What God has joined...

The older I get, the less I understand.  Or maybe a better way to put it is the more I know, the fewer simple answers there are.

Except the ones which Jesus gives us...for he is the way we are supposed to walk, the truth we are supposed to love and the life we are supposed to live.

And, today, he gives us a simple saying about marriage and divorce: “what God has joined together, no human being must separate."

Now the rate of divorce in Massachusetts has risen, as you might have guessed, from 17 percent in 1960 to almost 50  percent this past year.  

So what does it mean if I am divorced?

Is Jesus saying that I should have stayed with an abusive spouse?  No.  No one should ever be abused, and when divorce is the only way to escape an abusive relationship, you escape the abusive relationship. The Church wouldn’t want you to stay in such a thing.

But Divorce is always the last resort.  And even after I am divorced, I can’t make believe the vows I spoke were never spoken.  Surely, there are times when one or the other party was psychologically incapable of promising life-long fidelity, for better or for worse, with an openness to children.  In fact, that’s what annulments are all about: declarations by the Church that there really wasn’t a true marriage there in the first place, even though you were acting in good faith.

But if I am capable of meaning those promises and if my spouse if capable of the same, I make a promise “brought about by the Church, strengthened by the sacrifice, sealed by the blessing, witnessed by the angels, and ratified by the God the Father.”

For marriages, like the vows we make, never go away because they are inconvenient or we have grown tired of them.  And that’s why Jesus said: “what God has joined together, no human being must separate."

Protecting Children

"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”

Hearing those words, which one of us fails to think of the scourge of the sexual abuse of children, and the horror of God’s judgement on the unrepentant sinner: “it would be better for him if he were thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck.”

Especially in these days, as the Church seems to be drowning in a storm of righteous indignation at those priests have molested children and those Bishops who have covered it up.

The sexual abuse of children is widespread in our society, with some suggesting that one third of all girls and one fifth of all boys will be molested before they reach the age of 18.  Other studies report that as much as two-thirds of all sexual abuse takes place within the family, while the U.S. Department of Education predicts that 10% of all school children will be abused by a teacher or school employee before they graduate.

The Catholic Church has worked hard to stamp out the crime and and sin of the sexual abuse of children as we continue to strive to correct the actions of the past and keep each child safe with better practices and procedures. In the mid-1970’s, as many as 4% of priests were reported as abusers. Last year seven priests in our country were accused of current abuse (that’s seven priests out of about 37,000 of us nationwide) But the only acceptable number is 0. Zero priests. Zero fathers. Zero uncles. Zero scout leaders. Zero teachers. Zero coaches.

Which is why we must never grow tired of finding new ways to keep our children safe.  Through screening and training of each and every Church employee and volunteer, through rapid reporting of each allegation to the police and through stringent application of Codes of Professional Conduct. 

Last week, in writing to all our Cathedral employees and volunteers as part of an effort to make sure our child protection policies were uniformly applied, I quoted Pope Francis who reinforced the, “conviction that everything possible must be done to rid the Church of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors…”

For the life of a child is sacred, and the dignity of their life is beyond measure.  And woe to whoever causes harm to one of these little ones.

In Rome with the Chair of Saint Peter

Monsignor Johnson is thriving on sabbatical, and on the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter celebrated Mass at Saint Peter's Basilica with the Worcester seminarians. 

Peter said to Jesus: 

You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. 

And Jesus replied: 

You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.

Studying Cures at Lourdes

Last night I joined the Order of Malta at Saint Paul's in Cambridge for a wonderful presentation by Alessandro de Franciscis, Director of the Lourdes Medical Bureau. A previous talk which Fra Alessandro gave at Harvard Divinity School is available on Youtube. Here is the prayer I offered at the end of the evening.

Heavenly Father, source if all healing and life, we give you thanks for good doctors: For Dr. Jackson, whose witness to life will ever live in our hearts; and for Fra Dr. de Francisis, witness of the signs which lead us to the Mother of your Son. Bless their work as you bless all who approach the Grotto of the Apparition with healing of body and soul. Heal us of our selfishness and sin and make us disciples of the life and healing which we receive at the hands of Jesus your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Love...bless...forgive...

