Homily for the Funeral of John DiMille

Homily for the Funeral
of John DiMille

March 11, 2021
Wis 4: 7-15
1 John 3: 14-16
Matt 11:25-30
St. Lazarus, East Boston, Mass.

John graduated from St. Dominic Savio HS in 1977, where he’d been nicknamed “Cecil” (as in Cecil B. DeMille) from his 1st days as a freshman.  He embraced the name and, in fact, turned out to be a showman in his own right, a popular DJ who performed all over the East Boston and Revere area.  He was one of 2 members of the class who were the glue binding them together into a unique brotherhood that remains to this day.  I had the privilege of being their freshman dean and English teacher and am proud to be part of their continuing fraternity.  So I was honored to be asked by his family to preside at his funeral.  At least 17 of his classmates took part in his wake, funeral Mass, or both.

Rumor has it that when John got to the Pearly Gates—well, I think he had a hard time finding them because they’re not in East Boston—but when he got there, St. Peter said, “Cecil, good to meet you!  I hear you’re an expert on Jonathan Livingston Seagull.”

Jon, did you know you were named for the only book your dad read in 9th grade?  At least he insisted for the last 47 years that he read it.

Fortunately for John, our own beloved Cecil DiMille, at the Pearly Gates St. Peter doesn’t ask what we read or even whether we can spell.  The test at those gates is whether we’ve loved our brothers and sisters, as St. John says (3:14), whether we’ve laid down our lives for them (3:16), which means whether we’ve sacrificed ourselves for others.

Some members of the Savio Class of 1977

at their 40th anniversary reunion, 2017.

John DiMille is 4th from the right in the front row.

John did.  He sacrificed himself for 37 years for Dottie—even if he didn’t always listen to her and sometimes drove her crazy.  He sacrificed himself for Jon and Nick; no one raises kids to mature adulthood without a lot of sacrifice of time, attention, and devotion. 

John loved his Savio brothers and their families.  You’ve testified to that over and over.  He never forgot you, and never forgot those who’ve preceded him into eternity, especially Michael G.—including Salesians too.  “The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us,” St. John says of Jesus (3:16).  And he says, “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers” (3:14).  We know that John loved us, and we trust that Jesus our Savior, who set the example for us, knows it too.

The Book of Wisdom says, “The just man, tho he die early, shall be at rest” (4:7).  A century ago, 61 was considered a pretty ripe age.  The Social Security Act set 65 as retirement age expecting few workers to live much beyond that.  By that marker, John was of a good age—and all of us!  But today the average white American male has a life expectancy of 78, I believe.  John died far too young.

But honor, says Wisdom, isn’t measured by our years, nor by one’s “hoary crown.”  Vocab lesson, guys?  It means a white head.  John didn’t have that.  Rather, Wisdom says, honor and  distinction come from “an unsullied life,” an unstained life, from pleasing God even in a sinful world (4:9).  Honor before God, the honor of an upright life, of keeping God’s commandments, as we heard in last Sunday’s Scriptures (Ex 20:1-17), that far outweighs the number of our years, the number of hairs on our head and their color—or the size of our homes or our bank accounts or whether the media take note of us.  We can look at our Cecil and see a man who was honorable and rich in our eyes, and we trust that “his soul was pleasing to God, and therefore he sped him out of the midst of wickedness” (4:14).

When Jesus spoke to us in the gospel this morning, he praised God his Father for “hiding these things from the wise and the learned” and for “revealing them to the childlike” (Matt 11:25).  Honor, devotion, and sacrificial love for one’s brothers and sisters:  so many supposedly wise and learned people don’t understand those virtues—the supposedly great people of our world, like professors, politicians, tycoons, movie stars, and opinion makers.

John was one of those whom Jesus calls “childlike.”  A part of him never grew up, never got sophisticated, never got too big for his britches, was ever the same Cecil who went to class down the street and cheered the Spartans there.  He retained the simple, basic virtues he and Dottie learned from their parents, and he and you learned from your teachers at St. Mary or elsewhere and at Savio.  And John, like Jesus, handed on those virtues—to us and his sons—the true wisdom of devotion to God, family, and friends.

So we pray today for our Cecil that his labors and burdens have been laid down, and now he rests with our Lord Jesus (cf. Matt 11:28) until the Last Day, when he’ll be raised up—and we also—for eternal life, by the grace and the power of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Homily for 3d Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
3d Sunday of Lent

March 7, 2021
Ex 20: 1-17
Holy Name of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.                                    

“In those days, God delivered all these commandments:  ‘I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.  You shall not have other gods besides me’” (Ex 20: 1-3).

(by Philippe de Champaigne)

“In those days”:  The Hebrews left Egypt, miraculously crossed the Red Sea, saw their enemies annihilated in the sea, and came to Mt. Sinai.

It was at that mountain that God had revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush, calling him to return to Egypt and lead his people to freedom.  It was there that God revealed to Moses his personal name, YHWH, which most Bible translations render as “Lord,” and in, “I, the Lord, am your God.”  (Some people read the Hebrew as Jehovah.)  This God YHWH commissioned Moses and empowered him to liberate the Hebrews, and now he speaks to all of them at that same sacred mountain.

