Fundraising Brunch
for the Companions of the Transfigured Christ
Sunday, 16 November 2008
St. Paul and the Intentions of the Pauline Year
It is a joy for me to be with you this Sunday morning. I greet the Companions of the Transfigured Christ and all who have come for this morning’s brunch in support of the work of these men. I hope the food and the company agree with you. Don’t hesitate to rethink your offering and put a little something extra in the basket this year. Kyle and Mikkel both assure me they haven’t lost any money on the stock market these days so don’t hesitate. Nothing seems to get cheaper and the need is certainly greater, as you well know from home. Be generous!
By way of an introduction to Father John Theodore’s talk I have been asked to tell you a bit about St. Paul and about the intentions of the Pauline Year we in the Catholic Church world-wide are celebrating to observe the bi-millennium (2000 years) of the approximate birthdate of the Apostle to the Gentiles.
From the point of view of volume, St. Paul is the single most important New Testament author after God who inspired all the writings we find in Holy Scripture, Old and New Testament. If you take your New Testament and count the pages, you’ll find that the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles make up about half the pages, St. Paul a third and everyone else the balance. He may not have written a Gospel, but Paul’s letters are basic to how we are to understand and live the Gospel. What have come down to us from the Church as the Pauline Letters (ro-co-co…), what we may refer to as the Pauline Corpus within the New Testament is the Word of God.
In his letter of October 2007, His Eminence Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, the Archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, where St. Paul was buried after his beheading nearby (between 66 and 67 A.D.), lists 7 opportunities which this year dedicated to St. Paul should provide.
His Eminence Cardinal Ivan Dias, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples wrote his own letter at about the same time specifically to the bishops which depend upon his office, namely here in our area all of the bishops of the Antilles Episcopal Conference – AEC. He suggested rather concretely a set of 10 “missionary” projects worth considering for the year.
Even if I only took one of the two Cardinals’ lists and briefly outlined the various points, I’d go over my time limit for this introduction. I am confident that I can leave the big talk for today to Father. Besides, one should try and keep it light at brunch time, right? Too much input might not be good for the digestion! Let me focus then on just one idea mentioned by our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI when he announced officially that there would be a special Jubilee Year dedicated to the Apostle Paul, extending from 28 June 2008 until 29 June 2009, and I quote:
“Dear brothers and sisters, as in early times, today too Christ needs apostles ready to sacrifice themselves. He needs witnesses and martyrs like St. Paul. Paul, a former violent persecutor of Christians, when he fell to the ground dazzled by the divine light on the road to Damascus, did not hesitate to change sides to the Crucified One and followed him without second thoughts. He lived and worked for Christ, for him he suffered and died. How timely his example is today!”
In his letter announcing the Pauline Year, Cardinal Dias elaborates on that central point of the Holy Father’s when he speaks about the relevance of the Pauline Year as a source of inspiration for the missionary effort, as a further encouragement for those who in our day and time strive to do what Paul did, that is, carry the good news of Jesus Christ to the people who have not yet heard of him. The Cardinal in his letter speaks about people today, perhaps right here in the Twin Island Republic, who may speak respectfully of Jesus but who “do not see him as the only Savior of the world, as the one who alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life, true God and true man, before whom (and here he quotes St. Paul) “every knee must bend, in the heavens, on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, for the glory of God the Father” (see Phil 2:10-11).
St. Paul was born approximately 2000 years ago in Tarsus (Ταρσός), a Greek city and a large district, in what today on the map is Mersin Province, on Turkey’s southern coast, 15 km (9 mi) from the city of Mersin and near (40 km) to the city of Adana. In Paul’s time Tarsus was the district capital of Cilicia. Marc Anthony first met Cleopatra in that city. Paul also called Saul was a Jew, evidently from an established family in Tarsus as he had Roman citizenship from birth, hence the privilege of death by beheading i.e. no torture for him. He studied to be a rabbi in Jerusalem under Gamaliel and to support himself as rabbis did then and in many cases do yet today he learned a trade; Paul was a tent maker.
Whether he actually threw stones at the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen, is not clear. He was present and approved of the killing, and himself terrorized the early Christian community until Jesus claimed him on the road to Damascus. Paul never met Jesus before Christ’s suffering and death upon the Cross for our salvation; Paul’s vocation to be an apostle, like one of the Twelve, came to him personally from the Risen Christ.
From the Acts of the Apostles and his own letters we can trace four missionary voyages which St. Paul made during his years of ministry. The last one he made in chains from Jerusalem to Rome. The first three took him through what are modern day Turkey, Cyprus and Greece. He traveled by boat and on foot; he spent time with the people to whom he preached; he chose elders and gave the Church in the eastern Mediterranean its initial structure. Most of his letters were written to the communities he had founded, to clarify points of Catholic teaching, to admonish sinners in their midst, to shake them up if need be, to ask them for contributions to support the hard-pressed community of believers in Jerusalem. The rest of his letters were written to individuals, to elders chosen by him: Timothy and Titus, and to Philemon to whom he was sending back his run-away slave, Onesimus, now baptized and a brother in Christ of his former master.
St. Paul not only traveled and wrote letters; he was beaten with rods, whipped, stoned, left for dead, imprisoned, shipwrecked. He was consumed by his love for Jesus and succeeded (with the help of others, naturally) in winning over a good part of the civilized world of his time for Christ. If we reckon from his conversion, to be placed some time between 34 and 36 A.D. (when he was 25 maybe 27 years of age), and when he was beheaded, at the latest in 67 A.D., then we’re talking about 30 years of active ministry.
Sister in school said to us as children that if the Lord knocked us off our high horse like Paul then He could expect wonders from us just as He did from St. Paul. Sister’s logic was that this was the case because of the Lord’s investment in Paul as His chosen instrument, because of the way He had revealed His hand to Paul: the more the Lord invests the more He can expect.
We children took that to mean that since we hadn’t had such a blinding encounter with Christ as St. Paul did on the road to Damascus, we were off the hook in terms of our duties as apostles for today; we could live a normal Christian life. Where do children get such ideas? For that matter, where did sister get off saying that Paul was given more and hence more was to be expected of him? Maybe she was right, but the Acts of the Apostles Chapter 9:7 says concerning Paul’s encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus: “Meanwhile the men who were traveling with him stood speechless; they heard the voice but could see no one.” Were Paul’s companions any less privileged than he? Perhaps! Maybe Jesus, the Risen One, only wanted one good man. However, it might also be the case that Paul’s companions were not receptive to the grace imparted. God never takes away our freedom, especially when it comes to vocational choices.
Paul’s letters don’t always read so easily. Maybe you know some letter writers that are tougher to follow than others, too, but who nonetheless are well worth reading. Read Paul during this Jubilee Year; read Paul for as long as you have eyes to see. Read him with an open heart and risk an encounter with the Risen Christ in and through the Word of God.
