Following Him to Jerusalem

So he’s on his way up to Jerusalem for the last time; “resolutely determined” to get there, Saint Luke tells us. “Resolutely determined” to suffer, to die and redeem us in a sacrifice of Paschal love.

And as he walks up the rocky path to the Cross, he turns to his disciples and says two words: "Follow me." And then he teaches us how the following of Jesus to the Cross and to Heaven is more important than anything else, even our hurt feelings.

The Samaritans never much liked the disciples, and they didn’t like them still, having refused to let them stop in Samaria to rest from the long, dusty, tired road to Jerusalem. 

And so they asked the Lord for just one little favor. “Just call down a little fire and brimstone to consume them.” That’s all we want Lord. Just a little bitty portion of sweet revenge.

Like when the guy cuts you off going 500 miles an hour in the breakdown lane.

I remember a number of years ago, driving to Newport on a Sunday afternoon to say Mass for a bunch of artists, coming across the Jamestown Bridge in bumper-to-bumper traffic. And as we were crawling across Jamestown in stop and go traffic at an average of 3.2 miles per hour, every once in a while, a car full of screaming kids would go racing down the breakdown lane, leaving us poor law abiding fools to crawl another fifteen feet in as many minutes. I wanted to call down fire, lotsa fire and brimstone to wreck my revenge.

Now, I must admit, Jesus loves me more than anybody else, because when I came to the end of the two-lane road, the Newport bridge in sight, there were all the cars that had whizzed past me in the breakdown lane, in a neat little line, waiting for the nice man with the blue lights on top of his car to write them a ticket, and then send them back down the side streets, to get to the end of the agonizing traffic jam. And probably the worst punishment was that they had to make that agonizing journey in the company of those screaming kids and the spouse who told them not to take the breakdown lane in the first place.

We really want revenge on those who offend us.  I really want revenge on those who offend me, just like the disciples wanted to wipe out those stinking Samaritans. But Jesus usually does not grant our wish. Rather, he looks back at us and gives us that look. You know it, the one the nun used to give your in fifth grade. He rebukes us, and off we go, to Jerusalem and to the Cross.

For walking with him to the Cross is more important than anything, more important than even our comfort.

As I get older, I wonder whether there is anything more wonderful than a good night’s sleep. You know that feeling, when you wake up with two hours more sleep than you have the last four nights, and nothing aches, and your body just snuggles under the warm comforter in the cool room in utter peace. Not a worry in the world, just the comfort of that moment, as you lull back to sleep.

And that’s all we want Lord. Just a little rest. How bad can that be?

You’ve been working all day and the marrow in your bones is aching, but then your daughter-in-law calls you because the kids have been driving her crazy and she wants you to listen to her whine. And you do, trying weakly to smile into the phone and listen compassionately, without yawning audibly. All while your bones ache.

You’ve heard your son’s excuses for what must be a hundred times. Of all the reasons his life is not working out and how hard it is for him. And you want more than anything to shout at him “you think you have it bad!  Have I ever told of you of how when I was your age…”. You know the rest of that story. But you bite your tongue, and you look at him with something that at least tries to be love, and you smile weakly.

Sometimes, all you want is a little rest, but the Lord urges you to get up and get on with it. Follow me, for foxes may have their dens and birds of the sky may have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head. No warm snuggly bed for you, right now, disciples. For comfort is nothing and the only rest that really matters is eternal rest in him, whom I follow, trying to catch my breath, as he runs up to Jerusalem and to his Cross.

For walking with him to the Cross is more important than everything, even more important than those whom I love.

Just a minute, Lord. My father just died. Let me go bury him, and then we can run up to Calvary together. I have to be there for him, Lord, because it’s one of the commandments, and especially because I love him so much, and most of all because he has loved me so much.

Just let me spend time with my friends and those who love me, Lord, instead of all those strangers.

Like all the guys in the middle of the traffic on Kelly Square with the cardboard signs which tell me that they are homeless and veterans and that my spare change would really help.

Like the guy I sat next to on the plane this week, who from Detroit to Boston described, in excruciating detail, each disappointment of his very, very very long life. All while I was strapped into my seat.

