Father Robert T. Cooper

May 28, 2017

          Today in the Catholic Church we celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. Sadly, this Feast Day seems to have lost its deeper meaning in the experience of too many Catholics and other Christians. This is a celebration of profound meaning and promise, if we understand the message proclaimed by the Church about who Jesus is and who we are empowered to become in Him. On this Feast of the Ascension, we should ask ourselves this question, "How are we doing?" The Feast presents us with an invitation to examine the relationship between the faith we profess every Sunday in the Creed and its manifestation in the “stuff” of our daily lives. St. Paul encouraged the Christians in Corinth in his second letter to take such an examination regularly: "Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless, of course, you fail the test. I hope you will discover that we have not failed" (2 Cor. 13:5).

          Philosophers and Theologians sometimes use the word ontology when considering the essence of being, what makes something what it is. There is an ontological meaning to the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord Jesus. It goes to the very essence of the Christian vocation and the plan of redemption. We have ascended with Jesus Christ and are called to live on earth the very realities of heaven, beginning in the here and now. This Feast can also give us insight into the deeper reality of the Feast of Pentecost which we will soon celebrate. The breath of God, His Spirit, has been breathed into His Church - and thus into each one of us - in order to capacitate us to live differently - beginning right now - and participate in the ongoing redemptive mission of Jesus Christ. That mission will not be complete until the One who ascended returns and hands the re-created cosmos back to the Father. That is what the Apostle Paul calls "the plan", or the "mystery" now revealed in Jesus Christ.  The Feast of the Ascension helps unlock the meaning of our lives and the plan of God for the entire created order. No mere intermission, the Feast we celebrate today reveals the inner meaning of the ongoing mission of the Church and our call to participate in it.

          The great western Bishop Augustine proclaimed these words on the Feast: "Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him. Listen to the words of the Apostle: If you have risen with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things that are on earth. For just as he remained with us even after his ascension, so we too are already in heaven with him, even though what is promised us has not yet been fulfilled in our bodies."

          When we went down into the Font of Baptism, we were incorporated into Jesus Christ, made members of His Body, the Church. Therefore, as Augustine also wrote, "Where the Head is, there is the Body, where I am, there is my Church, we too are one; the Church is in me and I in her and we two are your Beloved and your Lover."  In other words, we have ascended with the Lord! He is the Head and we are members of His Body. We cannot be separated. Augustine, reflecting the clear teaching of the early Church Fathers reminds us that the Head and the Body are the "One Christ." So, this is our Feast as well! We now live in Christ by living in His Body, the Church, of which we are members. We are invited to live in the heart of the Church for the sake of the world.

          Pope St. Leo the Great reflected on the joy the disciples experienced on that glorious day in these words: "That blessed company had a great and inexpressible cause for joy when it saw man's nature rising above the dignity of the whole heavenly creation, above the ranks of angels, above the exalted status of archangels. Now would there be any limit to its upward course until humanity was admitted to a seat at the right hand of the eternal father, to be enthroned at last in the glory of him to whose nature it was wedded in the Person of the Son." Both of these great Christian saints point us to the deeper meaning of this Feast. The Ascension does not mark the end of Jesus' relationship with His Church but the beginning of a new way of His relating to the world - in and through His Church. This way includes every one of us who bear His name. We have also ascended with the Lord. When viewed with the eyes of living faith, the Ascension is capable of transforming the way we view ourselves and live our daily lives.

          Jesus Christ bridged heaven and earth. Through His Incarnation, His Saving Life, Death and Resurrection, we have been set free from the consequences of sin, including the sting of death. We are being created anew in Him daily as we freely cooperate with His grace. One of the Catechism's definitions of grace is "a participation in Divine Life" (CCC #1997). It calls to mind the wonderful words of the Apostle Peter in his second letter. He reminded the early Christians that they were "participants in the Divine Nature" (2 Peter 1:4). So are we! This Divine Life is mediated to us through the Word and the Sacraments in and through the Church which is the Body of Christ. We are incorporated into the Trinitarian communion of love, beginning now.  The Church is not some "thing," the Church is Some-One, the Risen Christ truly present in the world which was created through Him and is now being re-created in Him.

          The Church is the new Israel sent into the world to continue His redemptive mission until He comes again. Then, when He does return, He will complete the work of Redemption. The Church, as the fathers were fond of saying, is the new world, and the world in the course of transfiguration. The Christian vocation is about learning to live this new relationship in Christ together, with the Father, through the Holy Spirit and for the sake of a world that still awaits its full redemption. The Feast of the Ascension is not some kind of Intermission but a continuation of the Redemption of Jesus Christ.

          Let me conclude with some words from the great Apostle and mystic Paul who reflects on this plan:

          "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved. In him we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of transgressions, in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.”

          "In all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us the mystery of his will in accord with his favor that he set forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth. In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God's possession, to the praise of his glory" (Ephesians 1:3-14).

May 21, 2017

         When the fullness of time arrived, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law. All of the expectant waiting for the Savior's coming in the Old Testament was concentrated in our Lady's faith: “In Mary . . . is fulfilled the long history of faith of the Old Testament, with its account of so many faithful women, beginning with Sarah: women who, alongside the patriarchs, were those in whom God's promise was fulfilled and new life flowered." Like Abraham, “our father in faith," who left his homeland trusting in God's promise, Mary abandoned herself with complete trust in the Angel's announcement, thus becoming a model and mother for believers. The Virgin Mary, “perfect icon of the faith," believed that nothing is impossible for God, and thus made it possible for the Word to come to dwell among mankind.

          Our Mother is a model of faith. By faith, Mary accepted the Angel's word and believed the message that she was to become the Mother of God in the obedience of her devotion. Visiting Elizabeth, she raised her hymn of praise to the Most High for the marvels He worked in those who trust Him. With joy and trepidation she gave birth to her only Son, keeping her virginity intact. Trusting in Joseph, her husband, she took Jesus to Egypt to save Him from Herod's persecution. With the same faith, she followed the Lord in His preaching and remained with Him all the way to Golgotha. By faith, Mary tasted the fruits of Jesus' resurrection, and treasuring every memory in her heart, she passed them on to the Twelve assembled with her in the Upper Room to receive the Holy Spirit.

          Our Lady lived out her faith amid a fully human life, that of an ordinary woman. God did not spare her pain, exhaustion in her work or trials of her faith. A village woman one day broke into praise for Jesus exclaiming: Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nourished you. Jesus said in reply: Rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it (Lk 11:27-28). It was a compliment to his Mother on her fiat, her 'be it done.' She lived it sincerely, unstintingly, fulfilling its every consequence, but never amid fanfare, rather in the hidden and silent sacrifice of each day. Our Lady “lived entirely from and in her relationship with the Lord; she was disposed to listen, alert to recognizing the signs of God in the journey of His people; she was integrated into a history of faith and hope in God's promises with which the fabric of her life was woven."

          By faith, Mary penetrated into the Mystery of the one true Godhead (who exists in three divine persons) in a way granted to no other creature. And as “mother of our faith," she has made us sharers in that knowledge. We can never hope to fathom this inexpressible mystery; nor will we ever be able to give sufficient thanks to our Mother for bringing us into such intimacy with the Blessed Trinity.

          Our Lady is Teacher of faith. Every aspect of faith in Christian life finds its prototype in Mary: being faithful to God and viewing the circumstances of ordinary life in the light of faith, even in moments of obscurity. Our Mother teaches us to be totally open to the divine will even though it is mysterious, and often does not correspond with their own wishes, and is a sword that pierces their soul, as the elderly Simeon would say prophetically to Mary when Jesus was presented in the Temple. Her complete trust in God's faithfulness and in His promises never wavers, even when the Lord's words were difficult or apparently impossible to accept. Therefore, “if our faith is weak, we should turn to Mary." Amid the darkness of the Cross, our Lady's faith and docility yields an unexpected fruit. “In the person of John, Christ is entrusting all men to His Mother, and especially His disciples: those who were to believe in Him." Mary's motherhood extends to Christ's whole Mystical Body. Jesus gives us His Mother as our mother; He places us under her care, and offers us her intercession. Therefore the Church constantly invites the faithful to turn with particular devotion to Mary.

          Our weakness is not an obstacle to grace. God takes it into account; that's why He has given us a mother. In the struggle which the disciples must confront—all of us, all the disciples of Jesus, we must face this struggle—Mary does not leave us alone: the Mother of Christ and of the Church is always with us. She walks with us always, she is with us . . . Mary accompanies us, struggles with us, sustains Christians in their fight against the forces of evil." In the school of faith, our Lady is the best teacher, for she always had an attitude of trust, of openness, of supernatural outlook, no matter what happened around her. Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.  Let us try to imitate her, talking to our Lord, conversing like two people in love about everything that happens to us, even the most insignificant incidents. Nor should we forget that we have to weigh them, consider their value, and see them with the eyes of faith, in order to discover the Will of God.

          Mary's path of faith, although certainly different in many ways, is also similar to that of each one of us. Moments of bright light alternate with moments of darkness with respect to God's will. When they found Jesus in the Temple, Mary and Joseph did not understand the saying which He spoke to them. If, like our Lady, we welcome the gift of faith and place all our trust in God, we will confront each situation with faith and an abiding hope in God’s providential care. 

          Let us turn to Mary and ask her to help us live by faith and to recognize Jesus in our lives. We need a faith that assures us that nothing is comparable to the Love of God in which we have been made sharers; faith that nothing is impossible for those who work for and with Christ in His Church; faith that all men and women can convert to God; faith that despite our own wretchedness and falls we can be made whole again with God's help and that of those around us; faith in the means of holiness that God has given His Church, in the supernatural value of work and of little things; faith that we can redirect this world to God if we always hold onto His hand. In short, faith that God puts each of us in the best circumstances, whether of health or sickness, of working environment, etc., so that we can become saints, if we respond through our daily struggle.

          Christ lays down one condition: we must live by faith; then we will be able to move mountains. And so many things need moving in the world, but, foremost, in our own hearts. So many obstacles placed in the way of grace! We have to have faith, therefore: faith and works, faith and sacrifice, faith and humility. For faith makes us all-powerful: If you will only believe, every gift you ask for in your prayer will be granted (Mt. 21:22).

          Spurred by a strong faith, let us tell Jesus: Lord, I do believe, but help me in my faith to believe more and worthier! Let us address this same plea to our Lady, Mother of God and our Mother, and Teacher of faith: Blessed art thou for thy believing; the message that was brought to thee from the Lord shall have fulfillment. “Mother, help our faith!"

May 14, 2017

          It is Mother’s Day and our hearts and minds turn to the woman who gave us life and showed us the beauty of steadfast love throughout our lives. Homes are filled with celebrations, and gifts are given to express the profound gratitude we all feel for our mother. On this day, I am always drawn to reflect on one of the last gifts the Lord gave to us before His total gift of Himself on the Cross, the gift of a mother. Moreover, not just any mother, but His own Mother, Mary. May is the month dedicated to Mary, the Mother of the Lord.

          Christian Art and the writings of the Tradition of the Church are filled with reflections on the profound mystery and implications of this gift of a Mother named Mary to the Church. Even those Christians who are a part of the traditions flowing from the Protestant  Reformation, who, for so long have viewed this gift of Mary as a problem rather than a treasure, are beginning to reconsider the implications of this gift.

          A few years ago, I was an invited guest at a celebration of the life and ministry of an evangelical protestant leader. It was a "black tie" affair, accompanied with all the fanfare. I was one of only a few Catholic clergy who attended the event, and I was glad to be there to pay tribute to this man. At the end of the evening, a protestant minister gave the final tribute and prayer to conclude the nights' festivities. The minister’s message, (to the surprise of some present), was that we are living in, what he called a "Mary Moment." With genuine insight he broke open the meaning of the life and mission of the Mother of the Lord as a model for all in that room and beyond who wanted to follow her Son Jesus.

