The Substance of Things Hoped For

Rector's Conference

2011-12-11T07:06:00.001-08:00

In my conferences for this formation term, I am focusing on the “best practices” for priestly formation. In today’s conference, I would like to spend some time offering a rather extended reflection on the “best practices” of human formation. Human formation is certainly a basic of what we do here. At Saint Meinrad, I would say that we have given this dimension of priestly formation particular emphasis and not without just cause.
Often we have heard the injunction of our late Holy Father, Blessed John Paul II, that the personality of the priest forms an effective bridge to the possibility of ministry. The pope’s words in Pastores Dabo Vobis give us insight into how we must initially proceed in seminary formation. “The priest, who is called to be a ‘living image’ of Jesus Christ, head and shepherd of the Church, should seek to reflect in himself, as far as possible, the human perfection which shines forth in the incarnate Son of God.” (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 43)
As a bridge, the priest must understand the dynamics of his own life and personality as well as any man can. He must know what motivates him and what he finds life-giving. These insights are not always at the surface of the human personality and are not always evident in a pronounced way in the daily engagements of seminary and priestly life.
In my reflections today, reflections that I hope will take us back to the basics of priestly formation and give us some new insights in doing so, I would like to focus on the qualities of the human personality that I see as essential for quality formation to take place. All authentic human persons display these qualities, even if they may need to be engaged more explicitly in the work of seminary formation.
St. Ireneaus famously commented that the glory of God was the human person fully alive. This certainly seems to be an insight in keeping with the message of Blessed John Paul II. We might paraphrase by saying that the work of evangelization is accomplished readily, even passively, through the expression of authentic human living. Is the new evangelization, that is the re-evangelization of the Holy Church, dependent in our age on reclaiming authentic humanity? I would say that undoubtedly it is.
What are the essential qualities of authentic human being? First, I would say a kind of groundedness; second, an authentic generativity; and finally, a sense of gratitude.
First, I would say that the well-formed human personality is grounded. This groundedness is related to the spiritual practice of humility. Humility is a virtue often misread in the life of the Church, and even more so in the world. Our social climate promotes pride, even a false pride, in one’s accomplishments. The social order tells us to do what it takes, even to the point of lying about ourselves, in order to achieve the ends which that same social order has established as the authentic markers of success: wealth, power and popularity.
The great teachers of our spiritual tradition, however, speak of a need to cultivate the virtue of humility as the antidote to the ills of the age. In the words of St. Therese of Avila, “We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble.”
Our Holy Father Pope Benedict has remarked:
Do not follow the path of pride, rather, follow the path of humility. Go against the current trend: do not listen to the persuasive and biased chorus of voices that today form much of the propaganda of life, drenched in arrogance and violence, in dominance and success at all costs, where appearance and possession to the detriment of others is openly promoted.
What is this humility to which our Tradition testifies? It is simply telling the Truth about oneself. Humility is being grounded in the Truth. When we speak of the new evangelization as a re-evangelization, we must speak the Truth about the Church, about its condition in our local communities, about its condition in my heart and soul. Humility requires that I tell the Truth about myself to myself, that I stop presenting false images about my piety, my holiness, my worth to myself, whether those images are inflated or whether they are detracting.
Spiritual pride is expressed in hypocrisy, that is, trying to convince myself and others that I am better than I am. Spiritual pride is also expressed in lies about my self-worth, my failures and my lack of virtue. Humility is telling the Truth for good or ill. And when we know the Truth, it will set us free. When we acknowledge the Truth, we are already expressing a new evangelization in our lives. Ultimately, this Truth reveals to us that we cannot effectively preach to the nations what we ourselves are unwilling to admit and ultimately believe.
Knowledge of self is therefore essential to fulfilling the evangelical commission. We can hardly expect the nations to listen when we ourselves have become confounded internally by the cacophony of false messages presented by culture, social conditioning and the persistent voice of false ego.
When we learn to tell the Truth about ourselves, one thing is revealed. We are not alone. We are not only in the presence of others, we need others. Blessed John Paul II said:
Of special importance is the capacity to relate to others. This is truly fundamental for a person who is called to be responsible for a community and to be a “man of communion.” This demands that the priest not be arrogant, or quarrelsome, but affable, hospitable, sincere in his words and heart, prudent and discreet, generous and ready to serve, capable of opening himself to clear and brotherly relationships and of encouraging the same in others, and quick to understand, forgive and console.” (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 43)
An essential aspect of the new evangelization, both internal and external, is the reawakening of the need for reference to the other. The human person is a social being. We have lost this insight by too close attention to the ranting of the false philosophers of individualism and atomism. To quote the poet John Donne: “No man is an island, entire of himself.” We know this when we are humble enough to be honest. We desire to reach out to others when we realize that those embracing arms are also embracing our truest selves.
When Blessed John Paul II speaks about the nuptial meaning of the body and affective maturity, he is proposing, to an age inebriated with false messages of isolation, the essential truth that lies in the heart of each one, the truth of our need for one another. The maturity we seek to authentically exercise the holy priesthood is affective maturity and that affect cannot be directed toward the contemplation of self. Affect that only loves the self as an object is narcissism. True love always considers the other. We only penetrate the truth of the human mystery in the presence of others. Our brothers and sisters are an essential part of our mystery. This is the new evangelization and an insight as ancient as the seventh day of creation.
Grounded means knowing who I am and how I am; that is, I am always in the presence of others. Going back now to the business model proposed at the onset of these reflections: What are the best practices for human formation? Practically speaking, how can we achieve our goals in making the priest an authentic bridge through his human personality?
We might begin with the acknowledgement and cultivation of true friendships. Many of us have experienced a new awakening of friendship in the life of the seminary. I have made lifelong friends among my former classmates and now fellow priests. Many of us learn in a very different way the true meaning of friendship here that is grounded not only in common interests and fellow feelings, but in an authentic spiritual bond that we often gain only in the context of formation.
Friendships often become deeper and more profound in seminary and priestly life. We depend upon our friends as authentic markers of our ability to reach out to others and as true barometers of authenticity in ourselves. Friends confide in each other. They challenge each other. They support each other, often through common activities and pursuits and often by being authentic mirrors to the reality of the pursuit of vocation. Friends help me in discernment. They do this because they know me deeply. They know me deeply because I have shared deeply with them. Friends pray together and are not embarrassed about the spiritual aspects of their relationship. Friends put up with one another, as St. Benedict says, by bearing their weaknesses of body and spirit and personality.
Authentic friendship is a true act of humility and therefore a truly divine act. The ability to make and maintain authentic friendships is a sign of the seminarian’s ability to be true to the vocation of being configured in Christ, who said to His disciples, “I know longer call you servants for a servant does not know the mind of his master. I call you friends.” (John 15:15). Friends learn from one another. They lean on one another. Friends love one another in affective maturity. In the context of a celibate house of formation, friendship is a true and authentic expression of sexual integration. As Pope John Paul has mentioned:
We are speaking of a love that involves the entire person, in all his or her aspects - physical, psychic and spiritual - and which is expressed in the “nuptial meaning” of the human body, thanks to which a person gives oneself to another and takes the other to oneself. (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 44)
Because the friendships that we develop here are true and deep, we feel their loss more keenly when a friend decides that formation as a priest is no longer his calling. There is great sadness in this loss of daily society and the support we feel in our meaningful friendships. The sense of loss is real, however. It is a sign, indeed a sacrament, of the gap formed in the life of every celibate person. Our keen experience of that loss is also a blessing. It demonstrates to us that we have gained the ability to cultivate loving friendships and thus we can do it again and again. In the old days, we often spoke in religious communities of particular friendships, that is, intimate relationships that were exclusive. Obviously, this can be detrimental not only to the individuals, but also to the life of the community. However, the ability to make deeply committed friends is positive so I say: have particular friends, only have many of them.
Another best practice in human formation in a seminary is counseling. I am a firm believer in the power of counseling to make a profound difference in the life of the seminarian and the future priest. In my seminary formation, I frequently had recourse to our counseling center. It is a productive way of carrying out one’s formation. Even today, I occasionally see the need to visit with one of the sisters. Even the rector cannot always be right. Even the rector needs another head, another opinion, another voice. Counseling is a relationship that assists us in asking the right questions and seeking the right answers in areas such as relationships, sexual identity, public personality, addictive and compulsive behaviors, etc.
Often, new seminarians are referred to see one of our counselors. This does not mean that something is wrong; it means that something could be better. That holds true for everyone in this room today. Every seminarian, indeed every faculty member and administrator, can benefit from the periodic use of our counseling center. We are truly blessed at Saint Meinrad by our dedicated and professional sisters. They have devoted their lives to our service here. They have taught us the central place that counseling has in the world of modern seminary formation, as was evidenced by the John Jay Report that appeared this past summer.
Seeking counseling is not weak; it is responsible. It is responsible to do everything in our power to make ourselves the best men and the best priests we can be. I know that there is also some cultural bias against mental health care. While understandable within particular cultural contexts, it is necessary for priests working in this country to be comfortable with the process of counseling, not only for themselves, but for those whom they will serve.
Another best practice in being a grounded person is acquiring appropriate manners and etiquette skills. My grandmother was a great lady of manners and she had a saying which, in the innocence of my youth, I never quite understood. She said, “Anyone who would put a fork into a piece of bread would kill a man.” At first, I considered her observations about correct behavior to be a bit over the top. I have come to realize, however, that, first and foremost, the priest is a gentleman and there are two tried-and-true rules for a gentleman’s behavior. One is that he behaves like a gentleman at all times, even when no one is around to see him. Two is that he presumes that everyone he meets is a lady or a gentleman as well and he treats them as such.
G.K. Chesterton once said of Charles Dickens that he was a great man because the mark of a great man is that he makes other men feel great. Truer words were never spoken. Being a gentleman requires consideration, consideration of my own behavior and words and their impact upon those around me and consideration of others. This also requires a good bit of forethought. Being a gentleman is not an act; it is a habit and as such comes second nature to us. For priests, we might say that being a gentleman is pastoral. Correct manners involve who we are as priests. Far from being unmanly, the rules of etiquette teach us how to be real men.
Another best practice for groundedness is what I might call a functional extroversion. All of us have different personalities. Statistics show that many who are attracted to various forms of religious life are introverts by nature. Natural introspection is a gift that helps nourish our lives of prayer. Being a public minister in the Church, however, requires an extension of my social skills. I cannot be an effective priest if I cannot talk to people. I cannot be a good priest if I have to run to my room every five minutes because I am too shy to meet the public. I cannot be a priest if I cannot mingle in a crowd. Do I always like to do it? Perhaps not, but you must learn to do it, often at the expense of great energy and personal cost. This is essential. When we meet one another in the corridor, there must be an acknowledgement of the other person even if it is only a simple, “Good morning” or a nod of the head.
If I routinely meet others without greeting them, I cannot function as a priest who is called to be an agent of unity. Simple social interactions such as carrying on a meaningful table conversation, anticipating the needs of one another at table, looking attentive in class or in presentations are basic human skills. If it costs you something to practice these basic human skills, then offer it up. They must be mastered. Nonchalance in simple social engagements leads to others thinking that you simply do not care. Here, we may know how odd you are and give you a pass. In the parish, your lack of proper social engagement will be read as callousness or worse. You never have a second chance to make a first impression. Make the most of it by practicing here. I will conclude this section with the words of Pope John Paul II:
Human maturity, and in particular affective maturity, requires a clear and strong training in freedom, which expresses itself in convinced and heartfelt obedience to the “truth of one’s own being,” to the “meaning” of one’s own existence, that is to the “sincere gift of self” as the way and fundamental content of the authentic realization of self.

A second quality of the human person that the seminary calls us to perfect is that of generativity. A fully alive human being is not only grounded; he or she is also generative. A great deal of ink has been spilled in recent years concerning the generative aspect of priestly ministry. There can be little doubt that there is a quality of generativity that must be a part of who we are as priests. In the words of Archbishop Sheen, “‘Increase and multiply’ is a law of sacerdotal life no less than biological life.” (The Priest is not his Own, 57)
That generativity does not begin in some distant time; rather, it must begin now. You aspire to be called “father.” What kind of life are you going to offer the community now? Archbishop Sheen goes on to enumerate several ways in which the priest demonstrates generativity in his life and ministry. One is convert making. Another is fostering vocations. Obviously, convert making touches directly on the quest of the new evangelization. Perhaps it would be a fruitful discussion for a later conference, because I believe we shortchange the task of convert making in the Church today.
In this conference, I would like to focus on fostering vocations. Certainly, we have heard enough of this in our dioceses and religious communities. We know how to speak about vocations. All of us here, I am sure, could offer eloquent testimony to the action of God in our vocational lives, unique as they are. We know how to attract young people to the priesthood and religious life. We know, to some extent, what motivates them. I would like to take a bit of a different angle on this question, however, and talk about the way in which we foster vocations here in the seminary, among ourselves. How does each of you foster the vocations of his brothers here? How do we all purposefully help sustain the call that has been given to each and that has brought us to this crucial juncture in discerning God’s will in our lives? How do we act as spiritual fathers and nurturers of one another’s vocational journey?
I would say we must first begin by fostering a life in community that is life-giving and not desiccating. What is this community of formation about? It is about prayer. It is about study. It is about cultural challenge. It is about service. Vocations can only be fostered here when we are authentic about the nature of the community. I cannot be generative in fostering vocations if I never challenge the cultural expectations of the larger society. I cannot foster vocations if I denigrate the importance of prayer through my idle talk and bad example. I cannot be generative about vocational life if I never offer any example of service or even meaningful conversation to those who live with me in this community. Let us all ask ourselves these important questions concerning the generativity of our lives together.
1. Do I frequently ask my brothers to pray with me outside the established times of prayer in the community?
2. Is my table conversation at each meal edifying or do I engage in silly banter for the purpose of amusing others?
3. Is my recreational activity life-giving or do I often succumb to the popular culture?
4. How much time do I spend isolated in my room using the internet or watching television?
5. Am I quick to volunteer my services for house or class projects?
6. Do I do the least I need to do to get by?
7. Do I murmur and criticize the faculty, administration and my fellow students behind their backs?
These are a few questions. There might be many more. Are we asking these kinds of questions? Are we bringing concerns we have about the generative quality of the seminary to the rector or the vice rector? If we aspire to be called “father,” which we do, what kind of father do you want to be? Do you desire to be a father who is honest and open, who gives himself freely to prayer, who is willing to listen? Or do you desire to be a father who is backbiting, deceptive, critical and engages in unmanly gossip and idle talk? If we focus on the quality of generativity in our priestly formation, which we must, let us resolve to continually be fine-tuning our means of attaining this essential quality. Then we are fostering vocations here. Nothing can kill the tender vocation faster than a barbed word or a misplaced criticism.
When looking for some best practices for generativity, I will consider three: Cultural enrichment, an open door policy and listening. First, cultural enrichment. In your time at Saint Meinrad, you will undoubtedly hear two things from the rector. Every rector, after all, has his little catchphrases. The first is the need for a spirit of arête to penetrate the life of the community. Arête, in Greek, means habitual excellence. As seminarians and as priests, we should be striving to express this excellence in everything we do. Excellence means never settling for the mediocre in ourselves or in our communities. It means constantly challenging what is here. It means practically implementing a strategic vision for how things can be better. It means communal conversion in the most concrete sense.
The other expression you will hear from me is “raise your gaze.” The poet T.S. Eliot wrote these words describing the condition of modern culture in The Wasteland:
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Eliot’s point is this. The cultural point of reference of modern humanity is decidedly in the dust, focused on what Blessed John Henry Newman called the fanciful or the popular. Our cultural icons today are earthbound. The music, the literature, the art we engage in drag our consciousness into the dust, where fear reigns. We are caught in a quagmire of sexualized, materialized images of what is supposed to be important in life. We have lost sight of the transcendent in an eternal contemplation of ourselves.
We cannot think ourselves immune to this contagion here. We are all products of our commercialized culture. Where do you spend your time? How do you enrich yourself culturally? Are your cultural imaginations buried in the stony rubbish of our modern prejudices? An example of this is Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools. Who cares what people are having for lunch? How much time do we spend following the inane daily activities and incidental musings of our hundreds of friends, when our minds and imaginations might be better engaged?
Raising our gaze means looking up from the immediacy of a navel-gazing popular culture and seeing our true citizenship in heaven. As priests, our lives are supposed to point toward the transcendent and the meaningful in the material, not to the material as an end in itself. Raising our gaze means trying to find cultural expressions that are generative: music, literature, theater, and art that are engaging for the long run and not merely satisfying for the length of a reign in the top 40 or until the final bell is sounded in the wrestling match. Engaging a more generative culture is not snobbish or elitist. It is human. Just because you do not understand something does not mean that it is worthless. It merely means that there is an invitation.
A second generative best practice is the open door policy. The open door is an invitation for others to come in. While it is true that we must, at times, have some privacy in order to pray, in order to focus on study and complete projects, we also need to invite others in. This is perhaps related to the functional extroversion I spoke of earlier. A good practice is to have your door open for about one hour a couple of nights per week. An open door policy encourages all of us to be more open to hospitality. Needless to say, the hospitality offered need only be our company, but we need to be willing to offer our company without reserve on occasion. It is good practice for becoming the public person that the priest must necessarily be.
An open door policy also encourages another good priestly (and human) value: cleanliness. Brothers, there is little to no excuse for living in a room that is not ready for visits almost at a moment’s notice. Dirty or extremely cluttered living spaces indicate two things: one, a lack of personal care and perhaps even good hygiene. Second, a lack of stewardship and care for the property of others. For the most part, all of us will spend the rest of our lives in borrowed living spaces. Keeping those spaces habitable for the next occupant is an essential formation question.
Connected to the open door policy is the final generative best practice: listening. In a culture inundated with aural clutter, listening is often the most important aspect of what we do as priests. As all of you are aware, one of the first charges I give to our new seminarians is “being here.” Attention is a key aspect of seminary formation. It is also the first step of obedience. Obedience begins with quality listening and that must be practiced early in our lives of formation. The practice of good listening begins with a willingness to listen, an open ear and an equally open heart. After ordination, many of you will realize that good confessions, good counseling and often good teaching depend upon the ability that people have to tell their stories and the willingness of the priest to listen to those stories. Sometimes that is all they need.
Listening is a sign of respect and active listening indicates a real interest in the lives of others. Listening is also the first stage of empathy and compassion. St. Benedict, in the prologue to the holy Rule, encourages his disciples not only to listen but to incline the ear of their hearts. Listening opens our hearts to the needs of our brothers here. It makes us worthy to be called brothers to one another. If we aspire to that spiritual fatherhood of which we hear so much, then the first quality of a good father is to pay attention, to carefully listen to those for whom he has spiritual care.
The final quality for human formation that I would like to focus on today is gratitude. Our sense of gratitude for our lives, our vocations, our education, our formation, our friends, indeed for everything, draws its energy and power from one source, Jesus Christ. When I was growing up as a Baptist child in the South, in Sunday School we had a song, “O How I Love Jesus.” The words are not difficult to remember.
O how I love Jesus! O how I love Jesus! O how I love Jesus! Because he first loved me!
Our sense of gratitude comes from our acknowledgement of who we are, the enlightenment we have received in a true spirit of humility. We are sons and daughters of God. We are a people picked up by the Good Samaritan, the Lord. We are those who have received, completely without merit and without cost to ourselves, the love of God who cared so much for the world that He gave His only Son to be our savior. As St. Paul reminds us in the Letter to the Romans:
While we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath. (Romans 5:6-9)
Gratitude for so great a love spills over for us in the perpetual sacrifice that makes present this divine gift in a never-ending way, the Holy Eucharist. Eucharistia, thanksgiving, is the source and summit of our lives as Christians. Our appreciation and celebration of the Eucharist tells us how to live. Just as Christ Jesus mandated that we love God and love our neighbors, so our appreciation of the gift of redemption and the gift of the Holy Mass must inform our daily lives. Brothers and sisters, this is not rocket science. Saying “thank you” is easy if our hearts are truly attuned to what we have received.
What are the best practices for gratitude? Simply saying the words, for a start. Writing thank you notes is another important best practice. I do not mean thank you e-mails. I mean notes sent through the mail or placed in our community mailboxes. Every year, I receive dozens of notes from thoughtful seminarians who want to express their gratitude for what they have received in formation or in a class. This is so important. How could we go through four to six years of formation without ever acknowledging with sincere gratitude what we have received here? I keep every thank you note I receive, because each one is a testament to what we are doing here: instilling a sense of purposeful thankfulness for the gifts God has given us.
Another best practice is a purposeful meal prayer. When we pray the meal blessing privately, let it not be perfunctory or trite. Let it be heartfelt and meaningful, even if it’s only for grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Even the base animals offer signs of gratitude for what they have received at the hand of others. Our failure to do so places us on a lower level. Only lives steeped in sin could be as base as that.
Brothers and sisters, today I have presented some values and attitudes for our common life that touch on the qualities of a well-developed human person. I began this conference with a brief discussion of the new evangelization as a re-evangelization. When we dare to become better people, we proclaim the Good News to a world often drowning in mediocrity. As we gather insight on the issue, we can do no better than to turn to the insight from St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians:
He gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ, so that we may no longer be infants, tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery, from their cunning in the interests of deceitful scheming. Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body’s growth and builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)
In our pursuit of these lofty goals, we must turn to the aid of the saints, and in particular Our Lady.

Rector's Conference

2011-10-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

In my rector’s conferences for this formation year, I would like to focus on the gift of vocation, or rather the idea of vocation as a gift. In his very interesting book on the Catholic priesthood, Matthew Leavering focuses on the centrality of giftedness and receptivity in the exercise of God’s salvific power. All that we have comes from God whether we acknowledge that central truth or not. All that we need to do is to offer a proper thanksgiving for His manifold gifts. Our lives become confused when we fail to seriously recognize this giftedness, when we fail to acknowledge that we are nothing without Him? And yet, our dilemma must be that of the psalmist who asked: “How can I make a return to the Lord for all the good He has given me?” How do we respond to God’s singular invitation to intimacy? Obviously the answer is first and foremost in prayer.
What is prayer? Prayer is the activity of cultivating a relationship with God. Theologically speaking, it is “raising one’s mind and heart to God” according to St. John Damascene. Or perhaps we prefer St. Therese of Lisieux: “For me prayer is an upward leap of the heart, an untroubled glance toward heaven, a cry of gratitude and love which I utter from the depths of sorrow as well as from the heights of joy.” As the cultivation of that essential relationship, prayer is the foundation of our lives and work as disciples of Jesus and a forteriori as priests. There is no priestly life without prayer. In the last chapter of St. John’s Gospel Jesus confronts St. Peter after the events of the passion, events over which St. Peter had reason to be trebly ashamed. Our Lord asks St. Peter a series of questions: “Do you love me?” To St. Peter’s affirmative answer, Jesus then gives the commission to feed, tend, feed. The intention of this conditional question is clear: Ministry depends upon one thing, a firm and stable relationship with God in Christ. We may undertake the laudable tasks of counseling, teaching, guiding, and serving others in a context in which faith is not a part of the equation. These things are not ministry. Ministry demands that the Divine Persons be in the midst of the human activity and this is only accomplished through a relationship of love with those same Divine Persons. We do what we do as disciples of Christ when we make Christ the center of what we do. This centrality is cultivated in an active life of prayer. There are many ways to engage the life of prayer and all of these ways can be fruitful. I will speak more directly about these various ways below. First, however, I would like to point to the central reality of a life of prayer and the principle motivation for cultivating a life of prayer: It is simply the understanding that: You are not alone. This is the cornerstone of prayer. Jesus said: And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.

This is, in effect, the essence of all prayer and all theology grounded in the Holy Trinity. It is the essence of God’s love for us, which is so great that he gave his only son. You are not alone. You do not have to be alone.

And of course, it is a message that, all of us, young and old, rich and poor alike long to hear, a message that so many in our world today are desperate to hear. That is why we pray. Our willingness to pray indicates that we are desperate to be connected, because loneliness is epidemic.
We see it in the empty eyes of the youthful victim of abuse, the victim of self-serving self sufficiency, the men and women who walk the streets of this city in search of a little dignity, a little relief from the harsh reality of the urban inferno.
Where do we experience the need for prayer?

We see it in the eyes of the aged and abandoned, the victim of the cult of youth, of isolation, desperation, fear, in those besieged by self-doubt, betrayal, loss. For them we must pray.
We hear it in the cries of the poor, the homeless, the marginalized, the outcast, the voices of those who cry for bread, for acceptance, for homeland. We hear it in the philosophy of libertarianism, of self-determination, of manifest destiny, self reference, in false and pernicious understandings of freedom, of choice. We know it in our culture’s insistence on rugged individualism, popularism, pioneerism, so-called prophecy. We know what loneliness is because we feel the pinch of its skeletal fingers in the very heart of our being, in the vacancy of the stare that confronts us daily in the mirrors of our self-perception. We know what loneliness is because we, though wounded, continue to wound by turning our back on the blankness of the other’s, our neighbor’s pleading. In spite of the endless rhetoric from the cult of self sufficiency, and individualism, we still long for love, long to feel it in the presence of others, the warm breath of human contact, human kindness. We long to know it in our care for our brothers and sisters, in the awkward gestures of friendship and fellow feeling, of fraternal care engendered by friends, by family, even by strangers. We long to be a part of something, to be accepted in spite of our awkwardness and so we pray to gain access to the throne of grace, the font of Love Himself.
And when we cannot find that place of belonging, we seek it in importune places or we hide our loneliness in mind and spirit numbing substances, in experiences cyberic, in the comfortability of sin. But try as we might we cannot escape the truth, the truth that is written in the very marrow of our being, we need to be in relationship, with God, with Christ and with the community. We yearn for company, for understanding, for love, for human affection, for warmth, for a gentle hand, a consoling smile. Prayer brings that. We long for love, respect, prayer is the source of that. In all of our efforts on behalf of building relationship we know the outcome of our prayer is a single insight. God is Love. God is here. God is relational, that is his nature, communion, and love. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, infinitely present to one another. We present to the Trinity in prayer. Through the Trinity present to one another. Prayer is involved in a gracious economic outreach to a needy humanity. Engaged in a endlessly varying polyphony. Entangled in the mystery of persons and habits. Entrenched in the life of the world and in the beatitude of heaven. In Touch with the longing of humanity. In contact with our deepest desires. Prayer makes God present to us. Prayer is Real presence. Catholicism is authentic humanism.

And we, who are created in his likeness may also be, can also be, must also be
Involved in the lives of others. Engaged in the messiness of the human condition
Entangled in the joys and sorrows, the hopes and despairs of our fellow pilgrims.
Entrenched in life, in the pure essence of living. In Touch with the misery of the world
In contact with the throbbing pulse of creation. This encounter with the Divine Reality which is also an encounter with our neighbor is an encounter with our deepest selves, our deepest desires, our most profound hopes expressed in a life of purposeful prayer. Once we understand the essence of prayer, we must then ask ourselves how to pray. What is the best way to pray? There is no best way to pray. As seminarians and priests we are given certain parameters to our prayer, but these are few. The late Holy Father Blessed John Paul II once said: “How to pray? This is a simple matter. I would say: Pray any way you like as long as you do pray.” St. Josemaria Escriva said: “Prayer is the foundation of the edifice. All prayer is powerful.”
As in any relationship, prayer is speaking and listening. How successful can a relationship be with another person when there is no listening? And yet, we often try that trick with God. Saying prayers becomes our default mode. Yet, God has infinitely more to say to us that we have to say to Him especially in light of His omniscience. As Pope John Paul II said: “In a conversation there are always an ‘I’ and a ‘thou’ or ‘you.’ In this case … the ‘Thou’ is more important, because our prayer begins with God … We begin to pray, believing that it is our own initiative that compels us to do so. Instead, we learn that it is always God’s initiative within us …” Listening to God can be risky, however, because in our heart of hearts we know what God is asking us to do. Perhaps we do not want to do it. Like the lazy husband who claims he could not hear his wife asking him fifteen times to take out the garbage, we sit back and rely on our powers of self-deception in the essentially facile process of discernment. Prayer also demands time and energy. In truth, it is the only thing that we can devote ourselves to that will truly profit us. Our Fr. Hillary Otttensmeyer is famous for saying: “Until you are convinced that prayer is the best use of your time, you will not find time for prayer.” Truth indeed.
Prayer is speaking and listening. It is also presence as I mentioned above. Relationship is relational because the parties are present to one another. In human relationships we feel the pain of separation from our friends, our family, and our loved ones. How can we not feel cosmically that same pain of separation from our Source of Life? The best practices of speaking and listening in prayer do not come naturally, they come through disciplined practice. No one can expect mystical experience in their beginning practice of prayer.
The development of skills for speaking and listening to God in prayer overflow into the life of the community. The way we speak and listen in prayer and the quality of that speaking and listening helps us in our lives with one another. The speech of prayer informs community life and what is experienced in community life, its speech patterns may well be an indicator of the quality of prayer. In Chapter Four of the Rule of St. Benedict, the Father of Monks speaks of the necessity of the disciple:
To guard one's tongue against evil and depraved speech. Not to love much talking. Not to speak useless words or words that move to laughter. Not to love much or boisterous laughter. To listen willingly to holy reading. To devote oneself frequently to prayer.
Good practices in speaking and listening in the community arise from prayer. Prayer informs our way of engaging others in the community. Prayer also helps us discern challenges in this area that every community faces.
In the letter of James, we read:
So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being can tame the tongue -- a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
In a community, gossip, murmuring, and idle speech are poisonous. They are toxic. In a community such as ours we live in close quarters. We know each other. We know more than we need to know. As the philosopher said: We all know where our goats are tied. Close living offers us the opportunity to love one another in more profound ways. It can also be the occasion of useless talk, inappropriate humor, ridicule and murmuring against the system. This is something that can be corrected, but only in a spirit of prayer and that prayer requires perseverance. As Blessed John Paul II once said:
Prayer gives us strength for great ideals, for keeping up our faith, charity, purity, generosity; prayer gives us strength to rise up from indifference and guilt, if we have had the misfortune to give in to temptation and weakness. Prayer gives us light by which to see and to judge from God's perspective and from eternity. That is why you must not give up on praying
There are many ways to pray. In a recent talk I gave on the question of theology and Tradition, I mentioned that our engagement with the life and teaching of the Church can be conceived in three ways: 1) Directive; 2) Disciplinary; and 3) Devotional. In that context my discussion was on what constituted doctrinal versus less-than-doctrinal concerns in the life of the Church. The distinctions apply equally to the question of prayer and, in particular, our context within this community of faith and by extension in the Holy Priesthood. Directive prayer may be said to have two aspects. The first is the necessity of prayer as a generic reality. In order to be disciples, we must pray. I have already discussed this necessity above but it bears repeating. We must pray. How that prayer looks and the direction it takes may have the aspects of individual preferences (for the most part) but we must pray. Failure to pray is a failure to engage the very meaning of discipleship. Prayer may at times be dry, but it can never be absent. Prayer may have consolation and desolation as its prominent features, but it can never be disregarded. Within a life of prayer, worship is the primary form of directive prayer. We must worship God. What does this entail? In the law of Christ it means first and foremost a sincere desire to offer homage and supplication to our Divine Creator. Concretely it means praying with the Church in the Holy Eucharist. In a directive way, the Eucharist is the spine of all prayer. Famously, the Second Vatican Council defines the Eucharist as the “source and summit” of our lives as followers of Jesus. It is also the source and summit of prayer. All prayer, whether the public prayer of the Church or our private prayer leads us back to the Mass.
The Fathers held that the Eucharist makes the Church. This tells us something essential about prayer. The Eucharist is the central feature of a life devoted to cultivating a relationship with God because it connects us intimately with God. It connects us with the saving action of Christ on the cross. It connects us to his resurrection. It connects us to the events of the upper room, both the Last Supper and the Day of Pentecost. The Eucharist fills us with the love of God by filling our very bodies with the Bread of Life, which alone gives meaning to this world’s travails. The Eucharist also essentially connects us to one another. It makes us brothers and sisters in the One who is broken, poured out, shared and consumed. Our essential prayer to God goes through the saving acts of Christ and grabs on to others. Prayer is relationship and the Eucharist is relationship par excellence. Certainly the saints have always known this.
In the words of the Angelic Doctor:
Material food first changes into the one who eats it, and then, as a consequence, restores to him lost strength and increases his vitality. Spiritual food, on the other hand, changes the person who eats it into itself. Thus the effect proper to this Sacrament is the con¬ver-sion of a man into Christ, so that he may no longer live, but Christ lives in him.
Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has also commented that:
The Eucharist is a "mystery of faith" par excellence: "the sum and summary of our faith." The Church's faith is essentially a eucharistic faith, and it is especially nourished at the table of the Eucharist. Faith and the sacraments are two complementary aspects of ecclesial life. (Sacramentum Caritatis, 6)
In connection with seminary formation and the priesthood we often hear of the need to cultivate a “Eucharistic Spirituality”. While there is no gainsaying this insight, what precisely is a Eucharistic spirituality? First, I would say that it is seeing the Eucharist precisely for what it is: a cosmic engagement with the very core of our being and an essential element of the divine plan for creation. In other words, the celebration of the Eucharist, as I mentioned above is essential to the life of the world. Second, a Eucharistic Spirituality is an engaging, active attention to the presence of Christ not only in the Holy Mass but in its effects, that is, in the world. The disciple of a Eucharistic Spirituality sees Christ not only as a necessary metaphysical element to the well-being of creation, but an essential social element as well. The social order is never complete without Christ and the Eucharist is the authentic harbinger of the real presence of Christ in that same social order. Third, a Eucharistic Spirituality acknowledges the need for transformation. Just as the elements of bread and wine are transformed so should we look to be transformed in the economy of conversion and we should further look for the world to be transformed through the economy of salvation. This dependence upon transformation gives the devotee of the Eucharist a particular insight not only about the liturgical celebration but about the world, every person in it and indeed, himself. The insight is this: Things are not what they seem to be. In the Holy Eucharist we must train our minds and indeed our spirits to look beyond the veil of accident to see the veritas, the Truth of what is present. This is a pastoral insight as well. We must look beyond the accidents of our lives to the Truth of Christ present. It applies to our self perception as well. Therefore a Eucharistic Spirituality is also an authentic psychology, an authentic sociology and an authentic moral code. In the throes of a Eucharistic Spirituality we learn to expect miracles of conversion. We accept a willing suspension of immediate judgment.
Armed with these insights, what are the best practices for our engagement with this essential prayer of the Church. First, we must take the Holy Mass seriously. The Mass is not another part of our day. It is the center of our day. It demands our attention, our careful consideration, and our equally careful preparation. The solemn celebration of the Eucharist engages our imagination and our will. We see in it the culmination of our morning movement and the source of energy for the rest of the day. Preparation for the Eucharist means several things. It means observing the Eucharistic fast carefully. It means being on time and ready to pray having predisposed ourselves to engage the miraculous. It means full, conscious and active participation. It means praying the responses. It means singing with the community at the prescribed times, even if the music may not be attuned to my particular tastes. It means suspending a critical attitude about things I really know very little about in order to authentically worship God in the assembly. Finally it means a reference to the others. The Eucharist is not our private prayer. It is a prayer that we undertake with the community. Reference to the community in the context of prayer means doing what the community does. It means praying with one another. It means regulating our voices in order to form a single voice of communal prayer.
Connected to the Holy Eucharist is the practice of Eucharistic Adoration and most particularly the Holy Hour. While not a directive aspect of the life of prayer, it does hold a pride of place and is a treasured part of our Catholic tradition and a very living devotion for a generation of Catholics today. The celebration of the Eucharist is an active expression of a Eucharistic spirituality. Adoration is a ministry of presence and cultivates the sincere love of God in our willingness to be present to Him in the Blessed Sacrament whether reserved in the tabernacle or exposed in the monstrance. The time spent with Our Lord in adoration is a privileged time. As Archbishop Sheen once remarked: “The Holy Hour is time spent with our Lord. If faith is alive, no further reason is needed.”
Regarding the Holy Hour, the Cure of Ares once remarked: ” How pleasing to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is the hour that we steal from our occupations, from something of no use, to come and pray to Him, to visit Him, to console Him.” Archbishop Sheen said: “ultimately the Holy Hour will make us practice what we preach.” The Holy Hour is a time of presence, of being with and as such must not be crowded with other activities. Each day’s Holy Hour should be an opportunity to spend time in the presence of the beloved and a time to calm the clamour of the day. To me, this is an essential aspect of formation, being still and quiet with God. In terms of best practices, therefore, the Holy Hour should not be a time for doing reading related to classroom work. It should not be filled with all kinds of vocal and mental prayer. It should be a time “to be” with God. This concept of the Holy Hour instills in the seminarian and priest that essential element of presence which is so necessary particularly in a world filled with so much unnecessary activity and a priestly life filled with so much busy work.
In addition to worship, a directive activity of Christian spirituality is reading the Scriptures. Developing a relationship with the Bible is key to priestly formation. The Bible is God’s direct speech to us. St. Jerome says that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. This is a theme reiterated by Pope Benedict in his apostolic exhortation on the Word of God in the life of the Church. We know God in and through the Scriptures and our active engagement with the Bible is key to our life of faith. Best practices for Scripture include daily reading of the Bible as well as good commentaries. Of course, in the life of the priest this also takes the form of homily preparation. For seminarians, it is a good practice to review the readings for Mass each day, perhaps writing downs some ideas for what the scripture passages suggest to you. For deacons and those who are actively preparing homilies, using the daily readings to inform not only what I plan to say as a preacher but how I plan to live as a preacher becomes essential. A key element to a scriptural spirituality is the community. As Pope Benedict tells us in Verbum Domini:
The Bible was written by the People of God for the People of God, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Only in this communion with the People of God can we truly enter as a “we” into the heart of the truth that God himself wishes to convey to us.
These two aspects of spirituality, worship in the Holy Eucharist and Scripture are essential elements of being a Christian. Now I will turn to the second category I spoke of above, that of discipline. There are certain aspects of the spiritual life that are a part of our world not by virtue of a universal imperative but by virtue ot the discipline of the Church. The Liturgy of the Hours is just such an aspect. The Liturgy of the Hours is the daily prayer of the Church. It is a prayer that connects us in an essential way to the Jewish roots of our faith. “Seven times a day I praise you.” The psalmist says (Psalm 119, 164). St. Paul exhorts Christians to pray without ceasing (I Thessalonians, 5, 17). This is the will of God. The Liturgy of the Hours is the rich tradition of prayer that allows for all of these goods to be realized. Again it is the prayer of the Church. As we read in the General Instruction to the Liturgy of the Hours:
Christian prayer is above all the prayer of the whole human community, which Christ joins to himself (cf. SC 83).”18 The Lord Jesus and his body pray together, as if in chorus, to the Father. This communion in prayer will be clearer if those who pray the Hours study and meditate upon Scripture, in reading which our word and God’s word are at one.
Additional aspects of the Liturgy of the Hours are to be noted. It constantly gathers and presents to the Father the petitions of the whole Church. All pastoral activity must be drawn to completion in the Liturgy of the Hours and must flow from its abundant riches. In this chorus of prayer, the Church more perfectly manifests what she is, for her identity as body of Jesus is kept continually in actuation; the injunction to pray without ceasing, which cannot be fulfilled by any one individual, is corporately fulfilled by the Church as a community
That having been said, the practice of the Liturgy of the Hours is not mandated for all of the faithful. It is required of the deacon and priest. As a necessary discipline in ordained life, the practice of the Liturgy of the Hours should begin in earnest right now. Best practices for praying the Liturgy of the Hours is first to attend carefully to the office in common that we celebrate in the seminary. Devote your energy to the office. Be on time and prepared. Before morning prayer, every one should pray privately the invitatory psalm. The Office of Readings may be done at any time of the day. One of the daytime offices is required as is compline. Many of these offices we will pray privately. Private recitation of the office is a challenge at times, particularly in the busy lives of the seminarian and the priest. It is essential however that we make the time for this sanctifying work. The Liturgy of the Hours should be prayed from day one in the seminary. We should be getting used to it, making it a habit. Is it always rewarding? Honestly, it is not. Is it rewarding in terms of the fulfillment of an obligation? Absolutely. The Holy Church asks us to pray the Liturgy of the Hours in union with all others. We do so in solidarity, in the name of those who cannot or will not pray, and in pursuit of a catholicity which only authentic prayer can bring. Finding fruitful ways to pray the Liturgy of the Hours is a conversation each of you should be having with your spiritual director, your dean, or any priest or deacon. Learn the Liturgy of the Hours and make it your own.
The final category of theological truths that I mentioned in my talk earlier this year was devotional. Something is devotional when it fulfills a particular spiritual ideal or need. Different persons have different personalities. I may enjoy one activity, such as watching a film with one friend and another activity, such as running a marathon with another. Devotions are about preference, about emphases, and at some level about personal tastes. A devotional life is necessary for the priest, but every devotion is not necessary. We have the freedom to exercise our preference for various devotions, and that freedom should be observed. No one should be made to feel inferior if they are not connected to my particular devotional practice. We should invite others to experience our devotional lives, but not compel them to do so. We may like certain devotions and find them meaningful. Everything is not for everyone. One may practice lectio divina, another meditation, a third a particular chaplet. Someone else may be inspired by the Stations of the Cross, or novena prayers. Another important devotion and work of mercy is prayer for the souls in purgatory. Prayer for the souls in purgatory and devotions connects us to the supernatural world where the Church also lives. It is another important expression of the communal nature of prayer. Finally I would mention devotion to the saints and in particular to Our Lady. These kinds of devotions take many different forms. In Marian devotion, certainly the rosary holds pride of place. It is a tested and true means of mediating on the mysteries of Christ. At the core of all Marian devotion is the central insight that Our Lady holds a particular place in the history of our salvific relationship with God in Christ. Just as we cannot fathom our Christian faith without her willingness to engage the Word in a powerful, corporeal way, so our prayer, as a life of cultivated relationship, needs her presence. Without Mary, historically, there would be no Incarnate Word. Without Mary daily in our prayer, how can we see the importance of that Incarnate Word in our momentary activity? As a community of faith, we too need Mary as a patron and guide for the work of formation here. Most days we have the opportunity to pray the Angelus prayer together. This prayer recalls that central role of Our Lady in the history of salvation. It connects us to her powerful intercession near Christ. In terms of best practices for devotional prayer: explore. Find out what suits you. This is the nature of devotions, the legitimate exercise of personal preferences. However, find some way to connect to these beautiful expressions of that core relationship with God through prayer. Brothers and sisters, prayer forms the center of what we do here. It shows us the open heart of Christ and connects us essentially with one another in the Body of that same Christ. It shows us also a central Catholic truth that lies at the heart of our theology and practice of prayer: We are not alone. Surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, the Church militant, the Church suffering and the Church triumphant. A life of cultivated prayer and methodical prayer leads to the greatest of virtues, the virtue of zeal. The word zeal comes from the Greek word for boiling. How apt an image. The good zeal of discipleship is well-attested in Chapter 72 of the Rule of St. Benedict. I paraphrase:
This zeal, therefore, the seminarians should practice
with the most fervent love.
Thus they should anticipate one another in honor (Rom. 12:10);
most patiently endure one another's infirmities,
whether of body or of character;
vie in paying obedience one to another --
no one following what he considers useful for himself,
but rather what benefits another -- ;
tender the charity of brothers chastely;
fear God in love;
love their superiors and formators with a sincere and humble charity;
prefer nothing whatever to Christ.
And may He bring us all together to life everlasting!