Wow!  Did you hear what the Lord said: love your enemies…do good to those who hate you…bless those who curse you….pray for those who mistreat you…Stop judging…Stop condemning…Forgive even as you seek to be forgiven

Do we believe it?  Even though we pray it all day long: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us!” Do we believe it?

Rita did.  Rita Lotti, born in the little Umbrian hilltown of Cascia about 700 years ago.

In those days, Cascia was inhabited by the Italian equivalant of the Hattfields and the McCoys, as frequent conflicts and family rivalries were routinely settled by the rule of vendetta...that is, you kill one of ours, we kills two of yours.  It was the ideal prescription for perpetuating violence.

Rita married Paolo Mancini, a good, if impetuous fellow, and they had two sons.  The sons grew into their teens and one day as their father was returning from work he was ambushed and killed.  Rita was overcome with grief, but even more by the fear that her two sons would seek to avenge their father’s death.

Only her tears and her begging kept them from seeking to kill their father’s killer.  But her sorrows did not end there, for within a year both sons died from heart disease.

So there she was: within a year she had buried her whole family, and it all started with the murder of her husband.  So did she seek revenge, did she become bitter, did she withdraw into a perpetual state of self-pity?  No, she became a nun and dedicated the rest of her life to serving the poor and urging everyone she met to forgive, as God had forgiven them.

Saint Rita understood what the Lord meant by forgive!

And Pope Francis understood it as well: “The problem,” he wrote, “comes whenever we have to deal with a brother or sister who has even slightly offended us. The reaction is usually like in that parable when the offended man “seized his enemy by the throat and said, ‘Pay what you owe!’”

When we are indebted to others, we expect mercy; but when others are indebted to us, we demand justice! All of us do it. 

But it is a reaction unworthy of Christ’s disciples, nor is it the sign of the follower of Jesus. Jesus teaches us to forgive and to do so limitlessly: “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven” 

The story is told of a meetings of Father Luigi Giussani and Bishop Eugenio Corecco, two of the founders of Communio e Liberazione.  Bishop Eugenio was close to death and began to pray that his suffering would, in some way, prove fruitful in his ministry as a Bishop.

“The essential thing for a bishop,” he said, for “a pastor, or an abbot [the essential thing for each of them] is love. Love is what is fruitful, what changes and converts the people…merciful love. The world does not forgive. But mercy always begins loving again...There’s no greater miracle than discovering in yourself charity, a love that wasn’t there before.” 

"What does love look like?” Saint Augustine once asked. “It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. It has the heart to forgive. That is what love looks like."

A mercy which is love for those who have no one else to love them. Loving not because someone is big or beautiful and can love me right back, but love for them precisely because the ugliness of their sin has betrayed me, wounded me, offended me.

Wow!  Did you hear what the Lord said: love your enemies…do good to those who hate you…bless those who curse you….pray for those who mistreat you…Stop judging…Stop condemning…Forgive even as you seek to be forgiven

May the Angels Lead him into Paradise...

I preached the following homily at the Funeral of David Lebudzinski this morning. David was one of the altar servers at my first assignment at Sacred Heart Parish in Webster some 39 years ago. 

I know how Martha felt. And so does Julie-Ann and all who loved David. I know how she felt, when Jesus finally gets there, four days after Lazarus’ Funeral, and her first words to him are “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would never have died…” 

It is the kind of honest venting you can only speak to someone whom you really love: if you had been here…why weren’t you here! Why did he have to die!?

It’s the kind of groan from deep within our being that rises up every time we talk to God about what happened to David. Why someone so good? Why someone whom we loved and who was so good at loving us? And why lung cancer when he never smoked a day in his life? And why did the immunotherapy do him more harm than good? And why the strokes at the end? And why didn’t you let us see David and Jules grow old in goodness and faith? Why?!