          He offered the life of Mary as a model for all Christians. He encouraged all those present to follow her way of simplicity, humility and obedience. He emphasized the particular words spoken by Mary at the Wedding Feast of Cana when, after imploring her Son to perform His first public miracle (ah, the powerful intercession of a mother!) she directed those who were serving to: "Do whatever He tells you." In this message, he was participating in what the early fathers of the Church did so often and so beautifully, breaking open the deeper mystery of Mary as a gift to the Church.

          Over the years, this kind of recovery of the significance of the life and witness of Mary has touched many Christians. For Catholic and Orthodox Christians, it has always been at the heart of our understanding the meaning of the mission of the Church. Catholics and Orthodox honor Mary as the "Mother of the Lord", the woman singularly chosen in the eternal plan of God to be called "mother" by Jesus, to bear God Incarnate in her womb for nine months and then to give Him to the whole world. The womb of that mother was a "temple of glory", an "ark of the Covenant" and a new "tent of meeting" where heaven touched earth!

          She was also a real mother who was privileged to, along with St. Joseph, raise the One who lived within her for nine months after He was born. In her presence and with her human influence, the biblical texts tell us He "grew in wisdom and stature" in His Sacred humanity (Luke 2:52). Think about the wonder of all of this on this Mother’s Day.

         In the undivided Church, East and West, for the first one thousand years, devotion to and love of Mary was a shining light of the profound prayers, reflections and writings of the Christian Church. When  one probes the lives of Augustine of Hippo, Bernard of Clairveaux, Therese of Liseux, the late Blessed Theresa of Calcutta and so many others within the western Christian tradition, including even Martin Luther, one finds this kind of love for and devotion to Mary. The words of Martin Luther express it with such simple clarity: "Men have crowded all her glory into a single phrase: The Mother of God. No one can say anything greater of her."

         Jesus called her "Mother" and He entrusted her, as one of His last and greatest gifts to His beloved disciple and to the entire Church with these tender words of entrustment in the Gospel of John: "When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his home" (John 19:26, 27).

         Mary was there at the Incarnation, Birth, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of God Incarnate. She was there throughout the often called "hidden years" in Nazareth. In the life of the Redeemer, every word and every act was redemptive, revealing as it does the very life of God, the mystery of heaven touching earth, and the deeper purpose of our own lives. She was there in those moments whose impact is timeless. They are still as filled with the invitation of grace today as they were when they first occurred.

          She was there on the great day of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, which we will soon celebrate. She was there as the first evangelizer and disciple who gave the first Christian testimony to her cousin, Elizabeth, and won the first convert "in utero" in the person of John the Baptist. This event, traditionally called "The Visitation," is recorded in the Gospel of St. Luke (Luke l: 39-45).

          This encounter immediately follows the visit of the Angel Gabriel to Mary (Luke 1:6-38) and is one of the fruits of her humble obedient response. That response was not a onetime reaction. It was the fruit of a life of surrender and stretched forward to characterize her whole life on this earth and her participation in the eternal communion of Saints. The Prayer of Mary is more about being than doing. It is about surrendered love to God.

          Her "Fiat" in response to the visitation from the messenger of heaven, the angel, provides a pattern of prayer and a way to live for us. It immediately issues forth in the fruit of her praise, her "Magnificat." This canticle begins with the words in Latin Magnificat anima mea Dominum ("My soul doth magnify the Lord"). This hymn of praise is memorialized in that beautiful biblical text which ancient Christian tradition referred to as "The Magnificat" (Luke 1:46-55). The "Fiat" is more than a prayer and the "Magnificat" more than a hymn of praise. Together they constitute a lesson book, a guide, for this journey called life.

          She said "Yes" to the invitation to love and she humbled herself. She confronted her own fears and she entered into a way of living. All of this was in continued response to an original invitation of love, a gift, initiated by a loving God. Her simple response of "yes" overflowed into her "magnificat" of praise. Through this response, she assumed a life's posture of receiving and giving.  She became a fruitful woman, a "God-Bearer" or "Mother of God" (which in Greek is Theotokos). She brought forth the Word of God!  Her "Yes," her humble surrender, is a trajectory of love, a prototype of the vocation of every human person to bear the fruit of surrendered love.

          It reveals the meaning of life for all men and women who are children of the one Creator. God is not meant to be an "add on" to our life. Rather, He is its source and its summit. There is a way, a pattern that all men and women are invited into - not just once, but daily. It reveals the path to authentic peace and is the portal of the mystery of meaning itself. It is what Christian Scripture calls the "more excellent way," the way of love. Mary understood and walked this way with extraordinary humility (cf. 1 Cor. 12:31). She shows us the pattern of love surrendered to Love.

          Is it any wonder that the early Christians painted her image in the catacombs during their moments of fear, persecution and doubt? They found great inspiration from this little woman of great faith. In her "yes" they came to understand that ordinary people can change human history. They were inspired to add their own "yes," their own "fiat" to hers.

          Justin Martyr and many other early Christian apologists found in her "fiat," her obedient "yes" to the angel, the undoing of the "no...I will not serve" given by the first woman Eve. They called Mary "the Second Eve," the mother of a new creation. In her womb was carried the One whom Scripture calls the "New Adam," He was born from her as the first born of a new race of men and women who would find a new birth through His life, death and Resurrection.

          That same Redeemer now resides within, and lives through, all those who respond to the invitation of Love like she did. Mary's choice, her response to the invitation of a God who always respects human freedom, is a singularly extraordinary event in all of human history. However, it is meant to be much more. It is an invitation to each one of us to explore our own personal histories and to write them anew in Him by exercising our own freedom by choosing the more excellent way.

          Mary shows us the way to surrender to God’s loving invitations in our daily lives; a path, to living a life of surrendered love. When we embrace it, it allows Love Incarnate, the Savior whom Mary bore to be, in a real sense, to be "incarnated" in and through each of us so that He can be given to others. We become "God Bearers."

         We become the tent and the ark within which that same God takes up His residence, comes to dwell, in our age - which so desperately needs His saving presence. When we begin to touch and grasp this profound insight we not only find ourselves transformed but learn how to become the vehicles through which Love is incarnated for all those around us. He comes to dwell in all men and women who say "Yes" to Him. "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him" (John 14:23).

         Mary shows us how to participate in the ongoing incarnation of God's Love for the sake of world; to live redemptively. We are called to bear God to an age in need. In living this kind of surrendered life we are transformed and participate in the mediation of God's love to others. The ongoing creative and redemptive work of God's love continues through us. That is, if we learn to respond the same way Mary did: "Behold the servant of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to Thy word." We are living in a Mary Moment. Happy Mother's Day!

May 7, 2017

         God has a plan for each of us, a plan by which He means to sanctify us, and a plan which He has designated as our own personal road to heaven. This is our vocation, our calling. For many, it is marriage. But for other select souls it is the priesthood or religious life.

          “Jesus said, ‘My sheep hear my voice … and they follow me.’” The problem is that so many today do not hear His voice, and some that do hear His voice refuse to follow Him because the passing enticements of the world are too attractive. This is at the root of our present-day vocation crisis and why the Church has observed a World Day of Prayer for Vocations on the Fourth Sunday of Easter for the last 54 years. People often do not hear God’s voice calling them because all of the noise in the world around them has drown it out. There are those who perhaps do not turn off the music because they are afraid of silence and what they might hear in the depths of their soul.

          God speaks to us in the silence of our hearts, but when a person constantly surrounds himself with the noise of television, radio and I-Pods, he won’t hear that voice. There is no shortage of people being called by God. It is just that so many of them are not listening or are not able to hear for all of the noise.

          It used to be that many Catholics at some time in their life at least considered a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. Today, it is not even on the radar screen because it does not seem very attractive. They do not see a vocation to the priesthood and consecrated life as desirable. They do not see that it is a special gift from God that He has designed for those select souls which He has called to this special state of life – a gift that will bring them happiness and fulfillment, not only in the life to come, but also in this life.

          Even so, this unique call, in turn, “requires a free response on the part of men and women; a positive response which always presupposes acceptance of and identification with the plan that God has for everyone” (Benedict XVI, “Message of the Holy Father for the 46th World Day of Prayer for Vocations,” 3 May 2009). The one who is “called” voluntarily leaves everything and submits himself to the teaching of the divine Master; hence a fruitful dialogue between God and man begins, a mysterious encounter between the love of the Lord who calls and the freedom of man who responds in love, hearing the words of Jesus echoing in his soul, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.” Attracted by God, from the very first centuries of Christianity, many men and women have left families, possessions, material riches and all that is humanly desirable in order to follow Christ generously and live the Gospel without compromise, which had become for them a school of deeply rooted holiness.

         Although the priesthood and the consecrated life are both special calls to sanctity, undertaken by renunciation of the normal ways of the world, there are fundamental differences between the two. The priesthood is a sacrament in which a man’s soul is reconfigured to Christ, so that he becomes an instrument through which Christ works to sanctify others. He becomes a channel by which Christ bestows His life-giving grace on others, primarily through the sacraments. He becomes a shepherd for the flock to keep them from going astray. A man does not become a priest for his own good but solely for the good of others. Sure, it is his duty to strive for personal holiness, but nonetheless, his primary purpose is not to sanctify himself, but to sanctify others.

          Consecrated religious, on the other hand, are persons who give themselves as a total and unqualified gift to God in a radical manner through the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in imitation of Christ, the poor, chaste and obedient. The religious becomes a sign of contradiction to the world by pointing to the ultimate goal. In renouncing the world, they already begin here on earth to live the life of heaven where there are no possessions, where people are no longer given in marriage and where there is perfect obedience, that is, total conformity with the will of God. In seeking personal sanctification, the religious offers himself up as a sacrifice for the world, so that it too may be saved. “To imitate Christ, chaste, poor and obedient, and to identify with him: this is the ideal of the consecrated life, a witness to the absolute primacy of God in human life and history” (Benedict XVI, “Message of the Holy Father for the 47th World Day of Prayer for Vocations,” 25 April 2010).

          Throughout the history of Christianity, the Holy Spirit has raised up many different forms of consecrated life to serve the many needs of the Church and the world. Dating to the very dawn of Christianity, monastic life was among the earliest forms of consecrated life in which monks separated themselves from the world, so that through a balance of the interior life and work, they could offer themselves in unceasing praise to God. In later centuries, the Holy Spirit raised up new forms of consecrated life devoted to the service of the Church in apostolic and missionary work. The first among these were the mendicant orders, like the Dominicans and Franciscans, who are called friars. There are canons regular, like the Norbertines. And there are clerics regular; the most commonly known to you being the Jesuits. There are institutes of contemplative life, which through a hidden life of constant prayer sustains the Church and a world constantly teetering on the brink of self-annihilation. Some think that they live useless and unproductive lives, but if not for their constant intercession before the throne of God in contemplative prayer, we would have all perished long ago. There are secular institutes, societies of apostolic life, consecrated virgins, hermits and consecrated widows and widowers. Because the Holy Spirit is always attuned to the needs of the Church and the world, He is constantly raising up new communities, and in our modern age, even new forms of consecrated life that have never even existed before, such as Opus Dei.

          Over the last few decades, we have had a serious vocation crisis that was due in large part to the mass defections from the priesthood and religious orders, which began in the 1960s. But over the last several years, there has been a rise in the number of seminarians, as well as in certain religious orders. In fact, there has also been an enormous increase in the creation of new communities, such as the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius. God continues to call many men and women. He never ceases to inspire people to offer themselves up by a radical living out of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience as “signs of contradiction for the world, whose thinking is often inspired by materialism, self-centeredness and individualism.” He never ceases to call men to the priesthood to become radical witnesses to the world as other Christs to heal their spiritual wounds and lead them to heaven through the sacraments.

