Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Author: Father Pat Mulcahy

  • All Souls Remembrance Mass

    All Souls Remembrance Mass

    On the Sunday closest to All Souls Day (November 2), we offer a remembrance Mass for those who have died during the past year.

    The souls of the just are in the hands of God. His care is with his elect. We shall also be united with him in the resurrection. Death no longer has power over him. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Today’s Liturgy of the Word has good news for those of us who have lost loved ones, whether it be in the past year, or even the more distant past. The passing of time doesn’t take all the sorrow away, we know that, but it does give God a chance to bring us healing and grace and fond memories.

    We have come here today to do just that: to remember our loved ones who have passed away and now have hope of immortality. We pray for their souls and commend them to our loving God that he might, in his great mercy, open the gates of the heavenly kingdom for them and give them the eternal reward for which they have long hoped.

    This morning’s Gospel reading presents us with perhaps the foundational principal of living the Christian life: love of God and love of neighbor. We love God with great fervor because he loved us into existence. And God teaches us how to love: to love him and to love others; in fact we manifest our love of God in very real ways by loving others. Loving others is what brings us here together this morning as we celebrate our annual Mass of Remembrance for those who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith. Our love of them doesn’t end when they leave us; and it is that love that intensifies our grief. And so we gather this morning to remember and to take solace in God’s love for us, knowing that the grave is no obstacle to love, and that death has been defeated by our Savior who loves us more than anything.

    Here at Saint Mary’s, we celebrate a good many funerals every year. So, as your pastor, I’m acutely aware of the grieving of our community. And I can relate to it: in the past few years, I celebrated the funeral of my mother, two of my uncles on my Dad’s side of the family as well as an uncle on Mom’s side; a stark reminder that as I get older, we are losing that previous generation, and I am missing their presence in our lives.

    I want to pause here and speak a little about the reality of grief. Because, if there is one thing that we as a society do extremely poorly, it’s grieving. It seems like we rush through it and hope it’s all done before we have a chance to feel any kind of pain. We want to get this thing done with, check the boxes, and move on. That’s part and parcel of how things work in our world: we have a pill for every malady and a quick remedy for every pain, plagued with a whole host of horrifying side effects. And what’s important to know is that this is not how the Church teaches us to grieve. One of the most important reasons that we have All Souls Day each year is to give us the experience of remembering and grieving and healing. If you truly love, you will truly grieve, and not turn away from it.

    The Church’s Catechism (989) teaches us: “We firmly believe, and hence we hope that, just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives for ever, so after death the righteous will live for ever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on the last day.” And so we Christians never grieve as if we have no hope. The Church’s Liturgy echoes this hope in the third Eucharistic Prayer: “There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory, when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes. For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end, through Christ our Lord, through whom you bestow on the world all that is good.” One of the Prefaces to the Eucharistic Prayers for the Dead makes it very clear that this hope touches our experience of grieving: “In him the hope of blessed resurrection has dawned, that those saddened by the certainty of dying might be consoled by the promise of immortality to come (Preface I for the Dead).”

    And so I have some tips on grieving that I hope you will find helpful:

