Bereavement and the Order of Christian Funerals

I presented the following reflection to a workshop on Bereavement Ministry at the Pastoral Center in the Archdiocese of Boston this morning,

On Friday, forty-eight hours after his decision to die in our home, Dad slipped beyond responding. We still talked softly to him as we moistened his lips, bathed him, or changed his pajamas. At this point the work of dying was physical, like the early labor of childbirth. I thought how appropriate the obstetrical term labor was; it looked like hard work. Dad was sweating, his heart raced, and his breathing was rapid. There was no way to know what he was feeling. We sat by him and held his hand and adjusted his pillows and kept his lips moist and forehead cool.

There was little for us to do, and none of us wanted to leave his side. Less than twenty minutes later, Mom woke us to report that Dad's breathing had abruptly changed. He appeared suddenly to be relaxed, as if the work, whatever it had been, was over. He was peaceful, no longer sweating, and is breathing was easy and deep, though irregular. Mom stood touching his foot, and Anita and I sat on each side of his bed touching his arms, as he drew his last breath and left. For the next hour we continued our vigil: hugging one another, crying intermittently, grieving openly and together.

What is it about being present at the moment of the last breath that moves us so deeply and unequivocally? What is it . . . ? Is it the act of dying? The pain? The uncertainty,' The fear? What is it that calls us, demands of it our undivided attention? It is the dead human body which so mercilessly shocks us out of our incessant presumption that our bodies and the bodies of those we love will never die? Strangely deaf to the ashes which mark each Lent, we spend a lifetime evading that dust which is our destiny.

But at that one deathbed moment we cannot evade the mortal truth. There it's all-too-clear. Or, as a wise women once wrote:

To witness death ... places the same sort of demands on a person as the receiving of a confession of sin. It demands that one has come to terms rather radically with one's own approaching death as a dimension of life in the present.  At the moment of death it all comes home starkly, unambiguously and without equivocation. This body will, sooner or later, die . . . and decay . . . and be buried.

And how does the Church respond to the stark reality of death?  Simply put, she “ministers to the sorrowing and consoles them in the funeral rites with the comforting word of God and the sacrament of the eucharist.” (OCF, no. 00)  Thus does she bring “hope and consolation to the living.”

The rites for Christian Burial are contained in the Order of Christian Funerals, a book heavily adapted for the English speaking world and confirmed for use in the Dioceses of the United States of America in in 1987.

The introduction or praenotanda to this liturgical book describes a twofold purpose to the Church’s rites and prayers from death to burial.  The first is the proclamation of the Paschal Mystery….

The second purpose of her rites grows from and reinforces the first.  It is described as her “Ministry of Consolation” in three acts: “to care for the dying, to pray for the dead, to comfort those who mourn.”

CARING FOR THE DYING

The care for the dying itself is in two parts: before and after death.  Before death, the Church accompanies the dying Christian with the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick and the other rites contained in her rite of Pastoral Care of the Sick and Dying, culminating in the giving of Viaticum and the commendation of the dying to the hands of God.  

After death the Church pays a debt of prayer to the deceased Christian, offering the Holy Eucharist for the redemption of her soul and seeking to pray her into heaven, confident in God’s infinite mercy.

COMFORTING THOSE WHO MOURN

It is the third moment of this Ministry of Consolation, however, which comes closest to your theme today in the Church’s comforting of those who mourn, in fulfillment of the Lord’s command: "Blessed are they who mourn; they shall be consoled" (Matthew 5:3)

The responsibility for this ministry “rests with the believing community…each Christian shares in this ministry according to the various gifts and offices in the Church.”

THE PRIEST CONSOLES

Thus priests and the ministers of the Church “instruct the parish community on the Christian meaning of death and on the purpose and significance of the Church's liturgical rites for the dead.”  They remind us that our sorrow is like that of the Sorrowful Virgin and a participation in the death of her Son upon the cross.  

They teach us to recall how he suffered the torments of the passion: his flesh torn by whips, his side pierced by a lance, he bled real blood and knew the pain of being a man. And when they hung his arms from a cross beam, his lungs gasped a last breath and He died. His friends embraced his dead body as it was taken down from the cross. They carried the cold and bloodied corpse to a tomb, wept bitter tears and rolled a rock across its entrance. Three days later they returned to anoint and embrace Him for one last time. On that day this body rose, "the first of many brothers," triumphantly He rose-and by His rising showed us that as He has done, so also we shall do in these poor bodies of ours.