Or like the gal at work who has never met a rumor she could not spread and who regularly dramatizes the endless soap opera which is the life swirling around her.

Just let me spend my time with the ones who love me Lord, rather than this sometimes endless line of irksome strangers. Let me take care of those who take care of me.

But then he gives me that look again, and responds, rather sharply: ”Let the dead bury their dead.  “Choose between earthly affections and the Kingdom of God, the shadow of love or love itself, and follow me,” he shouts as he runs up the hill to Jerusalem and to his Cross and expects me to follow.

“And never look back,” he shouts over his shoulder.  “Never look back.” For such is the urgency of this journey we are on, running after him, on our way to Jerusalem, and to the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

On the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

When the littlest of the sheep is lost, he leaves all the rest The lost I will seek out, and looks for the lost one. And when he finds it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, when he gets home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, 'Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’

All because the heart of Jesus is so big, so overflowing with love, so utterly and infallibly in love with his sheep.

And we the sheep, little and lost as we so often are, seek only to imitate that love, to make our hearts swell like his Sacred Heart, in love with him and in love with his fellow lost sheep.

It was 39 years ago today, at just about this hour, that I knelt down in front of Bishop Flanagan upstairs in this Cathedral Church, and there he ordained me to a share in the Priesthood of the Good Shepherd. And I give infinite thanks for the graces by which he has, for each of those years, shepherded his shepherd and revealed the wonders of his love.

Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church

Two women, as different as night and day: The first and the most blessed among women.

One represents original darkness and sin, while the other is original sinlessness and grace.  One is old, while the other is new. One takes, while the other gives.  One is entrapped by a web of lies, while the other breaks free with a courage born of her womb.  One breaks God’s command, while the other embraces his Word.

What is it that makes Eve and Mary so different? Fundamentally the difference lies in their relationship to God.  Eve chose her own way, while Mary chose God’s way.  

If we choose to imitate Eve, we will be impressed with ourselves and we will obsess our accomplishments, our successes and our hopes and dreams. and our lives will be a never-ending search for self-sufficience.

If, however, we imitate Mary’s, our lives will be an endless striving for obedience to God’s will, a never-ending work of self-emptying and self-effacement. One way draws us in, and other draws us out, uniting us with Jesus, so that what we sing is not our glory, but his, not our will, but his, not me but God.

Which is why the Lord looks down from the Altar of the Cross at the one disciple who has not run away and says "Behold, your mother.”  While he looks at his Blessed mother, the most blessed among women and says, "Woman, behold, your son.”

“And from that hour” the Apostle John took the Mother of God into his home.  For from above their heads, there flowed blood and water from the side of their crucified Lord, so that the Church might be born Baptismal waters and the Precious Blood.

This is why, in promulgating the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Pope Paul VI declared Mary to be “the Most Holy Mother of the Church,” to which the Council Fathers spontaneously rose and applauded.

For, in the words of our beloved Pope emeritus, “Mary is so interwoven in the great mystery of the Church that she and the Church are inseparable, just as she and Christ are inseparable. Mary mirrors the Church, anticipates the Church in her person, and in all the turbulence that affects the suffering, struggling Church she always remains the Star of salvation.

“On this Feast Day, let us thank the Lord for the great sign of his goodness which he has given us in Mary, his Mother and the Mother of the Church. Let us pray to him to put Mary on our path like a light that also helps us to become a light and to carry this light into the nights of history.” (Pope Benedict XVI, 8 December 2005)

Pentecost, Paraclete and Peace

The doors were locked. They were petrified that someone would crucify them too.

When on the evening of that first day of the week, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with you.” And he breathed on them with the Holy Spirit. The Breath of God brought Peace.

Eight hundred and eight years ago, the thirty-seven year old father of a well-established reform of religious life and of the Church as a whole, walked to Damietta, Egypt to see the Sultan of that land at the very moment that the great King was engaged in mortal combat with the Fifth Christian Crusade.

Now it probably took about a year to walk from Assisi to Damietta and Saint Francis and his companions would have had to pass through modern day Syria along the way, perhaps traversing the very soil over which men fight today.

