The Beatitudes and the Saints of the Order of Malta

   

The Church is the Lamp Stand

The fourth century Father of the Church, Saint Ephrem once spoke of today’s Gospel from far away Edessa.  Put your lamp, Jesus says, on a lamp stand, for all the world to see.

Christ, Saint Ephrem tells us, is that lamp, while the Church is the lamp stand and the flame is the action of the Holy Spirit.

Each one of us, then, are called to join ourselves with Christ the true light of the world, enlightening this world from the lamp stand of the Church and ever burning by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

What God Wants...

Here is a little Homily for Tuesday, January 19th...

No matter what we think we might be looking for, we are always looking for the same thing. Sometimes we think we are looking for the pain to go away, or for to love us. Sometimes we think we are looking for more money or for a better job. And sometimes we just want the Doctor to tell us that everything is going to be alright.

But no matter what we think we may be looking for, we are always looking for the same thing, or more properly, for the same one.  We are ever looking for God, waiting for him to put a new song into our mouths and a deep peace into our hearts.

We are like the Psalmist, longing catch a glimpse of God and then crying out: “Here I am Lord!  I come to do your will!”

And you know what? At the same time we are desperately seeking the face of God, he is desperately looking for us. Like the Father of the Prodigal Son, looking out at the end of the horizon, day after day longing for his Son to return, so God is desperately seeking us.

For what does God really want?  Does he long for our impressive accomplishments or, when we do wrong, our punishment?  No.  None of that. The Lord desires neither Sacrifice nor oblation, neither Burnt offerings nor sin-offerings. All God wants is our love.

He who is love, desires nothing from his creatures but that they remain in his love: that they “love the Lord [their] God with all [their] heart and with all [their] soul and with all [their] mind and with all your strength…”and that they love their neighbors as themselves.

So the next time, in prayer, you list all the things you want from God, realize there is only one real prayer: to learn to love love the Lord and to serve him in this world and to be happy with him in the next.

For that, in the end, that’s all that God wants, as well.

Today in your hearing...

I just read from the beginning of the Gospel according to Luke, the longest of all the Gospels, written by the same Evangelist who penned the Acts of the Apostles.

Today’s Gospel is in two parts, including the opening verses of Luke’s first and fourth chapters.  

The first passage is a sort of prologue, addressed, like the Acts of the Apostles to a man named Theophilus, a Greek name which means “friend of God.”  This Theophilus serves as a kind of stand-in for you and for me, and everyone who reads or hears the Gospel, seeking to be open to God and to learn about his only-begotten Son.

And the second part of the passage I just read, from chapter four, does just that, as it introduces us to Jesus, beginning his public ministry. Chapter four picks up right after the Baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan river, which we listened to a couple of weeks ago when we celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

So chapter four picks up on the Sabbath, as Jesus, “in the power of the Spirit,” goes to the Synagogue in his home town of Nazareth.

Just like any good Jew, Jesus joins the others gathered for Sabbath prayer and listens to the Scriptures. Like our own Liturgy, those who gathered in the synagogue would have listened to a reading from the Torah or the Prophets, followed by a homily, which is exactly what Jesus, the young rabbi, does.

He opens the scrolls and finds a passage from the Prophet Isaiah that begins: “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted.”¹

A couple hundred years later, Origen, a Father of the Church from Alexandria in Egypt, would write of this passage: “It is no coincidence that [Jesus] opened the scroll and found the chapter of the reading that prophesies about him. This was God’s will.”²

For then Jesus does a remarkable thing. He looked up at the assembled congregation and began his homily with these words: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

Listen to what Jesus is saying. In him is fulfilled the hope of all the prophets. In him is the fulness of all truth. In Jesus, standing and preaching in the Nazarene synagogue, is the hope and salvation of every human being who ever walked the face of the earth.  For he has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted, to us, and all who dwell in darkness and sin.