          But we also have to pray to God for vocations; implore Him to send us men and women, who will willingly choose to reject the world for the sake of something far greater; “to imitate Christ, chaste, poor and obedient, and to identify with him.”

          So many people see this short sojourn on earth as the final goal and never truly think of what God’s plan for them is. That is why we have a vocations crisis. God is left out of the picture. And when He is left out of the picture you trudge through life without even considering that He may have a much better way for you to reach heaven. Our life on earth is only a short prelude to our ultimate goal, which is to reach heaven where we will spend all eternity. Our vocation is the means by which God has determined that we will best achieve that goal. And it is also the means by which we have the possibility of achieving the greatest degree of happiness in this life and in the next.

          We have many young people in our parish, and I am certain that God is calling some of them to the priesthood and consecrated life. That is why I am asking all of you, my young parishioners, to keep an open and uncluttered heart, so that when He calls, you will hear Him. And at the same time, I want to ask that the rest of you never cease praying for them, so that when they do hear His voice, they will follow Him with a generous heart.

April 30, 2017

          I was reading the biography of a priest, and one of the things that struck me the most was in the very first few paragraphs of that book (The book is called, A Priest is a Priest Forever). Here is what the priest-author says:

I have always loved the truth. It has been my joy and duty to always teach the truth…The full Gospel must be taught if a man is to be loyal to his priesthood, that is, Christ’s priesthood in him. I cannot be a faithful priest if I am not willing to die for the truth in preaching, teaching the fullness of truth. I must answer to God at my individual judgment if I preach not the truth. I knew I could never hold back preaching the truth, the full Gospel, even if it offended some. Jesus Christ is the Truth.

          These words made me shudder, and even rejoice with an indescribable joy. The concept of being a “martyr of the Truth” is not very much in style today…much less claiming that there is only one, objective Truth, and that that Truth is the Truth of God, the Truth of the Gospel of Christ. However, that is what the Church teaches, and for many years she has done so unabashedly.

          However, in the past 40 years, we have seen within the confines of the Church itself an unprecedented push for a watered-down gospel. Who cannot but think of the severe warning of the Apostle Paul in the following text:” As we have said before, and now I say again, if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one that you received, let that one be accursed” (Gal. 1:9).

          False gospels (pseudo-gospels) abound in the world today. And yet they cannot drown out the Voice of the one, true Gospel: that of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The secular world pushes the Church to change the Gospel always, embracing the false ideas and ideologies of the world. Many, if not most, ecclesial communities have done so willingly. But the Catholic Church has remained firm in upholding the only Gospel that is worthy of that name.

          However, pressures do exist to embrace an easier form of Christianity — one that would not place any “unnecessary difficulties” on the backs of Christians. Slowly, we have lost a sense of discipline in the Church. This began with small things (or seemingly small things), such as the virtual abolition of fasting and abstinence; the reduction of the Eucharistic fast from midnight to three hours to finally only one hour before receiving Holy Communion; the lack of seasonal devotionals, etc . All of these apparently “small” things have contributed greatly (and collectively) to the almost universal overnight erosion of discipline in the Catholic liturgical and sacramental life. This is not “the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” because it encourages lukewarmness. And holiness is anything but lukewarmness!

          Priests today must have the courage to preach the Truth and the fullness of the Gospel without compromise. I encourage my brother priests to do so, knowing that this will not be easy. But when we were ordained, we did not take a promise of living an easy life. At the reception of Holy Orders, we gave ourselves to Christ and to His Church fully and entirely, without any reservation whatsoever. Please be faithful to the life to which you have been called. The salvation of souls is at stake! Let us not play around with that.

          And as for the laity, I would like to encourage you to challenge your priests to give you the fullness of the Gospel. Thank priests when they have the courage to preach something that is difficult but important to preach. Challenge them to do more when they simply give you a watered-down version of the Gospel. Jesus did not suffer His Passion and die on the Cross in order that we may live comfortable, easy lives. He died on the Cross in order to redeem us from sin. And sin is redeemed only at a very costly price. This was true for Our Lord, and it is equally true for us. Let us not water down the price that Jesus Christ paid for our sins out of pure love.

          After all this, I must make one very important final point. I am not in any way encouraging priests to beat the people over their heads with the Gospel Truth, in a way that would crush them or not respect their own personal journeys of faith. I am not encouraging a harsh or rigid implementation of the truths of the Gospel. All I am saying is that we cannot fall into the opposite error — one that has done much harm in the Church for the past 40 or so years. We cannot replace the vigor and vitality of the call to conversion of heart that the Gospel necessarily incites within souls with a watered-down, almost effeminate version of Christianity. The Catholic Faith is for the poor, for the sick, for sinners and those who are weak…of course it is! But it is not intended to leave people there. It is given to them precisely in order to elevate them to something that is sublime and divine: that is what Gospel conversion is all about. Repenting and converting to the Gospel is an invigorating process. The Gospel is Strength — not just human strength, but Divine Strength. Let us never reduce its power to sanctify by diluting it with a politically-correct pseudo-gospel (which is precisely what the New Age movement is all about).

          In the Gospels, we see that men and women touched the garment of Christ because power came forth from it. Let us use the power of the Gospel in all its fullness, by inviting all our faithful to live out the Gospel Truth in all its fullness and splendor.

          Holy Mary, Mother of the Church, pray that our priests may have the courage to preach the fullness of the Truth of the Gospel of your Son without compromise: for it is nothing less than the salvation of souls that is at stake.

April 23, 2017

          Catholics can easily recall when Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist. He did it during the first Mass, which began during the Last Supper with the words of consecration and finished the following afternoon when Jesus literally gave His body and shed His blood for us on the Cross.

          But far fewer Catholics know when Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which may be one of the reasons why many today take it for granted. He did it on the day He rose from the dead! The timing of its inception shows just how crucial Jesus considered it in His salvific mission. By doing it on Easter Sunday evening, He also manifested what the sacrament of reconciliation is meant to bring about. Just like in the parable of the prodigal son, whenever we return to the Father’s house through this sacrament, the Father rejoices because his “son who was dead has come to life again” (Lk. 15:24).

          Jesus wanted explicitly to link our resurrection through this Sacrament to His resurrection from the dead. So on the day He rose from the dead, He walked through the closed doors of the room where ten of His apostles were huddled together. He first words to them were “peace be with you.” He had come from heaven to establish the definitive peace treaty between God and man through the forgiveness of our sins and He was about to commission them to continue this very mission. “Just as the Father sent me,” He said, “so I send you!” But since “no one can forgive sins but God alone” (Mk. 2:7), Jesus had to give them God’s power to fulfill this mission. So He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Then He said words that point clearly to the structure of the sacrament of confession as we know it: “Those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; those whose sins you retain, they are retained.” Jesus didn’t give them the ability to read minds or hearts; therefore the only way that they would know which sins to forgive or retain is if individual sinners told them their sins.

          Just as Jesus three days before had made them His instruments in order to give us His Body and Blood through the sacrament of the Eucharist, so He was making them His instruments, His ambassadors, through whom He would forgive our sin. These two sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist are intrinsically related. Just like a loving mother both cleans and feeds a child, so God through these sacraments both wipes us clean of our sins and fills us with supernatural nourishment.

          Today, we are called to renewal in two areas: a revival in our parish of the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and an increase in Eucharistic adoration. We must receive Christ more worthily and worship our Eucharistic Lord with greater love and gratitude.  The whole Church would benefit from a similar two-fold renewal with respect to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. There needs to be a revival both in terms of our receiving Christ’s forgiveness through the sacrament and an increase in worship of our Merciful Lord.

          This Sunday’s Feast of Divine Mercy is an opportunity for us to focus on each of these two priorities.

            In 2000, St. John Paul II instituted this Feast on the Second Sunday of Easter so that the Church might rejoice over Christ’s gift of mercy within the Easter Octave. The Pope announced this new feast during the canonization of St. Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun to whom the Lord appeared in the 1930s asking her to spread throughout the world devotion to His merciful love. Private revelations like the one to St. Faustina never disclose to us anything truly new; their purpose is to remind us of what God has revealed in Scripture and Tradition and apply those truths to particular circumstances we face.

           In His appearances to St. Faustina, Jesus wanted to remind all of us of what He said throughout the Gospel: that we need His mercy, that we have to trust in, ask for, and receive that mercy, and that we need to share that mercy with others. And through her, He called us to live five new devotions by which we could more deeply assimilate all of these realities.

          He asked that a feast of His Divine Mercy be established on the Second Sunday of Easter, prepared for by a novena beginning Good Friday. He showed her an image of Divine Mercy, with blood and water flowing from His pierced side, and asked her to spread its veneration. He called on all of us to unite ourselves in prayer to Him on the Cross at 3 pm each day. And He taught us to pray the beautiful Chaplet of Divine Mercy, which explicitly links our prayers for God’s mercy to Jesus in the Eucharist.

          As we continue to celebrate Easter, we turn with trust to Jesus and ask Him to help us experience the true joy of His resurrection through each of these devotions and especially through the resurrection from death to life He wants to give us in a confessional nearby!

April 16, 2017

          Christ is Risen! Let us celebrate this Easter day, dear brothers and sisters, our Lord God, “For He has visited and redeemed His people” (St. Luke 1:68) and with the light of His Resurrection He enlightens the entire universe! Let us glorify our Lord “who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25). Let us glorify our Lord who, having become a man for us, has died so that by His Resurrection He could open to us doors of new life! For all of us who have been baptized into Christ, in Christ we have died to the old self, so that resurrected, reborn, renewed in Him, we can live with Him forever. Christ is risen from the dead and has become the Firstborn of the dead, so that we too who have died in Adam, may be made alive in Christ, becoming a new creation.

          That is why we, on this bright Day, sing the song of victory to Him who has conquered the power of death, to Him who has conquered the seeming wisdom of the wise men of this world and by His resurrection has saved those who believe in Him. We have seen the fulfillment of the words of the prophets and together with the Apostle Paul we say: “We have come to know the love of Christ which surpasses understanding and have been filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). For just as the power of death, after the fall of the first parents of mankind into sin, entered into this world, so likewise Christ the Lord, as the New Adam, has received the wounds of sin upon Himself, voluntarily, and died for us and destroyed the power of death and has returned man to his original glory. That is why we through the Resurrection learn the meaning and goal of God’s creation, for the Lord has brought everything from non-existence into existence so that it could eternally and without corruption live in Christ, His Only-begotten Son. Saint Maxim the Confessor being inspired by God teaches that we are born into the body, by baptism we are reborn, and by the Resurrection we are eternally born in Christ who, as the First-Born of the dead, renews the entire creation and bestows upon it immortality. By His Resurrection Christ unites this world with paradise, and in paradise He receives before everyone else the repentant thief, giving us all hope that our living in repentance is not in vain. In celebrating the resurrection of Christ, we are celebrating and singing the miraculous Mystery of God who created us to be eternal partakers of the Divine nature, that is, of Divine life, in His Son, the Incarnate, Crucified and Resurrected Christ the Lord.

          Having purified all our senses with fasting, let us look at the unapproachable light of the Resurrection; let us look at Christ who shines in our hearts! Forgiving each other of everything, let us be renewed by the Resurrection into the new life! Let us live with the Resurrected Christ so that we already in this life may experience others and ourselves as One Body, One Church of God! Even though we live in a difficult time, full of unforeseen events and tragedies, we must not, following the example of the ancient Christians, stop rejoicing, and with Christ’s love we must love not only each other, but our enemies also, so that nothing separates us from the way of life which was granted to us by Christ Himself. Our Lord teaches us that if we do not forgive each other, we will not be forgiven, and if we judge, we are already judged. Without forgiving and without seeing our own transgressions towards our neighbors, friends and enemies, we will not be able to receive the light of the Resurrection, nor will we become the recipients of the hope of eternal life where there is no fear, sighing nor sadness. Let us not fear this world, brothers and sisters, for Christ has conquered this world! Let us fear only leaving the light for darkness, and leaving the joy of God’s Kingdom, by which we should live here and now, for the maze of worldly ideologies, bitterness, disunity, hatred and violence! We Christians are not afraid of death; rather we bless those who persecute us. We deeply believe that we are not of this world even though we live in it. Christ, the Eternal Priest, has opened to us the doors of God’s Kingdom, which is our true fatherland, and we in this world are only passengers who are traveling through time and space, witnessing to Christ with our life. Let us, therefore, never forget in whom we are baptized and for whom we live, so that our life’s race is not futile and that our hope is not placed in empty and vain idols of this world and age.

