The Wise and the Foolish

This was my homily at Our Lady of the Annunciation Parish in Queensbury, New York this past weekend.

Almost a hundred years ago a young Yale Professor by the name of Clark Hopkins was chosen to lead a small group of archeologists for a dig in the sands of a remote part of modern day Syria called Dura-Europas.  There Hopkins uncovered the oldest-known Christian Church, complete with a Baptistry.  

On one wall, to the right of the font, was a fresco depicting the wise and foolish virgins going out to meet the Bridegroom. And it makes sense. Picture, if you will, the freshly washed, white-robed neophyte staring up at the wise and foolish virgins, candles in hand. “Will you be ready,” they seem to ask him, “ready to welcome the bridegroom when he returns?”  “Will your lamps be still burning, or will you be left in the darkness, banging on a big locked door?”

When you were baptized, the priest placed a candle into the hand of your father and said to your parents and godparents, “this light is entrusted to you to be kept burning brightly. This child of yours has been enlightened by Christ. He is to walk always as a child of the light. May he keep the flame of faith alive in his heart. When the Lord comes, may he go out to meet him with all the saints in the heavenly kingdom.”

When the Lord returns, will he see your light still burning, or will you be left in the darkness, banging on a big locked door?

It all depends on whether you work hard enough to let that light shine by “treading the path of virtue, [that you] may reach that light which never fails.” The path of those natural virtues by which you are known to be a person of prudence and temperance, wise and just.  Those virtues of God’s grace by which you are known as a person of faith, of hope and of love.

And if you do, on the last day the Lord will not have to look up your name in the Book of Life, or have SIRI search for you on his IPad.  All he will have to do is look in your heart and know that you were the one who loved him in the poor, the sick, the suffering and forgotten….you were the one who believed the truth of what is right and good and wholesome and pure and you were the one who taught it by the way you lived your life…you were the one who longed to see his face, kneeling and praying and laying the sacrifices of your life upon this altar.

All he’ll have to do is to look within your heart and see that light burning brightly, and he will recognize you as his own, and welcome you home to be with him in perfect peace.

Skandalon and the Abuse of Children

This was my homily from Mass this morning.

Skandalon, a stumbling block, something that trips you up and makes you fall. That’s the word for it in Greek. Skandalon, just like a scandal in English. And it would be better for a man to be thrown in the sea tied by the neck to a millstone than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

In our own day, I say with tears in my eyes, we know the names of Priests who had sex with children and caused them to stumble. Names like Porter and Geoghan, Holley and Lavigne, and so many others.

But they’re not just names. Each of them were once seminarians like you, but, after raping a child they were convicted, jailed and laicized. Why? Because, in the words of Pope John Paul II: “There is no place in the priesthood…for those who would harm the young.”

Harm the young…. What happens to the child who has been abused? What comes of this skandalon? There is often depression and guilt, shame and self-blame, anxiety, dissociative patterns, repression, denial, sexual and relationship problems which can perdure for decades or for an entire lifetime, all growing from that skandalon at the hands of a priest. For, as Mother Cabrini herself once said: “The impressions of childhood are never obliterated.”

And it could have happened to any one of us.

At the consistory before the last conclave to elect a Pope, our own Cardinal Sean O’Malley recalled how he, baptized by his uncle, serving Mass from the time he was six and at 13 beginning seminary had known only good and holy priests who gave him good example and nurtured his faith. “But,” he asked, “[what] if I had been a victim of a pedophile priest, would I be here today? Would I still be a Catholic? Would I have committed suicide like so many did?”

For the child, as Pope John Paul II once wrote, is “like soft wax on which every tiniest pressure leaves a mark…”. Which is precisely why the Lord Jesus gently welcomed little children, defended them when they wanted to come to him, and praised their trusting simplicity as being worthy of the Kingdom of God.

The same Pope reminds us, for “every sinner who follows the way of repentance, conversion and pardon can call on the mercy of God…” so even the repentant priest perpetrator can be forgiven by God. But that does not mean he can ever act as a priest again. Rather, as the Charter for the Protection of Children requires: “the offending priest or deacon is to be permanently removed from ministry and, if warranted, dismissed from the clerical state.”

It is a terrible penalty for a terrible crime, just as the scandal of child sexual abuse by priests has brought about one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Church in the United States and in the world.

But we should never despair, for, as the psalmist reminds us, God is always with us: should we rise to the heavens or sink to the nether world, he is there, taking us by the hand to guide us and hold us fast.

Which is why we have dedicated ourselves as a Church to carefully protecting children and a real commitment to accountability, transparency and child safety within the Church, praying, in the words of our beloved Pope Emeritus:

“[That the] Lord Jesus [may] instill in each of us, as ministers of the Church, the same love and affection for the little ones which characterized his own presence among us, and which in turn enjoins on us a particular responsibility for the welfare of children and vulnerable adults. May Mary Most Holy, Mother of tenderness and mercy, help us to carry out, generously and thoroughly, our duty to humbly acknowledge and repair past injustices and to remain ever faithful in the work of protecting those closest to the heart of Jesus.”