These commandments are the core element of the covenant YHWH God is making with the Hebrews.  According to this covenant, God takes care of his people, liberating them and protecting them.  They honor him, him alone, with their worship and allegiance.  They’ve left behind the many gods the Egyptians worshiped, but they’ll encounter more gods—like Baal and Astarte—in the land of Canaan, the Promised Land.

Two of the 10 commandments receive extended comment.  In the 1st, God reinforces that the Hebrews must worship only him after he has set them free from their slavery.  Mankind is always tempted to idolatry, to false gods—in our time not usually images carved in wood, stone, or metal, but gods of pride and self-regard, gods of wealth and power, gods of pleasure.  When we worship these, we leave God out of our lives.  We upend the covenant relationship that he desires with us.  We risk the loss of his protection; we risk the loss of our freedom—the freedom of our will and our character, the freedom to choose good and not evil in our lives.  We risk bondage to our sinful tendencies and the misery they bring.

We risk the loss of even our political freedom, which depends upon our collective pursuit of goodness and social virtue.  Not for nothing does our Declaration of Independence state:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Take away the Creator, and we’re left with inequality, rule by the strongest and the richest, and our rights, even our lives, are in doubt, as in Hong Kong and Burma in these days, and anywhere that jihadism and dictatorship take root.

The 2d commandment that receives extended treatment is “Remember to keep holy the sabbath day” (20:8).  God has charged humanity to rule the earth, all that he created, as his co-workers in creation.  But God “rested on the 7th day” (20:11).  We are his co-workers, not his competitors.  We imitate the One in whose image we were created (Gen 1:27).

Christians, you know, don’t observed the 7th day, Saturday, as the sabbath day, except for some idiosyncratic groups.  That’s because the resurrection of Jesus Christ established a new creation and made the 1st day of the week, the day on which he rose, the new Lord’s day, the day of new and eternal life.

But what does it mean to keep the Lord’s day holy?  The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The Lord’s Day helps everyone enjoy adequate rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social, and religious lives” (n. 2184).  The Catechism continues by saying that we “are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body” (n. 2185).  Thus observing the sabbath rest is linked to the 1st commandment about honoring the Lord our God and to freedom from the slavery of work.

The Catechism also tells us that “family needs or important social service” may legitimately excuse us from Sunday rest; e.g., people may be traveling or tending someone who’s sick, or have vital work obligations like nurses or first responders.  But the obligation to worship remains in place, as best we can do that.  That’s the main reason why the Church has extended Sunday worship to include Saturday evening, to give us more freedom in honoring God.  We remain strongly encouraged to spend time with family and to undertake leisure activity that we can’t fit into our frenetic weekday lives, such as gardening, hiking, a family movie or games, reading the Bible; and, as the Catechism said, to do works of mercy, such as visiting the sick or elders (when the pandemic eases off), teaching catechism, doing youth ministry, taking part in a public service project like a park clean-up or serving in a soup kitchen.  And there’s always time for a good nap, isn’t there?

Stressing the 1st and 3d commandments, of course, doesn’t mean that the others are less important.  Altogether they testify to God’s care for us and our honor to him.  When a young man came to Jesus and asked what he had to do to earn eternal life, Jesus’ 1st answer was, “Keep the commandments” (Matt 19:17).  True still—provided only that we see them as our loving response, and not some form of servitude, to the God who freed us from our sins and wants to keep us free so that we may come to eternal life with him.

Volume IX of Don Bosco's Letters

Volume IX of Don Bosco’s Letters

(ANS – Rome – March 1, 2021) - The ninth volume of Don Bosco’s Letters (Epistolario), edited by Fr. Francesco Motto, SDB, former director of the Salesian Historical Institute (ISS) and its current president, has been in bookstores for days now, published by the LAS (the publisher of the Salesian Pontifical University) on behalf of the Associazione Cultori di Storia Salesiana (ACSSA, the Association of Practitioners of Salesian History).

This 605-page volume contains 469 letters, written, or sometimes only signed, by Don Bosco in the period 1884-1886 (letters no. 3956-4424). These are a complex of texts that, it can be said, somehow rewrite the story of Don Bosco at the end of his life. 40% of the letters were previously unpublished; so, many correspondents unknown to Salesian history come to light.

The country boy from Castelnuovo has come a long way: in the 1880s the name “Don Bosco” resonated in Italy and abroad, including the icy Magellanic lands and various torrid cities in India.

Many letters (about a third) are written in French, a language that Don Bosco barely knew. That is not irrelevant: Don Bosco’s various trips to the Côte d’Azur, his triumphal trip to Paris in 1883, and the publishing of “biographies” in French had made him known across the Alps as the 19th-century St. Vincent de Paul. It is above all a circle of French benefactors, some of whom are very generous, who had been supporting the Salesian work in those years.

Furthermore, in the three-year period considered, we find a 70-year-old Don Bosco who was seriously ill. In many letters he is forced to justify the delay in answering, their brevity, bad spelling, the need to use a secretary, etc. Yet he never ceases to write personally to particular civil and religious authorities, to some confreres, to certain benefactors, to illustrious figures never known in person.

