Discernment for Diaconate 1

 I was delighted to meet those discerning permanent diaconate this evening for a first session on Spiritual Discernment.  Here's the video on the persistent bear cub which you all so enjoyed :

CLICK HERE for the PDF of my slides.

See you next week!

Violence, Twenty Years Out...

It was a cool fall day, twenty years ago, as I watched the towers fall from a TV in my office at the Bishops’ Conference in Washington D.C. The smoke from the Pentagon rose beyond the glass of my office window, and fear began to show on the faces of my colleagues, a fear which would last for weeks to come.

Such moments of unexpected violence come often, even if on a smaller scale, in the life of a parish priest.  The fire that devastates the lives of three families down the street, the suicide of a teenager from the youth group, the domestic abuse that lands the lector from the ten o‘clock Mass in court and in the paper...all are unexpected and all have the same destabilizing effect on our lives.

As the hours following such traumatic events pass, everyone begins to think the same thing: There but for the grace of God go I.  And it’s true. 

I recall a spate of teenage suicides when I was pastor in Spencer.  First one, then two, then three kids took their own lives, most frequently with a shotgun.  Each parent had the same thought: There but for the grace of God go I.

And what could I, as the Pastor of Spencer, offer to their paralyzing fear? Certainly not lies.  It will be alright.  It probably won’t be. 

What can a Pastor do at times of the inevitable tragedy and violence that marks our lives, or even on their anniversary?  He can tell the truth. The truth that there is sometimes a real and present danger, but that it is not always present. 

The truth is that none of us are immune.  From violence, or from cancer, or from accidental death.  

But the point of life is not staying alive and happy and healthy.  The point of life is doing the will of God.

And that often involves the Cross, a Cross which gives meaning even to senseless and random violence.  God writes straight with crooked lines.  Even from darkness and pain and senseless suffering he can bring forth his light, and his truth, and true hope.

For Christ walks into the dark upper rooms of our lives and says “Be not afraid.”  Not because there is no such thing as suffering and death (he shows us his wounds and invites us to touch them).  He tells us not to be afraid because he is ever present and in our suffering we are drawn closer to his Cross, the Cross by which he has defeated Death and Darkness and Sin.  We have nothing to fear, ever again, as he whispers in our hearts: “Peace be with you!”

That’s why the impetuous Prince of the Apostles, responds to the Lord with four simple words today: You are the Christ.

You are one who the world has been waiting for. You are the way we were made to live. You are the truth, and the life.  You are our Savior and the purpose of our being.   

You are the Christ! The one who seeks out lost sheep and carries them home, who stretches out his arms on a cross and prays for those who nailed him up there. The one who comes to lead us home from this valley of tears.

Your are the Christ, and with you at our side, we don’t have to be afraid, ever again.

Commendation of the Dying

She looked so little in that bed. They had told be there was a 93 year old woman to be anointed, but she looked more like 93 pounds, peeking out from above the neatly pressed sheets, he green eyes dancing across the room and, finally, alighting on my collar….Hi Mabel, I said, I’m Monsignor Moroney. Can I pray for you?

Mabel looked fine, at peace, despite the fact that was dying, and would be dead by the time the sun set. But her daughter Rose Marie was not fine. Not at peace. In fact, she was the opposite of at peace, she was scared witless, about to lose her mom and desperate to stop that from happening.

Mabel was old enough that the thoughts of dying had occureed to her, especially when her husband had the by-pass and when they found that lump on her breast. But watching Rosemarie slowly fade away from her was entirely too much and shook from the inside out and couldn;t stop the tears.

And her husband wasn’t much help, or at least she wouldn;t let him be, as she pulled away from him and just shook all by herself.

So I walked over to her, hugged her and Mike and then took her hand and placed it on her mom’s under mine and reminded her that God loved her so much that he made her Mabel’s daughter. She kinda gasped and then just kept staring at Mabel, over whom we were both bowed, and she sobbed.

At which, with my free hand, I took my ritual book from my right pocket and started to pray:

Go forth, Christian soul, from this world

in the name of God the almighty Father,

who created you,

in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God,

who suffered for you,

in the name of the Holy Spirit,

who was poured out upon you,

go forth, faithful Christian.

May you live in peace this day,

may your home be with God,

with Mary, the virgin Mother of God,

with Joseph, and all the angels and saints.

And you know, when it was over, I looked over at Rosemarie, who hugged me. She was still weeping and stealing glances over her shoulder to see if Mabel was still there, but then she turned to Mike and fell into his arms.

I went over and stood in the corner for a while, prayed for a few minutes and then said my good-byes. But, as it had a few hundred times before, the prayer of the Church had done its work in echoing Jeremiah, while saying to hearts that are frightened 

“Be strong, fear not! You God comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you.” For the eyes of the dead will not forever be closed, but soon will be opened, when he comes in glory to judge us all. 

And on that day  the eyes of the blind will be opened, the lame leap will like a stag, the tongue of the mute will sing. Streams will burst forth in the desert and the thirsty ground will flow with springs of water.”

For the Lord who died and rose for us is standing right there beside you. “Be strong, fear not! He comes to save.”