In the face of all this, priests proclaim that we preach a counter-cultural approach to death: which demands an intimacy with death and with the bodies of those who have died:

1) We believe that we were joined to Christ's own death in baptism, that as Our bodies were washed in the waters of the font, we were inserted into the pascha of Him whose grave is the portal to eternal life;

2) We believe that we are separated from those who have died for but a little while, and so with "Sure and certain hope" we place their bodies in the earth, waiting like the women at the tomb, for them to be raised for judgment in the fullness of time;

3) And each day we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ who will raise these mortal bodies Of Ours and clothe them in an incorruptibility born of His divinity. and while we wait, we pray

-confident that all who die with Him will live with Him

-confident that God hears the prayers of the Church

-confident in God's love for us and His mercy ...

THE FAITHFUL CONSOLE

So too, do the Christian faithful share in this Ministry of Consolation.  Such a ministry is particularly challenging in a day and age which sees bereavement and consolation as essentially private or familial affairs.  But the birth of the Christian unto eternal life is anything but private.  It is the fulfillment of their Baptismal dying and rising with Christ and their incorporation into his Body the Church.  The hope which sustains us, even in the face of death, is that we have been made one with the firstborn of many brothers.

Thus does the Order of Christian Funerals suggest that all the members of every parish assume the responsibility to “respond to the anguish voiced by Martha, the sister of Lazarus: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would never have died" (John 11:21).  They do this by proclaiming with their lives the same words which the Lord spoke in love: "Your brother will rise again…. I am the resurrection and the life: those who believe in me, though they should die, will come to life; and those who are alive and believe in me will never die" (John 11:25-26). Thus does “the faith of the Christian community in the resurrection of the dead brings support and strength to those who suffer the loss of those whom they love.”

But words alone are not sufficient to the task, and the second aspect of their Ministry of Consolation of the Christian community must be marked by “acts of kindness, for example, assisting them with some of the routine tasks of daily living. Such assistance may allow members of the family to devote time to planning the funeral rites with the priest and other ministers and may also give the family time for prayer and mutual comfort.”

Finally, the Christian community is called upon to exercise its “principal involvement in the ministry of consolation” by their “active participation in the celebration of the funeral rites…” For just as the celebration of the Holy Eucharist is the source and the summit of the entire Christian life, so too the Funeral Mass is at the heart of the Church’s consolation of the bereaved.

Imagine for a moment, or recall if you will, the moment you first saw the dead body of a person you once loved.  You walk into the Funeral Home, filled with for boding and maybe even a bit queasy.  Then you look across the room and see the body in which Mark has lived all these years.  The body that embraced you, that shook your hand, that smiled when you spoke his name and laughed at your worst jokes.  The eyes that teared up when you were sad and gazed with pride at your many accomplishments.  

At that moment you miss your friend, you’d do anything to have just five minutes more to hear his voice.  There’s an emptiness, a god of uncertainty that seems to suck the air out of the room.  And then you hear the Church pray:

Lord our God,

the death of our brother Mark

recalls our human condition

and the brevity of our lives on earth. But for those who believe in your love

death is not the end,

nor does it destroy the bonds

that you forge in our lives.

We share the faith of your Son’s disciples

and the hope of the children of God.

Bring the light of Christ’s resurrection

to this time of testing and pain

as we pray for Mark and for those who love him

through Christ our Lord.

Such rites of consolation are the reason we do not mourn like those who have no hope.

Another rich source of Christian consolation in the Order of Christian Funerals is found in a collection of original prayers which are unique to the English-Language edition.  Here we find thirteen general texts, as well as prayers specific to the burial of a Bishop, a Priest, a Deacon, a religious or one who worked in the service of the Gospel.  Prayers for the death of a child, a young person, a parent or a married couple, a husband or a wife are also found along with particular prayers for a deceased non-Christian married to a Catholic, an elderly person, one who died after al long illness, one who died suddenly, am accidental or violent death and one who died by suicide.  

There are fifteen additional prayer texts specifically for mourners themselves.  And while I would strongly recommend your study and contemplation of each of these prayers, allow me to examine just two of them in depth for the purposes of our reflection on bereavement and the Order of Christian Funerals.

The first is the last of all these prayers and is intended for the Funeral of a stillborn child.  The prayer brings me back to the sad days I walked with a couple about a decade ago as they buried their second child, born prematurely at ten weeks.  