And listen to the first word of his homily: Today! Another great Alexandrian father of the Church, Saint Cyril, tells us how important that Today is, for just as we are Theophilus, the ones to whom the Gospel of Luke has been addressed, so we live in that today, situated between the first coming of Christ in a manger and the second coming in glory at the end of time. And because we live in this today, our work is to listen to the Gospel and to convert our hearts and our lives in preparation for Christ’s coming in glory, for that Last Judgement at the end of 

time.³

Indeed, as our beloved Pope emeritus teaches us, “Jesus himself is the today of salvation in history, because he brings to completion the work of redemption.”⁴ Jesus is not a fond memory or unfulfilled hopes of yesterday.  He is the today of our lives, the Lord who invites us to turn away from all that is dark or sinful, and to follow him, who is our light and our salvation.

So hear the the Lord as he opens the scrolls and proclaims the Gospel, which is the story of the God who so loved us that he became a man for us, offered his life on the Altar of the Cross for our salvation, and in his life, dying and rising, fulfilled the hopes of all mankind.

—————-

1 - Isaiah 61:1-2. 

2 - Origen, Homilies on the Gospel of Luke, 32, 3.

3 - cf. PG 69, 1241.

4 - Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, 27 January 2013.

On Conversion...

Today is the Feast of the conversion of our patron, Saint Paul, depicted just below the image of Christ, which surmounts one of the great transept windows of the Cathedral Church above our heads.  

You will recall, I am sure, how the great rabbi Saul was on his way to Damascus to persecute the followers of Jesus.  As he rode along on his high horse, a bright light knocked him to the ground, as he head a voice proclaim, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do." 

And so began the conversion of the greatest preacher the Church has ever known.  

It’s a funny thing about conversions. Sometimes they come by way of a flash of light and sometimes by a slow nagging voice from deep within.  But however they come, they always begin by being knocked off your high horse, and learning to listen to the Lord’s voice more than you listen to our own.

Beloved Saint Paul, pray for our conversion to Christ!

Preaching well...

Today we celebrate the feast of the 17th century Bishop and Doctor of the Church, Francis de Sales. Preaching was at the center of his ministry, which is why he took as his motto, "He who preaches with love, preaches well."

They said he preached so well, because he showed gentleness and loving mercy in his every word, and was so very practical in his spiritual advice. One of his favorite sayings was:

“Half an hour's meditation each day is essential, except when you are busy. Then a full hour is needed.”

So on this feast of Saint Francis de Sales, let us give thanks for all those good and loving preachers who have led us closer to God, and all the ones whom God will send us for the rest of our lives.

The Moroneys of Cork...

During my sabbatical this past semester, I was privileged to spend some time in Ireland, working on some liturgical projects with Father Anthony Ward, SM.  More to come on those in the near future.  While there, however, I was able to visit the small village where my great-great grandfather was born, and from which he emigrated after the death of his own father during the potato famine. Here is a short video with the story of how the Moroneys left Cork in 1851.

arrives the snow...

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, arrives the snow…

                               - Emily Dickinson

We little brothers of Christ the High Priest

I was honored this past week to join the Saint John’s Seminary community in saying farewell at the end of my six year term as Rector. Cardinal O’Malley presented me with the Archbishop Williams award on behalf of the Faculty, Seminarians and Trustees gathered for the Mass and dinner, and afterwards I delivered the following remarks.

I am grateful to Your Eminence for arranging this evening and for the singular honor of having, for a season, been Shepherd of this holy house. Thank you, Father Salocks and Fr O’Connor and each of the priests on the faculty, whom I have been privileged to call “brother.” But most of all, thank you, my dear sons, for letting me be your Father.

But now has come the time when I must try to say to you what I have tried to say in Webster and Leominster, in Washington, in Blackstone and Spencer and Worcester: Thank you.

Thank you for your patience with my weakness and for your love of Christ’s strength. Thank you for your kindnesses to me and for your love of him. Thank you for your example of sacrifice and good hard work. Thank you for making me a better Priest by your so tangible love of Christ and his Church.

