Father Robert T. Cooper

September 1, 2019

          Watch a few minutes of the news and we know that the world is at odds with our faith. Actually, there is more than a competition; it is an all-out battle raging between the worldly culture and a life of faith. Many people take one side or the other, some people try to play both sides, some of these people act as traitors–carrying a title of one side and living the ways of the other. We are each challenged to pick the side that we dare stand for.

          As Catholics, we are the ones that are marked with the sign of faith. We are the ones who are equipped for competition. We must be engaged in the struggle of the competition, this is our Christian duty. Our task is to convert this misguided world, to transform it into something that is holy; this is the coming of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. This has been God’s intent from the start and Jesus has invited many to join His cause.

          We cannot simply believe that God’s kingdom is only in heaven, for it is God’s intent that His kingdom is on earth as it is in heaven: obviously stated by Jesus in the “Our Father.” And it is our responsibility, with God’s grace, that God’s kingdom unfolds on earth. Is this not the reason Christ became present in the world? Not for just 33 years, but for the last 2,000 years. We, His Church, are the physical means of living His spirit. Is it not our responsibility then to continue this mission as Jesus expressed, “As the Father has sent me, I also send you” (Jn 20:21). Jesus was the earthly witness to the Father; therefore, we ought to do the same. His words were not for His Apostles alone, but also for us.

           By living a Christian life, we proclaim to the world that God is present in the world. The world of Jesus is different from the culture we live in. Jesus lived in a real spirit of poverty, chastity, and obedience. There are movements within our culture that call us—especially our youth—to be affluent, perverted, and rebellious. The practice of poverty gives us a sense to begin with the end in mind by renouncing the material things of this world, therefore preparing us for the last act of renunciation upon the moment of death when we give it all up. To do without certain things does not limit our freedom as much as it gives us more freedom, because we become detached from the material goods and less reliant on them.

          It is easy to become self-ambitious, pre-occupied with money, affluence, and power. Of course, there must be a balance, we do not want to become a burden on others because we do not earn our keep, or care for our own family’s needs. This is all part of being a good steward. But it does have something to do with recognizing our needs, and our wants, and not responding to every desire that we have. We know well that many people do this in our culture and spiral further and further in debt to try to fill the desire of having.

          Stewardship has a great deal to do with trusting God for our needs, that He will provide for our needs, in giving us opportunities to work toward the fulfillment of those needs. It has something to do with imitating Christ in His poverty, chastity, and obedience. It recognizes the needs of others and responding to those needs. It articulates our duty as Christians and contributes to the building of God’s kingdom on this earth, by seeing Christ in the poor and those who are less fortunate than we are. It identifies that the worldly goods that we have are gifts from God to be used towards His greater glory, not ours. All of this is on the premise that God is first; everything starts with God. This seems to be the spirit of Jesus’ words, “Man cannot serve two masters, God and mammon” (Lk 16:13).

          The battle will rage until the last day, therefore we will always have to struggle with the balance of our spiritual journey and our temporal well being. Realistically, our generation will most likely always struggle with the desire to have more, (just as we must struggle to avoid sin). We must make a concerted effort not to collect too much stuff for ourselves alone while ignoring those in need. After all, we are journeying through life and a lot of this stuff is heavy!

August 18, 2019

          In August, parents will be sending their children “back to school” at SEAS. It is a time of frenzied preparation, replete with “to-do lists,” worrying, and a whole lot of prayer. The expression “back to school” is a bit of a misnomer when we understand the teaching of the Catholic Church on the nature and vocation of the Christian family. The family is the first school, and the home is the first school house. Parents are the first teachers of their children. Also, a polestar of Western educational law for centuries was that teachers acted “in loco parentis,” in the place of the parents. Sadly, in some situations, that approach seems to have been forgotten. When Catholic parents send their children “back to school” here at SEAS, they are really extending their educational mission to our teachers and entrusting their treasured children to our care.

          Many parents make great sacrifices to send their children to SEAS. They do so because they want them to have a Catholic Education. Of course they want the academic excellence which is clearly a part of the Catholic educational ethos. However, our parents could find academic excellence in many other choices, including public, charter, and private schools. In short, parents want our school to be discernibly and foundationally Catholic. It is important to note that education is not a program or a process that the Church adds something to, as though the quest of educating were some kind of nakedly secular pursuit which we somehow make “religious.” Rather, education is the very heart and core of the Church’s mission.

           In his masterful letter to the Romans, St. Paul calls all Christians to a “…renewal of their minds” (Romans 12:2). This renewal of the mind is the essence of Catholic education. In speaking of itself, the Church often notes that it is an “expert in humanity” who “walks the way of the person.” In the words of Pope St. John XXIII, which are echoed in so many pronouncements of the Magisterium, the Church is both “Mater et Magister,” “Mother and Teacher.” The Church is itself an educating institution. Catholic identity in a Catholic school, just as in Catholic persons, begins from the inside and works its way throughout like leaven or yeast. Catholic identity must be the very heart and core of SEAS, providing the infrastructure for the entire educational mission.

           The primary purpose of a Catholic School is to be a Catholic School. In other words, to teach, form, and prepare students in Christ, through Christ, and with Christ, who has been raised and continues His redemptive mission through His Body, the Church. Thus, SEAS shares in the mission of Jesus Christ. It is my expectation that all subjects and all activities at SEAS will be imbued with a Catholic anthropology and the derivative understanding of education it entails. Catholic education exists to put students in touch with the source of all Truth and Beauty, God Himself.

         Dear parents and parishioners, SEAS will continue to grow in goodness, excellence, and virtue only if good Catholic parents and parishioners stay involved. Do not be afraid to insist that our parish school lives up to its name and demonstrates this kind of full Catholic identity. And please continue to offer your help and your prayer to make sure that we do!

June 30, 2019

          In the Gospel of St. Mark (Mk 6:30-34), we read the following account: And the apostles coming together unto Jesus, related to him all things that they had done and taught. And he said to them: “Come apart into a desert place, and rest a little.” For there were many coming and going: and they had not so much as time to eat. And going up into a ship, they went into a desert place apart. And they saw them going away, and many knew: and they ran flocking thither foot from all the cities, and were there before them. And Jesus going out saw a great multitude: and he had compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things (Douay-Rheims Translation).

          “Come into a deserted place, and rest.” Our Lord Jesus Christ knows what it is like to bear the heavy burden of our daily tasks and duties. He knows that we are constantly in movement, going about from one activity to the next. Like busy bees, we go from one flower to the next. We often lose the beauty of the present moment, because we are seeking to do more and more each time, to be “efficient,” as the modern expression goes.

          But efficiency for efficiency’s sake is like a vicious circle. The more we do, the more we crave to do. The more “efficient” we are, the more we seek to improve our “efficiency.” This is especially true of the “Getting Things Done” methodology of personal and professional task management. There is nothing wrong with trying to get things done, but it is important that we ask ourselves one very fundamental question through it all: Why? Why am I seeking to be more efficient? Efficiency is not the answer, for it can never be an end in itself. It should always be a means to another end. But what exactly is that end? What is the ultimate goal or purpose of trying to get things done?

          Many who have had professional careers that the world regards as “successful” remained empty inside. This is because efficiency or “getting things done” can never satisfy one’s deepest longings, in and of itself. Those who reflect deeply on their experience of this efficiency often arrive at the same conclusion: we seek efficiency for a higher cause. We want to get our daily tasks and duties done, so that we can devote our time and energy to the things that really matter in life: family, love, relationships, and happiness. In fact, deep down, all men seek happiness as their ultimate goal. The great Greek philosopher, Aristotle, says so at the beginning of his profound work, “Nicomachean Ethics.” Happiness is the only goal that can fulfill the human soul, because we were created to be happy.

          True happiness can only come with finding one’s ultimate end, the “final goal” for which we exist. Man can only truly be happy when he seeks after and attains that end. However, what is the final end of man? Why do we exist? Why did God create us? The Christian Faith is the only way of life that can answer that question ultimately. In some religions, ultimate happiness consists in being fused with the great Energy of the Universe: “becoming one with god.” But the god that such systems propose to the human soul is an impersonal, pantheistic force or “energy.” It is not a personal god, for god cannot be localized, so they say. He is pure spirit, without a body, without matter. He is therefore everywhere, and so cannot be localized to one particular place at any one time. This god is everything and everything is god.

          Christianity, however, presents man with a totally different world-view. In the Catholic Faith, God is a personal entity. He revealed Himself to man fully and completely in the person of Jesus Christ, the Incarnation of God in human flesh. Jesus Christ is the only prophet, of all the religions of the world, who is acknowledged to be God Himself. No other religion portrays its prophet as God. Their prophets are messengers, or reformers, or instruments of the divine; but they are never God. Christ alone claims to be Divinity itself, in incarnate form.

          In the Gospel verse above, Jesus invites his apostles to “come apart into a desert place and rest a while.” He knows that the ultimate finality or end of man is union with God. He knows that man can only be truly happy when he attains his final end. Man is a spiritual being; he has an immortal soul. The human soul has two faculties: the intellect and the will. The intellect’s end is to know truth; the will’s end is to adhere to a good (to love a good). The spiritual ends of man, therefore, are two-fold: to know what is true and to love what is good. However, if we take this to the extreme, and ask what is the ultimate end of man, we must reply thus: man’s ultimate end or finality is to know Ultimate Truth and to love an Ultimate Good. Now God alone is Truth itself and Goodness itself. Every other truth is but a participation in God’s Fullness of Truth and God’s Plenitude of Goodness. Therefore, the ultimate end of man is to know God and to love God. In doing these things, man is fully and completely “finalized;” that is, he becomes what he is ultimately called to be. To know God and to love God are the only things that can make man truly happy in this world. If man were to possess all other things and be void of these, he would not be truly happy. Conversely, if he were to know God and love God in this life, and know and love nothing else, then he would be truly and fully happy. He would be “complete,” as it were, in his humanity. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons understood this well, when he wrote, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” Saint Augustine stated this using other words when he said, “O man, become what you are!” that is, become that to which God is calling you.

           Jesus knows man, because, being the God-man (fully man and fully God), Jesus Christ reveals man fully to himself. And so whatever Christ does and says in the Holy Gospels, it is ultimately ordered to these ends. When, in the Gospel verse quoted above, Christ invites His apostles to come aside to a desert place and rest, He is doing this in order to lead them to their true, ultimate source of happiness. The knowledge and love of God (to know Truth and to love Goodness itself) are things that can only be discovered by man when he enters into the depths of his soul and seeks the living Presence of his Creator and Redeemer there. What Christ is calling His apostles to, therefore, is prayer: deep, silent prayer; the prayer of the heart. When man prays, he finds the Truth of God, and adheres to the Goodness of God. His intellect is finalized by this Ultimate Truth, and his will by this Ultimate Good. This is what makes man fully alive, and completely happy.

           Our Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, is calling us all to prayer. He knows that in the depths of the soul, nothing can satisfy our longing for Truth and Love more perfectly than prayer, for prayer places our soul in contact with the One who is “The Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and the One who is Love itself. Without prayer, man cannot be fully happy, because he cannot obtain the end for which he was created, which is full communion with God. This indwelling Presence of the Three Divine Persons within his soul is what makes man to be “in the image and likeness of God.” Without prayer, it is impossible for man to achieve this, because he cannot do so on his own. He requires a special Grace from God, and grace can certainly come to us through prayer. “Ask and ye shall receive,” says Our Lord.

          But this prayer need not be one of words. There is a deeper, more penetrating prayer that leads to union with God more fully than a prayer of words. This is what the Catholic Tradition has called “The Prayer of Quiet” or “Silent Prayer.” It is sometimes referred to as “Mental Prayer”—not because it uses the mind, but because it goes beyond words and therefore transcends Vocal Prayer. It is a communication with God beyond words. This Silent Prayer is most perfectly effected in the presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. And so, we can see Christ’s words to His apostles (”Come aside to a deserted place and rest a while”) as an invitation to Eucharistic Adoration. There is no better place to find rest, than within the very bosom of God. Like the Beloved Disciple at the Last Supper (St. John the Apostle), we too are being called to rest our head upon the Sacred Heart of Our Lord. We are being called to listen, in the silent Presence of the Blessed Sacrament, to the Voice of our Beloved One, speaking to us in the depths of our soul—beyond words, beyond even thoughts. God alone can communicate with the soul with such intimacy—an intimacy to which he is calling each and every one of us. Would we not be fools to refuse His invitation to “come aside to a deserted place and rest” with Him?

June 23, 2019

          When I became a seminarian, I began to pay much more attention to the Church’s liturgical calendar. I already had a strong devotion to the saints in general, nourished by reading Butler’s Life of the Saints each night before going to bed, but when I entered Notre Dame Seminary, I started to get headaches from the details that at times have historically driven priests, seminarians, religious, sacristans, daily communicants, and all those who pray the Liturgy of the Hours a little crazy.

         Through observation I learned that there was a difference between obligatory and optional memorials, which meant that certain saints’ feast days had to be celebrated while others were left up to the discretion of the priest celebrating the Mass or the person praying the breviary. Often I was left wondering what criteria the Church applied to determine that some saints were more important to remember and celebrate than others and why many of my favorite saints did not make the cut to be considered “mandatory”!

          I also discovered that certain saints had even higher honors. The celebrations of the Apostles, for example, were called “feasts,” and their commemorations involved praying the Gloria at Mass and the Te Deum at the end of the first part of the Liturgy of the Hours. The designation of feast put them on the same order of liturgical importance as Our Lady’s birth or Visitation, and our Lord’s Presentation and Transfiguration. Finally, I learned that some saints’ celebrations—Saints Peter and Paul and the birth of St. John the Baptist—were considered so important that they were called “solemnities” and given the same importance in the Church’s calendar as Sundays, holy days of obligation and celebrations like the Lord’s Annunciation and All Saints. They not only had the privileges of a feast, the Gloria and the Te Deum, but also required the Profession of Faith at Mass and special prayers for Evening Prayer and Night prayer.

