Homily for Thursday of the Lord's Supper

In just a couple of minutes, I will do what the rubric of the Missal tells me and, removing my chasuble, kneel down and wash your feet.  But there’s a strange rubric which precedes this one, which reads: “After the Homily, where a pastoral reason suggests it, the Washing of Feet follows.”¹

The first time I read that rubric I wondered what would make it pastorally inappropriate to wash feet.  If people didn’t have feet?  If they had no water?  Or Abishai had forgotten to buy a pitcher and basin?

Perhaps.  But I suggest what the rubric really has in mind is that it would be totally inappropriate for me to wash your feet now, if I had not washed them throughout the year.  If I had not listened to you, worked for you, agonized to make the right decisions about you, stayed up late to worry about you, prayed incessantly for you, been willing to give whatever it took for you to discern and be formed as God wants you to be.  To be willing to wash your feet, to be a priest for you that you might grow into being a priest for others.

When Peter resists having his feet washed, it is because the God he believes in is too small.  He wants a Messiah of majesty and grandeur who is too important to wash feet.  But, in the words of our beloved Pope emeritus, “God's greatness is different from our idea of greatness…it consists precisely in stooping low, in the humility of service, in the radicalism of love even to total self-emptying.”

This Messiah desires to wash us clean, as he sleeps the sleep of death upon the cross and from his pierced side there flows forth water and blood and thus the Church is born.

All foretold in the washing of dirty feet. All foretold in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.  For by our participation in the Mass we participate in the Sacrifice of the Cross, and in both instances, which are the same instance, we are washed clean.

DIRT
Washed clean of what?  Of dirt.  Not just on our feet, like kids who’ve just come in from playing in the mud, but like big old adults, who having rolled around in all the filth the world has to offer, caked with dirt, hearts stained by dirt, minds clouded by dirt.

We pollute our minds with pornographic delusions, lies and deceits. We foul our hearts with the devil’s pomps and imaginings, and contaminate our souls with all his lusts and empty promises.

But then each time time we gather to fulfill the Domincal command and celebrate this perfect Sacrifice, this source and summit of our lives, Christ washes us here, cleanses us, purifies our souls and restores the lost innocence of our inner selves.

WORD
He does it through his life giving Word, proclaimed from this Ambo each day for our salvation, as mercy flows from his word,² and as the Deacon, kissing the Gospel, prays: “Through the words of the Gospel may our sins be wiped away.”

It is here that our selfishness is washed away when our hearts hear again the story of his passion and death, our grasping for power and pleasure by remembering his birth as a child in a manger, our longing for revenge by his love for even those who nailed him to a tree, and our despair, by the story of a prodigal embraced and forgiven.

Each day we bring to this Ambo our filth and our fears, and Christ, ever present in his word, “carries out the mystery of salvation, sanctifies humanity and offers the Father perfect worship.”³  We are washed cleansed by “living waters,”⁴ by his word. 

MYSTERY
But as Pope Benedict has reminded us, it is not only water that cleanses, but blood as well.  For from the pierced side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death upon cross, the water was mixed with Blood.⁵  And we who have washed our robes in the Blood of the Lamb are the ones who drink of the Blood poured out for us for the forgiveness of our sins; the “noble and precious Blood, flowing from the wounds of Jesus Christ, [which washes] away the sins of all the world.”⁶  

That is why we pray in the Votive Mass of the Precious Blood “that we may always be bathed in the Blood of our Savior, so that it may become for us a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”⁷

This is the place where we are washed clean, where our salvation is accomplished, where “the Lord kneels ever anew at our feet and purifies us.”⁸

CLOSING
So now I will take off this chasuble and kneel down and wash your feet, just like he did.  That we might drink deeply, you and I, of the power which “dispels [all] wickedness [and] washes faults away.”⁹

______________________
1 - Roman Missal, Thursday of the Lord’s Supper, no. 10.
2 - Cf. Roman Missal, Collect, December 23.
3 - Lectionary for Mass, no. 4. Cf. Sacrosanctum concilium, no. 7.
4 - General Introduction to the Lectionary for Mass, no. 5.
5 - John 19: 34; cf. I John 5: 6-8.
6 - Roman Missal, Prayers Before Mass.
7 - Roman Missal, Prayer over the Gifts for the Votive Mass of the Precious Blood.
8 - Pope Benedict XVI, Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper, 2008.
9 - Roman Missal, Paschal Proclamation.

Becoming pastors in the image of the Good Shepherd

Thanks to Zenit.org, here's an English translation of Pope Francis' address to a group of Seminarians from the Pontifical Leonine Seminary in Anagni.  They are great reflections for us all to take to heart during the Sacred Paschal Triduum.

Dear Brother Bishops, Priests and Seminarians,

I greet you all who form part of the community of the Pontifical Leonine College of Anagni. I thank the Rector for the words he addressed to me in the name of all. A special greeting to you, dear seminarians, who wished to come to Rome on foot! Courageous men! This pilgrimage is a very beautiful symbol of your formative journey, to be undertaken with enthusiasm and perseverance, in the love of Christ and in fraternal communion.