Homily for Sunday

2011-10-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

In the late 1960 a musical group of women religious, called the Medical missionary sisters, composed a song that went with the parable presented in today’s Gospel. None of us who were around in those heady days liturgical and musical achievement are ever likely to forget its words

I cannot come to the banquet
Don’t bother me now
I have married a wife
I have bought me a cow
I have fields and commitments
That cost a pretty sum
I cannot come to the banquet
I cannot come

While it is quite obvious these women were medical missionaries and not English teachers, their observation seems right on the money

Every one has some kind of excuse

We start making excuses from our earliest years
The dog ate my homework
My grandmother died suddenly (for the ninth time)
I am sick and cannot play dodge ball today

Later the excuses become more sophisticated as life itself becomes more complex
My inner child is suffering
I have a repressed memory
I lived in a shame based patriarchal biosystem
No one understands me

Now I know this is going to come as a surprise, but, we even hear people making excuses in Church life

I had to miss mass because the roof of my house caved in
The organist at that parish plays too loudly, therefore I can’t come to church
I had to stay home and wait for the Sunday paper to arrive

The excuses of life seem endless

In the Gospel today, the guests had a thousand excuses, marital, bovine, or otherwise as to why they just could not make it to the glorious celebration the king was throwing.
Fields, commitments, spouses, livestock are all encompassing and yet,
Our Host, let’s just call him God instead of KING, has provided something really extraordinary, something that is destined to dazzle, God has prepared a meal for his guests, and not only a meal, an extravaganza. God has prepared lavishly, sumptuously, embarrassingly,. Graciously and yet Excuses for failing to come to the banquet remain as rampant and as myriad as the clever curvatures of each one’s mind

And of course this banquet is not just a great dinner. In fact, it is the banquet of God’s love and grace
Very well
I cannot come to the banquet, so what are my alternatives?

I am too angry to come to the banquet of God’s love
So I’ll just sit here in the corner and pout, supping on the cold Pop-Tart of my own hurt feelings and grudges. They didn’t want me at the banquet anyway

I will not come to the banquet of grace
So I’ll just zip through the drive through at McEgo and partake of the fast food of my way, my preferences and tastes, my vision.. And I can be a glutton if I like because at Mc Ego you always know where your next meal is coming from

I am too proud to come to the banquet of mercy and forgiveness
So I’ll just take my self on a little self-pity picnic and sit alone, under the tree of my own vanity and munch on the luncheon of self congratulation and personal delight

I am too old to come to the banquet of God’s generosity
So I’ll just stay in bed and slurp down the cold gruel of my own infirmities. Loneliness and fear

I am too poor to come to the banquet of God’s plenty
So, Ill just hangout here on the street corner of life, waiting for someone to feed me, emaciated by my own inability to ask anyone else for help.

I cannot come to the banquet. There are endless excuses as to why I will not accept the hospitality of the host, the graciousness of God and frankly none of them are very good.

The interesting thing about God however is this. He never backs away from his invitation.

God never loses heart even when our hearts are hardened to the needs of others, to our own shortcomings, to God’s particular invitation

God never forgets us, even when in our sinfulness, our stubbornness and pride, we forget ourselves and who we really are and we bury ourselves all the lies and deceptions that our culture heaps upon us

God never fails to call us, even when the cell phones of our consciousness have been disconnected and will not take any new calls, will not accept any new opportunities, will not hear any Good news

God always confront s us with the challenge to be better than the miserable wretches that we are, to see the world in fresh and life giving ways.

God always hopes for us even when the bright beacon of hope has been extinguished by our own pessimism and wrongheaded pursuits

God always loves us and holds us in infinite worth even when we blatantly demonstrate again and again that we do not love ourselves, Cannot wear with impunity the wedding garment we received at baptism
cannot see in ourselves the beauty that God has given us in calling us his children

Yet sisters and brothers that is what we are. Children and guests of a merciful, forgiving, patient and infinitely loving God.

And so the table is always set, the candles are always lit, the entertainment is always standing by.
Because

Here in this banquet the LORD of hosts
will provide for all peoples
a feast of rich food
Here in this banquet, God will satisfy all our hungers, not with the perishable food of human consumption, but with his own body and blood, the richness of which we can only measure in mercy, the power of which we can only conceive in the priceless witness of falling in love

Here in this banquet he will destroy
the veil that veils all peoples,
the web that is woven over all nations

Here in this banquet, there can be no fear, no self reproach, no morbid consciousness, because here we are all beggars and wayfarers, Here in this banquet there is no slave or free, no woman or man, no Jew or gentile, no rich or poor. We all come with what we have, which is nothing and receive what God gives, which is everything.

Here in this banquet The Lord GOD will wipe away
the tears from every face;
the reproach of his people he will remove

there is no time and no room for sorrow, for grudges, for hurts, for animosity, for shame, for death, because here we encounter not the hostile hospitality of the world but the robust reality of the living God, who comes to us in the breaking of bread and pouring out of wine (what a clever disguise) in words of comfort and challenge, in the very presence of the sinful and needy people we are.

Here in this banquet God will fully supply whatever you need,
in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
Because Christ is all in all
Because Christ is everything
Because Christ eradicates the venal vestiges of human ego
Because Christ shows us how much we are worth
Because While we are still sinners, Christ died for us, he died for us. What host can do more than that
Christ is all our hopes and all our dreams and all we are and all we wish to be
Because Christ, humbled himself and became obedient unto death
And gained for us an immeasurable prize, a place at the table.
We have a place at the table. Always there for us, if only we can come in.
Once we were no people, but now we are god’s people
Here in this banquet
Here in this banquet we encounter the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, How happy are those called to this banquet
Will we come?
Will we come?

Homily for Today - September 7

2011-09-07T06:56:00.000-07:00

One thing we can be certain of, when Jesus speaks there will always be a twist. Life a subtle knife he cuts to the quick of our expectations.
The beatitudes, as presented in the Gospel of St. Luke are a two-edged sword. There are blessings, but there are also woes. In our proclamation of the Gospel, so often we are comforted by the blessings promised us. We are engaged with a message that proclaims peace in the midst of our daily experience of war, violence, abuse, and pain. We are nurtured by the promise that the coming of God’s kingdom in our midst will bring some relief, some solace from the sad trajectory of human history, a history, whether corporate or personal, often fraught with disappointment and disillusionment.
The woes of St. Luke’s Gospel speak to us of the shadow side of faith, the challenge that comes with the consolation.
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Discipleship cannot come without some sacrifice, without placing behind us the various barriers that we erect in our lives to shield our vision from the suffering of our neighbors, even our brothers here.

But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Jesus challenges us to embrace, even in our bodies, the gap that can be filled by God alone, the tug of celibacy, the real loss of promises and vows kept.

Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Jesus confronts us with the silliness of our lives, silliness lived in idle talk and superfluous language, in devotion to frivolities that can never satisfy.

Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way. Jesus teaches us not to be confounded by our own egos, but to be fearless in proclaiming the message of the Kingdom even when it costs us a great deal, even when it costs us everything.

The shadow side of faith is the challenge that comes with the comfort, a challenge that presents to us each day the growing edge of our discipleship. Brothers and sisters, we are never there. Rather we dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of the elusive God who stands right beside us. We live lives caught between beatitude and woe, lives of complete and utter sacrifice, and the shadow of self interest.
We live on the edge of glory and the subtle knife can cut either way. Blessings and woe. The cut is in the will.

Opening Convocation - 2011-2012

2011-08-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

The Dignity of the Priesthood

Brothers and Sisters welcome to a new formation year. This year we begin on a somber note. As we know, last Sunday, in the very early hours of the morning, our two brothers, Fr. Jorge Gomez and Stanley Kariuki were killed in an accident in Tulsa. They were returning from a Knights of Columbus mass and dinner when their car was struck sidelong by a driver running a red light. They died at the scene. I am sure that neither of them imagined that that drive would be their last journey on this earth. I am sure that as they drove along they spoke of what would happen that Sunday morning in the parish where they were both assigned. I am sure that their conversations were filled with plans and expectations. I am sure that they spoke of Stanley’s return to Saint Meinrad This weekend. I am sure that they never anticipated death. I am equally sure that they were prepared to meet their ends. They were prepared to do so because they believe in Christ, they had given their lives already to the mystery of his dying and rising. They had promised themselves to eternity. For us, their violent encounter with the paschal mystery renews our conviction that in the midst of life, death is always lurking. Undoubtedly there is sadness for us as we begin this year. We will miss Stanley’s presence among us. He was a sweet, mild mannered man. We will miss Jorge and we mourn the promise of service unfulfilled. I can never forget the enthusiasm of his hometown on the day of his ordination. It would be easy to assign their untimely deaths to the providence of God. I think that is too easy for what we are feeling. I do not know why these two vibrant, enthusiastic young men died. I know I will miss them. I also know that in the shadow of loss comes the bright promise of the future. Today our new students, our returning students, our faculty and staff come together in the life of this community. We come full of hope, energy and desire to serve Christ in his Church. We are the resurrection to our own cross. We come at a time of loss but our only hope is for gain. In these coming days we have the opportunity to present to one another the authentic nature of the dying and rising of Christ, a dying and rising we are now experiencing in the very fiber of our being.
When our late Holy Father, Blessed John Paul II called for a “new evangelization” and when our present Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI renewed that call, I believe first and foremost they are asking for a re-evangelization of the Church, a renewal at the heart of the Church that will announce the Good News in fresh ways, internally, making the Holy Church a more effective instrument in carrying that same Good News to the ends of the earth as mandated by the evangelical charge of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. How do we announce a new evangelization for a seminary, a community already steeped in a climate of the quickening of discipleship and filled, hopefully with those already fully committed to the challenging, yet eternally rewarding work of announcing the presence of the Kingdom? Perhaps it can only be accomplished by going back to the basics.
In my rector’s conferences this year, I would like to focus on the gift of vocation. All of us have received a call from God. For some of us that call has been tested and tried by years of prayer and engagement with the Body of Christ. For some that call is still in the process of being formed. For others, it may be experienced as yet as a faint and ephemeral attitude of faith. However we experience the call of God in our lives, that call is a gift, one that is instilled in us by an act of Divine Grace, Divine Mercy.
I would like to begin my reflection today by asking a simple question: Why are you here? I ask that question of all of us, and to each of us in a particular way. I ask it of our seminarians, both our new men and those who have returned this year to continue the journey of formation to which they have been called and to which they have already given so much. Men, why are you here? I ask it of our faculty and staff, you, men and women who have devoted your careers and your lives for the formation of priests, lay ministers and deacons for the life of the Church. Faculty and staff, why are you here? Why are we here in this new formation year to engage the process of priestly formation, that leviathan struggle that at times buoys us up like the hull of a great ship riding the titanic waves of personal and communal triumph and at times weighs upon us with the fearsomeness of the unfathomable depths of that same abyss? Why are we here when it seems that every time we pick up a newspaper or access our usual website for news of the world, the priesthood is under attack? What do we hear? The Church, now throughout the world, continues to be embroiled in sexual scandals among its priests. Stories of abuse, many of them decades old continue to emerge from the shadows of memory and shame, continue to haunt both victims and perpetrators. We read likewise of the covering up of these crimes, the what seems like complete disregard for the pain of those who have suffered so wantonly at the hands of those very men who should have protected their innocence from the violent maw of the wolf. I continue to be shocked, I think we all must continue to be shocked, that after two decades of legislation both within and outside the Church, these scandals continue to emerge. I continue to be shocked, I think we all must continue to be shocked at the toll these scandals take. The toll is the very credibility of the Holy Church. The price is a lack of confidence in its leaders. The cost is a net of wide suspicion cast across the path of the innocent. And there is more. We regularly encounter other kinds of scandalous behavior, the misuse of funds, the abuse of power, the heavy handed leadership that robs our Holy Church of its trustworthiness as an expression of the love of God in the world. There are those who claim that the priesthood has been robbed of its dignity and I have more than a little confidence that these claims at least as some level are true.
What is the dignity of the priest? What should it be? What is the character of the priest? What is the priest as an agent? These questions are complex and not often asked in our Church and in the world today. For some they are questions whose answers are already laden with what is called clericalism because they point to a uniqueness in the priesthood. Questions about the nature of the priesthood point to the priest as one set apart, both ontologically and literally for a service that cannot be gainsaid because it is the service of God. First, the priest is a unique character. Part of the difficulty we face in the holy priesthood today is a lack of perception of this uniqueness. In a highly democratized culture, uniqueness in any form is ironically undervalued. Our social and political conditioning continues to remind us of that axiomatic “truth” that all men are created equal. While that is true at one level, it is also dangerous to hold that we should never expect in our cultural milieu anything encouraging genius, artistic achievement, and in the long run, real leadership. Often in our cultural environment we receive mixed messages. We are told simultaneously that we can achieve whatever we set our minds to, but to not aim above the commonplace. Thus we have created a cultureless culture, a bland suburban intellectual landscape in which all expressions of higher thought and transcendental values are seen as elitist and un-democratic. It was in this vein that Plato insisted that democracy lived in the extreme is next to anarchy. These are lofty reflections. Let us bring the case a little closer to home. In our daily lives, how do we encourage young people who find themselves a bit “different” from the pack? How do we highlight (or denigrate) true talent when we encounter it? The origins of our cultural perspective in this country is a thoroughgoing empiricism, an earthboundedness, a utilitarianism in which heart and mind are not encouraged to soar, but to produce and be useful in a very narrow sense. And yet such downward gazing is against our nature. Within each of us is that spark of divinity that seeks the stars, the longs for something beyond the practical, that yearns for truth, beauty and goodness expressed in a kind of divine superfluity. We long for heaven but the heavy yoke of social and cultural expectation keeps our eyes firmly focused in the dirt of the gutter. Jesus Christ encourages us to exchange that yoke for his own, a yoke that is easy, a burden that is light. The yoke of discipleship allows us to look upward to the stars. It engages us to transcend the fixed root of where we are and dream. It restores our human dignity destroyed by the sin of Adam. What did the Lord prescribe for Adam in the event of the fall? Until the advent of the Messiah, his lot was to be labor, toil, drudgery and exile from the vision of the empyrean heights. With Christ there is now hope for a greater dignity in the human condition and yet we continue to saddle ourselves with the adamantine burden of our first parents, our lax father and mother who has themselves been freed from the burden set in motion through thier disobedience. Where do we stand in Christ? In Christ we are free. As St. Paul reminds us in the letter to the Galatians: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians, 5,1). In the light of such a promise, how is it that humanity can continue to reject the message of the Gospel and return to its imprisoned condition in the earth like a dog to its own vomit? Christ has made us free and if by any act of will we continue to wear the yoke of slavery, then we have damaged the dignity wrought for us in the saving act of the cross. We have an inherent dignity in Christ. Now we must realize it. All of us are set apart in Christ, for God. Now we must manifest it. If all are set apart, there is a new democracy. Now we must make it real. If we are to make it real, we must be lead into this new promised land. And who is the Joshua who can take a desert bedraggled people into that Christian freedom flowing with milk and honey? It must be the priest, the Joshua, the other Jesus. Christ has prepared for us an unhoped-for dignity and he has called priests to serve his people. Thus the priest is set apart by his character as a baptized person, and by his call to lead and inspire others. He has been given a particular gift to enrich the world. He has not been given that gift to enrich himself or to create for himself a position in opposition to those from whom he has been called.
What does the priest do? What can he do? The priest is called to service leadership and cultic leadership. Service leadership for the sake of cultic leadership. The priest leads by confecting the Eucharist in the exercise of his unique power. The priest makes the Church in the confecting of the Eucharist. What is the Eucharist? It is a covenant, the presence of Christ on earth in a mystical extension of the earth-shattering event of the Incarnation. It is the Christus prolongatus, the prolonged event of Christ. The presence of Christ, the continual presence of Christ ensures that the dignity spoken of above is maintained in the world. The Eucharist makes the Church and thus is the full manifestation of the new condition of humanity. The Eucharist is the source of human success in its striving to touch the transcendent, to grasp the things of heaven in a way the icarian pretense of human pride could not. If the priest is set apart in Holy Orders from all the others who have been set apart in Baptism, his status is for service in the cultic action of the constitutive Eucharist. Like Joshua, the priest fights against the citadels of the compromised expectations of our condition and opens the gates of grace, not for his own sense of victory but to feed a hungry people left to wander the desert. The priest has a dignity that is manifested in his willingness to fight for the people, even as Joshua railed against the walls of Jericho, even as Christ fought, all the way to Calvary. The priest has a dignity that is bound up with the fate of the people. The priest has a dignity that is directed always over the shoulder to encourage a people moving forward freed from the burdens of the earth. The priest has a dignity that is not his own, a dignity that rightly belongs to Christ. The priest has a dignity that is always emptying itself like the breast blood of the pelican to give life to others. The priest has a dignity rooted in sacrifice. The priest has a dignity that bridges the fully human and the fully divine. The priest has a dignity that carries the people on his shoulders so that they can have a better look of that rich valley, that promised land that God has called us to in calling us his sons and daughters, brothers and sisters in our dear Lord, Jesus Christ. The priest has a dignity that serves as a living icon of that dignity to which we are all called. The priest has a dignity that is not his own. The priest is not his own. The priest is for God and the priest is for us.
When we examine the condition of the holy priesthood today, we must say that in its character, in its essence there is no compromise to the priesthood. The priesthood today is what Christ realized it to be in the institution of the sacrament of Holy Orders on the night he was betrayed. The priesthood, in essence, is what it is and its inherent dignity is complete and inviolate. The perception of the dignity of the priest is another story. The essence of the priesthood is safeguarded by the matter and form of the sacrament and the assurances of apostolic succession. The perception of that dignity, however, is undoubtedly compromised. What, or perhaps, who has compromised the perception of the dignity of the priesthood? It is true that this perception has been assailed in the pretensions of an overweening media-saturated culture. But let us not place the blame completely out there. The loss of respect experienced by the priesthood is not only the product of persecution, it is the product of our own folly. What compromises the dignity of the priesthood? First, I would say a lack of personal character on the part of priests. All of us are the products of our environment. Many of us have been raised in a highly commercialized culture in which we were told that we can have everything. We cannot. The character of the priest is dependent upon his ability to understand his nature, his function and his place in the social order. The character of the priest is compromised when he tries to have his cake and eat it too. It is compromised when he remains with one foot in the world of the so-called “secular” and another in the sacred. It is compromised when it fails to reach its true potential in Christ because the priest is engaged in other activities which begin to take precedence over his life of prayer and service. The character of the priest is compromised when he fails to accept completely who he is, when he tries to hold on to that which is not priesthood. It is compromised when he tries to live an ontological lie, when he brackets in any way his essence for the convenience or pleasures inherent in not bearing the heavy responsibilities of the priesthood. Let me give some more concrete examples. The priest is compromised when he is lazy. Laziness is a trait that has to be overcome in a serious way because we live in a culture of leisure. It is a false leisure. All of us have the necessity, I would say the responsibility to recreate in the truest sense of the word. That is not the question. Laziness is doing what I need to do to get by and nothing more. It is fulfilling obligations at the bare minimum in order to do what I want to do. The lazy priest rushes from Mass in order to catch the game or his show. The lazy priest abandons the confessional to do something fun. The work ethic in our culture has been severely compromised by the cult of leisure. We work not to fulfill a mission but to have the resources to spend on having fun. Laziness overwhelms the priest, making him a mere functionary. God can use the mere functionary character of his priesthood, but at what price to his own dignity and at what cost to his reputation. The lazy priest makes excuses not to go to the hospital, the nursing home, not to make communion calls. He “says” mass. He gets homilies off the internet. He gives lip service to his responsibilities so he can do what he wants. The lazy priest is no leader. Neither is he a follower. He is a lounger and thus compromises the dignity of which he is possessed. The lazy priest holds the treasure of his priesthood in a reclining chair. Then he wonders why no one shows him the proper deference due his office. After all, he has sacrificed so much to be a priest.
The perception of the dignity of the priest is compromised also by crudeness. This can take several forms. One is poor hygiene and poor grooming. The priest looks slovenly and then protests that his appearances is the result of a commitment to evangelical poverty. This is nonsense. While we may reject the Wesleyan axiom that cleanliness is next to godliness, cleanliness is respectful. I show respect for the people I meet by appearing clean-shaven and not reeking of body odor. Crudeness can also take the form of impropriety of speech. The use of crude and shocking language is not prophetic, it is ignorant. It demonstrates a lack of humanity, particularly when it is directed to a sexually-exploitative purpose. No one can take the celibate commitment of a priest seriously when he is continually using foul language and telling off-color jokes. Refinement of speech is not un-manly, it is human.
Another way in which the perception of the priesthood is compromised is a lack of professionalism. Some priests believe that because of their missionary character, they should not be held to the same standards of practice as other professionals. They can dress in a careless manner. They can make and break appointments. They can be late for meetings. They can fail to show up all together. The priest believes that he will be forgiven and, of course, many times he is. The unprofessional priest is also unreliable as a leader. He is not respected by his parishioners or by his peers. While the rules of the professional world and its standards are not the end of the priest’s life, they are certainly a means by which he gains credibility. A lack of professionalism in the priest is not a sign of inspiration, it is a sign of disdain for those around him. Like the rules of etiquette, professional behavior is essential for the common good. It facilitates the mission.
Another means of compromising the inherent dignity of the priesthood is the expression of an anti-intellectual bias. A number of years ago, I was speaking to a group of priests about the Second Vatican Council. We were having a discussion of the various documents and the way in which those documents had been realized in the decades since the council. After the conference, one of the priests came up to me laughing to himself and confessed that he had never read a document of the council and that he operated on pastoral instinct. I told him that I felt sorry for his parishioners. Sometimes, even in the seminary we can be caught up in a kind of cultural anti-intellectualism. We wonder, even aloud, about the necessity of the study that we undertake here for our future pastoral engagements. I say, if you do not take your studies seriously, even if you are not the best student, if you do not take seriously the need to know the teachings of the Church and the Tradition, I say I hope to God you never have any parishioners to inflect your opinions upon. The damage wrought by the material heresy of well-meaning, anti-intellectual priests is real and devastating to the fabric of the Body of Christ. The cavalier attitude that some priests take toward doctrine is not only shocking, it is sinful. As priests, we bear a tremendous responsibility for the orthodoxy of the Christian people and that orthodoxy cannot be of our own construction. It must be forged and forged hard at the anvil of the Church’s intellectual life, a life to which all of us, no matter our native talents, have access. One manifestation of this anti-intellectual attitude is cultural narrowness. A cultural perspective that is woven together from distended threads of popular music, the internet, social networking, commercial television etc. is not likely to weave a tapestry of inspiration. A cultural bias that is earthbound is not going to offer us the opportunities for cultivating such practicalities as a celibate life or a literate imagination for preaching and teaching. It is a commonplace in our society to disdain higher culture. We scoff at those who care about art, music, literature and theater. We laugh at the pretensions of those who seek the things that are above. And yet, it is these things that have the potential to unite us as a people by appealing to our better selves whereas the manifestations of a low fanciful culture merely reinforce the self-gratification and selfishness that tear at the fiber of the Body of Christ. The dignity of the priesthood is compromised by too close an identification with popular culture. We think that “being in touch” with the world is inspirational to our youth. I would suggest that familiarity breeds contempt and that young people are more often inspired by alternatives to the dead end culture that surrounds them.
Another means by which the perception of the dignity of the priesthood is jeopardized is a lack of engagement with the spiritual life. An old adage in the world of formation is that after ordination, the prayer life is the first thing to go. Outside of the structures of seminary life, the priest simply cannot find the time or the energy to pray. We make excuses for neglecting the breviary and the holy hour. We live into falsehoods such as: “my work is my prayer”. We discover all of a sudden that we are burnt out and the pastoral life has little meaning. Why should it if we have discarded the essential relationship with God expressed in prayer that gives meaning to our pastoral engagement. We fool ourselves if we do not think prayer is the key to priestly life and service. We fool ourselves here if we are not convinced that a dedication to prayer is the most important thing for me to do. We fool ourselves if we believe that people do not know when we no longer pray, when our spiritual life is not only dry but dead. We compromise the dignity of the priesthood when we continue to present ourselves as that bridge between heaven and earth and fail to acknowledge that the bond has been broken by our lack of prayer.
We also endanger the dignity of the priesthood when we refuse to accept responsibility for the pastoral mission to which we have been called. This can take several forms. One is a refusal to accept the unique role of the priest as leader, servant leader to be sure, but leader and to align ourselves to an unserviceable egalitarianism. Another way is to fail to engage the work of God in a particular place because I am constantly looking forward to the next, seemingly better place. It is amazing to me how many of our young clergy today are ordained for the transitional priesthood and refuse to take their place in the vineyard of the Lord in the expectation that some better venue will soon be opening. It is amazing to me how many young priests today are willing to sacrifice their name and indeed their souls by stepping on the backs of lower men to rise to the top of chancery officialdom in some of the poorest dioceses in the country. The obverse of this refusal to accept responsibility is rank clericalism. I use this expression rank clericalism intentionally. An authentic clerical spirit recognizes the uniqueness of the vocation and accepts the responsibility that that uniqueness necessitates. Rank clericalism claims privilege without responsibility. Rank clericalism is more about the dress than the service. Rank clericalism insists upon respect without offering. Rank clericalism is all about the look of the thing and nothing about the substance of the thing. Rank clericalism legislates according to tastes. Rank clericalism exercises power without consultation. This kind of clericalism destroys perceptions of the dignity of the priesthood by being all about me.
Brothers and sisters, are we not aware of these issues? Have we not witnessed the daily damage done by those whose callous disregard for the dignity of the priesthood calls all of our credibility into question? Today we face a mighty challenge, but a worthy one. How do we restore the dignity of the priesthood? In my closing conference last year, I commented on the ordination rite and described the dignity of the priesthood in these words:
It is the dignity of a human person fully alive insofar as the human personality of the priest forms a living bridge to service. In the central part of the Rite of Ordination, we rise from the dirt of the ground to the company of the angels in the dignity of the priesthood. Here we might do well to remember the sacramental act that brought us into the wonder of discipleship, our baptisms. In baptism we hear these words with the presentation of the white garment the outward sign of your invisible dignity. Bring it unstained into the wedding banquet of eternal life. This is true dignity, the dignity for which we prepare, after which we strive in this house of formation, this seedbed of God’s generosity. It is the dignity of a man inebriated by ceaseless prayer, whose calling is always beyond. It is the dignity of a man of keen intellect who knows well the masterful story of the Church’s great intellectual tradition. It is the dignity of a man who knows himself and is not afraid of himself. It is the dignity of a man who does not fear the sexual energy that God has given him, that relational energy that allows him to have profound, holy contact with others. It is the dignity of a man who does not shy away from others, is not threatened by others but embraces others as brothers and sisters. It is the dignity of a man of culture, a man who has lifted his gaze from the gutters of the ephemeral and raised it to the transcendent to that which carries him beyond his little lot. It is the dignity of a man who has realized that the only greatness in any man is the ability to make those around him, the poor, the lonely, the outcast, to make them feel great. It is the dignity of a man whose clarity of vision is such that he can see the arch of heaven in the threatening jaws of an earthly hell. It is the dignity of a complete man whose completeness is augmented by the grace of a sacrament. It is the dignity of a man who will never take advantage of God’s people because he has been given something that they have not. The dignity to turn privilege to tireless service, the dignity to celebrate the sacraments with reverence in accord with the teachings of the Church and not seek to celebrate himself in celebrating God’s mysteries. It is the dignity of hope in a world of fatalism, joy in the face of disappointment, prayer in light of human failure, reconciliation in the wake of sin. It is the dignity of a man who can pick others up from out of their degradation their imprisonment to sin because he himself has felt countless times, witnessed in his own breast the powerful words of restoration: I absolve you. It is the dignity of a man who is as free in giving as he is grateful for what he has freely been given. It is the dignity of a man who would never embarrass another person, never purposefully cause harm, never put himself before the others. It is the dignity of a man who knows in the first instance not to call upon his own resources, but upon the name of Christ, the name of Mary, the names of the saints who washed over him as he lay prostrate in the dust. It is the dignity of a man who will walk the path until the end, who will live with integrity and die with holy beauty because, in the last instance, in the last breath he draws, after all the trials of life are over, after all the disappointments are reckoned, after all the hours of the Church’s endless round of prayers are recited, after all the shining consecrations are dimmed, after all the throes of this life have been overcome, he will find dignity in the arms of the Father and peace at the last because he was, until the temporal end true to who God called him to be eternally, a priest.
These lofty ambitions are not beyond our reach.
How do we understand the dignity of the priesthood? We might do well to look at the preface of the Eucharistic prayer for the Chrism Mass of Holy Thursday:
Christ gives the dignity of a royal priesthood to the people He has made His own. From these, with a brother’s love, He chooses men to share His sacred ministry by the laying on of hands. He appointed them to renew in His name the sacrifice of redemption as they set before Your family His paschal meal. He calls them to lead Your holy people in love, nourish them by Your word, and strengthen them through the sacraments. Father, they are to give their lives in Your service and for the salvation of Your people, as they strive to grow in the likeness of Christ and honor You by their courageous witness of faith and love

In our desire to comprehend the dignity of the priesthood we might also turn to St. Paul, who shows us so eloquently how those configured in Christ are to exercise their ministry.
Brothers and sisters:
As your fellow workers, we appeal to you
not to receive the grace of God in vain.
For he says:
In an acceptable time I heard you,
and on the day of salvation I helped you.
Behold, now is a very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.
We cause no one to stumble in anything,
in order that no fault may be found with our ministry;
on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselves
as ministers of God, through much endurance,
in afflictions, hardships, constraints,
beatings, imprisonments, riots,
labors, vigils, fasts;
by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness,
in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech,
in the power of God;
with weapons of righteousness at the right and at the left;
through glory and dishonor, insult and praise.
We are treated as deceivers and yet are truthful;
as unrecognized and yet acknowledged;
as dying and behold we live;
as chastised and yet not put to death;
as sorrowful yet always rejoicing;
as poor yet enriching many;
as having nothing and yet possessing all things.
How is this not a plan to realize, in the expression of divine love the dignity of the holy priesthood?

What is attained by the pursuit of dignity? When we truly intend to express in our lives the dignity that is within the priesthood, there are inevitable results. The first is a sense of coherence. When we authentically seek our nature, there must follow a irenic sensibility that flows from that authenticity. As long as we continually try to live a double life, we will find no peace of mind. Then there is a sense of integration, of seeing the various components of our lives in tandem with our authentic baptismal vocations as followers of Christ. There is also in the expression of this dignity a kind of evangelical attractiveness, an ability to win souls for Christ through the example of our lives.
My dear brothers and sisters that is why we are here. We are here to win souls for God. We are here to express with joy and confidence that boundless blessing that has been bestowed on us through the redemptive act of Christ. We are here to give witness to the power of his cross. We are here to rejoice in the joy of his resurrection. We are here not to perpetuate the mistakes of the past, be those personal or communal but to learn from those mistakes for the sake of conversion, our conversion and the conversion of the souls entrusted to our care.
We are here to draw others into the glorious vision of heaven that we have received through our intimacy with God in a committed life of prayer
We are here to demonstrate the authentic dignity by which the glory of God is manifested in the person truly alive
Brothers and sisters, we are here to become saints, to see our lives, our mundane lives, our sinful lives drawn upward and upward to that full dignity of the saints.
All of us here bear the incredible responsibility of being more than the world, in its cynicism expects us to be. The future is in our hands. The future is in your hands.
And so I welcome you to a new formation year, a year of challenge, a year of expectation and a year of hope. Will we? Can we satisfy all of the demands imposed upon us, the responsibility incumbent upon us to restore the dignity of the priesthood? We will and we can with the help of God, his angels and his saints and in particular that exemplar of human dignity, the Theotokos and Blessed Virgin Mary upon whom we cast all our care.

Opening Homily

2011-08-28T08:04:00.001-07:00

We begin our formation year with a full house, 142 seminarians. Thanks be to God.

