The Lord hears the cry of the poor...

If God loves anyone best, it is the poor, the least, the littlest and the one forgotten by everyone else.

He could have chosen a great nation to build massive temples to him, but no, he chose an enslaved race whom the Egyptians treated harshly and afflicted.

He could have chosen the oldest, the brightest or the strongest of the sons of Jesse as King of Israel, but he chose the youngest, the shepherd boy David.

As we sing every night, God chooses the poor, the slave, the blind and the oppressed and to them he proclaims the good news, freedom, sight and a year of favor from the Lord.

Indeed, as we sang just a few minutes ago, God hears the cry of the poor, he is close to the broken hearted, and a rescuer to all in distress.

When you get to your first parish as a priest, a piece of advice: befriend the poor.  Don’t just do things for them, anyone can do that!  Love them and make them your friends.  For the guy who sleeps on the street and the gal who can’t stop drinking and the kid who just stole the GPS from your car, really are Christ in disguise.  

One story only, because on this I could go on and on.  I wasn't sure if I told it already in my first Rector’s Conference, but no one seems to remember it, so here goes.

It’s about Selma.

Selma was a Jewish girl from Worcester who suffered a psychotic break after the birth of her first child.  For a while they kept her at home, but then committed her to the State Hospital where she lived for over twenty years.

In the late 1970s, when deinstitutionalization of mental patients was all the rage, Selma was left to regulate her own meds and handle her own meager welfare check.  So she lived mainly on the street and seldom in touch with reality, which is when I met her. 

I’d been ordained a year and a half and was serving at Worcester’s Cathedral.  Selma would scare the living daylights out of you.  She wore white pancake makeup and bright red lipstick, an ill fitting wig, short hot pants over red leggings and a white coat on which was pinned a myriad of religious medals and campaign buttons.

And she was always at the Cathedral, partially because she was treated with kindness and respect there.  She’d show up every day, pass out bulletins to unsuspecting visitors and carry the collection baskets back to the front of the Church after every Mass.  

Selma used to get confused, but she never lacked for certainty.  I remember after my ordination as a priest she came up to me smiling ear to ear and said, “Sir, that was the best bar mitzvah I’ve ever been to!”

But then there was the day the altar cloths disappeared.  Every one of them from the sacristy of the Cathedral.  The big damask ones, the full length Jacobean ones...every one of them.  The rector was beside himself and suspicious of satanic plots. The police were called and no one could figure out what to do.

Until one of the priests asked Selma about it.  At first she was shy, but finally, when he assured her there was nothing to fear, she told him the truth.  

You see, Selma would beg money after every Mass.  No one begrudged her this, and people were pretty generous.

But no one realized what she was using the money for.  You see it gets cold in the alleyways of downtown Worcester in the wintertime, and Selma knew a lot of the drunks and addicts who would sleep behind the dumpsters.  So she, seldom sleeping at night due to her psychotic episodes of mania, would go down to the White Tower Restaurant just before the sun came up and the dew point shifted and bring back hot coffees for all the guys behind the dumpsters so they wouldn’t die of hypothermia.

Until one morning she slept in and forgot the coffee, and one of them did die...in the snow and the cold.

So when they went to ask he about the altar cloths, she wasn't sure what they meant, until they said, you know, the big quilts we put on the altar.  At which Selma sheepishly admitted that she had taken the altar cloths and used them to cover up the guys sleeping behind the dumpsters so they wouldn’t die of the cold.

To this day I am convinced that this schizophrenic orthodox Jewess understood the purpose of those altar cloths and the altar they cover better than I do. 

She knew, somehow, that God loves the poor best of all, and expects us to do the same.

SJS OLP Spring Softball Game

Here are some photos from yesterday's spring softball game between Our Lady of Providence and Saint John's seminarians, just in case you missed the live coverage on ESPN!

Second Lieutenant Sinisa Ubiparipovic

Sinisa with his mother and brother

Sinisa and Callan Davis, also a chaplaincy candidate

Sinisa with the Chaplains in attendance

This afternoon Sinisa Ubiparipovic took the oath of office and became a second Lieutenant and chaplaincy candidate in the Massachusetts National Guard.  The oath was taken in the presence of Army Chaplain Lieutenant Colonel Larry Bazar, Army Chaplain Lieutenant Colonel Paul Miner, and Navy Chaplain Captain Michael Barber, SJ.  Father Barber also serves as Spiritual Director of Saint John’s Seminary.  In the course of the ceremony, Monsignor Moroney offered the following remarks:

Distinquished and Reverend chaplains, friends all.