          At the end of my first year of seminary, I thought that I had most of the distinctions down. When I returned to the seminary from summer pastoral work, however, my working categories were blown to smithereens. It happened before sunrise on August 10. I already knew from my reading of Butler’s the night before that it was the day the Church marked the martyrdom of St. Lawrence. When I opened my breviary that morning, I expected to see the term “memoria,” Latin for “memorial,” under St. Lawrence’s name. That would signify that it was obligatory, since optional memorials did not say anything after the saint’s name. Instead, I saw the term “festum,” for “feast.” First, I thought it had to be a typo. I looked to see whether there was a Te Deum at the end of the Office of Readings, and there was. Distracted, I pulled out the Roman Missal for Mass and saw that there, in addition, it said it was a feast. St. Lawrence was not an apostle, I reasoned, so how could he have a feast?

          Since that day, I have always had a fascination for what has made St. Lawrence special and at least liturgically more important in the eyes of the Church. He is the only saint in the history of the Church besides the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Apostles whose commemoration is more than an obligatory memorial. The most historically precise reason for his liturgical pre-eminence—as I discovered much to my surprise during my seminary years—is that he, alongside Saints Peter and Paul, is the third patron of the Diocese of Rome. Because of the obvious importance of Rome in the development of the Roman Rite of the liturgy, as well as the fact that no matter where we are we are all “Roman” Catholics, the celebration of the third patron of this most prestigious See in the world has taken on a larger significance. But the more compelling reason for the St. Lawrence’s ritual distinction is, I think, what made him so important to the Catholics of Rome that he was considered as much a protector and intercessor as the two greatest apostles. To discover that reason, we must go back 1750 years in time.

          In August 258, the Roman emperor Valerian launched a ferocious persecution against the Christians. He was convinced that the empire was growing weaker because it did not have religious unity and that the gods, upset that so many Christians were not sacrificing to them, were enacting their revenge. His persecution had two parts. The first was to decapitate the Church by immediately executing her leaders, closing places of worship, and seizing whatever property they had. Then he would require all citizens of the empire to sacrifice to the gods, confident that, without the guidance of the clergy, ordinary Christians would sacrifice—many because they did not know any better; others because they lacked the personal courage to face death rather than burn incense before the statue of a pagan god.

          On August 6, the program began. Roman soldiers entered the catacombs of St. Callistus; they captured Pope St. Sixtus II in the middle of the celebration of the Mass, and later that day beheaded him and the two deacons serving Mass with him. As he was being led to his place of execution—St. Ambrose describes for us a century later—his young archdeacon Lawrence ran up to him deploring the fact that he, who had so often gone up with Sixtus to the altar of God, would not be able to be with him when Sixtus’ participation in the Mass would reach its culmination. The pope told his archdeacon that the Romans surely had plans for him, too, and that within a few days they would be reunited in the celestial liturgy.

          The Romans did indeed have plans for Lawrence. Because the seven deacons in the city were in charge of all of the Church’s money, treasures and charitable work, the Roman prefect instructed him to assemble all of the Church’s riches Three days later, Lawrence brought him the Church’s genuine fortune: the poor Christians of the city who were so precious to the Lord that he gave His life for them. “Behold in these poor persons the treasures that I promised to show you,” he said. “The Church has no other riches. Make use of them for the advantage of Rome, the emperor and yourself.”

          The infuriated leader, who was already planning to kill Lawrence after having gotten his hand on the Church’s supposed wealth, decided to do so that day in an excruciatingly painful and protracted manner: to broil him upon a gridiron above slowly burning coals. With courage and serenity, St. Lawrence went to the place of his holocaust. He was stripped, bound with chains upon an iron bed and roasted. The more piercing the flames, the greater it seemed was the fire of his divine love. After enduring with heroic cheerfulness for a great length of time, he turned to the prefect and said one of the greatest lines in hagiological history: “Assum est. Versa and manduca,” loosely, “This side is done. Turn me over and take a bite.” He died soon after having his front side seared.

          The early Christians, still facing violent persecutions, adopted him as a radiant example of charity, cheerfulness, and courage in the midst of hardship. His example shines still in the darkness of persecution in places like the Middle East as well as in all areas, including close to home, where Christians suffer on account of our fidelity. As we approach the end of another liturgical year, we ask St. Lawrence to continue to intercede for all the Catholics of the Church of Rome that we might imitate his virtues and one day share his eternal reward.

June 16, 2019

           “The great miracle of the Curé of Ars,” one of his contemporaries said during the process for beatification “was his confessional, besieged day and night.” The fundamental reason why the Year for Priests had been called by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on the 150th anniversary of the birth of St. John Vianney into eternal life was not that he left us a body of inspiring sermons like Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. It was not principally because of the angelic way he would celebrate Mass, his all night vigils of prayer, his fasting on boiled potatoes, his legendary battles against the devil, or his famous love and care for orphans. What made him famous, what earned him the reputation of being a saint in his lifetime and the title of the patron saint of priests after his death, was what God did through him in his “besieged” confessional.

            For much of his 41 years in Ars, a town that had 230 souls when he arrived, he heard confessions of more than its entire population each day. He used to hear 12-14 hours of confessions in the winter and 16-18 hours in the summer. Most of us, in hearing those numbers, would naturally admire his commitment and dedication, much like we would commend anyone who worked 18 hour days in loving service of others. When I was a seminarian, I used to applaud the concrete “priority” he gave to the sacrament of confession, which obviously would have required many other sacrifices. It was only in December of 2007, however—while hearing confessions at my first Advent penance service—that I really understood what St. John Vianney’s commitment really meant. That night, I sat in the confessional and heard confessions for three hours. I likened it to Jesus’ three hours on the cross. Even though I was use to pushing my body to the limit, I had never been so totally exhausted. My back ached. My bottom ached. My whole body ached, but I took solace at least that I could still feel it. My mind, on the other hand, felt totally depleted. A year later, when preaching a parish Lenten Mission, I heard 12 hours of confessions stretched from Monday night through Wednesday night. At the end of the mission, I was comatose.

           When I think now about the Curé of Ars’ hearing confessions for 12-18 hours a day, the closest analogy I would give would be to running 25-40 miles a day … uphill … into gale force winds … with ankle weights … and wrist weights … in full body armor … made of lead. Morover, he did it almost every day for decades. What St. John Vianney did in the confessional is, to me, the physical equivalent of doing a triathlon for the last 11,000 days of his life. It gives new meaning to the term heroism. This is the first reason why we can say that the great miracle of the Curé of Ars was his confessional, because his daily stamina makes everything else look like minor feats in comparison.

             The second reason his confessional was miraculous was because of what was occurring on the other side of the screen. People from all over France were making their way to an inaccessible hamlet in the southeastern corner of the country, taking primitive trains, even more primitive horse-drawn carts, and often walking for miles in fog, rain and mud. Once there, they would in general need to wait up to eight days in a church that was stiflingly warm in summer and ice cold in the winter in order to have their confession heard. Why wouldn’t they have taken the easy way out and just have gone to confession to one of the priests in their cities or town? Why would as many as 4,000 people have shown up one day, and 120,000 in a year, to go to confession to this simple priest in a tiny village?

           They were coming, as one of the penitents once said, because they were encountering “God in a man.” In St. John Vianney, they found more than a man ordained to act in the person of Christ to absolve them of their sins. Any validly ordained priest with faculties to hear confessions could do that. They were coming to someone who incarnated the mercy of the Heavenly Father, who shared the Good Shepherd’s zeal to do anything it took to bring back to the fold the one lost sheep, who would rejoice with all the saints in heaven over the repentance of one sinner, and who like Christ would willingly be hammered to the wood of his confessional to save sinners. In him, we encountered not just a confessor who administered God’s power for the forgiveness of sins, but the closest earthly approximation to the holiness of God. That drew them irresistibly and through all types of sacrifices to make the road to Ars the road to Damascus.

             His besieged confessional was miraculous even more so considering that in France in the 19^th century, the sacrament of penance was not popular. Sometimes Catholics today can look back to the long confessional lines in the 1950’s and think that that was always the way it was until the present crisis in faith and in the practice of confession. When St. John Vianney arrived in Ars, however, most people were not practicing the faith at all, not to mention not having frequent recourse to the sacrament of penance. God used him, however, almost single-handedly, to bring the whole Church of France back to the beauty of His mercy.

                Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wanted priests today to be willing to make the same heroic commitment to the confessional as their patron did, recognizing that the same miracle God worked in Ars for the Church in France He can work again. “Priests ought never to be resigned to empty confessionals or the apparent indifference of the faithful to this Sacrament,” the Holy Father wrote in a letter to priests. “In France, at the time of the Cure of Ars, confession was no more easy or frequent than in our own day, since the upheaval caused by the revolution had long inhibited the practice of religion. Yet he sought in every way, by his preaching and his powers of persuasion, to help his parishioners to rediscover the meaning and beauty of the Sacrament of Penance, presenting it as an inherent demand of the Eucharistic presence. He thus created a ‘virtuous’ circle. By spending long hours in church before the tabernacle, he inspired the faithful to imitate him by coming to visit Jesus with the knowledge that their parish priest would be there, ready to listen and offer forgiveness. Later, the growing numbers of penitents from all over France would keep him in the confessional for up to sixteen hours a day. It was said that Ars had become ‘a great hospital of souls.’”

               In a 1986 letter to priests on the bicentennial of the Curé’s birth, Pope St. John Paul said that the state of the world requires that all priests should imitate the pastor of Ars in making themselves “very available” for the Sacrament of Penance. He asked them to give it “priority over other activities” so that the faithful will realize the value attached to this “most difficult, the most delicate, the most taxing and the most demanding [priestly ministry] of all—especially when priests are in short supply.” Christ is asking His priests to generously open up again that “great hospital of souls,” so that He can replicate in the cities and towns of the Archdiocese of New Orleans and elsewhere the great miracle He worked through one priest in Ars. He is also calling all the faithful to come to receive this universal spiritual health care. 

June 9, 2019

          One of Pope Emeritus Benedict’s principal goals during his 2007 Pastoral Visit to Latin America was to help the bishops of that region examine and reverse a recent exodus of Catholics to Evangelical or Pentecostal ecclesial communions or away from the practice of Christianity altogether. This was part of a broader conversation about how the Church in Latin America should most effectively proclaim and live the Gospel, so as to increase and fortify the faith of practicing Catholics and attract ex-Catholics and non-Catholics into full communion.

            What Benedict said to Catholics in Latin America is relevant to Catholics in the northern part of the hemisphere, where not only Latin American immigrants are feeling the pull toward Evangelical ecclesial communions, but also many Catholics whose families immigrated generations ago have stopped the practice of the faith. The pope emeritus mentioned, essentially, five main elements of a pastoral plan, all of which are somewhat obvious, but each of which in practice has been underemphasized in Latin America. As we at St. Benilde Parish celebrate Pentecost Sunday by commemorating the birth of the Church and begging the Holy Spirit’s help for a new Pentecost of evangelization, it is worthwhile to look at these five fundamentals and ensure that they are priorities in practice within our parish family.

           The first and most essential element, Benedict said, is to focus on Jesus Christ. In referring to those Catholics who have abandoned the life of the Church, the pope said that the principal cause “is to be found in the lack of an evangelization completely centered on Christ and His Church.” In many parts of Latin America, priests and pastoral agents had focused so much on social justice issues and remedying temporal wrongs that Catholics, hungry to encounter God in the Church, were often going unfed. They were also for the most part uncatechized about the distinctiveness of the Catholic Church in Jesus Christ’s plans. For both reasons, when Bible-loving Protestant missionaries arrived, devoting their teaching and their enthusiasm to what Christ says in the Bible, many Catholics could not help but see the development as an answer to their longings. Benedict indicated that the Church must do better and begin to emphasize above all the true nature of the Church as the place to meet Jesus Christ. 

             The second element is to provide the faithful with a “thorough doctrinal and spiritual formation” to strengthen Catholics’ knowledge and practice of the faith. This training involves the “indispensable pre-condition” of prayerful study of the Bible. “We must train people to read and meditate on the word of God: this must become their staple diet, so that, through their own experience, the faithful will see that the words of Jesus are spirit and life.” This will not only help them as followers of Jesus, but also equip them to take Jesus’ message to others. The other main component is catechesis “not only of children but also of young people and adults.” Benedict particularly recommended for this “simple…substantial…and mature reflection on faith” the “most valuable tools” of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its abridged Compendium. He also encourages the use not only of “homilies, lectures, Bible courses, or theology courses, but also to the communications media: press, radio and television, websites, forums and many other methods for effectively communicating the message of Christ to a large number of people.” For this training of the head and heart, he stated that “we must work with the Gospel in our hands and anchor ourselves in the authentic heritage of the Apostolic Tradition, free from any interpretations motivated by rationalistic ideologies,” like the various Marxist theologies of liberation.

           The third pillar is a “leap forward in the quality of people’s Christian lives,” which will enable them to “bear witness to their faith in a clear and transparent way.” An increase in the knowledge of the faith is not enough; it must be translated into a contagious and holy love of God and love of neighbor. This leap forward must be seen not only in the “personal virtues” of faith, hope, and love, but also in the “social and political virtues” whereby the disciple “feels driven to bring the Good News of salvation to his brothers and sisters.” These other-centered virtues involve first care for others’ souls, by trying to bring others—especially the poor and those on the “outskirts” of society—to a personal encounter with Christ through the Church He founded. But it also involves the practice of “solidarity” in seeking to help them with their “material needs,” just as we naturally and lovingly would care for members of our families. True Christians are revealed by their love.

