Camino Pilgrims III

We are about to leave for Ascension Thursday Mass, yesterday was without doubt the toughest day, we walked close to 40 kilometers across some mountains to arrive at a small town Acebo late at night. Here we met a French man who was generous to pay for us to stay in an albergue-shelter. The previous night we spent in Astorga at their seminary, which is actually no longer in use. 

On the Camino they have come to know us as the juggling priests...even though those who are in cassocks are not the most important part of the show...haha

Thank you for all your prayers; we continue to remain united through prayer.

Camino Pilgrims II

From the Road to Campostela:

We are now waking up in Villar de Mazarife, located about 20 km from Leon, and will soon head out and we expect to walk close to 30 km today. 

We stayed our first night at a Benedictine Monastery in Leon, where we were given shelter for free. And it was close by to the beautiful gothic Cathedral, where Don Eduardo, the rector of the Cathedral and former seminary rector, was extremely friendly in receiving our group even to the extent of buying tapas and 'café con leche' for us and giving us a small tour. 

We had great success with the juggling thus far, it has been fun putting forth these shows! We had three shows the first day (Sunday) and one before we left on Monday and one when we arrived in Villar de Mazarife. 

I hope to write to you again soon, know we are well and already on the Camino on pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James. We keep all of you in our prayers, please continue to pray for us!

On the Way to Astorga

A Prayer for our Pilgrims

Several of our seminarians have embarked with a group on the Camino, a pilgrimage on foot of over a week to Santiago di Compostela in Galicia, Spain.  They are juggling and singing for their supper along the way.  Stay tuned to this blog for posts from along the pilgrim path in the days to come.

In the meantime, here's an ancient prayer of the Camino pilgrim which I ask that we pray for them over the next week...

O God, who brought your servant Abraham out of the land of the Chaldeans, protecting him in his wanderings, who guided the Hebrew people across the desert, we ask that you watch over us,
your servants, as we walk in the love of your name to Santiago de Compostela.

Be for us our companion on the walk,
Our guide at the crossroads,
Our breath in our weariness,
Our protection in danger,
Our albergue on the Camino,
Our shade in the heat,
Our light in the darkness,
Our consolation in our discouragements,
And our strength in our intentions.

So that with your guidance we may arrive safe and sound at the end of the Road and enriched with grace and virtue we return safely to our homes filled with joy.  In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

O, Holy Apostle Santiago, pray for us.

Santa Maria, pray for us.

Saint John, pray for us.

Saints Peters and Paul, pray for us.

Juggling pins and backpacks awaited the pilgrims

departure this morning at SJS.

"Peace is not something which can be bought or sold"

"Peace is not something which can be bought or sold; peace is a gift to be sought patiently and to be "crafted" through the actions, great and small, of our everyday lives. The way of peace is strengthened if we realize that we are all of the same stock and members of the one human family; if we never forget that we have the same Father in heaven and that we are all his children, made in his image and likeness."

                            - Homily during Mass at the Amman International Stadium (24 May 2014)

Nine New Priests for Boston

Among those ordained today were our own Father George Fitzsimmons, Father Karlo Hocurscak, and Father Jiwon Yoon.  The Video of the ordination (via Catholic TV) can be accessed by clicking here.  Here is a text of Cardina O'Malley's Homily:

“Today’s criticism of Jesus in the Gospel, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them,” is what occasions today’s teaching about the shepherd and the lost sheep.  Just as when the Pharisees criticized Jesus with the very same complaint about the party at Levi, and Zacchaeus’ place.

Jesus is the friend of sinners and is always reaching out to those who are on the margins and He brings them center stage; the tax collector and prostitutes, the beggars, the blind, the lame and the halt. 

Today’s Gospel describes the Good Shepherd who is willing to leave the company of the 99 and seek out the one lost sheep.  We might be tempted to say, let the one lost sheep be an insurance claim or a tax write off.

The shepherd seeks his lost sheep with determination until he finds it.  And when he finds it He carries it on his shoulders with great joy.  The bishop’s vestments speak to us of our pastoral responsibilities.  The crosier, the crook, is to ward off the wolves and coyotes and to rescue the lambs that stray into harmful paths.

The pallium is made from the wool of lambs blessed on the feast of St. Agnes and woven by the Benedictine nuns and kept on top of the tomb of St. Peter in St. Peter’s Basilica.  It is supposed to represent the figure of the Good Shepherd carrying the lamb on his shoulders.  The black on the ends is supposed to symbolize the hoofs of the sheep.  Each Archbishop receives the pallium from the Pope.  This pallium I received from the hand of Pope Saint John Paul II.

