Homily for Thursday, 11th Week of Ordinary Time

Homily for Thursday
11th Week of Ordinary Time

June 17, 2021
2 Cor 11: 1-11
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Home, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“If only you would put up with a little foolishness from me!” (2 Cor 11: 1).

In several of his letters—Galatians is another example—Paul is compelled to defend his apostleship and the Gospel he preaches.  He has always had opponents of his message:  Jews who don’t believe in

Christ, pagans who find the Gospel cuts against their economic interests, and those he calls “false apostles” who insist that the Greeks must adopt the Law of Moses in order to become Christians.

That last group are Paul’s foes in this passage.  Against them, Paul reminds the Corinthians that his preaching among them has been entirely selfless:  giving them over to Christ as to a spouse, not taking any salary or fee from them, as the Church’s ministers are entitled to do.  Therefore he merits their trust when he asserts that “the truth of Christ” is in him (11:10).

That truth—the truth of the Gospel—is at stake when self-appointed apostles, whom he sneeringly calls “superapostles” (11:5), come “preaching another Jesus than the one we preached” (11:4).

Variations on the Gospel have always been a problem for the Church, from Paul’s time thru medieval heresies and the Protestant Reformation up till today.  Today dissenters from Vatican II preach a different Gospel.  So do nominally Catholic folks who approve of abortion, homosexuality, and women’s ordination.

Paul fears that “as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning,” the “thoughts [of his Corinthian friends] may be corrupted from a sincere and pure commitment to Christ” (11:3).  Last week Bp. Robert Barron forcefully reminded hundreds of Catholic journalist and communicators—as you can read in Catholic media online or in print—that our primary duty is to preach Jesus Christ risen from the dead.  So Paul did.  Christ’s resurrection is what validates his teaching and the teaching of his living spouse, the Church.

Homily for Tuesday, 11th Week of Ordinary Time

Homily for Tuesday
11th Week of Ordinary Time

June 15, 2021
2 Cor 8: 1-9
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Home, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“In a severe test of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their profound poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part” (2 Cor 8: 2).

Paul’s writing from Macedonia, where he’d founded churches in Philippi, Thessalonica, and Beroea (we don’t have a letter to the Beroeans), and he’s informing his friends in Corinth, in the province of Achaia, of the generous collection that the Macedonians have been taking up “in the service of the holy ones,” i.e., for the church in Jerusalem.  This collection is mentioned in several places in Paul’s letters, and the Corinthians also were contributing.  Paul’s appealing to them to match the generosity of the Macedonians, who are making their gift from a position of “affliction” and “profound poverty”—a condition the Corinthians don’t share.

We don’t know what afflictions the Macedonians were experiencing—whether it was some form of persecution, a natural disaster like the earthquake that struck Philippi while Paul and Silas were in jail there (Acts16:19-39), economic hardship, or something else.  Nevertheless, they’re displaying “a wealth of generosity” (8:2).  The Corinthians ought to “complete this gracious act also” (8:6).

I’m sure no one ventures to take up a collection among you, brothers.  I’m sure, however, that as a community you’re generous in responding to various needs of your province, of your schools, of people in want in one form or another.

Our generosity can extend beyond material goods.  You remember the scene in the Acts of the Apostles when a lame man accosts Peter and John as they’re going into the Temple.  Peter responds, “Silver and gold I have not; but what I have I’ll give you.”  And he heals the man in Jesus’ name. (Acts 3:1-8)  We have Jesus to share with people:  his love, his friendship, his virtues.  We can give Jesus to each other, to our staff, to our families, to alumni that we’ve kept in touch with, to the doctors and nurses we see, perhaps more often than we’d like to.  This was always the most gracious act within our power, and it still is.

Homily for 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

June 13, 2021
2 Cor 5: 6-10
Holy Name of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.
St. Theresa, Bronx

“We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord” (2 Cor 5: 6).

We returned to Ordinary Time, the “green season,” on May 24, but because of Trinity Sunday and the solemnity of Corpus Christi on the following Sundays, today is the 1st Sunday in which we actually return to one of the “ordered” Sundays, the numbered Sundays, that give this liturgical season its name, Ordinary Time.

When we left off Ordinary Time before Ash Wednesday, we were reading from St. Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians.  Now we’ll have several weeks of reading from 2d Corinthians.

Paul preaching before King Agrippa (Nikolai Bodarevsky)

In today’s passage, 5 verses, Paul speaks of a certain tension in Christian life.  On this earth, in our physical bodies, we’re not completely at home.  Our true home, he says, is with Christ.  To live in this world separated from Christ—“away from the Lord” is how he puts it, not meaning a separation from grace or from God’s love but a physical separation—requires that we be “courageous.”  He uses that word twice (5:6,8).  That’s because “we walk by faith, not be sight” (5:7).  We don’t see our Lord Jesus, risen from the dead.  We don’t feel his presence.  We can’t probe the wounds in his hands and side as St. Thomas did.  He’s present to us only by faith.