    • First, don’t rush into the funeral. It’s hard to make all those difficult decisions at a moment’s notice. It’s great if you’ve talked about your wishes with your family, because it makes things easier. But if that hasn’t happened, the family would do well to take its time and avail itself of the resources of the funeral director and the church staff so that a funeral that adequately honors the deceased and comforts the living can be prepared.
    • Parents: please talk to your children about your funeral. Yes, that’s going to be a hard conversation. But these days, too many young people are so disconnected from the Church and so averse to any kind of unhappiness, that they really don’t know how to grieve. You have to help them with that.
    • Let other people help you. Even if you can do all the preparations, you don’t have to, and you probably shouldn’t. Let the Church and others help you and minister to you in your time of grief. As a priest, I presided at my father’s funeral, but one of the priests who knew him preached the homily. At both of my parents’ funerals, I availed myself of the presence of a bereavement minister to help me plan the funeral. Did I know how to plan a funeral? Of course. But I found that I needed to be ministered to in my own grieving. On those days, I wasn’t only the priest celebrant, I was also a son grieving the death of his parent, and that was important.
    • Have a wake. A lot of people try to short-cut this one because they think it will be too painful. It will hurt a little, yes, but the comfort of others expressing their love for the deceased and for you will do so much to heal you in the time to come.
    • Don’t be afraid to shed tears. Anyone who has ever seen me preach at some funerals of people I’ve known especially well has seen me get choked up. Or they have seen me shed a tear when I’ve talked about my parents or my grandparents in a homily. Tears heal us, and it’s good for other people, especially your children, to see you cry. They need to know that pain and sorrow are part of life so that they don’t feel like they’ve gone nuts when it happens to them. You aren’t doing anyone any favors by not allowing them to see you grieve.
    • Understand that grief doesn’t just “go away.” Feelings soften with time, yes, but you will grieve your loved ones for many years to come, perhaps your whole life long. I still grieve for my grandparents who have been gone from my life for many, many years now. Sometimes those waves of grief will come up all of a sudden, without warning, kind of out of the blue. And that’s okay. Remember grief is a sign that we have loved, and loving is the most important thing we will ever do.

    Friends, praying for the dead recognizes that all of our lives here on earth are not perfect, and the only way that we can attain the saving grace necessary for life in heaven is by turning to our Savior who gave his life for us. Our second reading today gives us confidence that we can do this, and that his sacrifice on behalf of our loved ones, and of us, is sufficient, because his is a priesthood that never passes away. He offered himself once for all, and that is enough, if we turn to him and ask his mercy.

    In a few moments, I will sing words that have comforted me so many times in my sorrow. They are the words of the preface to the Eucharistic Prayer: “Indeed, for your faithful, Lord, life is changed, not ended, and when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.” This echoes the words of the Prophet Isaiah who confidently proclaims: “The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces; The reproach of his people he will remove from the whole earth; for the Lord has spoken.”

    During November, the Church continues to remember those we prayed for on the second day of this month, the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed. For this remembrance, I have chosen to reflect on our experience of grief, and I’ve done that because it’s an experience we all have, on some level, at some time in our lives. I want you to know how very natural grief is, and how very blessed an experience it is. We must always remember that blessed experiences aren’t always pain-free. Our God never flees from our brokenness, instead he has chosen to redeem it. That is why he offered himself on the cross, willingly, for us.

    And so we are confident, because we know that death only separates us from those we love for a short time, and that death never has the last word because Christ has triumphed over death. The beginning and end of everything is Christ, and Christ is with us in our first moments, and also in our last. He is with us in our pain and with us in our joy. He helps us to remember our loved ones with love that continues beyond our death and beyond the grave. Grief and loss and pain, and even the grave, are temporary things for us. Love is eternal, love never ends, love can never be destroyed by death, love leads us all to the great glory of the resurrection and eternal light in that kingdom where Christ has conquered everything, even death itself.

    Therefore, it is with profound sadness, but also with ultimate trust in Almighty God that we commend our loved ones to the Lord, knowing that his mercy is great and that his love will keep us united at the Eucharistic banquet until that day when death is conquered and sadness is banished and we are all caught up in God’s life forever.

    Eternal rest grant unto all of our loved ones, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

  • The Solemnity of All Saints

    The Solemnity of All Saints

    Today’s readings

    I think we all bristle, unfortunately and mistakenly, at the idea of being a saint. Saints are those super-holy folks who are depicted in artwork and glorified in amazing stories. We are just ordinary people who struggle with our holiness, at best. But today, the Church is asking us to think about saints in a broader way. Yes, we include all those “official” saints that have been canonized through the ages. The Church rejoices in the saints because when someone becomes a saint, the Church recognizes that he or she is definitely in heaven, the goal of all our lives. That’s what the process of canonization is all about. And bringing people to heaven is the whole point of the Church. So, from the many saints of every time and place, we know of thousands of people that are certainly in heaven. This illustrates that God’s will is done, doesn’t it?

    But, as I said, I think the Church wants us to think about saints in a broader way. There is the story of a schoolteacher who asked her children what a saint was. One little girl thought about the saints she saw in stained glass windows, and said “Saints are people the light shines through.” Think about that for a minute – that little girl isn’t far from the kingdom of God there. Because all people are called to let the light of Christ shine through them, and saints are those people who have made that the business of their lives.