Their three year old, Martin, took it very hard.  I remember going with him and his father to visit Sarah in the hospital late on the day in which their son Timothy died during birth.  Martin ran over to his mother and immediately placed his little hand on her stomach.  “I know, I know,” he said with excitement in his voice, “Mommy just eat more spinach and Timothy will be OK again!”

All we could do was weep, and hug little Martin to consolation.  And pray, in these words:

Lord God,

ever caring and gentle,

we commit to your love this little one,

quickened to life for so short a time.

Enfold him in eternal life.

We pray for his parents

who are saddened by the loss of their child.

Give them courage

and help them in their pain and grief. May they all meet one day

in the joy and peace of your kingdom.

Through Christ our Lord.

What does the prayer seek to do?  It does the same thing we are called to do in every act of consolation in face of death.  When God seems cruel and almost violent in the face of the death of one so little and innocent and pure, we are reminded that he is caring and gentle.  We commit the child to God’s loving embrace.

The somewhat archaic phrase “quickened to life for so short a time” articulates perfectly the flash of beauty which was the presence of this child in our family for so short a time.

We admit sadness, how could we not, and loss and pain and grief.  But then we pray for courage and remind them of the vision God may grant them at the end of time when they might run out to see Timothy and all who have died in Christ and bask with them in the glory of the Kingdom of God for all eternity.

Having examined the last of the optional prayers for mourners I would now invite you to hear the first and the longest of these prayers.  The prayer is in three parts.  The first, like every Roman Collect, addressed God and professes our faith in him.  This is followed by two sets of question: The first asking for comfort and peace and the lat for Faith.

First, the profession of faith:

Father of mercies and God of all consolation,

you pursue us with untiring love

and dispel the shadow of death with the bright dawn of life.

This is a uniquely contemporary prayer, almost echoing the famous poem by Francis Thompson, The Hound of Heaven.  God is not only the author of all consolation and the one who dispels death’s dark shadow with the bright dawn of life, but he is the one who pursues us, runs after us, follows us with his untiring love. 

As we contemplate the life of the deceased we are naturally led to comparisons with our own journey.  We think of the paths we have chosen, some leading us closer to Christ, some leading us further away.  But no matter where we wander, even into the shadow of death, Christ’s love never grows tired and he ever seeks to light our path and embrace us with his love.

So following this setup of the wandering Christian and the untiring pursuer, we make the first ask:

Comfort your family in their loss and sorrow.

Be our refuge and our strength O Lord,

and lift us from the depths of grief

into the peace and light of your presence.

This is a very Biblical prayers, drawn largely from the Psalms.  Just as we have recalled that God’s light dispels the Shadow of Death (Psalm 23) now we ask God to be our refuge and strength (Psalm 46) and to lift us from the depths of grief (de profundis, Psalm 129) into this presence.  Here we might recall the words of Saint Augustine that our hearts never truly rest until they rest in God.  So too, stricken by grief and pain and fear and sin, our hearts never rest until they know the peace and light of God’s presence.

This leads us to the second and more extended petition:

Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,

by dying has destroyed our death,

and by rising, restored our life.

Enable us therefore to press on toward him,

so that, after our earthly course is run,

he may reunite us with those we love,

when every tear will be wiped away.

Through Christ our Lord.

This last petition recalls the profession we may at the start of the prayer, again in the words of Sacred scripture, dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life.  It is followed a uniquely modern concept, asking for the grace to “press on toward him.”  It is the biblical image of running out to meet Christ at his coming which we find throughout the prayers of Advent and Christmas.  But here the running to Christ is seen to be a pressing on…a difficult task.  How mourners can appreciate such a state, wanting to just sit down on my dung heap and pick at my scabs, to give up and just give in to the misery and grief.  But these consoling words beg God to give us the grace to run our earthly course that God might “reunite us with those we love, when every tear will be wiped away.”

Consolation of the bereaved, then, is not just a matter to wiping tears or giving hugs.  It is a mini try of evangelization, of reminding even those who have been caught up in the web of the darkness of death, that this is all in God’s plan and that it is our task as the living to run all the faster to meet him at his coming that he might make call us to himself and love might triumph.  That is a true ministry of consolation.

CONCLUSION

The Ministry of Consolation, then, is nothing less than the fulfillment of our responsibility to bury the dead.  There are few times in which the meaning of life is more starkly present to us, and few times which the word of faith can have greater effect.