I want to thank Sinisa and his family for inviting us all to join them this afternoon for this important event in the life of our brother and friend.

Today, Sinisa, you join a proud group of chaplains who have sought to serve the men and women of the United States Armed Services.  You too will serve them by making them strong, as you lead them to He who is omnipotent.  Likewise, you will make them courageous and honorable by leading them to the source of all virtue.

Since the first Chaplain was hired by the Continental Congress in 1791, more than four hundred chaplains have given their life for their country while leading their brothers and sisters to God.

May God make you worthy of this great work and may God keep safe from harm all those to whom you will be sent to minister.

On behalf of Saint John’s Seminary, I thank all the chaplains present here today for the sacrifices they have made for their country and their God.  You honor this holy house by your presence, my brothers, and you inspire us by your example.

Thank you.

Rector's Conference V: Some Reflections on Celibacy

The following  reflections on celibacy and the Priest are taken from this evening's Rector's Conference.

And then there is the call to celibacy, or virginity, as Saint Paul calls it, for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

It is not a popular topic, and one which can make even seminarians cringe. But it is one of the most important topics for our world today to see and experience and understand.  

Soon a number of you will kneel before the Bishop and promise “to embrace the celibate state...to keep for ever this commitment as a sign of...dedication to Christ the Lord for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, in the service of God and man...”

What will they promise, and why does the Church ask every candidate for the Diaconate and Priesthood to promise it?

The homily which the Bishop preaches minutes before this promise explains that celibacy is two  things:  

1. It is a sign of pastoral charity.

2. It is an inspiration to pastoral love and rich source of spiritual fruitfulness in the world. 

A Sign of pastoral charity

What does it mean for a pastor to love his people?  It means that he cares for them, that the pains of their lives cause his heart to ache.  It’s why you call him Father.  He rejoices when you bring your child to be baptized, and mourns when you bring your father to be buried.  He holds back tears when you painfully confess your sins and smiles happily when you finally get that job.  He kneels by his bed late at night and begs God to make you strong.  He offers prayers for you, literally, in the morning, at noon, in the evening and at night.  His examination of conscience at the end of each day is about whether he has loved you enough, whether he’s sacrificed enough for you in the model of the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep.

And as a sign of that pastoral love, he renounces wife and family, that you, the people placed into his care by the Bishop, might be loved by an undivided heart.

Thus his celibacy becomes an inspiration to pastoral love...

For his thoughts are not for career or wife or children, or the typical anxieties of a good husband and father.  No, his anxieties are how to get the sinner into the confessional, how to bring the alienated back to Church, how to heal those who have been wounded by sin.  His anxieties are how to preach a word that will rouse the weary and comfort the afflicted.  His anxieties are to discern the will of God for his people and how to urge them to respond.

His anxieties may be to find money to put a roof on the Church, or to keep the school afloat, to paint the walls of the parish center, or to find money for a youth minister.  But they’re really anxieties about how to love you enough to bring you to Christ.

For just as a husband longs to be loved by his wife, so the Priest longs that Christ be loved by you.  As a Father wakes up in the middle of the night worrying about his children, so the good Priest agonizes about how close his people are to Jesus.

And that, I can tell you after thirty-three years of being a Priest, is how celibacy becomes a a rich source of spiritual fruitfulness in the world...

For while I cannot show you pictures of my grandchildren, or tell you about what a good school my son attended (and how much it cost!)...I can tell you about the homeless kids or the lonely old folks or the confused, the broken, the hurt, the sinful and the forgotten whom I have been privileged to love.  And I can tell you how that love has spread and multiplied and changed hundreds if not thousands of lives, not because of me, but because of Christ living in me...

For that, in the end, is what makes celibate and Priestly love so fruitful: the fact that it gets out of the way, that it dies to itself, and let’s Christ’s love shine through.

The celibate is called to be strong, loving, and wise.  Strong enough to know how weak he is, and how utterly dependent upon God’s strength.  Loving enough o know how selfish he can be, and how utterly dependent he is on God’s love.  Wise enough to know how foolish he can be, how utterly dependent he is on God’s will.

The celibate Priest, a wise man once said, is not his own.  He is the smudged lens through which Christ’s love shines forth.   He is earthen vessel which carries the divine to a broken world.  He is the meandering path, by which Christ comes to redeem his people.

Marriage is a blessed estate, a wondrous sacrament, and a holy calling.