    Heaven is that great multitude that John the Revelator tells us about in today’s first reading: that multitude “which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.” They are wearing, he tells us, white robes, which have been washed in the blood of the lamb. That seems very counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? Everyone knows that blood stains like nobody’s business. But he’s speaking poetically here, and recognizes that nothing washes us sinners quite as clean as the saving blood of Jesus Christ.

    And that’s really the only way. Because we’re quite right when we bristle a bit at being called saints. We can’t be saints all on our own. We aren’t good enough, we can’t make up for our sins with any kind of completeness, and there’s basically no way that we can jump high enough to get to heaven. But this feast of All Saints recognizes that we don’t have to. We don’t have to because Christ has saved us through no merit of our own but based solely on God’s love for us. The fact that we can be called saints is a grace, and we dare not bristle so much that we turn away from that grace.

    It may help to know that most, if not all, of the saints struggled with holiness too. Think about Saint Paul himself: he began his career by persecuting Christians and we know that he had a hand in the stoning of Saint Stephen. Or think about Saint Augustine who was an intellectual man who disdained Christianity, until his mother’s prayers caught up with him. Or we might think even more recently of Saint Teresa of Calcutta who experienced a very dark time in her life when she could not even communicate with Jesus. But Jesus was still there and led her to heaven.

    We are all of us on a journey, and we know that our true home is not in this place, however good it may be. We are on a journey to heaven, and that means that we are in the process of becoming saints. That journey consists in following the Way who is Jesus the Christ, our Lord and Redeemer. He has commanded, “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” and there is no way to do that except to follow him.

    So, no, of course, not all of us will be canonized. Most of us will go to the Kingdom rather imperfect in many ways, and will have to work that out in the grace of Purgatory. But if we look to those canonized saints for inspiration, perhaps our relationship with the Lord will lead us and our brothers and sisters to that place where all the saints worship around the Throne of the Lamb.

    Today we, the Church militant, honor the Church triumphant: not only the great saints like Mary and Joseph, Patrick and Benedict, Michael and Gabriel, Francis and Dominic, but also those saints that God alone has known. We glory in their triumph that was made possible by them joining themselves to Christ. We take inspiration from their battles and from the faith that helped keep them in Christ when they could have turned away. If God could do that in their lives, he can certainly do that in ours too. Perhaps, if we are willing to accept it, he can fill us with saintly attributes: strength in weakness, compassion in the face of need, witness to faith in times when society lacks direction, and so much more.

    Those virtues are virtues that we think about when we call to mind those official, canonized saints. But they are virtues for which we can and should strive as well. The desire and the grace to attain those virtues comes from God himself, and the reward for receiving that grace and living those virtues is a heavenly relationship with God. What could be better than that?

    This is a lot of work, it may well go unrewarded this side of the Kingdom of God, and it’s not easy to live a saintly life, but Jesus makes a promise today to those who strive to do so: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven!”

  • Thursday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I think today’s reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is a good one for us to hear. Think about it – how often are we beset by all the frustrations of the world, and all of the sadness that our own lives can sometimes bring? I’m not saying that every day is horrible, but we all go through times when it seems like it’s too much, like one more phone call with bad news and we’ll explode.

    And to all of that today, St. Paul advises us to “put on the armor of God.” You see, when things go wrong, we really have two choices. We can go to pieces, wondering where is God when we really need him, getting angry with God, ourselves, and others, and lashing out at anyone and everyone in our lives. Or, we can realize that what God allows isn’t always his will for us. In those times, we can join ourselves to him, and draw our strength and courage from the Lord himself, knowing that he walks with us in good times and in bad.

    And I am sure we all know which choice the devil himself would make for us, right? That evil one wants to use the trying times of our lives – trying times that every one of us has at one time or another – to drive a wedge between God and us. We absolutely need the strength of God to guard against that “evil day.” And so, St. Paul tells us, “In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all the flaming arrows of the Evil One.” And that shield, he says, is prayer: He writes, “With all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit.” Prayer and faith are the armor we need to get through the trying times of life without falling victim to the evil one.