           Fourth, this practice of love will help all to see the Church as their family, the “universal family of God.” Benedict declared, “The encounter with God is, in itself and as such, an encounter with our brothers and sisters.” With great emotion, he added, “The Pope therefore wants to say to all of you: The Church is our home! This is our home!” The Church is the place in which we live in the “Father’s house,” and receive welcome, love, forgiveness and help. That should fill us with a sense of belonging, responsibility, and holy pride. “It is worth being faithful,” Benedict exclaimed, “It is worth persevering in our faith!”

           Lastly, Benedict stressed that there must be renewed emphasis on the “personal encounter with Christ” in the Eucharist. Since Jesus in the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life,” Benedict reminded bishops and priests that their “primary task” is to “ensure that the faithful share in the Eucharistic life,” and particularly Sunday Mass, which is the “center of Christian life.” If people who love Jesus Christ recognize that He is incarnate in the Eucharist, Benedict implied, then few would abandon the Catholic faith for non-Eucharistic forms of Christianity. Moreover, if young men and their families recognized and loved Christ in the Eucharist, it also would give new impetus to discernment of the priesthood, without which there is no Eucharist.

           This “encounter with Christ in the Eucharist” brings together all the other pillars. It helps us to center our lives around the person of Christ sacramentally present. It gives us the privilege of listening to His Word and having it applied to our lives within the living tradition of the Church. Through our encounter with Christ’s gift of Himself, we are inflamed with the “strong desire to proclaim the Gospel and to bear witness to it in the world so as to build a more just and human society.” It forms us into one family of faith through our becoming one body in Christ. In short, Christ in the Eucharist is the source of a “civilization of love” that begins in the Church and is called to expand like leaven to renew a culture. This is what will be the fruit of a new Pentecost, which the all of us hope to inspire in Catholics throughout the world!

June 2, 2019

          This weekend we celebrate priestly ordinations in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. I thank these men for their courageous witness in faithfully following God’s call, and I too encourage them to persevere. Since the 1960s, to follow a priestly vocation is to be not only a sign of contradiction but also an object of derision. While some support you, many oppose, often including family members and fellow Catholics. Seminarians today have the faith and guts to suffer such indignities for Christ. However, at the same time, greater courage still is needed. We are living at a time when one of the big issues in priestly (and Episcopal) leadership is conflict aversion. Pastoral problems are often ducked rather than addressed. Neuralgic and unpopular teachings are neglected rather than named. Not hurting another’s feelings or offending another’s sensibilities, rather than charity in truth, is the operative moral praxis.

          Greater courage is needed, moreover, because we are living in an age in which popular culture routinely mocks Christian teaching and attacks Christians. We are treated as bigots for upholding Christ’s teaching on marriage and as misogynists for defending the sanctity of every life. We are being sued for not baking cakes or renting halls or compromising our consciences in favor of the culturally correct zeitgeist. Membership in the Knights of Columbus is being treated by some U.S. Senators in 2019 as communist party membership in the 1950s. Catholic high school students from Covington, Kentucky were crucified by social media mobs, before even the facts were known, for their pro-life convictions and support for the President.

          Greater courage is needed as well because fears and phobias dominate our age. As toddlers, we are afraid of the dark, monsters, bad weather, bad dreams, strangers, separations, doctors and dentists, masks, and mascots. As we age, those fears are supplanted by dread of snakes, roaches, rodents, bats, loneliness, rejection, betrayal, unhappiness, change, unpopularity, wasting one’s life, missing out, the unknown, false accusations, personal failure, letting others down, getting fired, losing an argument, being judged, humiliated or ridiculed, poverty, public speaking, flying, loss of control, debilitating illness, pain, senility, the death of loved ones, torture, terrorist attacks, death, and hell.

          That is why Christ’s words, “Be not afraid,” were considered by St. John Paul II among the most important things our time needs to hear everywhere and often. Pope Francis has continued that focus on audacity by constantly repeating the need for parrhesia, the Greek word used by St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles to refer to the boldness of the early Christians. Courage is, strictly speaking, not the absence of fear, but doing what we ought to do despite our fear because of the strength that we receive

          Greater courage is needed to share the truth in and out of season: a virtue and gift of the Holy Spirit. Many prophets had fears: Moses, Gideon, Jonah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, to name a few. Jesus instructed the first disciples, as He was sending them as lambs in the midst of wolves, not to be frightened by those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul, not to worry about how to speak or what to say, but to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit. He spoke to St. Paul on multiple occasions telling him not to be afraid, but to continue to give witness to Him in Jerusalem and in Rome.

            Greater courage is needed to love God with all our mind, heart, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor—including even those who make themselves our enemies — not just a little, or even a lot, but in the self-sacrificial way to the extreme with which Jesus loved us.

           Greater courage is needed in the priestly and religious life to live chaste celibacy. Speaking about the virgin martyrs, St. Ambrose in the fourth century said, “Virginity is praiseworthy not because it is found in martyrs, but because it makes martyrs.” The strength required to a say “yes” to the love of Christ and a “no” to the desire for marriage and family is something that fortifies a person to stay faithful out of love to Christ at the supreme hour. This is what we see in Saints Agnes, Barbara, Agatha, Cecilia, Maria Goretti, and so many others. This is the chastity that also strengthened Jamie Schmidt of House Springs, Missouri, the 53-year-old mother of three who was gunned down at a Catholic Supply store in November 2018, for refusing to strip naked and perform a sex act on a gunman who had pressured two other women in the store to do so.

          Greater courage is needed to study and grow in wisdom and understanding, loving the Lord “with all our minds,” so that we can give reasons for the hope that is within us. It requires effort to master Sacred Scripture, to understand and articulate the teachings of the magisterium, to become an expert in prayer and the interior life, and to understand the culture well enough so that one can be salt, light, and leaven to it.

           Greater courage is needed to be “cheerful ascetics,” like Blessed Francis Xavier, whose 200^thbirthday we celebrate this year. In an age of affirmation and of the consumerist, quasi-religious pursuit of the maximization of pleasure, self-denial and picking up our Cross each day to follow Christ seem almost insane. A healthy but vigorous asceticism is one of the things very much needed today in the clergy and Catholic people in general. Many do not moderate their appetites for food and sweets at all; their waistlines, sugar levels, and cholesterol numbers show it. Others drink too much, smoke, and cannot discipline their addictions to television, the internet, or social media. Others cannot conquer their anger or their sexual appetite. Courage is needed to train ourselves through mortification to say “yes” to God and “no” to the concupiscence of the eyes, flesh, and pride of life.

          Greater courage is needed to obey the Lord, to be true doers of the Word, especially through the flawed human instruments God places over us. The recent scandals have made it more challenging for priests, seminarians, and faithful alike to trust bishops implicitly, and that weaker human trust makes the lived experience of obedience more challenging. To obey God through the Church requires overcoming more fears today than yesterday and a greater boldness in trusting in the constitution the Lord has given to the Church and in the Holy Spirit’s constant guidance despite checkered receptivity on the part of some in authority.

          Greater courage is needed to recognize we are sinners in need of a Savior and come to receive His mercy through His priestly instruments, confessing our sins with candor and contrition, and intending to cut off the metaphorical hands and feet and pluck out the eyes that lead us to sin. It also requires daring to share mercy at the Lord’s standard with those who have wronged us.

          We must pray about where courage comes from, a deep sense of our divine filiation: that God loves us infinitely, unconditionally, and without end. That conviction allows us to live boldly, because we know that we have in our corner the One who has triumphed over Satan, sin, and death and will never abandon us. In addition, we must be constantly reminded that we need the courage to remain faithful to the end. We live in an age in which many people give up: on prayer, fighting sin, suffering, Mass, Confession, marriage, religious vows, priestly vocations, jobs, hope, even life itself. We need courage never to give up, never to stop running the race, fighting the good fight, keeping the faith, and growing in it. The God who knows we need courage in all of these ways and gives us all we need to live boldly—gives of Himself, to embolden us from within. That is the way we are able to live, as Christians, priests, and religious, unafraid.

May 26, 2019

          Receiving the sacrament of Penance is useful, even if someone does not have any serious sin, for it is not enough to purify the soul from mortal sin. It must be cleansed even of venial sin.

          Too many people are content with avoiding mortal sin and are not even aware of the many venial sins they commit. Otherwise, how could they come to confession after six months, a year, or even more, and tell their confessor: "I don't have any sins"? Once in a while, it is even impossible to bring a person to mention one single sin, in order to give absolution. Yet St. John declares, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us" (John 1:8).

          That good Christians may live for months, or even years, with the help of God’s grace, without one single serious sin are not difficult to believe. But to suppose they could live such a long time without one venial sin seems quite incredible: it would require very special graces and an extraordinary fidelity to grace, such as we see in the saints.

          Because saints are not all that common, it is much more probable that many good people, while they avoid serious sin, do not attach any great importance to these minor faults, which they commit as naturally as they breathe and forget just as easily. Perhaps some are ignorant and do not know these faults are sins, like the man who had emptied quite a bag of serious sins, was asked if he had committed any sins against charity. "Oh, no, Father; I mind my own business," he said.  "You never get impatient, never talk about the faults of others, and never swear at them?" "Oh, yes; but that's not a sin!" he said.

          True, many actions are not mortal sins, but they are sinful and not just imperfect. It is the same with human love: many actions may not destroy friendship and yet they harm them because they offend and displease. Perfect friendship requires that anything which offends or displeases even lightly be avoided. To do anything against the will of a friend is bound to displease him. This is exactly what venial sins do. They are not a complete rebellion against God's will, as mortal sin is so the divine friendship is not broken. They are like the little disobediences of a child, who loves his father and wants to obey him, but at times finds it difficult and is carried away by some strong desire or aversion and does what his father has forbidden, or omits what he has commanded.

          How many of these small disobediences to our heavenly Father we find in our lives when we examine them more closely! How often we fail to love our neighbor as he has commanded us to! It is so easy to sin against charity through words or through silence, by action or an attitude, by impatience or by coldness and indifference.

          So many fail to realize that when they talk about other people's faults, even if it is without malice, they sin against charity, because they are doing to others what they don't want to be done to themselves. They are so little aware of it that they insist they never talk about others. St. James after all, affirms: "If anyone does not offend in word, he is a perfect man" (James 3:2). More numerous, perhaps, are those who pay no attention to the unkind thoughts or feelings they keep willfully, assuming they are not a sin as long as they are not manifested, as if sin were not committed in the heart and as if God did not see the heart. Who accuses these thoughts and feelings before they reach the degree of hate?

           Apart from these light failings against charity, how often we commit all kinds of little faults! It may be pride, bragging and boasting, trying to show off, thinking oneself is so much superior to others. It may be vanity or an excessive care about looks, dress, or a desire for admiration. It may be gluttony: little excesses in food or drink, either by taking too much or being too choosy. It may be too much curiosity about people or about news or for unnecessary knowledge. It may be idle words, light indiscretions or imprudent looks or imaginations. It may be laziness, idleness, waste of time, some neglect of duty. One may be too free or too tight with money.

           There is no end to the many ways in which one may commit venial sins. They are like germs you cannot count them, and they multiply as easily. Like germs, one does not kill, nor do a few; but as they multiply they weaken the soul and its resistance to mortal sin. Like germs, they are so small that we do not see them and therefore do nothing to avoid them.

          This is why frequent confession may be very useful to purify the soul from venial sin. To be done properly, it must be preceded by a serious examination of conscience, which will reveal the faults committed and should be accompanied by a firm resolution to do something to avoid them. If it is frequent enough, it will be possible to remember even small failings, and the resolution being renewed often will not be forgotten and will have a chance to bring results.

          In his encyclical on the Mystical Body of Christ, Pius XII, while protesting against some opinions aimed at turning the faithful away from frequent confession, describes its advantages: "Although there be different means, all praiseworthy, to wash away venial sins, we wish to recommend highly the pious practice of frequent confession, introduced into the Church by an inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It increases knowledge of self, fosters Christian humility, tends to uproot bad habits, opposes spiritual negligence and tepidity, purifies the conscience, fortifies the will, lends itself to spiritual direction, and through the sacrament increases grace. Let those who lower frequent confession in the esteem of the younger clergy know that they are doing something contrary to the Spirit of Christ and very harmful to the Mystical Body of our Savior."

          When a priest, as sometimes happens, discourages penitents from frequent confession of venial sins, he goes against the mind of the Church and the practice of the saints. The saints practiced frequent confession: some every day (St. Catherine of Siena, St. Bridget of Sweden, St. Coletta, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Ignatius and others); some twice a day (St. Ignatius in the latter part of his life, St. Francis Borgia and St. Leonard of Port-Maurice). They recommended frequent confession. St. Leonard proposed daily confession to the priests who accompanied him on his preaching of missions, and he exhorted sisters to go to confession as often as they were allowed. St. Alphonsus gave them the rule that they should confess twice a week, and every time they committed a deliberate sin. St. Francis de Sales prescribed the same for his nuns of the Visitation, and for devout souls in the world, once a week and if possible before Communion.

          This was possible in the days when there were many more priests. Today it would be impossible most of the time, but at least we should avail ourselves of the opportunity to purify our souls from venial sin when it is offered to us, and priests should not refuse to hear these confessions of devotion and much less turn the faithful away from them.