And if we truly believe in an omnipotent and all loving God, we, modern-day Marthas will repeat those questions to him, over and over again…but always quickly followed by an anything but begrudging act of faith: ‘even now, I know you are the God who loves us.’ Even though, I just don’t understand.

And Jesus smiles at us with compassion, looks at us with love and says simply: “Your brother will rise.” ‘ For I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

As we celebrated Mass, gathered around David’s bed a few days ago, Jesus was asking us all the same question he then asked Martha: “Do you believe this?”

Do you believe that I am the Son of the Living God, the one who is coming into the world?

Do you believe that I will make sense even of this?

Do you believe that in some inscrutable way this is all a part of God’s plan?

Through the fog of your pain and veil of your sorrow, do you believe?

At that Last Mass around the bedside, David answered those questions, when at the time for Holy Communion he weakly hiked himself up with the last bit of strength he still had, sitting up to receive the Body of the Lord and take the Chalice of his Precious Blood into his hands for the last time. 

He believed with each dying breath that Jesus was his Lord and Savior and that death was but a door to be passed through to the other side.

He believed that he would see his dad run out to meet him..running like he had never seen him run since he was a little kid..

He believed that all the saints and angels who had been his patrons throughout the years would be there to greet him…

And most of all, he believed that the mercy of Christ, which flowed as blood and water from his pierced side on the Altar of the Cross would lead him mercifully to a heavenly home of refreshment, light and peace.

He believed not just in a doctrine or a religion, but in a person who is God and man, Jesus, through whom all things were made, who is love incarnate and who is the source and the summit of it all.

That’s what believed and lived so well; and if we who are left behind are called to believe like him, then we still have some work to do. 

First, we must pray. Pray for David, that God might forgive whatever sins he may have committed and lead him home to that place where there is no more pain or crying out, or tears or death…but only perfect peace in the light of the face of eternal love.

And then, we must believe. Like David, pushing himself up to receive Holy Communion, crying not so much at his pain as at ours, weeping when he looked up at Jules standing by him like Mary by the Cross of her crucified Son. We must believe in the Lord, walk with the Lord and love all whom he will send to us with the same self-sacrificing love he showed us unto death, death on a Cross. 

For this is not the end of the story. The story that began when David was carried by Bev and Leb the font at Sacred Heart, the story that continued when he received his First Communion and when he was sealed with the Holy Spirit by Bishop Harrington. The story which reached its highpoint when was joined to Julie-Ann for better and worse, sickness and health, and even unto death.

No, this is not the end. This is the beginning…the beginning of David’s taste of the paradise for which he longed, and of the promise that “one day we shall joyfully greet David once again when the love of Christ, which conquers all things, destroys even death itself.”^*

* Order of Christian Funerals, Introduction to the Final Commendation.

A Homily for the Chair of Saint Peter

Today is the Feast of the Chair of Peter, Prince of the Apostles, Vicar of Christ on earth. The chair or cathedra Petri is symbolized in the Vatican Basilica which bears his name by Bernini’s enormous monument at the end of the western apse. The chair is empty, because it belongs to Peter, who is now enthroned with the other Apostles and his Lord in heaven.

And I have known Peter. I have known him in the joy of “good Pope John,” whose unbounded optimism and extraordinary courage gave joy to my youth, as he convened a Council of aggiornamento and opened the doors of the Church to the modern world.

I have known Peter, when as a seminarian I witnessed the aching heart of Pope Paul VI, who agonized and grappled with the greatest problems of his day with a love of the Church and a love of the world so tangible that it was almost painful to watch. Who before the U.N. Security Council declared “No more war! War never again!” and who prophesied that, when it comes to life, “there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go,”¹ and for the Sacred Liturgy sought a people who “should become attentive, entering into dialogue by song and action...consisting not only of outward acts but of an inner movement of faith and devotion, investing the rites with a real power and beauty.”²

I have known Peter. I have known him in the flash of light which was Pope John Paul I. I have known him in the intensity and strength of Blessed Pope John Paul II. Who spoke the truth unflinchingly and bore the cross before our eyes as a clear reflection of his suffering Lord.