Like the previous volumes, this ninth volume of letters also makes it possible to distinguish between those penned by Don Bosco, those of which he wrote the draft (which was then copied by the secretary and signed by him), the letters written by others and simply signed by him, the printed circulars prepared by his collaborators, but always bearing his signature.

Highlights are Fr. Rua and two editors of the Salesian Bulletin, Fr. John Bonetti and Fr. John Baptist Lemoyne, the latter in particular, who became Don Bosco’s secretary in those years and secretary of the superior chapter. To him we owe moving letters to individual Salesians, some circulars, the circular naming Fr. Rua as Don Bosco’s vicar with full powers (1885), and, above all, the two letters from Rome of 1884.

If Don Bosco’s childhood, his youth, and his first experiences of Valdocco are well known, for the adult Don Bosco and the elderly Don Bosco the main and unavoidable source is his letters: a sort of daily autobiography.

All that remains is to wait for the last volume of the correspondence, the tenth, which will collect the letters of 1887 and January 1888 and those found after the publication of the individual volumes. The final volume will also offer the overall indexes of the saint’s entire epistolary corpus, with almost 5,000 letters.

Fr. Joseph Doran, SDB (1928-2021)

Fr. Joseph Doran, SDB (1928-2021)

Fr. Joseph L. Doran, SDB, a professed Salesian of Don Bosco for over 64 years and a priest for over 54 years, died of Covid-19 on Tuesday morning, March 2, at the Joe Raso Hospice Residence in New City, N.Y. A member of the Salesian community at the Marian Shrine in Haverstraw, N.Y., he was 92 years old.

Fr. Doran was the youngest of the five children of William and Ethel Marie (Dickey) Doran. He was born on August 27, 1928, in Jamestown, Pa., which remained his hometown. He was baptized at St. Bridgit’s Church in Meadville, Pa., on September 30 of that year, and he was also confirmed there in 1944. The family were dairy farmers and later became members of St. Philip Church in Linesville, Pa. Joe attended Pymatuning Joint High School in Jamestown.

After his parents’ deaths, Joe left dairy farming in January 1955, at age 26, to pursue the priestly vocation in a religious order, if it would be God’s will. He was attracted to the Salesians because of their work in education.

He was accepted at Don Bosco College in Newton, N.J., as a Son of Mary on January 31, 1955, and on September 7 that year entered the novitiate in Newton. A year later, on September 8, 1956, he made his first profession of religious vows. Three years later he graduated from Don Bosco College with a B.A. in philosophy; he was an average student. On August 25, 1962, he made his perpetual vows, also at the college.

Bro. Joe did his practical training at Salesian High School in New Rochelle, N.Y. (1959-1960), teaching math, and Mary Help of Christians School in Tampa (1960-1962), teaching general science and arithmetic.

Having completed his period of practical training, he went to Italy to study theology at the Istituto Salesiano Teologico in Bollengo, Italy (1962-1966), and was ordained in the cathedral of Ivrea, Italy, on June 29, 1966.

His first assignment as a priest was to Salesian Juniorate in Cedar Lake, Ind., as principal for the 1966-1967 school year; he also taught math. Thirteen years of teaching math, general science, and religion followed in New Rochelle (1967-1969) and at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J. (1969-1980), during which he was noted for his outspoken theological orthodoxy in both teaching and writing. He wrote of his time at Ramsey: “It was a very work-filled and rewarding ministry. We had good students, gave them a good education, and so had exceptional alumni (well represented in the various professions).”

Dr. James Scanlon, at various times assistant principal, principal, and alumni liaison at Don Bosco Prep, speaks glowingly of the priest he always called “Fr. Doran,” never “Fr. Joe,” describing him as “the consummate Algebra 2 and Trig teacher—kind, caring, attentive both in and out of the classroom; serious, often pre-occupied, never afflicted with the drive to have his picture taken so it might appear in several parts of the yearbook; appreciated and respected by our boys and a valued collaborator among faculty and staff. If you are looking for an individual who exemplifies selflessness, commitment, modesty, and accompaniment through Salesian life, Fr. Doran is a top choice.”

In 1977 Fr. Joe completed an M.A. in theology at Villanova University in Philadelphia, with an emphasis on Scripture and a B+ academic average.

During those teaching years, he enjoyed doing weekend parish ministry, especially at St. Leo the Great Church in Lincroft, N.J.

After leaving Don Bosco Prep, Fr. Joe engaged in 14 years of parish ministry, mostly as an associate pastor: nine years at St. Anthony Parish in Paterson, N.J. (1980-1989), a year at Holy Rosary and St. John Bosco parishes in Birmingham, Ala. (1989-1990), two years at St. Mark Church in Hyattsville, Md. (1991-1993), while studying at the John Paul II Institute in Washington, earning an MTS in theology in 1993, and two years as pastor on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera caring for St. Gregory the Great Parish and four attached mission churches (1993-1995), several of which had been severely damaged by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The Salesians had begun their missionary work in the Bahamas in 1970; Fr. Joe was the last to participate in that missionary activity, and he testifies, “It was real missionary work.”