Let it be a reminder to all of us that the Good Shepherd carries the lost sheep home rejoicing.  The image of the Good Shepherd is the most common of the symbolic representations of Christ found in the early Christian art in the Catacombs of Rome, before Christian imagery could be more explicit.  A cross was never displayed.  It was too dangerous.

The form of the image showing a young man carrying a lamb around his neck was directly borrowed from the older pagan statues called kriophoros which means: “The lamb beaver” and referred to the pagan god Hermes.

The Christians used it as a clandestine symbol since Jesus uses the metaphor of the Good Shepherd as one of the principal ways to communicate who He is, His love and care for us and His willingness to lay down His life for each of us.

Pope Francis’ Chrism Mass homily last year made quite a splash by his statement that the shepherd should have the smell of the sheep.  I proposed a sniff test for last year’s ordination class.

In this year’s masterful Chrism homily, the Holy Father reminds us priests that in our priestly ordination, Christ has anointed us with the oil of gladness.  We must appreciate the great gift: the gladness, the joy of being a priest.  Priestly joy, the Holy Father says “is a priceless treasure not only for the priest himself but for the entire faithful people of God.

Pope Francis says that the priest is anointed with the oil of gladness so as to anoint others with the oil of gladness.  The Holy Father says priestly joy has three significant features.  He has a great line, the Pope says “It is a joy which anoints us (not one that “greases” us, making us unctuous, sumptuous and presumptuous); it is a joy which is imperishable and it is a missionary joy which spreads and attracts, starting backwards – with those farthest away from us.

I would like to reflect for a moment on this missionary joy of the Good Shepherd.  The Good Shepherd has a special love and concern for the one who is farthest away, most ungrateful, perhaps even hostile to the rest of the flock.  The Good Shepherd does not say that recalcitrant rebel deserves to be eaten by the wolf or end up as road kill on the highway of life, but rather risks all to pursue the lost sheep and does not stop until he finds it.  And when he finds that lost sheep, he does not beat it with a stick or yell at it.  The Good Shepherd lifts the sheep and places him lovingly on his shoulders and carries him home.  And then the Good Shepherd assembles his friends and neighbors as the Gospel tells us and invites them, “Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.”

Today, the Good Shepherd is saying to our ordinands, “Rejoice with me”.  Have this same missionary joy, always anxious to seek out and find the lost sheep.  Let that be your passion and the source of your joy.  It even causes joy in Heaven.

Last Thursday we gathered at the Pastoral Center for a ceremony to launch the process of Beatification for the Servant of God, Fr. Joseph Muzquiz, who worked for many years in the Archdiocese of Boston.  Fr. Joseph used to say that when a salesman makes a sale, he gets a commission.  If he makes no sale, he gets nothing.  On the other hand when we present the Gospel, reach out to a sinner, try to convince the lost sheep, we get the commission just for trying.

The keen realization that we are moving from a cultural Catholicism to an intentional Catholicism, underscores the need to be an energetic evangelizer, never passing up an opportunity to invite, to encourage, to evangelize.

The second reading from tomorrow’s Mass is taken from the first letter of Peter; our first Papal Encyclical declares: “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence.”

The priest today cannot be absconded in the rectory waiting for the lost sheep to come and ring the door bell; he must go out.  Pope Francis says that when a priest tries to find his priestly identity by soul searching and introspection, may well encounter “exit” signs that say: exit from yourself, exit to seek God in adoration, go out and give your people what is entrusted to you, for your people will make you feel and taste who you are, what your name is, what your identity is, and they will make you rejoice in that hundredfold which the Lord has promised to those who serve Him.

Whoever is in Christ, is a new creation as St. Paul tells us.  Your ordination makes you a new creation and an instrument of reconciliation in a world fraught by division.

You are Christ’s ambassadors, His messengers, His reconcilers.  One of the greatest joys of a priest is to bring those words of comfort – Go in peace, your sins are forgiven.  That means more than giving someone a million dollars, the assurance of God’s love and mercy.

To be a good confessor, you must be a good penitent.  Use the sacrament of God’s mercy to deepen your own conversion.  What a great photo of Pope Francis going to confession in St. Peter’s.

The confessional is the emergency room of the field hospital that is the Church.  Learn to be a man of compassion and mercy so as to help your people experience God’s healing mercy.

Jesus makes use of the shepherd image to describe God’s unfailing concern for those who have gone astray.  Jesus calls Himself the Good Shepherd who is willing to lay down His life for the sheep.  Jesus even quotes from the prophet Zechariah: “They shall strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.”  But Jesus, the Risen Lord, returns as the Good Shepherd to gather those scattered disciples and frightened followers to Himself.