For I have been changed by this house, by the seminarian who sat before me with tears running down his face from the bottom of his heart, as his voice cracked, “all I want to do is to give my life to Christ and to his Church.”

For in the end, this Holy House is never about any one man, for each of us come and go performing our assigned function and then answering Christ’s call to follow him to other pastures and to other sheep.

And that function, for your Rector, from Peterson to Murray to Hughes to Salocks has ever been the same: to lead you to Christ, the one true Priest, to teach you to love His Church even more than you love yourself and to urge you to seek, despite all your weaknesses to lead others along the way which leads only to him.

This is our privilege and our one true reward, to be entirely his and never only our own. It is our noble calling, and one of which we are never truly worthy. But how blessed we are in every season of our lives to be called to be his Priests, obedient to his voice and conformed only to his will.

It is that common work which unites us, dear brothers, and which will make us one for the rest of our lives, as it unites us to the countless thousands who have walked these halls before us, and the countless thousands, please God, who will walk them in the years yet to come.

So farewell, for now, my brothers and sons, until we meet in other pastures, as we inevitably will, until that day arrives for which our hearts ache, when he will gather us into that Holy House which is our hope and our joy.

What a journey it is to which he has called us, we little brothers of Christ the High Priest, and how blessed we are to be called to the Altar of the Lamb.

Cana at the Cathedral

Of all the places my almost forty years of priesthood had led, this Cathedral Church is always at the center.  I’ve lived and worked in Rome, in Washington and in Boston for protracted periods of time, but Saint Paul’s on High Street is the place I always come back to. Maybe it has something to do with a line from W.C. Fields: “Home, is where they always have to take you back.”

Here I was ordained a Priest, here buried my parents and served as your Rector for two and a half years.  And now I’m back to this Holy Church, this seat of the Bishop of Worcester, this house of God. 

The very word for Church, as you may know, is ecclesia: the place God gathers us to himself as he offers the perfect sacrifice of the Cross. And what a motley crew we are.  It’s like James Joyce’s description of the Church: “Here comes everybody!”

Sometimes I look at this place and I think back on Bishop Flanagan or Bishop Harrington or Bishop Riley. Often, and daily, I think of Bishop McManus, our shepherd and the one who presides over the Church in Worcester from that Cathedra as our chief teacher and shepherd. He is the one to whom I owe obedience and respect. And how blessed we are to have a shepherd so easy to obey and respect and love.

At other times in this Cathedral Church I think of Selma or Justin or Eddie.  And often I think of you and of me, each with our own gifts, as Saint Paul says, and each a part of the fabric of the rich tapestry which is God’s Church in Worcester.

We are all so very different. Some of us are good at service, at getting things done. Some have a lot of wisdom, and some are teachers. Some have the most extraordinary faith, even in the face of really painful crosses and trials. Others have a way of healing just by the gentle way they speak, or the extraordinary ability to forget themselves and just listen to you with an open heart. Still others can accomplish all kinds of mighty deeds…they are amazing. While some seem almost prophetic and are so good at figuring out what is going on and offering the best advice.  

No one person in this Cathedral, including this priest, has all of these gifts. But to each the Spirit gives certain charisms, for our good and the good of all his Holy Church. And each of us, despite our differences are made one in Christ, who called us here in the first place.

And what does he do with us when he gets us here? Well, he transforms us. He changes us. Just like he changed those big old jugs of plain old water into exquisite vintages of fine wine.

In fact, what God does here in his Cathedral Church is just like what he did at that wedding feast in Cana. The mother of Jesus was there, we are told, just as she is here, watching over us.

And when the wine runs short, she intercedes with him. When the trials of this world wear us down, when we are too weary to think or too confused to know where to turn, she intercedes with him on our behalf. "They have no more wine," she tells him. They have run out. Then she turns to us, in all our sorrows or distress, and says those five precious words:  "Do whatever he tells you.” Then Christ takes the water of our lives and transforms it into the finest wine.