          Of course, for frequent confession to be fruitful, it must not be just routine. One must confess something definite, regret it, and be firmly resolved to do something definite about it. Because of this strict vigilance on one's actions, and these frequently renewed resolutions, one may be able, with the help of God's grace, to avoid, as the saints did, all fully voluntary or deliberate venial sins, since a vow to avoid them is lawful, and if one is committed, it will be rejected without delay.

May 19, 2019

           Spiritual authors divide the ascent of the soul to God into three states: the purgative way, the illuminative way, and the unitive way. In the purgative way, which comes first, the chief aim is to purify the soul, so that it can be enlightened and finally reach perfect union with God. These three ways are often presented as three successive stages in the spiritual ascension: one begins in the purgative, leaves it to enter into the illuminative, from which it passes to the unitive way.

            This way of presenting purification, illumination, and union as successive stages is legitimate inasmuch as, at different ages in the spiritual life, one or the other of the three tends to predominate. But in reality, they are three different but simultaneous processes, which continue through all the ages of the spiritual life. In the measure that the soul is purified, it is enlightened and united to God, so that perfect purification is reached at the same time as perfect union. Nevertheless, there is an order between this threefold action: the affections of the soul must be purified before the mind can receive the divine light, and we must know God before we can love Him or unite our will to His, so as to be one with Him. Purification is, therefore, the first step in the spiritual life; it is not only for beginners, but necessary for all of us.

          This necessary purification is threefold: purification from mortal sin, purification from venial sin, and purification from natural motives.

           Of course, the first step for anyone who wants to draw near to God is to turn away from mortal sin, from grave disobedience to the Father. No one may pretend to love God or claim His favor, if he does not regret having rebelled against His will or if he refuses to do it. Turning away from mortal sin means that we recognize we were very disobedient to the Father, that we regret it, either on account of the punishment deserved or of the harm it did to our soul, or better, because we offended a Father so infinitely good and great. If we truly regret, we will also be firmly determined not to do the same thing again and to do something special to make up for the offence.

           Great as the regret may be, it is not enough to be forgiven, because only the one offended can forgive, and as long as He does not, one is not forgiven. God never refuses to forgive the one who sincerely regrets his wrongs, as men do, at times; but even with God, it is necessary to ask to be forgiven. Although Judas regretted his treason and even tried to annul it by bringing back the price of his betrayal, he was not forgiven because he did not ask for forgiveness. Had he asked, he would have been forgiven; but he was too proud to ask.

          We cannot ask God Himself to forgive us, because he entrusted all forgiveness to Jesus: "The Father does not judge any man, but all judgment He has given to the Son, that all men may honor the Son even as they honor the Father" (John 5:22-23). It would be vain to try to confess directly to God. He would be offended because, "He who does not honor the Son, does not honor the Father, who sent him" (John 5:23).

            But neither can we go directly to Jesus to be forgiven, since He appointed the Apostles to continue His mission, especially His mission of forgiveness, in one of the apparitions after the Resurrection: "Peace be to you! As the Father has sent me, I also sent you." When he had said this, he breathed upon them and said to them: "Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained" (John 20:22-23). Because the mission of the Apostles was to continue "even to the consummation of the world" (Mt. 28:20), they appointed successors to carry on this mission of forgiveness.

            This, then, is the reason why one must have recourse to the sacrament of Penance to obtain forgiveness, and also the reason why the Church has made it a law to receive it at least once a year. If, however, reception were impossible, at least immediately, and one would sincerely regret his sins with the firm intention to receive the sacrament, his sins would be forgiven, but the obligation would remain to confess them, for confession is necessary in order to receive the sacrament. The necessity of receiving the sacrament to be forgiven and the necessity of confessing one's sins to receive the sacrament are two different things. Although the Council of Trent defined as an article of faith the necessity of both, some people do not seem to be aware of it, when they advocate collective absolution without confession.

              Confession is so necessary for the reception of the sacrament that, when collective absolution is allowed, in some urgent cases, those who receive it must not only regret their sins but also intend to confess them later on, even if already forgiven; and, if they participated in a collective celebration of Penance in order to avoid confession, the absolution would be invalid for them, and their sins would not be forgiven. The same conditions are required for the validity of the absolution given to an unconscious person: contrition and the desire to receive the sacrament and to confess; the obligation remains to accuse the sins thus forgiven if the person recovers.

              What makes confession so necessary for the reception of the sacrament of Penance is the mission entrusted by Jesus to the Apostles. He did not give them the power to forgive sins indiscriminately: "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained" (John 20:23).

            How could it be otherwise? God, Himself does not always forgive and He cannot unless we regret having offended Him. The priest, therefore, must judge, whether he can forgive or must refuse pardon; and he cannot make that judgment unless he knows what sins were committed and what the disposition of the penitent is. Because he cannot read as Jesus could the conscience and the heart of the penitent, he has no other means of knowing, apart from his confession.

             In the administration of Penance, the priest, apart from his duty to God not to forgive when God does not forgive, has also a duty to the Church, whom he represents. Saint Paul reminds the Corinthians of their obligation "not to associate with one who is called a brother if he is immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or evil-tongued, or a drunkard, or greedy... Expel the wicked man from your midst" (I Cor. 5:11-13). Because, as he repeats, "a bit of leaven corrupts all the dough" (Cor. 5:6; Gal 5:9). The priest, therefore, cannot give wholesale absolutions and admit everybody to Communion without knowing from personal confession whether they may be allowed to receive or not. This is why the decree on the new rite of Penance states very clearly: "Individual, integral confession and absolution remain the only ordinary way for the faithful to reconcile themselves with God and the Church unless physical or moral impossibility excuses from this kind of confession" (N. 31).

             So, when so-called liturgical experts tell us that the ideal and normal way of reconciliation should be collective absolution, they not only contradict directly this decree, but they reject implicitly the definitions of the Council of Trent on the necessity of confession.

              Let us therefore realize that the first step in the spiritual life, the first and necessary means of purification is a humble and sincere confession of all serious sins, inspired by a sincere regret and accompanied by a firm resolution to avoid them, to keep away from the occasions of sin and to make reparation of the offense to God, and of the harm done to others through injustice or scandal.

          To keep away from confession because it is hard, means to deprive oneself of God's mercy; to remain in a constant danger of eternal damnation; to lose all the merit of all that one does or suffers, and all the graces one could draw from the sacraments; to deprive oneself of the deep peace coming from a good confession; trying perhaps to find it instead through a psychologist, who will demand not only one, but, many and much more detailed confessions, and charge a stiff fee for very uncertain results.

            Because too many neglect this wonderful offer of forgiveness, which is the sacrament of Penance, and might live in the state of mortal sin for months and even years and lead a life barren of all merit, the Church made it a law for all Catholics to go to confession at least once a year at Eastertime. Let us heed this invitation to purify our souls by a sincere confession.

May 12, 2019

           Our God is a God of order. Hence, that means that there is an order to the universe — an order by which we even organize our lives. We put our lives in order either instinctively or by means of the revealed teachings of the Church. In addition, if those lives are not lived in this order, by not living with God, then we will suffer the consequences.

          Now, where does this order come from? It comes from the very nature of God who speaks a Word into the void from His own Being—reflecting His own Being—and He brings the universe into being. The first words in the Gospel of St. John are: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” That Word is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, through whom the world came into being. The whole universe is patterned after God. And in this sense, there is a way that the universe exists and a way that we must be in the universe. The universe cannot be other than what it truly is. People often think that the more science discovers about the universe, the less we believe about God. However, it is quite the contrary. The universe, as we learn more of its laws and complexity, the more we find God and the more we discern His hand of creation, His constant Presence. The universe and everything in it is good, and it will always be good because it springs from the good being of God.

          Things are not intrinsically good because God declares them to be good, but because they correspond to the very being of God Himself. For example, when we see something beautiful, we are delighted because it corresponds to the beauty of God; it helps us to understand our world and Him who made it. When we experience something that is happy, we are glad because we know that it is good for us and will help us fulfill our lives. When we experience love and loyalty, faithfulness and permanence in our homes between fathers and mothers, it helps us to understand life and know how precious it is. When our world and our life are like God, then that life is happy and whole and full of life, and even holy. We know this by instinct and by revealed teaching and by experience. Everything reflects the being and order of God—our lives, our bodies, our cells, our families, our relationships. Our life and our way of life is either like God and therefore lovely and lively or it is without God and is disastrous and deadly.

          Wherever there are tears and hardship and heartache, where there is violence and crime, poverty and hunger or even sickness, where there is disloyalty and betrayal and selfishness and the pursuit of luxury, it is precisely because there is no God and no order. Where our life is off, or skewed, or broken, it is because it is outside the order and being of God.

          We see a constant borage of murders and robberies and terrorist acts of violence in our streets and communities. These examples of violence and mass murders are not unrelated. They spring from the same deadly source that touches all of us and influences all of us. And that of course is our common culture of no-god.

            Now when I say culture, I mean that which our lives revolve around, that with which we are concerned and busy, that which interests us and drives us and about which we think and move and have our being. And if our culture (what we are interested in) does not contain God in any meaningful way, and falls down in worship before that which is twisted, perverse, deadly, dark and evil, then there will be some among us who will act out that culture. To the degree that our lives are ungodly, then to that degree will those lives be disordered, broken, and hurtful.

            We can see that our modern, secular culture has spent years, decades, creating a way of life that does not involve God or God’s laws. Moreover, we are proud of it. We are Americans, and we are proud not to let religion have a say in how we do things. We make every effort to separate faith from policy — religion from the country—we celebrate this Great Divorce as the very thing which makes us so wonderful and exceptional.

             We have separated our public and political and artistic lives from God, and we have therefore created a climate and culture where God is not present. Thus neither does His order prevail. Is it any wonder that it all continues to collapse around us … our families, our churches, our neighborhoods? If there is no God, if He does not count, if He means nothing to the way we live our lives, then there is no order; and life becomes so cheap (because there is nothing to give it value) that you simply eliminate it when it causes you inconvenience. Without regret, without guilt, whoever is in your way can be swatted down. If there is no God, then there is no order and life is fragile and disposable.

              So what do we do? We live here in this godless culture; we did not ask for all this murder and mayhem but we have it. So what do we do? Well, first of all, we cannot cooperate with it any longer. We cannot live our lives like the rest of them anymore. We have to be different and our lives have to be different, significantly different. We cannot say to our children or grandchildren “Well, it is ok not to go to Mass.” We cannot say:” Well maybe we don’t have to eat supper together tonight.” We cannot say, “Well just a little screen violence is allowed.” We cannot say, “Well a little texting at supper is fine.” We cannot be part of this disordered culture.

              If we cannot change it, we are going to have to protect ourselves from it by praying, by going to Mass, by assiduously refusing to get involved in its music and media and TV and cinema. We need to limit the time we spend with all the silly social communications where we have thousands of anonymous friends to whom we communicate nothing of any substance.

                We can no longer be complicit in the attitudes and behavior of a culture that has no God–for it has no order and it will spread its disorder into all our hearts and its fog into all our minds. And all that culture can do is kill! In the wake of all the violence in our city, we must understand that our God is a good God who creates order in our lives and therefore happiness and fulfillment. Moreover, anything less than God is well…deadly.

May 5, 2019

           October is the month of the Most Holy Rosary; November, the month to pray for the faithful departed; June we immerse ourselves in the ocean of mercy of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; July we praise and worship the Precious Blood of Jesus, the price of our salvation. May is the month of Mary. Mary is the Daughter of God the Father, the Mother of God the Son and the Mystical Spouse of the Holy Spirit; she is the Queen of the angels, saints, and of heaven and earth. In addition, St. Louis de Montfort acclaims her as the Queen of all hearts and God’s masterpiece of creation.

           The saints acclaim in powerful, inspired, and often poetic terms the glories of the Blessed Virgin Mary. What might be some ways that we can manifest our love and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary in her month–the month of Mary? Here are ten suggestions:

1. Consecration

          The first gesture we should do every morning is prayer—a prayer of consecration to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Start the day right through Mary! St. Mother Teresa moved by great love for Mary said: “Mary, give me your heart: so beautiful, so pure so immaculate; your Heart so full of love and humility that I May be able to receive Jesus in the Bread of Life and love Him as you love Him and serve Him in the distressing guise of the poor.”

2.  Angelus/Regina Caeli 

          Traditionally this prayer is prayed at noon, but it can be prayed at any time. Why not pray it three times a day—at 9:00 am, 12 noon, and 6:00 pm. By doing this we will be sanctifying the morning hours, the afternoon hours, and the evening hours through the holy and sweet presence of Mary. These Marian prayers call to mind Mary’s key presence in the Mysteries of our salvation—the Incarnation, Passion, death and Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! The Cure of Ars, St. John Vianney, reminds us of the constant presence and action of Mary in our lives: “Only after the Last Judgment will Mary get any rest; from now until then, she is too busy with her children. To serve the Queen of Heaven is to reign there, and to live under her commands is more than to govern.”

3. Consecrate the Home and Family to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

           Prepare for the consecration by a nine-day novena of Rosaries and prayers and culminate with the priest or deacon blessing the image as well as the home and family members. From this blessing and consecration, God the Father will shower a deluge of blessings upon you and every member in your family.

4. Consecration of the Self 

          Go through the formal process of consecration of your whole being to Jesus through Mary. You can choose various forms: Kolbe, or St. Louis de Montfort, or the modern one done by Father Michael Gaitely—33 Days to Morning Glory. This consecration could change your whole life in a dramatic way. If you have already done the consecration, then you can renew it every year and go deeper into the infinite reservoir of the love of God brought to us through the intercession of Mary! Mary has power over us in ways that go way beyond our wildest imagination. St. Louis de Montfort reminds us: “For God, having given power over His only-begotten and natural Son, also gave power over His adopted children—not only what concerns the body which would be of little account—but also in what concerns the soul.”