You duped me Lord and I let myself be duped.
The words of the prophet Jeremiah may well resound among some of us here today, those of us who are new and those who have returned.
You duped me Lord and I let myself be duped.
The claims of Jeremiah in the first reading however, offer us something greater than the opportunity to reflect upon our present condition, they offer us the opportunity to examine the vocation of the prophet in the history of salvation. Like the apostles of the new covenant, the prophets were a curious lot. Some, like the prophet Jonah were reluctant men. Jonah when asked by God to go to Nineveh, avoided it like the plague. Elijah was a fiery preacher and outspoken critic of the culture of his time. Isaiah was a poet. Amos was a dresser of sycamore trees. Hosea made a bad marriage. And Jeremiah was a young man, a hesitant man but a man like the others (and like the apostles later on) who could not resist the call of God. He was imbibed with the prophetic spirit, the spirit of witness to the ultimate reality of the Divine over the ephemeral, the passing notions of human happiness, power, authority, prestige and accomplishment. He and the others were gifted with the prophetic spirit and so they went forth to do mighty deeds and proclaim powerful messages in the name of the Most High.
You duped me Lord and I let myself be duped.
There are some in the Church today that claim that the prophetic spirit has departed from the Church. These critics would say that the forceful message of God has been stifled by institutional bureaucracy, by outmoded forms of leadership or by a simple inability to proclaim the Word of Truth effectively to a new generation. For many in the Church today, things are not what they used to be, whether our vision of a prophetic Golden Age existed 50 or 500 years ago. These harbingers of doom lament the lack of prophetic voices in the Church, but I say let us not be duped my brothers and sisters by their fearful warnings.
Brothers and sisters, to these naysayers, I say. As long as Church walls stand in places like Pakistan and Syria, Church walls bombarded with messages of hate yet boldly continuing to proclaim the Prince of Peace amid the clamor of the gross machinery of ideological warfare, I say the prophetic spirit lives in the Church.
I say the spirit of prophecy lives as long as bells ring out over distant hills to proclaim times of prayer and consecration in a world of violence, violence in the home, in the fields, in the human heart, and in a world of blasphemy, blasphemy of creation, blasphemy against innocent life, blasphemy against God himself.
I say the spirit of prophecy lives as long as altars are approached and the manifestation of the Living God is present to us, as long as men and women and children bring forward the gifts of their lives to be transubstantiated into Divine reality and take from those same altars the Good News of salvation in the clever disguise of bread and wine.
I say the spirit of prophecy lives as long as candles are lit to quell the encroaching darkness of the human spirit inebriated with false understandings of choice, debilitating lies about freedom.
The spirit of prophecy lives as long as masses are celebrated in distant churches, while outside the hounds of intolerance bay for the blood of Christians.
The spirit of prophecy lives as little children continue to be brought forward to be baptized and men and women find their way to the safe harbor of the Church in Easter vigils from year to year
The spirit of prophecy lives as long as knees are bent in humble confession and tears are shed as sins long held fast are forgiven and the assurances of absolution given
The spirit of prophecy lives as long as one couple enters into the sanctity of marriage with the full conviction of their vocations to be witnesses of Christ’s love for the world.
The spirit of prophecy lives as long as women and men kneel in sanctuaries to take vows of apostolic service and pour out their lives for the good of others
Brothers and sisters the spirit of prophecy, the spirit of evangelization, the spirit instilled so irresistibly in those varied men of old continues in our day, it cannot help but continue
The spirit of prophecy in every utterance of Church teaching that points to a better way of life for the hungry huddled masses starving in the streets of the cities of so called developed countries
The spirit of prophecy that speaks liberation to families immured in lives of rank poverty, the slavery of unutterable violence, and the shroud of desperation
The spirit of prophecy that boldly proclaims life in a culture of death, the dignity of every man, every woman every child from conception until the last labored breath is drawn
The spirit of prophecy in far flung places like Korea, Africa, Mexico, India, and throughout the United States where men continue to stand up to be counted with the saints and hearing the call of God, the call heard by the prophets of Old, respond with heartfelt voices, clear voices, unwavering voices: Speak Lord, your servant is listening
It is the spirit of prophecy that infuses us to be mighty proclaimers of the Word
That Word whose quickening syllables arouse us from the slumber of indifference, impatience, and spiritual sloth
That Word that desperate ears long to hear, that dispels the fearsome phantoms of death and proclaims life eternal for a people sheltering against the walls of a lost Eden
That Word that compels us to proclamation, instills in our hearts the wonder of the Incarnate Deity
That Word that invades our bones, the very marrow of our bones, and sets us ablaze until it and we become like fire.
Fire that cannot be quenched
And O brothers and sisters we need a fire
We need a fire to burn in the depths of our souls and consume our complacency and our lack of faith
We need a fire of illumination to take to a world hovering in the shadows of its own lies
We need a fire to warm the depths of the human intellect and culture long neglected by the enduring chill of indifference.
And the Word of God, the spirit of prophecy is that fire that consumes the critical spirit of this age, clearing barren trees from the landscapes of cynicism and destruction until we can see the clear horizon of Truth over which the Mighty Son of Justice rises with healing in his wings and whose thunderous voice cries out that God is not dead nor does he sleep and continues to instill the spirit of prophecy in his Church, in her preachers, in us
We are called my brothers and sisters to take this message, this wondrous word to those who need it
To be bearers of his love for those who are lost and forsaken
To be witnesses of his affection for the lonely and afraid
To bear within ourselves the power of his promise
Brothers and sisters, today let us resolve to take up the mantle of prophecy.
Dare to be faithful to God’s call which is unique in each of us
Dare to be faithful to the Holy Church, to the College of Bishops, to our superiors, to the program of formation in this seminary
Dare to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice of service in the celibate way of life with the full conviction that the Lord will take care of all your needs
Dare to move that service away from attention to the self and toward the needs of others
Dare to hear the cries of help, sometimes secret, sometimes hidden, in the lives of your brothers and sisters here.
Dare to reject the spirit of the age, the spirit of individualism, the spirit of cynicism and the spirit of death
Dare to study and be transformed renewing your mind in the spirit of prophetic utterance through the authentic teaching office of the Church
Dare to pray, dare to open your heart to the pleading Christ, the beckoning Christ, the consoling Christ
Give your lives to him and hold nothing back and then we will know Brothers and sisters, without a doubt we will know that the prophetic spirit has not left the Church, nor could it leave as long as we long to be true to the Spirit of the Gospel, the living spirit of Christ.
It will not depart as long as one witness cries out from the street corners of overrun cities
As long as one heart continues to beat on behalf of Love Himself
As long as one holy but failing priest opens the covers of breviary hard pressed by years and with his faltering hands makes the sign of the cross and with trembling voice utters the familiar words: God come to my assistance. Lord make haste to help me.
You brothers and sisters have come here, you have come back here, we continue to stay here to be the very life of that prophetic spirit alive in heroic and little ways even as we say:
You have duped us, O Lord, and praise God, we have let ourselves be duped.

Our Brothers

2011-08-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

Just seven weeks ago, I was making my way to Mexico for the ordination to the priesthood of Fr. Jorge Gomez. I did not want to go. Not that I had anything against Jorge, quite the opposite, he had served the House of St. Mark well as prefect and had been a wonderful seminarian during his years with us. I was just a bit travel weary and traveling to Mexico was probably going to be a hassle. All of my consternation vanished, however, when I arrived in Durango, “Land of Scorpions”. The night journey to Jorge’s hometown of Jesús Agustín Castro proved to be an overland adventure. When I arrived late in the evening, the whole town seemed to be wide awake, preparing for the coming day’s festivities, The entire town was festooned with bunting and streamers, the church was decorated to the rafters and everyone seemed to have come out to help. Now my irritation was giving way to admiration. In the next days, I had the chance to witness a town in love, not only with their native son, but for what he now stood for as a priest. The ordination was beautiful. The mass of thanksgiving was wonderful. The mariachi band played into the wee hours of the morning. Canons were fired. Fireworks exploded. I returned from Mexico less weary than when I arrived. Once again, I was inspired by the beauty of the Body of Christ, lived in places around the world, places like Durango, “Land of Scorpions”.

Last weekend, just as Saturday night was giving in to the day of resurrection. Fr. Jorge and our Tulsa seminarian, Stanley Kariuki, were killed in a tragic automobile accident. The lives of two men were lost when a driver ran a red light at top speed and plowed into their car as they were returning from a Knights of Columbus function. In the Tulsa newspapers, their deaths were reported in a very matter of fact way. For us the matter was more than facts. They were our brothers. In his time at Saint Meinrad. Jorge was well-known as the informal ringleader of a band of disparate characters I called the United Nations. He had a gift of making others feel welcome. The United Nations included men from Mississippi, Bahamas, Philippines and all points in between. Jorge was a good friend. He cared about everyone. He was also a devoted man of the Church whose single desire was to serve Christ in his people. I can never forget the joy on his face as he was ordained a priest in Mexico. I cannot forget the joy on his dear father’s face and his family’s faces, the whole town’s faces. Jorge wanted to serve. He wanted to be a good priest who changes people’s lives. He had six weeks. I am sure he made the most of them.

Stanley Kariuki came from a small town called Molo in Kenya. In his youth he prepared to be a medical doctor, but his vocation came when he was serving with a group of medical missionaries in his native country. Eventually, Stanley left Kenya and he came to the United States with Glenmary. He came to Saint Meinrad, a town about as far from Molo as one can get. He came with a missionary heart and an open and willing spirit. Just last May he affiliated with the Diocese of Tulsa, but he had already endeared himself to the people of eastern Oklahoma. Stanley was a quiet, studious man with a ready smile. His patience and calm helped to alleviate a great deal of tension. He was passionate about his native culture and willing and eager to share it with all. Stanley was a gentleman in every sense of the word. In his life he already served the Church well by witnessing to the global power of God’s love and God’s will. It seems impossible that he is gone and we will never see his smile again.

Despite coming from opposite sides of the world they were brought together by a common love for Christ and his Church. Despite speaking different languages, they were brought together by the common language of call and service. Thrown together by their common experience as seminarians at Saint Meinrad, these men represented the best of us. They were bridges between worlds, bridges built in the name of Jesus. They were our brothers. They were not perfect men. Like the rest of us they could be a little whiney, a little hard headed, even a little troubling. Jorge had a way of getting his point across. Stanley was a well-known goat slayer. And they were our brothers. They were one of us. They taught us how to be good travelers in this life. Now Fr. Jorge and Stanley are united forever, not only in the fact of their death but in their now being bound together on another great journey. They are our brothers still. Ascending that seven-storey mountain they will soon come face-to-face with the Everlasting Father who calls of his children from the corners of the earth. We will miss them. We mourn for them and with their families and friends. We will see them again in that Kingdom of many colors, languages and cultures. Then there will be no more parting and we shall be brothers forever.

Graduation Day

2011-05-14T09:18:00.001-07:00

The Feast of St. Matthias

Graduation Liturgy
Archabbey Church
14 May 2011

Then they gave lots to them, and the lot fell upon Matthias,
and he was counted with the Eleven Apostles.

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles this morning we have a powerful reminder of the origins of our doctrine of apostolic succession and a potent witness of the power of God to choose and call those whom he desires to serve him.

The call of the Lord is indeed powerful. It extends even beyond the events of the paschal mystery. We know that it continues in the Church today, not only in the College of Bishops, but in other ways as well, in particular ways, in storied ways, in ways that each of us here could relate, in very personal ways.
In other words, just as the lot of service and witness fell upon Matthias, it falls upon us.
Jesus chose his disciples personally. Who were they? They were ordinary men, sinful men, arrogant men, humble men, ignorant men. Jesus chose them from tiny out of the way places, dustbowls, fertile fields, fishing holes, and counting houses. They were weak men and men prone to fail. He called them and in his love he taught them. He taught them the true meaning of life. He taught them what was important. He instructed them in his way. In their relationship with Jesus, their daily darkness was filled with the light of missionary zeal. They became articulate, inspired, fearless witnesses of the Word, offering up their lives, their very lives for the proclamation of his kingdom.

Why? Because the lot had fallen upon them

The disciples became emissaries, witnesses, martyrs and by their witness so many others were called. Men and women and children from every culture, speaking every language, from Jerusalem to the ends of the known world heard the call of Jesus through those disciples. Called to be baptized into the life, death and resurrection of the itinerate preacher from Galilee, Judaism heard the call and likewise the Greeks. The preaching of the apostles and the witness of the power of Christ alive in them gave hope for a new life, a renewed world, eternal life, an end to the stifling stench of death and a new universal and new Catholic reality. The early Christians were inspired by the missionary prospect of His coming - to be more than they could have ever imagined. But even that was not enough.

And the lot fell upon Mathias. The lot fell upon Matthias and upon so many others, apostles and priests, bishops and deacons and thus this overwhelming, this flooding Word burst forth from the levies of its cultural and religious barriers to drown a world, thirsting, dying to hear the Good News proclaimed in every tongue, among every race, in every place. In the lot of those who are called, the ends of the earth have witnessed, are witnessing, the saving power of God, the Word of God careening down the tributaries of time and locality and flowing into every sullen place and dark corner of life.
In the sheer will of His command that prophetic preaching has shaken, with the power of an earthquake, the givenness of human institutions and its sacred vibrations have retaliated against the confining parameters of human power, human prestige, human wealth and created the possibility of making God-like the cultures of humanity offering them a new message, the message of the Kingdom.
And now, Brothers and sisters, the lot has fallen upon us to announce that message

A message that resounds against the fortresses of bigotry, warmongering, terrorism, discord, and diabolical notions of personality. It is a message that has suffered ridicule and reformation, reductionism and revisionism but it cannot be silenced, never muted, neither destroyed but rather, that Word is still heard today…
Brothers and sisters the lot has fallen upon us to announce the Good News of Our Lord, our Savior and the mandate of the Holy Gospel is clear: Love one another
Love one another in the desperate and cowering, the outcast, the forgotten and the bullied.
Love one another in your own families, communities, suffering brothers and sisters. The sick and the spiritually fractured. Wanderers and immigrants, the lost and uncertain.
Love one another in mothers desperately fearful that they cannot feed their children, in fathers in search of useful jobs to free their families from the yoke of marginalization, in children abused and jaded by life so early, so terribly, yet so truly.
Love one another in the flood victims of the south
The citizens of tiny, yet noble towns in Mississippi, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Indiana,
Love one another in the rich and the overtly powerful
The exhausted and the athletic
The desiring and the complacent
My brothers and sisters, men and women and children desperate to experience the Love of Christ are calling out to us – Can you not hear their voices?
They call to us, not in theories or ideals, learned in the classroom, but from the streets and byways of anonymous refuges.
They cry and lament, despairing for lack of a hearing, despondent in damnable hopelessness, desperate for some glimmer of light, a twinkling of meaning in the dark landscapes of chaos.
And thus the lot has been cast and we have to go to them, we are compelled to go to them, obligated to reach out to them, bound to cast our lots with theirs.
In the name of the Lord Jesus.
That name that…
Rings out across human history and wrestles the viciousness, the perfidiousness of indifference.
That name that brightens the sights of the miserable, the cast off, the homeless, the neglected poor, and the dying
That name that lilts like the tune of “Love itself” on wearied ears that long to hear songs of peace in a world in which the base babble of war and the pulsating perniciousness of poverty unfailingly croak their disparate melodies.
That name is heard, will be heard, in every place across the globe because of men like our graduates today who have heroically answered the call and have accepted their lot to serve the Church as priests, because of men and women like our graduates today who will selflessly minister to the Church as laypeople.
Brothers and sisters they are called, and we are also called, in our place, in our ways
We are called to be martyr witnesses
We are called to the wrecklessness of conversion
We are called to the danger of discipleship
We are called to be Saints
Saint Meinrad is just such a place of witness, of conversion, of discipleship, of holiness. Whether we are here for graduation, for formation, for a lifetime, all of us have experienced it in one way of another …
We came here, ordinary men and women, sinful men and women, arrogant men and women, humble men and women, ignorant men and women. Jesus chose us from tiny out of the way places, dustbowls, fertile fields, fishing holes, counting houses. They were weak men and women, men and women prone to fail. He called us and in his love he taught us. He taught us the true meaning of life. He taught us what is important. He instructed us in his way. In our relationship with Jesus, our daily darkness was filled with the light of missionary zeal. We became articulate, inspired, fearless witnesses of the Word, offering up our lives, our very lives for the proclamation of his kingdom.

Today in the call spoken in so many voices we hear the singular voice of Jesus pleading with us: My brothers and sisters, the lot has fallen upon you. Be witnesses, martyrs, evangelists, prophets, teachers, apostles.
How will you do it? In my power, with my authority, by my witness, in my boldness, by my grace.

There is no doubt; the lot has fallen upon you, upon us.

If there is anything I hope our graduates take away from here today, it is the conviction to not only accept your call but to embrace it, continue to expand it, sanctify it and see in that unique call your only hope, your life, your breath, your food, your energy, your song, your stay, and your lasting peace.
Saint Meinrad has prepared you and the power of this place has one source, that which we celebrate here, now.
Here we inculcate a new reality, an everlasting res not only in the bread and wine, but in ourselves.
My dear graduates, brothers and sisters, after today we may never meet again in this holy place. But in our individual spheres we will witness - as we witness here - the daily miracle of God’s presence that binds us together, that gives us the courage, strength and will to rise up and see the glory of His wonder-working power, even as we move from this place to another place and another place after that, as we wander the earth as pilgrims of the promise until at last the roll is called and we discover ourselves bound on that final journey and the saints of God, gathered on that shore will show us to another hillside where we will find our great reunion day– After all, has he not promised His salvation to those who accept the call: The lot has fallen upon you. Love one another.

Rector's Conference

2011-05-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

Reflection Six

In these conferences, I have been reflecting on the spirituality of the priest in light of the rite of ordination with the conviction that we understand the nature of the priesthood and thus its spiritual components by way of the ritual that makes it. This final reflection takes us to the end of the rite itself.
Having imposed hands on the candidate and praying the prayer of consecration, the rite moves forward rather rapidly. After the prayer of consecration there are four actions that equip the newly ordained priest with the tools he will need to perform his ministry and thus devote his life to the service of God’s holy people: the anointing of his hands, his vesting, the reception of the gifts and the sign of peace.
The anointing of the hands is, like the laying on of hands, an ancient ritual gesture. There is no anointing in the ordination of deacons. In the ordination of bishops, the head is anointed. For priests, it is the hands. Anointing, like so many actions of the rite, has an almost universal anthropological significance. Many cultures and religious traditions employ consecrated oils in rites of initiation and the appointment of religious personnel. It has two purposes, to set something apart and to seal a blessing. In the Old Testament, anointing is a sign of setting apart. The High Priest and the king are referred to as "the anointed" or the “Lord’s anointed”. (Lev 4 and 6 and Psalm 132).Anointing was also a sign of fitness for prophecy (I Kings 19, 16). The anointing of a king was his power. It set him apart as is evident from the anointing of David in the first book of Samuel.
Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.(I Samuel, 16,13).

In the Old Testament, anointing is likewise a sign of healing, protection and sealing (Isaiah 1,6. Psalm 109). The same imagery is found in the New Testament. The Samaritan poured oil upon the wounds of the man to heal him. (Luke 10, 34). The significance of anointing takes on particular meaning in the New Testament. Jesus is the messiah, in Greek, the Christ, the anointed one. The anointing of the priest in the rite of ordination is connected to all of these things. First, the anointing sets the priest apart. He is established for holy duty. Unlike the priests of the Old Covenant who performed their priestly duties in annual shifts, the priest of the New Covenant is set apart permanently. As Pope Benedict XVI mentioned in his recent homily for the Chrism Mass “What happened symbolically to the kings and priests of the Old Testament when they were instituted into their ministry by the anointing with oil, takes place in Jesus in all its reality: his humanity is penetrated by the power of the Holy Spirit. He opens our humanity for the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Ours is a continual sacrifice of praise and we are anointed for that purpose. Our being set apart by our anointing also has spiritual ramifications. Concretely speaking the priest is not like other people. Here I do not mean to imply that there is something about the priest that should keep him from engaging with others in normal social interaction. Not at all, the priest needs friends and intimate acquaintances from a human standpoint. The priest is not set apart because he is a different species of person, or has different basic needs. He is set apart by his power and spiritual authority. He can confect, he can absolve, he can anoint the sick. No other human agent can do these essential things. That is not a cause for pride but a cause for realizing the immense responsibility the priest has. The abuse of that power and authority is the sole cause of much of the scandal in the Church today. As the priest is anointed on his hands, the priest’s hands should always be a reminder of what has been entrusted to him. Not only has he been set apart but he has been sealed. He is a priest forever. The sealing of the anointing of the hands mirrors the sealing of the baptismal rite and later confirmation. The anointing is “sealing in” the consecration and hopefully the priest’s formation as well. The hands are fortified. The rite also mirrors the consecration of altars and churches, physical objects sealed for their use and set apart. A beautiful tradition connected with the ordination of priests is the tradition of the manutergium. Before the reform of the rite of ordination after Vatican II, the priest’s hands were wrapped in a linen cloth. The cloth, now soaked with the anointing oil, was given as a gift to the priest’s mother. Traditionally it was placed in her casket and was said to be her clavis caeli (key of heaven). While not required in the new rite, it is not forbidden. The symbol of the manutergium forms a beautiful connection between the ordination and the priest’s family, his place of origin.
The anointing is accompanied by these words: “The Lord Jesus Christ, whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit and power, guard and preserve you, that you may sanctify the Christ people and offer sacrifice to God.” All of the symbolism of the rite is contained there, separation for a purpose and sealing. Most significantly, it connects the newly ordained priest to Christ his sovereign and his model.
The next action of the rite that arms the newly ordained with his priestly identity is the clothing with the vestments. Ritual garments are an essential part of any cultic identity. Like the anointing, the vestments set the priest apart. He is vested with particular garments, the garments of the priesthood, but they are placed over his common Christian garment, the alb, that white garment with which he was clothed at baptism. This is an important image. Baptism is his first identity, discipleship. Now he is to be set aside within that context for service as a priest. He has particular garments for this reality. Here I think it is important to reflect upon the cultic identity of the priest. A great deal has been written in recent years about reclaiming a cultic identity within the priesthood. I think this is significant but possible unnecessary. Perhaps the image of the priesthood has become too sanitized, too pedestrian in recent generations. I have often said that the priest has more in common with shamans than with social workers, but that is not to exclude the importance of the latter. The priest must realize that he is not dealing with merely earthbound matters. I use this expression rather than merely human matters because the task of the priest is not to only to acknowledge the earthiness of those whom he serves, but to serve them authentically by pointing out their heavenly citizenship as well. We must be careful here. The priest does not give heavenly citizenship. He points it out. The priest is a cultic agent, but he is also an anthropological agent. His task is to offer insight to others about their true nature. The people of God are made in the likeness of God, and most particularly in the likeness of Christ. Christ was possessed of two simultaneous realities, human and divine. We are conformed to Christ as disciples. We likewise share this dual citizenship and yet our self-perceptions can be very earth bound. The priest points to heaven while remaining here on earth. He points to our true nature and our reality over and against the false messages of inauthentic culture. His ability to make this profession is a function of his office, but it must also be evident in his way of living. The priest is a cultic figure in that he is both a denizen of culture and a transformer of culture. His being set apart for this duty is signified in the vesture. The vesting prayers of the extraordinary form give us some insight into this symbolism.
With the alb
Dealba me, Domine, et a delicto meo munda me; ut cum his, qui stolas suas dealbaverunt in sanguine Agni, gaudiis perfruar sempiternis.
“Purify me, Lord, and cleanse my heart so that, washed in the Blood of the Lamb, I may enjoy eternal bliss.”
The connection to baptism is clear and, in particular, the eschatological nature of baptism. Baptism connects us not only to a concrete community of faith but to an eschatological community the implications of which are continually played out in our lives.
With the cincture:
Praecinge me, Domine, cingulo fidei et virtute castitatis lumbos meos, et extingue in eis humorem libidinis; ut jugiter maneat in me vigor totius castitatis.
Gird me, O Lord, with the girdle of purity, and extinguish in me all evil desires, that the virtue of chastity may abide in me.
The cincture is another sign of separation, in particular through the priestly charism of celibacy.
With the stole:
Redde mihi, Domine, obsecro, stolam immortalitatis, quam perdidi in praevaricatione primi parentis; et, quamvis indignus accedere praesumo ad tuum sacrum mysterium cum hoc ornamento, praesta, ut in eodem in perpetuum merear laetari.
“Restore unto me, I beseech You, O Lord, the stole of immortality, which I lost through the collusion of our first parents, and inasmuch as I presume to draw near to Your holy Mystery with this adornment, unworthy though I be, grant that I may be worthy to rejoice in the same unto eternity.”
Often the stole is seen as representative of authority. It was worn by judges and other officials in the ancient world. It is still a part of the coronation regalia in modern monarchies. The prayer ties the stole to immortality. It is the rope by which the priest climbs, or is pulled to heaven and the rope by which others, through the Holy Mystery will climb with him.
With the Chasuble:
Domine, qui dixisti: Jugum meum suave est, et onus meum leve: fac, ut illud portare sic valeam, quod possim consequi tuam gratiam.
“O Lord, Who said: My yoke is easy and My burden light: grant that I may bear it well and follow after You with thanksgiving.”
Whom does the priest represent? Christ the Lord and him alone. The chasuble is the priest’s daily reminder of what he has received and what he is.
After the vesting, the priest once again kneels before the bishop and hears these words: “Receive the oblation of God from the holy people, to be offered to God. Understand what you do, imitate what you celebrate and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s cross.”
This part of the rite is very powerful. First it connects the priest’s life and ministry of service to the people, always to the people. The rubric says: “Some of the faithful bring a paten holding the bread and chalice containing the wine mixed with water for the celebration of Mass.” What are these gifts? What do they represent? What will they become? The prayers for the preparation of the gifts give us some insight here. They are the gifts of the earth, the fruit of the vine and the work of human hands. Our Lord chose these very gifts to be the accidental forms by which his holy body and blood would be communicated to the world in a perpetual sacrifice of praise. Obviously they had ritual implications in the chabura/seder meal he celebrated with his disciples in the upper room at the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Even in that context, however, they represented something deeper than aspects of a cultural pattern; they represented and represent the basic elements of our livelihood. The bread and wine of the Passover represented the Jewish people’s liberation because they represented the Jewish people. Bread and wine are basic to human sustenance in what amounts to an almost universal anthropological signification. Bread and wine are what keep human persons alive. They are also the creative engagement of earthly elements and human labor. In the anthropology of food, culture is required for bread and wine as opposed to wheat and grapes. Bread and wine require our participation and our intentionality. We have to make them. In the theology of human labor then, they are a part of us. Bread and wine not only keep us alive, they keep us living through our positive intervention in our creative longevity. When the gifts are presented then, the holy people are giving not only what they need to survive, they are giving the best and most basic elements of themselves.
Now the newly ordained priest is called to receive it. In receiving the gifts, he is receiving the lives those gifts represent. He is receiving the basic aspirations of the people. He is receiving their livelihood. He is receiving all of them. They in turn are entrusting themselves to the priest, or rather to what the priest will do with those gifts. The exchange speaks volumes. The people say: Here is what we have. Here is what keeps us alive. Here is the work of our hands. But it is not enough. It is not enough just to keep ourselves alive. Our creative energies are not sufficient in themselves. Take these gifts priest and make them more than they are at present. Give them life by joining them to God. You alone priest are able to make that journey. We need more. You alone can provide the more we need. Thus the presentation of the gifts becomes a pledge of unity between the best of humanity soon to be augmented by the Divine life which will fill up the best of humanity. As in the Incarnation and the theological ramifications of redemption, Man provides the raw material for the sacrifice. Why did God become man? Man owed a debt and he owed it in the very ground of his being. God alone can satisfy that debt. In the light of the Incarnation and Redemptive act of Christ, the presentation of the gifts is a sign of what is; the perfection of the human condition in the sacrifice of Christ, the unity of God and Man. This is a momentous exchange. It is a cosmic and an historical exchange. It teaches the newly ordained an important lesson: You are here to offer this exchange continually because this exchange is our strength, our life, our only hope.
Who brings these gifts forward? Your parents, your grandparents, your brothers and sisters? Certainly. And all Mankind. All of humanity brings these forward. The familiar and the familial bring them forward. The stranger and the outcast bring them forward.
What does the bishop say? “Understand what you do.” This is perhaps the most sobering injunction of the ordination rite. Narrowly interpreted, this means that the newly ordained priest ought to know how to offer the sacrifice. He ought to understand the principles of the liturgy. He needs to know the rubrics and the proper gestures. But that is not enough. He also needs to know what the sacrifice means. He needs to know the symbolic universe it inhabits. He needs to probe the metaphysical implications of the sacrifice. He must understand where he stands in a greater than natural order. He must appreciate the final significance of this sacrifice. He must also know that in this Holy Sacrifice he is handling the Body and Blood of Christ, but not only in the sacrifice proper, the insight must extend further. The priest will take the bread and wine. He will renew the sacrifice of Christ. He will offer it back to the people in a wonderful exchange. And those who partake of it will become what they consume. The Eucharist makes the Church. The Body of Christ is for the Body of Christ. Now the injunction of the bishop takes on even greater dimensions. Understand what you do not only in the Mass but as a result of the Mass. Understand what you are touching when you touch the lives of the faithful. Understand what you are doing when you “handle” the fragile Body of Christ encountered daily in your ministry and life as a priest. Respect and revered the Body of Christ in the sacrifice and in the tabernacle, but also in the assembly. Understanding leads to respect, authentic respect in the sense of looking again. In our pastoral engagement we are perpetually called to look again. We must see again what we may not see the first time, the authentic presence of Christ in the troubling, the difficult, and the problematic. Understanding what you do means knowing how to appreciate what you have assisted in bringing about. The command goes even further. Understand what you do and who you are. The command seems to be a clarion call to realize your identity as a priest. Who is the priest? What is his function? What is his essence? These questions cannot be answered simply or at first sight. The answer to these questions begins when the newly ordained priest takes the paten and cup. He begins a sacrificial journey at that moment that will not only touch the gifts he has received. It will also touch him, effect him, change him. The priest is unveiled to the world and to himself in his offering of the sacrifice. The paten and the chalice are his key to self-identity because through those vessels and what they contain, he discovers Christ. Christ is the true signifier. Christ is the only thing that makes a difference in this dramatic engagement. In the rite the priest is called to “imitate what you celebrate” to become Christ. How can this be done? By conforming to the mystery of his cross. What is the mystery of the cross? It is tension. The cross is that tensile place, that crossroads of opportunity. In his crucifixion, Christ had the possibility of becoming either a scandal or a source of life. He became a source of life to all who believe. The cross is the intersection between heaven and earth, the vertical and the horizontal. The cross is firmly planted in the earth but reaches decidedly to heaven. Conforming our lives to the mystery of the cross means placing ourselves there, or perhaps more precisely realizing that we are there. Our lives have the opportunity to be either a scandal or a source of life. Some few of our brothers chose the scandal. We must choose the source of life. We become the source of life only when, like Christ, we surrender our will to the will of the Father, we trust being cared for as we drink the cup of the world’s suffering. We become the source of like when like Christ the Good Shepherd we foolishly seek the lost sheep. We become the source of life and thus live the fruitfulness of the mystery of the cross when we recognize that we stand in that unique place, between heaven and earth. The cross without Christ is a symbol of sadism. The cross with Christ, is a symbol of love. Conforming our lives to the mystery of the Lord’s cross means we are willing to put everything aside, family, lands, home, job, everything to become a vessel of his love for the world. We become a paten that holds his body, a sacred chalice that contains his blood and everything we do has the potential, through his grace alone, to change the axis of a sinful world.
The eschatological tension kindled by the Eucharist expresses and reinforces our communion with the Church in heaven. It is not by chance that the Eastern Anaphoras and the Latin Eucharistic Prayers honour Mary, the ever-Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ our Lord and God, the angels, the holy apostles, the glorious martyrs and all the saints. This is an aspect of the Eucharist which merits greater attention: in celebrating the sacrifice of the Lamb, we are united to the heavenly “liturgy” and become part of that great multitude which cries out: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev 7:10). The Eucharist is truly a glimpse of heaven appearing on earth. It is a glorious ray of the heavenly Jerusalem which pierces the clouds of our history and lights up our journey. (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 19)
Who does not need a glimpse of this vision?
Finally the bishop gives the newly ordained the fraternal kiss of peace. His words are the words of the risen Christ: “Peace be with you” Peace will certainly follow if the priest has attended carefully to the injunctions that have been offered in the rite. He will be a man of peace, God’s own peace, which may not always look to the world like peacefulness, but it is peace in the truest, deepest, and most abiding sense. The priests present also the newly ordained the kiss of peace. The fraternity of the presbyterate cannot be gainsaid. The priest is now one of their number and will take his place. In many dioceses the common vestment now makes the newly ordained difficult to find in this sea of men. That seems fitting. He is a part of an army of priests, formed together to wage a war of love. The irony should not be lost. The rite allows for the singing of the antiphon: “You are my friends says the Lord, if you do what I command”. So be it. The rite of ordination is now over. The priest must move on to his first celebration of the Holy Eucharist as a priest. He does so with his fellow priests, led by the bishop, the most fitting sign of God’s plan of the Church. Now the newly ordained priest can expect many days. He will face many trials. He will enjoy countless triumphs. He will be loved and reviled. He will have moments of perfect clarity and moments of grave doubt about his decision to become a priest. There is no question that all of these potential difficulties are worth it when we consider the core of the priest’s call in the Eucharist, in priestly service and in evangelization:
From the perpetuation of the sacrifice of the Cross and her communion with the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, the Church draws the spiritual power needed to carry out her mission. The Eucharist thus appears as both the source and the summit of all evangelization, since its goal is the communion of mankind with Christ and in him with the Father and the Holy Spirit. (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 22).
Going back to the insight that began these reflections, it is necessary for the priest to find his authentic identity and his true spirituality in the words of this rite. The rite makes him a priest. Often today there can seem to be a move among some of your younger brethren that the priesthood is not enough. In the wind today is talk of particular gifts given to some priests and not others. Some have various gifts and this is certainly scriptural. St. Paul tells us as much in the First Letter to the Corinthians. “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. (I Cor 12, 3-6).
We certainly know that all priests are not the same. We wouldn’t want them to be. We have great preachers and mediocre preachers. We have amazing teachers and some who seem regularly to induce slumber. We have those who excel at the bedside of the sick and those who avoid the hospital like the plague. Nuances of talent are not the significant issue in looking at the life and ministry of the priest. They exist. A dangerous move for both the theology and spirituality of the priesthood is the introduction of the notion that some priests have more than others. Every priest is the same. Every priest is called to the same thing. The introduction of the perception of special gifts above the priesthood is insidious. There is not greater power in the hands of men than the power to confect, absolve and anoint the sick. Show me a priest who thinks he has special powers above these and I will show you, in almost every instance, a narcissistic charlatan. Brothers we are called to a vocation of custody, custody of the Divine Power that God intends to unleash upon the world through the passion, death and resurrection of his son. That power is the power of love. The rite of ordination tells us who we are. It tells us that definitively. It tells us that permanently. My brothers, there is no greater vocation to which we can be called, if we take it soberly and seriously. There is no greater power entrusted to human hands, if we assume it humbly and diligently. There is not greater act that the human mind can conceive than the act of sacrifice renewed in every Eucharist. But we would be remiss not to refer to the words of the Apostle. “The one who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation” (I Corinthians, 11, 29). As our lives are spent appropriating a priestly identity and spirituality we must realize that the stakes are high. The rewards are higher. As I said recently in a retreat to some of our seminarians, in my years as a priest I have never felt lonely, never felt alone and certainly never felt bored. As priests, we are called to an awesome mystery. We cannot realize it on our own. We should not even try. As the rector of Saint Meinrad, it is my daily privilege to witness the unfolding of this drama in the lives of men who struggle mightily to realize the authentic nature of the life they are undertaking. We always take it seriously. It is serious. In the end we know, however, that it is God’s work, a work of grace. In that insight is our lasting peace and our everlasting joy. I wish to conclude these reflections with the words of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, words spoken at the Chrism Mass in Rome in 2011.
I turn finally to you, dear brothers in the priestly ministry. Holy Thursday is in a special way our day. At the hour of the last Supper, the Lord instituted the New Testament priesthood. "Sanctify them in the truth" (Jn 17:17), he prayed to the Father, for the Apostles and for priests of all times. With great gratitude for the vocation and with humility for all our shortcomings, we renew at this hour our "yes" to the Lord’s call: yes, I want to be intimately united to the Lord Jesus, in self-denial, driven on by the love of Christ. Amen.

It is a “yes” that connects us mystically to the great cloud of witnesses around the throne of the Ancient of Days. It is the “yes” that initiated the life of God on earth, a “yes” spoken by a maid in a secluded corner of the world and echoing today in those who owe their authentic lives to the theotokos, that Blessed Lady upon whom we cast all our cares.

Easter Monday

2011-04-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to our seminarians. Here is the homily for Easter Monday

Easter Monday, 2011
Among the Saint Meinrad monastic traditions associated with Holy Week is the practice of presenting a live lamb to the abbot during the Easter Vigil. The lamb is brought forward by the novices. It is a moment of levity in the awesome rites of the vigil. From the standpoint of the assembly it is quite funny and sweet. For years I have wondered what it was like from the standpoint of the lamb. And so I present ---
A Lamb’s Tale
My name is Raymond. All of this business happened when I was about three months old. I can’t say that at the time I was a very good lamb, I wasn’t. I mean, I was good-looking enough but, you know, morally speaking, not so much. I fought a lot. I have a scar on my nose from a particularly nasty fight. It’s pretty bad, but you should have seen the hoofmarks on the other lamb. I didn’t do so well in school. I did great in frolicking but I was horrible at math. This was a cause of some consternation, after all what good is a lamb who can’t count sheep? I was definitely a mama’s lamb. That’s not to say that all of this is out of the ordinary. For goodness’ sake, I was only a kid. I’m sure I could have never predicted what would happen, what did happen because I swear everything I am about to tell you is the truth, even if the truth hasn’t always been died in the wool with me, so to speak. IT all started on an ordinary day. I had done a bit of nursing in the morning and around noon I was looking forward to a bit of frolicking with some buds of mine when the farmer showed up. He had a couple of other humans with him, two grown ones wearing some outfits like I had not seen before, long black robes. Weird I thought to myself, and might have just frolicked off but before I realize it, the farmer had me around the middle and was wrestling me into this wire pen. All of this is still such a blur that I can’t remember what happened next, but they put me into this kind of wheeled wagon and the two robed men got in front and off we went, faster than I thought it was possible to move. Over the walls of the wagon I could see pasture flashing by. This seemed to go on forever. Then we arrived at this barn, or some kind of barn made all of rock. They took my wire pen out with me in it and set me down in a kind of courtyard. They threw some straw, a container of water and some pellet like food into the pen. They were laughing. Then they just walked away. I felt so lonely there. There was no one around. It was so dark. I couldn’t see the moon or stars. O my what have I go myself into? Where’s my mama? Where are the other sheep? This was really looking Baaaad. I don’t know how long I stayed in that wire pen. It might have been two or three years, or just a couple of days. Lambs don’t have such a great sense of time and I was very bad at math. Finally, one night, the whole thing seemed to be unraveling. I caught a glimpse of a bunch of people. They started a fire. They were all dressed up in black and white robes. They seemed to dance around the fire. There was a big one. he was all dressed up in gold and had a kind of tower on his head. He also carried a shepherds crook, but it was like nothing I had ever seen before. They sang a bit and then someone brought out a big white pole, about as tall as a man. They seemed to think this was very important. They touched it and stuck things in it and then they set the top of it on fire. All of those folks then went into the barn, leaving me in the courtyard by myself again. Fortunately, they left the barn door open so I could hear what was happening. The first thing they did was get some fire off of that white pole and light little white poles they were all holding. Soon there was a warm and rosy glow coming from the barn. Next they began to tell stories. I could hear them from my pen. Over and over different ones got up to tell a story. I knew this is what shepherds sometimes did around fires. These stories were crazy though, about the beginnings of the world, about some people who walked through a pond, some old guy who tried to kill his son, crazy stuff, but somehow, quite compelling. This went on for a long time, and then I heard bells ringing, like cow bells but much bigger. Inside the barn they were singing really loud. Some crap was getting ready to go down, I could feel it and sure enough, in a flash two of the black robes were rattling my cage. “Come on girl, they said. What a pair these two were. Girl?! My name is Raymond for heaven’s sake. They tied my feet together. I was scared to death because I had seen this before. An old sheep I saw got tied up like this once. We never saw her again. They wrestled me into the ropes and then placed me in a basket. O no, I bleated, this is the end. They hauled me up the steps of the barn and then inside. It was beautiful. It smelled of flowers and plants. I love flowers and plants. It was glowing, at least what I could see of it, being tied up on my back and all. Well if this was the end, it was a great way to go. The two black robes brought me forward to the dude with the shepherd’s crook. From my position in the basket, he was upside down. He shook something in my face. It felt like drops of water. It was probably some drug I thought, something to make the end easier. The people around were laughing as I spoke and cried out. Then just as quickly as it started, it ended. In just a few minutes I was untied, and put back in my wire pen. Now I was interested. I listened closely to what they were doing in the barn. They sang. They recited words. The head guy spoke a lot. This went on for days, or hours, I’m very bad at math. Then they seemed to eat something. I heard it called the “Lamb of God’ I knew it wasn’t a real lamb, because, well, I was the only one around and they weren’t eating me. The Lamb of God seemed to have a name. It was Jesus. From what I could tell, they seemed to love this lamb, In fact, they loved him very much. Seemingly, from what I could make out, he had done something very important for them, this lamb named Jesus. That made me feel good, somehow important. Well, soon the adventure was over. The next morning, I went back to the farm, the same way I came. But I can tell you this, I wasn’t the same lamb. Having gone through all of that, I felt different, really different. I know no one here on the farm will believe my story. That’s why I am writing it down. (I know my hoofwriting is not so hot, sorry.) I know what happened. I know how my life, one crazy night was changed by this Lamb of God named Jesus. I know what happened and that I am a better lamb for it today. No one can take that away from me. Now I am determined. No matter what else happens in my life, I am going to find out more about this Jesus, the (how did it go?) the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Maybe one day I will be called to his supper. Who knows? I do know this. That night changed my life forever. That night was the making of me, Raymond, a simple lamb transformed by Jesus in a great mystery that I know I will never fully understand. I hope it was that way for the humans. I’m sure it was.