And we who have been Baptized need the Church at just such moments.  When I buried my father, a mere none months ago, I began the Rite of Final Commendation by spontaneously declaring, “I just don’t know how anyone who do this without the Church.”  

As Stephen King once wrote: “The family exists for many reasons, but its most basic function may be to draw together after a member dies.”  And so we draw together in hope and in faith, we the children of the one Father, the brothers and sisters of Jesus, to proclaim his Paschal dying and rising and to rejoice in our share in his redemptive sacrificial love.  

And that is consolation.

Saint Martin and Father Washington

Saint Martin of Tours

Homily

For a good deal of his life, Saint Martin of Tours was a soldier. We know that from his contemporary biographer in the fourth century and from modern scholarship. But more than anything in his biography one story has been most frequently depicted in paintings and literature: the story of Saint Martin and his cloak.

One day, the story goes, Martin the soldier was drawing close to the gates of Amiens, looking forward to relief from a strong driving wind and blowing snow. There, by the side of the road, was a poor and shivering beggar, protected only in a long shirt of light white cloth.

Seeing the shivering man, Martin jumped from his horse, pulled the military cloak from his broad shoulders, and drew his sword from its scabbard. I can only imagine the reaction of the poor beggar at the sight of the long gleaming blade in the hand of this imposing soldier. But the beggar had nothing to fear from Martin, who sliced his cloak in half, wrapping the poor beggar in the larger of the two remaining pieces.

That night Martin saw the beggar in his dreams, still wrapped in half a cloak. But when the Saint looked more closely he recognized the beggar as Jesus, who, looking up at a choir of angels circling above, declared: "Here is Martin, the soldier who clothed me, and is yet to be baptized.” (Sulpicius, ch 2)  Soon thereafter, Martin was baptized into the death and the resurrection of the Lord whom he had looked upon and loved.

How fitting it is that we celebrate the memorial of Saint Martin of Tours on Veterans’ day, as we remember those who have given their blood, their sweat, and often their lives in service to our country. They are the ones who have laid down their lives to preserve and protect the freedoms which we enjoy as a nation and as a people.

I was in Washington D.C. yesterday, and late in the morning I walked down to the World War II Memorial. There, among the lists of those veterans who had died for their country, was the name of a Catholic Priest, Father John P. Washington. Father Washington was born one of seven kids in Newark, New Jersey and was ordained for that Archdiocese from the Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall. After serving in several parishes, he became a military chaplain when Pearl Harbor was bombed and eventually joined three other chaplains, a Methodist, a Rabbi, and a Dutch Reformed minister on board the U.S. Transport ship Dorchester, as it prepared to deliver supplies to the troops in Europe. The four of them became good friends by all accounts and would come to be forever remembered as “the four chaplains.”

Carrying close to a thousand men, the Dorchester was struck by a torpedo in the icy waters off Greenland in February of 1943. It sank in 27 minutes. In the chaotic minutes that followed the attack, six hundred and seventy two men lost their lives. The survivors would later recount how the four chaplains tended immediately to the wounded and consoled the frightened soldiers. As they passed out life jackets to those climbing into rafts, it soon became apparent that there were far from enough, so each chaplain removed his own life jacket and gave it to one of the younger soldiers.

As the ship went down, the four chaplains were seen leading the remaining sailors in prayer with their arms linked as a sign of their faith.

May we learn from Father Washington and his companions and from Saint Martin of Tours, that when we encounter Christ, as the beggar by the road or the sailor about to die or anyone in need, we are called to take off our coat and to give it away.

Pre-Theology Retreat on Ender's Island...

Have you ever seen a happier looking bunch of seminarians?!

Father Romanus Cessario, O.P., Sacrae Theologiae Magister

This afternoon I had the privilege to join Fathers O’Connor and Scorzello in witnessing the conferral of the degree of Master of Sacred Theology on Father Romanus Cessario, O.P. by the Dominican Order.  The Degree is given by the Order of Preachers to its most distinguished scholars and with the reception of this honor, he is henceforth known as the Very Reverend Romanus Cessario, O.P.

The conferral of this Degree is a great blessing to Saint John’s Seminary, where Father Cessario has taught generations of Priests for nearly twenty years.  The entire Saint John’s community is grateful for this well deserved recognition of the extraordinary accomplishments which Father Cessario has achieved as a priest, a scholar, and a faithful son of Saint Dominic. 