One important feature of the shepherding image in Scriptures is courage.  The courage of Jesus is both strong and gentle.  Above all, it is courage for others, not a courage for his own defense or aggrandizement.

There is courage in the words of Jesus.  Throughout the Gospel, Jesus us put to the test and challenged by His opponents.  Should we render tribute to Caesar?  Should we stone this adulterous woman?  Why do you heal on the Sabbath?  Why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners?  Jesus’ answers are both calm and fearless.  They spring from an inner strength that comes from His oneness with the Father.  There is courage in the actions of Jesus.  He touches lepers and speaks to the possessed.  He rides into Jerusalem knowing that His enemies are watching every move.  He boldly drives the moneychangers from the temple.

There is courage in the sufferings of Jesus.  He willingly shares the lot of the poor, the homeless, the exiled.  He rejects the comforts of family and possessions.  He accepts the friendship of those who misunderstand Him, and even betray and deny Him.  He overcomes temptations and in His agony in Gethsemane, finds a way to bend His fear and sorrow to the Father’s Will.

He endures taunts, flogging and crucifixion because He knows that it is the way love requires.

Such is the courage of the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the Flock.

Too often we lack the courage that shepherding requires.  We lean desperately on the goodwill and praise of others or on the reassurance of possessions and of social standing, because we lack trust in our own worth without these external validations.  When we lack an inner wholeness, we do not have the grace to speak to others with both tenderness and strength.  It matters too much that the other is pleased and too little whether we speak the truth.  We cannot be shepherds so long as comfort is our main concern and so long as the roads through the wilderness are too lonely and too dangerous for us.

We will find that courage to lead God’s people, only through our prayer life and the support of priestly fraternity.  Without Him, we can do nothing.  Without each other, we can do little.

The Good Shepherd was born in Bethlehem, which means the House of Bread, and was laid in a manger, a feed box.

Today, the tabernacle is the manger and we are the shepherds called to feed Christ’s flock.  We must be men of the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity; we who eat of the one loaf become one body.

We must work tirelessly to achieve unity and fellowship in Christ’s Church.

The Good Shepherd washes the feet of the disciples and entrusts to us the mission of feeding new generations of disciples.  Jesus asks us as He did Peter, Do you love me…then feed my sheep.  There is so much spiritual hunger in our world, waiting to be fed by faithful shepherds.

May Mary, Mother of the Divine Shepherd, make you priests according to her Son’s own heart.  May your ministry abound with the missionary joy, born of giving your life for God’s people and seeking out those who have stormed off, dozed off, or just drifted away.  Put them lovingly on your shoulders and rejoice with the Good Shepherd.”

Vox Clara Committee Meets in Rome

The Vox Clara Committee just completed several days of meetings in Rome. Here's the Press Release made available just a few minutes ago.

VOX CLARA COMMITTEE

PRESS RELEASE

May 19-20, 2014

The Vox Clara Committee met from May 19-20, 2014 in Rome. This Committee of senior Bishops from Episcopal Conferences throughout the English-speaking world was formed by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on July 19, 2001 in order to provide advice to the Holy See concerning English-language liturgical books and to strengthen effective cooperation with the Conferences of Bishops in this regard.

The Vox Clara Committee is chaired by Cardinal George Pell (Prefect of the Holy See’s Secretariat for the Economy). Participants in the May 19-20, 2014 meeting included Bishop Thomas Olmsted, First Vice-Chairman (Phoenix), Cardinal Justin Rigali, Treasurer (Philadelphia, Emeritus), Archbishop Alfred Hughes (New Orleans, Emeritus) and Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J. (Ottawa). Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Second Vice-Chairman (Bombay), Bishop Arthur Serratelli, Secretary (Paterson), Cardinal Francis George, O.M.I. (Chicago) and Cardinal John Tong Hon (Hong Kong), Archbishop Michael Neary (Tuam) and Bishop David McGough (Birmingham, Auxiliary) were unable to be present for this meeting.

Also assisting the meeting were Monsignor James P. Moroney (Executive Secretary), Reverend Dennis McManus (expert), Monsignor Gerard McKay (advisor), Reverend Joseph Briody (special assistant) and Reverend Gerard Byrne (special assistant). Reverend Jeremy Driscoll, O.S.B (expert) and Abbot Cuthbert Johnson, O.S.B. (advisor) were unable to be present.

The representatives of the Holy See included the Delegate to the Vox Clara Committee, Reverend Anthony Ward, S.M., Undersecretary of the Congregation, accompanied by officials of the Congregation.

The Committee heard reports on the reception of the Roman Missal in the English-speaking world and a variety of practical matters.