He found his years in Paterson especially rewarding: “It was a varied and rich ministry—with the weekend parish Masses, the weekday grammar and high school Masses, initiating a school basketball team, and night sports activity for the neighborhood youths, hospital visits and the First Friday communions, and the various church societies. The Salesian Cooperators really flourished in those years.”

Fr. Joe also undertook retreat house ministry at Sacred Heart Retreat House in Ipswich, Mass. (1990-1991 and 1995-1999). For 18 years he was chaplain for the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate, about 45 sisters, at their motherhouse, Marycrest, in Monroe, N.Y. He lived from 1999 to 2003 on the former Salesian Junior Seminary property in Goshen, N.Y., sharing the old convent with another confrere, and then for 14 years at Marycrest’s rectory (2003-2017).

The Parish Visitors very much appreciated Fr. Joe’s service. On Christmas Day 2015 they honored him with their Mother Mary Teresa Tallon Award (commemorating their foundress) for his years as “the bearer of God’s merciful love to us and to many others outside of our Community in the local parishes and hospitals.” They recognized “the years you have shown us untiring devotion as our chaplain: offering daily Mass, serving as our confessor and ministering to our Sisters who are ill, as well as to those whom God has called to their eternal reward.” The citation concluded: “Your untiring devotion to the truth of the sacredness of all human life from conception to natural death has inspired us all. Your love for Holy Mother Church and the saints that God has given us throughout the ages, has likewise been a blessing for us. Finally, your sense of humor reminds us of Pope Francis’s words that the Christian life is to be one of joy because God’s love ‘is unstoppable.’”

Fr. Paul Avallone, Fr. Joe Doran, and Bro. Henry Vander Velden

visit the Salesian Cemetery in Goshen, N.Y., in 2005.

Fr. Joe was assigned in 2017—by then 89 years old—to the Salesian Boys & Girls Club in East Boston to help with sacramental ministry. In 2018 he retired to the Salesians’ new assisted living home at the Marian Shrine in Haverstraw. But even in this retirement, he continued to offer his priestly services until the pandemic led to the suspension of Shrine activities.

From that period at the Shrine, Fr. Mike Pace, who was coordinator of the Shrine at the time, recalls: 

“I was saddened by the news of Fr. Joe Doran’s passing. At the same time, I had to smile as I remembered a conversation Joe and I shared last March when the pandemic had just begun to invade our lives and our ministry. I was coordinator at the Marian Shrine and Joe was the regular daily confessor. After a conversation with [the director] about the most prudent way forward for our ministry, I spoke to Joe as we walked down from the residence to the Shrine.  
“‘Joe’, I said, ‘are you sure you want to keep hearing confessions with all that is going on. It is ok if you don’t’. 
“‘Yes, of course I do,’ he said.
“‘Do you understand the risks?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Do you understand how serious the consequences can be?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Do you realize that you are in a really high risk category, and if you get Covid you could die?’ 
“Then he fixed his eyes on mine, put his hand on my wrist, smiled, and said in a steady, convinced way, ‘Fr. Mike, I want to keep hearing confessions. I love hearing confessions. I believe it is what God wants me to do at this time in my life. If I get Covid and I die, I will die happy, doing what I love and being a faithful Salesian priest.’”

Fr. Joe himself summed up his Salesian vocation by citing the Salesian motto, “Give me souls, and take away the rest,” and commenting, “I see my vocation as fruitful and rewarding—in accomplishing the Church’s work of evangelization.

Funeral arrangements 

Marian Shrine, 174 Filors Lane, Stony Point, N.Y.

  Friday, March 5

  2;00 p.m. Reception of the body

  7:00 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial

Salesian Cemetery, 3 Craigville Road, Goshen, N.Y.

  Saturday, March 6

  10:00 a.m. Burial

Homily for 2d Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
2d Sunday of Lent

Feb. 28, 2021
Rom 8: 31-34                                                
Holy Name of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.                                                   
“God did not spare his own Son” (Rom 8: 32).

The reading from the Book of Genesis this morning shocks us with God’s command to Abraham to offer his only as a sacrifice, even if God intervenes at the last second to stop him from killing Isaac (Gen 22).  That story is a fitting backdrop for St. Paul’s words about God’s care for us, God’s protection of us.

For God sent his Son into the world to live among us and even to die among us, to be entirely one of us.  God “handed him over for us all” (8:32), left him in the hands of evil and unjust men, Jerusalem’s powerful religious leaders and Rome’s imperial authorities.  Paul asserts that Jesus’ life and death is evidence that “God is for us” (8:31); he’s on our side in our struggles against whatever’s evil and unjust in this world.  Jesus Christ is proof of God’s solidarity with the human race, with each of us individually.  As St. John writes, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (3:16).

Christ carrying his cross

(St. John of the Cross Monastery, Segovia)

It’s true that “Christ Jesus died” (8:34) when he submitted to sinful men.  But God raised him from death and raised him to an exalted place in heaven—foreshadowed by Jesus’ transfiguration, as we hear in today’s gospel (Mark 9:2-10).  There he now “intercedes for us” (8:34).  If God has done that for Jesus, who is our human brother but who was faithful to God always—as we are not—we may be sure that God, who sent his Son among us to lead us back to faithfulness, will “give us everything else along with him” (8:32).