At the Well

2011-03-27T06:49:00.001-07:00

It was the very edge of civilization, this village, this well. The white hot dust of anonymity swirls, specter-like, a host of ghosts, dancing through noon-heat ravaged places. She comes in the heat of the day to be alone at the well, with her thoughts, with her past, with her doubts. She hopes to find no one there. But he is there. The stranger is there. The Jewish man, the foreigner, the threat.
Their conversation sounds like idle banter, echoing off the stone walls of the well and then -- She tells a lie about herself. And he tells her the truth about herself.
Now she must tell what she knows:
Here is a man who told me everything I ever did.
Here is a man who tells us everything we ever did.
How does God know us?
He knew us before we were born. Before our first gasping, our first mewing, his designing finger traced providence in the sand of our souls. He saw the grasping babe and pronounced it very good. He schemed. He planned. He envisioned.
He knew us in our toddling years. We struggled to stand as if we could ever stand on our own. He placed his omnipotent hand in the small of our infant backs. He looked with the Father’s love on us, a big brother’s pride. He prodded, pushed, he plied. He let go and fretted. He watched us walk, run, walk away, run away. We guarded our childhood games as we dressed up in the rags of independence. We tried to hide, and he pretended to seek, but only pretended, because he knew us.
He knew us as we learned to sin, experimented with the little league vices of bullying, petty theft, the lie, and then, more. Accusation, ridicule, derisive laughter, the easy target, then we’re the target. We learned to inflict pain in the most painful places, twisting the blade of self-image in to the hilt.
He knew us in our confusion as we struggled with relationships, with vocation, family.
He knows us in our doubt in those moments of shear panic when we can hardly remember where we have been, hardly recognize ourselves in the mirror, and believe without utterance that God is dead.
He knows us in our selfishness, our grasping, our groping through the treasure troves of self-promotion, gripping tightly to the handles of a golden cup called ego.
He knows us in our compulsiveness, our complacentness, our neediness, our laziness, our restlessness. our carelessness
Here is a man who told me everything I ever did. He knows us more ingloriously than we know ourselves. He knows what lies hidden in the secret recesses of our hearts, our imaginations, our histories. He knows us. How can he who formed the heavens from nothing and placed the water in the well, and stirred the white dust through those noon-hot perilous streets not know us? Can he whose gaze penetrated the cosmos not see through our lies?
And still the words come: Drink and live!
Drink, drink injured soul from the source of healing itself, feel your wounds tightening as you learn from me, listen to me. Feel the open skin of your injuries, your self-inflicted injuries close around the balm of providence.
Slake your thirst, your insatiable thirst for truth, for faith, for love, for authenticity, for respect by speaking the truth, living the faith, loving the unloved, being authentic and respecting your fellow men and women.
Satiate yourself at this well with the liquor of the intellect, the pure draught of spiritual renewal, the cordial of conversion, the living water of service and sacrifice. Imbibe, drink, drown yourselves in the flood of baptismal water that flows from the pierced side of Jesus.
Drink and live!
Live into the mystery of salvation that is the unfettered, love of God, that bottomless well of grace, mercy, forgiveness,
Live and find real meaning in your life, meaning that commandeers the quixotic wanderings of pleasure, happiness, liberty, freedom.
Brothers and sisters, today we discover ourselves at the very edge of civilization, this village, this well, this place called Saint Meinrad.
We might like to view this village in all of its pristine, Potemkin perfection, but we know its dark recesses, we know the secret places where uncertainty lurks. We know its sharp corners where we are likely to careen into each other. We know the hazards of turning down the dark unfamiliar alleys of new knowledge, of formation, of chance taking, of authentic prayer.
This community is a community of real people, of flesh and blood people, of striving people, of fallen people, of hopeful people, of desperate people, of hiding people, of shame-filled people and of difficult people, proud people, set-in-their-ways people, docile people, belligerent people.
But this is also a community that longs for something more, something greater.
Why have you come here? To learn a little something, to take a little drink, to get a little wet?
Or to be transformed, converted, changed forever?
That change which we want will never come without some growing pains, some setting aside of opinions, some listening, some benefiting of the doubting.
Today and every day we are called to raise our gaze and see that shimmering ray of light, the light of revelation, the light of authentic humanity, the light of the Word made flesh that pierces the white hot dust of anonymity and shines, beams on this well, the well of divine offer, the well of suppliance, the well of the formation, the opportunities we experience here.
Here is that well and in this place we find out the truth about ourselves in our common life, our academic pursuit, our prayer and our celebration of the source and summit of our reality, the Eucharist.
In this Eucharist is the source of life where the words of the Gospel are proclaimed without compromise, words that speak peace in a world torn apart by war, words that utter calm in a landscape quaked by natural disaster, words that give solace. The words of Christ.
In this Eucharist is the source of all being in which the First Cause insinuates himself into the tight form of bread and wine, the bread of angels, the wine of the new and eternal covenant.
In this Eucharist that well, that fountain of mercy pours out over us, comforting and sustaining. We need it so desperately not only for ourselves but that others may drink and live. Take that drink to them. Give back to them what you have received at this well, this font of grace.
Give to the hungry. Give to the naked. Give to the desperate. Give to the outcast. Give to the ones who wander aimlessly through towns and villages, not trodding the path of salvation but bound on other journeys, journeys of thirst, journeys whose name we can only speak with shame. Bring that living water of faith and love to your tired brothers and sisters here. The good news is not only what we have received from the Jesus who knows us, but the gift we have of giving that back to others so that this well of salvation, flowing down from the Father of Lights, cascading, careening, gaining momentum becomes a tsunami of salvation, flooding the dark places of our collective landscape, filling in the furrows wrought by our sins, bubbling up with the promise of the future even in the midst of remembrances of things past. Do this in memory of me. Here is the Lamb of God. Lord I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, in this village, at this well, but only say the word and I shall be healed.

Deacon and Priesthood Promises

2011-03-18T05:49:00.000-07:00

Last evening, 29 of our brothers professed their ordination promises. Here is the homily:

Deacon and Priesthood Promises – 2011
St. Thomas Aquinas Chapel

Tonight we celebrate with our brothers their public acknowledgement of the promises they will make in their ordination. For our Third Year men, this is a new beginning. For our deacons, it is a continuation toward that goal to which the Lord has been leading time for years.

There are so many things that could be said tonight, that might be explained.

This evening, we could meditate on the declaration of freedom, waxing philosophically about the meaning of freedom, the quidity of freedom, the very possibility of freedom in a world enthralled by a bastardized notion of liberty. We know all too well how personal freedom is compromised by cultural bias, individual flaws, and original sin.

We could speak lofty words tonight about the oath of fidelity. Keeping a promise for life is a rare commodity in our world today. Every day we witness, many of us first-hand, the ephemeral nature of families, marriages, communities and religious vocations. We see the struggles our brothers and sisters around us make in keeping commitments. We all know something of both the statistics and the real human toll those statistics take. Trusting an authority is equally precarious. We have a great suspicion of institutions, a suspicion that sometimes confounds our ability to be faithful.

We could offer high sounding phrases about the profession of faith, but we know the value of our creed, we know the blood that stains each word of this holy testament, we know how its syllables connect us to all of those men and women, those saints of God who have professed it while endless ages have rolled. We know how these prophetic words have struck and stung the scorpions of human pride. We know how their utterance has confounded heresy and the tyranny of human ambitions. We know how they draw us back to the waters of our baptism, where we rejected one world and promised to live for another, a kingdom of this world, and a kingdom of the world to come.

We could go on about all of that, but let’s not. Neither these men nor we need to be reminded of the serious nature of the obligations that are voicing tonight or the kind of promises they are soon to profess. Instead, I would like to do something quite novel this evening, that is, stand back and look at the Gospel.

Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you.

Let’s begin by going back a bit, back to the beginning, back to the days when these men first experienced the call that has brought them here tonight?

How did it all begin?

Perhaps in childhood, playing mass with Ritz crackers and Kool-aid. In the dulcet tones of childhood, the utterance of God insinuated itself into the mind of the boy: “Be mine. Live for me and my Church. Ask and receive.”

Perhaps in adolescence, in a sensitivity which often alludes that season of life, in an unusual caring for others, a kindness in the face of ridicule, and the voice of God speaks: “Follow me rather than the crowd. Take your chances with me rather than the dangerous path of self-fulfillment. Listen to me and not the clamor of commerce. Seek and you will find.”

Perhaps that call came in the fervor of conversion, in sickness over a life lived apart from God, apart from his Church. Perhaps it came in the light of an early morning, in a searing revelation that there is more to life than pleasure, more than the grind of personal pursuit. There is suffering in the world that is more than my suffering, heartache in the world more than my natural disasters.

Perhaps it came in influences, a parent, a grandparent whose aching knees and gnarled beaded hands implored the Master of the Harvest. Send my son. Or perhaps a priest whose life was not showy or remarkable but who prayed his office, visited the sick, said Mass, buried the dead, and said to a lost young man, “Have you ever thought of …?” knock and the door will be opened.

Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you.

God asked, He sought, He knocked upon the door of our hearts and we answered, tentatively at first, seeking outlandish signs, sweating mightily in the heat of discernment that was nothing more than self-deception, doubting, affirming, doubting again, then gaining confidence as the symphony of formation tuned, rehearsed and then performed its mounting song.

All of us hear have heard something of that call, something of that symphonic music echoing against the walls of cynicism and fear and doubt. The words of the Lord have been clear to us all: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men”, and here we are, standing here, not only these brothers but all of us, gathered here tonight, standing on the promises of God.

Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you.

Brothers and sisters as we gather here tonight, we are able to gather here tonight because God is true to His word.

My brothers you gather tonight to make your promises to God, and that is truly wonderful. More wonderful however is the promise that God intends to make to you tonight.

Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you.

Ask God for the grace to help you persevere in your vocation.

Ask and you will receive the endless of support of as yet faceless men and women and children, the ragged Church who will desire to support your vocation in a thousand as yet un-named, unimagined ways. You will experience this support in the pressing of calloused hands, the tremor of feeble lips, the whisper of encouraging words, the card, the cash, the hotdish, the wave, the bow of the head. Father you are loved. We need you. We will overlook your little quirks and flaws, even though we probably should not. We will give you everything because you have given us one thing: the overwhelming love of God.

Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you.

Seek the grace to live a celibate life because that is what many of you fear.
Seek and you will find the love of all because you want to love. Love in the name of Christ, love in the name of His holy Church. Love in the eyes of the old and the dying seized with mortal anguish at the threshold of the awesomeness of eternity, love in the sparkle of the newlyweds, love in the embrace of little ones, in the handholding of the housebound, the trembling grasp of the grieving. Love without compromise and without cost. Love the unlovable, the outcast, the beggar, the difficult parishioner. Love with all your hearts and you will never be lonely, never lacking in friends. His love, as you give it away, will be sufficient for you. Love with the conviction that God alone will turn our mourning into gladness and our sorrows into wholeness.
Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you.

Knock upon the door of faith in your dark hours, with your back to the wall.

Knock and the door of faith will be opened to you by a myriad of faith-filled men and women running the marathon of life, running with blinders on toward the heavenly Jerusalem. Ask for faith and the Lord will give you examples of simple faith in old ladies and young fathers that will put your sophisticated faith to shame. They gather quietly each day, opening the Church, putting out the vessels, praying the rosary too fast and too loud, catching a moment of prayer between soccer games and ballet lessons, confessing simple sins over and over, asking hard questions for which there are not catachismic, canonical answers, seeking the Truth in a swirling whirlwind of lies, knocking upon the door of the Church, assured of a ready answer or a ready harbor.

Brothers and sisters the miracle of the promises made here tonight is not only that our brothers are making them, but that God is making them. And that is true for us all.

We ask and God answers. We seek and God provides. We knock and the opportunity for service, for vocation, for living truly authentic lives is opened to us. I hope that is what we represent in this community of faith.

For some of you, your time spent at Saint Meinrad is coming to a close. In a few months you deacons will leave this Hill for the last time. You will no longer have the daily support of seminary life to keep you faithful to the promises you make. You will have to be sustained by humility, the humility to ask, to seek, to knock. God will be true to His word. He will give you the strength to be true to yours. Yes brothers in a little while you will be going away, but we will remain, this community of faith, striving to do what we have always done. If you need Saint Meinrad in the coming months or years you need only ask, seek, knock upon our door and you will find us ready to answer and open the door to invite you in, just as the Lord Jesus opens the door of his Body and Blood to us in this Eucharist. We sustain ourselves by that promise.

Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you.

Now do not be afraid. The promise is guaranteed.

Ash Wednesday

2011-03-09T12:09:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention to the front of the room where the rector will point out some of the safety features of this seminary chapel.

A safety information card may be found in the seat pockets beside you, please take a few moments to review the information in this card.

There are seven emergency exits located in this seminary chapel, one at the front of the chapel, one at the rear and five on the side.
Please take a moment to locate the exit nearest you, remembering that the nearest exit may be behind you.
In the event of an emergency, one of our flight attendants will direct you to the nearest exit.
To fasten your seatbelt …
In the unlikely event of a water landing …
In the unlikely event of a change in chapel pressure …
This is a non smoking chapel …

Perhaps I have been flying too much lately.
I often feel a little sorry for the poor flight attendants who go through the motions on every flight. No one ever reviews the safety information cards, people will not power off their portable electronic devices. Seat backs remain in their forlorn reclining positions. There seems to be a pervasive attitude among airline customers that, none of the rules of flying really apply to me.

I often think of Ash Wednesday as a kind of airplane safety announcement. Every time we begin our flight on the friendly Lenten skies, we get the admonition: Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.
We hear the words of the prophet:
Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God.

We get the lecture from Jesus in St. Matthew's Gospel:
Pray, give alms, fast.
Do not let you left hand know what your right is doing.

We have heard all of this before. We have been here before. We have experienced this before and like a spiritual déjà vu we shake it off, deciding instead to pursue the Sky Mall magazine which we feel free to take with us as we deplane because you never know when you are going to have a hankering for a set of pet stairs or an inflatable palm tree.

What is Lent in the popular imagination? I propose that it is an unheeded season.
What you are giving up for Lent?
OK how can I get out of that?
What are the laws that govern these practices?
Liver sales drop precipitously, candy stock is depleted on Wall Street, fifteen varieties of Iranian beer are consigned to a refrigerated nether world.

Trumpets are blows, faces are besmirched with the dirt of resentment, room doors are flung open to display the flagrant acts of asceticism taking place within.
We commit ourselves to our good works
We submit our robust flesh to the whiplash of PX 39
We strive to be the biggest losers

And in all of this unheard of sacrifice and heroic neglect of self, what happens?
Nothing of course
And all of this is accompanied by the rhetoric and cadences of a spiritual Jansenism, let us weep, let us fall, let us mourn, let us wail.

Was it always so with Lent?

In the early Church, Lent was the season of the catechumenate. It was an adult season, a season of discovery and wonder that led the catechumens out of the Egypt of sin into the bright promise of a heavenly Jerusalem. It was a season of conversion and it still is for those men and women bouncing toward beatitude in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults.
What if we could join the journey of our lives and our attitudes toward Lent with theirs?

I wonder what it would be like if we all received the creed anew each year, if we all received the Lord’s prayer with fresh eyes and voices, if we all underwent the scrutinies, if we could all approach the Table of the Lord with hearts aflame with the awe of new beginnings, seeing at this altar the very throne of God.

Where is Lent leading us?
What do we want to BE on the other side of Lent?
What destination are we aiming for in this annual flight of discipleship?

What if we could give alms and feel the pinch a little rather than scraping the bottom of the baggage of life for loose change to fling in the general direction of the unspecified poor.

What if we gave the alms of time, real time to help a brother in need, or listen to his sorrows?
Then we might gain alms for ourselves, the alms of a life lived in service, the alms of compassion, the alms of fulfilled necessity.

What if we could pray without constantly worrying about getting things done? What if we could learn to adore without watches? What if we gave God the time he deserves? What if the inner rooms of our hearts could be opened and the doors of our mouths could be closed? What if we talked more to our neighbors about the joy of prayer and less about the misery of seminary life?

Then we might find ourselves gaining softness in those open hearts Then we might find ourselves able to reveal our struggles and pains. Then we might learn to love with an unfeigned love.

What if we could fast without ostentation, deny ourselves a little, purify ourselves a little, learn to control our desires a little more? What if we fasted from something meaningful and by our fasting created new habits and eradicated that which is useless from our lives?

Then we might find the purity of mind to discover what Lent truly is: a season of opportunity, a season of promise, a season of pure joy for the grace that God has given us to really look at ourselves.

Do we expect to rise on Easter as different people or do we expect to just go back to eating liver, snarfing candy and drinking those Iranian brewskies?

Well, enough. It’s time to go. The wheels have gone down.

Ladies and gentlemen, the rector has illuminated the fasten seatbelt sign indicating our initial approach into Lent. Please insure your seatbacks and kneelers are in their fully upright and locked positions. Flight attendants prepare for landing.

Rector's Conference

2011-02-17T07:47:00.000-08:00

Rector’s Conference
February 16, 2011

In the rector’s conferences from last formation term, I focused on the promises made by the candidate during the Rite of Ordination and offered, I hope, some spiritual insights into the nature of those promises in the life and service of the priest. Today we move to the very heart of the rite, the matter and form of the Sacrament of Holy Orders and the moment in which the transformation of the man is realized. The central act of the rite begins on the ground with the prostration and the Litany of the Saints. The creation of the new man inaugurated with an evocation of the origins of the human person, in the dust. On Ash Wednesday we hear these words: Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return. The story of the origins of the human person in Genesis reminds us of our essential humility, the fact of our being created. In the prostration we come face-to-face with our basic constitution on our faces, completely vulnerable, our bodies connected to the earth. We are dust, we are constituted from the earth and attached to one another through both our common origins and our being creatures. This is the origin of the human person and it is the state to which we will return. The act of lying upon the earth is a reminder of our mortality. It should also be a reminder of our fragile nature. The ephemeral quality of dust makes it unable to hold together under its own power. Without divine intervention, we become little more than dust particles that inherit the wind. In the Rite of Ordination, as in all sacraments, our human nature is augmented, complimented, and exalted. As priests, we are given power to be used responsibly, we are given governance over the moral condition of humankind, and, if we are to accept the premise of our patristic forebears, we are given power over being itself. It is the sacrament which the priest is called to celebrate that keeps the world from flying apart. It is this sacrament and this sacrament alone that contains the force of the One who is Source of all Being. With the priesthood comes power and all of the ills of the contemporary priesthood stem from the lack of appropriation of the nature of this power. We “live into” the power but fail to accept the responsibility. We ravage the priesthood for its benefits and fail to understand what this ravishment entails for the souls of those of whom we have responsible charge. We think we can take the stole upon our shoulders without cost. We err in thinking that celibacy, as a divine gift has no personal cost. We take lightly the very promises we have just made. We serve ourselves rather than serving the Body of Christ and thus are condemned in our own blasphemy of the Body of Christ. Metaphysical considerations not withstanding, if there is power in the daily exercise of the priesthood, which there is, then the prostration reminds us of the source of this power: Our connection to the earth and the earth within us. In other words, the personal power of the priest who will rise out of the dust of the earth comes from his ability to connect to that same earth or we might say earthiness. The fissures, the welts of life are our portals to power. Just as the power of the hot spring hidden in the earth is exposed only through flaws in that same earth, so our hidden power, the hidden power contained in each by virtue of his or her having been tried in the fires of suffering, is exposed through the wounds of the lashes inflicted upon us through the maelstrom of daily living. As St. Paul says: When I am weak, then I am strong. As the Preface for Martyrs reminds us: God chooses the weak and makes them strong in bearing witness. The priest, by his priestly character and nature is a strong man, but only strong in the sense of Christ, the man of suffering acquainted with sorrow. The prostration reminds us that if we wish to follow in the footsteps of Christ, let us get down in the dirt with Christ. Let us fall with him on the way to Calvary. Let us trace our fingers in the dust with him. Like him, let us not flee humiliation. Let us be willing to weep with him over the pitiable Jerusalem of the modern condition. Let us wear the crown of thorns with him rather than the crown of clerical self-aggrandizement. Let us be willing to be pierced with him, pierced by the nails of the reality of the struggles of our brothers and sisters, our brothers here. Let us dare to be misunderstood with him. We find the true origins of our priesthood, as we find our true origins as human persons in the dust of the ground. What does that tell us about the spiritual life of the priest? It tells us that the priest cannot try to escape the cross. The cross is a reality in every life. Into every life sorrow comes, loss is felt, threat is real, and suffering is experienced. No one can live authentically and escape suffering. We do not need to seek the cross, the cross is there, it is here. Like human beings, the wood of the cross has been raised up out of the ground. It is “related” to the human person. The great paradox of modern life is our undying attempt to escape the consequences of what is real. We try to escape suffering at all cost, but the cost of the escape is often more dire and more painful than that from which we flee. It doesn’t matter how blessed an existence you have led. It doesn’t matter if you are rich and have overwhelming power. It doesn’t matter how charming you are. Into every life the cross casts its shadow and in spite of the false prophetic messages with which we are repeatedly bombarded, we cannot escape suffering, illness or death. The success or failure of the priest depends upon his ability to connect with the very baseness of his condition, a condition he is invited to reflect upon as he lies prostrate upon the ground, a humiliation that will ultimately be what raises him up, because the priest’s life depends upon his being pulled from his abject state into power by the magnetic, attracting alliance of his life with the cross of Christ.
The imagery of the prostration also reminds us of the Rite of Monastic Profession, the Mystical Burial. In the monastic prostration, the monk is covered with a funeral pall and hears these words sung around him: Now I am dead and my life is hidden with Christ in God. The transition that the monk makes in the mystical burial is the removal of the last vestige of the precious individualism so valued by modern culture and a complete subsummation into the life of the community. He, as an “I” is dead. He as a “we” will rise. The mystical burial offers us some insight also into the life and spirituality of the priest. The spiritual challenge of the priesthood, a challenge that we undertake daily in this house of formation is this same transformation. We must abandon the priority of self if we are to live authentically with Christ. This is a theological imperative, one witnessed to by the Church’s soteriological reflection on the nature of Christ. Who was Christ? He was the unique instance of one bearing two natures concomitantly, a divine and a human nature. Thus we are told by the Rule of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon. The centrality of this Truth in our expression of authentic Christian life cannot be gainsaid. As the central tenant of our faith, everything that proceeds from that tenant must likewise express it. Priesthood, because it proceeds from the Incarnation must present the primary expression of the Incarnation, kenosis, the self-emptying of Christ. Christ was a unique being with a unique mission. We are told that Christ was like us in all things but sin. He was a human person, but not a misshapen human person. He was a true and complete human person. As such, a sinless man, he did not bear within him the stigma of our first parents. As a sinless man and as the Logos, the everlasting Son of the Father, he did not have to die. Death did not assail him with its imperative stench. He did not have to suffer. His individuality made him immune to the human condition of final extinction. Yet Christ did not embrace his singular nature, his individuality. He put his privilege aside for one purpose, to serve, to serve mightily, to serve immortally, and to serve finally. This is a model for us. We are called like Christ to renounce the privilege of living into our selfishness and offer our lives in service. Just as the monk puts away the old self in hearing the words: Now you are dead, so the priest leaves his peculiarity on the ground. This is not to say that the unique personality of the priest is not to be taken into consideration. Every priest ministers from the font of his unique gifts, talents, we might even say quirks. What is left on the ground is what Christ left in the garden on the night of his passion, his will. Father if it is your will, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not my will but yours be done. Your will be done. In the prostration, my selfish will is seeping out of me and I leave it in the dust from which it came. My freedom is now to live totally for God. Thus the monk in the mystical burial. Sleeper awake. Our fixation on selfishness is a kind of sleepwalking. In our rising from the prostration, we are awaking to our true self, a self that now belongs completely to the others through Christ.
And what do we hear during this act of prostration; the Litany of Saints. Who are the saints? I was recently in Oklahoma City for the installation of the new archbishop. During my stay, I was asked by my good friend, the pastor of a lovely suburban parish to preach at the school mass. He wanted me to preach on the saints. As I sometimes do with children, I decided to speak directly to them and ask them what they think, what their opinions are. Who are the saints? Aidan from Grade Two B responded: My grandmother. T.J. also from Two B said: Old people who are famous or heroes. I am imagined that he probably included me in the general category of the old. Lisa, a particularly precocious young lady with no front teeth from Two A said: My friends. While I don’t know exactly what she was implying by her answer, her theological acumen was unassailable. As the soon-to-be priest lies prostrate on the earth, the litany washes over him. Into his particular circumstance comes the long line of grandmothers, famous old people, heroes and friends. What is being evoked in the litany but the community that the priest, newly divested of selfishness wants to enter? It is a litany, a stream, a moving current. It is historical, it begins with the foundations, the very foundations in the fiat of the Theotokos, and moves inextricably forward, carrying in its current the flotsam and jetsam of the communion of saints, fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, pacifists, virgins, sinners, martyrs, intellects, wives, husbands, teachers, students, monks, nuns, bishops, priests, all there, they are the Church. And into this living stream of grandmothers, old people. the famous and the less so, into this living stream the priest stands up and aspires through his call to flow along with them. He aspires to be a hero, a true father, a friend to all. Over the prostrate priest flows the Tradition of the Church, a Tradition configured in Christ through the Holy Eucharist of which the priest is now a necessary, an essential part. The arms of the Church’s past embrace him in his prostrate state and with his rising, that past becomes present and future as those who are named hold out for him what he longs to be. The response to each of these names is: Pray for us. Not pray for him, but pray for us. The bishop, the priests, the ministers, the candidates for ordination, the assembly all form that great cloud of witnesses the extends beyond the root of the earth which the candidate covers with his body, through the rafters of the building, and reverberates into the streets, the neighborhoods, cities, countryside, across wide oceans connecting the chanting men and women of Midwestern cathedrals to tents and Quonset huts and stone chapels and monasteries and whitewashed meeting houses around the world, and even farther, beyond the confines of this circumference into the imperium where all those grandmothers and heroes and friends praise God face to face and look kindly, lovingly at a man far below, lying in the dust.
Now the rite moves forward in earnest. The vast sea of voices ends, the sleeper awakes and takes on a new reality. It happens in the simplest of gestures, the imposition of hands. The ordinand kneels before the bishop. He knows humility now. He knows he is not worthy, never could be worthy of what is to come. Yet God has called him. He is a sinner. God will supply the grace. He is fractured. God will heal him as he will heal others. He is tortured. God will comfort. He is a weak man. God will make him a priest forever in the line of Melchizadech. There is stark silence. The bishop places his hands on the head of the one who has been called. This is a moment of awesome power. This is the moment when the Spirit rushes again upon David. This is a moment with the angels and saints join hands in praise of what God has done. This is the moment when the house shook on the day of Pentecost because its frame could not contain the tremendous power of the Spirit. This is the moment of heaven’s triumph and Hell is thunderstruck. The gesture of the imposition of hands is an ancient one that goes back to our Jewish roots. In the Old Testament it is an act of blessing, or of handing something on. The blind Isaac blessed his son Jacob in a slightly dishonest act on the part of the son who cheated his brother out of his birthright. What is interesting about this story in Genesis 27, is that while the act was deceitful, the efficacy of the action was permanent. The transfer of the blessing was permanent and irrevocable, Ex opere operantis. In many places in the Old Testament the transfer of power or authority is brought about through the laying on of hands or semikah. Moses ordained the elders (Numbers 11:1-25). The act of semikah was the means of “ordination” within Judaism throughout the Temple periods and into the Rabbinical circles of the early New Testament era. Semikah in Hebrew also has another evocative meaning in the Old Testament. The imposition of hands was an action employed by the priest in the korban, the sacrifice of animals. Leviticus 1:4 states: He shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement. How can this ancient expression of the gesture be incorporated into our contemporary ideals of priesthood? Priests today, and rightly so, are more comfortable with the sacrificial or cultic imagery of the priest, an image innate to priestly culture in past centuries. Many of these images evoke the priest in Levitical language, tying him to the traditions of the Temple kohenim. How many priests today, however, would be comfortable with this more startling sense of semikah and korban. While we might like to think of ourselves in cultic terms, we do not often think of ourselves as the animals to be sacrificed. The action in the Old Testament applies particularly to the so-called “scapegoat” This basic meaning of the imposition of hands ties in very readily with the image of death to self. At least a part of the act of ordination is to accept my vocation as a burnt offering, one to be offered up for the good of the world, like Christ himself.
In the New Testament, the laying on of hands is associated with the Holy Spirit. Acts of healing are also accomplished in this way in the early Church (Acts 8:14-19). Certainly there is also a curative element in the act of the Rite of Ordination. Perhaps it is nothing more than the restoration of resolve, a final disposition to accept this new reality. The action takes place in silence. Connected as it is to the basic anthropological expectations of so many cultures, no words are needed. We intuitively know what it means. After the bishop imposes hands, the priests follow him. If the bishop represents the apostles and connects the new priest to the great parade of succession reaching back to the ancient Church and beyond, to the Levitical priests and the patriarchs, the imposition of hands by the presbyterate evokes another kind of image, the particular history of a place, a diocese or religious community. Each of those priests, young and old, has devoted his life to service. It is a consummation devotedly to be wished that their hands, at least metaphorically, are calloused with that service. Each of those priests has devoted his life to handling the Body of Christ, in be Blessed Sacrament, certainly, but also in the sick, the poor, the penitent, the estranged, the lonely, the addict, the destitute, the outcast. Each of those priests has seen the world pass through his hands. They are hands that have blessed, absolved, anointed, embraced, and comforted. They are hands gnarled and weak, young and strong. The hands of the priests are imposed on the head of the ordinand and in doing so they hand on the long legacy of service in local parishes, schools, nursing homes, hospitals. They hand on the history of the presbyterate. They hand on struggle and triumph, joy and hope, sorrow and consolation. The new priest is filled with the life of the local church; he is affirmed by the presbyteate, that band of brothers with whom he now casts his lot in the relentless battle for souls. And what does the new priest experience as he experiences this parade of impositions, this one firm, this one feeble? He feels acceptance. He feels belonging. He feels that the moment of abandonment that he experienced when he left his old self on the floor, that temporary isolation, is now cured in the healing of the community of priests. He is “one of”. He will never be alone or isolated again, the reality of the priesthood has been passed forward.
The prayer of consecration for the priest reminds us of what God has done and what God is doing for us now. Here we stand in that great entwining of Kairos and Chronos that marks the epoch of the Christ. Here we stand with those priests of old, those strong, worn men wiping from their faces the soot and smoke of endless sacrifices, choking on the rank odor of searing flesh and blood, sifting through the ashes of the Law, their robes hemmed in blood, their ephods caked with the litter of human folly: it is mercy I desire above all of your burnt offerings. Here we stand in the portico of the Temple amidst the din of birds and lambs, waiting, for a purification of the nation that can only come from a lamb without blemish, a lamb caught in the thickets of the human condition and writ over with the name above every name: Emmanuel. Here we stand in the desert with Moses and the sons of Aaron, carrying Good News to a heedless people. Here we stand on the shores of the lake. Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Here we stand in the upper room as the Spirit rushes upon the fearful eleven, sending them forth to the priesthood of the new covenant. Here we are in the house churches of a persecuted flock, boldly handing on the Tradition in robes of simple homespun while the thundering threats of Roman soldiers batter the gates. Here we are in the great basilicas of Constantine, with the wafting of incense and the sounds and scents of an imperial court. Do this in memory of me. Here we are as the pages of history turn to a new era and all of the priests of the old and the new covenants converge on the head of this man. In every age, God, the source of every honor and dignity has given us what we need. He is still doing so today. Do we need to be reminded of what God has done? Do we not experience everyday what God has done in our lives? I hope you do. I hope you see what I see because I see men who arrive trembling and afraid of themselves and others, transformed into men of community. I see men who had mastered well the lesson of living for themselves become men of sacrifice and honest humility. I see men whose lives have been marred by the false messages of the culture of the age begin to strive for a greater and more sincere cultural identity. I see men who may have never thought of themselves as possessing any worth become confident and undisturbed by the simple reality of life. I see men learning to authentically live the message of the Gospel. I see men becoming kind. I see men becoming holy. I see men being transformed by grace, whose faces begin to shine with authentic goodness, whose hands begin to be lifted, first tentatively, then confidently in prayer, whose feet are willing to walk the extra mile, whose bodies are ready to be crucified in service, whose minds are becoming free, day to day, free to make a radical choice for Christ, for the Church, for God’s people, and for themselves.
We know what God has done. Now, what will God do? What can we expect from the rite? Grant this servant of yours the dignity of the priesthood. And it is a life of profound dignity. What is the dignity of the priesthood? First and foremost it is the dignity of a human person fully alive insofar as the human personality of the priest forms a living bridge to service. In the central part of the Rite of Ordination, we rise from the dirt of the ground to the company of the angels in the dignity of the priesthood. Here we might do well to remember the sacramental act that brought us into the wonder of discipleship, our baptisms. In baptism we hear these words with the presentation of the white garment the outward sign of your invisible dignity. Bring it unstained into the wedding banquet of eternal life. This is true dignity, the dignity for which we prepare, after which we strive in this house of formation, this seedbed of God’s generosity. It is the dignity of a man inebriated by ceaseless prayer, whose calling is always beyond. It is the dignity of a man of keen intellect who knows well the masterful story of the Church’s great intellectual tradition. It is the dignity of a man who knows himself and is not afraid of himself. It is the dignity of a man who does not fear the sexual energy that God has given him, that relational energy that allows him to have profound, holy contact with others. It is the dignity of a man who does not shy away from others, is not threatened by others but embraces others as brothers and sisters. It is the dignity of a man of culture, a man who has lifted his gaze from the gutters of the ephemeral and raised it to the transcendent to that which carries him beyond his little lot. It is the dignity of a man who has realized that the only greatness in any man is the ability to make those around him, the poor, the lonely, the outcast, to make them feel great. It is the dignity of a man whose clarity of vision is such that he can see the arch of heaven in the threatening jaws of an earthly hell. It is the dignity of a complete man whose completeness is augmented by the grace of a sacrament. It is the dignity of a man who will never take advantage of God’s people because he has been given something that they have not. The dignity to turn privilege to tireless service, the dignity to celebrate the sacraments with reverence in accord with the teachings of the Church and not seek to celebrate himself in celebrating God’s mysteries. It is the dignity of hope in a world of fatalism, joy in the face of disappointment, prayer in light of human failure, reconciliation in the wake of sin. It is the dignity of a man who can pick others up from out of their degradation their imprisonment to sin because he himself has felt countless times, witnessed in his own breast the powerful words of restoration: I absolve you. It is the dignity of a man who is as free in giving as he is grateful for what he has freely been given. It is the dignity of a man who would never embarrass another person, never purposefully cause harm, never put himself before the others. It is the dignity of a man who knows in the first instance not to call upon his own resources, but upon the name of Christ, the name of Mary, the names of the saints who washed over him as he lay prostrate in the dust. It is the dignity of a man who will walk the path until the end, who will live with integrity and die with holy beauty because, in the last instance, in the last breath he draws, after all the trials of life are over, after all the disappointments are reckoned, after all the hours of the Church’s endless round of prayers are recited, after all the shining consecrations are dimmed, after all the throes of this life have been overcome, he will find dignity in the arms of the Father and peace at the last because he was, until the temporal end true to who God called him to be eternally, a priest.

The Beatitudes

2011-01-30T15:57:00.000-08:00

Dedicated to my fellow European travelers

I don’t know about you, but, frankly, every time I come across these Beatitudes I feel a bit, well, queasy.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

Who are these people anyway? The Beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people?

Perhaps in exotic places, perhaps in exotic places like Rome
Perhaps the people of the Beatitudes are there among the beggars jingling their cups and calling out, Padre Padre with twisted limbs and darting glances, furtive glances, answering their I phones and moving on
Among the people on the 64 bus, cramming, careening around corners
The furry, coats and hats and animal pelts
The stinky the perfumed and the putrid
The felonious pick-pocketing their way between exhausted tourists
The frantic, panicked, heated, desperate – Scusi, porta, permesso
The catatonic riding round and round with no where to go
The feely, prurient or pecunial, you decide
People eating oranges, and pizza and Chinese food
Cardinals, birds of men, authoritative
Bishops, purple and pointed IDEO
Monks, solemn and screaming out across the piazza, Va, throughout the bus: GET OUT!
Seminarians bundled and backpacked and enthralled and fatigued and very endearing
1-16
Chow Chows lost and forsaken
Justin Bieber and Gru
Free WIFI at the corner

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

Who are these people anyway? The Beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people?

Perhaps in distant places like London among the harried commuters minding the gap
Crazy bus drivers threatening death on double deckers
Shoppers frantic and rushed
Beefeaters reveling in MURDER
Horse guards, Bobbies and soldiers, sharp, arresting, combed, trimmed
Girls in pink wigs dolling out the sandwiches at Pret a manger
Folks in the street crying out: OOOO I love a bus parade
Dancers, Accordion Players, Soliloquizers, itinerate tunes sung through the nasal choruses of coughs and wheezes throughout itinerate lives lived with only a Tube pass and a cup from McDonalds, jingle, jingle, jingle.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

Who are these people anyway? The Beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people?