Showing posts with label vocations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vocations. Show all posts
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Speak, Lord, Your Servant is Listening
Holy Mass for the Closing of the Academic Year
at the Regional Seminary of
St. John Vianney and the Uganda Martyrs
15 May 2008, 6:30 p.m.
Solemnity of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs
Reading I: 2 Maccabees 7:1-2.9-14
Reading II: 2 Cor. 4:7-15
Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12
The poor in spirit, the gentle, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for what is right, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted in the cause of right… and all of this because of me, Jesus says, rejoice and be glad for heaven!
Among my all-time favorites from the Second Readings in the Office of Readings of the Liturgy of Hours are two in the course of the year from Pope Paul VI, of blessed memory: one, assigned to the Feast of the Holy Family, comes from his talk in Nazareth about all the lessons to be learned from the school of the house of Jesus, Mary and Joseph at Nazareth; the other is from his 1964 homily at the canonization of the martyrs of Uganda.
Part of what thrills me about this excerpt from the Pope’s canonization homily is precisely the fact, that I (the Nuncio), a non-European, am hearing a great European sing the praises of another part of the world other than Europe. I am sure that Europeans are not and cannot be touched by the Pope’s message for the Feast of the Uganda Martyrs in the same way as I or most of us can. Let me quote the text ever so briefly:
“Who could have predicted to the famous African confessors and martyrs such as Cyprian, Felicity, Perpetua and – the greatest of all – Augustine, that we would one day add names so dear to us as Charles Lwanga and Matthias Mulumba Kalemba and their twenty companions?”
They were young men for the most part, whom the Church gladly identifies with the seven sons and their mother from the Book of Maccabees, and who in Christian art are often portrayed as the Black counterparts of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the three young men singing unharmed in the fiery furnace of Babylon. The reading from Pope Paul VI continues:
“The infamous crime by which these young men were put to death was so unspeakable and so expressive of the times. It shows us clearly that a new people needs a moral foundation, needs new spiritual customs firmly planted, to be handed down to posterity. Symbolically, this crime also reveals that a simple and rough way of life – enriched by many fine human qualities yet enslaved by its own weakness and corruption – must give way to a more civilized life wherein the higher expressions of the mind and better social conditions prevail.”
Hold that thought and let me switch gears for just a moment!
It is a commonly held opinion that today’s students, especially theology students, and major seminarians par excellence, are much more serious about learning than we were years ago. I’ve also read that your typical vocation to the priesthood today is more serious than we were once upon a time. I am glad for you, but also a bit puzzled and will try and explain myself by reflecting for a moment on your great patrons, the Uganda Martyrs.
The heroism of the young men in the Book of Maccabees, brutally tortured and killed for their refusal to eat pork from a pagan sacrifice in violation of God’s Covenant and Law given to Moses and the Chosen People always causes me to shudder, but I have no real problem understanding or accepting their zeal. They give evidence of the typical psychology or should we say appreciation of noble values as understood and embraced by boys, youths and young men of any day and time. Faith in the God of their ancestors was certainly the cornerstone of their sacrifice, but they were martyred essentially because of their adherence to the Commandments and dietary laws of Judaism which were concrete and judged worth holding. This they had learned at their mother’s knee. It is true the Book of Maccabees here and elsewhere offers us among the most articulate Jewish expressions of faith in a future resurrection, but central to these young men’s oblation was their adherence to the law of the God of their fathers.
The Uganda Martyrs, as the Pope points out so clearly, are of a piece with the great North African Martyrs and Saints of the early centuries, whose sacrifice is not described first and foremost by a strict adherence on their part to the observance of the Law but rather by their faith in Christ, to whom they had bound themselves firmly, bound themselves in love and fidelity, bound themselves to Jesus, to the Risen One, to the Victor over sin and death. They, the Uganda Martyrs like centuries of Christian martyrs before them, had embraced what the seven brothers and their mother could only salute from afar.
Recently in Curacao I had a conversation with a man I’d judge to be in his forties, who expressed optimism concerning the attractiveness of priesthood today as a vocational choice for young men here in our region. Even though he seemed to me to be a regular “man in the pew” my guess is that he had also heard as I had about this new generation of conscientious students and hardworking or more-dedicated-than-my-generation seminarians. I’m afraid I may have burst his optimism bubble, by insisting on the old faith imparted to me in primary school by Sister and by Father from the pulpit back when I was just a little boy in the 1950’s.
You see, I am a staunch believer in a timeless understanding of vocation, amply sustained by the descriptions of how men received their calling from God in both the Old and New Testaments. You’ll never convince me that the three basic prerequisites in a boy or young man for a priestly vocation have changed. What are they? They are very simply: 1. sound mind; 2. sound body; 3. somewhat better than average intelligence. Everything else that goes into a vocation is supernatural and mediated by the Church through the voice of authority. God called me to priesthood from my mother’s womb; He gave me the grace to respond; the Church confirmed the rightness of my childish, at first, later youthful and idealistic, longing. The Church trained me and ordained me and has never ceased in love to knock off all my rough edges and purify me, first and foremost for the service of the Altar.
The vocation or call to martyrdom in the act itself is as horrifying as Christ’s Passion. In the Light of Easter Sunday the sense of it all comes clear in God’s plan to raise us up, to save us and our world. Whether hung, drawn and quartered, flayed alive, stripped and locked away in a cold old starvation bunker in a concentration camp in Central Europe, impaled or burned facing the furious rejection of a blood relative who may be a temporal ruler but does not share our hope in Christ, we are talking in the martyr, male or female, child, youth or adult, we are talking in that person about the ultimate unto life’s blood witness of radical respect for the human person. We are talking about a new dignity and worth attributed to the human person through baptism into Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, Who in Himself has raised us to even greater nobility than that we had at the moment of the creation of our first parent. The New Testament or Christian martyr’s witness flows from a true love of God and neighbor. Death is swallowed up in death as we make up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ (to quote one of the most approved authors).
I hope and pray you all had a great academic year. Some people claim that studies are the ultimate bloodless martyrdom. Pope Paul VI would tell you that the Uganda Martyrs did not choose the path of confrontation but, when pressed to the wall and demanded to choose, chose Jesus. As little more than neophytes, barely graduated from the catechumenate, they were called by Christ. He made their hearts (boyish hearts, youngish or youthful hearts) his own. They knew the Commandments but more essentially they knew their Redeemer; they knew He would raise them up to life and never abandon them; they knew that whole, entire, glorified in the flesh they would with their own eyes see God.
“Symbolically, this crime also reveals that a simple and rough way of life – enriched by many fine human qualities yet enslaved by its own weakness and corruption – must give way to a more civilized life wherein the higher expressions of the mind and better social conditions prevail.”