In the course of a celebration of Vespers at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington D.C., the following degree was proclaimed:

As it has been commended by the laws of the Church, our Order has always held in great esteem its brothers who, for the defense and explication of the Catholic faith, labor unceasingly and with distinction, by their devout studies and religious efforts, for the understanding of Holy Scripture and the discipline of Sacred Theology. This is has done by honoring them with the degree and tittle of Master.

Since, therefore, we have learned that you are engaged in doctrinal reflection and research, with the Master Saint Thomas Aquinas as your guide and example, and that your works are considered even outside the Order to have great value, and with our own legislation having been observed, we, by the authority of our office make you, Brother Michael Romanus Cessario, OP, a Master in Sacred Theology and, before the entire Order, we inscribe you in the company of Masters.

Given at Rome, from the General Curia of the Order at Santa Sabina, on the 3 day of June in the year of our Lord 2013.

Father Bruno Cadoré, OP, Master of the Order.

Father Cessario was then presented with the S.T.M. ring by the Provincial with these words: “As you have called Wisdom your friend, and you have become a lover of her beauty, you have asked that she become your spouse: Behold. God give her to you as spouse, that she be with you always and possess your heart.  Receive on your hand this ring. Father Bruno Cadoré, Master of the Order of Preachers, in response to the petition to do so from over two-thirds of the delegates in the 2010 Provincial Chapter, has created you and made you a Master in Sacred Theology. And he has given you the power and faculty of publicly presenting, teaching, interpreting, expounding, and defining Sacred Theology. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

After the Provincial seated Father Cessario in the S.T.M. Cathedra he then declared: “You have been promoted to the rank of Master of Sacred Theology, numbering you in the community of teachers and Masters of that discipline. May the Lord so place you there also, and seat you with princes, that you might have a throne of glory.”

This was followed by the presentation of the S.T.M. biretta, which was given with these words: “Receive this biretta, the black cap that is distinctive of Masters: may God so adorn you with a crown of glory.”

After the exchange of a Sign of Peace, the Provincial prayed: “May the Lord cause you to increase by thousands, and may he bless you for all eternity. Amen.”

Zina Schiff Concert a Great Success

Once again, Saint John's was honored to welcome one of Boston's finest violinists, Zina Schiff, a protege of Jascha Heifetz and a dear friend of the Seminary.  A wonderful assembly of more than a hundred and twenty five seminarians and friends of Saint John's gathered to hear a program of Franck, Krein and Bloch in the Chapel of Saint John the Evangelist.  Our thanks to Dr. Janet Hunt for arranging this great musical event!

November Rector's Conference: Thinking with the Pope

I was born eighty three years after the close of the First Vatican Council, during the reign of Pope Pius XII, Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, whose visit to our Chapel in 1936 is marked by bronze letters inset into the marble on the right hand side of the apse.  He died when I was five years old, and then, as his predecessor once said, “When the Pope dies, you get another one tomorrow, because the Church continues.” 

So Blessed (soon Saint) John XXIII reigned until I was in fifth grade, when Paul VI, was elected.  The Council closes and I go to Seminary and while I’m a transitional Deacon, John Paul I; and then a month later, the white smoke goes up for Blessed (soon Saint) John Paul II, and I was there to see it.

Then, while I was a fifty-one year old Monsignor at the Bishops’ Conference, Pope Benedict XVI took his place.  And now, here I am a Seminary Rector with a Pope named Francis.

And the blogsphere is all atwitter (excuse my mixed metaphor) with the implications of the election of Jorge Bergolio and Pope Francis' recent and extended interviews in America magazine and elsewhere.

But nothing new there. As I recall, similar commentators used to say that the problem with Benedict was that he didn't have the charisma of a Wjtoyla.  With John Paul, that he lacked the Curial expertise of a Montini.  With Paul VI, that he wasn't as spontaneous as a Roncalli and with good Pope John that he lacked the intellectual gravitas of a Pacelli.

And so it goes.

Just as it will be with your next Bishop.  If you are twenty-seven years old now, you were in High School when His Eminence came to Boston and Bishop Coleman to Fall River. When it comes to the change of Bishops, you haven’t seen much yet, but you will.

And wait until you see what it's like.  For the one thing I know is that your next Bishop will not be a clone of his predecessor and of course the priests will be all atwitter. As it was in the beginning, so now, the current Bishop is not like his predecessor, who was not like the one before that, who was not like the old one before that...sometimes spoken with a scowl and sometimes a look of sheer relief.