So we need courage to follow him, to worship him, to obey his teachings—all in the midst of a world that is unbelieving (as much of our society and our culture, is unbelieving and even hostile, like the pagan world of 1st-century Corinth).

Paul is certainly speaking for himself when he writes, “We would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord” (5:8).  Christ died to redeem us from sin and from death.  As soon as we can leave those realities behind and join him in the life of the resurrection, our destiny will be achieved; we’ll enjoy eternal happiness.  God created us for this; the Son of God took on a body of flesh and blood for this—to unite himself to us and bring us into eternal life in a transfigured body like his own risen body.

So, Paul continues, as long as we’re here on earth, in this present body, subject to temptation and to harassment by unbelievers—not to mention to physical pains and sufferings and the loss of people we love—as long as that’s our present condition, Paul affirms, “we aspire to please him, whether we are at home or away” (5:9).  That is, when we come to our heavenly home, we’ll live always pleasing him; while we’re away from our heavenly homeland, the destination of our pilgrimage here below, we strive to please him by living virtuously:  honestly, devoutly, chastely, generously, patiently, forgiving, respecting others.

Then Paul sounds an almost ominous note:  “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (5:10).  We profess every Sunday, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”  He’ll take a place on his judicial bench (at least figuratively) and weigh our lives:  our words, our deeds, our omissions, “my thoughts and my words, what I have done and what I have failed to do,” as we sometimes confess at the beginning of Mass.  Again, it takes courage to keep Christ before our minds and our hearts, day in and day out and to try to cling to him when we’re irritated or stressed or tired or tempted by the 7 capital sins (pride, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, sloth, and greed).

Paul concludes this little passage by assuring us that each of us will “receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil” (5:10).  We’ll get our just desserts, so to speak.  Actually, since we’re sinners, we won’t get what we deserve; rather, by Christ’s grace, if we’ve striven to stay close to him, we’ll get far more than we deserve:  an eternal reward, an eternal home, with him.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, be of good courage always.  Continue to walk by faith.

Homily for Memorial of the Salesian Polish Martyrs

Homily for the Memorial of the
Salesian Martyrs of Poland

June 12, 2021
2 Cor 5: 14-21
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

The Salesian ordo (liturgical calendar) allows an option for today's celebration: either Immaculate Heart of Mary or the 5 young martyrs of the Poznan Salesian oratory.

“The love of Christ impels us” (2 Cor 5: 14).

Paul’s “us” possibly means himself and Timothy, in whose name, too, this letter was written.  Christ’s love is the driving force in their apostolic ministry.  “Us” could also mean all of the Christian community at Corinth, all for whom Christ died, all who are called to live for him.

It was that living for Christ, that being impelled or driven by Christ, that made the difference in the lives of Francis Kesy, Chester Jozwiak, Edward Kazmierski, Edward Klinik, and Jarogniew Wojciechowski.  (I tried and failed to find an English equivalent for “Jarogniew,” as well as trying and probably failing to pronounce these names correctly.)

As you know, these 5 youths were leaders in the Salesian oratory at Poznan, one of Poland’s largest and oldest cities.  The youngsters of the oratory engaged in all the usual Salesian activities, religious, cultural, recreational, including singing in their parish choir, and summer camp activities that included singing in other parish churches.

Germany invaded Poland and launched WWII on Sept. 1, 1939.  Within a few months, if not weeks, the oratory and numerous other religious and civic activities were shut down.  But our 5 blesseds continued to lead activities secretly in the woods, the fields, and gardens.  They knew they were in danger from that even tho they weren’t directly challenging the Nazi authorities.  But the love of Christ impelled them.

For the Gestapo, an indirect challenge, even suspicion, was sufficient cause to arrest Polish civilians.  So in September 1940, Francis, the 2 Edwards, Chester, and Jarogniew were arrested separately.  At that time they were 19, 20, 21, 21, and 17 years old, respectively—3 of them not even legally adults.  They were jailed, interrogated, tortured, and moved to different prisons.  Sometimes 2 of them would be together; at other times they were totally separated from each other tho not from other prisoners.  A constant concern was how their friends were faring, as well as how their families, especially younger siblings, were holding up at home.

“In Christ, the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (5:17).  For St. Paul, the old things were the Law and rabbinic traditions.  For the Corinthians, they were the pagan gods and their pagan ways of life.  In Poland, the Nazis announced a new world order, the 1,000-year reich (empire).  For our oratorians, Christ’s new order, already 1,900 years old, remained the guiding rule.  But their old things had passed away:  the freedom and joy of the oratory and their family lives, the oratory’s public worship and service to the community.  In prison, there was a new order:  sharing faith and prayer in very limited circumstances, encouraging and cheering up each other when possible, and other prisoners too, and their families when they were able to smuggle out some correspondence.

So they lived for 23 months, shuttled around, eventually no longer harassed or tortured, ever hopeful of eventual release, always aware that they might face death.  They remained faithful to the prayers they’d learned at the oratory:  morning and evening, Rosary, novenas to Don Bosco and MHC, and the Church’s cycle of feasts.