5. Imitate Mary

          If we truly love somebody, then we want to get to know them better, follow them more closely, and imitate their good qualities that we call virtues. St. Louis de Montfort, in his classic True Devotion to Mary, gives us a list of the ten principal virtues of Mary. Imitate them and you will be on the Highway to holiness. Here they are: Her deep humility, lively faith, blind obedience, unceasing prayer, constant self-denial, surpassing purity, ardent love, heroic patience, angelic kindness, and heavenly wisdom! St. Louis teaches us: “The greatest saints, those richest in grace and virtue will be the most assiduous in praying to the most Blessed Virgin, looking up to her as the perfect model to imitate and as a powerful helper to assist them.”

6. Temptations? Call on Mary

          Our life is a constant combat zone, until death! We should not fight alone against the devil, the flesh, and the world. Rather, in the heat of temptation, when all seems to be lost, call upon the Holy Name of Mary; pray the Hail Mary! If done, all the powers of hell will be vanquished. Mary is the “General in the army.” At her command the enemies—the evil spirits—take to flight, vanish, and are defeated! St. Francis de Sales was tempted to despair and through the prayer to Mary, “Memorare” (attributed to St. Bernard) the temptation was conquered. St. Anthony Mary Claret was tempted fiercely to give in to a temptation against purity. It was through his fervent prayers to Mary that the devil of impurity was expelled and young Anthony was given special graces to live chastity, to found a Religious Order, preach constantly, and write many books that did immense good. As St. Bonaventure asserts: “Men do not fear a powerful hostile army as the powers of hell fear the name and protection of Mary.”

7. Mary and the Liturgical Year 

            Get to know the powerful presence of Mary in the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church. Especially get to know Mary’s presence in the Liturgical Year—the Masses. The end purpose of Holy Mass is to praise and worship God the Father, through the offering of God the Son and through the power of the Holy Spirit. However, Mary has a special place in the Liturgical Year. Mary is the Mother of God, the Mother of the Church, and she is our Mother in the order of grace! Read and meditate attentively on the Apostolic Letter of Pope Paul VI Marialis Cultus, which clearly explains the presence of Mary in the Liturgical calendar. This is a spiritual masterpiece. It is a must for your reading!

8. Reading on Mary

            For a well-formed and integral Mariology, we should cultivate both doctrine and devotion. Doctrine without devotion can be arid and dry. Whereas, devotion without doctrine can easily degenerate into mere sentimentalism! Why not read the Apostolic Letter of Saint John Paul II: Blessed Virgin Mary and the Rosary. This spiritual gem combines both solid Catholic doctrine (Mariology) with tender love and devotion to Mary. The saintly Pope exhorts the entire world to contemplate the face of Jesus through the eyes and heart of Mary. Mary is the quickest, shortest, easiest, and most efficacious path to Jesus.

9. Marian Apostle

            Become an ardent, fervent, and passionate Apostle of Mary. One of the most famous modern Marian saints is Saint Maximilian Kolbe. His love for Mary could not be contained. One of the apostolic methods that Kolbe used was to spread devotion to the Immaculata by means of the Miraculous Medal (Medal of the Immaculate Conception). Any opportunity that would arise, St. Maximilian would give, free of charge, the medal to an individual. He called these “spiritual bullets.” Then he would explain the Marian, catechetical meaning of this explosive medal. The medal is called “Miraculous” for the simple reason that many miracles have been attributed to those who use it with great faith and love and trust in the intercession of Mary. Why not become a modern Marian apostle today, following in the footsteps of Kolbe? This great Marian saint asserted with conviction: “The Immaculate alone has from God the promise of victory over Satan. She seeks souls that will consecrate themselves entirely to her, that will become in her hands forceful instruments for the defeat of Satan and the spread of God’s kingdom.”

10. The Most Holy Rosary

          In Fatima, Our Lady appeared six times to the Shepherd children—Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco. In each and every apparition, Our Lady insisted upon the praying of the most Holy Rosary. St. John Paul II in his document on the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Rosary insisted, pleaded, that the whole world prays the Holy Rosary for the salvation of the family and for world peace. The famous Rosary priest, Father Patrick Peyton put it concisely: “The family that prays together stays together” and “A world at prayer is a world at peace.” Why not obey the new saint—Saint John Paul II? Why not obey the Mother of God, Our Lady of Fatima’s requests? If done, the family will be saved and there will be a peace that the human heart so longs for.

April 28, 2019

           History was made in 2014 as Pope Francis celebrated a joint canonization of two predecessors, both from his lifetime, Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. Of the 266 Popes who have served the Church, 80 are canonized saints, but none had ever been canonized with another successor of St. Peter–three holy Bishops of Rome, the two raised to the altars and the one presiding at the altar. Making the day even more significant was the fact that they were canonized on the Feast of Divine Mercy, which was a central theme, perhaps the central, prominent theme, in the life of all three Popes.

            John XXIII’s most notable papal achievement was the calling of the Second Vatican Council, but in his famous October 11, 1962, speech to open the Council, he framed the entire Council in a merciful key. The point of the Council, he said, was to guard and teach more efficaciously the “sacred deposit of Christian doctrine.” In the past, he said, the Church “condemned with the utmost severity” the errors of various ages, but he said that today the Church must prefer “the balm of mercy to the arm of severity…by explaining more fully the purport of her doctrines, rather than by publishing condemnations.” It is no wonder why he once called himself “a teacher of mercy and truth,” for he recognized that both are needed.

              In 1962, he published the encyclical Paenitentiam Agere on the gift of God’s mercy and the importance for us to recognize our need for it, come to receive it in the Sacrament of Penance, and do interior and exterior penance. This was, he declared, the best way to prepare for the Council, so that the “good seed that the Council will scatter far and wide over the Church in those days [will] not be allowed to go to waste,” but rather find “hearts that are ready and prepared, loyal and true.” The fruits of the Council would happen in abundance, he believed, only if the soil of receptivity had been fertilized with God’s mercy. One might argue that among the reasons for the chaos, confusion, and dissent that occurred in the Church after Vatican II was that John’s summons to conversion, penance, and mercy was not adequately followed.

              One of John Paul II’s principal tasks was accurately and effectively to implement the Second Vatican Council that John XXIII convened and in which the future Polish Pope participated as a young bishop. It is no surprise, therefore, that he sought to bring what Papa Roncalli called the “balm of mercy” to the modern world. John Paul II was spurred on in a particular way by the private revelations Jesus had given to a young Krakovian Sister named Faustina Kowalska.

                 Curiously, during John XXIII’s pontificate, Sr. Faustina’s diary was placed on a list of condemned books because a faulty Italian translation made it seem as if Jesus had revealed to her that forgiveness of sins could happen through devotional practices alone outside the Sacrament of His Mercy. However, when the future John Paul II became Archbishop of Krakow, he had his former teacher and doctoral dissertation adviser, Fr. Ignacy Rozycki, examine her writings dogmatically in order to show their consistency with Church teaching and eventually lead to her total rehabilitation.

              When he was elected the successor of St. Peter, John Paul II framed his entire Pontificate within the scope of God’s mercy. In 1981, he said, “Right from the beginning of my ministry in St. Peter’s See in Rome, I consider this message [of Divine Mercy] my special task.” In 1997, he added, “The Message of Divine Mercy has always been near and dear to me. This was also my personal experience, which I took with me to the See of Peter and which in a sense forms the image of this Pontificate.” In August 1992, he solemnly entrusted the world to Divine Mercy “with the burning desire that the message of God’s merciful love…be made known to all peoples of the earth.”

                He would declare in 1997, “There is nothing that man needs more than Divine mercy,” and in his second encyclical, “God is Rich in Mercy,” he would write, “The Church must bear witness to the mercy of God revealed in Christ…seeking to introduce it and to make it incarnate in the lives both of her faithful and as far as possible in the lives of all people of good will…[and] to call upon the mercy of God, imploring it in the face of all the manifestations of physical and moral evil.”

          In 1993, he beatified Sister Faustina and seven years later, he canonized her, solemnly declaring the Second Sunday of Easter to be Divine Mercy Sunday. Because of his devotion to proclaiming the Gospel of God’s Merciful Love, it was fitting that God called him home on the Vigil of the Feast of Divine Mercy in 2005, that he was beatified on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2011 and was canonized on that same feast.

          Lastly, mercy has been the fundamental theme in the papacy of Pope Francis. When he was asked if he would accept the papacy, he showed his own personal trust in God’s mercy, responding, “I am a sinner, but I trust in the mercy and infinite patience of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” Mercy is the fundamental story of his vocation, receiving his priestly calling totally as a surprise while he was confessing as a 16-year-old. His papal motto, “Miserando atque Eligendo,” emphasizes that in his life and in every life, God calls us in the very same act with which he embraces us in His mercy.

             He has praised John Paul II for grasping, with the help of St. Faustina, that our time is a “kairos” or propitious occasion of mercy. He said that the “whole Gospel, all of Christianity,” is contained in the joy God has in forgiving us, and that “mercy is the true force that can save man and the world.” As Francis canonized John and John Paul, the real story was not the personality and achievements of these three holy popes who will seem to be the central figures but the mercy of God that they received, rejoiced in, and never ceased to offer and proclaim to the Church and the world.

April 21, 2019

           “This is the day the Lord has made,” Christians sing all over the world today. “Let us rejoice and be glad” is our reaction. While God gives us every day of our life and for which we should never cease to thank Him, today is the most special day in which the Lord who created the world, in the beginning, remakes it. “O God, who wonderfully created human nature and still more wonderfully redeemed it,” we prayed after hearing the Creation account in the Easter Vigil. The recreated world is even more beautiful than the created one. The Lord has made us for this day, to experience the recreation, the new life Easter brings. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus said, “Behold I make all things new!” Today, Jesus not only renews all of creation through His overcoming of sin and the death and disordered introduced into the world by sin, but He wants to make us new, too.

          St. Paul describes how we enter into that dramatic transformation: “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” The new and improved human life Jesus wishes to give us involves new goals, new aspirations. It involves a death to the old Adam in us and a resurrection to the New. It involves lifting up our hearts and our lives to the Lord. If we live this day as God wants to help us to live it, if we permit the Lord to remake us this day in His image and likeness, then we will experience the joy and gladness of this most sacred day.

          Joy is meant to be our fundamental disposition on Easter morning! Catholic Churches throughout the world exploded with joy in the Easter Proclamation describing the joy of Jesus’ resurrection. “Rejoice, let Mother Church rejoice, arrayed with the lighting of [Jesus’ risen] glory, let this holy building shake with joy, filled with the mighty voices of the peoples.” In the hymns we sing, we burst with that building-shaking gladness. In The Strife is Over, we sing, “O Let us swell the joyful strain.” In Christ the Lord is Risen Today, we tell each other, “Raise your joys and triumphs high.” In the great Marian antiphon sung each of the 50 days of the Easter season, the Regina Caeli, we chant, “Be Joyful, Mary, Heavenly Queen!” The entire season is an Ode to Joy given to God at the gift He gives us today. The Eucharistic Preface of the Easter Mass most effectively summarizes this Easter attitude: “Overcome with paschal joy, every land, every people exults in your praise” as with all the angels and heavenly powers we praise and thank God “yet more gloriously” on this day “above all.” Jesus came into the world, as He said to us on Holy Thursday, so that “my joy may be in you and your joy be complete!” Today is the day in which He wants to give us that fullness.

          If we are going to celebrate Easter Sunday well, if we are truly going to live the Christian life, we must be joyful and glad. This has been one of the principal messages of Pope Francis since his election. At the beginning of his pontificate, he wrote an apostolic exhortation to every Catholic of the world entitled The Joy of the Gospel. He would hope that you have had a chance to read it, or if you have not, to do so as a response of faith to God this Easter season. The fundamental reform of the Church Christ is calling him to lead is one in which Catholics experience the true joy of the Gospel, the joy of believing and living our faith, and contagiously bring that joy to others. He said, “There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter,” who live as if they always have “just come back from a funeral.” That is not the Christian way!

          Pope Francis’ thoughts in that exhortation are a powerful way for us to learn how to live Easter right. He begins his exhortation saying, “The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew.” The Holy Father admits that the Christian life isn’t devoid of crosses, but states that Christians find joy even in the Crosses because of our knowledge of how Good Friday leads to Easter when we unite those Crosses to the Lord. “The Gospel, radiant with the glory of Christ’s cross, constantly invites us to rejoice,” he declares. “Our Christian joy drinks of [Jesus’] brimming heart. He promises his disciples [before his Passion]: ‘You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy’ (Jn 16:20). He then goes on to say: ‘But I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you’” (Jn 16:22). After his resurrection he fulfilled that promise, the Pope says, as St. John describes happened on Easter Sunday evening, “The disciples ‘rejoiced’ (Jn 20:20) at the sight of the risen Christ. “

           Pope Francis says that Christians need to be overcome with Paschal joy because the “heart of the Christian message will always be the same,” in humanly good times and in bad, in poverty and prosperity, in sickness and in health. That message is about “the God who revealed his immense love in the crucified and risen Christ.” The fundamental Christian proclamation, the Gospel, is: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.” “When everything is said and done,” Pope Francis observes, “we are infinitely loved.” The Holy Father recognizes “the grief of people who have to endure great suffering,” but he says “slowly but surely we all have to let the joy of faith slowly revive as a quiet yet firm trust, even amid the greatest distress.” The Resurrection gives us hope. “If we think that things are not going to change, we need to recall that Jesus Christ has triumphed over sin and death and is now almighty. Jesus Christ truly lives. … Christ, risen and glorified, is the wellspring of our hope, and he will not deprive us of the help we need.”