          Let us not neglect love! For precisely according to our mutual love everyone will recognize us as Christ’s disciples. Let us be co-sufferers with those who suffer, let us weep with those who are weeping and let us comfort them with hope in the Lord! Let not our service to God be as a new edition of pharisaic external faith in God! For what reward will we receive? Let us sacrifice for our neighbor! Let us give to those in need! Let us glorify God with humility and with the words of the repentant publican who was forgiven and justified! The people of God today are dispersed throughout the world, but that which unites us and makes us One Church is not a transient ideology of this world, but a deep consciousness that we are united in Christ, in whom we are baptized and of whom we partake in the Eucharist, Holy Communion. Let us therefore make every effort that those who have not come to know the light of Christ’s teaching may see in us the way and recognize in us true successors of the saints of Christ!

          Let us safeguard the holiness of marriage and family, raising our children in faith and fear of God and purity, without forgetting that the family is a “domestic Church” and a foundation of Christian community! Let us regularly participate in the Eucharistic gatherings, partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ and in this way becoming One Body of Christ, a chosen People, the Church of the Living God! Let us not forget that it is our calling after the Holy Liturgy to witness in word and in deed to this miraculous Mystery which continues with faith and love, before all those who love us as well as before those who hate us, in short in every time and place. For the Christian our whole life is a continuing liturgical paschal joy. He who lives by it will not see in another person a stranger; instead, he will recognize in every person the image of our Lord, who wants all to be saved. Bearing witness to the joyous news that Christ is truly risen is our daily duty for the Lord calls us by His Holy Spirit not to close ourselves in, but rather to bring others into that joy, and to show them the only way to salvation. The Risen Christ calls us not to be a scandal but a light to the world. When we are ready to admit our sins and to correct ourselves in humility we are not being humiliated but we are showing that the Spirit of God dwells in us.

          Let us not forget, dear brothers and sisters that we are called, wherever we may be and whatever we are doing, to be peacemakers and in so doing to witness to God who grants us peace and is our Peace. That is why it is necessary to give a hand to him who stumbles instead of pushing him into a deeper perdition. Likewise, we should visit the sick and care for them and to those that are lost we need to show the right path. In doing so, we will have the Lord manifested in our works, who Himself told us to be the light of the world. But above all else, may our life be a constant thanksgiving to God for everything and for all!  For what else and what greater offering can we offer to the Resurrected Christ, who brings us from darkness to the light of knowledge and from death into life eternal? Therefore, together with the angels and with all the saints in heaven, and together with our brothers and sisters on earth, let us sing the victorious song and in festal joy greet each other with the greeting: Christ is Risen!

April 9, 2017

          During these three most holy days—the Triduum—Catholics are called to enter into a sublime place of great depth and magnitude, a realm beyond time and space in which our hope strives to join with Love for the satisfaction of our thirst. We journey to this sacred place without sight but not without vision, where we too, as with St. John, desire to lay our head on our Savior´s breast and drink deeply from the inexhaustible well of His Sacred Heart.

          On Holy Thursday, we enter into the Upper Room and, along with the disciples at the Last Supper, receiving the incomprehensibly wondrous gift of the Eucharist—our Lord´s true Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. On this Good Friday, we go and stand along with the Mother of our Catholic Church, the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the base of the Cross. And on Holy Saturday we wait in silence for that moment when the stone is rolled back from the tomb, that moment when our hearts are warmed in the fires of the Lord´s resurrection, when we, along with the saints in heaven, cry out to ourselves and our brethren the world over: "Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you" (Is. 60:1).

          As we stand before the Cross this Good Friday, if we come there in purity of heart as our Blessed Mother clearly beckons us to do with her soft, prayerful hands, we will enter into a mystery of love beyond the world. See the Cross. See the innocent and kind Son of God hanging there, bloodied and battered, fastened to the tree of life with rusted, cruel spikes. Our sacred and loving Lord willingly chose that brutal place of death, that stumbling block, that tree whose wood would in fact pierce the world with the divine sword of Love in order that we might be saved from ourselves. Through His Passion and Death on the Cross, enduring undeserved pain and agony, our God rescued us. He saved us from death—a death we fail to understand—without our asking, without our deserving it, without even our knowledge of it.

         The Last Word our Lord uttered from that terrible yet wondrous Cross was: "It is finished" (Jn. 19:30). This Last Word embodies Christ´s entire mission of salvation: His sweet birth from the Virgin´s womb as God Incarnate; His quiet, ascetic life within the most Holy Family at Nazareth; His countless and beautiful acts as Master and Teacher; and His selfless, radical love so blindingly evident in his Passion and Death. The Word our Savior spoke just prior to his Last Word was, "I thirst." St. John tells us our Lord, "aware that everything was now finished, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst" (Jn. 19:28). John´s gospel is filled with deep and wondrous symbolism. So too is our Lord´s "thirst."

         At hearing Christ was thirsty, "they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth." It is immediately after Jesus tastes of this wine that he says, "It is finished," and "bowing his head," he hands "over the spirit" (Jn. 19:29-30). It was also a sprig of hyssop that Moses and the People Israel used to apply lambs´ blood to the doorposts in order to save them from the destroyer. "You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning. For the Lord will go by, striking down the Egyptians. Seeing the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and not let the destroyer come into your houses to strike you down" (Ex. 12:22-23).

          Christ thirsts on the Cross that His blood will be shed in order that the destroyer will pass over us. Our Lord thirsts for our salvation; Jesus thirsts to accomplish what the Father has willed, and also as He Himself, the Son of the Living God, has willed to accomplish: the Final Covenant sealed in His own blood. From the Cross, in the final moments when Mercy, Love and Compassion Itself is on the threshold of completing the greatest act the universe will ever know, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity experiences His greatest thirst. And, at last, "It is finished" (Jn. 19:30).

          Along with the disciples in the Upper Room, we too drink from the blood of the Final Covenant. The most pure, spotless Lamb, has given Himself over to His Catholic Church, to the People of God, in an indescribable act of thirst and love. At every celebration of the Eucharist, our Lord´s precious blood is mercifully poured out for us that we in our thirst, too, might one day on our deathbed joyfully exclaim: "It is finished."

         It is our Lord who has done all this for us. Come to the Cross. See, like the Samaritan Woman, that it is Christ who first asks for a drink that He may, then, offer us living water. It is Christ who thirsts that we thirst for Him, the Paschal Lamb. It is in the Eucharist that we drink deeply from the well of Mercy which springs up into eternal life. The Eucharist is therefore the living water; it is the gift of God. Jesus says to each and every one of us: "If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked and he would have given you living water." The Samaritan Woman at the well is astonished and wonders—as do many to this very day—where this "living water" is to be obtained, asking, "Where then, can you get this living water?" Jesus leads her further into the mystery of Himself: "Whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (Jn. 4:10-14).

          Just a short while later—though many of Hs own disciples find His words preposterous—our Lord reveals the deeper truth about this "living water." The water which wells up into eternal life is His own flesh and blood: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him" (Jn 6:54-56). Let us not stand among those former disciples who quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" (Jn. 6:52). Let us, rather, come before the Cross this Good Friday and, along with our Blessed Mother, trust in what God has said He will do. Let us kneel at the Place of the Skull and thirst for He who first thirsted for us. Let us this Triduum, as the Samaritan Woman, say, "Sir, give me this water . . . ." (Jn. 4:15).

          St. Pope John Paul II, in speaking to his general audience in April 2001, observed that the "sacred Triduum is the “mystery of love without limit,” that is, the mystery of Jesus who ‘having loved his own who were in the world . . . loved them to the end’” (Jn. 13:1).

           It is Christ who thirstily loved us to the end—all of us. That is the message of Good Friday. It is Christ whose thirst to accomplish His Father´s plan reached such immense proportions that He willingly endured the death of a common criminal on a Roman Cross. This type of thirst is radical indeed. It is most certainly beyond human. Stand below the Cross and see how God has thirsted for you; how He has selflessly and lovingly given Himself in the Eucharist. Justice demands that you and I too thirst to give of ourselves to Christ, our Savior and our God."The Eucharist is an eloquent sign of this total, free and gratuitous love, and offers each person the joy of the presence of the One who enables us too to love ´to the end´ in imitation of him. The love that Jesus proposes to his disciples is demanding" (Blessed John Paul II).

          The Cross challenges us; it troubles our consciences; it reveals in the light of reality our failings and sin. It demands change and repentance; it demands a new life of unity with Christ and His people. It demands love. Yet the Cross, too, brings us to a new beginning; one where, in sublime wonder, we see that God offers us salvation through His Son that we may forever live with the Holy Trinity. In view of our Lord´s selfless act on the Cross, we might boldly claim that our own death has been put to death by Love.

           When standing before the Cross this Good Friday, let us not forget Christ thirsted to give of Himself in the Eucharist. Let us remember that this Love who pours out His blood for us does so to transform us into something beyond ourselves. We are called to a new life. We are called to pick up our cross. But let us also meet Christ, there, on the Cross, in a new beginning. Let us live the Catholic life always and everywhere. Let us thirst for what we know.

         "He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring what he already knows."—St. Gregory of Nyssa

April 2, 2017

           A man and a woman had a little daughter that they adored. Audrey was their only child. They lived their whole lives for their little girl. When she became chronically ill and her illness resisted the efforts of the best doctors, the parents became totally discouraged and inconsolable. Soon Audrey did not survive the illness and the parents were completely distressed. They became bitter recluses, shutting themselves off from their family and friends. But, one night the woman had a dream. She dreamt that she was in heaven.

         During her dream, she saw a long procession of little children processing like little angels before the throne of God. Every child was dressed in a dazzling white robe and they each held a lit candle. However, when the woman saw her Audrey, she noticed that her candle was not lit. The mother ran up to Audrey, embraced her in her arms, caressed her tenderly, and then asked her how it was that her candle was the only one that was not lit. Audrey said, "Mother, they often relight it, but your tears always put it out." Just at that moment the woman woke from her dream. The lesson was clear, and its effects were immediate. She immediately told the dream to her husband. They decided to embrace their loss with Christian hope, and that they would no longer extinguish Audrey´s little candle with their useless tears.

           It is not easy to carry our cross. However, Jesus tells us that our cross will always lead to the transformation of our lives. There are three transformations that take place in our journey towards eternity.

          The first change begins at Baptism. The immersion into the baptismal waters symbolizes death and rebirth. The sacrament of Baptism washes away original sin and we are re-created. We are transformed into new creatures. The old self dies, and the new person in Christ Jesus is born. Our new life, which begins at Baptism, is carried out through our daily living of the Gospel. This of course, demands a continual dying to self. Through self-denial, the image of Christ is made visible in our lives. The more we die to self, the more sanctifying grace can transform our lives. "He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39).

          The second transformation takes place by our victory over the trials and tribulations of life. Every challenge, every difficulty, every moment of suffering, is an opportunity to grow. Transformation only takes place through suffering.