“We are ambassadors for Christ” (5:20).  Paul and Timothy preached publicly and reminded the Christian community that they too represented Christ in their daily lives.  Our 5 young men necessarily had to do that in secret even before their arrests, and of course once they were imprisoned—altho they made no attempt to hide who they were within the confinement of their cells.

The end came rather suddenly:  they were shipped back to Poznan and summarily tried for treason—against the Reich, not Poland—and condemned.  By then their ages ranged from 19 to 23.  They were transported to Dresden in Germany for execution.  As you may read in the Divine Office, they were joyful about that, consoled by the opportunity for the sacraments and by their date being set for the 24th of August (1942).  Having lived for Christ, been tortured like him and jailed for him, they died heroically for him.  Their final ambassadorship for Christ cam in the secrecy of the prison yard by guillotine.  To the end, they counted on Christ to “redeem their lives from destruction, to crown them with kindness and compassion” (Ps 103:4).

The yard of the prison in Dresden where the executions were carried out.

In 1999 St. John Paul II beatified Francis, Chester, the 2 Edwards, and Jarogniew with 103 other Polish martyrs sacrificed by the Third Reich.  All 108 are commemorated on June 12.

Homily for Solemnity of Corpus Christi

Homily for the 

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

June 6, 2021
Mark 14: 12-16, 22-26
Ex 24: 3-8
Blessed Sacrament, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many” (Mark 14: 24).

Jesus and his apostles celebrate the Passover meal in the guest room of a friend, a place that has become known to Christian tradition as the upper room and also as the cenacle (which means dining room).  It’s Jesus’ Last Supper.

St. Mark says right off that it’s “the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb” (14:12).  Jesus will take some of that unleavened bread and consecrate it as his body, the body that he’s about to sacrifice on the cross.  He’ll take a cup of Passover wine and consecrate it as his blood, to be shed on Calvary “for many,” that is, for many peoples and not only for his own Jewish people, as a sign of the new covenant that he is establishing.  Jesus becomes the new Passover lamb sacrificed to save God’s people, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

There was already a covenant between God and the Jewish people, the one established thru Moses.  We heard in the 1st reading how it was ratified with a sacrifice of “young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord” (Ex 24:5).  At Mt. Sinai God agrees to protect the Hebrews and to lead them into the Promised Land; they agree to be his people, to worship him alone, and to obey his commandments.  They seal the agreement by sharing in the blood of the sacrifice:  blood splashed upon the altar, representing God, and blood “sprinkled on the people” as Moses proclaims, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words of his” (24:8).

In the most holy Eucharist which Jesus gave us at the Last Supper, we share in his sacrifice.  We literally eat his body and blood and so become parties to his new covenant.  This sacrament, this Blessed Sacrament (your parish feast!), is truly the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood—not merely a symbol, not merely a commemoration, but a present reality that touches us with salvation:  this is his blood of the covenant shed for many, even for us in New Rochelle in 2021.

That, of course, is why it’s so important for us to come to Mass on Sundays and celebrate the Eucharist as a Catholic community.  Here we renew our covenant with our Lord Jesus by partaking of his sacrificed body and blood.  Without that, we have no spiritual life.  Without that, we separate ourselves from his people.  Without that, we can’t hope to enter the Promised Land, to feast with our Lord Jesus “in the kingdom of God” (Mark 14:25).

But when we share in the Lord’s body and blood at the Eucharistic sacrifice, we commune with the Lamb of God who saves us from the angel of death that passed over the land of Egypt in Moses’ time and still lurks, demonically, looking for more people to slay and drag into eternal death.  We commune with the Lamb who takes away our sins, protects us with his grace, and leads us to eternal life.

Homily for Friday, Week 9 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Friday
9th Week in Ordinary Time

June 4, 2021
Mark 12: 35-37
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“How do the scribes claim that the Christ is the son of David?” (Mark 12:35).

The gospel readings this week have placed Jesus in contentious dialog with the religious leaders.  Only yesterday’s interaction with an unnamed scribe could be considered friendly.

Today he’s addressing a crowd, a friendly crowd it seems, in the temple.  But the subject is still the scribes, the theologians of the day.  Jesus takes up one of their teachings, a teaching generally accepted:  the Messiah will be descended from King David, will be a son of David.  In fact, on his way up to Jerusalem, Jesus answered to blind Bartimaeus’s appeal to him as the Son of David.

It’s not the title as such that Jesus takes apart in his question today, “How can the Christ be David’s son?”  He uses Ps 110, which we’re all familiar with, to pose a conundrum that he doesn’t resolve directly.  The scribes and everyone in his audience understood that David was the composer of the Psalms (that was their understanding, even if scholars today would refine that opinion considerably), and they all agreed that the Psalms were divinely inspired.  Further, they interpreted Ps 110 as referring to the Messiah.

Given all that, Jesus asks how David, speaking in this psalm, can refer to the Messiah as his lord:  “The Lord God said to my lord,” i.e., to the Messiah, who is thus David’s lord as well as everyone else’s.  How can the Messiah be both David’s son and his lord, his ruler?  Sons are subject to their fathers, not the other way around.