As I say, I hope you all had a great academic year, that your studies have helped to equip you for “…a more civilized life wherein the higher expressions of the mind and better social conditions prevail.” I am convinced that the Hellenizers who tortured and killed the seven sons and their mother in Maccabees were indeed as enslaved to their own weakness and corruption as Uganda’s degenerate king. The young men of the Old Testament outstripped their torturers in their hope and adherence to principle. St. Charles Lwanga and his companions had the further advantage through their catechism lessons and youthful life of faith of having come to know, love and serve Christ.
The self-oblation of the young men from Uganda must be one of the best possible examples of the glories of the true faith without admixture or ambiguity. I would never wish martyrdom on myself or on any of you, but I am willing to predict that if your faith-life is as straightforward and centered in the person of Jesus Christ as that of any one of those twenty-two boys, youths or young men, we’ll soon be resorting to phrases like “a new Pentecost” to describe the renaissance of Catholic life spreading across the Caribbean like wildfire.
What is ultimately attractive and inspiring? What causes the Gospel to be spread? The life of virtue and adherence to the Person of Christ most certainly! These are gifts of grace, things we learn, things we are trained in. We can identify such traits in ourselves and in others; we can come to live them better and better each day. Our Gospel summary for this Feast again: The poor in spirit, the gentle, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for what is right, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted in the cause of right… and all of this because of me, Jesus says, rejoice and be glad for heaven!
I don’t know how much the bishops share with you about their anxious prayers and efforts for the sake of the life of the Regional Seminary of St. John Vianney and the Uganda Martyrs. We can only speculate concerning what the present and ongoing crisis of the seminary is all about. Part of the problem and perhaps the reason crowds of young men are not knocking down the doors and begging to serve may be that young people have been deprived of the encounter with the Lord Jesus which Charles Lwanga and his companions were blessed to have had at the dawn of the evangelization of Sub-Saharan Africa. No, that is not possible! I don’t believe it! Rather, I would say that maybe there haven’t been enough Eli’s out there to tell the little boys named Samuel, sleeping in the Lord’s House at Shiloh, to simply lift up their heads and say, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening!”
The marvelous human traits of the Uganda Martyrs are present also in the youth of this region. God’s call of shepherds in sufficient number to tend the flock is guaranteed. We need more parents like Samuel’s mother who gave her son back to God no sooner than he was weaned and we need more Eli’s to say, “Boy, God is calling. Respond as you should!”
The nuncio prays for you and hopes at the close of this academic year that you’ll have a wonderful vacation or next stage in your life. Life only gets better when you allow the Lord, Who loves you more than yourself, to plot your course.
at the Regional Seminary of
St. John Vianney and the Uganda Martyrs
15 May 2008, 6:30 p.m.
Solemnity of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs
Reading I: 2 Maccabees 7:1-2.9-14
Reading II: 2 Cor. 4:7-15
Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12
The poor in spirit, the gentle, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for what is right, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted in the cause of right… and all of this because of me, Jesus says, rejoice and be glad for heaven!
Among my all-time favorites from the Second Readings in the Office of Readings of the Liturgy of Hours are two in the course of the year from Pope Paul VI, of blessed memory: one, assigned to the Feast of the Holy Family, comes from his talk in Nazareth about all the lessons to be learned from the school of the house of Jesus, Mary and Joseph at Nazareth; the other is from his 1964 homily at the canonization of the martyrs of Uganda.
Part of what thrills me about this excerpt from the Pope’s canonization homily is precisely the fact, that I (the Nuncio), a non-European, am hearing a great European sing the praises of another part of the world other than Europe. I am sure that Europeans are not and cannot be touched by the Pope’s message for the Feast of the Uganda Martyrs in the same way as I or most of us can. Let me quote the text ever so briefly:
“Who could have predicted to the famous African confessors and martyrs such as Cyprian, Felicity, Perpetua and – the greatest of all – Augustine, that we would one day add names so dear to us as Charles Lwanga and Matthias Mulumba Kalemba and their twenty companions?”
They were young men for the most part, whom the Church gladly identifies with the seven sons and their mother from the Book of Maccabees, and who in Christian art are often portrayed as the Black counterparts of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the three young men singing unharmed in the fiery furnace of Babylon. The reading from Pope Paul VI continues:
“The infamous crime by which these young men were put to death was so unspeakable and so expressive of the times. It shows us clearly that a new people needs a moral foundation, needs new spiritual customs firmly planted, to be handed down to posterity. Symbolically, this crime also reveals that a simple and rough way of life – enriched by many fine human qualities yet enslaved by its own weakness and corruption – must give way to a more civilized life wherein the higher expressions of the mind and better social conditions prevail.”
Hold that thought and let me switch gears for just a moment!
It is a commonly held opinion that today’s students, especially theology students, and major seminarians par excellence, are much more serious about learning than we were years ago. I’ve also read that your typical vocation to the priesthood today is more serious than we were once upon a time. I am glad for you, but also a bit puzzled and will try and explain myself by reflecting for a moment on your great patrons, the Uganda Martyrs.
The heroism of the young men in the Book of Maccabees, brutally tortured and killed for their refusal to eat pork from a pagan sacrifice in violation of God’s Covenant and Law given to Moses and the Chosen People always causes me to shudder, but I have no real problem understanding or accepting their zeal. They give evidence of the typical psychology or should we say appreciation of noble values as understood and embraced by boys, youths and young men of any day and time. Faith in the God of their ancestors was certainly the cornerstone of their sacrifice, but they were martyred essentially because of their adherence to the Commandments and dietary laws of Judaism which were concrete and judged worth holding. This they had learned at their mother’s knee. It is true the Book of Maccabees here and elsewhere offers us among the most articulate Jewish expressions of faith in a future resurrection, but central to these young men’s oblation was their adherence to the law of the God of their fathers.
The Uganda Martyrs, as the Pope points out so clearly, are of a piece with the great North African Martyrs and Saints of the early centuries, whose sacrifice is not described first and foremost by a strict adherence on their part to the observance of the Law but rather by their faith in Christ, to whom they had bound themselves firmly, bound themselves in love and fidelity, bound themselves to Jesus, to the Risen One, to the Victor over sin and death. They, the Uganda Martyrs like centuries of Christian martyrs before them, had embraced what the seven brothers and their mother could only salute from afar.
Recently in Curacao I had a conversation with a man I’d judge to be in his forties, who expressed optimism concerning the attractiveness of priesthood today as a vocational choice for young men here in our region. Even though he seemed to me to be a regular “man in the pew” my guess is that he had also heard as I had about this new generation of conscientious students and hardworking or more-dedicated-than-my-generation seminarians. I’m afraid I may have burst his optimism bubble, by insisting on the old faith imparted to me in primary school by Sister and by Father from the pulpit back when I was just a little boy in the 1950’s.