I have known Peter, even in these latter days. I have known him in the quiet brilliance of Pope Benedict XVI, whose words were as beautiful as his heart. And I have known Peter, in the pure, passionate and unflinching vision of Pope Francis, with a pastor’s zeal.  He, like those who have gone before him is Peter, Prince of the Apostles, who sits in the cathedra of the Bishop of Rome.

______________________________________________

1 - Pope Paul VI, Humane Vitae, no. 17.

2 - Pope Paul VI, General audience, 17 March, 1965.

Genesis and Capitol Punishment

Here is my homily from Thursday, February 21st on what the Church teaches on Capitol Punishment and Genesis 9:6.

As we continue to read the Book of Genesis, we come to the remarkable section in which God sets up certain basic rules for our relationship with creation and, indeed, with our fellow man.

Following not too many days from our reading of the story of Cain and Abel, the scriptures are rather explicit about the taking of a human life: “If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; For in the image of God has man been made.”¹

Now that seems like a pretty explicit endorsement of the Death Penalty, and, indeed the Church and the world, endorsed the Death Penalty, in the word of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.”²

In our own lifetime, however, the last several Popes have pointed out that something has changed.  For, again in the words of the Catechism as revised just a year ago, “there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes.,” and “effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.”

“Consequently,” the Catechism concludes. “the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,’ and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.’³

So, is the Death Penalty permitted as a last resort? Yes, as it always has been.  But in the presence of secure and lifetime incarceration, the Church holds it to be the wrong choice.

______

1- Genesis 9:6.

2- Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2267.

3- Francis, Address to Participants in the Meeting organized by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, 11 October 2017: L’Osservatore Romano, 13 October 2017, 5.

Eternal Rest Grant Unto Them O Lord...

In recent weeks, we have had a lot of Funerals at Saint Paul’s, for parishioners of the Cathedral, friends and brother priests.

Bishop McManus celebrated the Funerals of Father Marty Donahue and Father Connie O’Leary on February 2nd and 11th.  Father O’Leary’s burial took place during some heavy snow showers at Saint John’s Cemetary

Worcester seminarian John LaRochelle's grandmother, Cecile LaRochelle, was buried from Immaculate Conception Church in Holyoke.  This is from the main stained glass window in the Church, which depicts the mills which dominated Holyoke in Cecile’s youth.

David Lebudzinski, who died this morning of cancer, was in the seventh grade when I arrived at my first assignment at Sacred Heart in Webster Massachusetts in 1981.  David is the one in the cap on the right and he later became a great medical doctor and was a devoted husband (pray for his wife Julie-Ann) and a man of deep faith.  Here he is some 37 years ago at the Aquarium in Boston with the other altar servers and a young “Father Jim” kneeling at the center in the front.

Joe Brady, longtime devoted sacristan of this Cathedral Church was buried from Saint Paul's on January 30th, while the Funeral Mass for Eileen Flannery, one of our most devoted and generous parishioners, was celebrated on February 12th.  Here is the homily I preached at Eileen's Funeral.

Seventy three years ago, William and Rita brought their little baby to Church in to be Baptized.  The Priest took water in a small golden shell and pouring it over the child’s forehead said: Ego te baptizo, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sanctus.  I baptize you, Eileen, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Thus began a great journey, as Eileen was joined to the death and rising of Christ Jesus.  She would learn how to pray, to make the sign of the cross (struggling to hit the right shoulder first), how to kneel down and say her prayers, to go to confession and to receive Jesus in Holy Communion.  

Day by day and year by year, he came to know Christ Jesus.  She learned to love, to forgive and to live in the model of her Lord and Savior.And she learned that lesson well.

For seldom have I met a woman for whom faith came more naturally.  The presence of Christ in her life was as natural as the air she breathed and her belief in the Gospel and the Church were as sure as the summer sun and the winter snows.