          But the Holy Father says that if we are going to experience this fountain of hope and joy, we need to live with Jesus in the present, we need to enter into communion with His joy and hope. We need to receive His strength even in our weakness. “Christ’s resurrection is not an event of the past,” Pope Francis emphasizes. “It contains a vital power which has permeated this world. Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up. It is an irresistible force. Often it seems that God does not exist: all around us, we see persistent injustice, evil, indifference, and cruelty. But it is also true that in the midst of darkness something new always springs to life and sooner or later produces fruit. On razed land life breaks through, stubbornly yet invincibly. However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads. Each day in our world beauty is born anew; it rises transformed through the storms of history. Values always tend to reappear under new guises, and human beings have arisen time after time from situations that seemed doomed. Such is the power of the resurrection. … Christ’s resurrection everywhere calls forth seeds of that new world; even if they are cut back, they grow again, for the resurrection is already secretly woven into the fabric of this history, for Jesus did not rise in vain.”

           This vital power of Jesus’ resurrection is at work not just out there in the world but also inside of each of us and this is at the root of our Christian joy, the joy of the Gospel. But it is not enough for us to experience it individually. In his exhortation, Pope Francis calls us to share that joy. The joy flowing from Jesus’ brimming heart into ours is supposed to flow from ours into others. We all lit tapers from the Paschal Candle showing how Jesus, symbolized by the Paschal Candle, lights each of us, symbolized by the tapers on fire; and just like we all spread that flame to our neighbors by lighting their tapers in turn; so Jesus wants to illumine us with His joy, the joy of the Resurrection, the joy of the Gospel and have us spread that joy to others. The way to increase our joy is precisely to do this. We all know that if we were to take a lit taper outside on a windy day, it would almost certainly be extinguished. We cannot surround it with our hands and body sufficiently to protect it from the wind. The only way to keep the flame alive is to make it grow, to join it to many lit tapers so that it becomes a huge bonfire that not even strong winds can really extinguish. It is the same way with Christian joy. It grows by sharing because then our own joy is increased by seeing the joy of Jesus change the life of another.

          Our joy from Jesus compels us to share that joy with those we care about, those we love and even strangers for whom Jesus out of love died. Pope Francis says, “We are convinced from personal experience that it is not the same thing to have known Jesus as not to have known him, not the same thing to walk with him as to walk blindly, not the same thing to hear his word as not to know it, and not the same thing to contemplate him, to worship him, to find our peace in him, as not to. It is not the same thing to try to build the world with his Gospel as to try to do so by our own lights. We know well that with Jesus life becomes richer and that with him it is easier to find meaning in everything. This is why we evangelize!” We share the faith so that others may be happy.

           Today on this Easter Sunday, on this day the Lord has made, we rejoice and are glad, and we seek together with Jesus to share that happiness with others. And the greatest way we do that is in the way Jesus taught us to do it, not just on Easter Sunday but on what the early saints called the “little Easter” of each Lord’s day. It is here at the sacred altar that we come to celebrate the special day each week the Lord gives us to rejoice in and be glad, the day on which He remakes us in His image. Today, “overcome with Paschal joy” that flows into the enthusiasm of all our hymns, our sung and recited responses, in the peace we give to each other, let us get ready to receive Jesus’ risen body and blood so that He may make us new, so that He may help us to seek the things that are above, so that He may help us “see and believe,” and inspire us to go to bring to others this Joy of the Gospel…that Jesus lives, that He loves us, and that He is at our side every day—so that they with us may experience the joy Jesus came to give us all to the full!

April 14, 2019

          It is always a joy when I meet parishioners after Mass and they say, “See you next Sunday!” But there is one exception: on Palm Sunday. When they say it leaving Church with their blessed palms, part of me wants to politely stop them and say to them with a smile: “Do you really have no plans to RSVP for the Last Supper that Jesus ‘eagerly desires to eat with you’ (Luke 22:15) on Holy Thursday? Will you be there on Friday when they crucify your Lord? Are you excited about Easter, such that you cannot wait to celebrate it at the earliest possible moment, which just happens to be during the most beautiful and liturgically significant Mass of the year, the Easter Vigil?”

          The Church professes that in the Sacred Triduum—Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil—the Church marks the most sacred time of all time. We enter temporally into the eternal moments when Jesus gave us His Body and Blood in the Upper Room, sacrificed that Body and shed that Blood on Golgotha, and ultimately rose triumphant from the dead. And yet, in my pastoral experience, there are a shocking number of Catholics who faithfully come to Church every Sunday who do not attend any of the moments of the Sacred Triduum. Many others come just to one of the three, normally the Good Friday Passion Service. It is very rare to find parishioners who attend all of them.

          This is, I think, one of the effects of the increasing secularizing of Catholic sensibilities. Secularism means living as if God does not exist. It is a type of practical atheism. Rather than living as 24/7 Catholics, we have our “times” for prayer, for Mass, for other religious duties, but the rest of the time, we basically live indistinguishably from those around us. The Church must recover a sense of full-time Catholic identity. One of the most important ways to do that is by recovering a Catholic sense of time through living well the liturgical cycle. And one of the biggest litmus tests as to whether we have a spiritually-calibrated watch is how we live what we proclaim to be the holiest week of the year.

          The phrase “Holy Week” refers, after all, only to one week each year. It is supposed to be special. It is meant to make us holy. But with the exception of the Good Friday abstinence and fasting, too many Catholics live it like any other week of the year. Sometimes people ask me whether priests should simply be satisfied that people come to Mass at all on Sundays. Happy? Certainly! Satisfied? No, because we care too much about the people we serve not to challenge them to an upgrade in the way they live their faith. Holy Week is an opportunity for us to grow greatly in love of God and in appreciation of what He has done for us, and we hope and pray that those He died for will open themselves up in faith to receive all the gifts He seeks to give.

           As a young boy growing up in a practicing Catholic family—not very long ago!—we always spent the Sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil attending the Church’s most solemn liturgies. It was, frankly, unimaginable that we would not be in attendance. I never believed I was doing anything special. I thought that this was what basically every practicing Catholic did. For disciples of Jesus to miss any of these principal celebrations of our faith would have been as incomprehensible for me as a diehard New Orleans Saints fan skipping the football games in the Superdome.

          When, however, I left seminary for parish life, anticipating that the Holy Week liturgies would be mob scenes, I discovered that they were, in contrast, rather sparse affairs, in some cases even less well-attended than Holy Days of Obligation. I did not know whether it was a case of insufficient catechesis on the part of priests, parents, and religious education instructors, or general lukewarmness on the part of parishioners, or the failure of the faithful just to reflect adequately on the incredible invitations Jesus makes to us during those days.

            But I soon began to discover that Holy Thursday—pastorally—can be a little depressing. The day on which Jesus established the Holy Eucharist and founded the priesthood to make the Eucharist possible is one on which the vast majority of parishioners are doing something else than coming to celebrate these gifts and mysteries. Most Catholic faithful love the Lord but do not come to celebrate the establishment of His extraordinary Eucharistic self-giving. Most faithful likewise love their priests but do not come to celebrate the “day of the priesthood” with them.

          Good Friday is a little better, when more people seem to try to come to something, whether the Passion Service, or Walking the Nine Churches, or the Stations of the Cross. But I have always wondered how it is possible for anyone to live the Catholic faith and not to seek to overcome every obstacle to come to say to the Crucified Lord “thank you for dying for me” and “have mercy on me and the whole world.”

           The Easter Vigil is more like Holy Thursday when many priests must put on a massive recruitment effort to get people to come. Yes, it is a Saturday night; it is the longest Mass of the year by far, with many more readings and prayers than a typical Sunday, not to mention litanies and triple alleluias, fire and a lengthy solo of the Exultet. But how seriously and eagerly do we approach Easter? Many just seem to choose to fulfill their Sunday “obligation” the following morning. They have no idea of how much they are missing.

              Occasionally someone asks, “If Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil are so important, why aren’t they Holy Days of Obligation?” I think for the same reason why we do not need laws or rules mandating the celebration of a loved one’s birthday: because it would be unfathomable that such a mandate should be needed. Obliging attendance at the principal events of Jesus’ life by which we enter into His Passover from death to life would be totally to miss the point of the interior motivation that should be bringing us there. Not to downplay at all the importance of any of the Holy Days, but is there any doubt that what the Church celebrates on Holy Thursday—Jesus’ self-giving in the Eucharist—is more important than what we mark on the Solemnities of All Saints Day, Mary Mother of God, and the Immaculate Conception? Is there any question that the celebration of the Lord’s death is more important than the Solemnity marking the Assumption? Is there any dispute that the Easter Vigil trumps everything, including the celebration of the Lord’s Nativity and His Ascension?

            Lent is a season of conversion and the way we live Holy Week should be the crown of that conversion process. May each of us respond to God’s help to dare to make it not only the holiest week of our year but even, until now, the holiest week of our life!

April 7, 2019

         On December 3, 2018, The Strength of a Vocation, a book-length interview with Pope Francis by Father Fernando Prado, a Spanish Claretian Missionary, was published in ten languages. Fr. Prado, a theology professor at the Pontifical University of Salamanca, asked 60 questions on a wide range of topics with regard to priestly, religious, and consecrated vocations, but the only subject that made headlines was what Pope Francis said with regard to priests, religious, seminarians, and candidates with same-sex attractions.

          The context was a conversation Pope Francis said he had had with a bishop who did not think it was a problem that several priests in his diocese were openly gay because it was just an “expression of affection.” The Pope corrected him, saying, “This is a mistake. It is not just an expression of affection.” Neither the bishop nor the Bishop of Rome defined what was meant by “openly gay,” whether it meant participation in unchaste gay practices or publicly identifying oneself as gay and aligning oneself with the gay movement. Whatever the definition, however, the Pope declared, “In the consecrated life and in the priestly life, there is no place for that kind of affection,” meaning, it seems, no place for same-sex sexual activity, same-sex public displays of affection, or affection for the gay lifestyle.

          With regard to priests and religious engaging in same-sex sexual activity, Pope Francis called them to stop living as hypocrites and make a choice whether to live a Christian or gay lifestyle. “I say to the priests, gay religious men and women,” the Holy Father forthrightly stated, “we must urge you to live fully celibate and, above all, to be exquisitely responsible, trying not to scandalize your communities or the holy faithful people of God by living a double life. It is better that you leave the ministry or consecrated life rather than live a double life.” Concerning candidates for the priesthood or religious life, Pope Francis said, “Homosexuality is a very serious issue that must be adequately discerned from the beginning with the candidates,” adding, “The Church recommends that people with this ingrained tendency not be accepted into the ministry or the consecrated life. The ministry or the consecrated life is not his place.”

          “It’s something that worries me,” he continued. “We have to discern with seriousness and listen to the voice of the experience that the Church has. … It may be that at the moment they are accepted they don’t exhibit that tendency, but later they come out.” For that reason, he said, we must “very much take care of human and sentimental maturity” when training future priests and religious, and “be demanding,” because “in our societies it even seems that homosexuality is fashionable and that mentality, in some way, also influences the life of the Church.” None of what he said was essentially new.

           With regard to priests not living chastely, Pope Francis has regularly called priests living unchastely either to repent and thoroughly convert or have the integrity to leave. Prior to the papacy, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio said in book-length interview with Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti that a priest “cannot scandalize a community and abuse the souls of the faithful,” which is why “the great hypocrisy of the double life” cannot be tolerated. In another book with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, he said that if a priest violates his commitment to chaste celibacy, he tries to “help him to get on track again” through penance and chastity, but that one who proves incapable of observing celibacy must leave.

            None of this is a contradiction of Pope Francis’ well-publicized 2013 statement, “Who am I to judge?” There he was referring to a priest who had been previously caught in homosexual activity whom the Pope implied “committed a sin [and] repented, sought forgiveness and received it.” Mercy was offered and received. Pope Francis, however, certainly is one who judges, and judges negatively, as the Church always has, hypocrisy, infidelity to one’s priestly promises, and same-sex sexual activity by priests. The Church has never considered kicking faithful priests out of the priesthood or faithful religious out of religious life simply for same-sex attractions. Nevertheless, if priests or religious want to identify with the gay lifestyle or live a double-life, the Holy Father is underlining that it is incompatible with what they promise.

           Concerning candidates for the priesthood and religious life, there is a stricter standard because we are not dealing with those who are ordained or in final vows who have made public commitments in the Church. What Pope Francis said is consistent with the Congregation for Clergy’s 2016 instruction for seminary formation that he approved and ordered to be published. That document, The Gift of the Priestly Vocation, reiterated the Church’s positions from 1962 and 2005, emphasizing: “The Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’” The reason is that “such persons, in fact, find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women” and “one must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.”

             The instruction considers a few different situations. The first is with regard to those who are engaging in unchaste and sinful homosexual activity or those who are living or promoting the gay lifestyle in opposition to Church teaching. It would be insane for the Church to ordain those who do not practice what they are called to preach. Likewise, those who support a “gay culture”—and look at a same-sex lifestyle as something that should be celebrated, either by living it themselves or encouraging those who do—simply are not thinking with the mind of the Church they have sworn a solemn oath to represent. The second is for those whose same sex attractions are “ingrained,” “deep-seated,” or profoundly rooted, in contrast to “transitory.” The Church recognizes that there is a huge difference between one who experiences some fleeting same-sex attractions—which, because of their ephemeral character, can and “must be clearly overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate”—and another whose attractions are strong and seemingly a permanent part of one’s self-identity. The Church has established the bar not at whether a man can practice continence (the abstention from sexual activity), but at whether he is free of what the Catechism calls “intrinsically disordered” same-sex affections.