The Committee spent the greatest amount of time reviewing the ICEL Gray Book Translations of the Ordo Celebrandi Matrimonium and the Ordo Confirmationis as recently approved by several English-speaking Conferences of Bishops. The Committee was grateful for the quality of these translations and developed a limited list of recommendations concerning their refinement which it submitted to the Congregation.

The Committee also approved plans for the completion of a revision of the Ratio Translationis for the Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia in accordance with Liturgiam authenticam, no. 9.

Archbishop Arthur Roche, Secretary of the Congregation, joined the Vox Clara Committee for the first morning of its work. The Secretary thanked the members “for the painstaking process” which they followed in reviewing the ICEL translations and extended to the members the gratitude of the Congregation for their advice.

This was the twenty-third meeting of the Vox Clara Committee which will continue its work in October of 2014.

Closing Mass and Festivites

On Thursday we celebrated the closing Mass for this academic year, followed by the traditional cookout and bocci tournament.  Here's my homily, followed by some photos of the day (just before everyone got in their cars and went home to their summer assignments!)

Homily

Well, its almost over.  And I daresay the exams, the composites and the papers are gratefully fading from view, as you imagine the day you will be ordained and your first Mass, or what the parish will be like, or the country you’ll be visiting, or even the year you’ve decided to take off from formation.  So much ahead of you, and all in pursuit of one goal: to figure out what God wants of you, whether he wants you to be a Priest.

And not just any priest, a Diocesan Priest, a parish priest for the rest of your life.  

Nearly seventy years ago, there was a young and talented Bishop’s secretary whose reflections on parish priesthood were offered at Our Lady of the Presentation Church, where our lecture hall stands today.  He was preaching at a celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Father Daniel Donovan, OLP Pastor.  Father John Wright had just left the Seminary as a teacher of Logic and was now serving as secretary to the newest Archbishop of Boston, Richard Cushing.

Father Wright, who would later in his life found my home Diocese and later still serve as a Cardinal of the Roman Church, was an outstanding orator, and offered these words on who you seek to be:

This vocation, to serve the diocese in obedience to a bishop, has a dignity of its own. It's apostolate is permanent and never changing, as the essential needs of men for Christ's priesthood are unchanging.

The great religious orders, with their particular vocations, come into existence and respond to the particular needs of certain epochs and certain places; and they dissolve and disappear when the need which first brought them into being itself no longer exists.

But the diocesan priest must meet the needs of all the faithful and at all times.

He is not the son of St. Ignatius, but he must have all the soldierly obedience of the Jesuit and a readiness to swallow his pride for the sake of objectives higher than himself.

He is not the son of St. Francis, but he must be possessed of the genial joy that comes of a priestly heart unfreighted with the vulgar baggage of place or property or preferment.

He is not the son of St. Benedict, nor of St. Bernard, nor of any other of the great founders of priestly communities, but he must always find his companionship in the fraternity of his fellow priests and share the community of their burdens.

The diocesan priest is not the son of St. Dominic, but all the love of the preachers for God's holy Word must be his as week in, week out, he preaches the law of the Gospel and tries to remember, in daily contact with his people this secret: that the voice which penetrates the hearts of the hearer is the voice commanded by the speaker’s own life; because what his word enjoins, his example helps to bring about.

He is constituted a priest by his obedience to the apostles, in their successors, the Bishops. It is by his obedience that he becomes assimilated to the priesthood of Christ, as it was by Christ's obedience that he became himself a Priest.

By the act of your will by which you become one with Christ in loving obedience to him and to his Church, your human personality becomes veiled before the eyes of men and even those of God.  In you…God sees no longer a man pleading before him, but his own Son, the co-sharer of his nature.  To his altar you daily bring bread and wine, but God still sees the Upper Room and hears his Christ blessing these species…

From the pulpit you preach, and the accent is yours and all the style.  But God, listening to you, hears the voice of his own Son, our own Teacher, the Master, the Christ….

Then if in joy you come to him finally with a lifelong priesthood manifestly fruitful in triumphs for Christ, God will see you resplendent with a glory happily not your own, for the Creator of Light is not dazzled by the brilliance of any creature, but rather Christ’s, the light of his own Light, lumen de lumine.

And if, mayhap, you come to him somehow defeated, beaten, or betrayed in all you strove to do to bring his Kingdom to pass on earth, then you may still lift your confident gaze to him, for he will see in your eyes, since you are with Christ, the blended tears of two: yours and those of his Son!

That is the Priesthood we seek and for which God still seeks men like you and me. May God draw you closer to his will this summer and every day of the rest of your lives.