The issue isn’t Jesus’ genealogy—no one disputes his physical descent from the house of David.  The issue is the meaning of his status as David’s son, as Messiah.  He’s not the Christ whom the scribes and the people and his own disciples are expecting.  We saw what they were expecting when Jesus entered Jerusalem.  All this teaching, all these dialogs are taking place in Jesus’ last week, after Palm Sunday.

What will be the relationship between David’s son and the Lord God?  King David, speaking in the psalm, submits to “my lord,” to the Messiah, because the Messiah is God’s agent for inaugurating the kingdom of God, not a new kingdom of David.  The expectations of the scribes, and everyone else, aren’t in sync with Jesus’ role as Messiah, lord not of an earthly kingdom but one in which all human beings submit to God’s rule, until all earthy powers and demonic ones as well are placed under the Messiah’s feet, and he in turn gives all over to the Lord God.

So Jesus is inviting people to reconsider their expectations of the son of David.  How often we have to reconsider our expectations!  Those of us of a certain age remember when there was talk in the province of creating a New England Province and maybe a Southern Province because we had so many Salesians.  Our expectations about new vocations and the perseverance of old vocations weren’t realistic, we can see now.  What should we expect from the realities of today as regards our ministry, as regards the life of the Church?  Actually, we ask those sorts of questions repeatedly when we’re asked to describe, then evaluate a present situation, and then choose some action steps to address it.

All aimed, as Don Bosco used to say, at the glory of God and the salvation of souls.  Or at bringing humanity under the lordship of Christ.

 

Homily for Thursday, 9th Week of Ordinary Time

Homily for Thursday
9th Week in Ordinary Time

June 3, 2021
Mark 12: 28-34
Tobit ch. 6-8
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Home, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:31).

Jesus lays out for us, with the help of one of the scribes, the 2 great commandments of the Torah.

Those commandments are evident in practice in the reading from the Book of Tobit.  E.g., Raguel shows his reverence for God by heeding “the decree of the Book of Moses” (7:11).  The sacred Scriptures are his guide.  He shows reverence for his neighbor by giving to young Tobiah what is his due (7:11-13).

Then Tobiah and Sarah reverence God by their prayer praising God and asking for his mercy, putting that before even the consummation of their marriage—altho Tobiah’s self-preservation also is a factor in that, given Sarah’s history.

Marriage of Tobiah and Sarah; Raphael binding the demon

(Jan Steen)

Yet Tobiah treats his new wife with reverence by seeing their relationship in a biblical context, under God’s lordship, and he doesn’t view Sarah as an object for his gratification:  “I take this wife of mine not because of lust, but for a noble purpose” (8:7), and he prays for the welfare of them both.  He undertakes the sacred union of marriage with a pure motive, honoring his wife and God.

The saints we remember today also honored God and their brothers.  Joseph Mkasa and Charles Lwanga attempted to defend the page boys of the royal court in their charge from the abusive vice of King Mwanga, demonstrating love for their young neighbors.  All 22 martyrs—and 23 Anglican martyrs, too—proved their love for God by affirming their Christian faith and its insistence on chastity, even to the point of horrible deaths.  Most of them were burned alive.

Brothers and sisters, we serve one another in love by our patience with one another, our readiness to assist one another, our truthfulness with one another, and negatively by not speaking ill of one another.  We honor God by acting with the purest motives we can—that purity of intention urged on us as novices—and by our present circumstances such as physical pain, acceptance of our mortality, separation from active ministry.  Even here we have ample scope to love the Lord our God wholeheartedly, and our neighbor as ourselves.

Rector Major's Message for June

THE MESSAGE OF THE RECTOR MAJOR

Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime

Letter from a Grateful Heart

While straightening my papers and notes, I found an envelope with a letter inside. A young woman had given it to me when I made my visit to the house called Americana in the Salesian province of São Paulo, Brazil.

I cordially and affectionately greet you, the regular readers of Salesian news, so many of whom are friends of Don Bosco’s charism.

It is with pleasure that I send you my simple contribution each month. I intend it as a greeting that encourages you to continue being together in this “space” that was so dear to Don Bosco, who founded the Salesian Bulletin in 1877 to keep his friends and benefactors informed. In many of the bulletins published during Don Bosco’s lifetime (he lived more than ten years beyond that founding date), he himself gave an account to his readers of what was being done in Valdocco and other Salesian houses. He thrilled his boys and his readers whenever he could with news that came from South America, first from Argentina and then from other nations.

I believe that today we, too, have the duty to stir up excitement for the good that is done by making it known and to be present even in the pain, just as we are at this time. I speak not only of the 15 long months in which we have been suffering from COVID, but especially of the great suffering now in Brazil and India, especially. This reality must make us always close to the gaze and even the pain of others. This is how life is: there is so much to be thankful for and so many reasons to rejoice, mixed with other reasons that make us cry and stand by those who suffer.