Perhaps they are only be to found in big cities among the confused Japanese tourists, clicking, digitally clicking a scrapbook of memories that they will never remember how to interpret.
Infants, mewing and bound up in blankets and furs and hats and mittens with one lost or on the breast completely unabashed pushing his own stroller
Children so intelligent they speak Italian, French, British and crying out and clamoring over things and heedless
Teenagers, pimply and hormonal, twisting, shouting, texting and texting and texting
Married Couples holding hands, they still do that
Old People, wobbling and tottering like an Egyptian obelisk, but majestic
Lovers, kissing and touching and whispering meaningless things and wondering

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

Who are these people anyway? The Beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people?

Perhaps among the dead, they might be good candidates:
Kings and princes
Presidents and Heads of State
Heroes, mythologically preserved in verse and prose
Saints, embalmed, immured, ennobled in marble and bronze
Fidelia, Sophia, Valentinia, Laurentia, Cecelia, Agnes, Lucy
Artists forgotten or immortal
Musicians with too many notes
Painters of canvases too large
Architects of buildings too grand
Sinners, forgotten and reconciled long ago

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

The beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people?

In Rome, or closer to home?
Erstwhile seminarians with evaluations and goals
New men looking a bit dazed
Old men looking a bit dazed
Monks, young and old looking a bit, well, dazed
Back and forth to class, shovel some snow, no trays, napkins, please, e-mail reminders, trips to Walmart, Death by boredom, football fever, ministry assignments, no desert, smoking in a refrigerator, Doubt, meetings, chop that wood, new bishops, new pastors, new deans, doubt, Father manners, TIOP, WITH, IDGAD, sisters, movie nights, borrowing, Los Bravos, Ferdinand Chinese, doubt, missing comrades, discernment in the subject line, bold red type from the vice rector, another book in the mailbox, doubt, home, confessions,
Real hurts
Real struggles
Real pain
Real spiritual warfare.

Or among husbands and wives
Parents and children
Back and forth to school and work
Grab some breakfast
What was your name again?
Trips to the Mall
New neighbors, jobs, the daily grind of living

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

The beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people?

Or dare we hope that all men and women will be saved?

Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters.
Not many of you were wise by human standards,
not many were powerful,
not many were of noble birth.
Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,
and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,
and God chose the lowly and despised of the world,
those who count for nothing,
to reduce to nothing those who are something,
so that no human being might boast before God.
It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus,
who became for us wisdom from God,
as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
so that, as it is written,
“Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

The beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people? Here?

Opening Mass for the Second Formation Term

2011-01-28T06:53:00.000-08:00

We opened our second formation term with a celebration of the Eucharist presided over by Bishop Leonard Blair of the Diocese of Toledo. The rector preached. Bishop Blair also spoke at the annual Bishops' Dinner that evening.

This is the homily from Mass

They may look and see but not perceive,
and hear and listen but not understand

About whom does the Lord address these words?
About the senseless crowds?
About the occasionally equally senseless apostles?
About us, dazed as we are over our experiences of J-term and travel?

They may look and see but not perceive,
and hear and listen but not understand

And what are we to understand?
Precisely what are we to understand in this parable?
That we are the ground?
We are the earth, the soil that receives the living word and thus we must open our lives, our minds, our hearts, our spirits, our very bodies to the fruitfulness of God’s offer?

That we must have a receptive spirit to receive what God has in store for us?
Indeed, as we know, we are the ground and yet this open, this receptive spirit can so easily become entangled with the debris of worldly engagement.
We choke the Word so generously bestowed on us with thickets and brambles of our own fashioning
The brambles of personality, I am not fit for this vocation, I am not suited for that
The thickets of our past, my life has been so .. it doesn’t matter, any excuse will do
The thorns of our present sinfulness, becoming self-fulfilling prophets of our own downfalls
The nets of technology and the trappings of progress
I can hardly expect to gaze unreservedly at the face of the expectant Christ when my neck is forever bent beneath the yoke of screens, pads, pods, phones. Heaven isn’t to be found in cyberspace but in the ever decreasing space between me and my brother in need, me and my sister in crisis.

Jesus reminds us that our lives must open up to receive this precious invitation. Our lives must themselves be inviting, forming that essential bridge between ourselves and our neighbors. The soil of our existence must be fertilized by the careful cultivation of what is true, good and beautiful and resist the temptation to become the mere dirt of a transient cultural wasteland and false understandings of the human person.
Are we open?
Are we willing?
Are we anxious to receive the fullness of His grace?
Or do we hesitate, holding back, forever giving in to the lie that all of this can happen without loss, without sacrifice, without the pinch of the negation of false selves?
Sometimes this receptiveness becomes impossible and thus …

We may look and see but not perceive,
and hear and listen but not understand

And what are we to understand?
Are we to understand that we are the seed?
That we are called brothers and sisters to be instruments of the Word. Do our lives reflect that reality?

We are called to make real the proclamation of Emmanuel, God among us by breaking open our lives in his service and in the service of our brothers and sisters.

We are called to be seed in the sacrifice of the cross that rends asunder the assurances of well-controlled lives and propels us headlong into the chaos and confusion of real living.

We are called to that orthodoxy that boldly announces the Truth of brokenness, the veracity of passion.

We are called to spend ourselves in the service of that One Reality that cannot be gainsaid, that one Thing worth living for, worth dying for that we glimpse before our heads are turned by the violent contradiction of this-worldliness

But how often do we find that our lives cannot accept this unique, yet ubiquitous vocation?

And so …

we may look and see but not perceive,
and hear and listen but not understand

And what are we understand?
Are we to understand that we are the sower?

That our lives are to be lived out in perpetual abandonment of our own projects for the sake of proclaiming the Kingdom, that same Kingdom of which we are both representative and recipient?

That Kingdom which proclaims peace in a world in which the din of war seems insatiable
That Kingdom which announces Truth in a time in which lies and half-lies permeate our collective consciousness
That Kingdom that teaches Love in a culture of Hate, life in a culture of death, liberty in a culture of false ideas of freedom and choice
That Kingdom that is bound up in the person of the savior, the man of Galilee who was the eternal God, that kenotic King whose Kingdom was our slavery to sin, whose ransom was not his own, whose saving action was always on behalf of the unworthy others.

That Kingdom that reaches out to us in the appearance of Bread and Wine, even as we stretch out hands to unworthy pursuits and idolatries

And yet it is that Kingdom that the King of Times and Universes has placed in our hands, within our care, in our sphere of influence

But our lives brothers and sisters can become so entangled. How ill we regard that gift.

So that …
we may look and see but not perceive,
and hear and listen but not understand

Except hopefully to see that we are the ground, the seed and the sower and understand that there is no simple grasping of the parable, just as there is no simple grasping of the Object of all Parabolic discourse, but there is a kind of simplicity to the message of the Gospel and thus the message of our lives, for our lives signify nothing if they are not caught up in the Good News

For when the parable of this life is finally interpreted there is only one meaning to be found:

Each of us is called to one thing:
The salvation of souls
Brothers and sisters we are placed in this world for one purpose, to assure that the ground, the seed, the sowing is not in vain and that the message is proclaimed, fully, totally, unreservedly in our lives.
In this riot of cultivation, of sowers sowing and seed sown and soil receiving, what can we offer back to the Lord but bodies willing and able, spirits saturated with the sagacity of that which is most simple and minds fired by the grace of our creator and savior

We have but one vocation, saving souls for God and everything else is nothing but straw and dross.

Nothing can separate us from this zeal for souls if we are to be authentic to who we are and why we are here:

So that it may never be said of us:

they may look and see but not perceive,
and hear and listen but not understand

Look and see now the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world
Listen to his voice crying out to us today from the sacrifice of this altar
We are called
We caught up forever, irrevocably in the harvest of his Grace

The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

2010-12-08T07:06:00.000-08:00

God chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him
It only took a moment, a flicker
a minute movement of the will, the mind, the hand
After all, what is a single piece of fruit in this overwhelming paradise?
And then, fallenness
A legacy of hatred, division, suspicion, pain
Brother raises arms against brother
The simple language of fidelity disintegrates into Babel
Pasturelands smoke with the fiery fury of pitched battle
The disharmony of greed, lust, violence, hatred disrupts the counterpoint of generosity, respect, peace, love
With a simple gesture all of the sorrows of a scenario of serpentine scintillation descend upon the world, casting its citizens headlong into chaotic future writing on their burned skins the passages of a Satanic epic
Humanity became imprisoned in the adamantine chains of its own fashioning
and we learned to despise the Law for showing us who we were
We studied new ways to persecute and kill the prophets
We enchanted ourselves with our own seductive capabilities
We looked deeply into the divination of our imaginings and saw staring skull-like back at us nothing but own faces and we called those faces: gods
And we cursed, cursed the fruit, cursed the snake, cursed the earth, the mother and father, the fate, the selves that continued to raise the curtain day after day on the unrelenting tragedy of the human condition
We cursed God after all he said: Be fruitful and multiply
Multiply your woes, your wounds, your wayward warrants.
And tangled, jumbled, reprobate in a Sisyphean pile, we tumblingly lost all hope, believing the fate of Eden to be a universal and lasting “No”

But even in the midst of this chaos, this Babel, this Hell on earth, God held His breath and waited until he remembered that he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him.
She was nothing in the eyes of the world, a child, a commodity,
The outskirts of a forgotten village, a terminal sandlot of human expectations
A mud house, a wooden window, a berating sun
And then …
The frenzy of beating wings, of feather dust
A cacophony of light
The angel called out to the lowest of the earth, the slave of men’s expectations
Hail full of grace
He knew her name and then he whispered in her ear the secret she had been prepared to hear from the first stirring in her own mother’s womb.
Can you?
Will you?
Yes, of course, this is why I was brought into the world.
Yes of course, this is God’s dream
Yes, of course, now the great work begins.
And God sighed and the breath of that sigh completed the Virgin’s yes
The breath of that sigh, held so long throughout the Chronos of our collective pain breathed forth long and welcome
It breathed forth like water to a parched earth, breeze in the arid desert.
Jesus is that breath united to Mary’s yes
Jesus the man of sorrows who acquits us of our sorrows
Jesus the man of journeys who becomes our resting place
Jesus the man of hunger and thirst, who becomes our bread and wine, the bread of angels, the wine of compassion
Jesus that daily reminder to us that in flesh, in spirit that …
God chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him
And so we can be brothers and sisters, so we can be who we were made to be
This promise stands before us today as a threat and an opportunity
A threat to all our rationalizations and an opportunity to say yes to the vocation, the difficult but beautiful vocation he has called us to, we know he has called us to it
A threat to our radical individualism, our selfishness and the opportunity to live into the mystery of God in the vital, breathing triumphs and sorrows, joys and hopes of our brothers and sisters
A threat to our woundedness and the opportunity for healing in lives torn open by broken homes, grudges, hurts, dismay, shunning, racism, shattered dreams
In this feast, in this cosmic, immaculate feast of God’s grandeur
We, a people taught to look down at the trodding, plodding feet of our own inebriated self intuitiveness raise our heads and behold our true destinies written in the skies
Inscribed in the glory of steel clouds offering an oblation of snow
Calligraphied in the highest aspirations of humanity, to know the truth, to love without counting the cost, to be transfixed by beauty
Embedded in a new promise, a future-oriented history of service, compassion, tenderness, kindness, fidelity for …
God chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him
and so we are called to be saints among saints.
Brothers and sisters it can be accomplished in us as it was accomplished in Mary, we can, we must become immaculate if not for the first time, the, by God’s grace, at least … again.
God whispers this promise to us today. Let us say yes and moving forward from this place so that we can rewrite the Satanic epic into the pure poetry of love inscribed in our hearts, though for a time hidden from view, before the foundation of the world.

Apocolypse at Seven Fifteen

2010-11-19T04:00:00.000-08:00

So they fall down
before the one who sits on the throne
and worship him, who lives forever and ever.
They throw down our crowns of incredulity before the throne, exclaiming:
“Worthy are you, Lord our God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things;
because of your will they came to be and were created.”
Who I ask you can endure the apocalypse at seven fifteen?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the door of heaven opened here, or here this morning and we could get a glimpse of the beyond?
Wouldn’t it be incredible if we heard the triumphal tones of that trumpet-like voice crying out “Come up here!”?
Wouldn’t it be awesome if we got caught up in the swirling spirations of the Immortal, Invisible?
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we saw the throne of jasper and carnelian (whatever that is)?
Wouldn’t it be tremendous to be dazzled by that halo of emerald shining in our chapel?
Wouldn’t it be overwhelming to see twenty-four circling elders before breakfast?
Flashes of lightening, Peals of thunder, Seven flaming torches, Four living creatures
What a vision. Perhaps too much of a vision for seven fifteen?
But it would be well … wonderful
Instead we get something else, Not a different reality
But a kind of accidental vision with which to see that reality
Accidental vision in which …
The door of heaven looks like an opening in a sandstone wall
The voices croak a bit with the strains of old chanted psalms
We are caught up in the insalubratory Spirit of lost sleep
The throne looks a bit like a table of wood and granite
The halo is a bright light shining off the roof of a copper box
The twenty-four elders, old monks and priests, a smattering of sisters and a pack of cranky, red-eyed seminarians slouching toward Thanksgiving
Slouching toward Thanksgiving with accidental vision
Miraculous myopicity
But O yes O yes Our song is the same: Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty
Our song is the same even at seven fifteen, Even with accidental vision
As we penetrate the veil of mystery and with triumph rejoice with the heavenly witnesses
So we fall down
before the one who sits on the throne
and worship him, who lives forever and ever.
We throw down our crowns of incredulity before the throne, exclaiming:
“Worthy are you, Lord our God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things;
because of your will they came to be and were created.”
Apocalypse indeed, even at Seven fifteen

A Word to Our Bishops

2010-11-15T06:43:00.000-08:00

Given in Baltimore, USCCB Annual Meeting

My rector’s conferences this year focus on the spirituality of the priest as witnessed by the Rite of Ordination. The authentic spirituality of any office in the Church must be contained in the means by which that office is made. Thus, in the past months we have focused on the ideal of presence in the spiritual life of the priest and the particularities of that life as experienced in the promises made by the priest at ordination, especially the promise of obedience. In the coming months, we will focus on the laying on of hands, the prayer of consecration, the anointing, vesting, transfer of gifts, etc. The final reflection I will offer the seminarians in the Spring will be on the sign of peace. I would like to give you a bit of a preview of that conference this evening.
The sign of peace is a transitional gesture. The bishop embraces the newly ordained in an ancient gesture of fraternity and relationship. The gesture says: You are now one of us. You are a part of this group, this family, this diocese, this presbyterate. Following the sign of peace by the bishop, all of the priests present likewise offer the sign. It speaks the same anthropological language. While the sign of peace is a rich and meaningful gesture in itself, I am more interested in what comes after, which, in the Rite of Ordination is nothing. The new priest now takes his place among that group that has fully accepted him. He is now one of them. He is now called to carry out the responsibilities of membership in that group, family, diocese, and presbyterate. The long period of testing and formation is over and now … the future waits. The assembly of the faithful, and indeed the priests are anxious. Perhaps the bishop is also anxious about what the coming days, weeks and months will unfold. Expectations are high on every side. What does the bishop have the right to expect his new priest to be? What do the priests have a right to expect? What do God’s people have a right to expect?
First they have a right to expect that this man is a man of prayer. He has a relationship with God that is deep and intimate in itself, but is also lived in the context of the life of the Church. His mysticism is not drawn from esoteric sources of revelation about what is true and good, but from the very fiber of the Church militant, a Church alive, a Church whose spiritual animus may not always be pristine, but is unflaggingly real. This prayer expresses itself in a total commitment to deepening the priest’s relationship with Christ through the Liturgy of the Hours, through a penetrating love of the Eucharist, through a healthy devotion to Our Lady and the saints. It is a prayer steeped in the heart of the real Church, a Church of real persons, not an idealistic Church of his own construction that can never be realized this side of the Heavenly Jerusalem. His ease of prayer demonstrates a true comfortability in traversing a divine engagement.
There is also the right to expect that this man is a whole person. His human personality is truly as the late Pope John Paul II noted: “a bridge to his pastoral engagement.” He is comfortable with his emotions, his sexuality, his motivations. He knows how to have a good conversation. He has a sense of humor. While he takes the priesthood seriously, he does not take himself too seriously. He is not a narcissist. He embraces celibacy as an invitation to the many rather than an attention to the one. He is a good preacher. He studies the Word of God as an old friend. He is a good teacher. He knows the Church’s tradition and the fullness of that Tradition. He does not traffic in specialties or trivial Catholicism but appreciates the history of the Church as broad and deep. He is truly present to those whom he serves and he knows fully what service is. He has a genius for the mundane, for visiting the sick, for tending tirelessly to the elderly. He does not see his priesthood only in terms of stings of heroic deeds, rather he finds the heroic in the daily life of the priest. He works well with others, with other priests, deacons, lay ministers and the faithful. He is easygoing, but he never shirks responsibility. He knows how to collaborate, but he also understands the authentic role he is called to fulfill as a priest. He celebrates the Liturgy beautifully, elegantly and simply. He is not attracted by externals but knows the Liturgy in its radical nature. He is a man of vision and he can lead others in to that vision, not by coercion but through love. He is patient with people, never prone to outbursts. He is appropriately transparent. He inspires others. He will not walk away after a few months or years. He has shelf life because he has learned honesty. He knows what obedience is. He also knows on the day of his ordination that he is not, never will be a finished product. He is open to conversion, to change, to becoming always better. He is a man for others, a man of God, a man of whom St. Paul spoke: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
And what is Christ but, hopeful, visionary, future-oriented, authentic.
This is what you have the right to expect your new priest to be. This is what Saint Meinrad pledges to deliver to your cathedral on the day of ordination. Our success depends on a number of factors.
A 150 year tradition of forming men for the diocesan priesthood
A staff that is experienced and likewise has shelf life, that won’t be turning over every few years.
A faculty that is intellectually second to none AND knows how to form men for their pastoral purpose
An intense focus on human formation and spiritual formation as the necessary foundations upon which intellectual and pastoral elements can be built
A conviction that priests are not cutouts, but complete men who need care and individual consideration in formation
A strong working relationship with Vocation Directors and Bishops
An intense and honest dialogue with you in which I pledge that you will never hear anything from Saint Meinrad but the Truth.
Bishops, in the Church today we are past playing a numbers game. We know that quality men in priestly service are a necessity. We cannot, we do not have the luxury to settle for second best. The stakes are too high.
You deserve the best priests. Your presbyterates deserve the best brothers. The faithful, the all too patient and forgiving faithful, deserve the best we have to offer.
At Saint Meinrad, we will never shirk from that responsibility. You can believe that.
We appreciate you so much. We love working with you. We love knowing that our alumni are serving you well. Please God may it continue to be so.
Thank you and good evening.

The Days are Coming

2010-11-15T06:41:00.001-08:00

Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven,
when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble,
and the day that is coming will set them on fire,
leaving them neither root nor branch,
says the LORD of hosts.

The air is full of the eschaton these days. Swirling leaves and quickening hours
The readings are full of the eschaton these days
The four last things
Death and Judgment, Heaven and Hell

Needless to say as a child I worried a lot about Hell
I wasn’t a particularly virtuous child
I was always getting into trouble
Christmas every year was a complete terror as I was usually naughty and never nice

My grandmother was constantly telling me that if I didn’t change my ways I would end up where the fire is never quenched and the worm dieth not
How I kept from becoming I serial killer I do not know

Perhaps we all fear hell, death, judgment
But a confessor in my younger years once told me that if you fear hell, you will not go there.
While I am not so sure of the soundness of the doctrine, frankly, I’m going with it.

These days …
I think about Heaven a lot.
I suppose we all do especially as we get a bit umm older
I wonder who goes to heaven and who doesn’t?

We all speculate

Not about the obvious people of course
St. Joseph
St. Francis
Mother Teresa
The Pope

Instead, I wonder about people like my Aunt Pearl

Aunt Pearl was my grandfather’s sister
When I was 8 years old, she was about 240 years old

Aunt Pearl was the bane of the cousins’ existence

First of all she always smelled like mothballs and that icky powder that old ladies wore
She applied this powder to her face very liberally and painted on her rosy cheeks and lips
She always wore the same coat, a molting mink that had been alive at some eon before the process of evolution got underway

She smelt and she shedded

And she was stingy
Every year for Christmas or our birthdays, she would send us the same present, a dime taped to an index card

And whenever she came over to the house, usually on Thanksgiving and Christmas she would gather us round and say.
Aunt Pearl has a treat for you
And she would produce from her ubiquitous patent leather pocketbook a stick of juicy fruit gum which she would then divide among her miniature mendicants

An eighth of a stick of gum and eleven dimes is the pearline legacy so …

Yes I wonder if Aunt Pearl got to heaven

Because when push comes to shove is that not what we are really longing for?
To escape Hell and find our way to heaven, perhaps with a pit stop in purgatory?

We live our lives in the anticipation that amid the swirling leaves, the biting winds, the darkening days, the decay of the year, there is HOPE.

Hope that the pain and anxiety which we hold so closely to our hearts will evaporate in the twinkling of an eye
Hope that all our woundedness, our past, our sins will vanish in the wind like the acrid smoke of waning days and burning leaves
Hope that we can rise above the tenacious aimlessness of this world, rise to power, self power, God-like power, the power of saints

Hope that there is a place where all doubts are removed
Where all hurts are healed
Where all victims are made complete
All sinners forgiven
All enveloped in the all in all

In these waning days of the year, in this season of the eschaton

We are reminded that we continue to take part in a cosmic drama
That surrounded by the mundane and the fading, we are nevertheless pressing on to Glory

Glory that crests the eastern sky with the bright transcendence of another dawn
Glory that caresses with calloused hands those jasper walls, those golden gates of promise
Glory that creates in us new visions, fresh dreams, fiery energy to press forward to serve the needs of all: By your perseverance you will secure your lives

And in that Glory, we shall be reunited with all those who have gone before
In that Glory, failure and portends of hell will be transmogrified into the blessed assurance of immortality

In that Glory we will see him face to face as we enter into the fulfillment of the Incarnation
It is the very glory that comes to us now at this altar
The glory of the Host transcending all trepidation, rising toward New Jerusalem now alive in us
In that Glory we shall be, we are surrounded by Francises and Teresas and Josephs and Johns and Pauls and all the saints arrayed in their wedding garments
They call out to us even now of that coming day

And on that day, on that day I hope to see old aunt pearl again, in a brand new coat

And on that day I hope that at last I can get a whole stick of gum

Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven,
when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble,
and the day that is coming will set them on fire,
leaving them neither root nor branch,
says the LORD of hosts.
But for you who fear my name, there will arise
the sun of justice with its healing rays.

Rector's Conference Four

2010-11-04T11:45:00.001-07:00

Do you promise respect and obedience to me and my successors?
When we consider the various dimensions of priestly life and ministry, as we contemplate the realization of that life and ministry in our years of formation, we may give little thought to the promise of obedience. The promise of obedience is not discussed as much in the seminary formation curriculum as, say, the promise of celibacy or some of the other aspects of the priesthood. Yet, the promise of obedience is often the one promise that makes the greatest difference in the life of the priest. Today, in keeping with the format of my rector’s conferences this year, I would like to focus on the promise of obedience. The same promise is made by the deacon and the priest.
Do you promise respect and obedience to me and my successors?
To begin my reflection this morning, I would like to look at the question of obedience from a philosophical point of view. What is the essence of obedience? The Latin word, obedire, means two things, to hear and to listen. In English there is a slight difference in the meaning of these two words. Hearing is essentially a passive event, involving sound waves moving over the auditory mechanism of the person. As long as my ears are working properly, I can hear. But hearing requires no response. Again, it is passive. Listening is another thing entirely. I listen when I process what I have heard, when I place it in a context, when I, at least at some level, understand what I am hearing. Listening is an active concept, it requires attention and it is dialogical with that which is heard. Passive or active, however, obedire places us in a particular context, the context of relationship. These actions require relationships of varying depths. When I hear, I am in a kind of relationship with something outside of myself, be it ever so feeble, perhaps nothing more than mere sound. When I listen, I deepen that relationship. I am in a contextual relationship, an intentional relationship with the other who makes the sound. Philosophically, I would say the essence of obedience is relationship and by extension the recognition of a necessary relationship in the person. It is also the desire to recognize that relationship is essential to who I am as a person. There are a number of ways in which this relationship can be understood. Sometimes we understand relationships in artificial ways. The gathering of this community is, in some sense, artificial. Most of us have no natural relationship and our coming together is, in a sense, accidental. We are gathered here in some ways because of a contract, a contract for formation that we have made. Our relationships here are certainly very real, but they might be perceived as artificial. We did not really choose to be together. Many of the relationships in which we find ourselves are similar to our relationality here. Our neighborhoods, our schools, our parishes are all a rather haphazard ingathering of folks who may have much in common but are mostly drawn together by the accidents of proximity, bureaucracy or choices of various kinds. However, while the various relationships and communities in which we find ourselves may be accidental, there is a natural element of relationship that must also be taken into account.
Human beings have relationship written in the core of their being. Pope John Paul II in his Theology of the Body renewed this insight for our contemporary western cultural situation. In the modern and postmodern ideal, we are told that we do not need each other, that we can be lone rangers, that we should be completely independent and isolated from the mentality of the “herd”. For the late pope, this cultural message was conflicted because it denied the essential nature of the person as one necessarily in relationship with the other. Relationship is an anthropological truth and many of our modern woes have grown out of an attempt to deny the essential nature of this truth. Obedience, as an expression of essential relationality is the recognition, at a very basic level of what is true about myself. Obedience is telling the truth. Obedience is the expression of the truth that is written in the very fiber of my being. I cannot live authentically without an understanding of obedience. At the heart, this obedience is an intentional hearing the call of relationship that naturally resounds within me and responding to that call by actively pursuing the authentic nature of relationship. Obedience is also an expression of piety in the classical sense of being true to form, true to who I am as a person. It is an acknowledgement of my need for others, a need that is intense, a need that is absolute, a need that cannot be denied without damaging my nature. Obedience is also an expression of humility, of knowing the truth and living the truth of my reality. Obedience is an expression of my anthropological aptitude.
At the level of discipleship, obedience takes on a new dimension. In baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, I am a new creation. My personhood has been changed in a radical way. In Christian discipleship, my personhood takes on new dimensions, the dimensions of being “in Christ”. My character has changed and I am now called to new expressions of relationship. As a Christian, my obedience is now listening to what is true about being a follower of Christ. I have new responsibilities and new intentionalities. My piety and my humility have different emphases although the essence of relationship remains the same. In discipleship, my personhood has to conform to the life of Christ, particularly as it is expressed in the Church. I have a responsibility to fulfill the Law of Christ written in the very heart of the Church’s reality. I have a responsibility to God’s people by my supernatural affiliation with them. I am called to realize that “all are one in Christ Jesus”, that while different members we are of the same body, the Body of Christ. I must act continually for Christ in order to realize the rule of discipleship. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. Obedience to Christ is my authentic self and to act contrary to that truth is to be inauthentic to myself. The natural relationship is now a supernatural relationship and those formerly artificial expressions of community become natural expressions of who I am, brothers and sisters to all, particularly those who are most in need. Who are my mother and brothers and sisters? Those who hear the Word and put it into action.
Finally there is the obedience we express in Holy Orders. The obedience of Holy Orders is an augmentation and an intensification of the obedience owed to the Church through the sacraments of initiation. The Sacrament of Holy Orders is undertaken freely. It is an intentional acceptance of new relationships based upon the new office that I receive when I am ordained. The obedience of Holy Orders is obedience to the Church and to specific persons in the Church. It is a particular relationship expressed through our understanding of the nature of the Church and the means by which the Church communicates our relationship with God. As deacons and priests we make promises of obedience to bishops. Who is the bishop to demand this obedience? Obviously, the bishop does not ask this obedience solely on behalf of himself. We do not make a promise of obedience to the particular personality of the bishop. Rather, our promise of obedience is made to what, or rather to whom the bishop represents. He represents Christ. He speaks on behalf of Christ. His ministry is the ministry of Christ. “the apostolic office of bishops was instituted by Christ the Lord and pursues a spiritual and supernatural purpose.” We make a promise of obedience to this office and this means that we understand what that office represents in the life of the Church, within our larger promise of obedience in the context of our discipleship. Every bishop, by virtue of his office speaks on behalf of Christ. He is also a human person, with a particular personality, particular ideas and opinions. While we do not make a promise of obedience to these aspects of the bishop’s person, it is dangerous to begin to see too strong a dichotomy between the bishop as a man and his office. Our relationship in obedience is the relationship with a person in his office. It is a relationship with the essential nature of his personhood, that is, his being a bishop and having a particular responsibility and role in that nature within the Church. His essence is bishop, but his accidental qualities may be quite varied. He may like certain foods or sports. He may have a particular opinion about one thing or another. Our relationship of obedience is not to those accidental qualities of individual men, but rather to the essential office that makes up the core of each man.
What is the nature of this obedience? The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium gives us some insight here. The term used in the constitution regarding the necessary relationship between the bishop and men in Holy Orders is obsequium relgiosum, religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings of the Magisterium, represented concretely in the life of the deacon or the priest by his relationship with his bishop. Let us now take a moment to review this section of Lumen Gentium
Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious submission. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.
As we know, the magisterial teachings of the Church are gradated according to a hierarchy of truths. The 1973 document on the ecclesial role of the theologian from the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Donum Veritatis offers the following reflection.
When the Magisterium of the Church makes an infallible pronouncement and solemnly declares that a teaching is found in Revelation, the assent called for is that of theological faith. This kind of adherence is to be given even to the teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium when it proposes for belief a teaching of faith as divinely revealed. When the Magisterium proposes "in a definitive way" truths concerning faith and morals, which, even if not divinely revealed, are nevertheless strictly and intimately connected with Revelation, these must be firmly accepted and held. When the Magisterium, not intending to act "definitively", teaches a doctrine to aid a better understanding of Revelation and make explicit its contents, or to recall how some teaching is in conformity with the truths of faith, or finally to guard against ideas that are incompatible with these truths, the response called for is that of the religious submission of will and intellect. This kind of response cannot be simply exterior or disciplinary but must be understood within the logic of faith and under the impulse of obedience to the faith.
The promise of obedience is firmly directed toward the existential consequences of this theological teaching. Concretely speaking what is this religious submission of will and intellect? It is first realized in the understanding that my ideas may not be the most important ones to express in a given situation. Other people, particularly by virtue of the office they hold may know more than I do. As a deacon or priest, where do I first turn for understanding particular questions? Relationally, our instinct must always be to the bishop. We are in a necessary relationship with this man precisely for this purpose. The bishop is not the arbiter of disputes, he is rather the first teacher. He holds the priestly office of teacher, the prophetic office of the Church. “The Bishop, through the grace of the Holy Spirit who expands and sharpens the eyes of his faith, relives the sentiments of Christ, the Good Shepherd, as he faces the anxieties and expectations of today’s world, by announcing a word of truth and life and by fostering activity which goes to the heart of humanity. Only in being united to Christ, in being faithful to his Gospel, in being realistically open to this world and in being loved by God, can the Bishop become the harbinger of hope.”
Religious submission means that I submit for religious reasons. Those religious reasons are centered on how I understand the voice of Christ to be speaking in the Church. Religious submission means that I must bracket my ideas and opinions (at least in the first instance) and listen to what Christ is saying, in our circumstances in the person of the bishop. Religious submission of the will means that I do not act in any way that would indicate my lack of full agreement with the expressed teaching of the bishop. I do so not out of a robotic response but out of the conviction that the voice of Christ is speaking even if I cannot yet appreciate what is being said. religious submission of the intellect means that I try to think with the Church. I strive to do so. This kind of submission means that I give the Church, the voice of Christ, the benefit of the doubt with the firm conviction that if I live a teaching, if I strive to believe a teaching, I will understand the logic of faith in that teaching. If I make judgments about what the bishop is saying to me before I strive to live that teaching, then I do so dishonestly. This is a process of assent that I agree to in my promise of obedience. While it is true, absolutely true that conscience is primary in our decision making, an appeal to conscience cannot be primary in our realization of any teaching. In other words, if dissent is possible, it is only possible (and not very probable) after the fact of religious submission.
When we look at the Rite of Ordination, the first thing we note is that this promise is the first one in the rite that is accompanied by a gesture or ritual action. The candidate kneels before the bishop. This is a meaningful sign of the relationship between these two men. One is sitting in a position of teaching, the other is kneeling in a position of learning. With this posture, we acknowledge the essences of the persons making the gesture. They do not stand as equals, we accept this. Their teacher/student relationship is inherent in their persons. Their relative postures are a statement of the truth about themselves. It is a relationship freely chosen, but once chosen is not negotiable. In making the gesture I am choosing to acknowledge that I now live in this irreversible relationship, that this relationship is true in my life. The posture is accompanied by a gesture of holding hands. Holding hands is a very powerful and very prevalent anthropological gesture. To grasp hands is to grasp the life force of the other. To place my hands in the hands of another is to place my entire life at their disposal. It is a gesture of trust, of interchange between the persons. It is the same essential gesture we witness in marriage. It sends the message that the lives of these persons, in their essential personhood is now inextricably bound together.
Do you promise respect and obedience to me and my successors?
Again, we make our promise to a particular bishop, a particular man. Care must be given that our promise is not made to his personality rather than to his office, his accidental qualities rather than his essence. Our attitude can never degenerate to: better the bishop you know than the bishop you do not know. We should admire our ordinary. We must respect our ordinary. It is wonderful if we can be friendly with our ordinary. It is essential that we know who this man is and for whom he speaks. The personality of the bishop can only take us so far. We get into serious trouble when we are attracted to a personality and not to a commitment to follow Christ wherever he goes. The bishop’s successors are as yet unknown, but when our religious submission is to the ideal of Christ speaking in the Church, then the personality of those successors becomes less significant to the commitment we are making.
Having examined the content of the promise, it may now be helpful to briefly look at ways in which this promise might be compromised or made more difficult. Of course, challenges to obedience are as individual as those who make promises, but some trends might easily be delineated. I see four: Residual narcissism, Cacophony, Pride, and a Lack of Respect.
First, residual narcissism. We hear a great deal about narcissism today. We know that a clinical diagnosis of narcissism as a personality disorder is relatively rare. Residual narcissism, however is much more prevalent and is often the outcome of the conditioning of a culture bent on radical individualism and selfishness. Clerical circles seem to be awakening to the effects of narcissism in the lives of priests in ways previously un recognized. Very simply, narcissism is the inability to view the world outside of one’s self. It is chronic selfishness, at times, seemingly incurable self reference. Everything in my world view proceeds from my particular interests or the ways in which phenomena impact me. Everything must be created in my image, all activities should center on me. At some level we find chronic narcissism humorous. The old adage of, “let’s stop talking about me, let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?” is a bit tired but certainly also has a ring of truth in it. Narcissism, when it can be overcome, is very difficult to overcome. It lies at the heart of other modern chronic conditions such as pornography and even overweeing social networking. Narcissism, by its nature threatens relationships. Narcissism is problematic for the average person, it is fatal to priesthood. A person with chronic narcissistic tendencies cannot be a priest because priesthood requires a perspective of the other, a regard for the other, a respect for the other. Priesthood is about compassion, suffering with the other. A personality that allows for neither suffering nor the other cannot effectively be a priest. Narcissists cannot make a meaningful promise of obedience because there is no ability to truly listen and respect someone else. The narcissist may look obedient, he may even look hypervigilant in obedience, but it only works as long as he is satisfied with the outcome. Any challenge to the narcissistic worldview and the priest revolts. Narcissism has many forms but intellectual narcissism is perhaps the most dangerous for the priest. I know more than anyone else. I know better than anyone, including my bishop, including the Church, including Christ.
Second cacophony. I cannot hear the authentic voice of Christ speaking through the Church and through the bishop if I surround myself with other voices, if I inundate my world with sounds that conflict and cause consternation in my ability to hear and to listen. Simplicity is required for authentic hearing. How often, when trying to pay attention to a particular speaker have we had to silent errant voices around us? A good question to ask ourselves is: What do I pay attention to in my daily life? What vies for my attention? It is hard to hear the voice of Christ when our soundscapes are filled with the cacophony of lies, of popular culture, of competing voices. We cannot listen to Christ if we are continually trying to tune our ears to other musics, perpetually trying to get reception on stations inimical with our vocations as Christians. Obedience in the Church and in the Sacrament of Holy Orders is geared to one goal: to make us saints. Pope Benedict recently said to Catholic students: “When I invite you to become saints, I am asking you not to be content with second best. I am asking you not to pursue one limited goal and ignore all the others.” Christ in his mysteries, when we truly attend to his mysteries, opens our horizons in ways that external cacophony never can.
Third, Pride. In the world of the priest, pride often manifests in our inability to say we were wrong. Perhaps this is a particular masculine issue as well. No promise of obedience is ever perfectly lived any more than discipleship is ever perfectly lived. We err. Virtue lies not in ever erring but in our ability to admit we were wrong and to make amends. Often we make serious mistakes in following through with our obedience. Those serious mistakes become grave errors when we will not admit our fault. My experience has been that many who leave the priesthood do so because their pride has been hurt in having their opinions overruled by the authentic teaching office of the bishop.
Finally, lack of respect. Respect from the Latin, respectus literarily means to look again or to regard. It means taking more than a cursory glance at a thing or trying to sum up a complex reality with a simple formula. Respect is an ideal that applies to almost every relationship we have. It may indeed be said to be at the very heart of the Church’s sacramental understanding. “Things are more than they seem to be” is an ideal that I apply in almost every pastoral circumstance. I look for depth. I search for breadth. I look beyond the obvious. I do not take everything for face value Lack of respect is a failure to look again, to contemplate what we are doing, to make hasty judgments. Decisions about how to proceed in a pastoral environment must be made carefully and reflectively. When I am in doubt, it is my responsibility to consult others, particularly when I am in a relationship of obedience with the others. A lack of respect is manifested in my not caring about what the opinions of those significant voices might be, or to even acknowledge their significance in my life. It is to live a superficial life.