You see, I am a staunch believer in a timeless understanding of vocation, amply sustained by the descriptions of how men received their calling from God in both the Old and New Testaments. You’ll never convince me that the three basic prerequisites in a boy or young man for a priestly vocation have changed. What are they? They are very simply: 1. sound mind; 2. sound body; 3. somewhat better than average intelligence. Everything else that goes into a vocation is supernatural and mediated by the Church through the voice of authority. God called me to priesthood from my mother’s womb; He gave me the grace to respond; the Church confirmed the rightness of my childish, at first, later youthful and idealistic, longing. The Church trained me and ordained me and has never ceased in love to knock off all my rough edges and purify me, first and foremost for the service of the Altar.
The vocation or call to martyrdom in the act itself is as horrifying as Christ’s Passion. In the Light of Easter Sunday the sense of it all comes clear in God’s plan to raise us up, to save us and our world. Whether hung, drawn and quartered, flayed alive, stripped and locked away in a cold old starvation bunker in a concentration camp in Central Europe, impaled or burned facing the furious rejection of a blood relative who may be a temporal ruler but does not share our hope in Christ, we are talking in the martyr, male or female, child, youth or adult, we are talking in that person about the ultimate unto life’s blood witness of radical respect for the human person. We are talking about a new dignity and worth attributed to the human person through baptism into Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, Who in Himself has raised us to even greater nobility than that we had at the moment of the creation of our first parent. The New Testament or Christian martyr’s witness flows from a true love of God and neighbor. Death is swallowed up in death as we make up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ (to quote one of the most approved authors).
I hope and pray you all had a great academic year. Some people claim that studies are the ultimate bloodless martyrdom. Pope Paul VI would tell you that the Uganda Martyrs did not choose the path of confrontation but, when pressed to the wall and demanded to choose, chose Jesus. As little more than neophytes, barely graduated from the catechumenate, they were called by Christ. He made their hearts (boyish hearts, youngish or youthful hearts) his own. They knew the Commandments but more essentially they knew their Redeemer; they knew He would raise them up to life and never abandon them; they knew that whole, entire, glorified in the flesh they would with their own eyes see God.
“Symbolically, this crime also reveals that a simple and rough way of life – enriched by many fine human qualities yet enslaved by its own weakness and corruption – must give way to a more civilized life wherein the higher expressions of the mind and better social conditions prevail.”
As I say, I hope you all had a great academic year, that your studies have helped to equip you for “…a more civilized life wherein the higher expressions of the mind and better social conditions prevail.” I am convinced that the Hellenizers who tortured and killed the seven sons and their mother in Maccabees were indeed as enslaved to their own weakness and corruption as Uganda’s degenerate king. The young men of the Old Testament outstripped their torturers in their hope and adherence to principle. St. Charles Lwanga and his companions had the further advantage through their catechism lessons and youthful life of faith of having come to know, love and serve Christ.
The self-oblation of the young men from Uganda must be one of the best possible examples of the glories of the true faith without admixture or ambiguity. I would never wish martyrdom on myself or on any of you, but I am willing to predict that if your faith-life is as straightforward and centered in the person of Jesus Christ as that of any one of those twenty-two boys, youths or young men, we’ll soon be resorting to phrases like “a new Pentecost” to describe the renaissance of Catholic life spreading across the Caribbean like wildfire.
What is ultimately attractive and inspiring? What causes the Gospel to be spread? The life of virtue and adherence to the Person of Christ most certainly! These are gifts of grace, things we learn, things we are trained in. We can identify such traits in ourselves and in others; we can come to live them better and better each day. Our Gospel summary for this Feast again: The poor in spirit, the gentle, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for what is right, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted in the cause of right… and all of this because of me, Jesus says, rejoice and be glad for heaven!
I don’t know how much the bishops share with you about their anxious prayers and efforts for the sake of the life of the Regional Seminary of St. John Vianney and the Uganda Martyrs. We can only speculate concerning what the present and ongoing crisis of the seminary is all about. Part of the problem and perhaps the reason crowds of young men are not knocking down the doors and begging to serve may be that young people have been deprived of the encounter with the Lord Jesus which Charles Lwanga and his companions were blessed to have had at the dawn of the evangelization of Sub-Saharan Africa. No, that is not possible! I don’t believe it! Rather, I would say that maybe there haven’t been enough Eli’s out there to tell the little boys named Samuel, sleeping in the Lord’s House at Shiloh, to simply lift up their heads and say, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening!”
The marvelous human traits of the Uganda Martyrs are present also in the youth of this region. God’s call of shepherds in sufficient number to tend the flock is guaranteed. We need more parents like Samuel’s mother who gave her son back to God no sooner than he was weaned and we need more Eli’s to say, “Boy, God is calling. Respond as you should!”
The nuncio prays for you and hopes at the close of this academic year that you’ll have a wonderful vacation or next stage in your life. Life only gets better when you allow the Lord, Who loves you more than yourself, to plot your course.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Come and See
Jn. 1:35-42
“As John stood with two of his disciples, Jesus passed, and John stared hard at him and said, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God.’ Hearing this, the two disciples followed Jesus. Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, ‘What do you want?’ they answered, ‘Rabbi,’ – which means Teacher – ‘where do you live?’ ‘Come and see’ he replied; so they went and saw where he lived and stayed with him the rest of that day. It was about the tenth hour.
On of these two who became followers of Jesus after hearing what John had said was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. Early next morning, Andrew met his brother and said to him ‘We have found the Messiah’ – which means the Christ – and he took Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked hard at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John; you are to be called Cephas’ – meaning Rock.”
Normally and rightly so, I think, when it comes to analyzing what is lacking in the promotion of vocations to priesthood and the religious life we focus for an answer on the second paragraph of today’s Gospel reading. We say, just as Andrew took Simon to Jesus, so we (priests, parents, teachers, parishioners) must call forth the gifts in our children. We must lead them to Jesus. This paragraph teaches mightily about vocation as calling and about the discernment of vocations. Every moment and aspect of this paragraph from John’s Gospel offers us instruction on how a calling from God works within the community of the Church, which is the Body of Christ.
For some strange reason, this morning early as I prepared for Mass paragraph #1 was what struck me. It was not John the Baptist’s “Look, there is the lamb of God” but rather Andrew and the unnamed disciple who took off and followed Jesus who drew my attention. Their following the lamb of God takes on its content in the brief and poignant exchange with Jesus, but what struck me more was their responsiveness to John’s indication of who it was who was passing by. To be very brief, another and perhaps unexamined factor in the vocations equation, besides folks doing more to encourage young people to enter the seminary or the convent, is the variable “responsiveness”.
When I was in 8th grade at the Cathedral, the Bishop was planning the opening of his “Latin school”, his minor seminary, as requested by Blessed Pope John XXIII (Veterum sapientiae). It was decided that a photo opportunity at the construction site for the diocesan paper might be a good way to bring this event to the attention of all of the-out-of-town parishes, as well. The five town parishes and their Catholic grade schools came through very nicely and the photographer found himself with the bishop, all the priests from town and more than 40 eager 8th grade boys in the picture.