Arriving in Egypt, he witnessed a ferocity of war no less evident than in our own time, as the Sultan of Egypt, Malik-al-Kamil, the nephew of Saladin the Great had decreed that anyone who brought him the detached head of a Christian should be rewarded with a single golden coin.

St. Bonaventure, in his Major Life of St. Francis, tells us how the Saint and his companion just walked right into the enemy camp, where they were predictably placed in chains, beaten and dragged before the Sultan.

And then it began.  Like Pilate before the Lord, the great Sultan had no idea who was before him.

Who sent you?  the Sultan asked.

God.  Francis replied.

And why did he send you?

To save you and to teach you the truth, he answered.

“When the Sultan saw his enthusiasm and courage,” Bonaventure tells us, “he listened to him willingly and pressed him to stay with him.”

Here you have this medieval Goliath of a Sultan with an army so powerful he and his brother had conquered the whole Middle East, but he was conquered by the simplicity of the poverello, saying pace e bene...God sent me to save your soul.

It was an unfair imbalance for a diplomatic negotiation.  The Sultan probably saw Francis as a delegate of Cardinal Pelagius and his troops who would seek to negotiate a cease fire or even the return of the Holy sites or the surrender of Egypt.

But Francis did not arrive as a diplomat seeking an audience with the Great Ayyubid Sultan Malik al-Kamel Naser al-Din Abu al-Ma'ali Muhammed seeking political advantage.  No. Francis arrived as a man who so loved Malik that he sought to obtain his soul for God.

In other words, Francis saw Peace not as the prize at the conclusion of an effective political negotiation, but as the opportunity to love the one who had been cast as his enemy, to humanize him and recognize him as his brother.

Which is why his example is so good for me.  I am no diplomat.  My entire knowledge of international diplomacy comes from observing Jed Bartlett and Leo Magarry in the Situation room of the West Wing.  I, frankly, have no idea how to solve the geopolitical intricacies of the war in Syria.

I am not a diplomat.  I am a Priest.  But as a Priest I know the road to true peace is to love and to pray.  

Mother Teresa used to say: “Smile five times a day at someone you don't really want to smile at; do it for peace. Let us radiate the peace of God and so light His light and extinguish in the world and in the hearts of all men all hatred and love for power.”

Or, as Dorothy Day used to say, “My prayer from day to day is that God will so enlarge my heart that I will see you all, and love with you all, in God’s love.”  

“The Spirit” Pope Francis taught last year, “frees hearts chained by fear…[the Spirit] does not revolutionize life around us, but changes our hearts. It does not free us from the weight of our problems, but liberates us within so that we can face them.”

“By the working of the Holy Spirit, joy is reborn and peace blossoms in our hearts.”

So pray for peace.  Even when you are afraid. Even when you are angry. Pray for peace. And listen for that knock on all the doors you have locked. It is the Lord, who breathes his Spirit upon you and gives you the peace the world cannot give. 

Funeral Homily for Sister Mary Horgan, SP

What can separate us from the love of Christ? Sickness? Suffering? The burden of our accumulating years? Mourning? The sorrow of a broken heart as we walk from the grave?

In all of these, we are more than conquerers, for nothing, not even death can separate us from the love of Christ. And I know that because Sister Marie Visitation, Sister Mary Horgan, taught me that from the time I was little. By her words, but even more by her example, she taught me that God is faithful, God is tender and that God is love.

Which is why I know that God inspired her superior in 1954, when she received the name of Sister Marie Visitation. For through this visitation, God would teach us of his faithfulness, his tenderness and his love.

God is Faithful

For Mary of Puritan Avenue knew the heart of Mary of Nazareth, who upon learning that God had chosen her to be the Mother of the Word Incarnate did not panic (as you or I may have done) or circled the wagons and withdrew within herself. Rather, moved by the great mystery of love which had been conceived in her womb, she remembered the last thing the angel had announced and hastened to Ein Keram to be with her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, now six months pregnant.

