Father Robert T. Cooper

October 21, 2018

         The term “busybody” usually refers to one who is intent on the matters of others but looks little to his own issues. Busybodies also tend to focus especially on the faults, foibles, and troubles of other folks. Seldom are they chattering away about good news related to other people; more often it is the scurrilous and scandalous that occupies their minds. Merriam-Webster online defines a busybody as “a person who is too interested in the private lives of other people.” It is a form of sinful curiosity.

           Many of us are far too interested in things that are really none of our business. That alone is problem enough. But the problem is compounded in that the busybody is almost always too little concerned about his own “issues” (we used to call them sins). When our attention to, fascination with, or scorn about sin is directed outward, we lose the proper introspection that properly examines our own need for repentance. The pointed index finger too easily ignores the three folded fingers pointing back at oneself and those three fingers symbolize the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit urging us to look to our own vineyard.

          Indeed, Scripture says, “They made me keeper of the vineyards; but, my own vineyard I have not kept!” (Song 1:6). For we who would be prophets too easily ignore the Word of God as directed to our own souls. Further, it is a common trap of the devil that he keeps us focused on what we cannot change so that we do not focus on what we can change. In other words, it is more difficult to change others and less difficult to change ourselves. Thus the devil would have us focus on others, who are hard to change, so that we will not focus on our very self, whom we can more easily change. Thus, being a busybody is not only obnoxious; it is a trap the devil enjoys laying for us.

          Pope St. Gregory the Great has a meditation near the end of his Pastoral Rule wherein he ponders the problem of the busybody. He uses the story of Dinah from the Bible. He does not use the term “busybody,” but the related concept of “self-flattery.” Let us review some of his observations.

Frequently the crafty enemy … seduces [the mind] by flattery in a false security that leads to destruction. And this is expressed figuratively in the person of Dinah. For it is written:

Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land^;  and when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humbled her. And his soul was drawn to Dinah the daughter of Jacob; he loved the maiden and spoke tenderly to her (Gen 34:1-3).

For [pertaining to us] Dinah “goes down to see the women of that region” whenever a soul neglects to consider itself and concerns itself with the actions of others and wonders beyond its own proper condition and order. And Shechem “takes the soul by force” inasmuch as the Devil corrupts the mind that is occupied by external matters. “And [Shechem’s] soul was conjoined to her” because the devil considers us conjoined to him through iniquity. And … the devil calls before our minds a false sense of hope and security … Thus it is written that Shechem “spoke tenderly to her” when she was sad [humbled]. For to us the devil speaks to us of the greater offenses committed by others … [Pastoral Rule III.29].

          In effect, Gregory uses the story of Dinah as an allegory of the trouble we get into when we focus too much on the lives of others and look not enough to our own souls. For Dinah gets into trouble when she tours the land to see the pagan women (the Hivites) and their inquires with a sort of fascination into what they do. And one of the men of that land seduces her, taking advantage of the vulnerability caused by her sinful curiosity. Nevertheless, even after being humbled and sinned against, she still lets him speak tenderly to her. She is far too fascinated with the Hivites. Thus her seducer, Shechem, was able to speak tenderly to her and win her heart, a thing no seducer should be able to do.

          But so it is with us. We are far too fascinated with the sins and struggles of others. Like busybodies, we go out to consort with the people of the sinful world. And being focused on and fascinated by them, rather than looking to our own selves, we open ourselves up to being taken advantage of by both the devil and a sinful world. We are an easy target when we do not look to our own soul but rather are preoccupied with the scurrilous details of the lives of others.

          Then the devil seizes us and has consort with our soul. He speaks “tenderly” to us telling us how, compared to others, we are not really so bad. Here is a false security indeed. We have been sinfully curious as to the struggles of others, and now we are in the devil’s clutches being reassured by him. We should be angry with him for seducing our vulnerable soul in the first place! But instead, we let him sweet-talk and reassure us. Thus, we are prey two times over. First, we indulged our sinful curiosity into the struggles of others, and then having done so, allowed ourselves to be falsely reassured by the devil of our relative innocence.

          The bottom line is that busybodies are easy prey for the devil. By looking not to their own lives, but instead prying with sinful fascination into the lives of others, they wander into sin easily. And all the while, since they look not to themselves, they are easily deluded by the thought that at least they are not as bad as so-and so. The only problem is, “being better than so-and-so” is not the standard for eternal life. Jesus is the standard. Only grace and mercy can help us meet that standard.

            The busybody is busy about all things except the one thing necessary. As St. Paul says, “If we would judge ourselves truly, we would not be judged” (1 Cor 11:31).

October 14, 2018

          On April 28, 2018, Alfie Evans died, twelve days short of his second birthday, at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool. In his 720 days of extra-uterine life, he became the most well known and prayed for infant in the world. Alfie died ultimately because of the consequences of an undiagnosed neurodegenerative condition, but his death was expedited by a decision of Justice Anthony Hayden of the Family Division of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. Hayden decreed on February 20, in agreement with the Alder Hey medical team, “that continued ventilator support is no longer in Alfie’s best interest” and therefore would have to be removed.

          Justice Hayden also decided that Alfie would not be permitted to be transported out of the country where his life could be sustained, other forms of treatment could be attempted, and perhaps a diagnosis actually made, because, he said, the journey would be burdensome, there were no prospects for treatment of the underlying condition, and therefore it was “irreconcilable with Alfie’s best interest.” Alfie’s best interest, in his judgment, was to die, sooner rather than later, without medical equipment, and just with palliative pain medication to lessen the suffering of the dying process.

          After several unsuccessful appeals by Alfie’s parents, Tom Evans and Kate James, to overturn Hayden’s judgment, the ventilation was removed on April 23. To the embarrassment of the medical and judicial establishment that had previously seemed sure that Alfie would not be able to self-respirate, the little boy began to breathe on his own and lived for five days, during which food and water were able to be given to him, lest he die of starvation or dehydration instead of asphyxiation. The eyes of the world were on Liverpool as, at any given time, eight to 30 police officers stood guard lest Tom and Kate, or anyone else, try to save Alfie’s life by removing him from the hospital without Justice Hayden’s permission.

           Pope Francis got directly involved. On April 18, he met with Tom Evans in the Vatican. After their conversation, Pope Francis published tweets appealing that “everything necessary may be done in order to continue compassionately accompanying little Alfie Evans,” and that “the suffering of his parents may be heard and … their desire to seek new forms of treatment may be granted.” He instructed the Vatican Secretariat of State to seek a diplomatic solution, which was facilitated by the Italian Government, which granted Alfie Italian citizenship (placing him simultaneously under another legal jurisdiction, one to which Justice Hayden later refused to give any weight). Moreover, Pope Francis arranged for Dr. Mariella Enoc, President of Bambino Gesù (“Baby Jesus”) Hospital in the Vatican, to fly to Liverpool in order to intervene with the doctors to try to bring Alfie to Rome on a medical military helicopter that had similarly been arranged.

          None of these appeals—and the many others that came from throughout the world—mattered. Justice Hayden, who had cited Pope Francis in his February 20 decision with regard to how we are not morally obliged to use extraordinary means, therapeutic obstinacy, or “overzealous treatment,” showed himself extraordinarily and zealously obstinate in refusing any and all overtures, as contrary to Alfie’s “best interest.” No pope, president, parents, person or multitude could shake Hayden’s conviction that he, and Alden Hey doctors, knew better than each and all.

          After Alfie’s death, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Pope Francis’ Secretary of State, summed up the “enormous sadness” of Pope Francis and millions across the world. “In the face of openly manifested availability, repeatedly and with great commitment of resources—doctors from our hospital Bambino Gesù went to Liverpool three times—there was the refusal to allow Alfie to be brought to Italy,” he said in an interview with Crux. “It’s incomprehensible. I cannot understand the logic. Or maybe there is [a logic], and it’s a terrible one.”

            The terrible logic that the Holy See’s top diplomat was hesitant even to whisper would seem to be that of state mandated euthanasia of those whose lives were deemed unworthy of living. In his decision, Judge Hayden did not cite Alfie’s pain or even possible pain due to future treatment as the legal ground for his decision because he conceded that none of the doctors knew whether Alfie could experience pain at all. What he cited was Alfie’s brain damage and the doctors’ determination that there were no prospects that treatment would work. That was the ultimate reason he gave Alfie a death sentence by omission.

          Alfie’s case was not unique. In July 28, 2017, Charlie Gard died just short of his first birthday at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London after the Hospital and the High Court refused his parents’ request to transport him to New York for experimental treatment. Four years ago, there was the infamous case of Ashya King, the five-year old boy whose parents wanted him to receive proton therapy treatment in Prague rather than conventional radiation and chemotherapy at Southampton General Hospital. They removed him from the hospital without telling the medical team and boarded a ferry for France. An international manhunt commenced. Brett and Naghemeh King were caught in Malaga, placed under arrest, kept in prison for a day and then returned to the United Kingdom. The High Court decided, thankfully, to allow the proton therapy in the Czech Republic. And it worked. Ashya, now 8, is cancer free.

           Alfie’s, Charlie’s and Ashya’s cases all reveal a trend that it seems most people, except some in the United Kingdom, find profoundly disturbing. It is the bulldozing of the rights of parents with regard to their children. In most jurisdictions throughout the world and in international law, parents decide what is in the best interests of their children. Laws exist for those situations when parents are obviously negligent, abusive or in irreconcilable disagreement. In the UK, however, laws governing situations of when parents are not on the same page are now being used for situations when parents are in disagreement not with each other but with doctors. Who decides among parents, doctors, and judges? The judges have decided that…the judges decide.

          It is excruciating enough when parents see their children suffering and spending their infancy in hospitals. It is all the more painful—not to mention unnatural and unethical—when judges determine like despots that parents cannot do everything possible to save their child’s life, or have to face police at the hospital and arrests on foreign soil for simply trying. Everyone recognizes that in national health care systems like in the UK, tough decisions need to be made about where medical resources will be allocated; but when it is not going to cost a penny to the system, as in Alfie’s situation, the fact that parents are not allowed to make decisions they believe to be in their child’s best interest is profoundly disturbing. Bioethics has long recognized the problem with “paternalism,” the idea that “doctor knows best,” not only because doctors can obviously occasionally be wrong, but also because it fails to recognize the need for the consent of the patient, something that flows from human dignity. What is happening in Britain is paternalism on steroids.

          Closely associated with this is a problem of class. Many in England have commented that if we were dealing with the son of another Kate—Kate Middleton—and a High Court were deciding about the life or death of Prince George or Louis in a situation similar to that of Alfie, Charlie, or Ashya, a High Court Justice would be far humbler in arrogating to himself the quasi-divine power over life and death.

          The biggest bioethical issue, however, has to do with the aforementioned euthanasia, which is an act or omission that, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2277). In Alfie’s case, we clearly have an omission that manifestly intended to provoke his death. Alfie was eventually going to die, just like all of us. When death is imminent, sometimes treatments can be given that we know will speed up the dying process, like giving higher doses of morphine to treat pain in someone terminally ill, but this is ethical only insofar as long as patients are given non-lethal doses and the intention is to treat the pain and not hasten death. In Alfie’s case, however, breathing equipment was removed with the explicit intention to precipitate death. A minor crisis happened when Alfie did not die; it was clearly intended, and not just anticipated, that he would die once the ventilators were removed. Euthanasia by omission is still euthanasia—and this trampling of human life and dignity must concern us all.

          Alfie’s life on earth is now over. Since he was baptized, we are certain he is now embraced by God. However, we should pray for Tom and Kate, who have experienced not just the death of their beloved son but a legal trauma that no parent ought ever to endure. Morever, let us work to make sure that what happened to Alfie and Charlie happens no more.

October 7, 2018

          “Man cannot attain that true happiness for which he yearns with all the strength of his spirit, unless he keeps the laws which the Most High God has engraved in his very nature” (Humanae Vitae, # 31, July 25, 1968). With these words, Blessed Pope Paul VI ended what Pope Francis calls one of five bench-mark encyclicals that Paul VI issued during his pontificate, Humanae Vitae. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of this encyclical. Its theme was the use of artificial birth-control.
 