Was there ever a parishioner of this Cathedral Parish as quick to say yes when the Rector asked her to serve the latest project of the Saint Paul’s Club or anything else he asked her to do?

And was there ever a woman who faced the struggles of life with the such accepting faith.  Maybe it was her Irish heritage, but I suspect there was something more to it even that that, for Eileen always  reminded me of Martha from today’s Gospel, every willing to undertake the latest task, dedicated to the latest project and convinced of the latest initiative. But there was also something remarkably life Mary, the sister of Lazarus, about her as well.  Mary, who chose the better part, sitting at the feat of the Lord and faithful to listening to his voice.

Those who knew Eileen know what faithfulness meant, faithfulness to the Sacraments, faithfulness to the Church and faithfulness to this Cathedral. 

I think of that monumental window, which depicts the first years of the life of Saint Paul, Eileen;s pattern and the patron of this Cathedral Parish.  Atop the window is the face of Christ, who looks down on each of us and every parishioner of this Catherdral Church, calling them to faithfulness to Christ and to his Church.

And that faithfulness in the life of Eileen came from somewhere.  It came from the waters which poured over the head of that little baby seventy-three years ago.  And it came from the Body of the Lord: the Holy Communion she received at this altar and the Gospel of love which she heard preached from this pulpit,

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I know that there were many gifts which Eileen gave to each of you throughout the years.  But today she gives you the greatest gift of all.  For today she reminds each one of us of the journey we’re on. It starts in the arms of our parents…it starts at the font of blessed water where we are first joined to Christ and to his cross.  And then it takes all kinds of twists and turns, sometimes bringing us closer to God and sometimes leading us away from him.

But today Eileen reminds us where that journey ends.  It ends in the same place it began: before Christ, who will judge each one of us on the last day.  Christ, who calls us to turn away from selfishness and sin, and cling to faithful love.  Christ, who urges us to forgive, even as we ask to be forgiven.  Christ, who laid down his life for the world, and asks us to do the same.  Christ, who loved us faithfully and then commanded: love others as I have loved you.

For the greatest memorial to Eileen will not be the biggest Celtic Cross in Saint John’s Cemetery.  It will not even be the wonderful stories you will tell of her, or even the moments you will recall her wise and faithful words.  No, the greatest memorial to Eileen, will be the life of faithful love which you are invited to live with the Son of God and his Church, the same journey which we pray that Eileen has walked, into the arms of Christ Jesus, her merciful Lord.

Eternal Rest grant unto them O Lord,

and let perpetual light shine upon them!

A Presidents' Day Homily: Cain and Abraham

Cain was jealous of his brother Abel. He was“Resentful and crestfallen.”  And, because, as the author of Genesis says so presciently, ‘sin was a demon lurking at the door,” Satan whispered into Cain’s heart, enflaming his jealousy until it consumed him, and he killed his brother.

What an awful thing jealousy can be and what horrific things it can lead us to. But on this President’s day, we are provided with a counter-example of Cain, in President Abraham Lincoln.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, in her wonderful book, Team of Rivals, describes the terribly tumultuous times of our most beloved President, and how he chose to surround himself with those who most disagreed with him, men “who could argue with him, provide diverse perspectives, and question their assumptions.” 

Lincoln knew, she tells us, that his greatest need was for strong,  imaginative and passionate leaders, not men who would just say yes and salve his ego. He knew, she writes, that “if he allowed [jealousy or envy or anger] to fester, it would poison a part of him.”

A student of the Bible, President Lincoln understood what happened to Cain and what led him to kill his brother and be remembered as the great sinner.  Lincoln chose, instead, to be remembered as the great healer and reconciler of his time. 

For, while President Lincoln will forever be remembered for saving the Union, winning the Civil War and ending slavery, “his true greatness,” to quote Leo Tolstoy, “was found in the integrity of his character and the moral fiber of his being…’  Just the opposite of Cain.

Arrives the snow...

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 

Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields, 

Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air 

Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,

And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end. 

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet 

Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 

In a tumultuous privacy of Storm.” 

                          Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Snow Storm