    Sometimes life can feel like a war, but as the Psalmist says today, “Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war.” Our stronghold is that whatever life throws at us, we are never alone. Never.

  • The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    An often told, and completely correct, preaching of today’s Gospel reading about the healing of Bartimeus’s blindness would say that this story isn’t about his blindness at all. Yes, it tells of his physical blindness and healing by Jesus, but the reason we have this story today isn’t just to make us feel happy for the blind man; instead it is to point out some kind of pervasive blindness that the man had, and truly, we all have, and the real miracle is that he was healed of that, and that we should reflect on what blindness we have and pray to be healed of that. That would be a perfectly acceptable reading of this Gospel story,

    But that there’s this really interesting detail that caught my attention right at the end of the story. It’s a throw-away detail, almost, but it changed what the message was for me. It’s a bit of a play on words that comes when Jesus tells the man, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” And then it says that it the man received his sight and followed him on the way. So notice the difference: “Go your way” versus “followed him on the way.”

    If Bartimaeus had gone his way, as Jesus suggested, he would probably have returned to sitting on his cloak begging for alms. After all, that was all he knew, having done it his whole life. But he had cast that aside in the pursuit of Jesus, and having received sight, he clearly saw that that was the wrong way, and instead follows Jesus on “the way.” Now, it’s important to note here that “The Way” (capital “W”) was an early way that Christians, before they were called Christians, referred to themselves. They would be known as members of “The Way.” So here we see that the real miracle is that Bartimaeus clearly saw that his life lacked the meaning he needed and that the only cure was following Jesus.

    That coordinates well with the first reading today. The Israelites were in a bad situation: they had ignored God enough that he allowed their whole nation to fall and be taken into exile. Jeremiah’s message was that they had no one to blame but themselves; that God had punished them for turning aside from the faith, following false gods, ignoring the poor and the needy and the stranger in their midst, and allowing every kind of depravity in their lives. It’s not a very encouraging message, and one can see why Jeremiah was treated so poorly. In this reading, though, Jeremiah relates God’s promise that he would bring them back: back to Israel, back to the Temple, back to himself. Then, even though they departed in tears – as indeed they did – they would return shouting for joy.

    So the real miracle here is not one of blindness and seeing, at least not in the physical sense, but instead one of metanoia, which is the Greek word meaning a change in ones life – really a complete reversal – based on a spiritual interior conversion. The Israelites had been going the wrong way, so God gave them over to their persecutors, but because that penance produced conversion, he would bring them back. Bartimaeus had been going the wrong way living a perhaps-pointless life, but through giving himself over to Jesus and trusting in him, he found purpose in following him on The Way.

    So we need to come to see also. We have to see what’s going on in our own lives. Have we been going the wrong way? Have we paid little attention to our spiritual life? Have we chosen to live as though our spiritual lives didn’t matter? For me, it can be frighteningly easy to get distracted. It can be very easy to be so busy about the stuff of running a parish that I don’t see what God is doing in my life and in the life of this community. It was good for me to be on retreat this the week before last; in that precious time, I found much grace and rest and heard God’s call to make things new in me and in my ministry here. What is he doing in you right now? Have you been coasting in your spiritual life? Have you paid it little attention? If so, maybe God is calling you to forsake your own way, and give yourself over to following him on The Way.

  • Confirmation

    Confirmation

    My dear candidates for Confirmation, this is an amazing day. You come here today after a long period of growing in faith and preparing for this beautiful sacrament. You have completed many hours of service, you have learned a good deal about our faith and our church, and you have prayed and discerned this sacramental moment. So here we are, finally, and today you see the grace of all of that: you receive the sacrament for which you have worked so hard to prepare. I congratulate you for coming here today to choose yet again to be a follower of Christ in the Catholic Church. I thank you for making that difficult but important decision, a decision that no one should ever take lightly. I have more to say to you about that, but first I would like to speak briefly to your parents and sponsors.