Two of us in that picture eventually got to the next stage: “‘What do you want?’ they answered, ‘Rabbi,’ – which means Teacher – ‘where do you live?’ ‘Come and see’…” and then at some point there was one from among those 40, but no matter, the rest of the parishes out-of-town did their part and eventually (13 years later) after 4 years without ordinations, the Bishop ordained 7 men to the priesthood, 4 of them from his “Latin school”.
Everyone in the Church plays a part in discerning vocations until ultimately the Bishop, on the advice of those charged with a man’s formation, speaks really and with certainty for God Himself and chooses “our brother here present for the order of presbyter”. But nothing happens if Andrew and the other disciple don’t take that first step. The responsiveness of the 40 boys posing for the old black and white photo at the construction site is a given and I fear that this is what is lacking many times today.
Even before that little boy tires of thoughts about being a cowboy or a fireman there has to be tilled ground ready for seeding. I fear that the noise level of our world today and all the distractions which take us out of the quieter, slow-paced world of once upon a time haven’t been sufficiently addressed. How can you even find the occasion with a 13 or 14 year old today to say, “You know, the diocese really needs priests, have you ever thought of the seminary?’
For now, I just want to throw this thought out to parents and educators: Are we giving our children the skills to compensate for all the distractions we foist upon them? Cell phones, Ipods, laptops and HDTV are not so novel that we can’t begin to work on strategies to guarantee children quiet time, play time outdoors and access to story books.
Andrew and the other disciple may have been confronted with other challenges in life, but they certainly didn’t have to worry about over stimulation blunting their responsiveness to a prophetic word spoken by John. Christ came in the fullness of time, but that time (Anno Domini) continues. There has to be a way to touch hearts and lives, to prepare the seed ground yet today.
“As John stood with two of his disciples, Jesus passed, and John stared hard at him and said, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God.’ Hearing this, the two disciples followed Jesus. Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, ‘What do you want?’ they answered, ‘Rabbi,’ – which means Teacher – ‘where do you live?’ ‘Come and see’ he replied; so they went and saw where he lived and stayed with him the rest of that day. It was about the tenth hour.
On of these two who became followers of Jesus after hearing what John had said was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. Early next morning, Andrew met his brother and said to him ‘We have found the Messiah’ – which means the Christ – and he took Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked hard at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John; you are to be called Cephas’ – meaning Rock.”
Normally and rightly so, I think, when it comes to analyzing what is lacking in the promotion of vocations to priesthood and the religious life we focus for an answer on the second paragraph of today’s Gospel reading. We say, just as Andrew took Simon to Jesus, so we (priests, parents, teachers, parishioners) must call forth the gifts in our children. We must lead them to Jesus. This paragraph teaches mightily about vocation as calling and about the discernment of vocations. Every moment and aspect of this paragraph from John’s Gospel offers us instruction on how a calling from God works within the community of the Church, which is the Body of Christ.
For some strange reason, this morning early as I prepared for Mass paragraph #1 was what struck me. It was not John the Baptist’s “Look, there is the lamb of God” but rather Andrew and the unnamed disciple who took off and followed Jesus who drew my attention. Their following the lamb of God takes on its content in the brief and poignant exchange with Jesus, but what struck me more was their responsiveness to John’s indication of who it was who was passing by. To be very brief, another and perhaps unexamined factor in the vocations equation, besides folks doing more to encourage young people to enter the seminary or the convent, is the variable “responsiveness”.
When I was in 8th grade at the Cathedral, the Bishop was planning the opening of his “Latin school”, his minor seminary, as requested by Blessed Pope John XXIII (Veterum sapientiae). It was decided that a photo opportunity at the construction site for the diocesan paper might be a good way to bring this event to the attention of all of the-out-of-town parishes, as well. The five town parishes and their Catholic grade schools came through very nicely and the photographer found himself with the bishop, all the priests from town and more than 40 eager 8th grade boys in the picture.
Two of us in that picture eventually got to the next stage: “‘What do you want?’ they answered, ‘Rabbi,’ – which means Teacher – ‘where do you live?’ ‘Come and see’…” and then at some point there was one from among those 40, but no matter, the rest of the parishes out-of-town did their part and eventually (13 years later) after 4 years without ordinations, the Bishop ordained 7 men to the priesthood, 4 of them from his “Latin school”.
Everyone in the Church plays a part in discerning vocations until ultimately the Bishop, on the advice of those charged with a man’s formation, speaks really and with certainty for God Himself and chooses “our brother here present for the order of presbyter”. But nothing happens if Andrew and the other disciple don’t take that first step. The responsiveness of the 40 boys posing for the old black and white photo at the construction site is a given and I fear that this is what is lacking many times today.
Even before that little boy tires of thoughts about being a cowboy or a fireman there has to be tilled ground ready for seeding. I fear that the noise level of our world today and all the distractions which take us out of the quieter, slow-paced world of once upon a time haven’t been sufficiently addressed. How can you even find the occasion with a 13 or 14 year old today to say, “You know, the diocese really needs priests, have you ever thought of the seminary?’
For now, I just want to throw this thought out to parents and educators: Are we giving our children the skills to compensate for all the distractions we foist upon them? Cell phones, Ipods, laptops and HDTV are not so novel that we can’t begin to work on strategies to guarantee children quiet time, play time outdoors and access to story books.
Andrew and the other disciple may have been confronted with other challenges in life, but they certainly didn’t have to worry about over stimulation blunting their responsiveness to a prophetic word spoken by John. Christ came in the fullness of time, but that time (Anno Domini) continues. There has to be a way to touch hearts and lives, to prepare the seed ground yet today.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
What Matters to God
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
4-5 August 2007, Hutchinson, Kansas
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish
“Vanity of vanities… Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and yet to another who has not labored over it, he must leave his property”.
“…seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”
“Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”
The readings for this Sunday lend themselves to a real rip-roaring sermon on detachment from material things. Just quoting Jesus’ words from today’s Gospel, I guess I could really come down hard on a congregation exhorting them not only to change their ways and seek first the kingdom of God, and I could also urge them to give of what they have to help those in need, instead of leaving it to their estate. Giving a tough sermon like that, however, is a job for the pastor and not for a guest like me, so I suppose you could say that Fr. Ned is getting off easy this week. He asked me to give a missionary sort of talk to you and I’ll try to do that not losing sight of the powerful message in these readings.
“Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”
What is it that matters to God? Who is it today who merits Jesus’ condemnation like the successful big farmer in the Gospel, if not the person in any walk of life and at any age who is totally caught up in himself or herself? The farmer with his storage barns for years to come is right in not worrying about next year’s drought. He’s wrong in concentrating on creature comforts as if having them was all there is to life. What are those things which “matter to God” in which we should be rich and thereby spare ourselves the Old Testament writer’s head shaking “vanity of vanities”? Let it be clear that we’re going much beyond the question posed in the First Reading of what’s the point of storing up this world’s goods with hard work and intelligence, if it means leaving them for someone else to squander? In asking what matters for God and how can I be a part of that kind of important business, I’m asking the profound and basic question concerning why I was placed on this earth and which is the way to the really big happiness which God has willed for me. It is certainly seeking God’s kingship over me, but more than that, it’s sharing joy; it’s sharing truth with all those I can. It’s sharing the wealth, not only in the material sense, but in terms of life and ideas. It’s what it means to be a missionary.