What do these reflections on the promise of obedience mean for us here and now? I hope one message I have communicated this morning is that we are all under obedience, we are all necessarily in relationship. At the anthropological level, we are under obedience to the nature of our human being. At the discipleship level we are under obedience to the Word of God with whom we have come into relationship through the sacraments of initiation. I cannot deny this obedience if I am to maintain integrity as a Christian. As a seminarian, you are already preparing for the particular form of obedience that comes with Holy Orders. Here in this seminary, we prepare for this listening, this intensity of relationship and this respect. It is not possible to make a meaningful promise of obedience on the day of ordination, if we have never considered the consequences of obedience in our daily lives. How do we interact here every day? Do we give the staff and faculty, men and women who are acting even now on behalf of your bishops the benefit of the doubt? Do we have what Saint Benedict called the “ready step of obedience”? Or is our attitude one of constant criticism and questioning? Do we dissent first and reflect later? Our attitude of obedience, even here is not nourished by a personal affiliation or friendship with the staff. Our attitude of obedience is nourished by my willingness to listen to the voice of the Lord. It is putting Christ in the center of my formation by putting Christ in the center of my life. Of course, this is what we do here. This is what we are aiming for here. This is what we must accomplish here, recognizing our need for continued growth and development. Obedience as understood in the sense in which we mean it in Holy Orders is not a new obedience. it is a fine tuning, a nuancing of the obedience we owe to Christ, and to the obedience that is inscribed in every human heart. In this way we understand that obedience can only make sense in the context of prayer. Prayer is the solidification of that primary obedience, that primary relationship that gives all particular forms of obedience meaning. If I do not pray, I cannot make sense of hte promise of obedience, because it has no context. If I pray, then obedience takes care of itself because I have already put myself, trained myself to put myself at the disposal of someone greater than myself. The mighty God through whom all our lives gain meaning, through whom all our hearing and listening gains wisdom. To this mighty God be all glory and power in the Church, now and forever.

A Treatise on Homiletic Method

2010-11-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

A Treatise on Homiletic Method by Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB
Monday – O no I have to preach on Thursday
I mean, Hurray I get to preach on Thursday
Wonder what the readings are? IPhone - Enter Password – Tap, Tap, Tap, Tap
Good, Safari, Google, USCCB Teadings – No Readings (fat thumbs)
Good, October, wait November, wonder what happened to October
Focus, Focus - Expand Expand
November 4 Good, Expand, Expand
Scroll Down - Gospel of Luke, Chapter 15, Lost sheep, lost coin
Rats - Didn’t I preach on that a few weeks ago?
Foolish Shepherd, Foolish Woman, Foolish God – Yada, Yada, Yada
Darn – Anything else – Probably not
Scroll up – First Reading
Brothers and Sisters – We are the circumcision - What – I don’t think so
Scroll down
Last resort – Psalm
Generic, Generic, Generic – Sorry God
O Feast day – Charles Borommeo
Ouch – He who put the bore back in Romeo
Archbishop of Milan I hate Milan – nice cathedral though
Focus - Ah Ha - Maybe there’s a deacon preaching
Run upstairs because I can never find that schedule – Note to new secretary
Take the elevator – Jiminy Christmas I’m fat
Why are those organ builders making so much noise?
O my they have the cabinet on the thing – moving fast
Focus - Rats – Wessmann Maybe I could threaten a deacon
Back downstairs - Next – Next – Next – Wait Archbishop Rodi- Outlook Open
Tarn – He’s leaving after morning prayer – OK - Running out of time - Three to five minutes
This is going to be a complete disaster
What a bust, what a loss, what a …
And I used to be such a good preacher …
Wait a second – wait a cotton-picking second – Where’s that phone
Scroll – scroll - scroll
What did St. Paul say?
Whatever gains I had,
these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ.
More than that, I even consider everything as a loss
because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Strive to enter through the narrow gate

2010-10-27T04:47:00.000-07:00

There is a crucifix in my office that is around 300 years old. It is quite beautiful and distinctive in that it represents Jesus on the cross with his arms straight above his head rather than extended out to his sides. Historically, this style has been called a “Jansenist” crucifix because the Jansenists, who were at the height of their power when this particular crucifix was carved, believed that narrow was the way to salvation. Only a few, the elect would be saved, and all the others were doomed to eternal destruction.
Jesus said: Strive to enter through the narrow gate.
But, here’s the thing. A gate or a door is only as narrow as the number of people trying to get through it. In other words, a door can be physically quite narrow, but if it is only meant for a single individual or a few folks, well, it works just fine.
A gate becomes narrower and narrower the more folks trying to get through it.
Think about a line at airport security when only one x-ray machine is functional
Think about the mob scene in an auditorium or a parking garage when everyone is trying to get in or out at the same time.
Strive to enter through the narrow gate. And sometimes it is striving because we can’t get through without the others.
Is the gate narrow or is the guest list just big
Our gate to salvation is open to us, and to all and Jesus invites everyone to enter. This is an important theme in the Gospel, a Gospel struggling with the reality of who is in and who is out.
First or last, last or first, the message of Jesus is simple: get in
And who is with us?
The poor, lame hungry homeless, immigrant, foreigner, perplexed, wealthy, ragged, elderly, unborn, children, parents, teachers, students, living, dying, laughing, crying, stern, silly, yellow, brown, shades between, colorful, bland, peaceful, fighting, fat and thin and in between, cross and smiling, wimpy and athletic, smart and dim, rebellious, docile, open, closed, tired, energetic, reaching, grasping, wandering, begging, upright, slouching, everything, everything, everyone, everyone
What a crowd
This way folks
Come in everyone
Get on board
Get through the door
No need to push or shove
Cooperate, help each other out now
Plenty of time, East and west, north and south
Everyone is welcome
Everyone with fear of God and faith approach.
And once through the gate, breath a sigh of relief for there is plenty of space on the other side.

Control and Chaos

2010-10-24T08:00:00.001-07:00

The crown of righteousness awaits me,
which the Lord, the just judge,
will award to me on that day, and not only to me,
but to all who have longed for his appearance.
The Pharisees might well have believed that these words were spoken about them
Undoubtedly, they did believe it
But the Pharisees had a problem, a problem Jesus points to repeatedly in the Gospels.
The problem with the Pharisees was that they believed that life was really simple.
Difficult, surely, but essentially simple.
Only one thing was needed for success: Follow the Law.
And there was a Law for everything, how to get up in the morning, how to get dressed, how to eat, how to work, how to pray, how to raise a family, how to wash dishes, how to procreate, how to get sick and how to die. Pay your tithes, fast twice a week and there you are. Righteous. It was difficult to live a good pharisaical life, but ultimately quite simple.
Follow the Law to the letter and you will have in your possession all the holiness you can possibly handle. All the holiness you could possibly need
And the Pharisees were very successful.
They were successful because they appealed to a craven desire of humanity for one thing above all others: Control.
We love control.
Control lets us in on what’s what, who’s in, who’s out, where we should be, when we should x and when we should y, what others are doing or should be doing.
Control helps us to put the world into boxes, neat, labeled boxes that organize our aimless existences into the genus and species of neatly arranged specimens of life.
Control gives us power by enabling us to predict and maintain.
Control gives us the authority to shut others out or welcome them in according to our neatly perceived categories.
Control ultimately makes us omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, gods. And our deification would undoubtedly be complete …
If only life were simpler
If only there was a rule
If only a formula could be maintained.
If only there was a Law to follow.
But we know, we know don’t we, that while there are categories, corollaries, catchphrases,
There is also chaos
Chaos that looks like fumbling for words as you hastily turn the pages of the ritual book, looking for something to say to the 27 year old mother who is dying of cancer in the bed in front of you while her husband and 4 year old son look on helplessly. hopelessly
Chaos that looks like randomness in the up and down quarks of our quantum imaginations, a universe that propels itself ever onward, helplessly, hopelessly
Chaos that sounds like the relentless ticking of a clock as you sit with a mother and father as they confront the drug addiction of their 17 year old son. He cannot speak. He is in shock. He is frozen with the deepening paralysis of someone knowing. He cannot respond and so time ticks, ticks away as you all sit helplessly, hopelessly
Chaos that feels like the trickle of cold water down your spine, the cold water of recognition as you face the same temptation again and again, that secret part of yourself that simply cannot go away, but cannot be ignored. After forty years it continues to rise up in you like flood waters and the chill of shame, known all too well for all too long makes you wonder helplessly, hopelessly if there ever will be, ever can be forgiveness
Chaos that works like a vice of guilt and pain inflicting old memories, incising old wounds, igniting old flames that will never die, that cannot be fixed, cannot be controlled, leaving our family members, our parishioners, our friends wandering helplessly, hopelessly toward Babylon
How foolish I was to think that it could all be fixed, all of this chaos could be repaired if I just had the right words, the right prescription, the right answer, the right box.
And in the midst of this chaos what can our stance be? Like the tax collector, to look down, to beat our breasts, to say Lord have mercy on me, a control freak, a Pharisee, a sinner.
And to hopefully realize that the Lord hears the cry of the poor, and we are the poor
And in this stance we are reminded of one thing, one supremely important thing; God is the only one in control
God is in control of all our irrational fears, all our desperate unknowns, all our duplicitous discernments, all our tumultuous turmoil
God is in control of everything in our lives, our hurts and pains, our inclinations, our habits, our addictions and our healing
God is in control of our health, our well-being, our sanity, our sanctity
God is in control of our breath, our beating hearts, our generating minds
God is in control because God is in the chaos, our chaos is his control
Our lawlessness is his benevolence
Our bewilderment, his wisdom
Our sin is God’s opportunity, the opportunity to tell us that we cannot control everything, that we depend upon him, his power, his goodness, his mercy
That is what we call mystery. Today, every day we gather here, we stand before a great mystery, the mystery of God’s involvement with our world.
We like to control it, this mystery, what happens here. We certainly have our Laws, our tastes, our stylistic sensibilities. We have liturgists, theologians, ministers. We have the rules and we have the desire to make those rules stick. We seem ultimately to be in control, until chaos breaks in and standing with impunity before God and every person here, the priest holds up what in every controlled environment would seem to be mere bread, common wine and say:
Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to this supper.
Then, chaos breaks out, our control is lost, we are seized and possessed by the Body of Christ and we are God’s chosen ones, happy indeed. And only in the chaotic aftermath of the mysterium fidei can we truly say, truly know that:
the crown of righteousness awaits me,
which the Lord, the just judge,
will award to me on that day, and not only to me,
but to all who have longed for his appearance.

Rector's Conference

2010-10-21T16:47:00.000-07:00

There can be no question that the priesthood is a complex reality. In the seminary, we approach it from a variety of angles: theological, pastoral, spiritual and human. Each angle gives us new insight, an insight that likewise grows as our experience of the priesthood deepens and broadens. Archbishop Sheen once remarked: “‘Increase and multiply’ is a law of sacerdotal life no less than biological life.” (The Priest Is Not His Own, 57). While Sheen was speaking of the question of spiritual generation in the priest’s ministry, the observation is no less valid of the evolving understanding of the priesthood in the life of the seminarian and, indeed, of the priest throughout his life. Our appreciation of the priesthood must continue to grow and change. “Growth is the only evidence of life,” as Blessed John Henry Newman has observed. This evolution of priestly realization is also innate in the rites that create the priest. The identity of the priest naturally progresses through the various ministries, candidacy, diaconate and, finally, presbyteral ordination.
In the last conference, I looked rather carefully at the resolutions made by the deacon at his ordination. There is so much of significance in the diaconate ordination, including constitutive elements of the priesthood, the promise of celibacy and the Liturgy of the Hours being the most prominent. In this conference, I would like to turn to the particular resolutions made by the priest. In our context, we speak most often of a transitional diaconate. While the permanent diaconate, also a prominent feature of the Saint Meinrad landscape, ultimately finds its spiritual energy in the promises we discussed several weeks ago, those ordained to the transitional diaconate know that the resolutions made at deacon ordination are evolving resolutions; they will be augmented by the future ordination to the priesthood. They are by no means abrogated. The promise to pray the Liturgy of the Hours and the promise of celibacy remain the foundation of what will be additionally taken on with priesthood.
The transitional deacon must prepare himself for a strengthening of resolve with new promises. These new promises continue to show forth the nature of priestly life and spirituality. With presbyteral ordination, the deacon becomes an even more public person, a man for the Church. This is true because, as a priest, he stands at the very fulcrum of the Church’s life, the sacrifice of the Eucharist.
Before I reflect on the particular promises of the presbyteral order, I would like to offer a few insights about the nature of this public person. The priest affects the lives of his parishioners in profound ways, ways that may not always be readily apparent. We have heard it stated in many forums that the priest is a public person and must always act accordingly. The priest, however, is more than a public person in the sense of celebrities or politicians. The priest is a man whose engagement with the public, that is, the people, is of a profound nature. The priest is a man who is scrutinized and studied by the people not because his life is interesting in itself, but because his life is presented as an icon of discipleship. Our Holy Father Pope Benedict has expressed this well:
The priest is a man of prayer, a man of forgiveness, a man who receives and celebrates the sacraments as acts of prayer and encounter with the Lord. He is a man of charity, lived and practiced, thus all the simple acts, conversion, encounter, everything that needs to be done, become spiritual acts in communion with Christ. (Meeting with the Clergy of the Diocese of Rome, 2007)
These acts are also acts meant to be observed by others. In his prayer, in his moral life, in his example of Christian living, everything is observed not because of prurience or any other base motive, but because the priest has presented himself as an example for others. He is an icon of discipleship. He shows himself as one who can live the life of the Gospel, not perfectly but intentionally. His life shows the people that it is possible. He is also a man of the Church. He faithfully represents the Church and never represents any ideas or opinions that, as his own, constitute a challenge to the Church’s way of thinking and acting. As a public man of the Church, he cannot act contrary to the laws and the spirit of the Church. He is watched. He is evaluated and, even when the people cannot quite give expression to their misgivings, they know when he is inauthentic. They know. We live today in a culture accustomed to casual communication. Facebook, My Space and other social networking tools give us access to easy formats by which we can express our opinions and ideas. A seminarian or a priest might easily be tempted to make a comment or express an opinion on the wall of Facebook that he would never consider saying in a classroom or in the pulpit. After all, Facebook is “just among friends,” and yet, millions of persons have access to these comments, many times more than would be the case in any parish environment.
Our thoughts and our teachings are analyzed, taken apart and taken to heart. As the poet Emily Dickinson once wrote: “We must be careful what we say, no bird resumes its egg.” (Letters of Emily Dickinson). Is this observation meant to instill some kind of paranoia or, worse, to silence the authentic voice of the priest in his mission to “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News”? By no means. Nevertheless, the priest must be constantly aware of that with which he is dealing. As priests, we are touching people’s souls; we are trafficking in the realm of their immortality. It is one thing to offer my opinion about the quality of the latest film; it is another to comment on Church teaching or liturgical practice when those teachings have the power to alter people’s lives. As priests, we have the power to alter people’s lives, their eternal lives, and that must give us pause; it must give us a sense of heightened responsibility.
With ordination, we are taking on a new identity, an identity that can never be set aside. I cannot begin to instill in you an awareness of the tremendous damage done by priests who ask others to listen intently to their opinions about the Church and its teachings and then walk away, leaving a confused public to sort through what is authentic and inauthentic in their words. There is no room in the Church today for priests who present themselves as the saviors of the Church. There is one savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. It is His message that our public ministry must tirelessly proclaim. In the words of St. John the Baptist: “He must increase, while I must decrease.”
With this insight into the public nature of what we are doing, I turn now to the resolutions of the Rite of Ordination for Presbyters.

Do you resolve to exercise the ministry of the word worthily and wisely, preaching the Gospel and teaching the Catholic faith?
The first resolution seems to be, at least at first glance, in the intellectual mode. It focuses on the word. And yet, perhaps the expression “ministry of the word” is more profound. While the word might refer to the “logos” of our faith, it might equally refer to the second person of the Holy Trinity. As priests, we are called to exercise the ministry of the Word, of Jesus Christ. Pope Benedict has remarked: “The first imperative of the priest is to be a man of God in the sense of a man in friendship with Christ.” (Meeting with the Clergy of the Dioceses of Belluno-Feltere and Treviso, 2007)
This can only be accomplished through a complete identity with Christ the Word. In our lives as disciples, many “words” compete for our attention. Some of these words are spoken internally, the scripts that we learn in childhood and tend to rehearse throughout our lives. We are constantly mulling over such scripted words as “unworthy,” “stupid,” “broken” and a host of others, each unique to our personal situations. Some of these scripted words may be near the surface of our consciousness and some may be deeply embedded in our psychological makeup, affecting our lives in adverse ways, robber-like against our knowledge and will. Some of these competing words come from our socialization and conditioning. The scripts of our cultural environment have a strong hold over us; they often call for unqualified allegiance, even when we know, at least intuitively, that they are at odds with what we profess as Christians and as Catholics.
In childhood, we might refer to this as the words spoken by peer pressure. Peer pressure does not evaporate as we grow older; it merely becomes more sophisticated. It is always pressure. As the historian Christopher Dawson has expressed: “Every society rests in the last resort on the recognition of common principles and common ideals, and if it makes no moral or spiritual appeal to the loyalty of its members, it must inevitably fall to pieces.” What is left in the aftermath of this disintegration of the social word than the ministry of the Word? Internally or externally, we give our attention to these words and yet the Word desires so completely to break into our lives.
The exercise of the ministry of the word faithfully and wisely means, first and foremost, our ability to filter all words that do not speak to us that single syllable that alone has meaning in the heart of the priest: Christ. There is only one word for us to authentically speak and that is Christ. Christ must be everything and our ministry of that word becomes our sole direction, our singular purpose. I exercise the ministry worthily when I put away all false representations of allegiance. “You call me Lord and teacher and you are right, for so I am” (John 13:13). And yet, as Cardinal Von Balthasar has noted: “It is in us that Jesus wants to stand before the Father, indeed, in us that he wants to be in the Father.” (Credo, 41). I am worthy of the ministry (as much as I can be worthy of the ministry) insofar as I live with an undivided heart. The landscape of my heart must be totally for Christ and the expanses of my mind and my intellect, the horizons of my service will be open and pure.
As much as that word is compartmentalized, there is my unworthiness. Worthiness to minster the Word does not stem from living a blameless life. There are no blameless lives. There are no lives in which the cacophony of other wordiness does not interfere with a pure attention to the voice of God. We all live conflicted lives. We all live lives of mixed motives. We all live sinful lives. That is not the question. We are not, on our own, worthy of the ministry of the word. But God makes us worthy and we participate in that divine action by our desire. As much as I desire to live a secret life or a double life, I am truly not worthy. As much as I desire to make my life as a priest an open book, even in the midst of authentically acknowledging my need for further growth, greater grace, I have been found worthy.
In the rite of ordination, after the call of the candidate, the bishop inquires of the one who has acted on behalf of the Church in issuing the call if the candidate has been found worthy. There is a testimony on his behalf that he has been found worthy. Another way to phrase this interchange that gets at the heart of the spirituality of the priest is that he has been found humble, humble enough to know himself, humble enough to acknowledge his faults, humble enough to live a transparent life.
The candidate for priestly orders resolves also to exercise his ministry wisely. Wisdom, in this context, is intimately related to worthiness. Worthiness is directed toward the development of the candidate’s personal character. Wisdom is directed outward. What is this wisdom? It is the understanding that what is within me (if I can authentically claim what is within me) is also within those whom I serve in the ministry of the word. We do not pastor perfect sheep. There is no perfection in the flock. Nor can we present ourselves as perfect pastors. The wise shepherd does not expect the flock to be perfect; rather he knows in an intimate way their imperfections. He has conditioned himself to this by his own introspection, his own self-awareness.
Pastors can get into real trouble when they fail to acknowledge the real situations of their flocks. Trouble can only ensue when a pastor presents himself as faultless, minister of an idealized church and then expects the flock to either conform or be weeded out. That is not to say we do not need ideals; again, we do, but we never reach the ideal without first wading through the mire, both internally and externally. We are wise pastors when we know the sheep and help them along because we know our selves and know how God has helped us along. Ministry that is worthy and wise is the ministry of real men among real men and women. Preaching and teaching can only proceed from this intimate knowledge. All other preaching and teaching will be perceived as false, façade, mere Potemkin villages of authentic discipleship.
In the seminary, we certainly practice preaching and teaching. These are essential communication skills for the priest. At another level, however, the seminary must also be a seedbed of worthiness and wisdom. Regarding worthiness, as I have stated many times before, it is necessary to inculcate here the ability to express true humility through transparency. What does this transparency look like but the development of mature character. As J.C. Watts has expressed so eloquently: “Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that’s right is to get by, and the only thing that’s wrong is to get caught.” The honesty that this character formation necessitates can only happen in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect. As pastor, it is essential for me to set the tone. As a staff, we are called to be authentic examples of this. We trust one another and we have respect for one another when we honestly communicate.
One way in which we do this is through our annual self-evaluation process. Ideally, the seminarian should never hear anything in that process from the evaluation team members that he has not already heard many times from his dean, the vice rector or the rector. No seminarian should be taken off guard by what appears in the evaluation. Likewise, the staff should never be taken off guard by what happens in the evaluation. If I reveal in the evaluation something that I have never revealed before in the external forum, that indicates a lack of transparency. Wisdom and worthiness are not qualities that happen overnight; they are not the magical results of ordination, rather with the author of proverbs we know: “By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures” (Proverbs 24:3-4) and “My son, preserve sound judgment and discernment, do not let them out of your sight; they will be life for you, an ornament to grace your neck. Then you will go on your way in safety, and your foot will not stumble” (Proverbs 3:21-23).

Do you resolve to celebrate faithfully and reverently, in accord with the Church’s tradition, the mysteries of Christ, especially the sacrifice of the Eucharist and the sacrament of Reconciliation, for the glory of God and the sanctification of the Christian people?
Here we find the particular ministry of the priest: The sacrifice of the Eucharist and the sacrament of Reconciliation. These are the responsibilities of the priest and so the character of priestly spirituality must be built around these responsibilities. What does it mean to promise to faithfully and reverently celebrate the sacrifice of the Eucharist? It entails a deep commitment to the reality of the Eucharist and its place in the life of the world. As the Holy Father has remarked, the secret of the priest’s sanctification lies precisely in the Eucharist: “…the priest must be first and foremost an adorer who contemplates the Eucharist” (Angelus, 18 September 2005). The priest is called through his priestly ministry and identity to continually point to the significance of the Eucharistic sacrifice for the life of the world. He can never, by word or action or attitude, indicate any marginality of this central truth of our faith. We need the Eucharist. The world needs the Eucharist because it needs Christ. The sacrifice of the Eucharist as Christus prologatus is the presence of God in the life of the world. This centrality is real and must be realized whether we are believers or not.
There is nothing more central to the world than the presence of Christ. Do we always realize that or do we trivialize the importance of the sacrament by making its celebration just another aspect of our day? The developing spirituality of the priest must be a spirituality centered on the Eucharistic Christ. As stated in Presbyterorum Ordinis: “All ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate are bound up with the Eucharist and are directed towards it [14]. For in the most blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, [15] namely Christ himself our Pasch, and the living bread which gives life to men through his flesh—that flesh which is given life and gives life through the Holy Spirit.” This is accomplished, first and foremost, by paying attention to the quality of our celebration of the Holy Mass each day. Critical or judgmental attitudes about the Eucharistic celebration can have the effect of devaluing the central mystery that we are acknowledging. Refusal to participate in this or that aspect of the Holy Mass because it does not suit my particular liturgical taste is insulting to the presence of the Divine Savior on the altar, in the Word, in the ministerial priesthood and in the assembly. Critical and judgmental attitudes inject a decided selfishness into the Mass.
The Eucharistic spirituality of the priest is also cultivated in the daily Holy Hour. In the words of Pope John Paul II: “Our communal worship at Mass must go together with our personal worship of Jesus in Eucharistic adoration in order that our love may be complete.” (Pope John Paul II, Redemptionis Hominis). The Holy Hour is a privileged time not only because it is a time spent with our Lord in silence and reverence, but also because the face-to-face encounter with Christ in the tabernacle or in the monstrance is a reminder of the truth that He is also present in palpable ways outside of the chapel. Our encounter with Christ in the privileged Holy Hour is a rehearsal for additional encounters made each day in more mundane but equally sacred settings: the nursing home, the parish school, the RCIA group and dozens of others.
There is a beautiful image at the end of Robert Hugh Benson’s novel, The Lord of the World, of the end of time and all of creation being drawn into the Lord present on the altar in the monstrance. The cosmic implications of the Eucharist draw all of us into its power. What a privilege and responsibility to be the custodians of that sacramental presence. How can the entirety of our lives not be devoted to its celebration? Eucharistic spirituality cultivated in the seminarian and realized in the life of the priest is also the ability to closely identify oneself with the Christ whom we make present in the sacrifice of the altar. “This is my body. This is my blood” are not words we speak only on behalf of Christ, but words that also echo our commitment to be in persona Christi, to offer ourselves, our body and blood, for the people. Fr. Stephen Rosetti has commented: “The priest at the altar dies and rises with Jesus.” (Born of the Eucharist, 97). Eucharistic spirituality is the cultivation of a healthy sacrificial spirituality in the sense of not always putting my own needs first, of being willing to go the extra mile, of carrying the cross and encouraging others. If there is no cost to priesthood, then there is probably not a very authentic expression of the priesthood. True, we must take care of ourselves, but at what point does self-care become an attitude of privilege, entitlement or comfort?
The second aspect of this resolution is faithfully celebrating the sacrament of Reconciliation. Quite obviously, this means the need to hear sacramental confessions and offer absolution. We know how much the world is in need of this sacrament and we also know how little it is sometimes used. Reconciliation is a central ministry of the priest. It is also tied to the Eucharist. We bring together in order to make the body of Christ a real presence among us. Offering the sacrament of Reconciliation is necessary for the exercise of authentic priesthood. “Priests must encourage the faithful to come to the sacrament of Penance and must make themselves available to celebrate this sacrament each time Christians reasonably ask for it” (CCC 1494). Canon law requires the priest to regularly participate in this sacrament (CJC, 276, 5). No priest can ever refuse to hear a confession unless he prohibited from doing so because of particular relationships (for example, being rector of a seminary). Priests must make themselves available for the celebration of this sacrament when it is needed and required.
Reconciliation is also a central attitude of the priest. In order to be a worthy minister of God’s forgiveness, I need to experience that forgiveness in my life. My participation in the sacrament of Reconciliation is a necessary precursor to my ability to be a good confessor. Again in Presbyterorum Ordinis we read: The priest receives grace for the healing of human weakness from the holiness of Christ, who became for us a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinner.” Therefore, cultivation of the attitude of reconciliation is also necessary outside of the formal confines of the Church’s sacramental system. Am I an agent of peace and reconciliation in the community or am I continually the cause of division? Gossip, the spreading of false or unsubstantiated rumors, the inability to avoid controversy and drama, a persistent critical attitude, the inability to confront others in charity, the inability to receive correction, talking about people behind their backs, publicly processing difficulties to all willing to listen to my complaints: all of these are contraindications of the ability to cultivate the attitude of reconciliation essential to the ministry of the priest. How can I effectively preach and announce in the confessional the joy of heaven when I am forever raising hell behind the scenes?
Eucharist and reconciliation are the foundations of priestly life and spirituality. We cultivate our awareness of these sacraments as necessary precursors to celebrating them. Why? The resolution also tells us this: for the glory of God and the sanctification of the people. Not for our glory do we cultivate and celebrate, but because God gives us an agency to announce His Glory for the sanctification of His people. God gives us the agency. It is a profound responsibility when we see the centrality of these sacraments to the life of the world. In the words of St. Paul: “To him alone be glory in the Church, now and forever.”
Do you resolve to implore with us God’s mercy upon the people entrusted to your care by observing the command to pray without ceasing?
Pray without ceasing. St. Paul’s injunction in the first letter to the Thessalonians (5:17) is central to the life and ministry of the priest. At one level, this promise has already been made in the promise of the deacon to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. Here the stakes are raised a little higher. While the Liturgy of the Hours remains at the core of clerical responsibility by virtue of its being the prayer of the Church, the command to pray without ceasing goes further. The priest is called to implore God’s mercy upon the people. The direction of our lives is toward God through the people whom we serve. We live with a constant awareness of two things: the needs of those whom we serve and the greatness of God to fulfill those needs. The priest acts as a living conduit between these realities. First, the spirituality of the priest is directed toward an awareness of the needs of the people. We must know them. We must respect them. We must honor them precisely in their brokenness. The priest is privileged to know the inner lives of the people God has given him to serve. We know their fears, their pain, their pasts, their addictions, their sins, their confusions, their aspirations, their dreams and their disappointments.
Our task is to attend to these realities. We must live among those whom we serve. We must be willing to hear them, open to listening and responding. “I am the Good Shepherd. I know my sheep and they know me” (John 10:27). This aspect of priestly spirituality prohibits us ever sending messages that they are not welcome, that we are not willing. Our response to all of these realities is to bring them to God. We cannot solve the problems of the people. As your pastor in this community, I cannot solve every dilemma you have. I can bring you to someone who can, Jesus the Lord. The life of the priest, then, is a life of spiritual referral. We constantly call upon the name of the Lord. We pray without ceasing from the midst of life’s turmoil’s, tragedies and triumphs. In all things, we give God the glory for He intends to do so much for us. Likewise, we witness the efficacy of this conducting among the people by what God has done for us. If we are not convinced that God is the author and caretaker of all in our lives, then we will not be very credible witnesses to His power in the lives of others. The exhortation of the first letter of St. Peter applies beautifully here:
Tend the flock of God that is your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly,
[3] not as domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock.
[4] And when the chief Shepherd is manifested you will obtain the unfading crown of glory.
[5] Likewise you that are younger be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
[6] Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you.
[7] Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you.
[8] Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour.
[9] Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world.
[10] And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you.
[11] To him be the dominion for ever and ever.

Do your resolve to be united more closely every day to Christ the High Priest, who offered himself for us to the Father as a pure sacrifice, and with him to consecrate yourself to God for the salvation of all?
How can we hope to do this? We are asked, in no uncertain terms, to consecrate ourselves completely to God. What does this imply? One thing I believe: by little and by little, less of the exasperating stumbling block of ego to inhibit the fulfillment of our mission. Again Archbishop Sheen: “The priest is not only the shepherd who cares for his sheep, he is also the lamb who is offered in caring for them.” (The Priest Is Not His Own, 29). How is this sacrificial nature of the priesthood realized? I would say in three distinct ways: (1) by the priest’s simplicity of life; (2) by his openness to serve; and (3) by his singleheartedness. The priesthood must be lived with a simplicity that is observable. Here I do not mean to imply that simplicity is merely a matter of putting away material possessions. Material possessions play a part in simplicity of life, without a doubt, but true simplicity of life is not attained merely by possessing little. There are many bitter and ideologically confused priests living in bare rooms.
True simplicity of life is obtained by detachment. The philosopher Simone Weil has said: “There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.” We cannot hope to achieve the sacrificial aspects of priestly service without regret, without hatred or lying, if we cannot separate ourselves from that which, at times, we view as most essential to ourselves, our opinions, our personal truths and our so-called freedoms. Bede Griffiths said: “[Simplicity] is detachment from the self. This is the most radical detachment of all. But what is the self? The self is the principle of reason and responsibility in us. It is the root of freedom, it is what makes us men.” It is not necessarily what makes us saints. Detachment and simplicity, which lead to a kind of interior martyrdom, guide us to God because they instill in us a desire for God alone. Detachment means putting aside all kinds of ambition, self-determination and self-serving, striving after a single goal, the goal of St. Paul in the letter to the Galatians: “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians, 2, 20). This desire is a kind of self-immolation, and by that I mean not an immolation of the authentic and wonderful aspects of our personalities. Detachment and self-denial are not denials of my personal charms, charisms and perhaps quirks. They are rather a desire to turn the particularity of my personal character to the service of God alone.
Second, this sacrificial quality is achieved by our openness to serve, truly serve, the needs of others. As I stated above, part of this recognition of the needs of the flock is a recognition of their desires. To serve the needs of others means that I serve them in their needs and not in my own. True, I must lead. I must provide a vision, but I cannot force that vision on an unwilling flock when they are languishing in their own questions, problems and authentic pastoral desires. It is the needs of the flock that I must serve. My attitude as a pastor will make all the difference in the way I will serve them. How open am I? Let’s consider that in the context of what we must do here. What do my brothers need and how willing am I to listen to those needs? As I stated in the opening conference for this year, you have ample opportunities to serve real pastoral needs in this community. Can we begin to practice the art of sacrificial priesthood by authentically giving ourselves in service to those real needs? “If we do not love a brother, whom we have seen, we cannot love God, whom we have not seen.” In the words of the Roman playwright, Terence: “Charity begins at home.”
Finally, a sacrificial priesthood is governed by singleheartedness. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins once said: “Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in eyes and limbs not his – to the Father through the feature of men’s faces.” Singleheartedness is not the dogged stubbornness of only seeking commerce with the sacred, but in finding the sacred in the daily distillation of human life. It is easy enough to choose the things of this world that are pleasing to my spiritual sensibilities and live among them, detaching myself from the flotsam and jetsam of reality. It is more difficult to find myself immersed in the quicksand of culture and find God’s arms there. Our message is a message that the reality of God pervades every aspect of His creation. Our hearts are restless, however, because that reality has been coated, painted over, disguised. God wants to shine forth in His creation and our determination to be instruments of that illumination, monstrances of the divine persona showing forth the presence of God in every circumstance is the sacrifice we must make to live authentic priesthoods.
We cannot become imbued with the cynicism of the world. We must be beacons of hope and understanding, calling forth from the depths of the human experience the light of Christ, a light that burns in all men and women, a light we must be convinced burns in us. We cannot do this alone, but we can do it together; we can support and encourage one another in dark times, through stormy days. We can lift one another up in the ecstasy of prayer and in the simplicity of true care, concern, love. We can be Christ for one another rather than agents of the critical and unyielding devil. We can love. We can love with all our hearts. God has given us the promise of single hearts, single and holy for Him and for our brothers and sisters. He has given us the materials to make us saints and to call us into that divine assembly. Give Him glory today. Love Him today in the faces of one another. Become vessels of sacrificial love today, vessels like that most precious of all disciples, the mother of priests, Our Blessed Lady.
Hail Holy Queen…

The Word of God is not Chained

2010-10-10T06:29:00.001-07:00

The Word of God is not chained
I spent a good bit of time last week pondering today’s readings. This passage from Second Timothy stood out for me, especially in light of the feast yesterday of my patron, St. Denis. The letters to Timothy are pastoral letters in the truest sense, they speak to the hearts of pastors. They speak the Truth in the boldest way and so, there it is, a central tenant of our faith
The Word of God is not chained
I have been devoted to St. Denis for many years, even before I was given his name in religious life when I made my temporary profession in 1997. I have prayed many times at his tomb in the abbey Church that bears his name just north of Paris.
Who was Saint Denis? He was the first bishop of Paris, he was a missionary and he was a martyr. According to the story, after he was beheaded in the place known today as Montmartre, “the hill of the martyr” in Paris, he picked up his head and walked several miles to the location where his tomb is located until this day. In his body, St. Denis expressed this central tenant of our faith
The Word of God is not chained
Denis’ witness to the Gospel could not be stifled, even by death
I am devoted to my patron even though I know next to nothing about him as a man. I do not know his appearance, his origins, or his personality. I know nothing about his particular characteristics as a priest, a bishop. I do know one thing however, and that is enough. I know he was devoted to an ideal, that ideal spoken of in the Second Letter to Timothy, the ideal of the priest, the pastor, indeed, the disciple.
The ideal that the Word of God is not, cannot be chained.
The Christians of the early Church needed to know that. The Jews were for centuries a people for whom God was a veiled God, a God chained to the reality of the Law. And the Gentiles, they too were a chained people, chained to the daily reminder of political enslavement to a distant imperical deity. They needed an ideal to live for and it is preached in the message of Christ
The Word of God is not chained
Brothers and sisters, like our fathers and mothers of old, we need ideals. In our postmodern, post epistemological mélange of intergenerational, globalizational, hyperbolical reality, we need to remind ourselves that there is something that lasts, something unfettered that stands in the midst of life’s many storms
The Word of God is not chained
That ideal shelters us in a time when the deconstruction all around us begins to take its toll, when we begin to believe the lies that people tell us, that our social order tells us, that even our fellow Christians sometimes tell us.
Lies of hate, lies of segregation, lies of false witness
That ideal upholds us as we faint in the heat of ever-pressing fictions about ourselves, our value as persons whether that value is outside in attitudes and beliefs, or within in our secret sin, in cloaked feelings of worthlessness, in pains yet unnamed, perhaps unknown
That ideal liberates us when we feel chained, when we feel unable to overcome our personal demons, our heaviness of spirit, our delusions of grandeur.
We have all been there, are there
We have known alienation
We have known separation
We have known slavery in one form or another but the words to Timothy ring true:
The Word of God is not chained
And we are not chained
We are not bound on journeys alien and alone
We are not wandering the earth like men healed of our existential leprosy without the sense to thank our liberator, our physician.
In Jesus Christ, in his blood, in his sacrifice, in his passion, in his selflessness, in his gift, in his redemption, in his salvation, in his grace, we have been healed and set free.
Caught in the chains of our own desires, our communal self-direction, our personal satans,
He found us, he raised us up, he enkindled new life in us, he brought us to the crest of Calvary and proclaimed to a dying, gasping world from his cruciform throne. Watch. Watch and see true love, true devotion, true sacrifice. It is still possible, probable, palpable
And he gave us this example casting his gaze down from the wood of that cross. IF you want to live, trust in me, cast your cares on me, and watch me become an outcast for you so that you can live with integrity and the dignity of the children of God
In the shadow of the cross the veil tears in two, the chains of repression fall away
The Word of God is not chained
Because this saying is trustworthy
If we have died with him, if we persevere, we shall also reign with him.
So what must we do?
Nothing so heroic as the sacrifice of the Lord, and more heroic
We must give thanks
Thanksgiving is that ideal which augments the sacrifice of Christ and draws us full round into his paschal mystery
Thanksgiving is at the heart of who we are as Christian men and women. It completes us, it acknowledges our healing, it sets us free from the isolation that contaminates our souls like the sores of leprosy
Thanksgiving is the ability to give God the glory, give him the honor, give him the supremacy in our lives and in our world
Thanksgiving is the only way we can authentically authentically be
WE have been healed and we have returned to give him thanks
Sometimes with trudging, grudging step, but we come
We come here to worship him, to acknowledge him as Lord and Giver of Life
We come here to bow down to his majesty, seated in glory on this altar, the glory of the simplicity of the bread and wine.
Bread and wine, no, Body and Blood shining out from this altar, bursting forth from the confines of accident to announce the good news to all:
The Word of God is not chained
How do we give thanks?
By acknowledging the unalterable truth that we are his, even as we stretch out hands in want of his latest gift, his daily gift, the sacrament of this altar.
Yesterday we also celebrated for the first time, the feast of Blessed John Henry Newman.
I know a great deal about Newman as a man. I have read thousands of pages about Newman’s life, thousands more of his writings. I have written, taught and preached about Newman. I know more about Newman than I know about my patron but it is all really superfluous. The fact of Blessed John Henry Newman’s first feast day tells us all we need to know. He was a man of ideals. Newman was, without a doubt one of the greatest minds in the history of the Church. He was a brilliant, philosopher, educator, preacher, historian and theologian. His ideas have forever changed the way we think about our faith. Yet every day of his adult life, he was a pastor of souls. His personal witness affected the lives of millions of converts, seekers and students, including a nervous new Catholic, a fourteen-year old boy who didn’t quite know where his life was going until a kind priest gave him a little book with these words of Newman in it:
How can I give thanks to God for all his gifts to me?
I shall do good. I shall do his work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth. … I will trust him. Whatever, wherever I am, I cannot be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve him, if perplexity, my perplexity may serve him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him. He knows what he is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me – still he knows what he is about.
The Word of God is not chained
Praise God, neither are we.