Those who have been reading my greetings during these seven years will have realized that I try, above all, to share with you something I have experienced in my life, something of the “miracles” that the Lord has allowed me to discover and see the world over, and to share simple testimonies that touch the heart. This is the one I present to you now:

Young students of the Salesian school at Americana, Brazil (ANS)

It so happened that while straightening my papers and notes, I found an envelope with a letter inside. A young woman had given it to me when I made my visit to the house called Americana in the Salesian Province of São Paulo, Brazil.

I remember that during that visit I experienced a very rich and profound encounter and dialog with young people, boys and girls between 16 and 24 years old. We spoke, one might say, for two hours about the “human and the divine.” I had a beautiful exchange with about 100 young people from that Salesian house.

When I found the letter, I reread it and told myself that, with Elian’s presumed permission, I had to share this simple message from the heart of this young woman who had found a place, a space, and people in a Salesian house, and that had changed her life. I thought to myself, “Don Bosco, who was so enthusiastic about making known the good that was being done and how his educational and evangelizing system transformed the lives of his boys, would also be happy to make known what many young people of today say.” Not all are happy, naturally, but many others do feel happiness in these houses of Don Bosco where they have found a playground and friends with whom to share, a school that prepares them for life, a church that helps them come to know God in freedom, and a home that welcomes unconditionally, as happened to Elian.

The difference in my life

In her letter, she writes:

Americana, October 12, 2017

Dear Fr. Angel,

My name is Elian T.S., and I am 17 years old. I am very nervous because, after all, we are not always so honored by the presence and attention of someone who represents those who do such beautiful and great work and who have made such a difference in my life.

I can say that anyone who knows or who even just experiences a Salesian work is never the same again, regardless of their religion, ethnicity, or color. The teachings, values, and affection that are transmitted to us young people have the power to make such a great impact that they leave their mark on us for a lifetime.

I remember coming to Americana in 2005, when I was seven years old. Despite being from a different religious background, I began to get involved in all the delights of knowing and being someone in the Salesian world.  From my contact with Don Boscos’ story and work, I was able to learn more about life, things that very many young people look for in the world but can’t find. I could see that the difficulties of life can be overcome with help, with closeness, and with a smile at the end of an afternoon. I came to know that the priests in this house where I spent much time can be good friends and counselors and that nothing is more beautiful than the action of God in our lives.

Salesian youth volunteers gathered for a prayer service (ANS)

I can’t say it was always easy. Many times feelings of fatigue and frustration surfaced, and many times I wanted to abandon the difficulties and the work, but, fortunately, like Don Bosco, I met people (whose faces I remember with great fondness), who supported me at all times. They did not “let me go.” They were people who opened their hearts and showed and taught me how to love as Jesus loved and as the Father and Teacher of Youth loved his boys. So I was able to join the Missionary Team, the Corazón de Jesús (Heart of Jesus) Group, and the Saint Dominic Savio Oratory, where I dedicate my time and which, simply, means so much to me because of the smiles of the children I know, and I feel that everything is worth it.

I know that I have been talking a lot, but none of these words that I have spoken or that are written here would be enough to show my gratitude and my affection to this man of faith, who gave himself for us young people and to those who continue to do the same today—the Salesians and the men and women in these houses of Don Bosco. It is wonderful.

Thank you for everything and for being our Rector Major.

With great affection,

Elian T.S.

There you have the letter from this young woman. I don’t know where she is now. Maybe she is in the university or starting another phase of her life. Maybe she has a job, or maybe she is thinking about her future and the plans for her life, maybe, maybe. But what I do not doubt is that what she carries in her heart (and this letter is a small, but precious sample of it) will give her the strength to be a great woman and to give the best of herself to others. That’s what education and families are all about: to prepare us for life so we may always give the best of ourselves to others.

May the Lord of Life bless you all.

Fr. Angel

 

Homily for Memorial of St. Justin

Homily for the Memorial of St. Justin

June 1, 2021
Tuesday, Week 
9 of O.T.
Collect
Mark 12: 13-17
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Home, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“Thru the folly of the cross, you wondrously taught St. Justin the Martyr the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ” (Collect).

Justin was a Greek philosopher from Palestine, born at the beginning of the 2d century.  He sought wisdom in the various teachings of the Greeks until the wisdom of Christianity was shown to him.  He converted and went to Rome to teach what he knew to be the true philosophy, founded not on myths but on divine reason, on the Logos, God’s Word.

Justin explained Christianity to the Roman public, especially the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius, in 2 apologies, i.e., defenses of the faith.  In one of them he describes the Christian liturgy of mid-2d century, which we clearly recognize as the same form of worship that we have today.

In today’s gospel (Mark 12:13-17), Jesus gives his famous teaching on balancing what we owe to God and what we owe to Caesar, or the state.  In Justin’s time, Caesar demanded worship, even to the point of claiming the title “Lord.”  When Christians reserved that title to God, or to Christ in particular, their allegiance became suspect.  Despite explanations of Christian rites, such as Justin’s, their secrecy—necessary in the face of public hostility and persecution—also made them suspect.

So, in 165 Justin and others were arrested and tried, in effect for treason, like countless martyrs until our own time.  And they were executed.