    And so parents, I appreciate on behalf of the Church all that you have done to raise your children in the faith. A parent’s job is a difficult one, now and always. You know all too well that there are so many ways a young person can be distracted from their God, their faith, and even from their family. But you have persevered by bringing them for baptism, teaching them to pray, giving them the grace of continued religious instruction, and bringing them here today for Confirmation. A parent’s vocation is to bring children into the world and to teach them the faith, and lead them to heaven one day. This you have begun, but the job is never complete until that great day when we all meet in around the banquet table of God’s kingdom in heaven. And so I encourage you to continue this great work by seeing that your family comes to Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, and that you all become life-long learners of our faith: that’s how we do it. Then on that great day when we do all come together to eternal life, you can hear your Lord say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord!”

    Sponsors, you have undertaken a very important role in the life of the young person you are sponsoring. That young person is very special to you or you wouldn’t be their sponsor. Being a sponsor for Confirmation is not something simply ceremonial, and it’s not just a pat on the back for being a good person in their life. As a sponsor, it is your job to continue to witness to the faith and encourage your candidate to grow in that faith. This means that the Church expects that you are living lives of integrity, showing that you believe in Christ by your example, and to encourage and correct the person you are sponsoring so that they remain on the road they have chosen. You share with their parents in the role of bringing them to heaven.

    And now, candidates, I return to you. You have come here for many reasons this afternoon. Some of you have freely chosen to come to the sacrament of Confirmation to be sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit; it is a part of your faith and you have chosen to share in it; you may have been eagerly waiting for this moment all your lives. Others perhaps are doing this because a parent or grandparent or some other adult has urged you to do so. And that’s okay; they wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they didn’t insist that you do what is best for you or encourage you on a path that leads to happiness. Whatever the reason is that you’re here, the important thing is that you’re here. The Holy Spirit which you will receive in a sacramental way this morning will continue to work in your hearts and in your lives to guide you through the years ahead which will undoubtedly provide you with a multitude of challenges.

    In today’s world, you have a lot on your plate. High school demands much from you: academics, sports, extra-curricular activities: all of these take time and energy and attention. Then there are the pressures of growing up in this time in history. Your parents and teachers expect you to perform at your best, to get good grades and eventually to go to a good college and get a good job. That is a hard thing to accomplish for anyone and for some more than others. You also have the pressures to socialize with other young people. You have to have friends and be popular, and sometimes that is difficult to reconcile with your life of faith. You may be tempted to try alcohol and drugs and going too far in relationships, and all kinds of things that you know are wrong and that will lead you into sin and complicate your life. The cost of being a disciple of Jesus who follows the right path is pretty high.

    So we are here for all sorts of reasons, and we bring so much challenge in our lives to this sacramental moment. And the reason we celebrate Confirmation as a community is that we are saying to you that the pressures you experience are not pressures you need to experience alone. The Church offers you some wonderful gifts to help you on your journey.

    The first is the gift of the people in your life who want the best for you. Your parents, grandparents, sponsors and other adults in your family are there for you. You have teachers, the staff here at church, Father John, Father James, and me. You need to know that you can and should go to any of us when times are tough, when you have to make hard decisions and when you don’t know how to do the right thing. All of these folks have had to make hard decisions every day, and sometimes we do it well and sometimes we learn from our mistakes. But we want you to know that you can always come to us for help, to be a sounding board when you just need some advice or even just someone to listen.

    The second gift is the others receiving Confirmation here today. Look around: these are all people who have come here because they believe that there is something special, something important, about living in Christ and living their Catholic faith. Whatever the reason is for them being here, there is that part of them that knows that life in the Spirit is worthwhile. When peer pressure seems to make life so hard, know that there are peers here at Saint Mary’s who stand with you to walk down the right path.