To quote our beloved Pope emeritus, “When she reaches Elizabeth's house, an event takes occurs that no artist could ever portray with the beauty and the intensity with which it took place. The interior light of the Holy Spirit enfolds their persons. And Elizabeth, enlightened from on high, exclaims: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!’”¹

Elizabeth could count on Mary’s faithfulness to her, and Mary could count on her cousin’s faithful love. Which is why she spent six months, caring for Elizabeth, until the Baptist came into the world.

How many of you, dear sisters, knew Sister Mary’s faithful love…faithful to this community, faithful to the Gospel and faithful to the spiritual life. It is a love at one faithful and tender.

God is Tender

For Mary of Puritan Avenue knew Mary of Nazareth’s Tender Love for the Anawim Yahweh, the little ones of God. She went to her cousin Elizabeth because she knew she needed her. She was in need of her love and support. The old and pregnant Elizabeth had become part of the Anawim Yahweh, and God’s tender love made Mary’s her heart ache for her. 

Our own Sister Mary knew the Anawim in the Orphaned, the aged and the infirm, the sick and those who suffer, the ones whom everyone else tries to forget. Sister Mary knew that God wanted her to spend her life seeking them out: from the little children to the sick to those who were alone, persecuted and afraid. 

They are the ones of whom Christ says, whatever you do to the least of these you do to me.² Mary sought Christ in the weakest, the littlest and the ones most in need of his love.

That’s why, when she helped to discern the common goals by which Providence has been guided for almost twenty years, they included service to “women, the earth, and those who are poor.” For the poor includes our mother the earth, which Pope Francis reminds us be loved through the eyes of Saint Francis: who, “whenever he would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, [would] burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise…., inviting them ‘to praise the Lord, just as if they were endowed with reason.’”³

And Mary knew to that the Anawim Yahweh included those women who are forgotten, abused, disrespected and disempowered, even within the Church. So did Sister Mary repeatedly call us back to the example of Mary, the Mother of the Church, to recognize, in the words of Pope Francis again, the sad history of  “male authoritarianism, domination, [and] various forms of enslavement”⁴ and abuse of women. Mary of Nazareth and Mary of Puritan Avenue would both applaud those words, and even more, the actions that should follow.

God is Loving

But most of all the icon of the Visitation is the icon of love. The love between two cousins, two strong women, who recognize the indispensable role they had been given in God’s great work of salvation. 

So did Mary, by the love of her sisters in Providence, model for us for 66 years what it meant to take vows and live them, with fidelity, enthusiasm and love. As in the Visitation, Mary found a model how her sisters could love one another. For who but another woman who carried the mystery of life within her womb could rejoice with the Blessed Virgin. “Both of them experienced what was humanly unexplainable and humbly accepted their gift in faith.”⁵ That was how Mary loved each sister in this room and each with whom she worked for sixty-six years.

So did Mary, by the love of her family, ever faithful to her through Sister Anne and Sheila and nieces and nephews and grand-nieces and grand-nephews galore. Sheila told me the hardest thing about these last few years were the empty chairs for the sisters, who bore that name in ways so much deeper than most people could comprehend.

And yet, all of that love, which we came to know in our visitation with this good woman, is but a mere shadow, a vague reflection of the love of God. Our Sister Mary was not perfect. None of us are. And she would want this homily and this day to not be about her, but about the God who showed us his fidelity, his tenderness and his love through her.

But she would want us to pray for her. That a God so rich in mercy, might through this Holy Eucharist forgive whatever sins she might have committed and lead her gently home to heaven.

So let us pray for Mary, our sister in so many ways, recalling all the while what it will be like when Mother Catherine Horan, Mother Mary of Providence, runs out to meet Sister Marie Visitation. I suspect, your blessed founder might even modify her typical advice on perdurance, for I can imagine her embracing Mary, with the words: ‘Come home and rest, with the assurance of all you have done, and give thanks to God for all he has accomplished through you.’⁶

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1 - Pope Benedict XVI, 31 May 2008. Cf. Luke 1:42.

2 - Matthew 25:45.

3 - Laudato Si, no. 11.

4 - Pope Francis, 2 April 2019.

5 - Pope Benedict XVI, 14 May 2018.

6 - “Never rest on what has been done, but rather press forward to what remains to be accomplished.”  Mother Mary of Providence.