We who strive to pay to God what he’s due—everything—will always have a price to pay for our “steadfastness in the faith” (Collect).  We pray for ourselves and especially for our brothers and sisters facing harassment and persecution, that our hearts may remain “firm, trusting in the Lord” (Responsory).  Our steadfastness in a skeptical age, especially among the young—perhaps our own nephews and nieces—may help steady their faith.

Salesian Missions and Laudato Si'

Salesian Missions and Laudato Si’

by Julia St. Clair

Fr. Gus Baek with Kenyan youths

Photo: Barbara Gebala, Digital Programs Supervisor, Salesian Missions

(ANS – New Rochelle – May 31, 2021) – New Rochelle-based Salesian Missions, a private, nonprofit organization that operates as a non-governmental organization (NGO), is dedicated to raising money for and helping projects to advance in the Third World. “In 2020, we helped 67 provinces, which received $8.5 million for over 100 projects,” Fr. Gus Baek, director of Salesian Missions, explained. “We have been doing this for 75 years, during which we’ve raised over $637 million.” In the special year dedicated to the encyclical Laudato Si’ (May 24, 2020-2021), the mission office oversaw, among its many projects, numerous programs on the environmental theme.

Salesian Missions provides aid through education, health, humanitarian assistance, church-building, and the Salesian Lay Missioners program. A recent example of how Salesian Missions helped moral and spiritual development through education is how they funded 1,000 Bibles through the Koch Foundation. Additionally, their chapel projects saw 35 chapels provided for during 2020 and raised a total of $607,475 to support the cause.

Moreover, one way that Salesian Missions has participated in the fifth anniversary of Laudato Si’ is how they introduced a renewable energy training program in Tanzania that serves over 480 students a year. With funding from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Don Bosco Vocational Training Centers created training laboratories and enhanced their solar and electronic classes and workshops. Students can now study solar energy installation, operation, and equipment maintenance. The project increases access to quality technical training on renewable energy, a fast-growing industry in Tanzania.

“They cannot find fossil energy in Africa, so solar energy is the way of the future. And it’s better for the environment,” Fr. Gus began. “We’re training young men and women to use solar funds and basic equipment, as well as to install solar panels. After graduation, 100% of kids get jobs. This is great since we need well-trained people in this area.”

Salesian Missions has also funded many clean water initiatives around the world. In Burkina Faso, where the Don Bosco Center is no stranger to solar energy, Salesian Missions recently helped to install a solar-powered water pump. They use 30 solar energy lamps to light up the center. When they requested a solar-powered borehole, Salesian Missions was happy to help. They provided the missing solar pump needed to complete the borehole and water tower that now provide clean water for the center and surrounding community.

“I saw only two countries before the pandemic—Tanzania and Kenya. In both places, children must travel long distances with no shoes to get water,” Fr. Gus exclaimed. “Salesian parishes help them, and we include their stories as examples when we do our weekly outreach. The clean water projects receive very strong and positive responses.”

To learn more about ongoing projects at Salesian Missions, please visit https://salesianmissions.org 

Homily for the Feast of the Holy Trinity

Homily for the Feast 
of the Holy Trinity

May 30, 2021
Rom 8: 14-17
Holy Name of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Rom 8: 16-17).

National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.

We’re celebrating today the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, that core dogma of Christian faith that God is one and 3:  one God of 3 Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit existing in communion with each other from eternity.

We can’t understand, much less explain, this mystery of faith; we can only state that it’s so.  The sacred Scriptures affirm it, like those we just heard from Paul’s Letter to the Romans and Matthew’s Gospel (28:16-20).

Part of the wonder of this mystery is that God has called us into communion with himself.  In the Old Testament he spoke to one particular people, “took one nation for himself from the midst of another nation” (Deut 4:34), called Israel out of Egypt to make them his own in a relationship sometimes compared to a father and child; e.g., in God’s voice the prophet Hosea exclaims, “Out of Egypt I called my son” (11:1); or compared to a husband and wife, as in the Song of Songs.  God has created and ardently desires an intimate, family relationship with his people.

That family relationship has been intensified by the coming of Jesus Christ and his gift to us of the Holy Spirit.  We’ve been born again of water and the Holy Spirit; we’ve been adopted into the divine family.  We have “received a Spirit of adoption, thru which we cry ‘Abba!’” (Rom 8:15), which means “Papa” or “Daddy.”  By the association of the Son of God with us, by the gift of the HS, God the Father has adopted us as his own children, his sons and daughters alongside Jesus Christ “and joint heirs” (8:17) with Christ of all the joy and glory of the kingdom of heaven.

In the Creed we recite a phrase that some people find troublesome—not because they disagree with it but because they don’t understand it.  We affirm that the “Lord Jesus Christ” is “begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.”  As a human being, of course, Jesus of Nazareth was born in time, which we celebrate at Christmas; his humanity was begotten, as the Creed itself states further on.