What is “everything else”?  Paul tells us that when we sinful human beings stand before God for judgment, God will acquit us thru Jesus, “who is at the right hand of God” and “intercedes for us” (8:34).  Even if Satan, God’s unrelenting enemy, the bitterest enemy of our souls, should “bring a charge against” us, we are “God’s chosen ones” (8:33).  God has chosen us to belong to his Son, and as long as we cling in faith to the Son, no one, not even Satan, can condemn us to eternal death.  God’s Son has been raised, and he’s been raised that we might live with him.  “Everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Therefore we need not fear death, need not fear to stand before God.  “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (8:31).  Not Satan, not all the demons in hell, and not our sins that we’ve brought penitently to Christ our Lord “who intercedes for us” and whose death has obtained redemption for us.

“If God is for us, who can be against us?”  The political powers of this world may oppose us, as they did Jesus.  We remember that Christians in Paul’s time endured religious persecution, like many of our fellow believers today.  In 2019 almost 3,000 Christians were killed for their faith, and last year over 2,000 were killed by jihadists just in Nigeria, while an estimated 260 million face various forms of persecution and religious discrimination from Communists, radical Muslims and Hindus, and various revolutionary regimes.  In our own country, we face harassment and discrimination, e.g., by having our churches vandalized and statues of our saints torn down.  We run the risk of fines and the loss of livelihood—like the Little Sisters of the Poor, like Catholic hospitals, doctors, and adoption agencies, like Christian bakers, florists, and photographers—if we refuse to go along with widely prevailing, immoral cultural and political policies, such as those concerning abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and transgenderism on some college campuses and those that would be imposed by a bill which passed the House of Representatives on Friday with the full support of the Biden Administration.   It’s harmlessly titled the “Equality Bill” but has little equality about it for a Christian conscience.

The Responsorial Psalm proclaimed, “I believed, even when I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted.’  My vows to the Lord I will pay in the presence of all his people” (116:10,14).  Our belief in Christ Jesus is the faith that sustains us against anyone “who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones” (8:33) in this world or in the next, against any affliction.  God didn’t spare his own Son from combat against Satan and against human injustice, and God will enable us, his chosen ones, to overcome our personal sins and whatever other evil may come at us, so that we may prevail with Christ and pay homage to our Father in heaven forever.

Homily for Friday, Week 1 of Lent

Homily for Friday
1st Week of Lent

Feb. 26, 2021
Collect
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

We prayed in the Collect that we might “be conformed to the paschal observances.”  We know well that Lent is intended to prepare us for Easter, for the paschal observances.  In those observances, in the Easter Triduum, we participate with our Lord Jesus in his passion, death, and resurrection.  But our prayer today is that we be “conformed” to those observances.

Christ Crowned with Thorns (Caravaggio)

How can we be conformed to the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus?  By suffering, by dying, and by rising.

Jesus didn’t seek suffering.  He prayed that his Father let him escape it.  But when that couldn’t be, when he had to drink the cup of suffering, he embraced it (cf. Matt 26:39).  All of us suffer.  We suffer physical pain and emotional pain.  We suffer the psychological pain of observing so much injustice wreaked by ignorant and evil persons and unmerited suffering from disasters and illness, and we’re powerless against all that.  These kinds of suffering embraced with Christ conform us to his paschal sacrifice.

We die in 2 ways.  In God’s time, we’ll leave this world; like Jesus, we may surrender to the Father’s plan for that, even now, as well as when the moment comes.  St. Alphonsus includes such a prayer in his Stations of the Cross (5th Station).  Before that moment, every day brings us opportunities to die to ourselves by resisting temptation and by overcoming our natural selfishness.

In those 2 ways, suffering and dying, we seek to be conformed to the paschal observances.  Thru such conformity, we hope—ah, there’s that strenna word again!—to be raised to Christ’s eternal life, our ultimate conformity to the paschal mystery.

Two Important Publications on Salesian Meditation

Two important publications on Salesian meditation released

(ANS – Rome – February 26, 2021) – At the beginning of Lent, the Formation Department of the Salesian Congregation released two important publications on Salesian meditation. Below is the letter with which Fr. Ivo Coelho, general councilor for formation, presents the two texts to the provincials and provincial delegates for formation.

Dear confreres,

I am happy to be able to present to you The Practice of Meditation in the Prayer of the Salesians of Don Bosco (accessible by clicking here), fruit of a seminar organized by the Formation Sector in Rome, May 10-12, 2018. The aim of the seminar was to clarify the place of meditation in the tradition and life of the Salesians of Don Bosco and to offer guidelines in this area. We asked ourselves three fundamental questions: what is Salesian meditation? Why should we meditate? And how do we meditate? To our pleasant surprise, the seminar had surprisingly positive echoes from around the Salesian world, and not only from those involved in initiating novices and young Salesians into the art of meditation. This strengthened us in our determination to make available the fruits of our seminar, and this is what we are happy to be able to offer you at this moment.