                Does this mean that the Church thinks that someone with same-sex attractions cannot be a good, holy, and chaste priest or religious? No. Some are. The question is not whether it is possible, but whether it is prudent and likely, for there have also been priests with same-sex tendencies who have not served with the same distinction. For one with deep-seated homosexual tendencies to become a holy priest, for example, he needs much greater humility, and has to overcome many more obstacles, than a typical heterosexual candidate does. For him to believe and teach the Catholic faith, he must be able to say with integrity, “I have a disorder in my emotions and attractions that is not my fault, but which I have to work to overcome.” Otherwise, he will be tempted to conclude that the Church is wrong about her constant teaching on homosexuality and therefore can be wrong on other matters of faith and morals about which she definitively teaches. Likewise, he must also overcome greater challenges in seminary formation and priestly living. While it is, of course, possible with God’s grace for a man with profoundly rooted same-sex tendencies to remain chaste, seminary and rectory living would provide temptations to him that a typical heterosexual seminarian or priest living in those same circumstances would not face. Failure here, too, would be grievous for both the man and the Church.

              The scandals of recent months, beginning with former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and exacerbated by the report of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury, have revealed the problem in the Church of “lavender mafias” in various seminaries, religious houses, and dioceses, which has brought this issue of the inadvisability of ordaining those with deep-seated same-sex attractions to the forefront. The Church has not yet dealt adequately with the reality that four of five cases of the sexual abuse of minors are same-sex in nature and four of five of those are not of children but of post-pubescent boys. Many in the Church are in denial that there is any connection between same-sex attractions and activity with adults and the abuse of teenage boys, a connection that the notorious case of McCarrick has plainly illustrated. Whether the denial is ideological or simply a legitimate desire not to scapegoat all priests with same-sex attractions unjustly for the abuse crisis, it has prevented the Church from confronting at its roots the culture of sexual infidelity that allowed the abuse of minors to happen.

             Some have tried to accuse Pope Francis and the Church of an unchristian animus toward those with same-sex attractions, creating one set of standards for straights and another for gays, speaking about chastity for one and not the other. The Church indeed calls all priests, religious, seminarians, postulants, and novices to chaste celibacy—something that, frankly, everyone knows. The issue is not that the Church treats heterosexual and homosexual unchaste behavior differently—the Church considers both sinful—but that the Church objectively treats heterosexual and homosexual attractions and “identity” differently, something that is offensive to gay ideology, which maintains that same-sex attractions are merely “differently ordered” than opposite-sex attractions.

           The Church, however, holds that they are rather “intrinsically disordered” at the level of their “affective and sexual complementarity,” and that when someone identifies deeply with them, it is germane to the question of fittingness for the priesthood or religious life. As the Pope candidly affirmed, these matters are indeed highly relevant to the “strength of a vocation.”

March 31, 2019

         Why do Catholics fast? Our reasons find firm grounding in the Bible.

          When we fast, we follow holy example. Moses and Elijah fasted forty days before going into God's presence (Ex 34:28, 1 Kgs 19:8). Anna the Prophetess fasted to prepare herself for the coming of the Messiah (Lk 2:37). They all wanted to see God, and they considered fasting a basic prerequisite. We, too, wish to enter God's presence, so we fast.

            Jesus fasted (Mt 4:2). Morover, since He needed no purification, He surely did this only to set an example for us. In fact, He assumed that all Christians would follow His example. "When you fast," he said, "do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting" (Mt 6:16). Note that He did not say, "IF you fast," but "when."

           And WHEN is now. In Lent, the Church extends the idea of fasting, beyond the minimal skipping of meals, to a more far-reaching program of self-denial. Jesus said: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself...daily" (Lk 9:23). Therefore, we "give up" something that we would ordinarily enjoy: sweets, soda pop, a favorite TV show, or the snooze alarm.

           Fasting has its health benefits, but it is not the same as dieting. Fasting is something spiritual and far more positive. Fasting is a spiritual feast. It does for the soul what food does for the body.

           The Bible spells out specific spiritual benefits of fasting. It produces humility (Ps 69:10). It shows our sorrow for our sins (1 Sam 7:6). It clears a path to God (Dan 9:3). It is a means of discerning God's will (Ezr 8:21) and a powerful method of prayer (8:23). It is a mark of true conversion (Joel 2:12).

            Fasting helps us to be detached from the things of this world. We fast, not because earthly things are evil, but precisely because they are good. They are God's gifts to us. But they are so good that we sometimes prefer the gifts to the Giver. We practice self-indulgence rather than self-denial. We tend to eat and drink to the point where we forget God. Such indulgence is really a form of idolatry. It is what St. Paul meant when he said, "their god is the belly...with minds set on earthly things" (Phi 3:19).

            How can we enjoy God's gifts without forgetting the Giver? Fasting is a good way to start. The body wants more than it needs, so we should give it less than it wants. St. John of the Cross said that we cannot rise up to God if we are bound to the things of this world. So we give up good things, and gradually we grow less dependent on them, less needy.

            All of this is part of our preparation for heaven, for we are destined to lose our earthly goods anyway. Time, age, illness and "doctor's orders" can take away our taste for chocolate, our ability to enjoy a cold beer, and even the intimate embrace of a loved one. If we have no discipline over our desires, then these losses will leave us bitter and estranged from God. However, if we follow Jesus in self-denial, we will find a more habitual consolation in the ultimate good—God Himself.

               How is it that some people are able to remain serene and cheerful amid extreme suffering and even when facing imminent death? It is not just a matter of temperament. They have prepared themselves for the moment by giving up the things of this world, one small thing at a time. They have grown so accustomed to small sacrifice that the big one is not such a stretch.

                No one says that fasting is easy. In fact, says Benedictine Father Thomas Acklin, author of The Passion of the Lamb: God's Love Poured Out in Jesus, "Fasting can seem very hard, and it can seem that if I do not eat I will become weak and will not be able to work, or pray, or do anything.

              "Yet there is that marvelous moment," he adds, "when, after some hours have passed, my stomach has stopped growling and I've even forgotten what I've given up, when there is a lightness, a freedom, a clarity of the senses and a brightness of attitude and feeling, an incomparable closeness to the Lord."

              Many will say, “Lent is over, so I am finished with my fasting till next year!” However, God wants the forty days of Lent to have a lasting effect on our lives. So, in a sense, fasting is for always. Father Rene Schatteman, an Opus Dei chaplain in Pittsburgh, says that he received this lesson directly from a canonized saint. "I learned from St. Josemaria Escriva, whom I had the privilege of knowing personally, that a person should make some small sacrifice at each meal, always, and not just during Lent."

              Fr. Schatteman emphasizes the importance of little things, and the big effect they can have: "We should all feel the need to help Christ redeem the world by practicing self-denial in everyday, ordinary eating, and drinking...to take a bit less, or a bit less of what we like most, to avoid eating between meals, to skip a snack or dessert, etc., without making a big deal of it."

              A Metairie businessman (who asked for anonymity) told me of his longtime practice of fasting on Fridays, "a 12-15 hour fast from food, water-only." He said, however, that this can be difficult to carry out, not because of the hunger, but because it can disrupt family life. "It's very hard to sit at the family table and not eat. It's not so much a question of resisting the temptation of the food. I always felt like I was breaking fellowship. My fasting actually felt selfish, like I was taking something away from our time together as a family." He has since modified his fast, "to be broken at the family dinner in the evening."

              Why do Catholics fast? Our anonymous businessman put it well: "It is medicine for my biggest problem—selfishness and lack of self-control. To force myself to curb my appetites, to not satisfy my desires—even for a short period of time—this is a good thing. To offer up the little sacrifice to God, for my family, for people who are hungry through no choice of their own, this I think is also good."

March 24, 2019

         Few times in the Christian year call us to reflect on transformational change like Lent leading toward Easter. Springtime is lush with rebirth, new beginnings, and new growth. Too often, however, we want to race to the Easter Resurrection without fully embracing the Lenten process that leads there. Lent reflects the forty days that Jesus wandered in the wilderness—tempted by Satan—in readiness for a ministry destined to end in tragedy. Few of us can relate to the level of sacrifice and commitment that Jesus displayed in these forty days, yet Lent provides us with an opportunity to deepen our spirituality by engaging in regular discipline from Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday. The wilderness—the desert days of Lent—is the true path toward spiritual transformation.

         There is a compelling metaphor that helps us embrace the wilderness and prevents us from racing to Easter. It is the metaphor of the seed. Jesus began His teaching ministry with the parable of the sower (cf. Matthew 13) and referred to seeds and trees, fruit and branches, throughout His ministry. To see the metaphor of Christian growth and spiritual development contained in a seed is to learn valuable lessons about change and transformation. Receive these six lessons from the seed as six devotionals for this Lenten season. Incorporate them into your daily meditations so that they might grow to full bloom in your heart.

Lesson One: Seeds Need a Rich Environment

        A seed that lacks appropriate soil may sprout, but will quickly wither and die. Even in the best soil, without water and nutrients, growth will be limited. Without sun and cultivation, plants will decay and spoil. Seeds require a rich, healthy environment in which to grow. This applies to the environment in which we grow as Christian disciples. There must be an ongoing flow of comfort and security, challenge and inspiration, learning and service. Without such an environment, discipleship growth is stunted, stagnant, or worse, dead. We create an environment for our spiritual formation through prayer, study, worship, fellowship, and service.

Lesson Two: Seeds Can't Be Rushed

         When seeds do not sprout, take root, and grow, try yelling at them. Of course, that is a preposterous idea. No one would ever think that they could somehow rush the normal growing process. Seeds require the amount of time that they require. In God's plan, the time things take is the right time. People, however, being only human, get impatient. Our culture puts pressure on us to rush through everything. We live in an age of instant gratification. Seeds teach us that we need to learn to wait, to develop patience. Christian formation is a process of seed-like growth. Patience is the key ingredient to transformational growth.

Lesson Three: All Seeds Grow at Different Rates

          Plant a package of seeds, and immediately you see diversity in the rate of growth. Some sprout almost immediately and begin a steady rate of growth. Late sprouters often become early bloomers. And some normal beginners end up stunted and sickly. Growth is rarely even, and it is often chaotic. Nothing we do will change this diversity. Where seeds are concerned, we are comfortable with different rates of development. This is not always true with our attitudes about Christian believers. We often adopt a "cookie-cutter" approach to disciple making that makes some seem advanced, while others lag behind. The seed teaches us that to mature in different ways at different times is the only true normal.

Lesson Four: Change Happens in Stages

            Examine any plant as it grows from seed to maturity, and you will find that it is hard to believe you are looking at the same plant. While the growth follows a smooth process, it proceeds through distinct stages. These stages are marked by unique characteristics and are a measure for the relative health and well-being of the plant at any given time. Our spiritual development progresses through stages as well. Belief and inquiry deepen to devotion and discipleship. Learning and following evolve into teaching and leading. Growth within the community of faith matures to a life of service in the world. We move through ages and stages of faith development as we grow from seed to sapling to fruit-bearing tree.

Lesson Five: Seeds Contain the Past and the Future

            Each seed is the product of previous generations and contains within it all the genetic code for the future. Seeds are filled with information that yields transformation. Each generation builds upon the last and lays the foundation for the next generation. The Word of God is the information we contain—passed down throughout the ages and preserved in us for the future—that holds the power to transform us. When we give ourselves time to grow, we unleash the God-given power to become mature Christian disciples.

Lesson Six: Seeds Have a Purpose Larger Than Themselves

            Growth is not the purpose of a seed, but a means to an end. Unless seeds give rise to new seeds, they fail to fulfill their purpose. Transformation never happens for its own sake. Change happens to lead us to a new place. Growth occurs that we might not only know more, but that we might do more. Seeds are judged, ultimately, on the fruit that they bear. Christians may never content themselves with growing in their knowledge and love of God. Growth that fails to lead to a change in behavior is cancerous, not healthy. We grow for a reason, and that reason is something much larger than any individual's needs.

              The lessons of the seed help us see Lent, not only as a time of sacrifice and denial, but also as a time of preparation and anticipation—preparation for the work to which God calls us and anticipation of the fullness of life that God promises.

March 17, 2019

          Lent is a special time of prayer, penance, sacrifice, and good works in preparation for the celebration of Easter. In the desire to renew the liturgical practices of the Church, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council stated, "The two elements which are especially characteristic of Lent—the recalling of baptism or the preparation for it, and penance—should be given greater emphasis in the liturgy and in liturgical catechesis. It is by means of them that the Church prepares the faithful for the celebration of Easter, while they hear God's word more frequently and devote more time to prayer" (no. 109). The word Lent itself is derived from the Anglo-Saxon words lencten, meaning "Spring," and lenctentid, which literally means not only "Springtide" but also was the word for "March," the month in which the majority of Lent falls.

         Since the earliest times of the Church, there is evidence of some kind of Lenten preparation for Easter. For instance, St. Irenaeus (d. 203) wrote to Pope St. Victor I, commenting on the celebration of Easter and the differences between practices in the East and the West: "The dispute is not only about the day, but also about the actual character of the fast. Some think that they ought to fast for one day, some for two, others for still more; some make their 'day' last 40 hours on end. Such variation in the observance did not originate in our own day, but very much earlier, in the time of our forefathers" (Eusebius, History of the Church, V, 24). When Rufinus translated this passage from Greek into Latin, the punctuation made between "40" and "hours" made the meaning to appear to be "40 days, twenty-four hours a day." The importance of the passage, nevertheless, remains that since the time of "our forefathers"—always an expression for the apostles—a 40-day period of Lenten preparation existed. However, the actual practices and duration of Lent were still not homogenous throughout the Church.