           “Responsible Men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards; especially among the young, who are so exposed to temptation. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man may forget the reverence due to a woman” (# 17a).
 
            The theological principle operative here is that the Unitive and the Procreative aspects of the loving act cannot be separated without violating the will of God the Father. “Human life is sacred; all men must recognize that fact” (# 13). As St. Pope John XXIII taught, “From the very moment of conception the creative hand of God is revealed and manifest” (Mater et Magistra: AAS 53, 1961). Hence, Pope Paul VI wrote: “Artificial birth-control, or any action, either before, at the moment of, or after relations, direct sterilization and the direct interruption of the generative process already begun, above all, all direct abortion, even therapeutic abortion, is intrinsically evil and thus not permitted” (# 13).
 
            Each of these procedures either deny, frustrate or directly defy the presence and creative divine power of God active in conception and gestation. Man does not have absolute dominion over his body! The procreation of new human life is God’s work; man and woman are the instruments of this new creation. All that I have said up to this point is revealed from the Prophet Isaiah. “The Lord called me from birth…from my mother’s womb He gave me my name. Now the Lord has spoken who formed me as His servant from the womb. And I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord” (Is. 49:1a, 5a,c, 6c-d).
 
           We truly are God’s creation, His handiwork. Of all creation, only man and woman bear the image of God in our being. Only man is gifted with intelligence and free will. Further, John in his First Letter boldly proclaims, “God is love!” (1 Jn. 4:8). This is the theological basis for the teachings of Blessed Paul VI in Humanae Vitae. Love is everything. Yes, we have Ten Commandments; however, Jesus summarized the entire law into only two. “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with your entire mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37-39).
 
           Lest we have a diluted sense of this love, let me remind you of how profound Jesus intended this love to be: “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn. 13:34). Remember, He was “Lifted-Up on the Cross” (Jn. 12:32). His love was total gift of self for the benefit of others…us…you and me. 
 
           Love is sacrificial! Priestly ministry is sacrificial; so is the diaconal ministry. Is Marriage any different? Of course not! Christian living is also sacrificial. Then, what about discipline? Obedience? Narcissism? Humility? St. Paul says that Jesus was obedient unto death, even death on a Cross. We are called to the same obedience to the Will of the Father, just like Jesus. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus undergoes a passion…an agony when praying in the Garden the night before He died. Prayer and intimacy with the Father gave Him the human strength to endure the Cross. Jesus is with us also!
 
           Jesus was disciplined by Jewish Law to yield to the Way of Life that gives direction, grace, and power to realize and live the great command of Love. Jesus humbled Himself and condescended to earth in human flesh to concretely manifest God’s love for us. Jesus is the quintessence of Love; hence, not a speck of narcissism was found in Him. He was not moved by earthly fads or customs. 
 
           Abortion is evil. It is egregiously evil…intrinsically evil. It is totally against God’s Will. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life!” (Jn. 14:6). Also, in the Book of Wisdom, the author writes: “God did not create death, nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living. For He fashioned all things that they might have life…” (Wis. 1:13-14a). In his First Letter, St. John writes: “We should love one another, unlike Cain who belonged to the evil one and slaughtered his brother. Why did he do this? Because his own works were evil, and those of his brother, righteous” (1 Jn. 3:12).
 
           Abortion, without a doubt, is the most grievous sin; for one, it is the killing of the most vulnerable and defenseless being, for another, the one called to conceive, nurture and sustain life, does the evil act and it is so evil, because “Once human life is snuffed-out, it can never be recuperated!” It is gone forever!
 
            One more thing makes an abortion so evil and sinful! It takes human life and treats it like a commodity…something that can just be tossed out and forgotten. Blessed Pope Paul VI warned of this and feared this. He said, “Human life will become a thing, something that can be used and then forgotten or tossed out…or even worse, something that can be purchased and even sold” (Bl. Paul VI, General Audience, 1968-69).
 
              “The Human Person of today no longer knows who he is.” He is no longer aware that his dignity as a person does not depend on anything that he or she does. It is innate and exists from conception to natural death. Yet “man exhausts himself trying to do good deeds” in order to prove his dignity (Pope Francis, Address to the Plenary Meeting of the Congregation for the Faith, Vatican City, January 26, 2018). Hence, man must be reminded of his “Transcendent Vocation and the inseparable connection that exists between reason, and truth and goodness, which introduces a person to Faith in Jesus Christ. Nothing can open man’s mind like the light that comes from the Holy Spirit to help him to know and understand himself and the design that God has for man in the world.”
 
            “Man has a daily tendency to revert to neo-Pelagionism and neo-Gnosticism with such a deep sense of Individualism that he thinks he can achieve salvation by his own power and force…by his own actions.  We Christians, however, believe that salvation comes through communion with the Risen Christ, and the Grace of the Holy Spirit that introduces us to a profound relationship with the Father”  (Ibid, Pope Francis). Brothers and Sisters, let us pray for the conversion of the culture in which most of the world now lives. It is a darkness that is in need of much Grace. It is a culture that is in need of conversion. It does not yet know God. It does not know true love. It lacks truth; hence, the ones who had an abortion are not free. Yet, God is merciful.
 
             Finally, these unborn children have become martyrs for Christ…just like the Holy Innocents of King Herod’s time. They were in the world, living beings, in the house of their mother’s womb. They never felt the warmth of the sun. They never experienced light. Yet, like Jesus, these innocents “testify to the light”, to Jesus. These innocents have, in their own mystical way, become lights to the world. They testify to love…the love that God has for us…the love God intends for us to have for one another. Jesus was not received with a great welcome. These innocents have not been welcomed either. However, “Jesus came to what was His own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept Him, He gave power to become children of God” (Jn. 1:11-12). These Innocents are “Children of God.” 

September 30, 2018

          Stewardship can be, and often is, understood in a shallow and limited sense, as no more than a code word for "tithing" or for "fundraising for religious purposes." That is, undeniably, one important but limited dimension of stewardship. If we have a proper spirit of gratitude for all that we have received from God, and are resolved to act as responsible trustees of God's gifts (which is, in fact, the real meaning of stewardship), then we will be disposed to contribute financially as members of our Parish family, and this will involve tithing and participating in raising funds. Even when the Church was young, St. Paul was greatly concerned about organizing a collection (cf. 1 Corinthians 16:1-4; 2 Corinthians 8-9; Galatians 2:10; Romans 15:25-28). We do not live in a dream world, and so the work of the Church must be effectively funded. We have to pay the bills and care for the practical needs of the poor. It is certainly an act of stewardship to set aside a portion, traditionally one tenth, of one's goods to be given not only to the Church itself but also to the broader community. When we cling to our money, we sink. When we are generous with it, we never are in want.

           That, however, is only one aspect of stewardship and will take care of itself if the deeper reality is emphasized–a profound inner conversion that leads us to live in a spirit of generosity, which is most fully revealed in the sharing of time and talent. It has been noted that even with tithing the key question is not what we do with the ten percent, but how we use the other ninety percent. As we seek to enter into the experience of stewardship, it is essential that we avoid being short-circuited by an emphasis upon its most obvious but superficial dimension, the sharing of material goods. If we start with the idea of stewardship as fund-raising for apostolic purposes, that will absorb our energies and we will go no further, and stewardship will become just another program. No, we can only be satisfied with deep stewardship, which means a profound inner conversion as individuals and as a community in which we become committed to living generously in every way, as the Gospel calls us to do. If we do that, the financial aspect will follow in its proper place; if we concentrate on the financial aspect, we will end there, and not experience the profound spiritual conversion that is the real heart of stewardship. Deep stewardship begins with gratitude and ends with responsibility. Stewardship is sometimes called "the attitude of gratitude." We recognize gratefully that everything in life is a gift of God. We do not ultimately own anything, but are entrusted with time, talent, and treasure for use during our passage through this life. And at the end of life, we take nothing with us, except the life which arises out of generous love. If each of us is profoundly aware that all is a gift, then we are freed from possessiveness, and can be good stewards of what has been entrusted to us in life, sharing generously and so at the end of life returning all to the Lord with increase. Stewardship ends with responsibility and accountability. Like the servants in the parable, we will be called to account for the way in which we have used what has been entrusted to us.

          True stewardship means having our priorities straight. As disciples of Jesus, we must be clear about what really matters in our brief life. St. Ignatius of Loyola wisely invites those who take his "Spiritual Exercises" to ask themselves who their Master is. That determines everything. Every spiritual tradition in Christianity insists that we do this.

          In religious orders, sisters, brothers, and priests vow to follow the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Most disciples do not commit themselves in so formal a way to living by these counsels, and yet they speak to us all, by emphasizing that we are not masters of our own lives, but are to use what we have for the service of others. All three counsels come down to poverty: to trusting in the Lord, being at the disposal of others, not claiming our own mastery of the situation. We are only stewards, and are not in control. That awareness is liberating. There are two sure ways of discovering what is really important in your life, of discovering who your Master is. The first is to look at how you spend your money, at how you are steward of material possessions. We spend our money on what we consider to be important. Jesus says: "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Luke 12:34). It is also true that where your heart is, there will your treasure be. Look at the financial statement of any organization, or family, or individual, to find out what is really considered important. Whatever you think your priorities are, look at last month's credit card bill to discover what your actual priorities are. It has wisely been observed that it is the mission of the leadership in any organization or community to make sure that the financial statement reflects the vision statement, which for us Christians is found in the Gospel, especially the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says: "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money" (Matthew 6:24). An even more revealing way to discover one’s priorities is to examine how we spend our time. Our lives are woven out of time, and our stewardship of the scarce resource of time truly reveals what we really consider to be important. Every day has 24 hours, and time once past will never come again. We must constantly choose how to spend our time, for once this moment is past it is not our time any more. A profound spiritual theme is the "spirituality of the present moment" – our life is found in each passing moment, and we need simply to offer that moment to God in obedience to His will. "Thy kingdom come; thy will be done." If we do so, we will never regret the past or fear the future. Such is the stewardship of time. Time, talent, and treasure: these are the gifts that each of us has freely received, and which we need to use responsibly in a spirit of gratitude. If we do that, day by day until the day when we are called to account, then we will experience the joyful serenity of deep stewardship.

          Over the past 40 years, a whole spirituality and theology of stewardship has been developed in parishes and dioceses in the United States and has led to a deep transformation of the life of discipleship within them. In 1992, the American bishops issued a pastoral letter which summarizes the key elements of the vision of stewardship which is found within the Scriptures and the living faith of the Church: "Stewardship: a Disciple's Response." This letter has been invaluable in providing a focus for thought and discussion to those involved in deepening a sense of stewardship. It defines a Christian steward as: "One who receives God's gifts gratefully, cherishes and tends them in a responsible and accountable manner, shares them in justice and love with all, and returns them with increase to the Lord." As we, as a parish family, begin more consciously to adopt the model of stewardship, I recommend that we continue our study and discussion of this letter. Stewardship is a way of life, or as the American bishops put it in their letter, it is a disciple's response to God's gifts.

          It is that deep spiritual transformation which we want to foster at St. Benilde Parish. That is why we are trying to approach stewardship in a deliberate and thorough manner, learning from the experience of others, and adapting their insights to our situation, being careful to stress the full engagement of the members of the community in the whole of their life of discipleship. That is vital, for we will be trapped in a dead end if we become distracted by a shallow and limited vision of stewardship. We must be satisfied with nothing less than deep stewardship, in which each of us resolves to make generous use of the time, talent, and treasure which God has entrusted to us.

          Deep stewardship means individual and communal conversion and calls us to live as disciples of Jesus in a spirit of generosity and total engagement, as we are commissioned to do through our Baptism and Confirmation. In the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, it states: "Every person must walk unhesitatingly according to his own personal gifts and duties in the path of living faith, which arouses hope and works through charity." Life is too short for us to waste it as half-hearted disciples. The attitude of joyful engagement, which is stewardship for the individual, needs to be reflected as well in the way in which we operate as a parish family!