          A friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer when he was nineteen years old. He died two years later. Nevertheless, his acceptance of this challenge and the manner in which he embraced his daily suffering not only transformed his life, but it transformed the lives of those who were closest to him. One day after he returned from a long week of treatments at the hospital, his dad suggested that before returning home, they stop by their parish Church and pray the Stations of the Cross together. The father told his son that contemplating how much Jesus had suffered for them would be important, particularly in their present trial. Both father and son had understood the transforming power of the cross of Jesus.

            The third transformation takes place at death. The suffering that the final moment brings upon us makes way for an amazing transformation. Eternal life in heaven, perhaps after a period of further transformation in purgatory, is granted to those who have been found worthy. The last transformation or transfiguration is completed at the Second Coming when our body is reunited with our soul. What awaits us is beyond anything that we can imagine.

           When we consider the eschatological teachings of the Catholic Church, we can understand why the Easter liturgy cries out "O felix culpa". "O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer" (Exúltet – The Easter Proclamation from the Easter Vigil Liturgy).

               Good Friday reminds us of the outcome of the cross. Suffering brings about transformation when we carry the cross like true disciples of Jesus. Each of us has a cross to carry. We must all identify our crosses and carry them with patience, joy and love. Why complain about something which is our means to gain eternal life? The glory of Easter Sunday will only take place through the sufferings of Good Friday. However, too many of our contemporaries are like those who stood at the foot of the cross and cried out to Jesus that He should come down from the cross. Many would like to have Christianity without self-denial, discipline, and renunciation. However, Christianity without the Cross is not Christianity at all.

             What is your cross? Maybe you have many crosses to carry. How do you carry your cross? Do you complain? Are you discouraged? Do you run away from the cross? There is only one way to carry your cross. Carry your cross with patience, love, and joy. See in your cross your sanctification and your eternal salvation. Understand that with your cross, united to the cross of Jesus, you have a continual opportunity to save souls and make reparation for so many sins.

March 26, 2017

          St. Maximus the Confessor once wrote: “God's will is to save us, and nothing pleases him more than our coming back to Him in true repentance.” As Catholics recite the midmorning antiphon in the Liturgy of the Hours, "The time of penance has come, the time to atone for our sins and seek our salvation," the Lenten call which beckons our return to the Lord is voiced from the lips of the faithful within the Catholic Church.

          Lent is a season which invites Catholics and other Christians around the world to kneel before the base of the Cross, meditate upon the sins we have committed which caused our Savior´s suffering, and enter into a period of profound conversion and change. For this reason, Lent is a time of atonement and penance, a period in which we acknowledge our sinfulness, turn away from our past life toward a life with Christ, and embrace the call to holiness. In order to fully enter into such a call, fervent repentance is necessary.

         However, in what is often a materialist culture whose secular doctrine persistently encourages the practice of overindulgence in pleasures, entertainment and worldly comforts, the true meaning of repentance is often distorted, watered-down or all together lost.

         Further, atonement for one´s sins and penance—which are integral and necessary aspects of repentance—are often deemed "unnecessary and burdensome practices of the past" in which only the "unenlightened" participate. Perhaps such an attitude is due, in part, to the fact that these penitential practices involve a measure of voluntary suffering—which is something quite unwelcome in our contemporary world. Thus it is rather easy to give in to the temptation which tells us there is no merit in these sacrificial acts of repentance. But what does it mean to truly repent?

         The Greek word for repentance that is used in the Gospel is metanoia, which literally means "to change one´s mind." This "change" of "mind" necessarily entails a profound interior conversion in which we firmly turn from worldly darkness, and embrace a new way of life as Christ´s disciples. Thus repentance is not merely to know of Christ, nor is it a matter of picking and choosing—with an intellectual arrogance—some aspects of our Lord´s teaching while coldly rejecting others; rather, it is a union of mind, heart and soul to the Person of Christ. To repent is to die to Christ, discarding our former way of life in favor of the Way, Truth, and Life that is Christ Himself.

        In the Old Testament, the prophets continually called the People of Israel to repentance in order that the barriers of sin might be removed, allowing God´s blessings to flow forth. The prophets exhorted Israel to real, heart-felt interior conversion whereby one´s whole being would again be focused on God´s will. "Cast away from you all the crimes you have committed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit" (Ez. 18:31). The Lord contrasts repentance or the lack of it with life and death: "For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, says the Lord God. Return and live!" (Ez. 18:32).

         In the New Testament, when John the Baptist began preaching in the desert of Judea, he immediately and with urgency went about exclaiming: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (Mt. 3:2). In accordance with the prophets who came before him, John reminds us that true repentance will be evidenced by increased virtue: "Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance" (Mt. 3:9); and, as a warning against those who would ignore the call to conversion, John proclaimed: "Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees" (Mt. 3:10).

         After Jesus´ temptation in the desert He "returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit" (Lk. 4:14), and from that time on "began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” (Mt. 4:17). Our Lord warns us of the serious need for complete, life-changing repentance: "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (Mt. 7:13 -14).

          St. Maximus the Confessor wrote, "God´s will is to save us, and nothing pleases him more than our coming back to him with true repentance." Christ gave of Himself in an indescribably radical way upon the Cross in order that we might begin to understand the depths of God´s love for us, turn back to Him with our whole heart, and accept the salvation He offers. Our Lord has unquestionably demonstrated His love. Yet there is a question of love that remains for each of us: "Do I love Christ with my whole being?" Do I radically love God as He radically loves me?

          Love must be proven out in action. St. Theresa of Avila wrote, "Christ does not force our will, He takes only what we give Him. But He does not give Himself entirely until He sees we give ourselves entirely to Him." To repent is to give ourselves entirely to the Lord; it is to return from those dark paths we have walked for so many years, setting off on a journey toward a new horizon, one which glows with eternal Light. "Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God" (Jl. 2:12).

          When we return to God with our whole heart, we weep and mourn; for we see with stark clarity those numerous times—those times of sin—when we failed to love God. The rending of our heart drives us toward a desire to do penance; for we see our lowliness in the divine light of fervent conversion, which clearly reveals all our attachment to sin.

          St. Jerome lived an ascetic and holy life, a life of deep interior conversion in which his understanding of the reality of sin was illuminated in the divine light of the Holy Spirit. As a result, he made this somewhat disturbing comment regarding the general judgement at Christ´s second coming: "Whether I eat or drink, or whatever else I do, the dreadful trumpet of the last day seems always sounding in my ears: ‘Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment!’”

         Yet the most profound call to repentance is experienced as we go before the Cross this Lenten season, as we kneel there along with our Blessed Mother, as we gaze upon our loving Savior who gave entirely of Himself for love of us—even though we are sinners. See our Redeemer there, crucified at the Place of the Skull; battered, bloodied and dying; the weight of His body harshly pulling on those terrible, cold spikes driven through his innocent, sacred flesh. Though the pain was excruciating, Jesus received no consolation from the crowd who surrounded him; rather, they shouted and mocked: "He saved others; he cannot save himself. So he is the king of Israel!" (Mt. 27:42). Do we also refuse our Lord consolation by withholding from Him a truly repentant and loving heart?

         Before repentance is possible, we must journey to the well of prayer, and seek life-giving water. We must humble ourselves before our All-Holy and gracious Creator who has loved us even before we were conceived in our mother´s womb. Let us seek to know the gift of God. "If you knew the gift of God!" The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is He who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; His asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for Him. (cf. CCC 2560).

        What does our loving Savior say to us in the midst of his immense Passion, fastened in a most cruel way to the wood of the Cross? "I thirst" (Jn. 19:28). It might seem Christ is speaking of physical thirst only. However, from His divine and human lips He utters a profound statement of unfathomable dimension far beyond the physical. Our Lord thirsts for us. The meaning of the Cross is God´s incomprehensible thirst for love. Filled with an unexplainable and radical love for you and me, Jesus Christ thirsts for our repentance, conversion and prayer; He thirsts for our soul.

March 19, 2017

           On Monday, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Joseph, the husband of Mary. There is a beautiful excerpt from a sermon by St. Bernadine in our Office of Readings: "There is a general rule concerning all special graces granted to any human being. Whenever the divine favor chooses someone to receive a special grace, or to accept a lofty vocation, God adorns the person chosen with all the gifts of the Spirit needed to fulfill the task at hand."
 
           In the biblical accounts we have of this wonderful saint, we read of his encounter with an angel. This "annunciation" reveals the secret to every man of how we are to respond to the Lord's call in each of our lives. "Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary; of whom Jesus was born, he who is called Christ. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take for Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him"(Mt. 1:16 - 24).

           From antiquity, Christians have cherished St. Joseph as a model of genuine manly virtue. Since the fourteenth century there has been a specific day set aside in the Roman calendar to honor him. He is viewed as the "Patron" of the universal Church, of all husbands and of social justice. He has also been designated as the patron of all workers.

           He was a simple Carpenter who taught the Word Incarnate, the Child Jesus, how to work with wood. This Joseph was the foster father of the Incarnate Word of God, the One of whom observers would later ask "Is not this the Carpenter´s son?" (Mt. 13:55) Joseph loved Jesus with a unique and exemplary love and played a unique and extraordinary role in the plan of salvation. This Jesus of Nazareth learned to work with wood from the hands of Joseph. During his 33^rd year of life, He saved the world working with wood, the wood of the Cross which became the altar of His Sacrifice.

           In an age that has lost its way, given over to the selfish pursuit of illusory pleasure, St.  Joseph should again be lifted up as a model, particularly to men who desire to follow Jesus Christ. In popular language we sometimes use an expression to refer to men who are comfortable "in their skin" and content with being men. We say of such a man "He is a man’s man." Well, St. Joseph is a true "man’s man." He was a man of few words; he spoke through his actions, and he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded. We need fewer words and more action from godly men in this hour of need.

           St. Joseph was a man for others. Though the Scriptures say little about St. Joseph, even that absence speaks volumes. Why? Because to St. Joseph, he was not the one who was important, others were. He loved Mary above himself and his behavior was called "just" in the Scriptures as a result of his love. He was prepared to "do the right thing" when she was found to be with child. He could have chosen otherwise. How refreshing this upright manly behavior is in an age where men too often cower in the face of difficulty and compromise out of cowardice.

           Joseph was a man of faith and courage. Along with loving his betrothed, he loved His God courageously. He had a close, intimate personal relationship with the God of His Fathers. In fact, this "just" man was, in a sense, the last Patriarch, completing the lineage. Through his response of faith, he would receive the great gift promised for all men and women and hold in his arms the One that his fathers had only longed to see.

           God´s messenger, an angel, visited Joseph in a dream. He was ready to receive. He was disposed not only to the encounter but to the invitation it presented to pour himself out in love and for Love. He heard the message and, without hesitation, did what the Lord commanded! This is, in a real sense, St. Joseph´s "Fiat", his Yes, his exercise of human freedom to advance God´s eternal plan. How refreshing such manly faith and courage are in an age of cowardice and rebellion.

            St. Joseph was a humble man. There was not an ounce of false bravado or "machismo" in this servant of God. Named after the great Patriarch who was sold into slavery in Egypt; he bore the name with similar humility. As the Old Testament Joseph embraced his lot, rejecting the temptation to bitterness or "victim-hood" and actually came to rule Egypt, forgiving the very brothers who had sold him into slavery; so too this son of the Covenant embraced the One who would establish the New Covenant on the altar of Calvary. In so doing, St. Joseph is a patron and a model to all men who choose to walk the way of the cross in the footsteps of Jesus. St. Joseph poured himself out and became filled with the love and life of God.

           He gave himself fully to God through accepting his unique and specific vocation as a guardian of the Redeemer. The child Jesus, God in the flesh, was given to Joseph. A carpenter, St. Joseph taught this child how to work with wood and as a Jewish father he taught Him the Law. During these "hidden years," Jesus was with Joseph and Joseph was with Jesus. St. Joseph uniquely participated in the mystery of Gods plan of redemption through simply being the man he was called to be. From the moment he said yes to the angel, he lived that "yes" for the Lord. How challenging an example he is in an age of narcissism and inordinate self-love.