But God’s Son who was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary and from her assumed our human nature already existed, existed forever in his divine nature, his divine self:  begotten by the Father, not created, not made.  If he had been created, he would have had a beginning; and if he had a beginning he is not God.  St. John begins his Gospel:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (1:1,14).  The Word, the Father’s self-expression, is eternally begotten as a distinct Person, the Son.  Just how the Father begets the Son, we can’t say.  Obviously it’s not the same way that human beings or other animals beget their offspring.

The Creed states further that the Son is “consubstantial” with the Father.  I.e., he is of exactly the same substance as the Father; whatever the Father is as God, so is the Son.  That substance is divinity, as your substance and mine is humanity, and the substance of your pet is dog-ness or cat-ness or parakeet-ness, etc.  (I don’t intend to run thru the whole Bronx Zoo.)

Our adoption as God’s children doesn’t make us Christ’s equals.  We’re not “consubstantial” with the Father or with the Son, however much we share human nature with Christ.

How many of you have pets?  Pet owners, dog owners especially, are prone to call their pets members of the family.  They may even have gone thru an adoption process at the Human Society.  The owner become doggy’s mommy or daddy (and after some training doggy becomes more obedient and docile than the little humans in the household; cats are another story).  We all know, however, that the pet isn’t human, isn’t really a son or daughter by nature but only by adoption, so to speak.

Graham (by Elisa Donahue)

Our relationship to God thru Christ is different.  We are God’s adopted children, and we really are his daughters and sons by grace.  Baptism makes a definitive difference in who we are, such as no Humane Society paperwork can do for puppy or kitty.  God thru Christ really makes us heirs with Christ of the heavenly kingdom.  We may laugh, or maybe cringe, when we hear that some—dare we say “crazy”?—person has left a big inheritance to a pet.  Our inheritance is something firmer, more substantial, and everlasting.  God loves us far more substantially—everlastingly—than any man or woman ever loved a dog or a cat.

Tinkerbelle (by Jo Ann Donahue)

St. Matthew tells us that, even after Jesus rose and appeared to the 11 apostles and they worshipped him, “they doubted” (28:17).  Does that astonish you?  We need have no doubts that God truly loves us, loves us passionately, and ardently desires us to belong to his family.  His gift of the Holy Spirit binds us firmly to his own Trinitarian life and entitles us, as the liturgy reminds us before holy Communion, to “dare” to call him, in union with his Son Jesus, “our Father” and to look with “blessed hope” to the Son’s return on the Last Day to escort us to our place in our Father’s home,

Homily for Memorial of St. Augustine of Canterbury

Homily for the Memorial of
St. Augustine of Canterbury

May 27, 2021
Collect
Psalm 33
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

Today’s Collect notes simply that “the preaching of St. Augustine of Canterbury led the English peoples to the Gospel.”

http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.com/2012/05/

st-augustine-of-canterbury.html

The story began, we’re told by the Venerable Bede, in a Roman slave market, where a monk named Gregory beheld some handsome fair-haired youths up for sale.  Asking who they were, he was informed that they were Angles from Britain, which had once been at the farthest reach of the Empire but had since been overrun by various Germanic tribes.  Gregory replied, admiringly, “Not Angles but angels”  He began to think about evangelizing Britain.

But he was called to papal diplomatic service and then to the papacy itself, in 590.  So any hope of a missionary career was finished.

But not Gregory’s dream of evangelizing England.  It took a few more years, but he organized a large band of monks from his old monastery of St. Andrew—40 of them, I recollect—and sent them on their way in 596 under the leadership of Augustine, their prior.

The journey thru Gaul was hazardous in that period often called the Dark Ages, but they persevered and reached the Saxon kingdom of Kent in southeast England in 597, where the local ruler, one Ethelbert, had a Christian wife from Gaul and received them favorably.  He bestowed land on them for a church and monastery, so the great establishment of Canterbury came to be.

Meanwhile, Gregory had made Augustine a bishop; Canterbury became the primatial see, as it remains for the Anglicans.  Augustine converted Ethelbert and had great success in preaching the Gospel thruout England’s southeast.  He created suffragan sees at London and Rochester.

He was less successful in another mission Gregory had given him.  You know that Christianity had come to Britain long before, when Rome ruled much of the island.  Think St. Patrick.  Those Celtic Christians had their own customs, including a different date for Easter, that Gregory hoped to reconcile with Roman usages.  Augustine was no diplomat, and reconciliation failed until decades after his death.  He died in the 1st decade of the new century, exact year uncertain.

Augustine’s legacy was a strong, vibrant Church that produced numerous saints, missionaries, and martyrs.  He enabled the Anglo-Saxon peoples of Britain, and the Jutes and Danes who followed their invasive trails, to “sing a new song” to the Lord (Ps 33:3) and to spread the word of the Lord’s kindness (33:5) thruout the island and back to still-pagan Europe—think St. Boniface.  Augustine and his monks and those they inspired helped “all the earth fear the Lord,” and “all who dwell in the world revere him” (33:8).

The rest of our Collect—its actual petition—was that “the fruits of his labors may remain ever abundant in your Church.”  That’s where we come in, continuing to preach the same Gospel, still living, that Augustine brought to England 1,424 years ago.