The book includes, obviously, the four main papers presented at the seminar: Notes for a “brief treatise” on meditation at the origins of the Society of St. Francis de Sales, by Giuseppe Buccellato; Learning to meditate with St. Francis de Sales, by Eunan McDonnell; Meditation as Lectio Divina, by Giuseppe M. Roggia; and Three perspectives on the importance of Christian meditation, by Xabier Blanco. These have been revised by the authors and edited by Giuseppe Buccellato.

Buccellato is also responsible for the Pointers and Suggestions for Daily Meditation (accessible by clicking here) that form a second contribution to the process, an aid for initiating people to meditation in the early phases of initial formation. It can be used with profit both by formation guides and by those going through these phases, but also by anyone, individuals or communities, who would like to renew their way of practicing the half hour of meditation that is part of our Salesian way of life.

Our little seminar was a beautiful learning experience for us who participated in it. It began with a sharing of our own experiences of meditation, which was then illuminated by the four papers. This process led to a rather rich discussion and to some practical conclusions, which were shared in a letter sent to all the provinces and which may be found also in the present book. From Buccellato we learnt that Julius Barberis, the first master of novices of the Congregation, used to dedicate the first period of the novitiate, no doubt at Don Bosco’s urging, to initiation to meditation. Don Bosco insisted on the affective dimension of meditation – something that, as Eunan McDonnell reminded us, is at the very heart of the teaching of St. Francis de Sales. In turn, St. Francis’s insistence on the place of the Word of God in meditation has been “canonized” by Vatican II, as Giuseppe M. Roggia pointed out. Salesian meditation today, therefore, is very much lectio divina: listening to, reflecting on, praying over and allowing ourselves to be carried by God’s Word and his Spirit. Xabier Blanco in his turn took us to the person and example of Jesus himself. Jesus prayed because he felt the need to pray, because he loved. People today, including the young, seem to be rediscovering the need for silence and for prayer. This is what the young people told us during the Synod on youth, faith, and vocational discernment. The Salesians of today are, therefore, certainly invited to give an adequate response to them. When the people of God ask for bread, we cannot give them stones.

Dear confreres, the practice of meditation, as Don Bosco saw, is fundamental to our vocational fidelity and to our mission. Our Constitutions put it beautifully: “For us mental prayer is essential. It strengthens our intimate union with God, saves us from routine, keeps our heart free and fosters our dedication to others. For Don Bosco it is a guarantee of joyous perseverance in our vocation.” (C 93)

The Practice of Meditation in the Prayer of the Salesians of Don Bosco is being made available at the moment in digital format. This does not exclude the possibility of some provinces or regions going into print, though this would obviously entail a further checking of the text. Since all of the material included in the book is original, so there is no question of seeking further copyrights: it would be enough to indicate your intentions to us in the Formation Sector. 

I hope this work will serve to awaken a renewed interest in and appreciation of the very important element of Salesian prayer that is our daily meditation. The season of Lent that we are just beginning is a favorable time to listen to and meditate on the Word, which calls and moves us to conversion.

A warm thanks once again to all those who contributed to the seminar: our four contributors, Giuseppe Buccellato, Eunan McDonnell, Giuseppe M. Roggia, and Xabier Blanco; our editor Giuseppe Buccellato; the many confreres who helped in the translations; and the members of the Formation Sector, most especially Silvio Roggia, who has been the driving force behind the arduous efforts of gathering the contributions, seeing to the translations, and bringing the whole project to completion.

Affectionately,

Ivo Coelho, SDB

 

Homily for 1st Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
1st Sunday of Lent

Feb. 21, 2021
Ps 25: 4-9
Mark 1: 12-15                                                     
Holy Name of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“Your ways, O Lord, make known to me” (Ps 25: 4).

Blogger-hiker on a fallen tree

bearing a Ramapo-Dunderberg Trail blaze

When I go hiking in Harriman State Park or elsewhere, it’s crucial to keep a sharp lookout for the trail markers (called “blazes”) on trees or rocks.  The trails are usually well marked, but sometimes the blazes have faded or are more widely scattered or are on a tree that has since fallen down in a storm.  More than once I’ve lost the path and had to double back to re-find my way.  Once in a while I’ve gone so far off that I’ve had to resort to map and compass and bushwhack my way back to a trail or familiar spot.

As you know, we’ve just begun Lent.  Many of  you probably came here on Wednesday to be signed with ashes, signed in repentance, signed in a desire for conversion.

What is conversion?  Turning toward the Lord, turning away from sin.  In the Responsorial Psalm, we prayed for the Lord to make his ways known to us, to teach us his paths.  We aren’t always walking on the right road—sometimes because it isn’t clearly blazed for us, sometimes because we’ve wandered off it by missing the marks.  The most common NT word for “sin,” harmartia, means “missing the mark” or “going astray.”  When we’re off the Lord’s road, that’s when we need conversion—turning ourselves around or getting reoriented.

