. Steve Shafran (right) brings his musical talent to "My Way," and Fr. Fernandez chimes in on the chorus.

Finally, the Rector Major offered a brief Good Night, translated by Fr. Tim Ploch. He began by thanking everyone who had hosted him, his secretary, and the provincials during the week. He voiced his appreciation for this little family gathering, both SDBs and the young people.

Striking one of his familiar themes, he stated that the Salesians are one congregation extended throughout the world [not just a bunch of discrete provinces], and we all need to be aware of that. He has been very much impressed by how much the Salesians are doing for the young in all the 35 countries that he has visited in his 14 months as Rector Major, and what those who work with us are doing.

Fr. Fernandez (right) giving the Good Night while Fr. Ploch (left) translates.

 He urged the two U.S. provinces not to be afraid of the future. There’s much to be hopeful about, he said. Although we’ve had our problems, we have many young people in formation, and that in itself is reason for hope. This evening celebration has been an expression of both joy and of hope.

He continued by calling the just-concluded bicentennial celebration a blessing and a year of grace. He invited us to be happy because we are Salesians. He prays that we may always be faithful to the Lord and present to the young, especially those who need us most. If we do this, he promised, there will be a celebration of Don Bosco’s 300th birthday in the U.S. and Canada.

Our Rector Major deeply impressed everyone at this family gathering with his ready smile, his friendliness, his accessibility, and his energy.

Homily for 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
30th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Oct. 25, 2015
Mark 10: 46-52
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle

“As Jesus was leaving Jericho…, Bartimaeus, a blind man, … sat by the roadside begging” (Mark 10: 46).

Jesus has passed thru Jericho and come to the outskirts of the city, to the periphery, to use one of Pope Francis’s favorite words.  More significant, there he finds a blind beggar, a man who is on the periphery of society.

The people around Jesus—and this presumably includes the 12—want Bartimaeus to stay there on the periphery.  When he calls out to Jesus, they tell him to hush.  You’d think that at this point in Jesus’ ministry, the disciples—not only the 12 but all of them—would know Jesus’ concern for the poor and disadvantaged.  You’d think that at this point they’d have absorbed a little bit of his teaching about service having precedence over power.

You’d think that at this point in the life of Jesus’ Church we also would have absorbed those lessons and would find it perfectly natural to go to the peripheries—both places and the people who live and struggle in those places—and wouldn’t need the extraordinary charisma of a Pope to push us in that direction.  You wouldn’t think that the Pope would have to chastise high-ranking clerics about careerism or urge lower-ranking ones to get out of their rectories and into the lives of their people.

I know that the Ursulines are indeed sensitive to the world’s outcasts, and you strive to make your pupils and others likewise sensitive—to immigrants and refugees, the unemployed, struggling families, et al.—our 21st-century versions of blind Bartimaeus.  Strive also to be sensitive to the needs—emotional, spiritual, and physical—of the people immediately around you, your sisters in community.  Could there be sisters on some kind of social or physical periphery here or elsewhere in your province?

The episode of Bartimaeus is, of course, just one example of how Jesus showed sensitivity, and more, to the people around him and the people on the edges of society.  We turn now to what the son of Timaeus does, this man whose proper name we don’t know but whose story merited Mark’s attention.

Jesus tells him to go his way (10:52).  (The Greek text—upage—actually says, “Go off”; “be on your way” is a fair rendering.)  Jesus, tho, does not instruct him to “come” or “follow me.”  He dismisses Bartimaeus to go where he pleases, to go about his business.

And what does the healed man, the man who now sees in a way he didn’t see before, do?  He follows Jesus “on the way.”  He goes the way of Jesus.  What is Jesus’ way?  We’ve been hearing it for several weeks:  he’s on his way to Jerusalem, to the cross, to giving his life as a ransom (10:32-34).  The man who was blind sees what no one else does—not the scribes and Pharisees, not the crowd that tried to hush him up, not even the 12.  He alone makes his way the way of Jesus by willingly following where Jesus is going.

Bartimaeus is opting for the community of Jesus’ disciples, albeit with—this is implied rather than stated—more insight than anyone else; opting for community rather than individualism, self-centeredness, going his own separate way.  Jesus instructed him to be off, but he doesn’t go his individual way.  You know that a lot of folks today want to be “spiritual but not religious,” i.e., not part of any organized religion, not part of a religious community (parish or church).  None of that for Bartimaeus!  He goes with Jesus, the 12, and the rest of the disciples.  He’s demonstrating for us the free, total choice of Jesus and of community.

There’s more in Bartimaeus’s choice—for Mark’s readers, for us, if not for Bartimaeus directly.  He can’t have been aware of all that Jesus has been teaching the 12 in the preceding passages, such as last Sunday’s gospel (10:35-45), which immediately precedes this one in Mark 10.

This community that Bartimaeus is joining is very far from perfect.  James and John were just plotting a coup, to get themselves the key places of power and influence in Jesus’ kingdom, and the other 10 were “indignant” with them because of that.  They argue among themselves like a bunch of kids.  Jesus has to explain to them again what “greatness” in his kingdom means; has to remind them that he’s on his way toward the surrender of his life and not the conquest of a kingdom, at least not a kingdom as they understand it.

As I said, Bartimaeus must not be aware of any of that.  But we, Mark’s readers, are.  We are part of a very imperfect, still-on-the-way community, like the one that Bartimaeus is choosing to join even as he attaches himself to Christ.  Christ’s community of disciples is a community of sinners.  Some people can’t handle that, and they divorce themselves from the great community of the Church—Martin Luther, Marcel Lefevre, the “spiritual but not religious” types, and many ordinary religious dropouts who can’t fathom membership alongside a bunch of sinners.