What is being missionary all about? It’s about reaching out beyond me and inviting others to know truth and share my joy. In that part of the world of today which we glorify with that funny expression “virtual reality” sharing truth and joy seems to be harder than it was in the past. People read blogs and listen to podcasts but the virtual nature of that sort of activity gives one the sense that things are just sort of out there, that people don’t really, I mean really, exchange ideas or reach out to one another.
The Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries were times when the missionary consciousness of the Catholic Church was truly dynamic. Not only were there lots of vocations to the missions from countries like France, but this was the time of the birth and growth in France and beyond of what we call today the Pontifical Mission Societies. We’re most familiar with two of them: the Propagation of the Faith, which manages the October Mission Sunday collections from around the world, and the Missionary Childhood, which works to involve small children in praying and sacrificing for the sake of other children their age in mission countries, that those children might come to know Jesus, too.
I can remember yet as a little boy in the 1950’s how strong the Missionary Society of the Holy Childhood was in our parish and school and how we used to save money and say our prayers for children elsewhere in the world that they too might come to know, love and serve God as Catholic Christians.
If I have a message for you today, that would be it. Namely, I would like to invite all here present to rediscover that kind of focus from the past now in the Twenty-first Century. My hope would be that all of you, young and old, might prize the spread of the Gospel more than creature comforts. That you would do something in proportion to your age and state in life to share the Good News about Jesus with someone else near or far.
That’s saying it a little too abruptly. In a sense you are already going beyond yourselves. You’re here today at Mass and I’m sure that you’re here on every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, offering God the praise He is due. I’m sure prayer is a part of your daily life as well, and that you strive to live a good and holy life. I’m sure that all of you parents have taught and are teaching your children their basic prayers; I am sure that you pray with them at mealtimes and most certainly also at bedtime – no doubt you talk to them about God Our Father, about Jesus, His Son and Our Lord, about Mary, the Virgin Mother of God and our Mother, too. I am confident that you all share the wealth of your faith, that you are all truly missionary, at home.
What I’m not so sure of is whether you are eager to share your faith with others farther afield, that you really are convinced that your life is at its best within the Church and that others would be happier too if they shared your same faith. I guess I’d like to see another “golden age” of missionary zeal in our day and time. I say this because I know that the little children who in significant numbers in 19th Century France dreamt of spreading the Gospel in North American or China haven’t crossed my path in the Midwest of the United States today. Whether such an environment of mission consciousness exists or not determines whether or not there will be the numerous vocations necessary to preach the Gospel to those who have not as yet heard about Jesus. I’m wondering too where the people will come from who will come to the part of the world where I serve and provide for those numbers which are missing. I had the great joy of seeing Father Boor the other day and he said that one of the big things he’s preaching about out in the Dodge City diocese where he’s helping out these days is vocations. He’s convinced and I’m sure he’s right that the Lord is calling more than enough young men and women in Western Kansas to be priests and sisters. They just have to hear the call and respond. The region of the Antilles Episcopal Conference, where I live, is not that fortunate for a lot of different reasons. The regional seminary is almost empty and that means that even if things were to turn around in a big way those good people (let’s say a million Catholics) have to face a whole generation without ordinations and desperately short of priests to celebrate Mass for them, hear their confessions and do all the things only priests can do for their people. The life of the Church in the Antilles is very much endangered.
The Caribbean is right on your door step. I’d ask you to keep your neighbors down south in your prayers. Let your prayer reach out in missionary fashion beyond your home and neighborhood.
“Lord, let the Gospel be alive in our hearts, in our parish, in our community, in our diocese. Lord, call forth priests from our parishes, from our families, from our homes for the service of your Church here in the diocese of Wichita, in the Dodge City diocese and farther afield. Lord, let the Gospel be proclaimed anew in the countries our ancestors came from. Lord, send workers into your harvest for the sake of your people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.”
4-5 August 2007, Hutchinson, Kansas
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish
“Vanity of vanities… Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and yet to another who has not labored over it, he must leave his property”.
“…seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”
“Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”
The readings for this Sunday lend themselves to a real rip-roaring sermon on detachment from material things. Just quoting Jesus’ words from today’s Gospel, I guess I could really come down hard on a congregation exhorting them not only to change their ways and seek first the kingdom of God, and I could also urge them to give of what they have to help those in need, instead of leaving it to their estate. Giving a tough sermon like that, however, is a job for the pastor and not for a guest like me, so I suppose you could say that Fr. Ned is getting off easy this week. He asked me to give a missionary sort of talk to you and I’ll try to do that not losing sight of the powerful message in these readings.
“Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”
What is it that matters to God? Who is it today who merits Jesus’ condemnation like the successful big farmer in the Gospel, if not the person in any walk of life and at any age who is totally caught up in himself or herself? The farmer with his storage barns for years to come is right in not worrying about next year’s drought. He’s wrong in concentrating on creature comforts as if having them was all there is to life. What are those things which “matter to God” in which we should be rich and thereby spare ourselves the Old Testament writer’s head shaking “vanity of vanities”? Let it be clear that we’re going much beyond the question posed in the First Reading of what’s the point of storing up this world’s goods with hard work and intelligence, if it means leaving them for someone else to squander? In asking what matters for God and how can I be a part of that kind of important business, I’m asking the profound and basic question concerning why I was placed on this earth and which is the way to the really big happiness which God has willed for me. It is certainly seeking God’s kingship over me, but more than that, it’s sharing joy; it’s sharing truth with all those I can. It’s sharing the wealth, not only in the material sense, but in terms of life and ideas. It’s what it means to be a missionary.
What is being missionary all about? It’s about reaching out beyond me and inviting others to know truth and share my joy. In that part of the world of today which we glorify with that funny expression “virtual reality” sharing truth and joy seems to be harder than it was in the past. People read blogs and listen to podcasts but the virtual nature of that sort of activity gives one the sense that things are just sort of out there, that people don’t really, I mean really, exchange ideas or reach out to one another.
The Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries were times when the missionary consciousness of the Catholic Church was truly dynamic. Not only were there lots of vocations to the missions from countries like France, but this was the time of the birth and growth in France and beyond of what we call today the Pontifical Mission Societies. We’re most familiar with two of them: the Propagation of the Faith, which manages the October Mission Sunday collections from around the world, and the Missionary Childhood, which works to involve small children in praying and sacrificing for the sake of other children their age in mission countries, that those children might come to know Jesus, too.