September 23, 2018

           A steward is a servant entrusted for a time with the goods of the Master. The steward uses but does not own these goods, and must eventually give an account to the Master for the way in which they have been cared for and made fruitful.

          Each of us spends a brief time in this life, preparing for our eternal life with God. While we are here, we receive everything from God, even life itself, and are asked to make good use of what God has entrusted to us. We are invited by God to be good stewards of His gifts. It is no wonder that the idea of stewardship plays such a central role in the life of faith.

          The Bible frequently refers to the spirit of stewardship, whether or not the actual term is used. In fact, the ideas of servant, disciple, and apostle–so central in the Scriptures–all include the idea of stewardship. We are servants of the Lord, stewards who will be called to account when He returns. Each of us wants to hear the Lord say at that moment: "Well done, good and faithful servant." (Matthew 25:21) As a trustworthy steward, the disciple must be faithful in word and action to the teachings received from the Master. Disciples are sent out from Jesus, and must represent Him as authentic stewards of His mission and message.

          The Bible teaches us that responsibility is inseparable from stewardship. We ultimately will be held accountable for the way in which we use what God gives us. In Luke 12:41-48, Our Lord reminds us that we are like stewards who are placed in charge of the household while the Master is away. "Who, then, is the wise and trustworthy steward whom the master will place over his household to give them at the proper time their allowance of food? Blessed is that servant if his master's arrival finds him doing just that." But if the servant abuses His master's trust, saying "My master is taking his time coming" and sets about beating the men-servants and the servant-girls, and eating and drinking and getting drunk, his master will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not know."

          The prospect of the return of the Master should fill Christians with joy: we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. In New Testament times, and throughout the early centuries of Christianity, the disciples of Jesus had a lively sense of expectation, as they awaited His return. Our liturgy is still filled with references to the coming of the Lord, though we hear of that so often that we may not take it seriously. But Jesus will indeed come at the end of time, whenever that will be. "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again." More to the point, each of us will stand before the Lord at the end of our life to give an account of our stewardship. That can happen at any moment, and we need to be ready. This is one exam for which it is useless to cram. Only the right use of the time, talent, and treasure which have been entrusted to us will allow us to be able serenely and joyfully to await the coming of the Lord. Again and again, in the Gospels, we hear of the imminent coming of the Master. Life is short. As steward, the disciple lives with a sense of joyful expectation, inseparable from repentant awareness of the need to be purified of those things which make us unready for the Master's return. In the celebration of the Eucharist, we hear words that express our hope as stewards of Christ: "In your mercy, Lord, keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety, as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our savior Jesus Christ."

          In the most famous stewardship parable (cf. Matthew 25: 14-30), three servants are entrusted with great sums of money, and are then assessed by the master when he returns, on the basis of how they made use of the "talents" they had received. The ancient sum of money used in the parable, the "talent," has now become for us the term for any human skill or "gift" that we have a responsibility to develop, as did the servants who are praised in the parable. A faithful steward, now as then, needs to make good use of his or her talents. Stewardship calls for creativity and boldness. Each of us has enormous potential, but few things are sadder than to hear at the end of a person's life: "that person had a lot of potential." As good stewards, we are meant to use God's gift fruitfully and creatively, so that with true gratitude for what we have received we may return God's gifts to Him with increase. If we truly have the spirit of stewardship we will not let God's gifts go to waste, and we will not selfishly cling to them, but use them generously to serve others. That is the point of stewardship. It is significant that immediately after the parable of the talents, we hear of the judgment of the nations (cf. Matthew 25: 31-46), when people are separated, as sheep from the goats, on the basis of how they acted in this life. We can use our time in this life to be selfish, or to be generous to others. The blessed used their time here to care for those in need. That is true stewardship, and we are called to do likewise. At one point (cf. Mark 10:17-22) Jesus encounters a rich man, who seeks to discover what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him to follow the commandments, and then says: "Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." This is good stewardship: not to cling to material goods, but generously to share with those in need. “But the man went away sorrowful, for he had many possessions.” He was possessed by his possessions, as each of us can be. What a shame. Jesus tells of a rich fool, captivated by his possessions, who builds bigger barns to store his grain (cf. Luke 12: 13-21) and says: "You have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." The thought of death is spiritually healthy, as it forces each of us to consider our priorities. What is the point of all the energy I spend on gathering treasure, or spending my time and talent on things that are ultimately useless? It is wisely said that no one at the moment of death wishes to have spent more time at the office. We need to think of the moment of death, but not wait until then to realize what is important in life, and how we can each be wise stewards of what we have received for this earthly journey. Jesus tells of the rich man and Lazarus (cf. Luke 16:19-31); only too late did the rich man realize how he should have spent his time on earth. It is better to be like Zacchaeus (cf. Luke 19:1-10) who repented of his greed.

          The secret of life is to recognize our state of dependency upon the providence of God. We do not ultimately own or control the time, talent, or treasure with which we are blessed by God during our short sojourn on this earth. Everything is a gift.

          Even in the first chapters of the Bible, we find the theme of stewardship. Man and woman are entrusted with God's Garden. They may enjoy it, and are given responsibility for it. They do not own it. Sadly, they want to control everything in the Garden, and forget that they are simply stewards of God's creation, and so are banished. They were deceived by the illusion of self-sufficiency. We can as easily be deceived.

            It is interesting that we are often called "consumers." What a shame it is that we can be identified as people who are simply consuming the goods of the earth. Inevitably, if that consumption becomes the mark of a greedy life, then we will ourselves be consumed and possessed by the goods that we consume. It is far better to see all such things in proper perspective. The time, talent, and treasure that we briefly enjoy are gifts to be accepted with gratitude, and used generously. If we do so, then that posture of detachment allows us truly to be free.

          As we enter into a conscious effort to develop more fully the spirit of stewardship within our parish family, each of us is invited to examine how we make use of the abundant gifts which we have received. Do we bury them away, or cling to them as if we own them, or do we thank God for them and share them generously?

September 16, 2018

          This weekend is Catechetical Sunday, the weekend in which the Church asks us to call forth those who have been chosen to be catechists in our parish, to bless them and commission them for the upcoming year. These are the teachers at our parish school, these are the parish volunteers who work with the children, teens, and adults in the many faith formation ministries of the parish–CCD, RCIA, Sacramental Preparation, and Adult Faith Formation. They are more than teachers; they are catechists. What does that mean? They absolutely do teach, which is a worthy calling in and of itself, but today, we recognize that the work they do goes beyond teaching.

          The word catechist comes from the root word “catechesis,” an ancient Greek word meaning “to echo.” A catechist is one who echoes the faith, who makes faith resound. God speaks to us all the time—in Scripture, in the words and actions of the Mass, in the sun that finally breaks through the smoky sky,
in the loving embrace of a parent and child, in the support of a community when tragedy strikes. God speaks to us each moment of the day in many and varied ways.

          It is the ministry of the catechist to echo God’s voice, to repeat it over and over, so that our children and adults have no doubt that God loves them, that God cares for them, that God offers them a share in the divine life. Each of the individuals to be commissioned this Sunday has been entrusted with that sacred task. This day is also a time for them to rededicate themselves to their mission of handing on the faith and being a witness to the Gospel. Nevertheless, it is also a day for all of us, the baptized, to reflect on our role in handing on the faith, in echoing God’s love.

          After all, as important as the ministry of the catechist is, it is secondary to the role of parents and family. Parents are the primary catechists in their children’s lives and we who are catechists assist parents in their sacred task of handing on the faith. Together, we are to echo in unison the great song of love
that God sings to the world, to the universe, to all of creation. We are to listen to God’s Word and speak it to our children. And God’s greatest Word is the gift of his Son. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

          There is a lot of noise in the world today—the honking horns and blaring sirens of fear; the screams of hatred and intolerance; even the whispers of temptation. Our children are drenched in messages that are contrary to God’s message of love, or that simply drown it out. On this Catechetical Sunday, we recommit ourselves to countering those messages with God’s message of hope, trust, and compassion—messages that say yes, there is a life of eternal joy after this world is done; messages that say yes, you belong and are called to holiness of life; messages that say yes, you are loved more deeply than you can imagine.

          This is the moment to set aside time in our homes to share our faith stories, to talk about our brother and best friend Jesus. To echo God’s love. “But what do I say?” we might ask. “I’m not a trained teacher. I’m no theologian.” Neither were Peter, James, and John. They were simple men. They were fishermen. Matthew was a tax collector. However, they were also close personal friends of Jesus. They had spent several years with Him, and knew Him better than anyone except perhaps the Blessed Mother.

          That is all that is required of us: to know Jesus. Each of us already knows Jesus to some degree or we would not be at Mass today. Each of us has been touched by Jesus; each of us had the faith handed on by someone significant in our lives. Share that with the children in your lives—whether they are still in school, or whether they are grown up and living on their own. Speak with words, if that feels comfortable, but most of all speak with your lives. To be a catechist means to echo the words of Jesus, but it also means to echo His life.

          We are Christians, little “Christs.” We have committed ourselves to lives of sacrifice, to taking up our crosses daily. When we live for the Lord instead of ourselves, when we forgive not seven times but seventy-seven times, then we are speaking much louder than words could ever speak. What better legacy could we leave than the legacy of handing on the faith to our children? This is the ministry of the catechist, to hand on the faith by echoing God’s love in our lives. Moreover, what you echo in your homes, we catechists echo in the parish and in the parish school.

             Our parish catechists have recognized that God has given them gifts to share, and they have responded to the call to share them. It is not easy. I have seen our parish and school religious education programs first hand and from all different angles: as a volunteer, as a teacher and administrator, and as a priest. So let me be a witness to the incredible amount of work and passion that our catechists give to their ministries. They dedicate countless hours of their own time to preparation. They attend classes and workshops to better their skills. They spend time in prayer and on retreat to develop themselves spiritually. They work with children of all ages and abilities, with patience, compassion, and love. They serve adults seeking to grow in their faith and knowledge of God. Many are volunteers, who earn no money for their work. Some are employed as teachers and administrators who earn less than their counterparts in public education.

            Maybe when you see them commissioned this Sunday, you will be inspired by their example to want to offer yourself in service in some way. Maybe a little voice inside you will ask, “How can I contribute?” There may also be a countering voice that says, “I don’t have enough time; I don’t have the skills, I don’t have the knowledge.” Listen to the first voice, the one that feels drawn to being of service. Sit with that voice over the next week. Read the bulletin, look at the St. Benilde website, and think about all the different ministries of the parish.

             Each of those ministries is an echo of God’s love in its own way, and so each, in a broad way, is a chance to be a type of catechist. Maybe you will be drawn to classroom catechesis, teaching religious education, helping with the CYO, or volunteering at the school. Maybe you can help by visiting the sick or welcoming new parishioners. If you feel called to advocate for the unborn, or to help the homebound, or to work the food pantry, or to help the less fortunate, there are groups and ministries in the parish for each of those needs. I encourage each of us here to let the example of our catechists inspire us to service, especially those who have not yet found a parish ministry. When everyone gets involved in parish life, God’s love reverberates more powerfully and clearly to a world in desperate need of it.

            As each of us comes forward for Holy Communion, I invite you this day to listen to the echoing sound of the voices all around you as they say, “The Body of Christ,” “Amen.” “The Blood of Christ,” “Amen.” as they repeat over and over. Let the echo of those words not stay confined to this building on this day only, but let it resound throughout our lives each and every day, in our families, at our places of work, and in the various ministries of St. Benilde Parish, so that God’s love can be heard loud and clear.

September 9, 2018

           Over the years, many of us have come to know one particular grandmother that we did not know before. Her name is Rosa. We have heard about her because she is Pope Francis’ grandmother, and he speaks a lot about her. He is so grateful to her. “I loved my grandmother,” he says. She was a woman who talked to him and his siblings about Jesus. She taught them the Catechism. He recalls how on the evening of Good Friday she would take them to the candlelight procession, and at the end of this procession, pointing to the image of the Crucified Christ, she would say to them: “Look, he is dead, but tomorrow he will rise.” Pope Francis comments, “This was how I received my first Christian proclamation, from this very woman, from my grandmother!”