Maybe Jesus was doing something like that when he went out into the desert for 40 days, driven by the Spirit (Mark 1:12).  I don’t mean that he needed to recover his way from sin.  He’d just been baptized by John and heard the Father’s voice, “You’re my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (1:11).  Perhaps Jesus needed to ponder that.  What did it mean?  What did God want of him?  Which of the possible paths open before him was he supposed to take?  St. Mark tells us he battled Satan, without providing us any of the vivid pictures that we get from St. Matthew and St. Luke.  We may be sure that the Prince of Darkness was trying to lead him astray (1:13).  Satan might have been happy had Jesus decided to go back to Nazareth and resume the carpenter’s trade and life with his mother and extended family.  In the 1st song of Jesus Christ Superstar, Judas suggests:

Nazareth, your famous son should have stayed a great unknown
Like his father carving wood He’d have made good.
Tables, chairs, and oaken chests would have suited Jesus best.
He’d have caused nobody harm; no one alarm.

Christ in the Wilderness (Ivan Kramskoy)

Out there in the desert, we may suppose Jesus was looking for the right path, the ways of the God his Father for himself.  And when he left the desert after those 40 days, he knew that his road was back to Galilee—but not to “tables, chairs, and oaken chests” and not to family life.  He also knew that John had been arrested and imprisoned.  He knew that his path was to begin preaching the kingdom of God, preaching repentance; to pick up where John had left off, and quite possibly to run the same risk that John had run and to end up as John did.

In the psalm, we pray that God will put us on the right path, that he will guide us in his truth and keep us away from the Devil’s lies.  When we renew our baptismal promises at Easter, we’ll reject all of Satan’s empty promises—his lies, his false roads that direct us away from the fulfillment of our lives and the happiness that God intends for us.

All of us have listened at times to the Devil’s lies.  We’ve been selfish, told our own lies, watched TV and movies that use violence to degrade human life or use sex to tear down the dignity of human beings.  We’ve treated family members and others badly, nursed grudges, cheated our employers.  Maybe we’ve done worse.

So we plead in the psalm, “Remember your compassion, O Lord” (25:6).  The Lord’s love for us is “from of old” (25:6).  He created us out of love and for love and never stops loving us.  May his love enlighten us to see our sins and errors.  May it show us sinners the way, put us back on the right track, on the trail that leads us securely toward our Father’s house, our eternal home, where with our Lord Jesus we hope to live forever and ever.

Saints' Causes Promoted by Salesians

Saints’ Causes Promoted by Salesians

(ANS – Rome- January 28, 2021) – “From now on, let it be our motto: let the children’s holiness give evidence of the father’s holiness,” wrote Fr. Rua after Don Bosco’s death. This wish has found particular confirmation over time. In fact, from Don Bosco to the present day, a tradition of holiness is attested that deserves attention, because it is the incarnation of the charism that originated from him and that expressed itself in a plurality of states of life and forms, which made the Salesian charism shine of particular light and constitutes a patrimony for the Salesian Family, the community of believers, and people of good will. Moreover, it is necessary to express deep gratitude and praise to God for the sanctity already recognized in the Salesian Family and for that in the process of being recognized. The Salesian postulator’s office involves 173 persons: 9 canonized saints, 118 blesseds, 18 venerables, and 18 servants of God. The causes followed directly by the postulator’s office are 58 (plus 5 extra).

The dossier, where the list and status of each cause is reported, presents the events that took place in 2020, among which the following deserve to be remembered: the extraordinary fact of the consent given by Pope Francis to the opening of the cause of Bp. Joseph Cognata, the closure of the diocesan inquiry of Fr. Rudolph Lunkenbein and Simão Bororo, the opening of the diocesan inquiry of Fr. Silvio Galli, and the venerability of Fr. Ignatius Stuchly.

Then follows the presentation of some dimensions of Salesian holiness, with the offer of good practices.

Finally, the call to spread the knowledge, imitation, and intercession of the members of the Salesian Family’s candidates for canonization, valuing and taking care of various aspects: liturgical-celebratory, spiritual, pastoral, ecclesial, educational, cultural, historical, social, missionary, etc.

The pastoral aspect touches on the effectiveness of the figures of saints, blesseds, venerables, and servants of God as successful examples of Christianity lived in the particular socio-cultural situations of the Church and the Salesian Family. The spiritual aspect implies the invitation to imitate their virtues as a source of inspiration and planning or life-project. The accompaniment and promotion of a cause is an authentic form of the pedagogy of holiness, to which, by virtue of the charism, we are called to be especially sensitive and attentive.

The journey of holiness is a journey to be made together, in the company of the saints. Holiness is experienced together and achieved together. The saints are always in company: where there is one, we always find many others. The sanctity of everyday life makes communion flourish and is a “relational” generator. Holiness is nourished by relationships, trust, communion. Truly, as the Church’s liturgy affirms in the preface of the saints: “In their life you offer us an example, in intercession a help, in the communion of grace a bond of brotherly love. Comforted by their testimony, we face the good fight of faith, to share the same crown of glory beyond death.”

The Poster and the dossier of the postulator’s office may be downloaded – in Italian, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese – updated to December 31, 2020.