But these sinners—we sinners—are following Jesus:  Jesus who heals, Jesus who leads us into light, Jesus who is more powerful than all our weaknesses, Jesus who transforms his disciples into saints while they walk along his way.

Fr. Chester Szemborski, SDB (1923-2015)

Fr. Chester Szemborski, SDB (1923-2015)

Fr. Chet as a jubilarian in 2005

Fr. Chester Szemborski passed from earthly life into eternity on the evening of Tuesday, October 20, at Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, N.Y. He was 92 years old and had been a professed Salesian for 75 years and a priest for 65 years.

A message from Fr. Steve Shafran, provincial, stated that in his final illness—the result of a broken hip complicated by the onset of pneumonia—Fr. Chester was supported by the Salesian community of the Marian Shrine in Haverstraw, N.Y., to which he belonged; his loving sister Eleanor; and his family and friends.

Chet Szemborski entered this life on June 30, 1923, in Paterson, N.J., the son of Jerome and Lottie Szemborski. They belonged to St. Stephen’s Parish in Paterson, where Chet entered Christ’s life 19 days later.

Chet entered the aspirantate of Don Bosco Seminary at Newton, N.J., in the fall of 1935. He was admitted to the novitiate there in September 1939 and made his first profession of vows on September 8, 1940.

On his way toward his B.A. in philosophy, awarded by Don Bosco College in Newton in June 1943, Bro. Chester was a fine student; he graduated cum laude. He then did his practical training as teacher and assistant with the aspirants in Newton for two years and moved with the aspirants to Suffern, N.Y., in 1945.

From 1946 to 1950 Bro. Chester studied theology at the Pontificio Ateneo Salesiano (the “Crocetta”) in Turin, earning an STL degree. He was ordained on July 2, 1950, in the basilica of Mary Help of Christians at the Salesian motherhouse in Turin.

Fr. Chester returned to the province to take up various school and parish assignments. He was prefect of studies at Don Bosco Tech in Paterson (1950-1951), prefect at Salesian High in New Rochelle (1951-1953), assistant pastor at St. Anthony Church in Elizabeth, N.J. (1953-1959, 1960-1962), teacher at Don Bosco Juniorate in Haverstraw (1959-1960), assistant pastor at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Mahwah, N.J. (1962-1965), and chaplain for the Salesian Sisters in North Haledon (1965-1966).

In the late 1960s Fr. Chester did studies in psychology. He earned an M.A. from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Rutherford, N.J., in 1969 and subsequently was licensed as a school psychologist by both New Jersey and New York. He later published his dissertation, The Wisdom of Jung: A Theory of Personality, in paperback (rare copies were selling on the Internet from $19.00 to $58.50 at the time of his death).

Notwithstanding his certification, he spent most of the years between 1970 and 1982 at the provincial residence, dealing with health problems. For one year (1971-1972) he was posted to Salesian Junior Seminary in Goshen, N.Y., as treasurer. When his health improved somewhat, he transferred to the Marian Shrine in Haverstraw, where he resided from 1982 to 2001.

Declining health led to Fr. Chester’s move to Northern Riverview Rest Home in Haverstraw in 2001, where he enjoyed visiting his fellow residents and bringing them such limited priestly ministry as he could in that situation. Frequently he was brought to visit his community at the Shrine, and he enjoyed taking part in province events such as jubilees and professions, at which he was a friendly presence. He remained at Northern Riverview until he fell and broke his hip early in September this year.

Fr. Chester is survived by his sister Eleanor Szemborski of Paterson, N.J. Two brothers, Stanley and Henry, predeceased him.

Funeral rites will be celebrated on Friday, October 23, in the chapel of the Marian Shrine:

       2:00 p.m.             Reception of the Body and Wake

       7:30 p.m.             Mass of Christian Burial

Burial will take place in Calvary Cemetery, Paterson, N.J., on Saturday, October 24, at 11:00 a.m.

Interamerica Provincials Meeting in Haverstraw

Interamerica Provincials Meeting in Haverstraw

Since Sunday the 18th the provincials of our SDB region, called Interamerica, have been meeting at Don Bosco Retreat Center in Haverstraw, N.Y.  These regional meetings happen more or less annually with the location shifting among the 13 provinces: U.S. East-Canada, U.S. West, Antilles, Haiti, Mexico (2), Central America, Colombia (2), Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia.  The regional councilor (a general councilor), Fr. Tim Ploch, presides.  It was our turn to be host, and our vice provincial, Fr. Tim Zak, did most of the coordination work--no simple task, even making all the airport pick-ups.

Our provincial, Fr. Steve Shafran, describes the purpose and nature of these meetings thus:  "It is a wonderful opportunity for the provincials to get together, share their experiences, and reflect on some common themes. We are experiencing a real sense of community while we are together. No matter what country we are from, our common Salesian heritage and love for Don Bosco is the thread that binds us."

Later in the week some of the other general councilors, including my "chief," Fr. Filiberto Gonzalez of the Communications Dept., will show up.  Finally, the Rector Major will appear on the weekend, just before the meeting concludes on Saturday evening.

Today (Tuesday), they had an afternoon outing to New Rochelle to see the provincial house and get a tour of Salesian Missions, followed by supper at the mission office (to which our community also was invited).  Before evening prayers they posed on our front lawn for a group photo.

Besides the provincials, Bro. Bruno Busatto from the mission office is at the far left, Fr. Mark Hyde, director of the mission office, is at the far right, and Fr. Zak is in the back row (2d from right).  Fr. Shafran is to the right of Fr. Zak.  Fr. Tim Ploch is in the center in the blue sweater.

As you can tell from the foliage, autumn hasn't really hit us yet--just touched us a little.