          Over two millennia, the mission of Jesus has continued through His Body on earth, His Church. He has entrusted the work of that mission to all men and women who accept the invitation to empty themselves in order to be filled with the very life and love of God and then be used in His redemptive mission for the world. Through the Fount of living water called Baptism, He invites each one of us into His new family, the Body of His Son, the Church. He still gives His message to men who, like St. Joseph, cultivate ears to hear and then choose to exercise authentic manly virtue and act out of courage.

           The Lord still invites men to turn the ordinary into extraordinary through cooperation with God and participation in His Divine plan. The Lord is truly looking for a "few good men" like St. Joseph who will work in the workshop of the world that He created in order to recreate it anew in His Son. In this age of the "anti-hero," men should rediscover this true hero, this "man´s man" named St. Joseph. Then, we should learn his way of obedience, following his example by courageously, humbly and faithfully loving Jesus Christ. We need to learn to give our "Yes" to the God whose Love always invites our participation. St. Joseph is our teacher on this way, a true “Man’s Man,” calling all men to follow Jesus. 

March 12, 2017

           On Ash Wednesday we offered ourselves to the Lord as we came forward to be marked with the sign of our repentance, a cross of ashes. We gave our consent, our “Yes” to the Lord’s call, which was issued through His Body the Church. We agreed to spend these next 40 Days in prayer, fasting, almsgiving and deep reflection. We lined up behind the Master to accompanying Him into the Desert.

           The readings of our Sacred Liturgy all spoke to us of the invitation which we find at the heart of this season we call Lent or the Forty Days. They called for our choice, our response. The exhortation from the Priest or Deacon to “Repent and believe in the Gospel” or to “Remember man that you are dust and to dust you shall return” were addressed to us in a manner meant to invite a response, to draw us into a protracted and sober reflection on how we are using our freedom. Freedom is that extraordinary uniquely human capacity to choose which makes us like the Lord Himself and, conversely, opens a path to our peril if wrongly exercised.

           The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in its treatment of our “Life in Christ” offers a powerful synthesis of the Sacred Scripture and Tradition on the mystery and opportunity of human freedom. For example, it instructs us that “God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him” (CCC 1730). The citation offered within the text is from the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes,  17) and the Old Testament Book of Sirach (15:14) which reads, “When God, in the beginning, created man, he made him subject to his own free choice.” What follows in the Catechism is a line from the 2^nd Century Church Father and Bishop, St. Ireneaeus of Lyons: “Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.”

           The implications of this gift of human freedom are broken open in the Catechism in a way that makes it ideal for our Lenten reflection. They are grouped together under the topic of Freedom and Responsibility. “Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude. As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach. The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to the slavery of sin” (CCC 1731, 1732, 1733).

           Lent is really all about choices. It is a season of remedy, instruction and correction which, if embraced in all of its potential, can help to set us free, able to make those choices which lead us to the fullness of life. The instrument used is what I am calling the Splint of the Cross of Christ. Our prescription is to voluntary embrace its saving/healing potential. Our freedom has been fractured by sin. We do not always choose the path to our true liberation because of what St. Paul called the “law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). We experience the plight summarized succinctly by the Apostle in his letter to the Romans, “What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate” (Rom. 7:15). In the words of our Catechism, summarizing the teaching of Scripture and Holy Tradition, there is a reason that we experience this fracture of our freedom: “Freedom and sin. Man's freedom is limited and fallible. In fact, man failed. He freely sinned. By refusing God's plan of love, he deceived himself and became a slave to sin. This first alienation engendered a multitude of others. From its outset, human history attests the wretchedness and oppression born of the human heart in consequence of the abuse of freedom” (CCC 1739).

          One aspect of this reality of “sin” is that it is always an abuse of our use of freedom. Yet, again in the words of the Apostle, it was “for freedom Christ has set us free" (Gal 5:1). We need an education in how to exercise our freedom properly. We need treatment for the fracture occasioned by the original sin of our first parents and the cumulative effect of our own errant exercises of this power of choice. We need the splint of the Cross.

           In another Section, our Catechism gives us an insight which has the potential of rewriting the continuing story of our lives: “Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself (CCC 1861). WOW! Because we are created in the Image of God we have the power, the capacity, to choose. But what is more profound is that what we choose not only changes the world around us, our choices change us. Another early 4^th Century Church Father, Gregory of Nyssa reminds us “We are in a sense our own parents, and we give birth to ourselves by our own free choice of what is good. Such a choice becomes possible for us when we have received God into ourselves and have become children of God, children of the most high. On the other hand, if what the Apostle calls the form of Christ has not been produced in us, we abort ourselves. The man of God must reach maturity.”

           This call to grow in maturity, to re-formation, to transformation in Christ, is what these Forty Days of Lent are all about. If we embrace the fullness of all the grace offered to us in the sacraments, through our intentional times of fruitful prayer, spiritual reading, reflection, almsgiving, fasting and in the real amendment of our lives, the remedial effects of the Splint of the Cross will be experienced. Then, we will begin to experience true freedom, the freedom of the sons and daughters of God. Our Catechism instructs: “By his glorious Cross Christ has won salvation for all men. He redeemed them from the sin that held them in bondage. "For freedom Christ has set us free." In him we have communion with the "truth that makes us free." The Holy Spirit has been given to us and, as the Apostle teaches, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (CCC 1741). Already now we can glory in the "liberty of the children of God."

           So, let us live this Lent, not just let it pass by. As men and women who at our deepest core long for true freedom, let us invite the Lord Jesus Christ to set us free. Let us choose voluntarily to apply the splint of the Cross to those areas in ourselves where we know our freedom has been fractured. It is only by choosing the good, in conforming our choices to the truth revealed in the Natural Law and fully in Jesus Christ, that we can grow in authentic freedom and so become the men and women whom we were created, and re-created in Christ, to become.

           Let us keep before us throughout the entirety of our Lenten observance this poignant insight from the Catechism: “The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to the slavery of sin” (CCC 1733). Let us choose, through grace, to change, to grow in the likeness of the One who carried His Cross to free us from the power of sin and the final enemy of death.
Finally, we end where we began, reflecting on the rich teaching offered to us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by the Church in our Catechism: “The grace of Christ is not in the slightest way a rival of our freedom when this freedom accords with the sense of the true and the good that God has put in the human heart.”

           "On the contrary, as Christian experience attests especially in prayer, the more docile we are to the promptings of grace, the more we grow in inner freedom and confidence during trials, such as those we face in the pressures and constraints of the outer world. By the working of grace the Holy Spirit educates us in spiritual freedom in order to make us free collaborators in his work in the Church and in the world: ‘Almighty and merciful God, in your goodness take away from us all that is harmful, so that, made ready both in mind and body, we may freely accomplish your will” (CCC 1742).

           After the Ashes, let us apply the Cross as the Splint for our Fractured Freedom and walk as pilgrims through this 40 Days we call Lent.

March 5, 2017

           During the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself to "the mystery of Jesus in the desert," where Christ, led by the spirit to be tempted by the devil, fasted for forty days (Mt. 4:1-11). The penitential aspect of the Lenten season is "particularly appropriate" for various spiritual exercises, including voluntary self-denial such as fasting and almsgiving (CCC 540, 1438).

          Yet we live in an age in which the above words in reference to the teaching of our holy Catholic Church are nearly entirely foreign to the modern mind; an age in which voluntary self-denial is not only far removed from thought but a practice looked upon as an "antiquated silliness" that ought be crushed; an age in which secularist "wisdom" holds self-denial´s opposite, self-gratification, as a type of false "virtue." There are numerous examples we could cite. Let it suffice to say that the important physical and spiritual benefits of self-denial are often either forgotten or ignored.

          This situation is particularly unfortunate; for we also live in an age in which there is an immense hunger for God. Yet what so often goes unrealized is the importance of combating this strong tendency we have toward enslavement by the senses; that is, the overemphasis placed upon feeding the many desires of our material body, our flesh and blood, is rarely seen for the danger that it is - often to the detriment of our spiritual soul. Frank Sheed wrote that man is often forgetful of the fact that he is both body and spirit: he belongs essentially to both these realities, those of the world of matter and the world of spirit. "In both worlds [man] has the closest and most vital contacts: it is a pity that he is so much more keenly aware of the lower one, and so sketchily and intermittently aware of the upper, for both are realities, and realities that affect him profoundly" (Theology and Sanity, p. 163). Over-emphasis of the flesh and de-emphasis of the spirit is a grave mistake.

         The Doctor of Prayer, St. Teresa of Avila, observes that we often fail to understand ourselves: "It is no small pity, and would cause us no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are. Would it not be a sign of great ignorance, ...if a person were asked who he was, and could not say, ... though that is great stupidity, our own is incomparably greater if we make no attempt to discover what we are, and only know that we are living in these bodies, and have a vague idea, because we have heard it and because our Faith tells us so, that we possess souls...All our interest is centered in the rough setting of the diamond, and the outer wall of the castle - that is to say, in these bodies of ours" (Interior Castle, p. 4).

          Our Lord Jesus Christ´s life presents us with countless examples of self-denial. We can be certain that at Nazareth He, along with His Mother and St. Joseph, lived a quiet, ascetic life of simplicity and prayer; a life which was intently focused on the spiritual, on the love of God. As mentioned above, Christ went into the desert to fast and pray - an act of self-denial - in order that He would become not only hungry but be severely tempted. After leaving the desert, Jesus "returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit" (Lk. 4:14) where He taught in the synagogues. Luke seems to imply that Jesus was strengthened by His actions of self-denial. And, in the ultimate act of self-denial, our Savior gives His life on the Cross for the love of men, many of whom mistreated Him and uttered hateful words against Him.

            But why is self-denial so important for us? For the simple fact that we do not get closer to God by living as materialists whose lives are spent seeking pleasure, comfort and ease, while our immortal soul, which will live on into eternity, is starved. Second, due to the fact that the flesh is weak, it is easy to fall into sin; therefore the body must be forced to subject itself to the spirit. The flesh must be trained, subdued in order that the intellect and the will are able to rule over it more easily. St. Paul tells us that "the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would" (Gal 5:17). And Christ warns His disciples in Gethsemane that "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Mt 26:41).

          The spirit must exercise self-control over the body: "Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Well, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air; but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified" (1 Cor 9:25-27).

          One critical aspect of self-denial is almsgiving. Note that while wealthy people were putting their offerings into the treasury, our Savior "noticed a poor widow putting in two small coins." He brought this to the attention of his disciples, saying, "I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest; for those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood" (Lk 21:1-4). It is certain that our Master notices when we deny ourselves of some convenience or entertainment and instead give those funds we would have otherwise used for our own pleasure to the poor.

          Another element of self-denial is self-sacrifice; for there can be no true denial of self apart from sacrifice. We are not, of course, speaking of the type of sacrifice which seriously injures, rather we are speaking of those sacrifices we make which show God we cherish Him as the greatest and highest Good - those fragrant flowers which pass from our acts of selflessness into the heavens where they are gathered by angels´ hands, made into wreaths for our loving Savior who willingly poured His blood upon the Cross for our sake, and preserved in order that we may one day clearly see the full splendor of every good deed.

          There is a great and unexplainable immenseness in the mystery of sacrifice. Who can plumb the depths of the sacrificial sorrow our Blessed Mother contained within her pure heart has she stood in docile quietness before the foot of the bloodied Cross? And who can comprehend the full dimension of Christ´s sacrifice of eternal, infinite worth? We may contemplate these things until the Sun passes across the furthest reaches of the sky, yet they will, for now, remain a mystery. Nevertheless, it is certain that every sacrifice we make for love of God becomes a fragrant rose of eternal sweetness which our Lord gathers in his own glorified, loving hands.