I can remember yet as a little boy in the 1950’s how strong the Missionary Society of the Holy Childhood was in our parish and school and how we used to save money and say our prayers for children elsewhere in the world that they too might come to know, love and serve God as Catholic Christians.
If I have a message for you today, that would be it. Namely, I would like to invite all here present to rediscover that kind of focus from the past now in the Twenty-first Century. My hope would be that all of you, young and old, might prize the spread of the Gospel more than creature comforts. That you would do something in proportion to your age and state in life to share the Good News about Jesus with someone else near or far.
That’s saying it a little too abruptly. In a sense you are already going beyond yourselves. You’re here today at Mass and I’m sure that you’re here on every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, offering God the praise He is due. I’m sure prayer is a part of your daily life as well, and that you strive to live a good and holy life. I’m sure that all of you parents have taught and are teaching your children their basic prayers; I am sure that you pray with them at mealtimes and most certainly also at bedtime – no doubt you talk to them about God Our Father, about Jesus, His Son and Our Lord, about Mary, the Virgin Mother of God and our Mother, too. I am confident that you all share the wealth of your faith, that you are all truly missionary, at home.
What I’m not so sure of is whether you are eager to share your faith with others farther afield, that you really are convinced that your life is at its best within the Church and that others would be happier too if they shared your same faith. I guess I’d like to see another “golden age” of missionary zeal in our day and time. I say this because I know that the little children who in significant numbers in 19th Century France dreamt of spreading the Gospel in North American or China haven’t crossed my path in the Midwest of the United States today. Whether such an environment of mission consciousness exists or not determines whether or not there will be the numerous vocations necessary to preach the Gospel to those who have not as yet heard about Jesus. I’m wondering too where the people will come from who will come to the part of the world where I serve and provide for those numbers which are missing. I had the great joy of seeing Father Boor the other day and he said that one of the big things he’s preaching about out in the Dodge City diocese where he’s helping out these days is vocations. He’s convinced and I’m sure he’s right that the Lord is calling more than enough young men and women in Western Kansas to be priests and sisters. They just have to hear the call and respond. The region of the Antilles Episcopal Conference, where I live, is not that fortunate for a lot of different reasons. The regional seminary is almost empty and that means that even if things were to turn around in a big way those good people (let’s say a million Catholics) have to face a whole generation without ordinations and desperately short of priests to celebrate Mass for them, hear their confessions and do all the things only priests can do for their people. The life of the Church in the Antilles is very much endangered.
The Caribbean is right on your door step. I’d ask you to keep your neighbors down south in your prayers. Let your prayer reach out in missionary fashion beyond your home and neighborhood.
“Lord, let the Gospel be alive in our hearts, in our parish, in our community, in our diocese. Lord, call forth priests from our parishes, from our families, from our homes for the service of your Church here in the diocese of Wichita, in the Dodge City diocese and farther afield. Lord, let the Gospel be proclaimed anew in the countries our ancestors came from. Lord, send workers into your harvest for the sake of your people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Saturday, April 28, 2007
The Good Shepherd calls His own
Fourth Sunday of Easter
“Good Shepherd Sunday” – 29 April 2007
Rosary Monastery, St. Ann’s
Port of Spain
Homily
“Paul and Barnabas urged them to remain faithful to the grace God had given them.”
“I have made you a light for the nations, so that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth.”
“…the Lamb who is at the throne will be their shepherd and will lead them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
“The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; …they will never be lost and no one will ever steal them from me.”
Good Shepherd Sunday, as today is called, is dedicated to prayer for vocations, especially to priesthood and the religious life. We need to beseech God for religious and priestly vocations, but we also need to know why we ask this of Him.
If he were here to defend himself, Fr. Tiernan would probably correct me if I said that in the Ireland of his boyhood, the “why” of his vocation and that of so many other boys his age and older who went to the seminary was self-evident. Maybe it wasn’t. One thing however was clear still yet when my generation was hearing about such things 20 years later at school. Earlier generations had a more realistic idea of the prerequisites for a vocation to the priesthood, for example, than boys or young men do today.
We were told in religion class or catechism that the prerequisites for a priestly vocation were a sound mind and a sound body, a little better than average intelligence, and that was it. I can remember puzzling over that, because it didn’t seem all that romantic or supernatural, but it certainly was reassuring. Even I can be a priest, if God wants me.
You see, the point is that God calls. Years ago there was a brand of canned tuna which advertised on TV with a cartoon character named “Charlie, the Tuna”, who was always trying something new to get caught by the Starkist Tuna fishing boat. Sometimes he’d dress up, sometimes he’d be reading a book or playing a violin, but whenever he made a grab for the hook, it’d get away from him and come back with a note on it reading, “Sorry, Charlie, Starkist doesn’t want tuna with good taste, it wants tuna that tastes good!” It’s the same with vocations. God knows the heart, He knows us inside out and He is the one who calls us.
I was in Bermuda last weekend for the Annual Plenary Meeting of the Antilles Episcopal Conference (AEC). One of the big concerns which all the bishops shared was the scarcity of vocations to the priesthood here in the region. Aren’t there any? Aren’t there any young men around for the seminary? Isn’t God calling? Is He silent for some reason? The fact that we raise our prayer to God for vocations on Good Shepherd Sunday is in and of itself a partial answer to such questions. Of course there are vocations; of course God still calls and calls in sufficient numbers for the needs of the local Church and perhaps even for a mission outreach to people elsewhere; God does not leave His flock untended. He continues in our day and time to lead us to everlasting life in the community of the Church. Servants of His altar cannot be lacking. But…? But what?
In today’s Gospel we have the same thought: “The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; …they will never be lost and no one will ever steal them from me.”
The gates of hell will not prevail against the Church and one of the practical applications of that teaching is the assurance that God will call sufficient men to serve at His altars.
Lots of times people will try to tell you that priests and bishops are the key to calling forth the next generation of vocations and the crisis of identity of priests is at the heart of the vocations crisis. Needless to say, this observation has some merit, but it does not contain the whole truth. As a little boy, I think I learned my appreciation for the priests, my respect and even awe for them at home. Until I became a priest myself at 25 years of age, I can count on one hand the number of priests who visited our family at home. Back then, Father didn’t greet at the door of the church after Mass either. There wasn’t much personal contact. But before he even spoke, I knew Father was important and he had a special part to play in God’s Universe. I learned that as a small child at home and the message was confirmed for me at school. Add to that the fact that even as a ten year old I could see I was healthy and everybody told me I had a better than average intelligence, and well, God did call me and He continues to call us from our mother’s womb as it is said.
I’ve read books that recount the story of so called belated or adult vocations. They’ll always talk about how they honestly fought their vocation, not because they didn’t want to be a priest, but because they couldn’t imagine themselves that way or felt themselves unworthy. They were stopping their ears, in a sense, and refusing to listen to God’s call as it came forth ever so subtly from their hearts and was confirmed by family, friends and teachers, who didn’t necessarily push, but pointed to a real possibility in life for them.