          On another occasion, in talking to a group from the Salvation Army, Pope Francis shared an experience of how as a four-year-old boy he was walking with his grandmother when he saw two Salvation Army women dressed in their uniform and a bonnet that they wore at that time. The boy, Jorge, asked his grandmother if they were nuns or sisters and she replied: “No, they are Protestants–but they are good.” “This,” continued Pope Francis “was the first sermon ever I heard about ecumenism–and [it] has influenced me in my ecumenical journey.”

          From what he says about his grandmother Rosa, we are not surprised that Pope Francis has a great regard for grandparents. I think he was quite chuffed during his visit to the Philippines because they called him “Lolo,” meaning “Grandpa Francis.” Pope Francis speaks of how beautiful it is to see the elderly encourage and manage to convey to young people the meaning of faith and life. For him, this is really the mission of grandparents, the vocation of the elderly. As he puts it, “The words of grandparents have something special for the young. And they know it.” In their own unique way, grandparents can be a wise presence of Jesus for their grandchildren.

          Jesus prepared His disciples for the future when they were afraid of the Cross. Grandparents who have lived many years of life can encourage fearful young people not to be afraid of the future. So often, the world around them promotes cults of happiness, success, and prize-winning but when they look at the world as it is, when they see the difficulties encountered in family life, when they are faced with the insecurity and tumult that so many experienced in recent years, it is easy for young people to be afraid. Fear, after all, is also a deep sentiment in us because of original sin. As we see in the Gospel, Jesus’ own disciples were afraid of the future. Therefore, He prepared them by encouraging them not to think simply in limited human terms, but rather to try to use God’s logic, God’s way of seeing things. Modeling Jesus in their lives, grandparents say to their grandchildren, “Look to God, not to yourselves! Trust Him. Follow Him, even when adversity, failure, and disappointments come your way.”Catholic grandparents can witness to their children and grandchildren that there is a higher power, God, whose loving plan for us is always greater than our measurements.

          We know that a key sentence from Jesus’ lips: “For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Young people can often be given the message to be in love with themselves and their own projects or endeavors. Nevertheless, grandparents can teach them that while it is certainly good to be ambitious, it is important not to desire to control life simply on their terms; it is in putting ourselves aside in order to love in the way the Gospel teaches that we find fulfillment.

           Jesus’ whole life was prayer. He followed the way of the Cross and coped with adversity because He prayed to His Father in heaven. Grandfathers and grandmothers give the great example of the importance of prayer in time of difficulty. I was struck recently by a woman recalling when she was young her grandfather brought her into a small church in the little town where they went for summer vacations. She can remember looking at him as he stood there in prayer. Ahead of him was the altar with the statue of St. Joseph to one side, and the statue of Mary to the other. Her comment struck me: “It was the first time I realized that prayer must be important.” It is interesting that Pope Francis says that he carries in his breviary the copy of a prayer his grandmother Rosa gave him and that he often reads it.

          These are a few ways that Catholic grandparents are a presence of Jesus to their children and grandchildren–witnessing and teaching them not to be afraid of the future, to lay down their lives in service of others and to pray. In and through their relationship with their grandchildren, these men and women are ultimately helping their loved ones answer the question Jesus asked His disciples in the Gospel: Who do you say I am? Deep down, Jesus addresses that question to everyone in the depths of their heart: “Who do you say I am?” “Where am I in your life?” Through their wise counsel, authentic witness, and loving and respectful proclamation, grandparents can help children to begin to formulate their personal response to that question. It is important to do your part. Then hand it over to God. Because, let us remember, that response to Jesus is a life-long project!

          Let me give the final word to Rosa, Pope Francis’ grandmother. It is moving to hear him say of her: “She loved me so much! She was a saint who suffered much, also spiritually, and yet always went forward with courage.” I have no doubt that our grandparents here at St. Benilde love their grandchildren greatly. And that many of our grandparents suffer, also spiritually, perhaps regretting deficiencies that they see in the transmission of faith. But let us take heart from the impact of one grandmother on a future Pope! Let us entrust ourselves to Mary, Jesus’ mother who must have often heard her speak of his grandparents. On this National Grandparents Day, let us pray that our grandchildren will be able to say about all our grandparents in years to come what Pope Francis says of his grandmother: “they loved me so much; they were saints who suffered, also spiritually and yet they always kept going with courage.”

September 2, 2018

          When Christians think of the saving work of Jesus, many focus on the Triduum during which He was crucified, died and rose again. Others concentrate on the three years of His public ministry when He traversed Judea, Samaria, and Galilee: preaching, teaching, and working miracles. But few think of how the Son of Man spent the other ninety-one percent of His time on earth. The vast majority of it was spent in Nazareth as a manual laborer. His fellow Nazarenes knew Him as a “construction worker” (the Greek word “teknon” is broader than our English translation of “carpenter”). Following His foster-father, Jesus entered into the world of human work, not as a “cover” until His “real work” would begin, but precisely to redeem noble human work in His process of redeeming the human person.

           Labor Day Weekend is an opportunity for all of us to reflect on the meaning of human work—and specifically our work—in God’s divine plan. In the first command in the Bible, the Lord gave the human person the mission to co-operate (work together) with Him in bringing His work of creation to fulfillment: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish…the birds…and every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen 1:28). God, who worked for the “six days” of creation and whom Jesus says “is still working” (Jn 5:17), made man and woman in His own image and likeness and called them to share in this work.

          The first way we do so is through pro-creation, when in the image of the Trinitarian communion-of-persons-in-love we “increase and multiply” that part of creation God deemed “very good.” The second way we cooperate in bringing creation to perfection is through “subduing the earth” and exercising “dominion” over all living things. Right from the beginning, before the Fall, the human person had received this mission, which shows not only the goodness of human work but also how central it is for man’s dignity, vocation, and mission.

          After the Fall, both aspects of man’s work became toilsome—procreation now would bring with it the “pangs of childbirth” for the woman and the work of subduing and having dominion would now bring “sweat” to one’s brow (cf. Gen 3:16-19)—but work would remain fundamentally good and, in fact, redemptive.

           But the most important part of work was not its “transitive” function of perfecting God’s material universe, in cultivating the land, raising animals, and even, in modern times, making computer chips out of sand and life-saving medicines out of bacteria. It was the “intransitive” purpose of bringing God’s greatest work—the human person—to perfection. Work done well gives the human person the opportunity to cultivate all the various hidden talents and potentials God has implanted in him—physical, intellectual, and spiritual—which are far greater than those He has inscribed in the earth.

             So great was Jesus’ appreciation for human work in God’s divine plan that He could not stop using it as the proper analogy for His preaching. In His teaching, Jesus favorably mentions shepherds, farmers, doctors, sowers, householders, servants, stewards, merchants, laborers, soldiers, cooks, tax collectors, scholars, and many more. He compares the work of the apostolate to the manual work of harvesters and fishermen. He called all His listeners, of whatever noble profession, to be saints. A few He called to leave their fishing boats or tax-charts behind to proclaim the Gospel. The vast majority He called to proclaim the Gospel by living that Good News in their given state in life. That is still what Jesus does today.

          Most of His followers are called to live out their discipleship and apostolate, their vocation and their mission, in the family and in the workplace. They are called to become saints and bring others to sanctity through this “increasing and multiplying…subduing and dominion.” One’s desk, or sewing machine, or kitchen, or chalkboard, or operating room, or workbench or boat, is meant to become an altar which sanctifies not only what is given to God in work, but the Giver as well. It is there that the vast majority of men and women are called to be sanctified and sanctify others through showing the original dignity and meaning of human work.

          Work is not principally about earning a paycheck, but about serving and loving others. When work takes on this meaning, the perfection of the human person continues, the work-place is evangelized, and God’s work is advanced. On this Labor Day weekend, a diligent construction worker from Nazareth waves to each of us with calloused hands and says, “Come, follow me!”

August 26, 2018

           2018 marks the 70^th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was proclaimed three years after the 1945 foundation of the United Nations to give definition to the “fundamental human rights” and “fundamental freedoms” mentioned in the UN Charter. The motivation behind it was to counteract the barbarous acts that occurred at the time of World War II, most notoriously the Holocaust, which had justly outraged the conscience of mankind.

           When St. John Paul II came to the United Nations in 1979, he called the Universal Declaration the UN’s “fundamental document” and “cornerstone,” said it was a “milestone on the path of the moral progress of humanity,” declared that it had “struck a real blow against the many deep roots of war,” and insisted that it “must remain the basic value … with which … consciences … must be confronted and from which they must draw continual inspiration.”

          It is easy for Americans to take many of the rights listed in the Universal Declaration for granted because the foundational documents of our country focus on “unalienable rights” endowed by the Creator. However, for many people across the world, living under various forms of subjugation, the list was a watershed. It specified the rights to life, liberty, and security of person; not to be a slave, tortured or inhumanly punished; to equality before the law, effective access to fair and competent legal systems where one is presumed innocent until proven guilty; not to be arrested arbitrarily, detained, exiled, or subjected to retroactive laws or penalties; not to have one’s privacy, family or home unjustly interfered with; to move within one’s country, leave it, and return; to asylum from persecution; to a nationality and the ability to change it; to marry and found a family; to own property and not arbitrarily be deprived of it; to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, to change one’s religion and be able to live it; to freedom of opinion and expression; to peaceful assembly and association; to take part in self-government; to equal access to public service, social security, economic, social and cultural rights; to work in just conditions, with equal pay for equal work, with fair remuneration to ensure for oneself and his family a worthy existence; to form and belong to trade unions; to reasonable limitation of working hours; to a healthy standard of living with food, clothing, housing, medical care and social services; to free education in elementary stages and for parents to choose the education for children; to legal protection of what one creates; and to a social and international order in which these rights can be realized.

          Many of these rights were controversial. Communist governments opposed the right to leave one’s country. Various Muslim countries opposed the right to change one’s religion, to equality between men and women in marriage, and other rights opposed to Sharia law. South Africa opposed the basic equality between races in order to sustain its then system of apartheid. Nevertheless, of the 58 countries then pertaining to the United Nations, 48 voted in favor, with the others abstaining from the vote or failing to show up.

          It is a real sign of the impact of the Universal Declaration and of the ethical progress of humanity that, across the world, almost everyone speaks of fundamental human rights that pertain to us by our nature and dignity and not by revocable state concession. This progress remains even though in many places there are still repressive governments, terrorist organizations and other entities that ignore and trample upon these rights. Even in such situations, there is a vocabulary to describe the illegitimacy and evil of such acts, which can pave the way for them to be overcome, as we saw with the falls of Soviet communism, apartheid, and other dictatorial or inhumane situations.

          In the last seventy years, however, particularly in the last fifty, there has been a corruption of the principal of human rights to try to elevate the desires of individuals or groups into matters that others must acknowledge and ensure. When the term “human rights” becomes such a rhetorical catch-all, endlessly expanded to suit the passing tastes of the age, such an elastic approach can end up discrediting, undermining and outright opposing the very rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration and the concept of human rights itself.

              This is what Pope Francis called attention to in January at the Vatican, in his remarkable annual address to the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See. He dedicated the vast majority of his remarks to the upcoming 70^th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration—to be celebrated December 10—stressing how it recognized the “inherent dignity and … equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” as the foundation for freedom, justice, peace, and integral human development. To speak of human rights, he stated, “means above all to restate the centrality of the human person,” because such rights are “premised on the nature objectively shared by the human race.” But he warned that when a false or “reductive vision of the human person” serves as the foundation of rights claims, it opens the way to “injustice, social inequality, and corruption.”

           He elaborated upon the anthropological reductionism at work in what he calls the “new rights” that have been invented since the social upheavals of the 1960s. These novel “rights,” he said, significantly stray from the vision of the human person on which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the other conventions that form international human rights law, are grounded.