    And the final gift is what we celebrate sacramentally today: the Gift of the Holy Spirit. And that Holy Spirit changes things, changes you. As the Holy Spirit is given to you sacramentally today, He will fill you with the power to make your life a living witness to others of God at work in the world. Now, it might not be as obvious as our readings make it sound. You might not see tongues of fire. You might not see the Holy Spirit help anyone to speak in tongues, and it might seem like nothing miraculous will happen as a result of this sacrament today. Unless maybe you look a little harder. Maybe that Holy Spirit will help you to make a decision that is very difficult to make, or to stand up for someone with strength you never knew you had. Maybe the Holy Spirit will enable you to say the right thing to someone at just the right time. Maybe the Holy Spirit will stir up a fire in your heart that gives you passion for a cause that really makes a difference in the world. Maybe the Holy Spirit will fill your heart with a love that leads you to a vocation as a priest, religious brother or sister, or a married person, sharing God’s love in the world according to your station in life. In little and big ways, the Spirit who changes everything will continue to change you and make you new, if you rely on Him. I pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance every morning. And every morning I thank the Spirit for the graces I have been given. I know that can happen for you too.

    Today’s Gospel makes the Holy Spirit very tangible in our lives through the reality of truth. Truth is a word that, in our culture, is often misused. People think they can come up with their own truth, that as long as something seems right for them, then it has to be the truth. But truth doesn’t work that way. In another place in the Gospel, Jesus says that he is the Truth, and that there is no other way to the Father than through him. And today’s Gospel promises, that if we are people of faith, the Holy Spirit will lead us to that truth, and that having received it, we will testify to the truth. We become living witnesses of the truth who can then be a light in the world to draw others to Christ. We do that by living in the truth, and by loving others as Christ, the Truth, has loved us.

    So I encourage you to continue to be active members of the Church. Today is not the end of your faith journey: in some ways, it’s just the beginning. Continue to come here every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation for Mass so that you can receive the grace of the Eucharist to strengthen you, and the grace of the Holy Spirit to guide you. Continue to be of service to those in need so that those you serve, who have very hard lives, can help you to become strong people of faith. Continue to learn about your faith so that on that great day when you are called to heaven, you’ll know where you are and will recognize your Lord.

    Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.

  • Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Pay attention! Listen to me when I’m talking to you! Look where you’re going! Be careful; you’re going to fall! How many times do you hear things like this? I know my parents used to say those things to me pretty often when I was growing up. I think if I could hear my guardian angel out loud, he would be screaming these things at me all the time even now!

    I think all of us – young people and older people alike – find ourselves distracted a lot of the time. The biggest culprit that causes this distraction, I think, are the screens we have in our field of vision. It used to be that the television at home was the thing that was a distraction for us, but now we can add our phones, computers, and tablets. Most of us have our eyes on screens all the time. Ask the adults here who go to daily Mass how often I have to remind them to turn off their phones. We are all caught up in what’s going on on our screens, that we miss what’s right in front of us.

    But even if we didn’t have screens, my guess is that human nature would find something to distract us. That’s kind of what Jesus is getting at in today’s gospel reading. He takes the people to task because he knows they get caught up in talking about the weather. They were agricultural people, so they all knew how to look up at the sky and predict what was going to happen. They knew when rain was coming, or when it was going to get hotter.

    But the problem was, they could see what was up in the sky, coming a day or two down the road, but they couldn’t see things that were happening right here, right now. They couldn’t see that it was a real problem when they had disagreements with other people that they refused to settle. They couldn’t see that forgiveness and mercy were vital to their survival and salvation. Jesus wanted them to stop getting caught up in the distractions of their lives and take care of the things that really mattered, things that were really important.

    As I pointed out, we are a lot like that too. We know who posted what and when and on what social media platform. We know what so-called celebrity went out with whom and where. We let our relationships boil down to emojis and lols and idks and don’t take time to really see the people in our lives. We let the ringing of phones and pinging of instant messaging distract us from prayer, life, and the people all around us.

    When my mom was sick, my sisters and I used to text every single morning so that we would all know how mom was doing that day and how we were handling it. We liked that, so we continue that every day even now. Now, we just tell each other what’s going on in our lives and how we are feeling, and telling each other we love them. That’s nice. But we have also found out that it is no substitute for actually seeing each other, and spending time together. So now we make it a point to do that too.

    There are all sorts of things in our world and in our lives that distract us from God, prayer, the people in our lives, and our relationships. We can’t let that cloud our ability to really see the people in our lives and to see what’s going on around us. We have to pay attention, to listen, to really see, and to love as God loves us. Anything else is just a distraction, and it’s not worthy of us, of our loved ones, or of our God.

    Pay attention.

  • Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I think sometimes, we don’t really get who Jesus was and what he came to do. So many people think it’s the “kumbaya” kind of love and harmony. They would assert that Jesus was all about being peaceful and accepting. But saying that is really misunderstanding Jesus and who he was and what he came to accomplish. Because peace wasn’t necessarily his primary interest, at least not peace in the way that we would probably define it.

    Sometimes I think we misread what peace is supposed to be. We might sell peace short and settle for the absence of conflict. Or even worse, we may settle for peace at any price, swallowing our disagreements and never coming close to true healing in our relationships. There are families in which never a harsh word would be said, but the underlying hostility is so palpable. There are workplaces in which there are never any arguments, but there is also never any cooperative work done. Sometimes there are relationships where fear replaces love and respect.

    And this is not the kind of peace that Jesus would bring us today. Frankly, this isn’t the kind of peace he even came to bring us: that kind of peace isn’t worthy of dying on a cross, is it? No, our Jesus is the One who came to set the earth on fire, and his methods for bringing us to peace might well cause division in the here and now. But there is never any resurrection if we don’t have the cross. Just so, there will never be any peace if we don’t confront what’s really happening. The fire may need to be red hot and blazing if there is ever to be any regrowth.

    And so today we have to stop settling for a peace that really isn’t so peaceful. We may just have to have that hard conversation we’ve been trying to avoid. Of course, we do it with love for our brothers and sisters, but out of love we also don’t avoid it. We have to work for true healing in all of our relationships. May all of our divisions lead to real peace!

  • Saint John Paul II, Pope

    Saint John Paul II, Pope

    Today, we celebrate the feast of Pope Saint John Paul II, who was born in 1920 in Wadowice, Poland.  After his ordination to the priesthood and theological studies in Rome, he returned to his homeland and resumed various pastoral and academic tasks.  He was ordained an auxiliary bishop and, in 1964, became Archbishop of Kraków and took part in the Second Vatican Council.  On October 16, 1978, he was elected pope and took the name John Paul II, honoring his two predecessors, Pope Saint John XXIII, and Blessed Pope Paul VI.  His exceptional apostolic zeal, particularly for families, young people, and the sick, led him to numerous pastoral visits throughout the world.  Among the many fruits which he has left as a heritage to the Church are above all his rich theological teaching and the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as the Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church and for the Eastern Churches. 

    In Rome on April 2, 2005, the eve of the Second Sunday of Easter (or of Divine Mercy, a feast to which he had particular devotion), he departed peacefully in the Lord. He was canonized by Pope Francis on that same feast in 2014, and was canonized in 2018, also by Pope Francis. Normally a saint’s feast day falls on the day of his or her death, but because that date would often fall during holy week, and because the Church desired that his feast be celebrated with due solemnity each year, his feast is today, on the anniversary of the date of the Mass for his inauguration to the pontificate.

    Saint John Paul’s contributions to the Church and the world are profound: contributing to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and reinvigorating the Church through authentic teaching and his own personal charisma. We may remember that he often echoed the Scriptural teaching of “Do not be afraid,” and modeled the freedom of living one’s faith and witnessing without apology. May we all be reinvigorated as we celebrate his feast, and devote ourselves totally to Jesus, through Mary, as he did.

    Saint John Paul II, pray for us.

  • The Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings
    Today’s homily was a brief one in order to provide time for Increased Offertory Commitment

    Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
    whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.

    One of the great hallmarks of the Gospel is that it proclaims things nobody wants to hear, let alone do. And the end of today’s gospel passage is a wonderful example of that. Listen again:

    Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
    whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.

    That’s a challenge to all of us, but particularly to anyone in a position of leadership. It’s an injunction that I need to take very seriously as I lead this parish in the name of Jesus. I need to lead as Jesus would lead. How did he lead? Well, listen to that part again:

    For the Son of Man did not come to be served
    but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

    And if I need a picture of that, all I need to do is look up there on that cross. Dying, dying to self, giving up our lives for others, that’s what servant leadership is all about. And Jesus was all about servant leadership.