The “Leonine,” as regional Seminary, offers its service to some dioceses of Lazio. In the wake of the formative tradition, it is called, in the today of the Church, to propose to candidates to the priesthood an experience able to transform their vocational plans into a fruitful apostolic reality. Like every Seminary, yours also has the purpose of preparing future ordained ministers in a climate of prayer, of study and of fraternity. It is this evangelical atmosphere, this life full of the Holy Spirit and of humanity, which makes it possible for all those immersed in it to assimilate day by day the sentiments of Jesus Christ, his love for the Father and for the Church, his dedication without reservations to the People of God. Prayer, study, fraternity and also apostolic life: are the four pillars of formation which interact, a strong spiritual life, a serious intellectual life, communal life and, finally, apostolic life but not in the order of importance. All four are important, if one is lacking the formation is not good. And these four interact. Four pillars, four dimensions on which a Seminary must live.

You, dear seminarians, are not preparing to engage in a profession, to become employees of a company or of a bureaucratic organization. We have so many, so many half way priests. It is a sorrow, that they do not succeed in reaching the fullness: they have something about them of employees, a bureaucratic dimension and this does no good to the Church. I advise you, be careful that you do not fall into this! You are becoming pastors in the image of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, to be like Him and in His person in the midst of his flock, to feed his sheep.

In face of this vocation, we can answer as Mary did to the Angel: “How is this possible?” (cf. Luke 1:34).

To become “good pastors” in the image of Jesus is something too great, and we are so small ….It’s true! I’ve been thinking these days of the Chrism Mass of Holy Thursday and I felt this, that with this very great gift, which we receive, our smallness is strong: we are among the smallest of men. It’s true, it is too great, but it’s not our work! It is the work of the Holy Spirit, with our collaboration. It is about offering oneself humbly, as clay to be molded, so that the potter, who is God, can shape it with water and fire, with the Word and the Spirit. It is about entering into what Saint Paul says: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).


Only thus can we be deacons and presbyters in the Church, only thus can we feed the People of God and guide them not on our ways but on the way of Jesus, rather, on the Way that is Jesus.

It is true that, at the beginning, there is not always a total rectitude of intentions.

However, I dare to say: it is difficult for it to exist. All of us have always had these small things which were not in rectitude of intention, but this is resolved in time, with conversion every day. But we think of the Apostles! Think of James and John, one who wished to be Prime Minister and the other Minister of the Economy, becauseit was more important. The Apostles still did not have this rectitude. They were thinking of something else and the Lord, with much patience, corrected their intention and in the end the rectitude of their intention was such that they gave their life in preaching and in martyrdom. Don’t be frightened! “But I’m not sure if I want to be a priest for promotion …” “But, do you love Jesus?” “Yes.” “Talk with your spiritual Father, talk with your formators. Pray, pray, pray and you’ll see that the rectitude of intention will go forward.”

And this path means to meditate every day on the Gospel, to transmit it with your life and your preaching; it means to experience the mercy of God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And never leave this! Go to confession, always! And in this way you will become generous and merciful ministers because you will feel the mercy of God upon you. It means to nourish yourselves with faith and with love of the Eucharist, to nourish the Christian people with it; it means to be men of prayer, to become the voice of Christ that praises the Father and intercedes continually for brothers (cf. Hebrews 7:25).

The prayer of intercession, which was engaged in by great men – Moses, Abraham – who fought with God for the people, that courageous prayer before God. If you – but I say this from my heart, without offending! – if you, if one of you, is not willing to follow this way, with these attitudes and these experiences, it is better that you have the courage to look for another way. There are many ways in the Church of giving Christian witness and so many ways that lead to sanctity. In the ministerial following of Jesus there is no room for mediocrity, that mediocrity that leads always to use the holy People of God for one’s own advantage. But Heaven help evil pastors, because the Seminary, let’s say the truth, is not a refuge for the many limitations we might have, a refuge from psychological lacks or a refuge because I don’t have the courage to go forward in life and I seek there a place that defends me. No, it’s not this.

If your Seminary was this, it would become a mortgage for the Church! No, the Seminary is precisely to go forward, forward on this way. And when we hear the prophets say “woe!” may this “woe” make you reflect seriously on your future. Pius XI once said that it was better to lose a vocation than to have the risk of a candidate who is not sure. He was a mountain climber, he knew these things.

Beloved, I thank you for your visit. I thank you for having come on foot. I support you with my prayer and my blessing, and I entrust you to the Virgin, who is Mother. Never forget her! The Russian mystics said that in the moment of spiritual turbulence it is necessary to seek refuge under the mantle of the Holy Mother of God. Never leave there, covered with her mantle! And please, pray for me!

The signs of spring...

Can you believe that just a few weeks ago we were wondering if it would snow again!?  These scenes from last week's OLP/SJS softball game remind us that the Spring has arrived!

Board of Trustees

Here's a great photo from our Board of Trustees meeting last week.  We are very grateful to these wise and generous folks!