            “Debatable notions of human rights,” the Pope stated, “have been advanced that are at odds with the culture of many countries. The latter feel that they are not respected in their social and cultural traditions, and instead neglected with regard to the real needs they have to face. Somewhat paradoxically, there is a risk that, in the very name of human rights, we will see the rise of modern forms of ideological colonization by the stronger and the wealthier, to the detriment of the poorer and the most vulnerable.”

            What Pope Francis is describing is that powerful and wealthy countries, both through direct official development assistance as well as through certain international agencies, are conditioning the reception of development help on the acceptance of radical social agendas with regard to human sexuality, abortion, family structure, and even basic anthropology, under the guise of new “rights.” The Pope has gone so far as to call this ideological colonization a “world war … not with weapons but with ideas.”

             However, this ideological bullying does not have to cross international borders to be wrong and dangerous. It can also take place within countries, within their governmental, educational and employment institutions, and within culture at large. Genuine human rights, like the right of every human being to life, are trampled in order to give those who are older, stronger and politically powerful the novel “right to choose” to end another’s life in the room and even to have others pay for it. The right to religious freedom is disregarded so that some may have the new “right to marry whomever they love” and force business owners against their conscience to make wedding cakes celebrating it. The right of parents to choose the education of their children is bulldozed in order to give children, through their educators, the “right” to receive “comprehensive sexual education” including graphic descriptions of practices opposed to the moral values of the families involved—even in preschool.

             “It should be noted,” Pope Francis said, “that over the years, particularly in the wake of the social upheaval of the 1960’s, the interpretation of some rights has progressively changed, with the inclusion of a number of ‘new rights’ that not infrequently conflict with one another. It is painful to see how many fundamental rights continue to be violated today. First among all of these is the right of every human person to life, liberty, and personal security. It is not only war or violence that infringes these rights. In our day, there are more subtle means. I am thinking primarily of innocent children discarded even before they are born, unwanted at times simply because they are ill or malformed, or as a result of the selfishness of adults. I am thinking of the elderly, who are often cast aside, especially when infirm and viewed as a burden. I am thinking of women who repeatedly suffer from violence and oppression, even within their own families. I am thinking too of the victims of human trafficking, which violates the prohibition of every form of slavery.”

             He went on to focus, as well, on how the “right to freedom of thought, conscience and of religion, including the freedom to change religion,” is being ignored, not just by certain fundamentalist or communist countries, but also by aggressively secular governments. “Sad to say,” he declared, “it is well-known that the right to religious freedom is often disregarded, and not infrequently religion becomes either an occasion for the ideological justification of new forms of extremism or a pretext for the social marginalization of believers, if not their downright persecution.” Such novel rights alienate the true unalienable ones.

              It was a powerful address in which the Pope challenged the growing tendency to trample person’s and people’s human rights in the supposed name of human rights, which sets the tone for the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration and the context for the continuation of the rights it enumerates. It is of interest not just to ambassadors, diplomats, and leaders of nations, but also to all holders of fundamental human rights.

August 19, 2018

          "Too late have I loved Thee, O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new." St. Augustine was in his forties by the time he penned this personal lament. As readers of the Confessions know (and the Confessions has been a universal must-read for 1600 years), Augustine wasted himself for 30 years before he finally embraced the Lord in the greatest conversion story ever told.

          Throughout his retrospective, he refers to beauty, the need for beauty, and the search for beauty. His wanderings away from the faith of his mother were intimately bound up with a search for beauty. He did not find beauty in his catechesis, nor in his early education, so he sought it in the wild passions of love and friendship. Eventually, Augustine found the Lord by realizing in very painful ways that other beauties disappointed when they were mistaken for real Beauty.

           In his praise of the Lord, St. Augustine connects love and Beauty, for they are correlatives. Love is aroused by what is beautiful, beauty inspires love. We need to be inspired by what is truly beautiful, to be passionate about what is lovely, and to enjoy in the objects of natural affection a suggestion, a reflection of the Beauty that never passes.

            Our nation's Puritanical past might lead us to think that to be religious is to deny ourselves of what is beautiful, but the opposite is true. The Danish movie, Babette's Feast, provides a parable about a small fishing village that has driven out all that is beautiful in life in its misguided following of Christianity. The loss of beauty leads to a loss of joy and friendship. The humble cook, who is really a refugee French chef, wins a lottery fortune and uses it to prepare a sumptuous feast to celebrate the founder of the community. In the course of the feast, the village is re-awakened, re-evangelized, and re-united.

            Catholic schools have a joyful duty to present what is beautiful to their students. At the center of the school, the church and all religious services should present a feast for the eyes, the ears, the mind, and the heart. Classrooms and hallways should be tastefully decorated; students will imbibe fine works of art over the course of their years at a school. Tasteful, rich, clever visual presentations should be an important factor when considering textbook series.

            Beauty has an important place in the central activity of teaching and learning. Learning certainly requires discipline, but deep down it is a feast for the mind and heart. An ancient expression describing what it means to be beautiful is, "What pleases merely by being seen." What is beautiful does not have to be possessed, consumed to please us; merely a look is sufficient to delight us. When we hear this, we immediately think of paintings, faces, the visible things seen by the eyes. However, in a more profound sense, what pleases the mind by itself, without reference to possessing something, is truly beautiful.

          Many who teach know what this means. As young men and women, they were enchanted by their subjects and fell in love with them. Their great desire has always been to share that enchantment with their students. None expressed this desire better than the great entomologist, J. Henri Fabre. The man honored by Darwin as the "Inimitable Observer" realized the crucial importance of inspiring a love for the insects whose habits he wished to make the object of their scientific interest.

"And why should I not complete my thought: the boars have muddied the clear stream; natural history, youth's glorious study, has, by dint of cellular improvements, become a hateful and repulsive thing. Well, if I write for men of learning, for philosophers, who, one day, will try to some extent to unravel the tough problem of instinct, I write also, I write above all things for the young. I want to make them love the natural history which you make them hate; and that is why, while keeping strictly to the domain of truth, I avoid your scientific prose, which too often, alas seems borrowed from some Iroquois idiom."

           Dr. Paul Lockhart expresses the same, heartfelt desire in his Mathematician's Lament, in which he mourns the fact that most students never get a clue in twelve years of schooling as to why mathematicians love what they do.

"There is no question that if the world had to be divided into the "poetic dreamers" and the "rational thinkers" most people would place mathematicians in the latter category. Nevertheless, the fact is that there is nothing as dreamy and poetic, nothing as radical, subversive, and psychedelic, as mathematics. It is every bit as mind blowing as cosmology or physics (mathematicians conceived of black holes long before astronomers actually found any), and allows more freedom of expression than poetry, art, or music (which depend heavily on properties of the physical universe)."

          I recently read a lament from a graduate student in classical literature at a prestigious graduate school, one with which graduate students in all fields who entered their programs in love with a subject can sympathize:

"I'm frustrated by what I see of academia. I rarely get to consider a text as literature – I feel like there's always a huge emphasis on socio-historical context or the validity of manuscripts – and so often classes center closely around the professors' rather obscure interests. I enjoy when I can spend a day reading Homer or Ovid. I'm just learning that Classics is not really about doing that."

           Teachers of literature must ensure that they spend less time training students to recognize metaphor and simile than they do inspiring them to feel the power of the beauty of the stories and poems they encounter in their classes. Of course, no teacher will succeed with every student, nor can he neglect his duty to pass on things that need to be "known" about it. Nevertheless, he should take every opportunity he can to manifest the beauty of a subject to which he has given his own heart. When he succeeds, he has given his students something which will make a greater impression in their lives than any test they might ever pass. For, as St. Augustine also realized, every encounter with a beauty is really a meeting with the Beauty that is the goal of all our longing: "And I replied unto all the things which encompass the door of my flesh: "Ye have told me of my God, that ye are not He; tell me something of Him." And they cried out with a loud voice, "He made us." My questioning them was my thoughts on them: and their form of beauty gave the answer."

August 12, 2018

         “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil 4:8). 

          This teaching from St. Paul captures well the heart of Catholic education at St. Benilde. Woven throughout, and uniting, the rich variety of activities that unfold daily in our school is the mission to “think about these things.” Therefore, it is incumbent upon everyone involved in the ministry of Catholic education within our parish family to ensure that by means of our curriculum, extra-curricular activity, and Christian witness, our students are immersed in the true, the good, and the beautiful and helped to ponder them deeply in the light of our Catholic faith.

Truth
           In his message for World Communications Day 2017, Pope Francis observed: “The early Christians compared the human mind to a constantly grinding millstone; it is up to the miller to determine what it will grind: good wheat or worthless weeds. Our minds are always “grinding”, but it is up to us to choose what to feed them (cf. Saint John Cassian, Epistle to Leontius).” The human mind seeks naturally to know what is true. Truth is a person, Jesus Christ, who reveals Himself as "the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6). At St. Benilde School, we feed the minds of our beloved students with truth by facilitating their encounter with the Truth, who is Jesus.

Goodness
            “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Catholic education seeks to help our students be aware of their own inherent goodness as children made in the image and likeness of God. Modern media, with its many illusory messages about what is “good,” can distract our students away from this awareness. By placing before them the Word of God, traditional devotionals and the celebration of the sacraments, Catholic education offers our students the opportunity to be silent and hear the voice of God summoning them to holiness and assuring them they are His beloved.

Beauty
            By helping our students look upon reality through the lens of divine revelation, we lead them to see the beautiful in what a purely human gaze often perceives as unattractive, namely, in the faces of persons who are poor, sick, suffering, and alone. Catholic education strives to make a difference in the lives of individuals and in the wider community by challenging students to recognize the inherent beauty and worth of every person and to serve others, especially the poor, with compassion and justice. By embracing the call to serve, the active response of our students to anyone in need holds strong transformative potential for a world seeking justice, peace, and unity.

          At the start of the 2018-2019 school year, we give thanks to God for the beautiful ministry of Catholic education at St. Benilde Parish. By the help of His grace, may we enable our students to ponder the true, good and beautiful, and thus come to realize how God is present and at work in the world and in every moment of their lives, leading them to salvation.

August 5, 2018

          Rooted in the classical world of Greek thought and Thomistic philosophy, Catholic education is not shaped by trends, fashions, and fads but founded on a great tradition that has passed the test of time. It teaches all subjects in their integrity, according to their first principles, the logos that conform to the structure of reality and the nature of things–whether it is the grammar that governs language, the reasoning that underlies arithmetic and geometry, or the revealed truths that form the basis of theology. Catholic education is founded on universal truths derived from all spheres of knowledge, that is, the unchangeable laws, the eternal truths, and the perennial wisdom that form the food of the mind and the life of the soul. Catholic education does not dilute, oversimplify, or “dumb down” subject matter to accommodate students but teaches them how to rise to the level of demand required by a particular discipline such as grammar, theology, Latin, or chemistry.

           Like its moral teaching that inspires moral excellence and an imitation of Christ, Catholic education holds high ideals for its students and instills a love of learning because of man’s innate desire for knowledge—a love of truth that climaxes in a sense of wonder at God’s created and supernatural order and His revealed truths. This authentic education does not lower its standards nor commits grade inflation. Recalling the words of St. Thomas Aquinas that “All truth, whoever said it, comes from the Holy Spirit,” it cultivates in the mind openness and love of truth to “all that is,” that is, the truths that come from all bodies of learning, both the arts and the sciences. All these fields of knowledge illuminate some attribute of God’s nature as goodness, love wisdom, justice, beauty, mercy, or power.

            Catholic education has its heritage in the liberal arts that pass on the wisdom of the past and the venerable traditions of Western civilization known as The Perennial Philosophy—what is universally true for all people, in all times, in all places (“the best that has been thought and said” in Matthew Arnold’s famous phrase). Thus, it rejects the doctrines of moral relativism, political correctness, indoctrination, and ideology by educating the mind to detect lies, propaganda, and heresies in all their various disguises. It embraces what Edmund Burke in Reflections on the Revolution in France refers to as the accumulated knowledge of the human experience that transcends one person’s “private stock of reason” and encompasses “the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages.”