          St. Teresa, on the day she took the habit at the Convent of the Incarnation outside the walls of Avila, wrote of the wondrous kiss of love Christ presented to her as a result of her willing self-sacrifice: "When I took the habit the Lord immediately showed me how He favors those who do violence to themselves in order to serve Him. No one saw what I endured, ... At the moment of my entrance into this new state I felt a joy so great that it has never failed me even to this day; and God converted the dryness of my soul into a very great tenderness" (Interior Castle, p. 33).

          This Lent, let us go forth into the desert with Christ, where, along with Him, we deny ourselves out of love. Let us prove to God we love Him above all else. Let us engage in acts of voluntary self-denial, training our body, nourishing our spirit that, in prayer, we may begin to truly see the unfathomable value and riches of giving ourselves entirely over to God. It is about cultivating a love for Love. It is about, as our Savior showed us, commending our spirit unto God. For then, when at Easter we celebrate Christ´s resurrection on the third day, we may enter more fully into that wondrous plan of salvation our Savior Himself has given us with such great sacrificial love.

February 26, 2017

         We are food for worms, and yet our culture, our modernist worldview, pretends that nature can somehow be betrayed. We worship the appearance of youth while we are alive, and when those around us give in to inevitability, we hide the reality of their rot, decay and morbidity behind funeral home doors and caskets, embalming fluid and makeup, and words like "passing."

           The truth is that you will die within the next hundred years, and reminding you of this truth is one of the primary purposes behind Ash Wednesday. The Church, in her 2000 years of Christian wisdom, knows that the discipline of ritual is an aid to ongoing conversion, and that spontaneity is not nearly as important as steadfastness. So every year, 40 days before the ultimate Sacrifice that the Church remembers at Easter, we are offered the preparatory discipline of Lent.

           In a way, it's the Church's means of reminding herself not to get too big for her breeches - that we are all merely dust and ashes. Ash Wednesday, then, is a day for remembering and contemplating our mortality. It brings to the forefront of our minds the relationship that connects us to our last end - Jesus - and the reality that we are radically and solely dependent on Him to overcome our inevitable fate: sin, and consequently death.

           The head, as the Scriptural seat of pride, receives the ashen cross on Ash Wednesday as the priest or deacon says, "Remember, oh man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shall return." We remember our createdness with a strange thrill of respect; we say nothing and simply return to our pews.

           Wearing the ashes on our foreheads throughout the course of the day's activities is a badge of Catholicism, a discipline and public witness to those things modern society decries: the reality of Spiritual authority through the Church, death, penance for sin, and the hope of resurrection in Our Lord, Jesus Christ. And yet there is a somewhat contradictory truth present, so that Lent is a paradoxical illustration of our hope of happiness and bliss in death.

           The custom of ashes hearkens to the sacrificial burnt offerings of Old Testament Judaism, the sweet root of Catholicism; they were the only Old Testament offerings that were wholly consumed on the altar when accepted by God. As the precedent to the New Testament, we study the Old Testament to more completely understand the worship that was pleasing to God, how Jesus fulfilled those requirements, and how the Church follows Him in pleasing God with our own worship.

           Through the Old Testament sacrifices, we learn that sacrificial worship pleases God. It must be through the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, of the best we own and are, it must be freely made, continual, and having offered a thing to be wholly consumed, we are left with a pile of ashes. Ashes, however, had their own profound place in the Scriptures. They were always used in ancient times to denote human mourning and weakness. In Genesis 18:27, the lack of holiness in Sodom was paramount to the city's worthlessness. With God, Abraham mourned the lack of purity and goodness there with sackcloth and ashes.

           In 2 Samuel 13:14-19, Tamar's grief over her incestuous rape was communicated through the ashes she threw on her head. Exodus 9:10 shows that God's judgment is known through the presence of ashes. National humiliation caused the mourning in 1 Maccabees 3:44-53, while suffering, disease and affliction were the preceding causes in Job 2:1-8.

           Ashes are especially indicative of repentance in the Scriptures in several passages (Jonah 3:1-10; Job 42:2-6; Mal. 4:3; Matt. 11:21; 2 Pet. 2:6), so that together with the original connotations of the Old Testament sacrificial offerings, ashes came to predominantly indicate sorrowful contrition in the Scriptures.

           In the Old Testament, suffering of all sorts may have been characterized by ashes, but as early as the prophets a new picture began to emerge. In Isaiah's prophecies of the New Testament Messiah, there was born a new application for those dusty ashes, previously indicative of afflicted, brokenhearted captives who found themselves in prison, bound and mourning: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion - to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, ...the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified " (Is. 61:1-3).

           A garland instead of ashes. A crown for sorrow. A wreath for mourning. Gladness for repentance. Praise for humiliation. According to the prophets, when the Messiah of God came, He would change our grieving and sorrow into something completely different. We will not mourn and cry forever. Praise God!  After offering up our sufferings in communion with Christ's, God gives us beauty in exchange for ashes.

           In the New Testament, Jesus offers us a fuller picture for this exchange. In Matthew 5:1-12 we see the "ashen" lot of qualities of those populating the Kingdom of Heaven. The passage almost seems to read, "Blessed are the poor, the depressed, the weak, the malnourished, the dehydrated, the doormat, the persecuted, harassed and slandered, for they will be blessed." Jesus seems to teach that somehow these characteristics bring perfect happiness, or "blessedness," yet one is left with the distinct impression that the qualifications are so miserable that he might not want to be "blessed" after all. Even so, somehow the magnitude of the blessings Jesus promises tempt one to take a closer look, as people with these "weaknesses" are said to experience largess, abundance, happiness and favor, the meaning of "blessed."

              The trouble with our reaction to these verses is the same one confronted by Ash Wednesday: it is the trouble of suffering and mortality. Simply put, we abhor it! We seek strength, power, praise, fame, glory, ease, luxury. "'You seek, therefore, a thing which is not only not needed, but which also obscures the glory of my power.' Here [St. Paul] hints at another thing also, namely, that in proportion as the trials waxed in intensity, in the same proportion the grace was increased and continued. By their trials the righteous flourished" (Chrysostom on 2 Cor. 26).

             "Only faith can discern [God's omnipotence] when it is 'made perfect in weakness'" (CCC 268). Moderns often view weakness in themselves and others as distasteful and repugnant, something to be ignored or borne. Yet the Scriptures say that God only chooses the weak, and that He uniquely blesses the suffering. We can, therefore, be comforted by and embrace the ashes we are left with when we offer everything to God, for even our weaknesses are strength when embraced and offered to Him to be wholly transformed and consumed on the altar of the Cross. Jesus embraced His own weakness, the sacrificial ashes, of His death, "despising the shame" all the way, but it was the final, sure exchange of ashes for beauty, "the joy set before Him, [that] he endured the Cross" (Heb. 12:2).

              The ashes of Lent then, should be viewed as a time to purposely trouble ourselves toward the renewal of who we really are before God. This is the core of the Lenten experience. To acknowledge, to anticipate the day when we will stand before God and be judged. To prepare well for the hour of our death, we must sacrifice our sin on the altar in the sure hope of rising to new life in Christ - the garland of life for our sacrificial ashes of sin.

              Embracing our Lenten ashes means we recognize the need for deeper conversion. Conversion always involves "giving something up" in some form, but the goal is not to postpone sin for the duration of Lent, but to root it out of our lives forever. Conversion means completely leaving behind old ways of living, perceiving, and behaving in order to embrace the beauty and crown of new life in Christ. To do that, we must actively acknowledge our weaknesses, our guilt for the sins that led to Christ's Passion and death, and open ourselves to grief - no matter what provokes it. We must move through Lent from the mourning of ashes to the glory of garlands. The sorrow of Lent leads to the beauty and joy of renewal and conversion at Easter.

             Let us pray for all of those who will die physically this day, and this Lent, and those who will die to sin in the next 40 days and be received into the Church at Easter. May we all receive garlands for ashes this Easter! 

February 19, 2017

           I really love to eat! I love to eat not only to sustain my body; I love to eat for the flavor!  I want salt and salsa in my food! I am not alone.  If we are able to choose, almost anyone will choose food with flavor.  But many eat food that is bland because they simply do not know that there is another option. Some are unaware and others are just afraid to try something new. They only eat what is familiar, what everyone else is eating.

          It is a bit hard to understand.  Many live all their lives without trying salsa picante or cabrito; without trying food from Greece or China. But sadder than the fact that many will not try food is the fact that many refuse to be flavorful food for the world. To be salt and salsa we need to be different; we need to follow another path. There is not much salt or spice in this world; therefore, we desperately need people who can add a little pico de gallo to our lives. We need Christians who want to live their faith so fully that others can savor their taste.

          We need witnesses to faith in every aspect of our lives. Last Sunday, we celebrated World Marriage Day.  Today in the world we see many people opting for a life that is common and bland rather than for a life full of flavor. They choose a life that is very superficial, a love that is guided by hormones, which satisfies for the moment and then is lost. This certainly appears to be the case when we consider the distressing statistics of nearly one out of every two marriages ending in divorce. Couples just seem to be unaware that there for the choosing is another way; a way based upon the love of Christ, full of mutual sacrifice, but deep and fulfilling and lasting.

          We believe as Catholics that every Sacrament is a sign of the love of Christ; but the Sacrament of Matrimony is the Sacrament that most clearly and concretely reveals Christ’s love in the world—a love without limits that is always open to cooperation with God in His love, which overflows for the creation of new life. For us in the Church, marriage does not represent just any kind of loving relationship. It is not simply a love shared among friends. This love among friends can be the basis of a beautiful relationship, but it is not the same as the love of marriage. The Scriptures of both the Old and New Testament teach us the true nature of married love: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife and the two become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). Christ tells us that this union is something sacred. For us, the Baptized, it is a Sacrament.

          There is no such thing as a temporary or experimental marriage. We cannot say, “Let’s drive this marriage around the block first and then decide.” It needs to be a marriage in the eyes of God in accord with His teachings or it is not a marriage. Marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman which they enter into before God; it is a vow to love without limits or conditions, today and tomorrow and forever.

          And who could possibly live a vocation that is so great, so challenging, without the grace of God? That would be like jumping from a plane without a parachute. The grace of God is absolutely necessary! True enough, some married people do not experience success in their marriage even when they are married in the Church and have taken advantage of all the preparation and assistance the Church can offer. But those who jump from a plane with parachutes will also sometimes suffer injuries—we can only say that the chance of injury is significantly less than for those who jump without a chute.

I would like to conclude with three invitations:

1. To those unmarried young people: Of course, I would like you all to be priests and sisters! I would like you all to ask God about this possibility. But, for the majority of you, when the day comes that you encounter the love of your life and you decide that you want to live with that person for the rest of your life, go quickly to the Church. We can assist you a great deal to realize your dreams for a marriage that will last. And do not wait for a day when you will be able to buy a costly ring and pay for a big reception. The most important things in life, money cannot buy. Celebrate your marriage as the beginning of your life together and buy the stuff later.
2. To those who are living together now without the benefit of the Sacrament of Matrimony: Go to a priest or deacon!  Speak with us and we will be able to help, without cost, in the preparation and celebration of your Marriage. Do not live without the grace of the Sacrament one more day … without doing something about it!  We want to assist you in this!
3. To those who are already married: Congratulations and thank you for your witness! In this age when everything seems temporary, you are living reminders of what grace can do. Remember that your marriage is not only for a day. You need to commit yourself each day to the renewal of your covenant. Love is not a sentiment; it is not simply the work of hormones. Love is the decision to give your life for the other. I would urge you, dear married couples, to take advantage of the tremendous help that a retreat for married couples can offer. This can be a wonderful way to restore and deepen the flavor of your love.