And so it will be a few years from now, when, God willing, a young whipper snapper, fresh out of the seminary, replaces dear Father so and so as the associate in Saint Elsewhere's parish.  The Chrism still moist on your hands, you will be the new character who replaces the beloved or not so beloved old one, and some will lament and some will rejoice....and so it goes.

Which is to say that none of this is new.  Since Linus succeeded Peter some people relate better to this guy and others to the other. This one's a great administrator and a not-so-much scholar.  This one has them weeping in the aisles and the next one has them groaning with boredom.  This one's a real people person while that one's best kept in the office.

Each of us has been given different gifts, and by the grace of God, we will be sent somewhere where they are put to good use, while our many faults will be allowed to lay dormant.  

Priests and Bishops and Popes have different personalities, predilections, strengths and weaknesses.  And like all pastors, they make different decisions depending upon the age, the circumstance and their point of view, like Pope Clement XIV, who suppressed the Jesuits, Pope Pius VII, who favored them, and Pope Francis who is one.

Because you see, it's really true.  There is but one God and he ain't me or the Bishop, or the Pope, or even you.  We really are but  useless servants, who at the end of the day are utterly dependent upon the mercy of God.  

And whether your rector is Moroney or Kennedy, your Pope is Francis or Benedict, your pastor is Hickey or Vianney, our job is not to judge but to figure out what gifts God is offering us in this man and to receive them with a humble and obedient heart.  

The alternative route, already chosen by certain strains of the blogosphere, to declare myself God and judge of the actions of the Holy Spirit.  It is a road paved with equal parts of sarcasm and frustration, and it leads to a very unhappy life.

Which is how Holy Father Francis began his interview.  Who is Jorge Bergolio, he was asked?  

I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner....Yes, perhaps I can say that I am a bit astute, that I can adapt to circumstances, but it is also true that I am a bit naïve....But I am a sinner.

He tells us that he is like Matthew, as Jesus points a finger at him in Caravaggio’s painting.

“...pointing at Matthew. That’s me. I feel like him. Like Matthew. It is the gesture of Matthew that strikes me: he holds on to his money as if to say, ‘No, not me! No, this money is mine.’ Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze. 

Now I trust you’ve read the rest of the interview by now, along with the hundreds of articles by pundits, each with their own take on what it meant to them.  But now I’d ask you to listen to the Holy Father with the ears and the heart of a seminarian or a priest.  And to us, I suggest the Holy Father teaches four very important lessons:

1. How to learn from experience

2. The importance of Consultation and Collegiality

3. People as the Ecclesial Priority

4. Looking for God in All Things

Learning from Experience

So how do you think you’ll be at being Pope, they essentially asked him?  How good are you at governance?  And for the first time in the history of the modern Church, the Pope did something entirely new...entirely refreshing: he began by telling us what he’s not good at!  With the honesty of a First Theology self-evaluation, he confessed how he’s messed up governance in the past.

In my experience as superior in the Society, to be honest...I did not always do the necessary consultation. And this was not a good thing. My style of government as a Jesuit at the beginning had many faults. That was a difficult time for the Society: an entire generation of Jesuits had disappeared. Because of this I found myself provincial when I was still very young. I was only 36 years old. That was crazy. I had to deal with difficult situations, and I made my decisions abruptly and by myself. 

Yes, but I must add one thing: when I entrust something to someone, I totally trust that person. He or she must make a really big mistake before I rebuke that person. But despite this, eventually people get tired of authoritarianism.

My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative. I lived a time of great interior crisis when I was in Cordova. To be sure, I have never been like Blessed Imelda, but I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems.

I say these things from life experience and because I want to make clear what the dangers are. Over time I learned many things. The Lord has allowed this growth in knowledge of government through my faults and my sins. 

Consultation as a Priority

Now notice what God did in the Holy Father’s life and what we can learn from it!  He had a fault, he messed up, and he learned from it.  He avoids the extremes of reacting to a fault...either denying it as not possibly true, since I know that God anointed me with infallibility, or the full fledged panic attack by which I am sure that my latest screw-up will result in the end of the world.

He simply admitted, I didn’t do that very well and learned from it.  And the result was not just a better Bergolio, but through the grace of God, a better Church. 