              Catholic education recognizes that just as there is a health of the body and a perfection of the soul, there is also an excellence of the intellect, both the knowledge of the head and the knowledge of the heart—the ability to read, write, speak, and listen; the skill to observe, calculate, and think logically; and the sensitivity to respond to the wonder of beauty and appreciate the virtues of the heart: kindness, charity, mercy, gratitude, loyalty, and hospitality. This education does not ignore man’s social or emotional nature, and therefore it cultivates manners, courtesy, tact, and propriety in speech, behavior, and clothing, recognizing that the beautiful or gracious is the attractive aspect of the good. In the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut falls; finches’ wings ….” Catholic education, then, integrates and sees the unity between all bodies of knowledge ordered to a greater understanding of God’s truth, goodness, and beauty as objects of the mind to know and contemplate with wonder, love, and gratitude and then to incorporate in one’s own life.

              Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman best describes this ideal of Catholic and liberal education in these words from The Idea of a University that defines the nature of intellectual excellence at its highest: “the clear, calm, accurate vision and comprehension of all things.” As Cardinal Newman continues, “It is almost prophetic from its knowledge of history; it is almost heart-searching from its knowledge of human nature; it has almost supernatural charity from its freedom from littleness and prejudice; it has almost the repose of faith, because nothing can startle it; it has almost the beauty and harmony of heavenly contemplation, so intimate is it with the eternal order of things and the music of the spheres.”

              It is common to hear students dismiss certain fields of knowledge as useless to their profession and career. Why should a student majoring in information technology, accounting, music, or biology study philosophy, literature, or Latin? Surely, they will not need this knowledge in their specialized, technical fields of study. The courses designated as “liberal arts” have no practical, utilitarian value for many professions that require skills acquired only in that particular discipline. Business majors need to study accounting, economics, and statistics to become expert in their field, and pre-medical students benefit more from the study of the sciences than the humanities.

               Newman, however, addressed this very question during the Victorian Age when trade schools and technical training established respectability as models of education essential for the Industrial Age centered upon the importance of manufacturing and the progress of science. Thus, Newman’s age made the common distinction between “the good” and “the useful,” separating the two ideas as exclusive. While the useful was good, the good was not useful or “utilitarian” as it was defined in that period. For something to be classified as “good” or beneficial, it needed to have immediate results and produce tangible benefits. As Sir Francis Bacon argued, knowledge is power. An education that led to a job was useful; work that resulted in good income was useful; the income that improved a person’s standard of living was useful. The useful, then, was measured in quantitative ways and seen in materialistic advantages.

              A bonafide classical or Catholic education, however, is not utilitarian, a form of training in a marketable skill motivated by economic considerations for the sole purpose of earning a livelihood. It is a love of learning for its own sake, a desire for truth as an end in itself and as a great good that suffuses all areas of life. Classical education views the study of the liberal arts as a pursuit that resembles the habit of worship, the cultivation of friendship, the appreciation of beauty, the enjoyment of play, and a love of learning as activities that are intrinsically good in and of themselves. They lift the heart, animate the spirit, and inspire a love of life and of the goodness of creation. As Newman explains, the good, while not utilitarian, is always useful. The good is “not useful in any low, mechanical, mercantile sense, but as diffusing good, or as a blessing, or a gift, or power, or a treasure, first to the owner, then through him to the world.”

            Good is not only good, but reproductive of good; this is one of its attributes; nothing is excellent, beautiful, perfect, desirable for its own sake, but it overflows, and spreads the likeness of all around it. Good is prolific . . . . A great good will impart a great good.

           In short, if there is no limit to all the good a blessing, a gift, power, an act of love, or a precious treasure can add to the world or to the life of one person and if there is no limit to the overflow of goodness that communicates and diffuses itself everywhere and touches many lives, a Catholic education is the most useful of educations because of all the practical, real good that abounds for all who receive this goodness and transmit it in a generous, charitable sharing way for all to know, love, and perpetuate.

July 29, 2018

          To understand the devotion to the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we should look carefully at the meaning of blood and blood that is shed. By doing this, we can then consider the meaning of the shedding of the Precious Blood of Christ.

          We all know that blood is biologically part of our body. However, blood is also intimately associated with the vital element of the individual as a person. That is why we give to the Blood of Christ all the adoration due to Christ Himself. Our blood is naturally meant to be inside the body. Hence, every time we bleed, it is something of an unnatural or catastrophic nature. Many illnesses, for example, are perceived by bleeding caused by some malfunction inside the body. Bleeding is essentially a sign of alarm, which because of its violence, calls attention to the fact that something is terribly wrong with the person.

          Besides illnesses, bleeding also calls to mind fighting and crime. For example, the idea of bloodshed instantly calls to mind the blood of Abel, shed by Cain and which, according to Scripture, rose to God clamoring for vengeance. When blood is shed by crime, we sense a profound violence applied to the body that conveys the idea of something unjust, brutal and iniquitous which profoundly disturbs an existing order and clamors to God for the reestablishment of order.

           When we consider the infinitely Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, many things come to mind. We think of that blood begotten in the womb of Our Lady. We think of that Blood that was shed, leaving His Body from whence it should never have left. That Blood, like everything else in the Body of Christ, is in hypostatic union with Him and when it leaves His sacred Body, it is as if symbolizing all the dignity of that Body. We might compare this departure to the juice that comes from the grape to make up wine. That juice represents the essence of the grape, all the best the grape has to give. So also, our Lord’s Blood represents the best of blood–the blood of David, the blood of Mary, the Blood of God-Man.

          Through a series of unspeakable, violent deicidal actions, that Blood was shed in the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the cross, and torments of all kinds. That Blood was shed by the great anguish of soul when Our Lord, in His agony, began to suffer and sweat blood all over His Body. That Blood shed and falling on the ground clamorously attests to the insult made to the God-Man. It is a manifestation of how far human wickedness can go. It is a manifestation of the mystery of iniquity. We see in that Blood how much God tolerates. We are reminded how fallen human nature in this valley of tears (above all when guided by sin and the devil) is capable of going to the extremes of evil shrinking from nothing.

          These considerations should lead us to always be extremely suspicious towards evil. We should follow Our Lord’s precept: “Watch and pray.” Our suspicions are based on the fact that evil is capable of the worst infamies. One can expect everything from it. Thus, we should do great violence to ourselves to fight against it. We should avoid all drowsiness, foolish optimism, or procrastination in face of evil. Indeed, failing to combat evil is a true crime since we see that if evil was capable of such horrible acts against Our Lord, it is capable of everything. Evil calls unto other evils and can go to the very depths of all evil.

          Looking at this bloodshed, we should note that the mercy of God wanted all that Blood to be shed with unheard-of abundance. All the blood in the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ was shed, as if to show that He gave us everything, without holding back even one drop, because of His immense desire to save us. One drop of His blood would have sufficed, yet He shed all His blood to the point that the last drops were mixed with water that left His Side when Longinus pierced His Heart with the lance. He wanted to hold nothing back in order to redeem us.

           This superabundance of blood, suffering, and offering up of self recalls Our Lord’s words: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Considering the devotion to the Most Precious Blood, we might say, “Greater love than this no man hath, than He who gave His life for us.” However, He did even more than just giving His life. He wished to suffer death from the beatings, anguish, and the shedding of every drop of blood in His sacred Body. In this sense, every drop of blood is like a tiny death, for it is a drop of life that goes away. He wanted to go through all these “deaths” to show how infinite was His friendship for us.

          Such considerations lead us to confide in His mercy. If He so wanted to save us, we should understand that we might cover ourselves in His Blood and present ourselves to the Eternal Father. Begging forgiveness thus covered in His Blood, we should confide that we could obtain it. The eternal destiny of the damned, on the other hand, is something we must consider quite horrifying. If Our Lord suffered all these torments to spare us from eternal doom, then this damnation is a very serious thing. So let us meditate on the depths of Hell by considering a drop of the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

           This inevitably leads us to other considerations. First, we must see how the Blood of Christ calls to mind the tears of Mary, shed along with the Blood of Christ. Our Lord did not want Our Lady to shed any drop of her own blood. He allowed all types of torments against Himself but forbade the powers of evil from raising even a finger against His Immaculate Mother. Thus, she suffered no physical torments. None of her blood was shed on behalf of humanity, nor would it have had the redeeming force of the infinitely precious Blood of Christ. The entire Redemption would come specifically from the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

            However, Our Lady did shed a kind of blood: Her tears. It would serve as only a kind of complement to Our Lord’s Blood. We can say that tears are the blood of the soul. She suffered all the pain of His death and shed tears. That is why it is impossible to think about the Blood of Christ without at the same time considering the tears of Mary that were joined to that Blood and constituted the first tribute of Christendom to complete the part of His Passion that God wanted to be completed–with the suffering of the faithful–so that souls would be saved in great numbers.

          Finally, we should think about the Holy Eucharist. The Blood of Christ was shed in streets, squares, Pilate’s palace, and on top of Mount Calvary. That Blood of Christ is found entirely in the Holy Eucharist. How many times we have received this Blood of Christ in us. Thus, as we receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we should remember this: We are receiving this Precious Blood, shed for us. Inside us, it is like the blood of Abel, not to clamor for punishment against us, but to clamor for mercy for us. So let us receive the Eucharist with great confidence and joy, as we receive the Blood of Christ that rises to Heaven clamoring for mercy on our behalf.

July 22, 2018

           Once there was a liberal clergyman who became pastor of a somewhat traditional church, and after a few weeks of listening to his modernistic, politically-correct preaching, some of his parishioners came to him and asked, “Reverend, do you believe in the devil and in hell?” The pastor scoffed at these ideas and responded, “No, of course not; those are silly medieval superstitions.” To this, the parishioners said, “Well, then, please resign and go somewhere else—for if there is no devil and no hell, we don’t need you, and if there is a devil and a hell, we don’t want to be led astray by you” (David F. Burgess, Encyclopedia of Sermon Illustrations, #451).

          The Church has always taught the reality of the devil, and the possibility of being eternally damned along with him as a result of the spiritual warfare he wages against us. For instance, Pope Francis has stated that the devil “exists in the 21st century, and we need to learn from the Gospel how to battle against him,” and also that “the presence of the devil is on the first page of the Bible, and the Bible ends as well with the presence of the devil, with the victory of God over [him].” It is not only mistaken, but also spiritually foolish—and potentially disastrous—to deny or ignore the devil’s existence. He hates each one of us personally, and is always plotting and working against us, seeking our eternal damnation. Only by remaining on guard against him, and by using the spiritual weapons and defenses the Lord provides us through the Church, can we be sure of defeating his attacks and of one day reaching our true home in heaven.

          Jesus uses the image of weeds among the wheat to explain why evildoers are to be found in the world and even in the Church. However, it is also possible to interpret this parable on a more personal basis: namely, Satan is trying to sow his evil seeds of sin and spiritual destruction in our own lives—and it is our duty to guard against this threat. The devil studies us very carefully, taking note of our strengths and weaknesses, our habits and inclinations, and he shrewdly chooses the particular temptations and attacks best suited to overcome us—all the while striving to work behind the scenes without us suspecting anything. Therefore, it is good to ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten us. In this regard, we might ask ourselves: what particular evil seeds is the devil attempting to sow in the field of our lives?

          The Church speaks of the “Seven Deadly Sins,” which are anger, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, and sloth or laziness. Every human being is weak or easily tempted in at least one of these areas, and probably several of them—and so these are usually the focus of the devil’s attacks.