          In your married love you will certainly encounter the cross of Christ. As St. Paul reminds us, no Christian can avoid the Cross. But choose the salsa, even when it is a little hot. Do not accept the bland and tasteless food this life often offers. Give your lives to Christ, not just part of your life, but all of it! Show your faith in the service of your spouse, of your family and of all! Offer what you have as a generous, loving and joyful sacrifice to the praise of God, not holding back as though you will be able to find security in things.  Choose to walk the narrow way of Christ and you will become salt and salsa, light and lamps for the world!

February 12, 2017

          "Be My Valentine.” This is a phrase that conjures up a lot of different images associated with the celebration of Valentine’s Day:  cards with hearts and little poems on them; candy and flowers given to someone we love; young and old alike expressing their affection for their sweethearts. February 14^th, for our culture, means cards, candy and flowers.

         Somehow, this feast of the church has been skewed to include snapshots from pagan mythology, such as cupid, with the focus of the day only on romantic love. For most, it is a shock to hear that this is a day to remember and celebrate the life and martyrdom of a Christian Saint. In the Gospel according to John, we read: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). St. Valentine demonstrated this love when he laid down his life for his friends. This is the kind of love that Valentine’s Day is really about.

          For Christians, Valentine’s Day is a day to celebrate the love of God. That love was shown to us in the life and death of Our Lord and the life and death of martyrs like St. Valentine. This is a love with a depth of commitment that goes deeper than any other love in that it surpasses even the desire to survive. It is the love of a God willing to suffer so that His creatures could know salvation. It is the love of a man willing to risk death so that others can know eternal life. As you can now see, there is a big difference between our modern Valentine’s Day and its Christian origins. Both are celebrations of love, but they show us the difference between the world’s understanding of love and the Christian understanding of love.

          But the Church’s definition of love is quite different. For the Christian the ultimate example of that love is Jesus Christ. He is the living example of God’s love. He came to this world so that the lost and lonely people of the world could experience the Kingdom of God. You and I can easily say that we love God, but does it show in our commitment to Him? Do we say that we will never turn our backs on Him because our love is so great, but then fail to do His Will because it does not suit us?

          My beloved, we have to show our commitment always, and consistently. We must stand ready to act according to His Divine will in our lives, the ultimate test of our love for Him, demonstrated by our commitment. There is no doubt that St. Valentine never set aside his commitment – when he faced persecution, when he faced imprisonment, or even when he faced certain death – this great martyr acted firmly in accordance with his commitment to God.

          Beloved in Christ, as you work for the glory of God – in everything that you do – make this the standard of your commitment. Whether it is in how you relate to your families, at your work, in your relationships at your parish, or in the work you do in your organization. Make your love for God and each other the single motivation in how you relate to everyone you come in contact with. We must always remember that the love that we Christians experience and share is obviously different from what the world knows. We may give flowers, candy and cards just like the world, but those tokens are expressions of a deeper love. They are expressions of love that is measured by the standard of God’s love.

          In addition to giving gifts, here are a few other ways you can celebrate Valentine’s Day this year:

          As Christians, this Valentine Day must be a time to re-commit our lives to the Lord: God is love and the source of true love. God loved us enough to die for us and St. Valentine loved God enough to die for God’s Truth. What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than to commit or recommit our lives to Christ.

          This Valentine Day must make us strong enough to stand up for the truth and proclaim the Gospel of God’s love: Sometimes it is dangerous to stand up against injustice, hatred, and prejudice. Sometimes it is difficult to oppose the world’s view of things to proclaim the truth of God’s Love. But that is what St. Valentine did.

            This Valentine Day be a reminder to all of us that we must die to self for the sake of another: I often ask couples when they are preparing for marriage whether or not they would be willing to lay down their life for their spouse. I have been told that, without exception, these couples always express that they would be willing to die for the other. Not once have they failed or even hesitated to say, “Yes!” In a clear-cut case of life or death many would die for the ones they love. But in our day to day lives few are presented with a life or death situation. On the other hand, every day we presented with opportunities to die to self. In other words, to sacrifice our wants for the wants of another. Try it this Valentine’s Day. Sacrifice what you want for what your loved ones want.

          My friends, our love never completely measures up to the greatness of God’s love. But with God’s help we can grow in that direction and strive toward that ideal. Our Lord said, “This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.” He also said that He has called and appointed us to bear fruit. That fruit is the love that we, with God’s help, share with one another. Christ’s love for us is the example that we should look to in all our relationships. It should define how we love our spouses, our children, our parents and our brothers and sisters in Christ.

           “Be my Valentine.” We all want to hear that phrase on Tuesday. It simply means “you are loved.” I am here to tell you that you are loved. God loves you and wants you to be His Valentine. The love that God gives us is not like the world’s love. It is not a flimsy cheap imitation. It is the real thing. It is an all-giving love that was and is willing to suffer and die for our deliverance.

           Will you be God’s Valentine? It is your choice. Let’s say yes and return in kind the love that God first gave us. And when we do, let’s remember the first Valentine and the way he gave everything, including his life, to the God he loved.

February 5, 2017

          So often in the Gospels, we read about the Lord Jesus’ love and concern for the sick. Not only do they seek Him out throughout His travels, but He actively pursues them.  It would not be an exaggeration to describe His work as a “ministry of healing.” In many instances in the Gospels, the Lord Jesus’ miraculous cures and interventions have more than one meaning and purpose. In addition to physical healing, the Lord Jesus’ cures are intended to affirm in or elicit from the sick whom He heals, deep faith as well as to inspire faith in their caregivers or those who witnessed His miracles. Nothing is impossible with God!

         Scripture scholars number the Lord Jesus’ miracles at around 37 throughout the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament, most of them involving the sick and suffering: the royal official’s son (John 4: 46 ff.); Peter’s mother-in-law and the sick in Capernaum (Luke 4:38 ff.); many afflicted with leprosy (Matthew 8: 1 ff.; Luke 17: 11 ff); the centurion’s servant  (Luke 7: 1-10); the paralyzed man (Mark 2: 1 ff.); the man with the withered hand (Luke 6: 6 ff.); the woman with internal bleeding for 12 years (Luke 8: 43 ff.); the sick in Gennesaret (Matthew 14: 34 ff.); several blind people (Luke 18: ff.; Luke 11: 14; Mark 8: 22 ff.; John 9: 1 ff.), to name just a few.

         I list the citations here so that you might pick up the Scriptures and read for yourself of the Lord Jesus’ interactions with those afflicted with various sicknesses and sufferings.  How can we conclude anything other than His special love and concern for the infirmed demonstrated by His many miraculous healings? And all He asked for was faith!

          In that spirit, St. Pope John Paul II established an annual “World Day of the Sick” in 1992. Himself diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease the year before, the late Holy Father chose February 11^th as the annual date, to begin in 1993, commemorating the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes whose 1858 apparition became the focus of pilgrimages and many reports of miraculous cures. In his message initiating this yearly day of prayer, St. Pope John Paul II explained that the day was intended to be “a special time of prayer and sharing, of offering one’s suffering for the good of the Church and of reminding everyone to see in his/her sick brother or sister the face of Christ who, by suffering, dying and rising achieved the salvation of mankind.” “Your sufferings,” he continued, “accepted and borne with unshakable faith, when joined to those of Christ take on extraordinary value for the life of the Church and the good of humanity.”

          There are very few of us who have not personally seen or known or loved someone who is sick and suffering.  And many of us have, continue to be or will at sometime in our lives suffer from physical illness.  The health situations and crises we confront (or will) in our own lives or in the lives of others may be the result of diseases or other sicknesses – inherited, contracted or suddenly arising – that are temporary or enduring, some perhaps even leading to eventual death. Regardless of the ailment or age or social status of every human being, all of us must face the fact of our own mortality at some point. That means we have time to think about it.  Sick ourselves or caring for the sick or merely observing them, what should be our response to human sickness and suffering when we encounter it?

         Pope St. John Paul II reminded us, “Christ suffered voluntarily and innocently” for us: to ransom and redeem us from sin; to prompt in us a deeper faith in and personal dependence upon God; to occasion hope in the reality of human experience; and to teach, inspire and model through the truth of His own example, a genuine abandonment to the mercy of God.  “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit (Luke 23: 46)” prayed the Lord Jesus as He died on the Cross.  Lord, teach us to pray!

          People do not “ask” or “seek” to be sick; rather, they endure and face it when it arises – some willingly and with courage; others with fear and trembling. Some with faith and hope; others with desperation. Some with trust and confidence in God’s will and mercy; others with the utter meaninglessness of their disbelief in the providence of God. Some with peace and a sense of union with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus; others buried in unrelenting loneliness. Some with the promise of heaven in their grasp; others with the nothingness of hell before them.

        And these reactions are not limited to the sick alone; they are also experienced and shared by caregivers; by family and friends; even by medical professionals as well as mere passersby in the face of human mortality.  It is not uncommon to hear the sick or those around them question, “How could God let this happen? How could God allow sickness and suffering in the world?” These are hugely difficult questions to answer, even for the most learned and faithful among us. Theologians may respond that sickness, suffering and death are the consequence of original sin. And while that is a part of our Christian belief, most people find such an answer wanting and hardly comforting.

         In the end, we raise questions about sickness and suffering whose answers are simply mysteries defying our human reason, like so many other things we encounter in our lives. Christian faith and acceptance are not merely glib, convenient responses of the believer to the unexplainable; this side of eternity, they are the only responses we have to offer. When speaking of the Holy Eucharist, another unexplainable mystery, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in his well-known Tantum ergo: “What our senses fail to fathom, let us grasp through faith’s consent (Præstet fides supplementum, sensuum defectui).” We can say the same for sickness and suffering. They are mysteries.

         Earlier in this message, I noted that, in the Gospels, all the Lord Jesus asked of the sick and suffering He miraculously touched or who sought to touch Him as well as those who laid the sick at His feet was faith. That was true in His day and, although the world has changed much since then, it is still true now. Modern medicine has developed incredible means to confront and treat sickness and suffering, to preserve life and the quality of life and the medical professions are light years beyond what our parents or their parents could have ever imagined or dreamt, thank God. Yet, nothing can ever replace the healing touch of God’s love. “Nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38).

          God created the world and everything within it. Christians believe that. God gave us the wisdom and skills that are evident in science and medicine as it has progressed and developed. Christians believe that. God inspired certain human beings throughout time to share his wisdom as instruments of healing. Christians believe that, too. What is the common denominator? God Himself: the Creator, the Redeemer, the Sustainer of humankind. The talents and skills that we possess, including within the medical profession, do not replace God: they are God’s gifts given for our benefit. And Christians believe that as well.

          Those of us who are sick or suffering can never lose heart or allow discouragement to overwhelm us.  God is with us. Have faith, like the sick and suffering of the Gospels.  It is all the Lord Jesus asks.  And then we pray and place ourselves in His loving hands.

         It is no coincidence that Pope St. John Paul II chose the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes as the World Day of the Sick. Few places in the world are as associated with healing as the Grotto of Lourdes, France, where Our Blessed Mother Mary appeared to a peasant girl, St. Bernadette Soubirous, in 1858. Since that time thousands and thousands of people of faith have made pilgrimage there and received from the Lord Jesus, Mary’s Son, the gift of healing from their sickness and suffering. Not everyone is cured but their faith is confirmed and strengthened by those who have been healed.

          It is for us, then — all of us as people of faith — to beg the intercession of Our Blessed Mother Mary as we turn to Her beloved Son, the Lord Jesus, and pray for the sick and seek His healing, if not of their bodies then of their spirit. Give them faith and strengthen its conviction. We pray, as well, for those who surround them as caregivers: family, friends, medical professionals and fellow travelers on this journey of life. Give them faith and strengthen its conviction. O Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes and Mother of the Sick, pray for us all now and forever.  Amen.