Faithfulness/perseverance in the priesthood or in the religious life is also rooted in lessons learned at home from Mommy and Daddy. Parents and their happiness in marriage are positive input for a call to celibacy or virginity. The Sacrament of Matrimony mirrors divine love and offers most of us the only experience of the sacrificial love of Jesus that we might readily have in life as young persons.
TV, Internet, certain types of live entertainment and music tend to drown silence out of our lives and fill our heads sometimes with wrong things and too often with distractions. What to do? Pray for yourself! Lord, help me to clear my ears, eyes and head.
The other day, in the gate area of Terminal A in Miami, waiting for my flight back to Port of Spain, I looked up from my book for a moment and everyone around me was talking on a cell phone, all ages, shapes and sizes. Truth to be told, I’d wished I’d had a cell phone the day before in New York where I couldn’t find a pay phone that worked. But back to our prayer: Lord, open my ears and my heart. Lord, touch the heart of that boy in the pew in front of me! Lord, call my grandson, if it be your will!
I can remember getting a little kind of sticker, slightly bigger than a bookmark that someone gave me when I was about ten which had the prayer on it: “Oh Lord, grant that I might become a priest after Thine own Heart.” I dare any boy or man here who has not committed himself yet in life to kneel down each night before you climb into bed and see if God doesn’t take you up on your offer if you sincerely recite that prayer, all other things (sound mind and body, better than average intelligence) being equal!
“Good Shepherd Sunday” – 29 April 2007
Rosary Monastery, St. Ann’s
Port of Spain
Homily
“Paul and Barnabas urged them to remain faithful to the grace God had given them.”
“I have made you a light for the nations, so that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth.”
“…the Lamb who is at the throne will be their shepherd and will lead them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
“The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; …they will never be lost and no one will ever steal them from me.”
Good Shepherd Sunday, as today is called, is dedicated to prayer for vocations, especially to priesthood and the religious life. We need to beseech God for religious and priestly vocations, but we also need to know why we ask this of Him.
If he were here to defend himself, Fr. Tiernan would probably correct me if I said that in the Ireland of his boyhood, the “why” of his vocation and that of so many other boys his age and older who went to the seminary was self-evident. Maybe it wasn’t. One thing however was clear still yet when my generation was hearing about such things 20 years later at school. Earlier generations had a more realistic idea of the prerequisites for a vocation to the priesthood, for example, than boys or young men do today.
We were told in religion class or catechism that the prerequisites for a priestly vocation were a sound mind and a sound body, a little better than average intelligence, and that was it. I can remember puzzling over that, because it didn’t seem all that romantic or supernatural, but it certainly was reassuring. Even I can be a priest, if God wants me.
You see, the point is that God calls. Years ago there was a brand of canned tuna which advertised on TV with a cartoon character named “Charlie, the Tuna”, who was always trying something new to get caught by the Starkist Tuna fishing boat. Sometimes he’d dress up, sometimes he’d be reading a book or playing a violin, but whenever he made a grab for the hook, it’d get away from him and come back with a note on it reading, “Sorry, Charlie, Starkist doesn’t want tuna with good taste, it wants tuna that tastes good!” It’s the same with vocations. God knows the heart, He knows us inside out and He is the one who calls us.
I was in Bermuda last weekend for the Annual Plenary Meeting of the Antilles Episcopal Conference (AEC). One of the big concerns which all the bishops shared was the scarcity of vocations to the priesthood here in the region. Aren’t there any? Aren’t there any young men around for the seminary? Isn’t God calling? Is He silent for some reason? The fact that we raise our prayer to God for vocations on Good Shepherd Sunday is in and of itself a partial answer to such questions. Of course there are vocations; of course God still calls and calls in sufficient numbers for the needs of the local Church and perhaps even for a mission outreach to people elsewhere; God does not leave His flock untended. He continues in our day and time to lead us to everlasting life in the community of the Church. Servants of His altar cannot be lacking. But…? But what?
In today’s Gospel we have the same thought: “The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; …they will never be lost and no one will ever steal them from me.”
The gates of hell will not prevail against the Church and one of the practical applications of that teaching is the assurance that God will call sufficient men to serve at His altars.
Lots of times people will try to tell you that priests and bishops are the key to calling forth the next generation of vocations and the crisis of identity of priests is at the heart of the vocations crisis. Needless to say, this observation has some merit, but it does not contain the whole truth. As a little boy, I think I learned my appreciation for the priests, my respect and even awe for them at home. Until I became a priest myself at 25 years of age, I can count on one hand the number of priests who visited our family at home. Back then, Father didn’t greet at the door of the church after Mass either. There wasn’t much personal contact. But before he even spoke, I knew Father was important and he had a special part to play in God’s Universe. I learned that as a small child at home and the message was confirmed for me at school. Add to that the fact that even as a ten year old I could see I was healthy and everybody told me I had a better than average intelligence, and well, God did call me and He continues to call us from our mother’s womb as it is said.
I’ve read books that recount the story of so called belated or adult vocations. They’ll always talk about how they honestly fought their vocation, not because they didn’t want to be a priest, but because they couldn’t imagine themselves that way or felt themselves unworthy. They were stopping their ears, in a sense, and refusing to listen to God’s call as it came forth ever so subtly from their hearts and was confirmed by family, friends and teachers, who didn’t necessarily push, but pointed to a real possibility in life for them.
Faithfulness/perseverance in the priesthood or in the religious life is also rooted in lessons learned at home from Mommy and Daddy. Parents and their happiness in marriage are positive input for a call to celibacy or virginity. The Sacrament of Matrimony mirrors divine love and offers most of us the only experience of the sacrificial love of Jesus that we might readily have in life as young persons.
TV, Internet, certain types of live entertainment and music tend to drown silence out of our lives and fill our heads sometimes with wrong things and too often with distractions. What to do? Pray for yourself! Lord, help me to clear my ears, eyes and head.
The other day, in the gate area of Terminal A in Miami, waiting for my flight back to Port of Spain, I looked up from my book for a moment and everyone around me was talking on a cell phone, all ages, shapes and sizes. Truth to be told, I’d wished I’d had a cell phone the day before in New York where I couldn’t find a pay phone that worked. But back to our prayer: Lord, open my ears and my heart. Lord, touch the heart of that boy in the pew in front of me! Lord, call my grandson, if it be your will!
I can remember getting a little kind of sticker, slightly bigger than a bookmark that someone gave me when I was about ten which had the prayer on it: “Oh Lord, grant that I might become a priest after Thine own Heart.” I dare any boy or man here who has not committed himself yet in life to kneel down each night before you climb into bed and see if God doesn’t take you up on your offer if you sincerely recite that prayer, all other things (sound mind and body, better than average intelligence) being equal!
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