Knights of the Holy Sepulchre Investiture

Knights and Dames drawn from graduates and faculty of our Theological Institute

Cardinal O'Malley celebrated the investiture of the new Knights and Dames of the Holy Sepulchre in Newport, Rhode Island last weekend.  Thanks to the great George Martell I am pleased to pass on these pictures from the event, which included the installation of our own Bishop Mark O'Connell.

More pictures from Malta....

You can still hear the joy echoing off the walls of SJS from the Knights of Malta Dinner last week.  Here are some pictures from that great event!

SJS Basketball Team Gearing up for Tournament

After two weeks of tryouts, the Saint John’s Seminary basketball team held its first all-team practice on Monday night, October 30. The team has been invited to participate in the 18th Annual Father Pat O’Malley Invitational Basketball Tournament being held in January at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in Illinois.

I too am looking forward to accompanying our team to Chicago to enjoy the fraternity of seminarians throughout the United States and to represent our beloved Saint John’s Seminary!

“We’re in it to win,” said coach and team captain Peter Schirripa (First Pre-Theology, Boston), “but most of all to build fraternity with the men at Saint John’s and to have some fun with brother seminarians from across the country at the tournament in January.” 

Stay tuned for updates, and please keep these men and all of our seminarians in your prayers!

Pre-Theology Retreat on Enders Island

In recent days, Father Wayne Belschner led the members of Pre-Theology on a wonderful retreat at Ender's Island Retreat Center.  I was privileged to join them for the final day of the retreat and expressed my deep gratitude to Father Belschner, and our Director of Spiritual Life, Monsignor John McLaughlin.  The devotion and fraternity of the members of Pre-Theology were an inspiration to us all!

The Waters of Lourdes...

Last weekend the Knights of Malta were welcolmed home to Saint John’s Seminary for their annual dinner.  In the course of the dinner they heard many inspirational talks in support of their care for the sick, the marginalized and the teaching of the Church.  Sister Constance Veit, communications director for the Little Sisters of the Poor in the United States gave a very moving talk, as did Laurie Cochran, a deeply spiritual malade from our most recent pilgrimage to Lourdes.  I am grateful to Laurie (pictured here as she was introduced by Damien Devasto) for her permission to reprint her talk here, a presentation which deeply move all who were present for this wonderful evening!

The Waters of Lourdes

All of you familiar with Lourdes know that water is the fundamental element. 

• Our Lady instructed Bernadette to dig in the dirt and a spring of clear, healing water sprang forth.
• This spring feeds the many taps where anyone can walk up and fill containers with the sacred, sweet water.
• The hypnotic Rivière Gave flows swiftly through the center of Lourdes. 
• Malades and their loved ones are immersed in the icy baths fed by the sacred spring hoping they will be among the chosen few and the water will feel warm. 
• Water is key in religious celebrations and blessings repeated many times a day in Lourdes. 
• “Drink water, drink water” we are cautioned as we are at a high altitude in the Pyrenees and can easily become dehydrated. The ultra-organized, attentive Knights and Associates lug case after case of bottled water.
• And then there is the water that flowed from my eyes - a flood that opened on the second day and streamed for a week. 

The Order of Malta had done a superb job of preparing us for a powerful experience and taught us that Lourdes miracles come in all forms. Of course I had my fairy-tale visions of what this would be for me: tremendous peace would waft through me followed by ineffable joy. 

Clearly I was not prepared for what Our Lady had planned for me and I felt even worse that I couldn’t offer heartfelt smiles to acknowledge all the love that was showered on me.

I was full of gratitude for the experience and yet I could not stop crying. 

An ache that I had kept buried deep inside me for nearly five years since I was diagnosed with primary liver cancer refused to stay buried any longer. For the first time I squarely faced the very real possibility that my time on earth could be drawing to a close. If I didn’t hit bottom, I was close to it. 

I was at sea in the place of water.

I didn’t fight it. I knew the tears were cleansing and that the torment would eventually lead me to the “peace that passes all understanding.”  I knew that reaching that place of peace meant finally reaching total surrender to the will of God (which I had learned through years of study is not the same as giving up.)  

“Did I eventually reach that place of total surrender and joy?”

Not yet.  And I may never reach it.  Most people don’t according to theologian/philosopher, Richard Rohr.  

But in the months since May, I learned:

• That Mary is always with me 
• That the mystery of Lourdes continues to unfold for each of us pilgrims as we cross the rough seas, lakes, rivers and puddles of our own journeys.  
• We cannot rush the journey that God has planned for each of us.  We must accept it with quiet patience (Patient Trust in the prayer of Teillard de Chardin) and gratitude, knowing deep in our hearts that we are not alone.  

Craig and Nancy Gibson chose as the theme of this year’s pilgrimage, Our Mother Mary, Full of Grace.

May each of us share the blessings of knowing: 

• Our own unique miracles of Lourdes continue to unfold within each of us at their intended pace. 
• And even if we are numbed or soggy, of knowing our Beloved Mother Mary, Full of Grace, walks beside us.