    As I said, that’s a serious injunction for me, but also for all who are in leadership positions. It applies to those who have authority over others in workplaces. Teachers in schools, community leaders, heads of families, and here’s a good one for November 5th: it applies to leaders of our nation, lawmakers, judges, and government officials at every level. That’s a serious consideration for our voting – which of these leaders will serve and not just rule?

    Servant leadership is life-changing and community-changing. Servant leaders empower others and help them to reach their full potential. Servant leaders never ask anything of anyone something they are unwilling to take on themselves. Servant leaders make decisions, but they also roll up there sleeves and get in there with everyone else to do what needs to be done.

    And that’s a particularly important part of the Gospel. Giving of ourselves in whatever way we need to in order to affect the common good and the good of those in our care is fundamental. We’re not going to be executed to pay for the sins of many, but we may have to get up in the middle of the night to tend to a sick child, or anoint a sick parishioner at the end of a long day, or help a younger sibling figure out a homework problem, or bring the neighbor’s trash bin up when you see it in the street.

    Servant leadership frees us from selfishness, and from worry about our own petty issues. It’s amazing what voluntarily working for the good of someone else does to help you realize that your own issues are not all that important, and that God can take care of both of you. Servant leadership frees us to be the best leader we can be in every situation.

    Servant leadership, of course, is a choice. We have to choose, every day, to give ourselves for others; we have to choose to live the Gospel in every moment. Being the servant of all might not seem palatable in every moment, but we do have a God who took it on himself, in a much more violent way, that we may live. He gave himself for us, so that we might have something to give to others. Servant leadership is the way, and we are all called to live it.

  • Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and Companions, Martyrs/Make a Difference Day

    Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and Companions, Martyrs/Make a Difference Day

    St. Isaac and St. John were among eight missionaries who worked among the Huron and Iroquois Indians in the New World in the seventeenth century. They were devoted to their work and were accomplishing many conversions. The conversions, though, were not welcomed by the tribes, and eventually St. Isaac was captured and imprisoned by the Iroquois for months. He was moved from village to village and was tortured and beaten all along the way. Eventually he was able to escape and return to France. But zeal for his mission compelled him to return, and to resume his work among the native peoples when a peace treaty was signed in 1646. His belief that the peace treaty would be observed turned out to be false hope, and he was captured by a Mohawk war party and beheaded.

    St. John worked among the Iroquois and ministered to them amid a smallpox epidemic. As a scholastic Jesuit, he was able to compose a catechism and write a dictionary in the Huron language, which made possible many conversions. He was eventually captured, tortured and killed by the Iroquois.

    Anything worthwhile costs us something, and that’s especially true of our faith. If we are serious about it, if we love God and want to be caught up in his life, we’re going to have to pay for it in some way. Saints Isaac, John, and their companions make that clear. One of the biggest costs to us, I think, is our comfort zone. To really live the faith, we have to get out of that comfort and do what God wants of us. In the Gospel, Jesus was telling his disciples that they would have to give witness to him. And they understood that that would cost them something – perhaps cost them their lives.

    We disciples are also going to have to pay some price for living our faith. Probably not something as drastic as being tortured and beheaded, but something fairly costly for us. For us today, perhaps that cost is giving up a beautiful fall Saturday to clean brass in the church, make stress blankets for Linden Oaks or mats for the homeless from used plastic bags, or closing the parish garden at the Vianney House, or any of the myriad of projects we are planning today.

    Today, on our Make a Difference Day, we give strong witness to our faith in our work. As we come together to pack meals at Feed My Starving Children, spend time in adoration praying for our community, or clean up the grounds along Renwick Road, our presence and concern may be the way God is using us to get someone’s attention and see his presence in her or his life. Living our faith is always going to cost us something and that something is likely to be status or popularity, or at least the wondering glance from people who aren’t ready to accept the faith. But the volumes that we speak by living our faith anyway might just lay the groundwork for conversion and become a conduit of grace. We are told that we don’t have to hammer out all the words we want to say; that the Holy Spirit will give us eloquence that we can only dream of. And it’s true, if we trust God, if we live our faith when it’s popular or unpopular, we will have the Spirit and the words. God only knows what can be accomplished in those grace-filled moments! I pray that you see Christ everywhere as you witness today.