• In regard to anger, for instance, the devil wants us to nurse grudges and refuse to forgive other people, to become impatient with their failings, and to overreact to the things about them that annoy us.
• Satan tries to use the sin of envy against us by getting us to compare ourselves with others, to adopt an “entitlement mentality,” and to consider ourselves better than those around us.
• Because we Americans are, compared to most people, very self-indulgent, the devil has found gluttony to be a fertile field for his evil seeds. He tempts us to overdo life’s legitimate pleasures, to disdain or reject sacrifice and self-control, and to ignore other people’s poverty or suffering.
• Greed is also a common weakness in our society, so Satan tempts us to want more money and possessions, more technology and convenience, and more luxury and leisure—when we should instead be concerned with storing up treasure for ourselves in heaven.
• Lust is a particularly fertile field for the devil’s seeds; as Our Lady of Fatima revealed, more souls are in hell for sins against the 6th Commandment than any other. Satan is constantly tempting us to misuse sex, to glorify and expose our bodies, and to treat other people as objects for our own pleasure.
• Pride is the sin which transformed Lucifer, the greatest of all the angels, into the hideous creature of Satan—and so the devil delights in using this sin against us. He wants us to think, “I’m superior to others, I know what’s best for me, and no one is going to tell me how to live my life”—for such attitudes make spiritual growth impossible, while causing us to reject the God-given authority and saving power of the Church.
• Even if all these temptations fail, the devil will try to get us to fall victim to sloth, or spiritual laziness, in which we know we have to repent or take our spiritual duties more seriously, but we just cannot motivate ourselves to get started. Instead of striving for holiness, Satan wants us to settle for being good enough—for that may eventually allow him to turn us against God.

            Other snares of the devil include poisoning our relationships, distracting us with this life’s concerns so that we are always too busy or preoccupied to pay attention to God, making us afraid to do what is right because of what other people might say, inflating our egos by appealing to our natural desire to be popular and praised by others, and trying to discourage us by convincing us we will never overcome our faults and that holiness is beyond our reach.

           Farmers use weed-killers or pesticides to prevent or remove weeds in their fields, and fertilizer to nourish the crop and bring about the greatest possible growth. The most potent weed-killer against Satan’s evil seeds of spiritual destruction is humility. The more we humble ourselves, the more God’s grace can be at work within us, helping us overcome our faults and grow in holiness. In particular, frequently examining our consciences and regularly receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation will ensure the devil will not gain a solid foothold in our lives. As far as the spiritual fertilizer we need, worthily receiving Holy Communion each Sunday is the single greatest thing we can do to be made ready for eternal life in heaven. Other valuable means of tending the field of our souls include reading the Bible and other worthwhile spiritual books, setting aside time for prayer every day, seeking God’s guidance in all our decisions, learning more about our Catholic faith, submitting to the authority of the Church on moral and religious issues, praying for the conversion of sinners and for the souls in purgatory, and cultivating a loving relationship with the Virgin Mary, our guardian angels, and our favorite saints. Satan is real; he is hate-filled and dangerous, and is conducting spiritual warfare against each of us personally. However, the devil is doomed to fail—if we take our faith seriously, and if we make a loving relationship with Jesus our highest priority.

July 15, 2018

         Jesus said, “I have observed Satan fall like lighting from the sky.” Most modern progressive Catholic thinkers would say, that Jesus was using some very colorful language to make His point about evil and its existence but – He did not mean this literally. So the question remains, does personal evil really exist?

         The modern Catholic, who is uneducated in their faith, would say, is not the devil just some story or tool invented by the Church to control people? To make us afraid so we will follow blindly whatever the Church says–so that the popes, bishops, and priests could control us? Cannot all those stories in the Bible about Jesus casting out demons be explained away by modern psychology and its understanding of psychological disorders–or religious fanatical behavior? Are not Hell and the devil just childhood stories told around the campfire, to entertain us with a little bit of fear? Or maybe just the reoccurring plot–of too many horror movies? Did not the Second Vatican Council with its new modern liberal mindset bring us out of a backward medieval belief system to make us modern progressive thinkers capable of realizing that hell and Satan are just the products of ignorance, superstition, or an over active imagination?

          Let us think about this for a moment. Here is what Gaudium et Spes, one of the documents of the Second Vatican Council notes: “The whole of man’s history has been the story of our combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield, man has struggled to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God’s grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity” (Gaudium et Spes, 37).

         Some Catholics maybe surprised that the existence of evil, the devil as well as hell, are all truths of our Catholic Faith. All one has to do is pick up a copy of the Catechism and you will find that the Church officially teaches–from paragraph #1033 through paragraph #1037 – that evil does exist, that there is a person, a fallen Angel to be exact, who wants nothing more than to destroy humanity and if that is not possible then at least to get as many people away from God, away from salvation to spend eternity in hell with him. Pope Paul IV, taught that “evil is not merely a lack of something, but an effective agent, a living spiritual being, perverted and perverting.  A terrible reality–mysterious and frightening–who goes about acting in a way contrary to the teaching of the Bible and the Church.”

         Of course, there is the New Testament, which alone refers to the devil and his wickedness nearly 300 times as a warning to us of his presence and activity in our world. This leads us to the Gospels, where Jesus talks more about the devil and evil than anything else except His divinity. We read that the disciples were overjoyed because–demons were subject to them through the Holy Name of Jesus. This power of the name of Jesus was given not only to the disciples but also to the whole Church to fight against and overcome any and every evil in this world. This power is the authority of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, built on the authority of Jesus Christ Himself, which causes the gates of hell to tremble.

         What we learn from the New Testament is that the main purpose of Jesus’ ministry was to destroy the works of the devil and to bring about the Kingdom of God, which will destroy the Kingdom of Satan. Christ came to cast out, bind up and deliver humanity from its slavery to sin and death as well as from the chief works of the devil called vices. According to the Old Testament, the devil gets his foothold in this world and in our lives through things like fortune-tellers, soothsayers, charms, diviners, and spells as well as when we consult with ghosts and spirits or seek oracles and revelations from the dead. In our day and age, he still uses these things including horoscopes, the new age movement, Gnosticism, moral relativism, or even more explicitly through Satanism and the worship of the devil.

         Every day we see his evil played out right in front of our eyes and then we ignore what we see and the underlying cause. We fail to recognize that there is a very real enemy, who likes to remain hidden, while he plots our destruction and doom. This evil is increased with the destruction of Fatherhood, marriage and traditional family life; in the increase in war, murder, and suicide; the devastation of our youth through drugs and sexual addiction; the massive diffusion by the media of corrupting errors and sinful practices. And most especially in our day, with the ruinations of our religious freedoms and those individuals who bravely speak up for them.

          Nowadays, objective evil is displayed out in the open–all of which are meant to destroy us–caused by a malicious Angel who wants nothing more than to eradicate us from the face of the earth. Satan has gone so far as to attack humanity at its source with the sin of abortion, birth control, embryonic stem cell research, and cloning as well as using the cumulative forces of this world’s sinfulness to redefine life and marriage as we know it and calling it progress and the new, modern family. Nothing can escape from the rebellious forces of hedonism and secularism in their violent march throughout the world trying to force us to believe that sinfulness and evil rebellion against our Creator and His definition of morality is normal and warranted.

          We have come so far that not to follow this march of evil to our own destruction is to be portrayed as crazy, abnormal, or ignorant. We have come so far that good is bad and evil is really good. Good people are boring and evil people are fun. We defend the criminal and imprison the lawful. Our daily poor example to our children teaches them that magic and fairy tales are real and that God, His angels and Saints, do not exist but somehow all humans and dogs go to heaven. No wonder our world is so confused and ignorant of what God really says and teaches.

          So it goes without saying, with all certainty, that those of us who want to be truly holy and virtuous, who want to wholeheartedly embrace the Catholic Church’s authentic teaching and mission to save souls, will live a very difficult life. One full of challenges and at times real sorrows, but at the same time, a life of immense blessings and graces, which all those who follow Christ enjoy for all eternity. If we really want to be God’s saints and His holy people, we need not fear what is coming or what is already here, we need not fear the other sheep or those wolves among us dressed up like them for God will not be mocked or made a fool of for in the end all will be revealed; He does not deal lightly with the devil or his unrepentant companions, be they angelic or human. That is why He created hell, just for them.

           We are in the midst of a war–a war between good and evil–and the worst thing you can do in any combat situation is to believe that you’re not in one and that this fight has nothing to do with us. This, sadly, has been the mindset of us humans, us Christians, and us Catholics, for far too long. Pope Leo XIII stated it boldly, “Catholics are born for combat!” Therefore, we the people must become we the Saints. We must once again become the Church Militant–soldiers and warriors of Jesus Christ. The devil certainly knows that his time is short and that it would be even shorter should the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church ever take the call to spiritual warfare and authentic holiness seriously.

         The Liturgy of the Hours for the Martyrs states: “We are warriors now, fighting in the battlefield of faith, and God sees all we do; the Angels watch, and so does Christ. What honor and glory and joy, to do battle in the presence of God, and have Christ approve our victory.” Let us arm ourselves in full strength, with Rosary in hand and prepare ourselves through Eucharistic Adoration, for the ultimate struggle with blameless hearts, true faith, and unyielding courage.

            The venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen taught, “Christ demands fire–he demands zeal for His followers.”  In the scriptures, Christ commands us to go out and preach the Gospel, to live virtuous holy lives, to convert the nations and to cast out evil. When we pray the “Our Father,” we ask God to deliver us from evil; this is the normal daily petition said in the Church’s greatest prayer. Maybe it is time for us to make this petition part of our daily actions and not just part of our prayers.

            Praying for the deliverance from evil, working for its destruction, is at the very center of our Catholic faith because when we act this way we recognize that only God can truly save us from the power of the devil, who enslaves us with sin and evil. So be at peace, be unafraid, as St. Paul tells us, “we bear the marks of Christ on our bodies” through baptism and the Holy Eucharist, as we are being “sent out into the world as lambs among wolves” where “the harvest is rich and the laborers are few” where “the world is crucified to me and I to the world.” So rejoice because “your names are written in Heaven” and “as a mother comforts her child–so God will comfort you.” It is time, my brothers and sisters, to get up and engage in spiritual combat!

July 8, 2018

           When I was parochial vicar in a parish with a large Catholic School, a parent of one of our students passed away after a tragic and long illness. Many of the students struggled with how to express their grief or condolences appropriately. I suggested to a few of them that having a Mass offered for the dead is always a beautiful and appropriate way to express one's solidarity with the grieving. Most, if not all, looked at me as if I had something growing out of my head. It occurred to me that many really did not understand the value of offering a Mass for the dead. Moreover, I would guess that there are many people out there-while they recognize the Mass as something important-do not fully understand why offering a Mass for someone, especially the dead, is so important, not only for those who grieve, but for the person who died.

           First of all, we must never forget the infinite graces that flow from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass–graces which are directed for the salvation of all humanity. After all, the Mass is the sacrifice of Christ Himself. It is Christ Himself through the ministerial priesthood, who makes the benefits of His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension present to us in the here and now. By our full and active participation in the Mass, we offer our own sacrifices and our very lives in union with Christ to the Father in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, something mystical and something extraordinary happens to us at every Mass!

           But something extraordinary happens too to the entire Church here on earth, in heaven, and in purgatory. Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical "Mirae caritatis" (1902), emphasized that there is a connection between the deceased and the living members of the Church (the Communion of Saints), and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. He wrote: "Faith teaches that although the [Mass] can be offered to God alone, it can nevertheless be celebrated in honor of the saints now reigning in Heaven with God, who has crowned them, to obtain their intercession for us, and also, according to apostolic tradition, to wash away the stains of those who died in the Lord but without yet being wholly purified."

           Hence the Mass is the means through which we, the church here on earth (the Church Militant), together with those in heaven (the Church Triumphant), offer our intercessions or prayers on behalf of the dead (the Church Suffering). Catholic teaching affirms that our prayers on behalf of the dead, particularly the offering of the Mass, actually are beneficial for the souls of the dead. As Pope Leo said, through the Mass we ask God to "wash away the stains [or sins] of those who died in the Lord." The Mass is also, as the Holy Father pointed out, a means for us to seek God's graces on our behalf and on behalf of others who are in need of God's graces (i.e. the sick and the suffering).