What started as a personal propensity for an overly centralized and autocratic way of making decisions, has now convinced him of the need for consultation and for collegiality among the other Bishops of the world.  

In recent years, as you have no doubt read, many Bishops have raised the need for more effective structures of collegiality, especially in relationship with actions of the Roman Curia.  The role of the Conferences of Bishops, institutions which by their nature promote collegiality, is at the heart of this issue, as are ways of making the Synod of Bishops a more effective structure.

Listen to what he has to say:

“The consistories [of cardinals], the synods [of bishops] are, for example, important places to make real and active this consultation. We must, however, give them a less rigid form. I do not want token consultations, but real consultations. The consultation group of eight cardinals, this ‘outsider’ advisory group, is not only my decision, but it is the result of the will of the cardinals, as it was expressed in the general congregations before the conclave. And I want to see that this is a real, not ceremonial consultation.”

There’s another application of the Holy Father’s concern which applies closer to home, for the Parish you will serve in as a Priest, God willing, is not your grandfather’s parish.  The ability to collaborate and the instinct to consult widely before the making of any important decision are skills which this Seminary needs to be able to foster in an ever increasing way.  Few of the pastoral initiatives I undertook three decades ago in my first assignment perdured for long after I left Sacred Heart in Webster.  But the ones that did were preceded by extensive consultation...asking peoples’ views and learning as much as I could.

Even as Seminary Rector, I can tell you the most effective and long lasting actions are those which are preceded by respectful and broad based consultation and followed by a careful plan of implementation.  If I sit on my royal throne and issue edicts I will have an audience of one.  If I listen and collaborate and build constituencies, I can shepherd a people into the Kingdom of God.

People as the Ecclesial Priority

Which leads to his second major reflection: the importance of people.  Here, I would suggest, is one of the fundamental pillars of Pope Francis’ pontificate: the notion of the Church as the People of God, as articulated by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council.  in Lumen Gentium, no. 12.  Here an extended look at Lumen Gentium 12 would be helpful.

The holy people of God shares also in Christ's prophetic office; it spreads abroad a living witness to Him, especially by means of a life of faith and charity and by offering to God a sacrifice of praise, the tribute of lips which give praise to His name. The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One,  cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole peoples' supernatural discernment in matters of faith when "from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful" they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. That discernment in matters of faith is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth. It is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority, in faithful and respectful obedience to which the people of God accepts that which is not just the word of men but truly the word of God. Through it, the people of God adheres unwaveringly to the faith given once and for all to the saints, penetrates it more deeply with right thinking, and applies it more fully in its life.

A careful re-reading of the Conciliar texts is indispensable to understanding what the Holy Father is speaking about.  This is because of the enormous role the Council plays in his fundamental orientations towards Church, Theology and life.  Recall that this is the first Pope to have been ordained a priest after the Second Vatican Council and how his formation and a Priest and a Jesuit were so deeply influenced by the conciliar fervor of the late 1960’s.  The conciliar text is, therefore for always and important matrix against which to read the Holy Father’s reflections, as here:

In the history of salvation, God has saved a people. There is no full identity without belonging to a people. No one is saved alone, as an isolated individual, but God attracts us looking at the complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters into this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships.

For some, this is a hard teaching.  A Church made up of individuals, each negotiated their own personal salvation, or a Church identified exclusively with the Bishops, or the Vatican or the Pope himself is a lot easier to take.  But a Church composed of “yea all come” is messy, complex, and always hard to figure out.  

I remember on one First Communion day in a parish where I was pastor many years ago, making the rounds of the parties at parishioners’ houses.  At one house the kids ran out to see Father Jim and promptly announced to the adults in the kitchen, “The Church is here!  The Church is here!”  And while the children’s cute declaration reveals a certain laudable appreciation for the Priesthood, I am not the Church, but one part of it, and we are never the full ecclesial reality until we are all gathered into one by Christ.

Thus does the Holy Father speak of the infallibility of the believing People of God and their ability to teach us essential things, not in the same way as the clergy, but with their own unique charism.  In an exquisite turn of phrase he says:

This is how it is with Mary:  If you want to know who she is, you ask theologians; if you want to know how to love her, you have to ask the people.

Such an appreciation of the Universal Call to Holiness is a shift for us who have experienced an intensified call to more closely examine the uniqueness of the Priesthood in recent years.  But now the Holy Father calls us to acknowledge and embrace the whole Church, to fall more deeply in love with the People of God and to reject any ecclesiology which would seek to purify the Church by cutting off the margins.  Listen to Pope Francis:

This church with which we should be thinking is the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people. We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity. 