He takes our suffering, and joins it with his Cross, giving it meaning and somehow making sense of it all. I think of the old woman dying in the Nursing Home whom no one comes to see. But she looks up at that cross on the wall and joins the pains of her body and her very soul with his, joining her life to the perfect sacrifice of praise first offered on the Altar of the Cross. And thus her suffering is transformed into something holy, eternal and good.

He takes our foolishness, and infuses it with his wisdom, giving it sense and direction, helping us to understand the eternal Truth which is his love for us. He teaches us to let go of our infallible narcissism and embrace not our self-serving perversions of the truth, but the one Way, the one Truth and the one Life, who is Jesus Christ, and him crucified and risen from the dead.

He takes our littleness and embraces it with his omnipotence, picking us up when we fall, leading us home when we are lost and giving us courage when we are afraid.  He transforms all our fears, our trembling and our distress, into the all-powerful presence of the Eternal God who renews the earth with his love.

And thus, just like at Cana, every day, in this Cathedral Church Christ reveals his glory to us, that we might come to believe in him.

Feeling powerless and the paralytic

How do I get my kids to go back to Church? My friend has cancer and I don’t know what to do? The world is such a mess, and I feel so powerless.

How may times do we feel powerless, in the face of sickness, violence and all the craziness that seems to swirl around us. What are we to do?

Today the Lord gives us a simple answer in that old story you know so well about the paralytic.  He can’t move a muscle. In fact, the Lord is inside the house curing folks left and right, and its so crowded that his friends can’t even squeeze his stretcher through the door!

So they open up the roof, which must have just thrilled the owner of the house, and lower their friend down into the house so that the Lord can heal him.

So what do we do when our friends are in trouble, or have cancer or face unsurmountable odds.

We pick them up and hold them before the Lord, so that he can heal them.

Meribah, Massah and Saint Anthony...

If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as at Meribah and Massah.

I’m sure you’ve heard that acclamation a hundred times, both at Mass and in the Liturgy of the Hours and repeated today in the letter to the Hebrews.

It’s originally from the Book of Exodus, after God has freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. They are wandering in the desert in search of the Promised Land, and they are thirsty. So, we are told they grumbled and quarreled with Moses, to the point where he was fearful for his life. Grumbling and quarreling are translated into Hebrew, by the way, as Meribah and Massah.

Not far from where all that grumbling took place, Saint Anthony, the Father of all monks, died in the fourth century. He was one of the first of all monks, having sold everything he had and given it to the poor. He slept on the ground, ate only bread and salt, and drank only water. His favorite pastime was praying through the night.

Saint Athanaius wrote of him, ”His was a perfectly purified soul. No pain could annoy him, no pleasure bind him…He was thoroughly immune to the vanities of the world, like a man unswervingly governed by reason, established in inner peace and harmony.”

So, we have two examples from nearby the Red Sea before us.  One quarrelsome and one at peace. 

On the Baptism of the Lord

We began this morning’s Mass in an unusual way, with the Blessing and Sprinkling of Holy Water, intended to remind us of our Baptism.  This is especially appropriate as we celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, and recall how John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, inaugurating his public ministry.

But what is this Baptism, this washing with water which we reflect upon today?  

As the ancient prayer I prayed to bless the water a few minutes ago reminds us, God created water to be a source of life and purification, both inside and out.  washes dirt away on the outside, so Baptism washes away sin and causes the the life-giving spring of eternal life to well up deep within.

But why was Jesus Baptized? Was he in need of cleansing? Not at all. He was a man like us in all things except sin.  No sin was within him.

But so much did he love us, that he not only became one of us, but he stood there among the sinners waiting to have their sins washed away, in order to encourage us to return to God with our whole heart, and to be totally immersed in his love.

Indeed, the Greek word baptisma literally means immersion, as when John baptizes Jesus by immersing him in the waters of the Jordan River, and as Jesus entirely immerses himself in our human condition so that he could understand our weaknesses and our frailty.