Messengers in the Dark

2010-10-02T05:33:00.001-07:00

Their angels in heaven
always look upon the face of my heavenly Father
When I was a child, I felt alone a lot because I was an only child. Most of the time, I didn’t mind it, being an “only” certainly had its benefits, except at night.
I confess that I was a little afraid of the dark. Being all alone in the unknown frightened me. I would go to bed at night and pull the covers over my head, sometimes crying myself to sleep. My parents were very concerned about this and so, to help remedy the situation, they got her for me, not a sister, but a guardian angel night light. She was about 8 inches tall and she was made of translucent plastic. She sat on the desk in my room and she had a light bulb insider her that gave off a very faint light. She glowed. She glimmered and, most of all, she was there, in the dark, in the unknown. I was no longer alone.
Later I became a very sophisticated theologian. I have the paper to prove it, but I would be a liar if I said that there are not times when I still feel a little afraid of the dark, of being all alone in the unknown. We all do. It doesn’t matter who we are, how old we are, how surrounded we are, how powerful or how rich we are, there is always a little part of ourselves that will remain, should remain children.
There’s no doubt that we boast and brag, that we bluff our way through, that we perhaps even begin to believe our own clever, convincing lies, but the dark comes as surely as an autumn sunset.
We know the reality of the darkness, whether that is our self-confidence, our guilt, our leftover pain of the past, our utter sense of worthlessness, our simply having no one, our loss, our illness. WE KNOW.
But we also know that into the deepening shadows, that angel comes. Angel means messenger and a messenger is only as great as the message. What is the message?
God knows and God cares. God knows all our secrets and our fears. God knows every wrong thing we ever did and every anonymous good. God knows how alone we can feel even in the crowdedness of busy lives. God knows what weighs upon our hearts as we lie in our beds, pulling the covers over our heads. God knows our cowering and cowardice. God knows and God cares and thus, the angel comes.
The angel comes, perhaps not in a blaze of translucent plastic, but
Perhaps in a reassuring hand on our shoulder.
Perhaps in the comforting words of a friend
Perhaps in a listening ear
Perhaps in a random smile on the street.
their angels in heaven
always look upon the face of my heavenly Father
And those messengers show us that caring face, that loving face, that face which speaks truth in the darkness of our lies.
And they challenge us those guardian angels to become what they are, messengers of God’s love to all the children, young and old.
Isn’t that why we are here?

The Slant of Things

2010-09-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

The one who is not against us, is for us.
Today the devil is big business, whether he is in the elevator, in the classroom or in Emily Rose.
We all know the devil likes the dramatic scene, but sometimes I wonder if all the fireworks may not be a diversion, a ploy
A famous poet once said that perhaps the greatest modern trick to the devil is to convince the world that he does not exist. Thus he and we open the door for sideways evil, evil on the slant
Evil that insinuates itself into our cultural milieu and enshrines itself as our greatest virtues
Evil that tears at the very fiber of the life of the family, the community, the nation with false understandings of freedom, happiness and liberty
Evil that pollutes the soul with lies of poor self image, stumbling blocks of interior warfare
And then the words of Our Lord …
The one who is not against us, is for us.
Undoubtedly the devil is still active and he works in ways that are sometimes, perhaps always on the slant.
But good is also active today
In the quiet heroism of lives of commitment and relationship faithfully led
In the generosity of benefactors and the boldness of saints
In crooked little men like Saint Vincent de Paul, in young women like Blessed Chiara Badano
True heroic good
But likewise slanted good
Good that comes from unexpected sources, from ill speakers and unbelievers
Good that triumphs over the rhetoric of evil in smiles and glances rather than ranting words
Good that comes in the silence of anonymity to hold our hands in times of trouble, to cool our fevered heads in times of turmoil and we are reminded in a slightly slanted way that …
The one who is not against us, is for us.
Indeed God is at work in all acts of Good, the manifest and the slanted
God continues to work in our world in ways that are sometime, perhaps always slant
And inch by calculated inch, we move ever-closer to this God, living and active
Living in us and in our weird neighbors
Active in countless ways we cannot even fathom
Living in that which we, in our shortsightedness, might consider dead. In the crippled, the blind, the small and the poor
Active in relaxed ways, taciturn ways, in the crooked, in the slant
The greatest poet of the nineteenth century wrote:
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---
The one who is not against us, is for us.

Second Rector's Conference

2010-09-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

Conference II
At the opening convocation for this formation year, I indicated that I would devote my rector’s conferences this year to the spirituality of the priest seen through the prism of the rite of ordination. In the first conference I focused on the first appearance of the ordinand in that rite and, in particular, the presence required of a candidate for orders. Today I would like to consider the promises made by the priest at ordination, promises which begin with the same question: Do you resolve. Before I launch into the particularities of each of these resolutions however, I would like to reflect on the possibility of resolution in our contemporary culture.
Do you resolve? It is a powerful question, made all the more so perhaps by what we may sometimes perceive as the singular lack of resolution in our culture today. There can be little doubt that in western culture today we are confronted with an unprecedented number of possibilities. At a very mundane level we are challenged by the presence of 500 channels of satellite television, by 32 screens at the suburban multiplex, by a myriad of flavors at the Cold-Stone Creamery, by a plethora of entrees at the Cheesecake Factory. We live in a world of choice. The more choices the better, until of course the sheer number and variety of choices begins to stifle us. In that instance we find ourselves channel surfing, skipping from stadium to stadium at the multiplex, paralyzed by the sheer magnitude of deciding at the Cold Stone or the Cheesecake Factory. Number and variety of choice do not necessarily make for greater freedom in decision. On a more serious level, we might examine the cultural messages that we are inundated with from infancy. We live in a culture of self-determination and self-direction, or, at least that is what we are told. You can be anything you like, choose any path and if there are no desirable options, forge your own.
The culture of choice, the sheer openness of variety has led to a decided paralysis of many in our culture, particularly the young. Discernment has become the token of the times and decision making has become a perceived lack. Many of us are motivated today to “keep our options open”. Thus we fail to make serious commitments when the opportunity arises. Many today see not only the possibility, but the necessity to move from relationship to relationship, from one career choice to another, from place to place. Sociologists tell us that the guiding principle of the millennial generation is option and so many spend their lives metaphorically channel surfing, web browsing through life. Failure to focus and to settle on one thing becomes chronic and eventually crippling. It seems as though many today have so incorporated the message that they can do anything to the point that they literally attempt to do everything and inevitably end up doing nothing. We can even witness that here. In the modern seminary, there is a bit more discerning and a bit less deciding than might be desirable.
And thus into this morass of indecision and lack of focused energy comes the decisive questions of the ordination rite: Do you resolve?
Once we have collected the spiritual and mental energy to resolve anything we can now turn to the particularities of the resolutions, the promises to be made at ordination. I will begin by looking at the resolutions of the diaconate ordination because, of course, these are the foundations upon which the priestly resolutions are built. The diaconate is not abrogated by priesthood ordination, rather priesthood ordination expands upon the promises made at diaconate ordination. The latter nuances the former.
What resolutions does the man to be ordained a deacon make? Here are the questions from the rite.
Do you resolve to be consecrated for the Church’s ministry by the laying on of hands and the gift of the Holy Spirit?
The man to be ordained is first asked to state his intentions. The bishop’s question is a test of the ordinand’s interior freedom. Is he giving himself freely to the service of the Church? In our day and age the question of external compulsion to ordination is hardly tenable, but the question of internal freedom is paramount. How free are we to make the promises and to engage the act we are about to undertake?
Interior freedom means that I have prayerfully weighed the nature of my commitment for years. I understand, as much as is humanly possible the consequences of what I have done. I know what it means to accept the responsibility of the priesthood. I know what benefits it entails and how to incorporate those benefits into my life. I also know what losses ordination entails. I know those losses and I have, in a sense, mourned those losses. The most serious obstacles to perseverance in a vocation is the unanswered question. The consequential question that I have put aside must be answered. If it is not answered before, it will certainly seek to be answered later, perhaps years later, but it will be answered. The most frequent of these unanswered questions is: What would my life have been like if … We can fill in the blank as is appropriate to our particular situations. That question may be different for each of us, similar for many of us, but necessary for all of us to answer. The fundamental question need not be answered in fact, but must be answered to the point that we are satisfied and we can make a conscientious and meaningful free act in choosing to be consecrated for the Church’s ministry.
Deterrents to freedom are numerous, but here I shall focus on two. The first deterrent to freedom is hypocrisy. This is blatant. If I present myself for ordination with no intention of accepting the consequences of that choice then I am a liar and a fraud. This might be expressed grossly in terms my intentionality or the lack of intentionality to fulfill the promises made at ordination. For example, I present myself for ordination without the intention of living the promise of celibacy. There are numerous ways that persons rationalize this choice and none of them are valid. If you do not want to live the celibate life, if you cannot live a celibate life, do not present yourself for ordination. That is not to say that we can always anticipate what will happen after ordination, we cannot know. What we do know is what we intend and what we do not intend.
Another deterrent to freedom is a false understanding of the effects of the sacramental character of ordination. Ordination changes a man ontologically. The grace of ordination has the power to transform. Of this we are certain. This is the clear teaching of the Church. However, the fundamental character of a man does not necessarily change with ordination. Unrealistic expectations of the effects of ordination are detrimental to commitment of a free act. If my character is fundamentally flawed, if I am compelled by addiction to substances or to pornography, if I suffer from compulsive behaviors: these realities are not going to disappear as though the rite of ordination were some sort of magical character corrective. If I am using the priesthood to fix myself then I am abusing the priesthood and the Church. The question of sexuality looms large in the reality of individual personalities. Priesthood cannot be burdened with unrealistic expectations for correcting my perceived flaws.
Likewise, I think we should realize that no act is ever perfectly free. We are all bound by various motivations, some that we can identify and some that we cannot. That is not the question. The question is whether or not I know myself and whether I am trying to fool myself and others by my outward actions.
The resolve to be consecrated for the Church’s ministry is a grave resolution. It is only the first step, however. The second question the bishop asks the man to be ordained is this:
Do you resolve to hold fast to the mystery of faith with a clean conscience as the Apostle urges, and to proclaim this faith in word and deed according to the Gospel and the Church’s tradition?
Here we come to a distinct challenge, a challenge that effects in a very focused way the work of this seminary day-by-day. A resolution to hold fast to the mystery of faith implies that we know what the mystery of faith is. A serious challenge that confronts us today, in our generation of information, or perhaps mis-information is the distinction of what we think we know and what is true. Often we rely upon sources of information that may or may not be reliable. Here, I will mention specifically internet sources that claim to teach authentic catholic doctrine but really only present the (often not very well informed) theological opinions of its pundits. The mystery of faith is a profound reality, a reality rooted in the Tradition of the Church, it is also an inexhaustible reality. The very nature of a mystery is to be an inexhaustible but always beckoning reality. Mystery is not that which cannot be understood but rather that which is infinitely understandable. This desire to resolve to hold fast to mystery is ironic in that what we are holding fast to is the reality of an ever more profound, ever deeper, ever broader conversion of life and thought. Of course we must know facts, but we cannot live an authentic priesthood on an intellectual life pieced together from the discarded playing cards of Catholic trivia. An authentic Catholic intellectual life is a commitment to never stop learning, to never cease inquiring and finally to be profoundly humble in knowing what I do not know. A truly educated person is one who knows precisely how much he does not know. The intellectual formation in the seminary cannot, should not, give us all the answers we need. It must instill in our hearts and minds, holy hearts and clear minds, to use the expression of Blessed John Henry Newman, a desire to be forever pursuing the shifting perspectives and the theological integrity that comprise authentic Catholic thinking. When we resolve to hold fast to the mystery of faith we are promising to remain engaged throughout our lives with the object of our inquiry, the object of revelation, the object of Tradition, Jesus the Christ.
Do you resolve to keep for ever this commitment to remain celibate as a sign of your dedication to Christ the Lord for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven in the service of God and man?
Celibacy is, very obviously the key factor in so much of our vocational discernment. Whether or not it should be the focus of such intense scrutiny is another question. In the particular climate of the Church today, where the value, the possibility, even the morality of celibacy is under scrutiny, if not direct attack, this is a question the answer to which many present at the ordination rite will sit up and listen. What does it mean to resolve to remain celibate for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven? How does the Kingdom depend upon the celibate witness of the priest? The resolution is a strong one, by which we choose freely to commit ourselves totally, without compromise and without reserve to the service of God and man. Our commitment to a healthy celibate life is a sure sign for the world that it is still possible to devote one’s self to God with an undivided heart. I say a healthy celibacy because it is possible as we all know to live an unhealthy celibate life. An unhealthy celibacy is always expressed by a failure to live the resolution in the technical sense. Those of our brother priests who “fall” in this regard are to be treated with charity. But another way of failing to live this resolution is to choose a closed life, a life devoid of compassion and emotion. A cold a frigid celibacy is not an option, and a healthy commitment to celibacy means a calculated look at myself. A careful analysis of my sexuality, my motivations, my strengths and weakness is essential to making a real choice for celibate living. Any attempt to bracket my feelings or my desires, to not look at the question of sexual orientation in an honest way, to cut off others from intimacy and friendship because they may form a threat to my carefully concealed and jealously guarded sexual energies is not useful to maintaining a healthy celibacy of the sake of the Kingdom. Healthy celibacy looks inviting, it seeks intimacy in its true sense, it promotes authenticity and honest. It claims its own energies for interpersonal relationships with a clear eye, a warm heart and open arms. We cannot fear sexuality or lie about our sexual attractions and expect fear and dishonesty to not be a part of our priesthood. At a recent conference I attended for rectors and vocation directors, Cardinal George indicated that he believed that the first question a man needs to ask himself in preparing for priesthood is not whether he wants to be a priest, but whether he wants to be celibate. Celibacy cannot be conceived as an afterthought to priesthood, it is primary in the life of the man considering this vocation.
Do you resolve to maintain and deepen the spirit of prayer that is proper to your way of life and, in keeping with this spirit and what is required of you, to celebrate faithfully the Liturgy of the Hours with and for the People of God and indeed for the whole world?
Prayer is the cornerstone of our lives. Will you pray the Liturgy of the Hour? Some of our brothers who would never consider a technical transgression of the celibate commitment might take lightly the promise made in this resolution spoken before God and the Holy Church. We all know the sly attitudes that sometimes accompany any discussion of the promise made by the deacon or priest to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. Such discourse undermines the seriousness of the promise made to God and His Church by the ordained minister. Rather than dwell on the possibility of failure, I think it is essential to focus on the reason for making the Liturgy of the Hours a priority in our life of faith and pursued discipleship. Our promise to pray the Liturgy of the Hours is not to be taken lightly because it is nothing less than a promise to pray with and for the People of God and the whole world. How can an authentic priestly life exist without realizing these goals? How can realizing these goals not be connected to the public life of the Church, the means by which the Church in its wisdom has fixed for joining the life of prayer in each priest together in such a beautiful synthesis? The Liturgy of the Hours is the prayer of the whole Church. It is a fellowship of prayer. Its celebration unites the priest struggling with the pastoral needs of his Midwestern congregation with the faithful efforts of priests in India, Asia, Africa, indeed in every place where holy hands are lifted in the single prayer of the Church. It is a universal prayer and points to the universal concerns of all men and women no matter their ethnicity, race or cultural place in the world. Like the Eucharist, it is a unifying, a truly Catholic mechanism of the Holy Spirit to bring together the disparate threads of humanity into one garment of petition and intercession. What is the priest or deacon saying when he chooses to divorce himself from the weave of this garment? Likewise the Liturgy of the Hours, with its basis in the Psalter of Israel, unites our hearts and minds with those of our forefathers in faith, the Chosen People of God who maintained faith through the words of the psalms with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Praying daily the words of those psalms, steeped as they are in the very condition of humanity, its joys and hopes, its pain and tragedy, teaches us the essential lesson that in our time and place, we are not so very different from them, that the concerns of human beings striving to unite themselves to the Divine Reality are ahistorical, eternal, and permanent.
Do you resolve to conform your way of life always to the example of Christ, of whose Body and Blood you are a minister of the altar?
The response to this question posed by the bishop is slightly different from the others. It is: “I do with the help of God.” Again, it is a forceful question. Will you conform your life to the example of Christ? It is a serious question. What is the example of Christ?
It is an example of humility. Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word, the splendor of the Father’s love, the inheritor of heaven, the Son of God had the humility to be born in our likeness. This child, born in the most humble circumstances, born to impoverished, conquered people, was God himself. By virtue of who he was and is, Jesus had the right to claim the submission of men and angels. He did not, but rather submitted himself to the form of a slave for us. How can we resolve to follow the example of the lowly child of Bethlehem if we still hold tightly to vestiges of entitlement, just deserts and rank clericalism? If you wish to follow the example of Christ, become the servant of all and do that now. Do it here. We are not preparing ourselves for a life of ease and comfort here, much less of enjoying the gifts of privilege. We are preparing for slavery here, for endurance in joy for we know that there is no labor we cannot undertake with Christ that will conquer us, there is no humility we can endure that will not make us more in love with Him by drawing us closer to Him. Rather we seek service as our crown of fulfillment, the fulfillment of the resolve to conform our way of life to the example of Christ
The example of Christ is an example of ministry. Jesus did not shirk from immersing himself in the full experience of humanity. He looked at our crippled and leprous limbs. He embraced our fallenness. He sought our blindness. He confronted fully our demonic possession. He still does. Jesus ministered to those who were in need. He healed them. We are in turn called to be men of healing. So often our pride and self-will stands in our way. We cannot heal like Christ when we are continuously caught up in ideological controversies that mean nothing in the economy of charity. That is not to say that there are no principles worth fighting for and worth defending. There are. Sometimes however, what we think is central to the reality of Christ and his Church is really not. There is no theological principle worth defending when we hate our brothers and sisters in the process. There is no liturgical ideal worth promoting in which we cast suspicion and doubt on the reputations of others. The true example of Christ is that of healing and bridge building. We learn how to build bridges when we truly learn what is central to our faith and what is not. We learn healing with we reach out to the ideologically leprous brother that our false and sinful pride has taught us to disdain.
The example of Christ is the example of the passion. How many of us want to go to the cross? How many of us are willing to suffer indignity, misunderstanding, persecution for the sake of His Name? We say we are. We claim our willingness to go all the way. We say with the man in the Gospel: “Lord, I will follow you wherever you go!” We want to be heroes. We want to be saints. But let us be honest with one another. Who doesn’t have a bottom line? For many of our brothers that line is quite close to the surface. We know that a certain number of our men who leave seminaries each year do not persevere. What is the bottom line? Perhaps it is obedience. I choose not to go to this assignment. Perhaps it is celibacy. Perhaps it is the unanswered question I spoke about earlier. Perhaps it is comfort and happiness. Perhaps it is my family. Do we have a bottom line? If so, we are not conformed to the example of Christ who gave everything, everything brothers and sisters for us. That is the example to which we are called. Can you give it all? Can you bleed for the world? Can you endure shame? Can you die for the people, a people who may never understand or appreciate your sacrifice? Can you live without daily affirmation? Can you endure the nakedness of transparency? Are you truly resolved, are you resolving to conform your life to the example of Christ in his humility, his ministry and his passion. Are you, with the help of God?
In conclusion today I would like to speak a few words as pastor of this community, words I hope you will take in the spirit with which I offer them. First let me state that this is a good community. This is a healthy community. This is a formation community of which I can be justifiably proud. I believe that it is a community that is built on mutual trust. Brothers and sisters, we must trust one another and rely on one another. It is also built on honesty, integrity and transparency. Trust and transparency, the ability to share struggles and the honest handling of issues is essential to what we do. What I am about to say does not come from any issue or question or problem that I perceive as existing here. What I am about to say to a healthy community of faith comes from the conviction that I have that the effectiveness of the life of a seminary comes from clarity. As your rector and pastor, I want to be clear about two things. The first is the values that we must uphold in this seminary. As an arm of formation for the Catholic Church, we are anxious to uphold the interests of the Church first and foremost. The needs of the Church come first. That is a clear and central principle of the Catholic understanding of vocation. Second, clarity about our purpose here also means that I have the responsibility to point to a few principles that in a community of Christian living and a community of formation must be considered non-negotiable. By non-negotiable I am stating without hesitation and confidently that the serious infraction of these ideals means that the individual can no longer live here and be formed for ministry. I also want to give you concrete examples of what a serious infraction would entail. That is for the good of the Church, that is meeting the needs of the Church
The first of these principles is chastity. Living a chaste life here is non-negotiable. It must be. Failure to live a chaste life, whether that is through overt sexual activity, a seemingly incurable addiction to pornography, inappropriate humor, or the inability to deal with others in a sexually appropriate way either physically or verbally, is an infringement not only of Christian values but on the trust we must have in one another. Living a chaste life is not easy. Many here struggle with temptations and overcome them. It is a violent affront to those who struggle heroically to live the ideal of chastity when a person takes that ideal less than seriously. Transgressions against chastity that warrant a severing of the formation relationship include any physical gential activity, but would also include aggressive physical advances that are unwanted and going to establishments where casual sexual relationships are the order of the day.
A second principle that insures the good order of a house of formation is sobriety. While the use of alcohol is not regulated as in some other institutions, an incident of public drunkenness is unacceptable. Alcohol, if it is used, must be used responsibly. For some, because of their particular circumstances this applies in a more concrete way. Sobriety is the mark of a good priest and no priest should find his reputation damaged by the improper use of alcohol or any other substances. Likewise the use of any illegal substance is unacceptable. The priest needs good judgment and artificial means of compromising that judgment is behavior incompatible with the priestly state.
A third important principle of this community is charity toward others. Showing blatant disrespect to others through acts of physical or verbal abuse is unacceptable behavior that indicates a seminarian’s lack of ability to be formed for the priesthood.
Again, I mention these non-negotiable values and the behaviors that compromise these values for the sake of clarity. As we progress in our resolve to live the life of discipleship in the particular vocation of the priesthood, we are called to an increasing accountability for our actions.
The conference today has had a very serious tone. I know that. These are serious resolutions. These are powerful questions and I believe they stand at the heart of the spirituality of the priest. These resolutions do not originate with rite of ordination, it is necessary to begin to live these resolutions here and now, in the seminary. Our resolution needs to be firm and our purpose needs to be clear. We are not here to forestall the inevitability of the call of vocation, choosing to live our lives according to our distinct design until such time as we must make a permanent commitment. We are called to begin now conforming our lives to the expectations of the Church that we hope to serve. The years of formation cannot be reckoned as a kind of extended bachelor party, a time of revelry before the knot must finally be tied, a knot seemingly wrapped around the windpipes of our personality and freedom. The period of formation in the seminary is a time of testing and trying on, a time to prepare for what we must embrace so that by the time of ordination we slip into these resolutions with the ease of putting on an old pair of shoes, old loafers broken in by time and solid use. None of us should experience the life of the ordained minister as a jolt to who we are, rather we should spend our time here carefully crafting who we are into who we will be on the day of our ordinations. All of this comes at a price, the price of ephemeral freedoms and of doing our will. It comes at the price of temporal notions of happiness and fulfillment in pursuit of a deeper happiness, a more profound fulfillment. It comes at the price of sacrificing what I think is right and true and good for what the Holy Church authentically teaches as orthodox, solid, and real. In a word it comes as an act of authentic piety, being true to form, in the classical sense. Do you resolve? It is a serious question that we must ask ourselves now. Our resolution is not something we can accomplish on our own. Rather, we put ourselves into the hands of the Church, particularly its triumphant members, the holy saints who day and night intercede for us in the presence of the One Divine Father. We depend upon them and in particular as we approach the month of October, that most gracious lady, our advocate upon whom we cast all our care as we say: Hail Mary ...

God Knows Us

2010-09-19T06:49:00.001-07:00

Never will I forget a thing you have done
The threat of the prophet Amos sticks out on the page like a sore thumb of indictment, shattering our delusions of anonymity, and our illusions of indecipherability.
There it is: Never will I forget a thing you have done.
It is a palpable reminder of a reality we might otherwise be quite content to put out of our minds, the reality that:
God knows us and we often like to forget that God knows us, but He knows us.
God knows it all.
He knows every sin we have ever committed even the ones we like to horde to ourselves like secret treasure
God knows the fortunes we hide in grudges, old hurts and pains, neglects gone by
God knows the receipts we like to rewrite creating new narratives from our embarrassment, new biographies from our embroilments
God knows every malicious thing we have perpetrated, every slander, meanness, ugly thought
God knows our playground bulliness and our adolescent heartlessness
God knows about our e bombs
God knows what internet sites we like to visit when we think we have hidden them from everyone elsemus
God knows what occupies our minds in the secret hours, deliberate deliberations of hatred, revenge, sourness and sordidness of every species
God knows the musings of our souls, the secret music of resentment, the melodies of envy
God knows, God knows
Never will I forget a thing you have done.
God knows us and we often like to forget that God knows us, but He knows us.
God knows us in every way
He also knows the secret good we do, the random acts of kindness and anonymous acts of sincere concern
He knows the real hurts we have endured as children, as teenagers, as adults
He knows the pains we clutch to our hearts, pains of rejection and being outcasts
He knows the longing we have to love Him, to serve Him, to be close to Him even when we seem so far away
He knows the dreams that lie behind our bravado, the tears that stain the pillows of our wounded souls
He knows our loves and our hates, our tortures and our joys.
And he promises
Never will I forget a thing you have done.
God knows us and we often like to forget that God knows us, but He knows us.
God knows us so well that he has the ability; we might say the providence to turn even our dishonest wealth into treasure for the Kingdom.
Because he knows us, he can make all the disillusionment, all the sin of our lives into a powerhouse of insight into the broken hearts, the distended spirits of our brothers and sisters who cry out for dignity and bread
Because he knows us, he can see our secret longing for acceptance, our desire to be respected and loved even as we reject others in hatred, as we disrespect our neighbors
Because he knows us, he can take the trash of our past, our secret lives, our hidden claws and transform it into a glorious treasure of compassion for others who have labored under the same Sisyphean burdens
Because he knows us, he can transform our misery into ministry, our myopicity into mystery, our self musing into mission
Because he knows us, he can recreate
Because he knows us, he can understand
Because he knows us, he can love
Because he can recreate, we can be instruments of renewal and revival
Because he can understand we can be the vessels of his compassion
Because he loves, we love
We can love
We can be changed
We can be saints
We can be
Never will I forget a thing you have done. It is a threat and a promise for all of us weak willed and strong, burdened and burdening, reachers and graspers, crying out for understanding in the memory of God even as we hear these words spoken again and again: Do this in remembrance of me.
God knows us and we often like to forget that God knows us, but He knows us. Thank God.

The Land of the Lost

2010-09-12T07:07:00.000-07:00

What Shepherd?
What Woman?
What Father?

The Gospel today is filled with questions, questions that beg answers, questions offering numerous possibilities.

The problem with the questions posed by Jesus in today’s Gospel is that, unlike his original hearers, we already know the answers.

What Shepherd having 100 sheep …

The answer of course is any shepherd would leave the 99 and go in search of the lost sheep, that is IF you are already privy to Jesus’ way of thinking about things.

We know that the shepherd, who is God, seeks out the lost and brings the sinner home.

But if you are looking at this question from another angle, perhaps the angle of Jesus’ original hearers, a different answer is certainly in order.

What shepherd having 100 sheep ..

The answer is NO INTELLIGENT SHEPHERD.

Who would risk leaving 99 sheep to the elements or the wolves to go after one? Count the one as a loss and move on. Shepherding is a calculus of loss and gain. It’s not worth the risk.

It’s not rational, but that may very well be the message of the Gospel, love trumps reason.

And what woman having lost a coin …

From the other side of the Gospel, of course, she would sweep the house, but in fact, it may not be worth a day’s baking, a day’s washing, a day’s work. Count the coin as a loss and move on. Sweeping is a calculus of loss and gain. It’s not worth the risk It’s not rational, but that may very well be the message of the Gospel, love triumphs over reason.

And what Father …

What father would give away half his fortune to a son who had the impunity to ask for it, the irresponsibility to take it, and the insolence to spend it on loose women, drugs and booze.

And then what father would sit on the porch and wait for the boy to come home so he could run out to meet him, wrap his arms around him, and reward him. Certainly no reasonable father. Count the son as a loss and move on. After all, I have another more responsible son. Fathering is a calculus of loss and gain. It’s not worth the risk.

It’s not rational, but that may very well be the message of the Gospel, love tramples reason. Love triumphs over reason. Love trumps reason every time.

Love always trumps pure reason, not because we should be irrational if we want to be disciples of Jesus but because there is more to the human and divine experiences than pure reason. Not everything makes sense. Not everything in Jesus’ world can be covered, uncovered, recovered through the application of the pure principles of law. As Cardinal Newman once said: I do not want to be converted by a smart syllogism .

Reason shows us what is possible and impossible
Love shows us that with God all things are possible

Reason defines
Love reaches out

Reason categorizes
Love cauterizes with the burning zeal of the real.

Reason clarifies
Love confounds

Reason completes
Love catapults us to the threshold of revelation

Reason fixes our minds
Love frees our minds

Reason tells us that we have nothing before us here but bread and wine and not very good bread and wine at that.
Reason tells us that the one whom we worship cannot be God and a man at the same time

Reason tells us that one is never three and three is never one.

But love tells us that at this altar we come into contract with the very source of Love, Jesus the savior who died for us and whose sacrifice of love is revisited in this place
Love tells us that the living God engages humanity, died for humanity, rose for humanity and is ever searching, sweeping, waiting for humanity
Love tells us that the love of God experienced in the life of the Holy Trinity, the unfeigned love, the reasonable and unreasonable love, the pure love is our inheritance, ours to squander, ours to replenish in our unending, unendable return to the father’s arms.

Here today
We celebrate a feast of love that doesn’t always make sense, in purely rational terms, but rather cavorts along the edges of our minds to penetrate the very cords of our hearts, our imaginations
Love that improvises on the rational harmonics of our experience, that riffs our melodies.
This is a feast of love that doesn’t subvert rationality, but reminds us daily in small things that there is more to us than that.
This is a feast of love that calls us in our consuming the bread of angels to become bread, become bracing wine, and become love for one another.
And how does that look shepherds?
How does that look sweepers?
How does that look future fathers of America?

It looks like concern that prompts detour when our eyes should be fixed on the prize
It looks like smiles of understanding in times of doubt and trouble
It looks like men willing to reach out always in service to the other when the world tells us to take care our ourselves
It feels like the embrace of strength on shaking shoulders
It feels like a hand lifting us up when we have fallen, slid so low
It feels like the trample of feet running to meet God in running to meet a brother, a sister in need
It seems like craziness in the pure desire to give more, to offer more, more, more, more
It seems like the old questions are no longer meaningful and we possess answers to questions we have never asked.
It seems like our world is slipping away, that our rationality is slipping away and we are falling, falling down the slope of compassion, falling into the passion of Christ

By grace this community is built upon the foundation of that sacrificial love
Here we search for the lost sheep, knowing that the 99 are in the hands of God
Here we sweep the house for the lost coin of vocation knowing that the bread will be baked and the washing will be done, by God, yes, by God
Here we welcome again and again the prodigal, the stubborn, the proud, the repentant, the unrepentant, the sinner and the saint with the firm faith, the blessed assurance that love triumphs over reason as surely as we can make no sense of the cross of Jesus but gazing on it know that there is one real thing, one true thing, one honest thing, one unselfish thing left in the world and we have access to that, access to the point that we may finally come to realize that the rationality of the Kingdom is in fact our ability to unite our reasonable minds, our bodies, our being sheep, coins, lost boys to the blazing reality of that same cross, to know that the rationality of the kingdom is love

What shepherd?
What woman?
What father?

We know the answers, and we are compelled to live them, beginning here at this altar, drawing from the magnificent font of His love, the strength, the courage, and faith to be shepherds, sweepers, fathers in a lost world.

The Cost of Discipleship

2010-09-05T06:35:00.000-07:00

Whenever I go to a new place where folks speak a different language than my native Southern English, there are a few important phrases that I need to know. These include:

Where is the bus stop?
Where is the bathroom?
Is desert included with dinner?

And perhaps most importantly:

How much does it cost?

In a consumer culture, we are always, well, consumed, with the cost of things. Are we getting a bargain or are we getting cheated? Can I get a better deal over there? Is this really worth the money I am going to spend? What is the exchange rate?

The cost of things is often uppermost in our minds, those minds that become a perpetual calculation of loss and gain.

In the Gospel, Jesus is honest about the cost of being his follower.
Today’s passage stands in the middle of the long journey that Jesus has been undertaking with his chosen band of disciples, a journey that began in Chapter Nine, verse fifty one.

In Chapter Nine, Jesus set his face to go toward Jerusalem. It will take him ten chapters to get there. He has ten chapters to prepare his followers for the ordeal that is to come, because when the prophets go to Jerusalem, they go for one thing. We know that one thing but Jesus’ followers are mostly gentiles, they do not.

Today Jesus offers these erstwhile yet perhaps somewhat naïve disciples a lesson on the cost of things.

What is necessary to be a follower of Jesus? Losing everything.

What is the cost of discipleship? It is abandoning a reliance on the natural bonds of family and home. Jesus calls the disciples to put him first and if that means leaving the others behind that’s what it means.
Harsh we say, yet true.

Nothing can separate me from Jesus and his mission, even father and mother.
Nothing can keep me from God’s purpose, even a longing for marriage and family. Nothing can keep me from God’s will, even that which we hold most sacred in the world.

Know the cost of what you are doing, Jesus says. Know the cost. Feel the cost. If there is benefit, experience it to the full. If there is loss, mourn it and move forward. Preaching the message of the Kingdom is the most important thing we can do. It is all we can do. It is all we have to do and false understandings of what is meaningful and what is important in this world are distractions and must be rooted out, plundered, and destroyed.

Our task here is the preparation and inspiration of fearless advocates of God’s plan, of his initiative, of his gracious will realized in the Kingdom he has established.

Our task here is the salvation of souls, lost souls, souls enmeshed in the confusion of false Gods, empty promises, and dead ends.

Our task here is evangelization, of telling the world that if they risk abandoning all, they will gain an everlasting inheritance, fail to acknowledge that risk and gamble on the ephemeral and the passing and all is lost.

Our task here is that through our work, through our words, through our preaching, through our prayer, through our study one thing and one thing only will be realized. Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Take up your cross, Jesus says, because I have taken up my cross and will be nailed to that cross for the salvation of the world.

Leave your family behind, I have left my Father behind, I have condescended to leave the home of my heavenly habitation to serve you, to be found in the form of a slave, to suffer and die for you.

Prepare the foundations of your soul to have built upon it the edifice of God’s reign living and breathing in your flesh and blood, as I have offered my flesh and blood to build the Holy Church, the everlasting dwelling place of the Spirit

Give and give more, give everything, and never count the cost. I will never count the cost, Jesus says, when I get to Jerusalem, when we get to Jerusalem.

Be for me and me alone, as I am for you and you alone, suffering the indignity of a criminal when you are the criminal, dying the death of a thief, when you have stolen your very life from the God who made you.

In the Gospel today, the disciples are half way there, just half way there. We too are half way there because:
We hold back, putting our lives in the safe deposit box of our own values and creativity
We fail to give God everything, absolutely everything
Out of fear, out of faithlessness, out of selfishness
We hold back
Nickeling and diming the slot machines of fortune and blessing
Clutching to our chests grudges, old hurts, prejudice, sour dispositions
Conserving our way into oblivion.
Because, in all our hearts is a dead place that like a stone keeps us from soaring up to God
Jesus says: Come with me now, father and mother, sister and brother, they can come with us or stay home
In our spirits is a leaden earthboundedness and Jesus says: Dare to soar! Take the chance
Give up your life and you will truly learn how to live
Sacrifice yourself completely to the service of your brothers and sisters and learn the meaning of authentic discipleship

There is an amazing book by the Lutheran theologian and pastor, Dietrich Bonheoffer called: The Cost of Discipleship

In the book there is a line so haunting, so chilling and so true that I find myself returning to it again and again. It has become like a mantra for my life and my ministry. It is an axiom that I know I can never live up to, but that I know I must continually strive toward.

Bonheoffer said: When God calls a man he bids him come and die.

In the foreign culture of discipleship formation there are a few important phrases that you need to know, or at least I do. These include:

Where is the bus stop?
Where is the bathroom?
Is desert included with dinner?

And perhaps most importantly

How much does it cost?

Have you come to destroy us?

2010-09-03T05:00:00.001-07:00

What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
The question of the demons in today’s Gospel is ironic. Have you come to destroy us. The Greek word for demon, daimon, means, one that breaks down or destroys.
They destroyers are to be destroyed because Jesus is the Holy One of God.
When we think of Jesus we hardly ever think of his destructive power. We like to take our messiahs a bit more gently, more cuddly, laughing, hanging out with sheep and children. Kind, sweet, well-groomed.
The explosive message of the Gospel shows us a different side of Our Lord, however, a side that might make us a bit uncomfortable.
There can be little doubt of Jesus’ destructive power. Whether you are a demon, a malady, or just a generic sin-encrusted so and so. Jesus WANTS to break us down.
For those called to its saving message the Gospel cannot be mere comfort, as we like to think of comfort because the mission of Jesus is too important, too central to our eschatological condition. Jesus WANTS to break us down.
He wants to create a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness reigns. Breaking down our old categories and instilling in us new realities
Jesus wants to remove from us the sting of sin, the stench of death, blasting apart our carefully constructed justifications and building us into his likeness
Jesus wants to light a fire and burn away every vestige of half heartedness, timidity and fear making us holy, pure, saints
Jesus wants to stir within our hearts the deep fires of evangelization, apologetics, sanctity
Jesus definitely wants something and what Jesus wants, he gets. He wants to break us down
He breaks us down in our weakness and makes us strong in his love
He e breaks us down in our hiddeness and makes us bold in his spirit
He breaks us down in our sinfulness and washes us clean in his blood
And so
When we least expect it
Jesus catches us in his destructive power
When we are not anticipating it
Jesus surprises us with his cleansing power
When we can hardly fathom it
Jesus stretches out his hand to us with his healing power
What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
The career of Jesus is one of destruction and reconstruction
He deconstructs a people laid low by Adam’s sin
He reconstructs us in the image of the immortal God
He deconstructs our lack of faith, hope and love
He reconstructs us in the very potency of God, creating new hearts in us.
And we are participatory pawns in this magnificent career, this singular cosmic engagement
He’s doing it even now because this of course is the very dynamism of seminary formation, the seed broken apart in order to create something new
In this celebration, through the sacrifice of the Mass he breaks down the stony barriers of our individualism and by feeding us the dangerous food of the Eucharist, he makes us what we truly are. He refashions us as the Body of Christ.
What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
Yes.