And then, as is his want, the Holy Father gives a quite concrete pastoral example of a young man who wrote a simple but beautiful letter to him.  What did the Holy Father do?  He picked up the phone and called his correspondent.  The Holy Father evidently does that quite a bit.  But why?  Here he explains:

I called him because that letter was so beautiful, so simple. For me this was an act of generatively. I realized that he was a young man who is growing, that he saw in me a father, and that the letter tells something of his life to that father. The father cannot say, ‘I do not care.’ This type of fruitfulness is so good for me.”

It seems to me that we have been spending recent years looking for just the right words to effectively implement the New Evangelization.  Maybe, just maybe its not words we need, but actions.  Like a Pope calling someone who writes him a letter, or a pastor responding to a woman’s heartfelt plea, or everyone of us answering our emails and texts with sincerity and paternal love. Maybe, just maybe there’s an important lesson to be had here about how to love and preach to the People of God, not just with our words, but with our lives.

Look for God in All Things

Imagine what it will be like when you arrive in your first parish as a Priest.  Or the first time you walk into the door as the Pastor.  It will be a remarkable day, and you will form relationships that will change you, forever.

But what will be your attitude when you sit at your first Parish Council meeting?  Or your expectations when you meet your first Pastor?  Or your thoughts the first time your pastor or the Director of Religious Education challenges to your comprehensive pastoral plan?

What will you be looking for?  Success or the truth?  Looking for your career or God’s will?

If you look for success I will use every opportunity to change things into your image and likeness.  No one’s ideas will be as good as yours.  No pastoral plan will be safe from your brilliant reforming insights.  And no one will be quite as up to the task as you are, the center of the universe and the Savior of Saint Elsewhere’s parish.  How Blessed are they who are called to your supper!

In a second, less reported interview in La Repubblica, the Holy Father spoke of such a priest as a clericalist.

It ...happens to me that when I meet a clericalist, I suddenly become anti-clerical. Clericalism should not have anything to do with Christianity.  St. Paul, who was the first to speak to the Gentiles, the pagans, to believers in other religions, was the first to teach us that.

Such a clericalist is filled with certainty, born of his own vision, his own will.  He fails to see God in the other, to listen to God’s will in the one whom he meets on the road.  He seeks only to defend his own infallibility.  The Holy Father continues:

If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists­—they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies. I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else—God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.

From where does this trust in God come?  It comes from the patience of the People of God born of prayer, mutual respect and an attitude of joyful expectation of God’s active presence and self-revelation.

We must not focus on occupying the spaces where power is exercised, but rather on starting long-run historical processes. We must initiate processes rather than occupy spaces. God manifests himself in time and is present in the processes of history. This gives priority to actions that give birth to new historical dynamics. And it requires patience, waiting.

...A contemplative attitude is necessary: it is the feeling that you are moving along the good path of understanding and affection toward things and situations. Profound peace, spiritual consolation, love of God and love of all things in God—this is the sign that you are on this right path.

Conclusion

Well, there’s a lot of food for thought.  And bear in mind, this is only the beginning.  For when the Holy Spirit reveals God’s will, through your new pastor, your new Bishop, or your new Pope, he challenges you to open our hearts and minds to the truth and the love which were, which are and which ever will be.

I would like to conclude with one final quote from the Holy Father which we should all take to heart:

The world calls for and expects from us simplicity of life, the spirit of prayer, charity towards all, especially towards the lowly and the poor, obedience and humility. Without this mark of holiness, our word will have difficulty in touching the heart of modern man. It risks being vain and sterile. (Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiadi, no. 76.)

Words which are as true today as when they were spoken by Pope Paul VI thirty-eight years ago.

The More things change, the more they stay the same.  And so it goes.

Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector

ICTE Lectures draw to a close...

It was a great joy being with the Priests of ICTE these past couple of days.  As our time together draws to a close, here are PDFs of all my lectures.

1. Priesthood and Identity

2. Rhetorical Forms of the Roman Liturgy

3. Jerusalem to Rome: Roman Iconography

4. The New Marriage Rite

5. Inclusive Language

6. Inculturation and the Roman Liturgy

7. Build of Living Stones: A Brief Introduction

Questions and Some Answers (link coming soon!)