Download attachments: 

• Poster_2020.pdf 
• 2020_Dossier_Postulazione_ITA.docx
• 2020_Dossier_Postulazione_EN.doc
• 2020_Dossier_Postulazione_ES.docx
• 2020_Dossier_Postulazione_FRA.docx
• 2020_Dossier_Postulazione_POR.docx

Homily for 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
6th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Feb. 14, 2021
1 Cor 10: 31—11: 1
Blessed Sacrament, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“Do everything for the glory of God” (1 Cor 10: 31).

Many years ago, the Baltimore Catechism taught those of us of a certain age that God made us to know, love, and serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next world.  “To know, love, and serve him” is to “do everything for the glory of God.”  Verbally, that simplifies things, doesn’t it?

The saints said the same.  St. Irenaeus wrote that the glory of God is a human being fully alive, i.e., alive in Christ.  St. Ignatius of Loyola’s motto was “Ad maiorem Dei gloriam” (For the greater glory of God), which the Jesuits retain.  St. John Bosco concluded many a letter with “for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.”  The salvation of souls—of whole persons, we’d say today in theological terms—is God’s glory.

Simple, but not so easy in our everyday lives.  In St. Paul’s context, for example, the discussion was about the morality of eating meat or drinking wine that had been offered as a sacrifice in a pagan temple, to Athena, for example, and then sold in one of the public markets or used at some gathering of friends.  Did that meat or wine become unclean and unfit for Christian consumption?

St. Paul’s answer is multi-layered.  1st, he states that there’s only one God, and all Christians know and worship him.  Therefore the so-called gods of the Greeks are not gods; in fact, they’re nothing.  Whatever’s offered to them is offered to nothing.  There’s nothing sacred—or tainted—about that meat or wine (8:4-6).

2d, he asserts, therefore, that Christians may freely eat and drink what they buy in the public markets or some host sets before them (10:25), provided only that they give glory to God for it.  All of creation belongs to him (10:26).  Grace before meals!

3d, he goes on:  “Avoid giving offense” (10:32).  I.e., if someone’s conscience is more tender than yours, don’t offend him by eating that meat or drinking that wine.  Freely choose to abstain from it as an act of charity toward your more sensitive brother (10:28-29; cf. 8:7-12).

So Paul draws the conclusion that he “tries to please everyone in every way” (10:33), meaning his Christian brothers and sisters.  He respects their sensitivities regarding food associated with the temples.  He’s afraid that if he doesn’t do so, they may transgress their own consciences by eating what they believe they shouldn’t, because Paul does it.  By way of comparison, those like me who are beyond the age of mandatory fasting should be careful around younger Catholics lest we lead them to violate the principle of Lenten fasting (on one of the 2 days when it is mandated).

Paul winds up this section of the letter with a startling directive:  “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (11:1).  That’s rather bold!  Who of us would dare to proclaim, “Be like me because I’m so virtuous”?

Paul’s statement is quite different that of Prof. Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady following the unexplained disappearance of his protegée Eliza Doolittle.  During a dialog with his friend Col. Pickering, he exclaims:

Pickering, why can’t a woman be more like a man?

Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;

Eternally noble, historically fair; ...

Why can’t a woman be like that?

Why does ev’ryone do what the others do?

Can’t a woman learn to use her head?

Why do they do everything their mothers do?

Why don’t they grow up like their fathers instead?

Why can’t a woman take after a man? . . . .

As the dialog about the 2 men’s friendship continues, Higgins asks, “Why can’t a woman be like us?”  Then he turns to his housekeeper and asks her,

. . . .

Why can’t a woman be more like a man?

If I were a woman who’d been to a ball,

Been hailed as a princess by one and by all;

Would I start weeping like a bathtub overflowing?

And carry on as if my home were in a tree?

Would I run off and never tell me where I’m going?

Why can’t a woman be like me?[1]

Prof. Higgins’s idea of a model has progressed, if you’d call it that, from men in general, to fathers, to himself and Pickering as buddies, finally to just himself.

Why is St. Paul worthier of imitation than Henry Higgins?  Aside from the professor’s egotism, of course, we know that Paul—despite his faults—was sincerely trying to imitate Christ and gave Christ credit for having rescued him from his sins.  The debate about sacrificial meat induces him to forgo meat entirely (8:13)—an act of self-denial, of Christ-like self-emptying.

So Paul presents himself as a model for imitation.  What people see in him that’s Christ-like, they ought to imitate.  Thereby Paul challenges us to look to him, to the virtues evident in his letters and his missionary activity, and to make those virtues and that activity part of our own lives as disciples of Jesus, to the extent that’s feasible.  He also challenges us to be models ourselves who are worthy of imitation.  Within our families, do we model Christian behavior in our words and actions, whether we’re dealing with spouses, parents, children, siblings, or other relations?  At school or work, on the street and in a store, others observe our words and actions; do they see someone they might recognize as a follower of Jesus?  While many an athlete has said something like, “I’m a ballplayer, not a role model,” we can’t say that.  As Christians we are role models of what it means to be a good, virtuous person.  If we always keep that in mind, we’ll “do everything for the glory of God.”

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      [1] My Fair Lady, Act II, scene 4 (pp. 113-116).