And celibacy, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, is a holy calling of unworthy men, who are called to renounce all, for the sake of leading you, in love, to Christ and to his Church.

What does the celibate look like to the world?  Father Henri Nouwen once suggested an answer.  There, in the three ring circus is the lion tamer, keeping a four hundred pound growling beast at bay with bravery and skill (every child and grandmother is holding their breath as he places his head between the teeth of the great beast), while above him is the high wire artist gently swaying from side to side far above their heads without a net.  And then there is the elephant trainer, about to be crushed by the two ton foot of this enormous beast as we look away.  All that drama and epic heroism all around us.

And then from the side of the ring comes a clown, juggling two oranges and everyone looks away from the lions and elephants and elevated daredevil..at the clown.  They smile and laugh, because he points to the fact that there’s something else...something so different by its authenticity that anyone can reach it.

They marvel at the celibate precisely because he is so different.  

• because in a world where morality is so often based on winning with the most toys and amassing as much power and pleasure and self-satisfaction as we can without any consideration of the other, he has lived as a priest in simplicity, celibacy, obedience and self-sacrificing love;

• because in a world where the the stranger, the old, the poor and the yet unborn are just another commodity to be traded and trafficked or forgotten, he has unwaveringly preached the dignity of the human person form conception until natural death;

• because in a world where the divinely instituted covenant of marriage and the obligations to love and educate and sanctify children gets reduced to just another chance to have sex, he has preached the sanctity of marriage and the inviolability of the sixth commandment;

• because in a world where God’s will takes second place to my self-actualization; he has unfailingly devoted his life to proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that he is the revelation of God’s will and all truth, all life and all meaning are found in him, and him alone.

They will marvel at you, my brothers....not because you are so marvelous, but because he who is our Great High Priest has chosen you and through you will lead a hurting world to the perduring love of Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Thoughts on the Profession of Faith and Oath of Fidelity

Chris Micale and James Boland made the Profession of Faith and took the Oath of Fidelity this evening. Monsignor Moroney offered the following brief reflections.

Why Easter? Why did Christ rise? Saint Peter is unequivocal. The reason Christ died for sins once for all, was that he might lead you to God.

His Deacons and his Priests do the same. Lead people to God. It’s the whole purpose of ordained ministry. Not lead them astray, but lead them to God. Not lead them to himself, but lead them to God. Not lead them where he wants to, but lead them to God.

That’s why Chris and Jim take this oath. Because shortly the Church will ordain them to lead men to God.

The road on which you will shepherd them is not of your own making. It is the road which follows the contours of the Gospel and is paved with the Catholic tradition.

Not all people, indeed and sadly, not all shepherds follow this road. But tonight you promise that you will, recalling the warning of Pope Benedict XVI that “if the Church's teaching is compromised, even slightly....then it becomes hard to defend the fullness of Catholic doctrine in an integral manner....”

He continued: “all too often the Church's doctrine is perceived as a series of prohibitions and retrograde positions, whereas the reality, as we know, is that it is creative and life-giving, and it is directed towards the fullest possible realization of the great potential for good and for happiness that God has implanted within every one of us.” (Address to Scottish Bishops, Feb. 5, 2010)

So thank you, my brothers, for reminding us of the reason why Christ died for our sins. And thank you, on behalf of the thousands and tens of thousands who wait for you out there, for leading us all to Christ.

The Sacred Paschal Triduum

The Mystery of Life...

Tonight we celebrate the heart of the mystery of life.

Tonight, every question is answered, for those whose ears will hear. Tonight, every doubt is washed away, for those whose hearts will believe. Tonight, every fear and sin is buried, for those who are willing to rise with Christ.

For from the darkness of our selfishness. From the pitch blackness of war and violence, From the blindness of sin and rebellion, there emerges a single light:

That light is the Son of the Living God, through whom this world and time itself were made, in whom we live and move and have our being.

He was made flesh for us, a weak and little baby in the arms of his Virgin mother, He let go of his power as God, and took on our human flesh, to be God and man, and to teach us how to love.

And then he taught us, to always take the last place, to seek out and care for the poor, to pick up our crosses, to seek only holiness and love.

And then, finally, when the time had come, he suffered and died for us, he was nailed to a cross, opening his arms in an everlasting sign of his eternal love.

And when they buried him in the tomb, that cold and scary Friday night, most of them thought the story was over. That he was dead, and would stay that way.

But on the Easter morning, the light pierced the darkness, and we were saved!