Some Opening Thoughts

2010-08-30T08:55:00.000-07:00

Here is the opening convocation talk for the new formation year

Good afternoon. It is my great joy and my humble privilege to welcome you to this new formation year at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology. It promises to be a blessed year, a year filled with the grace of discovery and the joy of uncovering a deeper relationship with Christ, for that is why we are here. In the midst of fulfilling responsibilities, assignments, giving and receiving evaluation, responding to the multitude of obligations that will confront us, even as we leave this makeshift conference room today, we must be clear that our purpose here is singular, to draw closer to Christ in His mysteries, to find our way in the middle of destruction, construction and reconstruction, whether we understand that literally or spiritually or metaphorically, to find our way to Christ, to His side, to His peace, His heart.
And so welcome to this year. One of the great privileges of being the rector is having the opportunity to see the fruition of our handiwork here on the Hill, to witness each year the joy of candidates and families and parishes as they celebrate the awesome rites of ordination. Ordinations are wonderful events. This past summer, I had the joy of being in Memphis, in Mexico, here at Saint Meinrad and almost in Little Rock to see our brothers, men like yourselves, who have struggled and questioned, prayed and considered and reconsidered their call, and finally given way to the will of God and presented themselves as priests to His holy Church. Witnessing an ordination is awesome, but no matter how often I attend, I am struck by the words and the gestures of the rite. And so, this year in my rector’s conferences, I would like to focus on the Rite of Ordination as a way of bringing greater clarity to the work we do in these halls. Contained within the rite is our clearest insight into the spirituality of the priest. As I go about from place to place speaking about the priesthood, I am often asked to clarify a question: What is the spirituality of the diocesan priest? It is a complex question, but one which does, in fact, have an answer. The spirituality of the diocesan priest, like that of any vocation in the Church, can be discovered through the means by which the office is made. For example, the spirituality of marriage is found in the vows the couple takes. The spirituality of religious life is discovered in the apostolic character of the vows of the community. And the spirituality of the diocesan priest is found in the Rite of Ordination itself. What does that rite say? What does it tell us about the priest? Where does the spiritual reality of the priest begin?
Is it in a set of ideals and ideas? Is it between the pages of a book? Is it found in the magisterial teaching of the Church? All of these, certainly. But I would like to propose that the spirituality of the priest begins in an even more fundamental place: in media res. In the middle of things. An appropriation of the reality of the priesthood begins with a square looking in the eye of reality. What is true about the world in which we live? What is true about the cultural and social mechanisms in which we find ourselves enmeshed? What is true about ourselves, our hearts, our minds, our personalities and dispositions? Priesthood begins with a realistic look at what is there and here.
What do we have to negotiate? The realities of the contemporary Church and contemporary society are not unknown to us; they confront us daily, even here. We witness even in the seminary the increasing globalization of the Church. It is not a question as to whether or not we are going to accept the international character of Catholicism. That character is among us: in parishes that speak many languages, in dioceses that embrace many cultures, in seminaries that incorporate many ethnic realities. Look around and see the Catholic Church in a quilt of global opportunity. The question is not whether we see the Catholic Church, but how we the Church as Catholic and take advantage of the opportunities that this global reality affords us.
The reality of the Church today is the reality of generational tensions. Younger and older Catholics, younger and older priests, are frequently at odds as to how the pastoral ministry of the Church is to be carried forward. We see this in battles over theology, parochial identity and governance. Even the very heart of the Church’s reality—the liturgy—is not immune to these strivings. And yet the Church is One. One of the greatest challenges we face in seminary formation today is initiating young priests into established presbyterates. Priests today cannot go it alone. They need each other. In this need, mutual respect and the ability to work together between generations are essential. Our newly ordained priests must be bridge builders within presbyterates and not the cause of further division. The presbyteral house divided against itself cannot stand, not in this day and age. Older and younger priests must learn to support one another and enhance one another’s ministries with intentionality and charity. This is a reality of the Church.
Another reality of the Church, a reality that we cannot help but face, is the lasting effect of sexual abuse by members of the clergy and the desire by others to cover up the misdeeds of fellow priests. The abuse crisis has beaten the Church down. This summer, I had the privilege of offering a retreat to a diocese in Ireland. These priests, faithful men, courageous men, hardworking men, have almost lost hope. The crisis of abuse perpetuated by their brother priests and the ensuing scandal of cover-up has sapped their morale. How can the spirit of priests and presbyterates be rebuilt in the aftermath of this crisis? The miraculous thing to me is that our good and holy people have, for the most part, not lost hope or faith. They still love and respect their priests. Perhaps in their spirit of reconciliation we can find ways of rebuilding the hope and faith of our presbyterates, but we cannot turn our backs on these questions, these crucial issues. They are realities that confront the priesthood in a serious way today.
Added to these realities we might include a host of other issues, such as the ideological divide in our Church, the breakdown of family and community life, or the continual assault on the very nature of the human person through the promotion of so-called philosophies of freedom and choice. There is no freedom for any when the lives of the most vulnerable members of a society are under attack. There is no livelihood of choice when life itself is the victim of misguided ideas of choice and liberty.
And to these social realities we might add more personal challenges, the very core of personhood, the rise of individualism and its attendant ills, the breakdown of what seems to be even the possibility of lasting, monogamous relationships by the appropriation of false senses of sexuality, the offensive crisis of pornography and its denigration of the human personality, and the rise of a culture of utility, a false utility that corrupts the fundamental dignity of the human person.
All of these realities are significant, all meaningful, but even deeper to the spirituality of the priest is the raw material that comes from his own in media res. Who are we in this room today, those who are priests and those who aspire to the priesthood?
We are sons and brothers. We are friends and colleagues. We come here from small towns and big cities, from places near and places not so near. We come speaking many languages. We come filled with conflicting emotions and motivations. We come as unique men, men with distinctive dispositions, particular peculiarities and possibly problematic perceptions. We come all for the singular intention of serving God and we are called to be present to that reality in a focused way.
We come full of doubt and, by being present to the work of formation here, God resolves that doubt.
We come filled with anxieties about our past and, through the work that is done here, that past, even its most sinful elements, becomes the food for a bright future serving God through our woundedness and sins forgiven.
We come, some extraordinary but mostly ordinary and, through our labor here, we learn that God transfigures the mundaneness even the mendacity of our daily living, as surely as Christ was transfigured on the mountaintop in the presence of His disciples.
We come, we are here. We have taken the first definitive step in finding out what God has in store for us. We come in a whirlwind of disparate realities.
And we unite all of these disparate realities, those that we all must confront and those that are intensely personal, we unite them all in the common language of formation and eventually, by God’s will, in the Rite of Ordination. We find in that rite and the comparison of that rite with where we have been our raison d’être, our destiny and our purpose for living.
Let us now turn to the particularities of the rite.
The Rite of Ordination begins with the calling of the candidate. What is the nature of this call?
It is a call by the Holy Church to the core, to the intensely beating heart of the Church. In many ordinations, the candidate enters and is seated with his family. This is a palpable reminder to us that every man is called from some particular circumstance. We come from somewhere. We have a background and a past. We have a family of origin, with all of its attendant blessings and challenges. We are called from the very heart of the Church, the domestic Church, to serve the Universal Church. That Universal Church calls us. It calls us in the name of all of those present in the building, but more, it calls us on behalf of the millions of nameless faces throughout the world who have heard the message of the Gospel, who have witnessed firsthand the presence of God in the sacrifice of the Mass and cry out for priests to serve at their altars.
It calls us by name, by our own personhood, in spite of ourselves, on behalf of the Church militant, those struggling throughout the world to overcome prejudice and violence inflicted upon them because of the Name of Jesus. That call comes from the millions of hungry and thirsty souls who need God in their lives, need him essentially, desperately, but have no words to use to call upon Him and thus have turned to the worship of false gods and the consumption of food that cannot satisfy. That call comes from the praying souls who are weighed down by the burdens of economic hardship, racial discrimination, sickness, violence. That call comes from the hearts of those who have suffered abuse, even at the hands of priests. It is a call for a radical change, a new reality where holiness is meaningful. And who is to be the catalyst for that change but the man who is called? It is a call to responsibility and not to privilege.
That call comes from a Church that needs holy priests, deserves holy priests. It is a Church that never loses faith, even when their ministers have broken faith with them. That call comes from a resilient Church, an ever-hopeful Church. It is a clear call that requires a clear response.
And the response of the candidate for ordination is a single word: Present. The word “present” is a translation of the expression adsum in Latin. It inaugurates the public ministry of the deacon or priest. Present. The word implies so much.
In Latin, the expression translates literally as “I am toward.” Of course, it is incomplete grammatically. I am toward what? And this is precisely the point. I am toward everything. I open myself to everything. I present myself for what comes.
I am toward the realities of life, the awesome realties, the harsh realities and I do not shy away from the rawness of the human experience.
I am toward expressing myself as myself, of appropriately sharing my weakness and vulnerability so that the Body of Christ might be built up.
I am toward the possibility, the very real possibility, of pouring out my life as a libation for the cause of our faith, for the preaching of the Gospel, for the enrichment of God’s holy people.
This “towardness” is a promise to be present. It is a promise to be present when we are needed, in all circumstances, at all times.
For example:
Here we are in the sickroom of a 5- year-old boy in the last stages of a cancer that will, within minutes, claim his too-young life. The misery in the eyes of his parents as he arches his body upward in a furious attempt to draw one last breath is heartrending. Here you stand, reciting prayers they cannot hear, using the words of the Church that gives comfort though they cannot decipher their syllables. You are present and, by your presence, the Church in its countless multitudes, by your presence, the saints, by your presence, those countless other suffering souls who long to die with dignity. Those parents will never remember what you said, but they will remember that you were there, that the priest was there when their little angel went back to God.
And here we are in the reconciliation room, where you come week after week in frustration that so few avail themselves of the sacrament of penance. As you sit there in the semi-darkness trying to make out the words of the breviary, your anger at the indifference of others to God’s offer of forgiveness mounts, your soul seethes, simmers with resentment and, as you are about to give up and go back to the rectory, the door opens, a rustling is heard, someone coughs and kneels on the other side. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” the hoarse, disembodied voice begins. “It has been 20 years since my last confession and, Father,” he says in tear-choked words. “I don’t know where to start.” But somehow the words pour out for almost one hour, the story of a soul torn apart, not even by serious sins, but by the conflagration wrought by small sparks that have ignited the soul’s straw and burned at it until its charred remnants find no fit habitation for God. And the confession ends, and there is reconciliation, and a new life has begun, because, in the midst of your own frustrations, you were present.
And here we are in the yard of the grade school, as the third graders are lining up to prepare for the May crowning. You have so much to do. The bishop is coming for Confirmation that weekend. Your homily still isn’t finished for the five other Masses you will have to say. The principal of the school is holding things up, probably to spite you. You have a good mind to go back into your air-conditioned office and pour yourself a little refreshment, just to get you through the rest of the afternoon. They are all lined up. They are dressed in their little white outfits and each child clutches a bouquet of flowers from the florist, proudly holding them up before red beaming faces. Parents are fawning over their little darlings, snapping endless photographs on their digital cameras or phones. You realize how much you really hate children. Then you feel a tug at your jacket. It is one of the little boys; you think his name might be Ernest. He beckons you with his hand to lean down. He wants to tell you a secret. Down you go and into your ear he solemnly says these words: “Help me, Father. My mom said we couldn’t afford no flowers and all the other kids have some. Help me,” he pleads again. Now you are on it in a flash, and you walk quickly to the rectory offices and snatch a flower arrangement off the desk in your office. Back in three seconds, Ernest (you think that is his name) takes his place with his classmates, his tears turned to beaming joy and your irritations are drowned in the privilege of having been present.
It is prescient that the first word spoken by the soon-to-be-ordained is present. This may well be the very foundation of our priesthood. The priest must, first and foremost, be present, to the work of the altar, the celebration of the sacraments, the responsibility to pray. All of these, certainly, but also to the slighter moments, the moments when words and ritual fail. In the hospital emergency room, in the nursing home, in the living rooms of those beset by domestic strife, in the kitchens, in the backyards, on the playgrounds, in the classrooms, in the confessional, on the telephone. We are called to be present to the reality of the lives of those we serve, in formal ways and in informal ways. The priest must be present because his presence is more than that of a mere human. He comes to situations great and small as more than himself. He brings God to bear on the circumstances of life. His presence, even his silent presence, assures those in the throes of life’s triumphs and tragedies that God is with them, that God has not abandoned them.
Of course, the adsum, spoken in a public way at ordination, has to begin somewhere. I say that it must begin somewhere because, within the social order we inhabit, presence to the greater reality, the more profound ideal, cannot be taken for granted. The great vision of the Catholic world order is a vision of unity. It is a vision of community, of a sense of belonging that forms the Body of Christ, the ecclesia. Yet, today we live in a world in which the values of individualism and isolation are put forward as viable ways of living. Individualism teaches us that truth is relevant to the situation in which the person finds himself. Individualism insinuates a sense of entitlement to the benefits of life in proportionate to the perceived sacrifices made. In the ordained state, this takes the form of rank clericalism.
Individualism inculcates a forlornness of spirit, a torpor, a malaise, that promotes a paucity of service, a lack of care for the omnipresent others.
Individualism tends toward a nascent narcissism, the presenting symptom of the contemporary disease of isolation.
Individualism conjures within our minds myths of personal divinity, personal ecclesial realities and, eventually, the temptation to forget God. It perpetuates the fundamental lie of the original sin that we alone control our density and, in our will to power, the destinies of others.
The philosophy of individualism promotes itself as the only meaningful philosophy for modern men and women to pursue, but to what end? Is the average man or woman today, steeped in the philosophy of self-governance and relativity, more satisfied? Are we happier today than our ancestors who, if we are to believe the prophets of modernism, in their ignorance promoted the common good, common law and common sense? Doesn’t even the most enlightened modern practitioner of solipsism yearn to belong to something?
The Nietzchean experiment has failed disastrously, in nuclear proportions.
Certainly, Pope John Paul thought so. In Veritatis Splendor, the pope wrote “Taken to its extreme consequences, this individualism leads to a denial of the very idea of human nature.”
Certainly, modern prophets like G. K .Chesterton thought so, when he claimed that the culture of his day was “random and scrappy…as if boys had broken up a stained glass window and made the scraps into (rose-colored) spectacles” (The Thing, Chapter 3).
Certainly, the soon-to-be-beatified Cardinal Newman thought so, when he claimed that “gloom is no Christian temper,” and the condition of modern man is indeed gloomy. (Parochial and Plain Sermons, 5)
Individualism strikes at the very core of the human person, leaving us isolated, the obverse of adsum.
Postmodernism and its related philosophies of isolation are a dead end, because they do not conform to the deepest, most primeval yearnings of the human heart. God has created us for Himself and for Himself in one another. God has created us for community. God has made us to belong together. God has called us to a deeper communion in Christ, in the radical intervention of God in the event of the Incarnation. How do we express that deepest desire of the heart, our longing, our spiritual hunger for unity, but in our ability to stand in the midst of the assembly and boldly claim that we are present.
Pope John Paul II again stated that the enterprise of our work here, the task of theology, has as its heart the community of the Church. “By its very nature and procedures, authentic theology can flourish and develop only through a committed and responsible participation in and ‘belonging’ to the Church as a ‘community of faith’” (Veritatis Splendor, 109).
Pope Benedict has also remarked that being a Christian is to “accept the impossibility of autonomy and the weakness of one’s own resources” (Introduction to Christianity, 265).
Chesterton says again in The Thing that: “The problem on an enduring ethic and culture consists in finding an arrangement of the pieces by which they remain related, as do the stones arranged in an arch. And I know only one scheme that has this proved its solidity, bestriding lands and ages with its gigantic arches, and carrying everywhere the high river of baptism upon an aqueduct of Rome.”
Presence, therefore, is not the responsibility of the ordained alone, although they express it in a very focused way. Presence does not begin at ordination, although it is confirmed in the rite in a particular way. Presence is at the heart of discipleship. It is, in the words of Fr. Fergus Kerr: “something that is central to the Church, for in saying that the people has priority over the individual, that salvation is communitarian, one is pointing in the end to the experience which the New Testament writings describe as koinonia, and philadelphia.” (Fergus Kerr, “Christian Brotherhood and Ecclesiology” in New Blackfriars, 51).
Presence, that is the very constitutive action of the Church, begins here and now. The seminary is a place where that desire to be present and the ability to be present will be tested and tried. This year we will encounter countless opportunities to be present. Yes, we must go to chapel and class. We must attend conferences and lectures. Those things are taken for granted at any institution of higher learning. The presence we practice here is more subtle, more profound. Here we will learn, we must learn, to attend to the silent signals, the secret syllabations of our brothers and sisters around us. Here we must learn to respond to the needs of our sisters and brothers who are in trouble. Here we must learn to listen to doubts and frustrations, as well as accomplishments and deserved pride. Every year, I say that the first task of the seminarian, the first instance of formation, is to be here. You must be here, not only in body but in mind and, most importantly, in spirit. Your soul must be here, not because this is the place to be, but because you are here. Your soul must always be where you are. The ability to be here, to be present here, will be the sign of your ability to be there, in those as-yet-unnamed parishes that will eventually comprise the circumference of your pastoral influence.
How does this presence to the life of this community of faith, this first assignment, if you will, manifest itself?
It manifests itself, first and foremost, in prayer. A presence to God in prayer and a presence to one another in supporting each other’s prayer is the key to success in prayer. God wants our attention because God has something to say to us in prayer. To be present to God in prayer is the prerequisite for authentic discernment. Presence to God in prayer is inculcated not in a flood of words but through the cultivation of silence, of finding that secret room within ourselves where heart speaks to heart in the divine cadence of affirmation. Being present in prayer means also being in the public life of the Church’s prayer, not because it is always convenient, much less because it is ephemerally rewarding, but because it is necessary to worship. All we have to do is worship. Worship is our only proper attitude, whether we are in the chapel, the dining room, the classroom or our private rooms. In worship, we become more than our selfishness, more than our self seeking self, we become One with the others, the good, the bad, the indifferent and the pious. We become the Body of Christ. Presence to God in private prayer and in worship identifies us. And so I ask you, this year, consider prayer your first choice. In a particular way, consider prayer your first choice in engaging your fellow seminarians. Ask your brothers to pray with you. Make prayer the heart of this seminary.
This presence is also manifested in our ability to pay attention to the intellectual formation we receive here. Go to class, study, prepare and read. Why should we do this? Because they are ends in themselves? Perhaps some of you are programmed in that way and, certainly in the academic sphere, we should never discount the value of a little male rivalry as a gauge of success. Presence to intellectual formation is something more, however. It is listening to the intellectual Tradition of the Church, a Tradition that you are going to be asked to pass on in your own time to others. In a social order in which the relativism of veracity is the order of the day, people are hungry, no, starving, for the Truth. They want Truth that will satisfy. The intellectual Tradition of the Church, its history, the spiritual traditions, the historical interpretation of Scripture, these give life to lifeless minds because they speak not of that which is passing, a surfeit of which the peripatetic pilgrims of this world already possess in plethora. We want eternal Truth, and your ability to satisfy that hunger, that starvation, is a result of your intellectual labors here, your reading, your study, your conversation with others. Our own searching for that eternal Truth unites us to all of those others, the Church triumphant who have sought for Truth and found it in the presence of Truth itself. And so I ask you, work diligently at your studies, assist one another. Connect your studies to the life of Christ being nourished within you.
This presence is further tested in our response to the real needs of those whom you will serve. This talent for presence will be tested and tried in your ability to be present to one another. I hear all too often that the seminary is not the real world. My brothers and sisters, it is all too real. Here all of us struggle with real problems, fight real demons and carry real burdens. All of the ills that stalk the world like skeletal sentinels “out there” are also “in here.” The woundedness of childhoods ill spent is in here. The residual ache of being different and outcast is in here. The anxiety of fitting in is in here. The guilt of misappropriated sexuality is in here. The shame of past sin is in here. The plague of addiction is in here. The disease of self-doubt is in here. The aridity of spiritual energy is in here. Everything is in here, within these walls and within these hearts. We have our chance now to uncover these hidden realities through our compassion for one another, our ability to share the hurts and pains that inflict each one of us and so unite ourselves to the suffering of Christ. And so I ask you to consider that your first assignment as aspiring priests is to minister here, and there can be no question of the opportunity to do so.
This presence is not easy. It takes all you have, physically, psychically, spiritually. And what will you get in return? You will gain the notoriety of discipleship, the cultivation of a public personality. You will gain the responsibility of demonstrating by your presence that a life in Christ is not only possible and desirable, but necessary. Further, you will get a pledge that we, the faculty, the staff and the administration, will be present to you. We pledge to acknowledge and honor the work you do here, the struggles, the heartaches, the triumphs and the failures. We will try with all our might to do this diligently and confidently in the Lord, because it is our vocation to be present to you. We also pledge to respect you, to treat you as adults and to honor the gift of vocation that is within you.
By God’s grace in this great sympathetic symphony of presence, this seminary can become what it most fundamentally should be: a place of evangelization, of conversion, a school of discipleship. The seminary is a place where the intricacies of salvation are worked out. Where love is the governing principle. We have taught you nothing here if we have not taught you love, the love of God, the love of one another. So in the words of St. John: “Let us love in deed and in truth and not merely talk about it.” (I John 3:18). God’s love wants to take possession of us here, encourage us here, provoke us to more heroic and reckless acts of holiness here. God wants to be omnipresent here and thus teach us what adsum really means. This can only happen, however, if the seminary is a place of integrity, if we live here with integrity. We must be people of integrity who live completely and without compromise what we claim to be. We must be people who strive to rid ourselves of the vestiges of mistrust, of secretiveness, of false senses of confidentiality. We must be a community that holds each other responsible. It is no act of spiritual heroism to know the serious sin of another and not exercise the necessary fraternal correction. We protect no one when we allow others to persist in living lives that are false and hypocritical when the Holy Church will suffer as a consequence. Integrity means creating a community of increasing transparency. The concerns about internal and external forums dissipate when I am living an authentic life in the grace of Christ. And the grace of Christ is sufficient. It is sufficient indeed.
The response of the soon-to-be-ordained priest is an affirmation that his presence leads to something. It leads to the forging of bonds in the Body of Christ. It is the sense of the reality of the Oneness that unites those present to the divine reality. It is the unity of the Church. Presence is the means by which we create that unity of which St. Ignatius spoke in his letter to the Church of Magnesia: Our presence to one another leads us to express “one petition, one prayer, one mind, one hope in love and one holy joy…one temple of God, one altar, one Jesus Christ who came forth from the one Father” (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians). This we do in full confidence that our initiatives will not be unmet by those countless intercessors who, day by day, stand before the throne of that one Father, the saints and, in particular, Our Lady, that most gracious of petitioners upon whom we cast all our cares, as we say:

Hail Holy Queen …

Our Blessings Begin Today

2010-08-29T06:04:00.000-07:00

Our blessings begin today with the inauguration of a new seminary formation year at Saint Meinrad. Today we are welcoming 136 seminarians from 35 dioceses and religious communities. We are a diverse and blessed group. Today we also dedicate the new altar in the Saint Thomas Aquinas chapel. Here is the opening day homily:

My friend, move up to a higher position.

In this world of success and getting ahead, who does not long to hear these words spoken to them?

My friend, move up to a higher position

Promotion

Advancement

Oneupsmanship

Profit and Gain

This is the vocabulary of victory in a culture of achievement

And yet, in the mouth of Jesus this attractive invitation offers us even more

Brothers and sisters, the Gospel today offers us a palpable image of the paradox of call in the parable of the wedding banquet.

Many were invited and many came, just as many have been invited here and many have come on this glorious Sunday morning as we gather to begin this new formation year in the only fitting way, with an act of rededication, rededication of this chapel, rededication of the altar, rededication of ourselves to the work of formation that we will undertake here in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Many were invited and many came, and like some of those guests at the wedding banquet we might be asking some formidable questions today, although perhaps not out loud.

Questions like:

O God, what am I doing here? I don’t think I have what it takes to be a seminarian. The invitation was a mistake. Maybe I’ll just slip out the back.

My friend, move up to a higher position.

O God what am I doing back here? The summer was so pleasant and now. There are the monks again. Looks like they hooked a couple of new ones over the summer to torture us. Maybe I’ll leave after mass. No I’ll stay for lunch at least.

My friend, move up to a higher position.

O God I am glad I am here, at least I guess so. I don’t really need to be here and frankly, I don’t really think there is anything for me to learn that I haven’t already learned from the blogs. How to say Mass maybe, but I could watch a video. O well, I guess I can put up with anything for 6 years. Those monks look pretty surly though, especially the fat one that is preaching.

My friend, move up to a higher position.

O God, here I am at the end. I hope this year goes by fast. That’s a nice vestment the abbot is wearing, maybe for my mass of thanksgiving.

My friend, move up to a higher position.

So many questions, so many thoughts, so many expectations, so many dreams. God has chosen and God has invited us. We guests, however, may even today be approaching a very different set of realities.

And yet, the banquet is one.

No matter if we come with anxiety, with confidence, with trepidation, with uncertainly ,with piety, with cockiness, with humility, with exasperation or with pride.

The reality of this celebration is ONE.

My friend, move up to a higher position.

Always to a higher position

Because, brothers and sisters, today we approach Mt. Zion and we come here today not in fear and trembling of the great and vast unknown. We come as fellow pilgrims and sojourners. Today and every day we gather in this place we approach Mt. Zion, the dwelling place of God, God truly present, God truly alive in the sacrament of which we partake, in the Word broken apart, in the presence of the priest, in the assembly of the praying, worshiping faithful. We approach Mt. Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem at this altar.

So my friends, move up to a higher position.

Come to this altar, for this altar is the throne of God

This altar is the habitat of humanity

This altar is the place where our cares and burdens are offered up and our souls refreshed and cleansed in the one sacrifice of the cross, that sacrament that keeps the world from flying apart.

This altar is the place where we unite our hearts with the sacrifice of Jesus and by the pure grace of God we become what we eat and thus unite ourselves to that heavenly reality of myriads of angels and archangels who approach with impunity the Living Light of Heaven.

This altar is the place where countless saints in festal array gather, although we look more like folk in our Sunday best. Our halos are hidden but at this altar we soar, we mount those heights of Zion upon which our forebears feared to tread.

At this altar we hear the voice of Jesus, his call: My friend, move up to a higher position.

So on angelic wing we boldly approach, with fear of God and faith we approach, not to consume the bread that cannot satisfy, the mere panacea of divine food, but the living God, he who said to his disciples on the Mount Zion of the upper room in days long gone, this is my body, this my blood.

My friends, in the context of this sacrifice we are even now moving up to a higher position.

Here brothers and sisters we find ourselves in the assembly of the just made perfect. Not that we are perfect, far from it. We will learn all too well in days to come where the imperfections of each and all of us reside. But here we are in the company of the perfect, the Church militant entertains the Church suffering and the Church triumphant in a great cacophony of hospitality that is the paradox of the first becoming last and the last first.

And it is a paradox, for here at this altar we find Jesus, the living God who died upon the cross for us.

Here is Jesus, the same Jesus whose hands stretched out to save, to heal, to offer comfort to the hordes of humanity sinking in their sin. His hands outstretched on the tree to save the ones whose ancient parents stretched out their hands to the serpent. And with those nail torn hands he beckons us to come up higher

Here is Jesus, the same Jesus, who though tried by the folly of human courts in the sham representation of human justice, now stands as the mediator of a new covenant, not forged on the anvil of human logic, but intermixed and intermingled, intertwined in the hot blood of the lamb flowing down from the altar of heaven over the littered landscape of the human condition. On that river of blood we rise and go up higher

Here on this altar is Jesus, the same Jesus from whose pierced feet trampled out the vineyards, the grapes of wrath, the wrath of the human condition, healing the sick, freeing the captive and raising a fallen world to new life and cries out to us, we who stand shamefaced in our own corruption to come up higher, to be greater, not on the merits we possess but by his gift, his grace.

Here at this altar on this altar is Jesus, the same Jesus who rose from the dead and seated at the Father’s right hand will come to judge all the fallen hordes of humanity and in that dread judgment we pray that He will speak words to us of invitation, come up higher, the last shall be first and the first last.

Today brothers and sisters we approach Mount Zion, we rededicate this chapel to God’s service, we rededicate this altar for its purpose and, most importantly, we rededicate ourselves for the labor of discipleship. It is a lifelong labor, an endless labor, a herculean labor, a privileged labor, our only labor.

In this house of formation, we are angelic witnesses of God’s power in the quotidian accidents of mundane living.

He calls us and he takes us in our poverty of mind, body and spirit and transforms us, entitling us to a place at this table, at this altar. He exalts our supine selfishness in his divine selflessness.

He calls us and he takes us, just as we are and makes us that distinguished guest, clothing us in the garment of righteousness that we neither fabricated nor deserved.

He calls us and he takes us without price to reward us with the prize of eternal salvation

He calls us and he takes us even as we take him, he consumes us as we consume him, he who knew, through the folly of the cross how truly the first shall be last and the last, by God, shall be first.

How will we respond to this summons today, this clarion cry to mount the very heights of Zion?

My child, conduct your affairs with humility,
and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts.
Humble yourself the more, the greater you are,
and you will find favor with God.

God, in your goodness you have made a home for us here. You have spread the banquet. you have mixed and poured out the wine. You have invited your guests.

My friends, let us now with confidence in his love, his mercy, his great mercy move up to a higher position.

Happy are those called to Mount Zion

Happy are those called to this altar

Happy indeed are we who are called to his supper v

Graduation Weekend

2010-05-08T09:26:00.001-07:00

Graduation Liturgy
Archabbey Church
8 May 2010

During the night Paul had a vision.
A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these words,
“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

The light of faith has always been enlivened by visions. Some of these visions have been highly personal, engaging the mystic in a particular experience of the Divine Presence even as he or she goes forward in the life of the Church. Other visions, however, have been more community-minded, the vision of God, the vision of the human person, the vision of relationship.

In these days, we have not yet slipped out of the immediacy of the paschal mystery and Easter is a time of visionary excess. The disciples of Jesus were given a vision of the future even as they endured the agony of Christ’s passion and death and the rejuvenation of the resurrection. Those men whom Jesus had chosen from backwoods towns and fishing villages, from counting houses and distant fields, those men so fallible and prone to fail, Jesus chose them to be His followers and in the brightness of the Master, under His careful tutelage, their daily darkness was filled with the light of visionary zeal. They became fearless, bold preachers of the Word, men willing to travel to the ends of the earth and lay down their very lives to witness to the visionary power of the Gospel.

During the night Paul had a vision.
A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these Words,
“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

The disciples became visionaries and by them the early Christians, men and women from every walk of life, fierce Pharisees, God-fearers and casual observers of the Law were given a vision. The preaching of the apostles and the witness of the power of Christ alive in them gave the Chosen People a vision, hope for a new life, a new world, and a new cosmic reality. The early Christians, those Jews who had so long hoped and dreamt and prayed for the coming of Chosen One, the Messiah, the Savior of Israel were inspired by the visionary prospect of His coming to be more than they ever could have imagined under the Old Law. But that was not enough.

During the night Paul had a vision.
A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these Words,
“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

Come over to Macedonia and help us!
And so this powerful Word burst forth from its cultural and religious confines to dawn upon a world, desperate, longing to hear the Good News proclaimed in every tongue, in every culture, in every place. Now not only Macedonia, but the ends of the earth have witnessed are witnessing, the saving power of God, the Word of God racing down the corridors of time and place and insinuating itself into every nook and cranny of the human experience.
In the power of His command that prophetic preaching has been heard in every place and its sacred syllables have reverberated against the walls of human power, human prestige, human wealth and divinized the cultures of human kind offering them a new message, the message of the Kingdom.
Simply because
During the night Paul had a vision.
A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these Words,
“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

The Word of God cultivated itself among the nations, and was uttered in the dim light of the domus ecclesia, the barrel vaults of basilicas, the cavernous cathedrals of the Middle Ages. That Word resounded against the ramparts of prejudice and discord, against the walls and mighty fortresses of reformation and enlightenment. That Word suffered the indignity of ridicule and reductionism and revisionism and redundancy but it was not quieted, never muted, neither was it destroyed but rather, that Word is still heard today, it trumpets today, it is pondered profoundly today …
In the new Macedonias, in our Macedonias

A Macedonian stood before him

And who are those Macedonians of today? Who are those men and women inviting, begging us to come to them and preach the Word of God, teach the mighty message of the Gospel?

They are the desperate and afraid, the poor and the outcast, the neglected and the ridiculed.

They are our own suffering brothers and sisters. The sick and the psychologically fractured. Wanderers and immigrants, the lost and uncertain.

They are our mothers striving to feed their children, our fathers in search of meaningful labor, our children abused and worn down by life so early, so cruelly.

They are the hard-pressed farmers of the Great Plains
The factory workers of Korean cities
The denizens of tiny towns in Kentucky
They are the bureaucrats and the technocrats.
The weary and the stout of heart
The yearning and the complacent

They call to us, not in dreams but from the streets of Memphis, Indianapolis, Phoenix and beyond.
They cry and lament, desperate for a hearing, desperate for hope, desperate for change.
And so to Macedonia we go. Having neither silver nor God, we give what we have. The name of the Lord Jesus.
That name that is …

Crying out, clamoring against the indifference of so-called developed worldviews and false understandings of little truths that never satisfy.

That name that brightens the eyes of the lonely, the desperate, the outcast, the old, the dying

That name that lilts lullaby-like on tired ears that long to hear the dulcet tones of peace in a world in which the din of war and the pulsating perniciousness of poverty still resound.

That name is heard in Macedonia and in towns and villages across the globe because of men like our graduates today who will heroically serve the Church as priests, because of men and women like our graduates today who will selflessly minister to the Church as laypeople.
Why?
Because during the night they had a vision.
A Macedonian stood before them and implored them with these Words,
“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

Brothers and sisters, we are the inheritors of that vision and the fulfillment of that promise. We are the ones who have been called to proclaim boldly and without compromise the message of the Church, the message of the Gospel, the message of Christ.

We are called to be visionaries
Saint Meinrad is just such a place of vision, of conversion, of evangelization.
All of us have experienced it in one way of another …
We came here intimidated and afraid and in the power of His visionary Word we leave here with the boldness of St. Paul and the fierceness of the prophets.

We came here thinking we knew everything there was to know about the mystery of God and in the power of His visionary Word we met the God of infinite possibility in a horizonless soulscape.

We came here men and women whom Jesus chose from backwoods towns and fishing villages, from counting houses and distant fields, women and men so fallible and prone to fail, Jesus chose us to be His followers and in the luminescence of the Master, under His careful tutelage, our daily darkness has been filled with the light of visionary zeal.

We came here without purpose, wavering, wandering on the way and in the visionary power of His Word we have found our way in the One who is the way, we have discovered the Truth, in the One who is the Truth, we have been given new life by the source of life himself.

We came here without hope and have heard His voice chanting in our ears, the voice of Jesus crying to us: I have chosen you out of the world.

And how has He done it: In His power, by His authority, by His witness, in His boldness, by His grace. And we have prayed, and worked, and cried, and deliberated, and discerned and laughed and studied and thought and prayed, and prayed and we have seen it all happen.
During the night Paul had a vision.
A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these Words,
“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

If there is anything I hope our graduates take away from here today, it is the vocation to be a visionary.
The vocation to go over to Macedonia.
And so we go. Go now. Get out.
The visionary power of Saint Meinrad as prepared you and the visionary power of this place is fueled by what we celebrate here, now.

Here we celebrate a new vision not only in the bread and wine, but in ourselves. We witness here the daily miracle of God’s presence that gives us the courage, strength and will to rise up and see the Glory of the visionary power of God even as we step away, even as we move from this place to another place upward and upward to His place in heaven and all the places in between – After all, has he not promised His salvation to those who accept His invitation:
During the night Paul had a vision.
A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these Words,
“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

To whom shall we go?

2010-05-06T05:38:00.001-07:00

Lord to whom shall we go?

It didn’t take long for the first scandal to break out among the disciples.

Jesus said in yesterday’s Gospel: Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you cannot know the life of God.

Harsh words that even today cause division in the Body of Christianity.
Harsh words that caused some of the earliest followers of the Way to walk away.

And of course, with Jesus the potential for scandal is always present. He himself was a scandal.

He presented to the word the scandal of the eternal God born in time, born in poverty.

He presented to the world the power of God, born in the weakness of a dependent infant.

He presented to the world the might of God, consumed by real temptation, plagued by real emotion, encompassed by the real human condition.

He presented to the world the strength of God, beaten, spat upon, ridiculed, condemned and nailed to a cross.

He presented to the world the all encompassing reality of God encompassed in the circumference of a piece of bread.

Is that not scandalous? Doesn’t the very premise of the incarnation, the glorious and gross admixture of the human and the divine lend itself to scandal.

Should we be surprised that the prolonged event of Christ in the world, an event we call the Church should continue to be plagued by the very humanity that it represents at its core.

And as we know, for some of the disciples there might always be the temptation to walk away.

But don’t we say: Lord to whom we shall go?

For while there is weakness in the Body of Christ there is also strength.
While there is temptation in the Body of Christ, there is also the ability to overcome that temptation.
While there is scandal and confusion in the Body of Christ there is also the reality that allows us to make sense of the confusion.

Christ gives us his Body and Blood to consume and in doing so becomes weak for us, a scandal for us, and our only hope, our only strength, our only grasp at Divinity.

And so with weakened minds and hearts, with spirits contrite and confused we don’t walk away, but come forward to this table and with hands outstretched, hands of scandalous repute, reach for the God who alone has the Words of everlasting life.

My brothers, in these weeks we come to the end of our common journey in this house of the Lord’s service, at least for a while. Some of our brothers will be going forward on different paths, following the will of God in their lives by seeking His face in other vocations. Most of us in the coming months will walk that wide circle through many experiences that will be eventually draw us back to this Hill to test the power of a scandalous God to change our lives. All of us will continue to live in the reality of the Incarnation, a strange and wonderful reality that asserts itself by drawing us to the power of God even as it points to the reality of our weakness, our internal scandals. Brothers, in faith, for those of us who have seen how God works, by experiencing his power in the weakness of our sin, in the Eucharist, in reconciliation, in the wonder of this community of love, support and formation; there is nowhere else to go. Thus we all depart this year in the glorious realization of the Easter mystery, the mystery of loss and gain, of hope, of great hope. Go with the blessing of the rector and the staff and be always who you are: The Body of Christ announcing His presence to a scandal-ridden world.