           This tradition of offering Masses for others, particularly the dead, originates at the time of the apostles and in the history of the early Christian Church. We find evidence of this practice in inscriptions found on tombs in the Roman catacombs of the second century. For example, the epitaph on the tomb of Abercius (c.a. 180), Bishop of Hieropolis in Phrygia, asks for prayers for the repose of his soul. St. Hippolytus of Rome (c.a. 235) (to whom we attribute the second Eucharistic Prayer) mentions explicitly the offering of prayers for the dead during the Mass. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (c.a. 386), in his catechetical talks, explained how the living and dead are remembered at Mass, and how the Mass is a benefit to sinners, living and dead. St. Ambrose (c.a. 397) preached, "We have loved them during life; let us not abandon them in death, until we have conducted them by our prayers into the house of the Lord." St. Augustine (c.a. 430) in his Confessions recorded the dying wishes of his mother, St. Monica who asked: "One thing only I ask you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be." And lastly, Holy Scriptures in the Second Book of Maccabees (12:43-46) records that praying for the dead is a "holy and pious thought" and that we do so, so that "they might be freed from sin."

           Therefore, when a priest offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, he has three intentions: first, he offers the Mass reverently and validly according to the liturgical norms of the Church. Second, he offers the Mass in union with the whole Church and for the good of the whole Churc –both living and the dead in purgatory. And third, he offers the Mass for a particular intention, such as the repose of the soul of someone who has died.

           The Catholic Church teaches that the effects of the Mass bring certain benefits or fruits. Generally the fruits of the Mass are bestowed upon the entire Church–to the living faithful and those souls in purgatory. That is why in the Eucharistic Prayer you might hear a special mention remembering both the living and "those who have died and have gone before us marked with the sign of faith." But the special ministerial fruits of the Mass are applied to the particular intention of the Mass, i.e. "for whom the Mass is offered." That is the reason why the priest or commentator might mention the name of the person "for whom the Mass is offered" or you might see a person's name recorded in the bulletin for a particular Mass. Most of the time, it's for a deceased person, but it could also be for a person living who might have a special intention (anniversary, thanksgiving, illness, etc.).

           Customarily, a stipend is usually given to the priest for offering the Mass. The stipend serves as a "symbol" of one's sacrifice of self–a giving of something of ourselves in Christ's Holy Sacrifice at Mass. What is a sacrifice without an offering? What is a sacrifice if it does require us to give something of ourselves, even if it is only symbolic? This is why when one is making a request for a Mass, a stipend is requested. It is not a payment for the Mass (I have often heard people say "I want to buy a Mass"–as if God's graces can be bought!), but rather it serves as a symbol of one's offering or sacrifice.

          And so, this custom of "offering" the Mass has both a historic and scriptural origin, but is also of the greatest importance for the Church–for the salvation of the living and the dead. Therefore, I will offer the same suggestion to you that I offered those students years ago: when someone dies, even a person who is not Catholic, have a Mass offered for the repose of his or her soul. Now that you posses an understanding of the significance of offering the Mass for the dead, you will agree I am sure, that the Mass, as well as our own personal prayers for the dead, is more beneficial and comforting than any other sympathy card. Remember too, you can also request to have a Mass offered for your particular intention or for someone else.

July 1, 2018

          When President Bush addressed Pope Benedict XVI on the White House Lawn during his Holiness’ Pastoral Visit to the United States in 2008, the President invited the Holy Father to give all Americans a catechesis on the true meaning of freedom. “In a world where some see freedom as simply the right to do as they wish,” the President said, “we need your message that true liberty requires us to live our freedom not just for ourselves, but in a spirit of mutual support.” The Pope did not let the President down. Throughout his pilgrimage, Benedict returned time and again to the subject of freedom, celebrating with Americans the fundamental role of freedom in our history, defining its true nature, and calling our attention to counterfeit versions of freedom that are undermining the real thing. On Wednesday, when we as a nation give thanks to God for the gift of our freedom, it is fitting to return to Benedict’s message so that our country may remain and become ever more that which we sing in our national anthem: “the land of the free.”

           At the White House reception, Pope Benedict began his response to the President’s request by reminding us that our country’s founding fathers, who risked their lives to sign the Declaration of Independence over 230 years ago, recognized that there is an essential link between freedom and the truth of a moral order coming from God. “From the dawn of the Republic,” he stated, “America’s quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the Creator. The framers of this nation’s founding documents drew upon this conviction when they proclaimed the ‘self-evident truth’ that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights grounded in the laws of nature and of nature’s God. The course of American history demonstrates the difficulties, the struggles, and the great intellectual and moral resolve which were demanded to shape a society that faithfully embodied these noble principles. In that process, which forged the soul of the nation, religious beliefs were a constant inspiration and driving force, as for example in the struggle against slavery and in the civil rights movement.”

           The Holy Father added that throughout the centuries Americans cultivated the moral virtues that kept our country free, and how their example provides a challenge to us today. “Freedom is not only a gift,” Benedict emphasized, “but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience—almost every town in this country has its monuments honoring those who sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom, both at home and abroad. The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one’s deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate. In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good.”

             There is, Benedict implied, a battle to keep freedom tied to the good against those who want to invoke it to do evil. In speaking to the younger generations at Dunwoodie Seminary, the Pope made this battle explicit. “Numerous individuals and groups vociferously claim their freedom in the public forum,” he remarked. “Yet freedom is a delicate value. It can be misunderstood or misused so as to lead not to the happiness that we all expect it to yield, but to a dark arena of manipulation in which our understanding of self and the world becomes confused, or even distorted by those who have an ulterior agenda.” One obvious example of this type of manipulation of freedom is in the so-called “freedom to choose” to kill one’s own children through abortion. In order to prevent freedom from being co-opted, Benedict told the throngs of young people that freedom must remain bound to the truth of the human person and what is good for him. “Have you noticed how often the call for freedom is made without ever referring to the truth of the human person? Some today argue that respect for freedom of the individual makes it wrong to seek truth, including the truth about what is good. In some circles to speak of truth is seen as controversial or divisive, and consequently best kept in the private sphere. And in truth’s place — or better said its absence—an idea has spread which, in giving value to everything indiscriminately, claims to assure freedom and to liberate conscience. This we call relativism.”

             Pope Benedict then illustrated the type of damage this false notion of freedom, based on the “dictatorship of relativism,” brings about. “What purpose has a ‘freedom’ that, in disregarding truth, pursues what is false or wrong? How many young people have been offered a hand which in the name of freedom or experience has led them to addiction, to moral or intellectual confusion, to hurt, to a loss of self-respect, even to despair and so tragically and sadly to the taking of their own life?”

            “Dear friends,” he continued, “truth is not an imposition. Nor is it simply a set of rules. It is a discovery of the One who never fails us; the One whom we can always trust. In seeking truth, we come to live by belief because ultimately truth is a person: Jesus Christ. That is why authentic freedom is not an opting out. It is an opting in; nothing less than letting go of self and allowing oneself to be drawn into Christ’s very being for others.”

            Real freedom, in other words, comes through living by Christ’s love. “The path that leads to true freedom,” he synthesized at Nationals Park in Washington, is “the path of a sincere and generous imitation of Christ.” At Yankee Stadium, he further developed the point. “The Gospel teaches us that true freedom, the freedom of the children of God, is found only in the self-surrender which is part of the mystery of love. Only by losing ourselves, the Lord tells us, do we truly find ourselves. True freedom blossoms when we turn away from the burden of sin, which clouds our perceptions and weakens our resolve, and find the source of our ultimate happiness in him who is infinite love, infinite freedom, infinite life…Real freedom, then, is God's gracious gift, the fruit of conversion to his truth, the truth which makes us free. And this freedom in truth brings in its wake a new and liberating way of seeing reality.”

            Since real freedom is tied to embracing the truth revealed by God, Christians have a particular responsibility in keeping our nation free. “Authentic freedom,” Benedict told Catholic educators, “can never be attained by turning away from God. Such a choice would ultimately disregard the very truth we need to understand ourselves.” For that reason, he called upon Catholic teachers to exercise an “intellectual charity” in their instruction, so that they will form not just the mind but also the will of younger generations to “opt-in” for truth in faith and win freedom over for the cause of good. “The profound responsibility to lead the young to truth is nothing less than an act of love” guiding the young toward “the deep satisfaction of exercising freedom in relation to truth” and striving to “articulate the relationship between faith and all aspects of family and civic life.” The Church has this responsibility of “intellectual charity” to the nation as a whole.

             As the challenge of freedom, so nobly advanced by our founding fathers and preserved and defended by generations of valiant Americans, is passed precariously to us, the message of Pope Benedict charts for us a path to rise up to the challenge, and safeguard and strengthen this precious gift.  

October 28, 2018

          November 1^st is All Saints Day, a day on which we commemorate those who have been formally recognized by the Church as saints. This might make it seem like sainthood is an unattainable goal for ordinary Christians. Nevertheless, every Christian – indeed every human being – is called to holiness and sainthood.

           The Second Vatican Council taught, “The Lord wishes to spread His kingdom also by means of the laity, namely, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace. The faithful, therefore, must assist each other to live holier lives even in their daily occupations. In this way the world may be permeated by the spirit of Christ and it may more effectively fulfill its purpose in justice, charity, and peace” (LG 36). For the Christian, therefore, holiness is not an option. The grace to walk the path of holiness is available to each one of us.

           We should be quite clear that the call to holiness does not mean saying “no” to life. On the contrary, holiness requires us to say “yes” to a life truly and richly lived. Mary spoke just such a “yes” when she said to the angel, “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.” At the same time, it is true that saying “yes” to holiness does require us to let go of some of our most cherished idols. Our false gods have a powerful hold upon us. However, Pope Emeritus Benedict encourages us by saying that “idols are merely a product of man’s desires and are as impotent and lifeless as a statue. Indeed, those who seek salvation through ‘the work of human hands’ – placing their hope in wealth, power, or success – only deceive themselves.”

          “But how can I be a saint?” you ask. At its most fundamental level, saintliness (that is, holiness) is a gift from God. God alone is holy in Himself, and He communicates HHHHhhis holiness to us through the grace of the sacraments. The sacraments “ground the common vocation of all Christ’s disciples, a vocation to holiness and to the mission of evangelizing the world. They confer the graces needed for the life according to the Spirit during this life as pilgrims on the march towards the homeland” (Catechism, §1533).

           Initially, God makes us holy through Baptism. By the gift of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation He preserves us in this grace of holiness. In the Eucharist He feeds and nourishes the life of holiness within us. When we stray from the path of holiness, He restores us to fellowship with Him in the Sacrament of Penance. He leads us to live out the gift of holiness in a certain vocation, perhaps with sacramental grace of marriage or priesthood. At times of great distress and illness, and especially when death draws near, God again gives us the healing gift of His holiness through the Anointing of the Sick.

          Therefore, God has richly provided the means for us to live a holy life. Yet living in this holiness remains a struggle for us. We must “endure to the end” (Matthew 24:13), despite opposition and hatred, wanderings and lapses, betrayals and discord. Jesus warned His disciples that before the end there would be an “increase in lawlessness,” and that because of this “the love of many will grow cold.”

           St. Paul speaks of the struggle to live a holy life as a race which must be run although the prize is given at the beginning: “It is not that I have already taken hold of it or have already attained perfect maturity,but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it, since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus. I for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession. Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God's upward calling, in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:12-14).

          This is what the life of holiness is like. It is saying “yes" to the prize (the gift of holiness) and “yes” to the race (the imperative to live a holy life). It is running as if the prize must still be attained, yet knowing that it has already been given. But how can holiness be a gift when it remains something for which we should strive, that is, an imperative? Here again, Pope Emeritus Benedict gives us guidance: “What is the relation between the imperative and the promise? I would say it is bilateral, that is, the promise comes before the imperatives and makes them possible, and it follows the realization of the same imperatives. That is, before everything we do ourselves, the God of love and peace has opened himself to us, he is with us... However, on the other hand, it is valid to the extent that we truly enter into this presence he gave us, into this gift already present in our being. His presence, his being with us, grows naturally.”

           May the example of the Church’s saints – and their intercession for us in our struggles – be an encouragement for us all to live out the gift of holiness in the hope of attaining the goal!