Alex Boucher Receives Candidacy

Amidst the snows of winter, Alex Boucher, seminarian for the Diocese of Portland, received candidacy from Bishop Deeley last weekend.  The Candidacy celebration took place as a part of the annual Christmas gathering of Portland seminarians in their See city.  Here are some photos from the event.  Congratulations Alex!

Christmas in Hanoi

I just received some pictures from our seminarian Thuy Nguyen of Christmas dinner with his family and classmates from Saint Joseph's Seminary in Hanoi. Thuy was able to return home for Christmas this year. We pray for him and for all our beloved Vietnamese Seminarians, be they in Brighton or Vietnam this Christmas.

Giáng sinh vui vẻ

Christmas in the Adirondacks

We had quite a bit of snow, blowing and drifting with dropping temperatures on Christmas morning, here in the foothills of the Adirondacks.  Here's my homily for Christmas on The Crib and the Cross.

   

Once upon a time there was a great tall tree on a hill in the woods. He stood there all day

long, dreaming of what he might become.  Some days he would dream that he would be carved into a great treasure chest, filled with gold, silver and precious gems and decorated on every side so that everyone would admire his beauty.  On other days he would dream that he would form the massive timbers of a mighty ship which would carry kings and queens across the oceans to the four corners of the world.  He wanted to be great and powerful.

One day a woodsman came and looked up at the tree and cut it down, making it into

neither a beautiful chest nor a mighty ship, but a feed box for the animals. He placed it a barn and filled it with hay. The tree was very sad, because he would never be great nor powerful.

Then one day, a man and woman came to the barn. She gave birth and placed her baby in the feed box, because there was no place for them in the inn.  But then a strange thing happened, as the whole manger seemed to fill with light, and there were angels and a star above the baby’s crib, and shepherds and wise men came to worship the child, not like a baby in a crib, but like a King upon the finest royal throne.

But soon they all left and the memory of that wondrous night began to fade, and over the years the barn grew old and the crib grew rickety, until it was sold for  scrap to some Roman soldiers and carted off to Jerusalem, where it was made into a Cross for the execution of criminals.

That was the cross they placed on the shoulders of a man who was made to carry the

it, a man who who seemed to glow with the same light as the baby so long ago in Bethlehem.  The man fell three times and was finally affixed to the wood with nails which dug deeply.  The people jeered at him and mocked him, while only his mother and a younger man stood weeping at his feet, until the man looked to heaven, prayed and breathed his last.

And three days later, when the sun rose, so did the man rise from the dead, and the tree stood taller and prouder than he had since he lived in the forest, for he knew now that now he was, indeed, great and powerful, having been made little and weak.  He had never been a chest for earthly treasures nor a ship for powerful princes, but he had been a throne for the Son of God, as his crib and his cross.

And what about us?  Do we want to be rich and powerful?  Do we want the whole world to acclaim our beauty and our strength?  Or am we willing to be a throne for the Son of God, making our hands ready to receive him in Holy Communion, making our hearts pure enough to be his manger and the sacrifices of our lives true enough to walk with him to Calvary?  Are we willing to be a throne for him: a crib and a cross.

For the secret is in that old Appalachian Christmas carol:

I wonder as I wander out under the sky
Why Jesus our Savior
Did come for to die
For poor ordinary people
Like you and like I
I wonder as I wander out under the sky. 

Jesus was born a little baby in that crib, to come for to die,

For ordinary people like you and like I.

He came for to die.

For if you look really close at that manger, just behind the wood of the crib you will see a shadow of the wood of his cross.

Behind that little baby, a shadow of a man, stripped of his garments and nailed to a tree because he loved us.

Behind that Woman who kneels by his crib, a shadow of the sorrowful mother, weeping by his cross.

Behind those wise men who call him ‘The King of the Jews’ a shadow of the plaque that will be nailed above his head.

And behind his little body that sleeps his first sleep tonight, silently in his Mother’s arms, a shadow of the sleep of death we will see in Most-Blessed Pieta.

And behind that angel is a morning star, rising in glory, reminding us that someday that child will rise from the dead, destroying all death and sin, that it might never ever be dark again.

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son in a crib and on a cross for our salvation.’

A Short Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

So, this is what real Catholics look like! The ones who go to Church twice in a long weekend because they believe all that stuff about obligation and being a good Catholic.

Because they believe you can’t find the meaning of Christmas online, even if you have Amazon Prime.

Because they find their Gospel in the Scriptures and not in the fourteenth screening of “The Christmas Prince.”

Because the force of their lives flows from a real child born to a real girl in a real manger, and not from the 9:40 showing of the Last Jedi in Aviation Mall.

No, you seek the meaning of Christmas and the meaning of life neither online, nor on T.V., nor on the big screen. You know that the meaning of life is found on that cross and in that crib.

And you seek him there, like shepherds and wise men before you. For you know, as Pope Francis teaches us that “If we remove Jesus, what is left of Christmas? Just an empty feast….[that] Jesus is the real Christmas…born poor and fragile among us, to give us his love.”

Which is why we come here twice in one long weekend simply to pray with Mary: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

The end of the semester

Phil Scheer and Valentine Nworah share a laugh as the semester draws to a close. The last of the Final Exams were this morning and professors are all grading papers. Cars were departing for Rochester and all points west, north and south all morning long. Tomorrow Alex Boucher receives candidacy from Bishop Deeley in Portland. Stay tuned for pictures, despite the predicted ice and snow!

And pray for all our seminarians, that they might have a joy-filled and safe Christmas Season, until returning for retreat in Kennebunkport on the weekend of January 7th. Their Rector will be helping out with the Christmas Masses in Queensbury and Lake George, New York.  But more on that in future postings.

Come quickly, we pray, Lord Jesus,
and do not delay,
that those who trust in your compassion

may find solace and relief in your coming.
Who live and reign with God the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Roman Missal
Collect for the Morning Mass of December 24th

Requiescat in pace

CARDINAL BERNARD FRANCIS LAW

1931 - 2017

Archbishop of Boston

1984 - 2002

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, 

et lux perpetua luceat ei. 

Requiescat in pace. Amen.

Christmas Grinch

Rumor had it that the Grinch was skulking around SJS this week, and we finally tracked him down!  He was bearing gifts from BC Food Services and stopped a moment to pose with Stephanie Maggini, our resident expert in all things culinary.

This, of course, is the post-conversion Grinch, who we all recall from the great book by Doctor Seuss:
And then the true meaning of Christmas came through,
And the Grinch found the strength of ten Grinches, plus two!

And now that his heart didn't feel quite so tight,
He whizzed with his load through the bright morning light

With a smile to his soul, he descended Mount Crumpet
Cheerily blowing "Who! Who!" on his trumpet.

He road into Whoville. He brought back their toys.
He brought back their floof to the Who girls and boys.

He brought back their snoof and their tringlers and fuzzles,
Brought back their pantookas, their dafflers and wuzzles.

He brought everything back, all the food for the feast!
And he, he himself, the Grinch carved the roast beast!

Welcome Christmas. Bring your cheer,
Cheer to all Whos, far and near.

Christmas Day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to grasp.

Christmas Day will always be
Just as long as we have we.

Welcome Christmas while we stand
Heart to heart and hand in hand.