Homily for Solemnity of Pentecost

Homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost

May 23, 2021
Gal 5: 16-25
Holy Name of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.            
St. Joseph’s Home, New Rochelle[1]                       

“Brothers and sisters, live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh” (Gal 5: 16).

Today we celebrate God’s great gift to the disciples of Jesus, the gift of the Holy Spirit.  In 2 of the Scripture readings we heard accounts of how the Spirit was given:  the very dramatic and public rushing of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-11), and a quiet, private bestowal of the Spirit on Easter nite (John 20:19-23).

Either way of reading how Jesus has given us this wonderful gift, the gift is, as the Collect says, for the sanctification of the “whole Church in every people and nation.”  We pray that “the hearts of believers” today may be filled with “divine grace,” as the hearts of the apostles, the Virgin Mary, and the other 1st believers were.

by Jean Restout

The Church, the community of all believers, needs the sanctifying gift of the Holy Spirit.  As individuals and as a larger community, we are in mortal combat daily against what St. Paul calls “the works of the flesh” (Gal 5:19).  His catalog of those works is long and would dishearten us—“immorality , impurity, lust, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like” (5:19-21)—were it not that the Spirit of Christ is stronger.

The Spirit of Christ offers us forgiveness, as we heard in the gospel, and then gives us the power to think and live differently.  “In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (5:22-23).

St. Paul may say, “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires” (5:24).  If only it were that straightforward!  Those passions, those works that St. Paul lists, afflict us all so terribly.

But Jesus gave us his Holy Spirit when we were baptized and when we were confirmed.  We know we are temples of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit will help us tackle those passions—our penchant for gossip and passing judgment, our addiction to gambling, drink, or pornography, our readiness to snap at our spouse or our children, our need to compare our house, our car, or our wardrobe with someone else’s.  The Spirit will help us practice the virtues that we and the whole world need so much:  to be faithful, to be gentle, to be joyful, to be life-affirming; will help us bring our Lord Jesus to our families, friends, and acquaintances.  How much the world needs that!  In the Holy Spirit, we can do our little part for the world.

That work in the Spirit can begin today.  Which of those 9 virtues in Paul’s list do you think you really need?  Focus on it.  Concentrate on it.  Decide that you will live that virtue today.  Follow up tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.  Keep thinking about—and praying for—gentleness or patience or self-control or whatever virtue you chose.  Jesus is eager for you to grow closer to him, to be a more faithful disciple.  He gives you (and all of us) his Holy Spirit to strengthen and guide us.

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      [1] Text published here was adapted somewhat for the elder Christian Brothers.

Vol. IX of Critical Edition of Don Bosco's Letters

Vol. IX of Critical Edition
of Don Bosco’s Letters Presented

Frs. Motto & Anchukandam

(ANS – Rome – May 21, 2021) – On Wednesday, May 19, 2021, the ninth volume of the critical edition of Don Bosco’s Epistolario was presented at the School of the Science of Communication of the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome. This volume collects 469 letters written by the saint in the three years 1884-1886.

After a greeting from the dean of the School of Educational Sciences (FSE), Fr. Mario Llanos, SDB, who stated that he felt emotionally involved in reading the volume, the editor of the letters, Fr. Francesco Motto, SDB, director of the Istituto Storico Salesiano (ISS), spoke. He illustrated the particular methodology followed in the critical edition of the letters and, through summary tables, indicated the correspondents, the anecdotal classification, the archives consulted, the chronological and topical dates, etc., of the letters published in volume IX.

Prof. Giancarlo Cursi, sociologist and professor of pedagogical methodology at the FSE, then spoke. He identified the salient features of the relationship between Don Bosco and his lay correspondents, highlighting Don Bosco’s different attitude toward men and women: from being a collaborator in a shared project to a person humanly sensitive to the needs of the “orphans”; a different attitude that emerges from the very beginning of the letter, to return also in the farewell letters.

The call to Heaven, present in all the letters to the laity, is obviously at the center of those addressed to clerics, priests, and missionaries, with whom Don Bosco established a paternal, soothing, merciful relationship, but also firm and aimed at the spiritual and vocational growth of the correspondent. The third speaker, Fr. Carlo Maria Zanotti, SDB, professor of the history of vocational pedagogy and the pedagogy of consecrated vocations, also at FSE, dealt explicitly with this subject.

In turn, Prof. Andrea Farina, a professor at FSE and an expert in laws regarding minors and in the legislation and organization of personal services, captured in Don Bosco’s letters the typical elements of his relationship with civil and religious authorities (emperor, ministers, mayors, pope, bishops, religious superiors, et al.): a courageous, frank, self-confident relationship, expressed in different tones and ways according to the person and the occasion, but always attentive to the smallest details, aimed at the proposed objective: the service that the Salesian Congregation intended to offer aid to young people in difficulty.

The meeting was moderated by Fr. Thomas Anchukandam, SDB, director of the ISS, and was followed in livestreaming by viewers from various continents. It can still be viewed at the following address: https://youtu.be/l6X0wL_LKkM