But then what happened at the moment of Jesus’ Baptism, the moment when his public ministry of meekness and humility began in a life of sacrificial love? 

You heard what Saint Luke told us. The clouds parted and the Holy Spirit showed himself in the form of a dove, while the voice of the Father acknowledged his beloved Son using words of the Prophet Isaiah.  

Here stands Jesus, acclaimed by his Father as the hope of the prophets, the light for the nations, sight to the blind, freedom to prisoners and the way our of the dark dungeons of selfishness and sin.

Here stands Jesus, who with his strong right arm outstretched upon the Cross,  conquers the Evil One by suffering and by laying down his life for his sheep.

Here stands Jesus, come to “baptize humanity in the Holy Spirit…to give humanity God's life and his Spirit of love…” (Pope Benedict XVI, 13 Jan 2008.)

It is that same Jesus who we receive in the Sacraments of water and blood which flowed from his side on the Altar of the Cross. In Baptism, by which our sins are washed away, and in this Eucharist, at which we drink from the Chalice of Salvation.

So let our prayer this morning be the one which I prayed a few moments ago, at the end of the sprinkling with holy water on this Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, that “Almighty God [might] cleanse us of our sins, and through the celebration of this Eucharist, make us worthy to share at the table of his Kingdom.”

Love one another...

So, God first loved us.  Indeed “God so loved the world that he sent his only Son…”. Christ, indeed, is God’s love made flesh for our salvation.

And by his love for us, so Christ teaches us to love one another. “Love one another,” he commands us, and by this love, all will know that you are my disciples.’ (John 13:34-35)

So, the person who says, “I love God, it’s people I can’t stand,” is really a hypocrite, or, as Saint John bluntly calls him, a liar. “…Whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

Now that’s a tough saying, because people are hard to love.  They are fickle, unfaithful, erratic and sometimes just not very nice. And we can say that even of our friends!  

But we are called to love them.  Every last one of them.  Just as Christ has loved us, with “humility, patience, gentleness and love.” (Ephesians 4:2)

Llevamos casi tres semanas celebrando la Navidad: un festiva tan grandiosa que no puede caber en un solo día.

Y nos acercamos al final de la temporada navideña con San Juan, con quien pasamos la temporada navideña, explicando por qué escribió sus cartas. 

"Le escribo estas cosas,” dice sin rodeos, "para que [ustedes que creen en el nombre del Hijo de Dios] puedan saber que tienen vida eterna”.

Es el núcleo del mensaje de Navidad, el verdadero significado de la cuna y la cruz: Que “Dios nos dio vida eterna, y esta vida está en su Hijo.”

La vida es realmente tan simple, y tan maravillosa.

Discerning Spirits

Saint John gives us a wise piece of advice today, when he advises us not to trust every spirit, because there are false prophets in the world: False prophets like the ones Saint Paul warned Saint Timothy about, those who would try to seduce us into following something other than the Gospel.  

So what does Saint John tell us to do?  Simple: he tells us, “test the spirits to see whether they belong to God.” But how do we test the spirits?  How do we find out what’s true and what’s false, what’s God’s will and what’s not?

The test John gives us is simplicity itself: “every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God.”

So when someone is trying to convince of us something, there’s a real simple question:  Is it of Jesus or not?

If someone tries to convince me that just getting enough money will make us happy.  Is that of Jesus or not?

If someone tries to convince me that the poor are just an inconvenience to be avoided and that we have no obligation to help them.  Is that of Jesus or not?

If someone tries to convince me that all immigrants are bad people and we should not care about them.  Is that of Jesus or not?

If someone tries to convince me that I should never again talk to that person who hurt me.   Is that of Jesus or not?

If someone tries to convince us that that going to confession is just old fashioned.   Is that of Jesus or not?

Lots of false prophets are about these days, my friends.  And all kinds of temptations.  But if we take Saint John’s advice, we can test each one of them with the simple question: Is that of Jesus or not?