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

2014

Members of the Corporation

Cardinal Seán O’Malley, OFM, Cap. (ex officio)

Ex Officio, Archbishop of Boston

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Ex Officio, Rector

Bishop Peter Uglietto

Ex Officio, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Boston

John E. Straub (ex officio)

Ex Officio, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Boston

Bishop Walter J. Edyvean

Ex Officio, Auxiliary Bishop of Boston (appointed)

On Behalf of the Board of Governors

Bishop Robert J. McManus

Bishop of Worcester

Bishop Salvatore Matano

Bishop of Rochester

Members

Janet Benestad (term expires end of 2015) 

Reverend Michael E. Drea (term expires end of 2016)

Joseph M. Falcao (term expires 2015)

Loretta Gallagher (term expires end of 2016)

Craig Gibson (term expires end of 2016)

Brian H. Hook (term expires end of 2014) 

Reverend Jason Jalbert (term expires 2015)

Thomas C. Kohler (term expires end of 2015)

Gino V. Lambo (term expires end of 2014) 

Reverend Robert M. Murphy (term expires end of 2015)

Reverend Thomas Petri, O.P. (term expires 2016)

Jack Shaughnessy, Jr. (term expires 2016)

Peter Silva (term expires end of 2014)

Andreás Widmer (term expires end of 2014)

*

Board of Governors

Cardinal Seán O’Malley, OFM, Cap., Archbishop of Boston

Most Reverend Leonard P. Blair, Archbishop of Hartford, CT

Most Reverend George W. Coleman, Bishop of Fall River

Most Reverend Peter A. Libasci, Bishop of Manchester

Vacant, Bishop of Burlington

Most Reverend Timothy McDonnell, Bishop of Springfield

Most Reverend Robert McManus, Bishop of Worcester

Most Reverend Thomas J. Tobin, Bishop of Providence

Evangelii Gaudium...Reflections on Joy

This is a short version of a longer talk I gave to a group from the Knights of Malta last Saturday.  They came together for a Lenten Day of Reflection here at Saint John's Seminary.

Malta Lent from James P Moroney on Vimeo.

SJS and OLP in Springtime!

The St. John's Seminary softball team and the Our Lady of Providence Seminary softball team gathered for their annual game on Sunday in Brighton, MA. St. John's earned the victory with a 20-19 final score. Prior to the game, both schools gathered for Mass in St. John's Chapel and then brunch in the refectory. It was a beautiful spring day for a game and both sides put in fantastic performances. The occasion provided for a fun reunion as many of the graduates from OLP, a college seminary, go on to St. John's to complete their four years of theology.

The lead switched back and forth several times throughout the nine inning bout, and each team boasted three home runs apiece. St. John's held the lead going into the ninth, but a late OLP offensive surge brought the game to within one run. With the tying and go-ahead runs on base, St. John's made the defensive stop to clinch the win in the top of the ninth.

Passionate fans came to support both teams, and fortunately there were no ejections for over-zealous cheering.

St. John's team roster with sponsoring dioceses:

Brian Morris (Providence) - Pitcher
Brandon Sargeant (Manchester) - Catcher
Chris Boyle (Boston) - First Base
Craig Cooley (Boston) - Second Base
Kevin Brawley (Fall River) - Shortstop
Matt Tavares (Manchester) - Third Base
David Harris (Manchester) - Left Field
Billy "The Kid" Robinson (Boston) - Center Field
Matt Gill (Fall River) - Center Field
Brendan Rowley (Providence) - Right Field
Joe Sanderson (Burlington) - DH
Mike Rora (Boston) - DH
Matt Conley (Boston) - DH
Dominic Ngo (Boston) - Team Photographer / Legal Counsel

Catholic Music in the Tudor Period

Here's the introduction to a wonderful concert on Catholic Music in the Tudor Period offered on Sunday by Dr. Janet Hunt and a fine collection of local musicians and seminarians.

Toward the end of the period covered by today’s concert, when the practice of Catholicism was entirely banned in England, a Seminary was founded in the small city of Vallidolid in Northern Spain.  At the center of that chapel was enshrined an odd statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of La Vulnerata, or The Wounded One. 

The statue was originally a part of the altar in the major Church of a nearby town, located just off the market square.  When, in 1596, Sir Walter Raleigh and the Duke of Essex invaded the town, their rioting anti-Catholic troops dragged the statue from the Church and began to kick it like a soccer ball.  Then they hacked off the arms of the Virgin and the entire Body of the Christ child except for his two small feet.

The seminarians of the English College begged that the statue might be given to them and enshrined in their Seminary Chapel that they might offer their lives in reparation for the desecration. It sits there today, a part of the gloriously gold leafed reredos, but missing arms and legs and the head of the Christ as a testament to sectarian violence.

Twenty-two of the seminarians from that English College were martyred after ordination.  And the music they would have heard as they were formed in that Chapel of the Wounded One is the same Catholic Music you will hear this afternoon.

In some very real ways this music forms a bridge to those good men, not unlike the men who sit in this chapel every morning and every evening who seek to give themselves entirely to God.  I am grateful to Dr. Hunt  and each of today’s performers for joining us to the one faith through the holy beauty which they will so wonderfully sing.   Thank you.