         Lent becomes more regularized after the legalization of Christianity in A.D. 313. The Council of Nicea (325), in its disciplinary canons, noted that two provincial synods should be held each year, "one before the 40 days of Lent." St. Athanasius (d. 373) in this "Festal Letters" implored his congregation to make a 40-day fast prior to the more intense fasting of Holy Week. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) in his Catechetical Lectures, which are the paradigm for our current RCIA programs, had 18 pre-baptismal instructions given to the catechumens during Lent. St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444) in his series of "Festal Letters" also noted the practices and duration of Lent, emphasizing the 40-day period of fasting. Finally, Pope St. Leo (d. 461) preached that the faithful must "fulfill with their fasts the Apostolic institution of the 40 days," again noting the apostolic origins of Lent. One can safely conclude that by the end of the fourth century, the 40-day period of Easter preparation known as Lent existed, and that prayer and fasting constituted its primary spiritual exercises.

         Of course, the number "40" has always had special spiritual significance regarding preparation. On Mount Sinai, preparing to receive the Ten Commandments, "Moses stayed there with the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights, without eating any food or drinking any water" (Ex 34:28). Elijah walked "40 days and 40 nights" to the mountain of the Lord, Mount Horeb (another name for Sinai) (I Kings 19:8). Most importantly, Jesus fasted and prayed for "40 days and 40 nights" in the desert before He began His public ministry (cf. Mt 4:2).

          Once the 40 days of Lent were established, the next development concerned how much fasting was to be done. In Jerusalem, for instance, people fasted for 40 days, Monday through Friday, but not on Saturday or Sunday, thereby making Lent last for eight weeks. In Rome and in the West, people fasted for six weeks, Monday through Saturday, thereby making Lent last for six weeks. Eventually, the practice prevailed of fasting for six days a week over the course of six weeks, and Ash Wednesday was instituted to bring the number of fast days before Easter to 40. The rules of fasting varied. First, some areas of the Church abstained from all forms of meat and animal products, while others made exceptions for food like fish. For example, Pope St. Gregory (d. 604), writing to St. Augustine of Canterbury, issued the following rule: "We abstain from flesh, meat, and from all things that come from flesh, as milk, cheese and eggs." Second, the general rule was for a person to have one meal a day, in the evening or at 3 p.m.

          These Lenten fasting rules also evolved. Eventually, a smaller repast was allowed during the day to keep up one's strength from manual labor. Eating fish was allowed, and later eating meat was also allowed through the week except on Ash Wednesday and Friday. Dispensations were given for eating dairy products if a pious work was performed, and eventually this rule was relaxed totally. (However, the abstinence from even dairy products led to the practice of blessing Easter eggs and eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday.)

          Over the years, modifications have been made to the Lenten observances, making our practices not only simple but also easy. Ash Wednesday still marks the beginning of Lent, which lasts for 40 days, not including Sundays. The present fasting and abstinence laws are very simple: On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, the faithful fast (having only one full meal a day and smaller snacks to keep up one's strength) and abstain from meat; on the other Fridays of Lent, the faithful abstain from meat. People are still encouraged "to give up something" for Lent as a sacrifice. (An interesting note is that technically on Sundays and solemnities like St. Joseph's Day (March 19) and the Annunciation (March 25), one is exempt and can partake of whatever has been offered up for Lent.

         Nevertheless, I was always taught, "If you gave something up for the Lord, tough it out. Don't act like a Pharisee looking for a loophole." Moreover, an emphasis must be placed on performing spiritual works, like attending the Stations of the Cross, attending Mass, making a weekly holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament, taking time for personal prayer and spiritual reading and most especially making a good confession and receiving sacramental absolution. Although the practices may have evolved over the centuries, the focus remains the same: to repent of sin, to renew our faith, and to prepare to celebrate joyfully the mysteries of our salvation.

March 10, 2019

My Brothers and Sisters in the Lord:

         On Ash Wednesday, we began together our Lenten journey. Through prayer, fasting, and works of charity, we will experience God’s power at Easter, which “dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, and brings mourners joy.” As St. Paul said to the Ephesians, “You should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God's way in righteousness and holiness of truth.” (Ephesians 4:23-24).

          This Lent, my dear friends, I invite you to join me on a journey to Jesus. The question that I pose as we begin this journey is this: What is the difference between a window and a door? Well, you and I can look out of a window and catch a glimpse of what is outside – or if we are outside we can look in through the window. In either case, though, we stay where we are. A door, on the other hand, lets us become part of the scene, as we move from where we were and then enjoy taking part in what we could only catch a glimpse of through the window. Doors lead somewhere. When we walk through a door we cross a boundary. Doors can open up new horizons. Doors can also shut us out.

            At the time of the Great Jubilee in 2000, our Holy Father of happy memory, Pope St. John Paul II, opening the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica, said, “Throw open the doors to Christ”, repeating what he had said when he was elected Pope in 1978. Pope Emeritus Benedict renewed this call with the challenge, “If we let Christ into our lives, we lose...absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great...Only in this friendship [with Christ] are the doors of life opened wide...Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ and you will find true life.” Doorways on our journey of faith invite us to enter; to “come and see” what God offers us. Equally, when we open our door, we invite God and others into our hearts. When we do this, we recognise that our life is a gift, not to possess for ourselves but to share generously as a good steward.

             There is a story that is told of a person who had never stayed in a hotel. He rang the front desk and complained that there was no door by which he could leave his room. The duty manager was astounded. “There must be an exit! Have you checked all the doors?” The man replied that there was a door to his bathroom, a door to his closet – and one other door, which he did not try, because it had the sign labelled “do not disturb” hanging from the handle. Lent challenges us to become disturbed. Don’t we all, at certain times, post “do not disturb” signs on our relationships with others; “do not disturb” on our current life style choices; “do not disturb” on our willingness to hear the call to repentance and conversion; or “do not disturb” on our attitudes to the Christian virtues. Lent is thus a time in which the message of the Gospel should challenge us, disturb us, and unsettle our present judgments.

          For, if we are not willing to be disturbed, then we have effectively closed the door to our heart. Lent is a wonderful opportunity to think about the closed doors in our life. Are we feeling trapped in our current decisions? Have we shut God out? Have we shut other people out? Have we closed our mouth so as not to have to preach the message of the Gospel? Have we closed our eyes to our own need for repentance? Have we closed our ears to shield us from the cry of the poor, the weak, the lonely, the elderly or the little ones?

            Whatever may be holding us back from opening the door of our heart to Christ, let this Lent be a time for us to “Throw open the doors to Christ.” Let us ask God for the courage to reach beyond our fears and stereotypes. Let us fast, not only from food and drink, but from judgemental and envious attitudes that deepen divisions. Let us be generous in our almsgiving: in sharing our time, talent and treasure responsibly and generously with both friend and stranger. Throwing open the doors to Christ is also fundamental in our prayer life. We direct our prayer to the Father through Jesus Christ our Lord in union with the Holy Spirit. Prayer is the lynch pin of the Christian life, especially during Lent. Without constant and consistent prayer and meditation it is hardly possible to live the Christian life with a love that burns brightly for God and neighbor. If we have become sluggish in prayer, and most of us do at times, Lent is the time to refresh and renew ourselves in it.

             On the other hand, what if we ourselves are feeling shut out or alienated from Jesus Christ or others because of what we may have done? Remember, the tender compassion and mercy of God, as well as God’s readiness and desire to forgive, far outweigh any sin of which we are capable. Let us take strength and confidence from that and make a fervent confession of our sins. Christ’s invitation, “Knock and the door will be opened,” is a constant encouragement. We must also pray for the courage to apologise, so as to be reconciled to anyone we may have hurt.

           As we enter this Lenten journey, each of us should think about and pray about the great good we can achieve by leading exemplary Christian lives. As followers of our Lord Jesus Christ, we can try to imitate His goodness, His compassion, His love, His self-denial for the benefit of others. We can keep the commandments and practice the beatitudes. In so doing, we draw closer to God personally, we inspire faith and hope in others, and we positively influence our world.

            May our Blessed Mother, Mary Most Holy, who welcomed God so fully that God became incarnate in her, teach us to open wide our minds and our hearts so that we may undertake our Lenten journey with a renewed focus on our need to be renewed and transformed in the burning fire of God’s love. As St. Leo the Great expressed it: “None of us, dear friends, is so perfect and holy, as to make reflection and improvement unnecessary. All of us, regardless of rank or dignity, should be concerned to embark on the race that is set before us with fresh determination this Lent, making an effort over and above the norm.” May the 40 days of Lent, plus the 50 days of Easter joy – Ash Wednesday to Pentecost, the Christian Passover – give us all a welcome ‘tune-up’ so we can understand better how to live the new life Jesus won for us.

As a fellow pilgrim on the journey, I remain,

Prayerfully,

Fr. Cooper

March 3, 2019

          Bishops today, to be truly effective in the aftermath of the new wave of sexual abuse scandals, have no choice but to be true and thorough reformers. They cannot merely be good priests with a sacramental upgrade. They cannot be just competent managers and institutional maintenance men. They cannot be amiable and personally pious clerics who are intimidated before the wolves. They cannot be great evangelists who have no time for, or interest in, good governance and problem solving.

         The new conditions of the episcopacy today after the scandals require that bishops be saintly reformers. Reformers are not passive men. They are not naïve, excuse makers. They are bold and prudent problem attackers, strong fathers intent on defending their family against danger. They live with a patient urgency. Like Jesus, they have a zeal for their Father’s house with the courage to confront moneychangers or anyone else turning God’s Church into a place of manipulation and sin. They cannot wait for the fire that Jesus came to light on the earth to burn away whatever is unfit for the kingdom and renew the face of the Church and earth.

        For those looking for models, there are many from which to choose: Ignatius of Antioch, Ireneus, Hilary, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Augustine, Leo, Gregory, Peter Damian, Bellarmine, Francis de Sales, Alphonsus and the intrepidly heroic prelates of the faith of the 20^thcentury under persecution. However, I think the greatest reforming bishop and model of all is St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584), who reformed the Archdiocese of Milan and the Church universal after the terrible sins, scandal, and disarray that precipitated the Protestant Reformation.

         Here is what he faced. The sprawling Archdiocese of Milan had not had a resident bishop for eight decades. Many priests lived with concubines stolen from the married men of their parish, thought they were exempt from confession, and did not even know the formula of absolution to confess others. “If you want to go to hell,” one popular saying intoned, “become a priest.” One convent of religious women was so debauched that the nuns were simply called prostitutes. Several orders of men were depraved to the point that one tried to assassinate him while he was praying. Corruption of morals among civil leaders and average Joes was ubiquitous. Needless to say, he had a challenging assignment!

         As Msgr. John Cihak points out in the first sentence of a great and much needed new book, Charles Borromeo: Selected Orations, Homilies and Writings, “Charles Borromeo should have been part of the problem.” He was appointed nepotistically as a Cardinal at the age of 22 by his uncle Pope Pius IV, given a slew of benefices, and made the de facto Secretary of State, all while not even being ordained. Instead, however, God used him to be the point man to finish the Council of Trent, implement its decrees, publish its Catechism, reform the liturgy and liturgical music and so much more. After his uncle died, moved by pastoral zeal, he was able to persuade St. Pius V to allow him to go to Milan to serve the Archdiocese.

         When he arrived, he wasted no time. He did not need to wait a year to go on a listening tour to form a plan. He knew what the Church’s perennial pastoral plan of holiness was and he got right down to work. He reformed the bishops of the Province with various Provincial Councils to implement the decrees of the Council, because he recognized that if one Diocese were faithful and another unfaithful, the people would rightly be confused. He reformed the clergy, arranging for retreats and appealing to wayward clerics to repent and “be who you were promised to be.” If they refused his entreaties, he removed and replaced them, because their sinful and scandalous behavior was an obvious impediment to reform.

          He reformed lax religious orders, sometimes with the help of the Pope, sometimes with the help of civil governments. He reformed priestly formation. Previously it was done by means of apprenticeship. He formed seminaries to ensure that some of the best priests he could find would properly and adequately form future priests. He reformed parishes, traveling throughout his extensive diocese to get to know his priests and people and correcting abuses wherever he found them. He reformed the laity, especially corrupt civil officials, whom he first met with privately, but if they refused to convert, he went public and denounced their behavior for the scandal it was. He taught Catechism himself and formed the first Catholic “Sunday School” system, requiring priests to teach, so that all the faithful would learn the faith. He excelled in charity, liquidating his personal fortune and so many possessions of the Archdiocese to care for the poor, especially during the famine of 1571 and the plague of 1576, when he fed 70,000 a day.

            But most of all, he reformed himself. He fasted, used traditional instruments of mortification, and limited his sleep to four hours a night. If he was going to lead a reform of the Church from within, he knew that he himself needed to be constantly conformed to Christ. He was therefore able to hold others accountable by his example and not just his words. None of the reforms he implemented is particularly surprising. One did not have to be a genius to identify what the problems were in the archdiocese. What distinguished him was that with total resolve he dedicated himself to addressing rather than ducking the problems. He did so at the same time that he stressed not merely what Christian faith and morals oppose, but the good news they affirm, so that people would learn the great “yes” of faith. Morever, he did all of this before he died at the age of 46.

            During the Second Vatican Council, St. Paul VI decreed that his twelve orations to brother bishops and various sermons to priests be published and given to all the bishops of the world. They contained, Paul believed, the principles and paradigms of ecclesial reform in every age. Msgr. Cihak’s book translates many of them into English for the first time. They deserve to be read by all bishops today, and by everyone who loves the Church and is praying, fasting, and working to see her reformed anew.