Jesuit Ordinations

This morning five Jesuits of what in two years will be the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus were ordained in Milwaukee.  I was there in the Church of the Gesu where I was ordained almost 31 years ago.  Celebrating the ordinations there always brings back memories of my own, especially this year when Milwaukee’s emeritus auxiliary bishop, Richard Sklba, who ordained me, presided.  As I entered the church and greeted Bishop Sklba, he said that last night he went over the list of those he had ordained and he pointed to me, indicating that he had thought about and prayed for me. 

This year, in addition to the moment when I laid hands on each of the five Jesuits, I was moved by two other things. 

One was the instruction that Bishop Sklba gave when the newly ordained priests knelt before him to receive the paten and chalice which had just been brought up by family members at the Presentation of the Gifts. He said: “Receive from the Holy People of God the gifts to be offered to God. Know what you do, imitate what you celebrate, and conform your life to the cross.”

These words spoke to me of sacrifice. I was reminded of words from St. John XXIII’s encyclical “On the Priesthood,” written for the centenary of St. John Vianney’s death. He quoted Pope Pius XII: “Just as the entire life of Our Savior was ordered to the sacrifice of Himself, so likewise the life of the priest, who ought to bring out the image of Christ in himself, must be made a pleasing sacrifice with Him, in Him, and through Him…. For this reason he must not only celebrate the Eucharistic Sacrifice, but even in a certain intimate way live it. For thus he can obtain that heavenly strength by which it comes about that he is entirely transformed and shares in the expiatory life of the Divine Redeemer Himself.”  And, St. John added this further quote from Pope Pius XII: “Thus it is necessary that the priestly soul should strive to reproduce in itself whatever is accomplished on the altar of sacrifice.”

After Communion there was reflection song written by the Filipino Jesuit Manoling Francisco called “Your Heart Today.”  It spoke of having a heart like the Heart of Jesus, the priestly heart which all the baptized faithful—lay and ordained—are called to have.  That priestly heart is a heart that is willing to give all, to sacrifice all for others.  It is a heart that is broken as it commits itself to healing a broken world.  It is a heart conformed to the Pierced Heart of Jesus.  Here are the lyrics:

WHERE THERE IS FEAR, I CAN ALLAY
WHERE THERE IS PAIN, I CAN HEAL
WHERE THERE ARE WOUNDS, I CAN BIND
AND HUNGER, I CAN FILL

REFRAIN:

LORD, GRANT ME COURAGE
LORD, GRANT ME STRENGTH
GRANT ME COMPASSION
THAT I MAY BE YOUR HEART TODAY

WHERE THERE IS HATE, I CAN CONFRONT
WHERE THERE ARE YOKES, I CAN RELEASE
WHERE THERE ARE CAPTIVES, I CAN FREE
AND ANGER, I CAN APPEASE

REFRAIN

BRIDGE:

WHEN COMES THE DAY I DREAD
TO SEE A BROKEN WORLD
COMPEL ME FROM MY CELL GROWN COLD
THAT YOUR PEOPLE I MAY BEHOLD

WHERE THERE IS FEAR, I CAN ALLAY
WHERE THERE IS PAIN, I CAN HEAL
WHERE THERE ARE WOUNDS, I CAN BIND
AND HUNGER, I CAN FILL

REFRAIN

AND WHEN I’VE DONE, ALL THAT I COULD
YET THERE ARE HEARTS, I CANNOT MOVE
LORD GIVE ME HOPE
THAT I MAY BE YOUR HEART TODAY

The Name, the Heart, and the Blood

This month’s First Friday falls on the feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus.  In 1969 this feast was

removed from the liturgical calendar but was restored in 2002.

A name represents that person, his or her identity.  According to Matthew 1:21, Joseph was directed by an angel to call Mary’s son “Jesus,” a name that means “God saves.” This is Jesus’ identity. He is the Savior of the world. As such His Name is “above every name” and is the name at which “every knee should bend” (Philippians 2:9-10). Moreover, according to a speech that St. Peter gave in front of the Sanhedrin, “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved” (Acts: 4:12).  The Name of Jesus says it all and is all-powerful. It’s a prayer in itself.

As Jesus can be represented by His Name, so He is also represented by His Heart. The heart is the center of person, that person’s deepest interior or identity. Thus devotion to the Name of Jesus goes with devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Jesus fulfilled the Name given to Him when He suffered and died on the cross, when His Heart was pierced so that Blood and Water, the sacramental life of the Church, would flow forth and save the world. 

Devotion to Jesus’ Name and Heart includes devotion to His Precious Blood. These three go together: the Name, the Heart, and the Blood. In fact, Blessed, soon-to-be Saint, John XXIII wrote about this in a June 30, 1960 letter entitled “On Promoting Devotion to the Most Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He wrote:

“We judge it most timely to call our beloved children's attention to the unbreakable bond which must exist between the devotions to the Most Holy Name and Most Sacred Heart of Jesus -- already so widespread among Christians -- and devotion to the incarnate Word's Most Precious Blood, ‘shed for many, to the remission of sins.’

“Suffice it to recall the spiritual favors that our predecessors from the sixteenth century on have attached to practicing devotion to the Most Holy Name of Jesus, which in the previous century St. Bernardine of Siena untiringly spread throughout Italy. No less striking are the benefits the popes have attached to practicing devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose rise and spread owe so much to the revelations of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. So highly have all the popes regarded this devotion that again and again in their official acts they have expounded its nature, defended its validity, promoted its practice.  

“Likewise the devotion to the Most Precious Blood, which owes its marvelous diffusion to the 19th-century Roman priest, St. Gaspar del Bufalo, has rightly merited the approval and backing of this Apostolic See.

“Amid today's most serious and pressing spiritual needs, may this latest exercise of that ‘care for all the churches’ proper to our sovereign office awaken in Christian hearts a firm conviction about the supreme abiding effectiveness of these three devotions.”

Jesus—the Name, the Heart, and the Blood that flowed from it to save the world—all represent the Person. May the Name of Jesus be reverenced and honored at all times and places world without end. Amen.

Happy Anniversary

Today is the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council.  Pope Benedict XVI chose this anniversary as the day on which the Year of Faith would begin.  In his letter announcing the Year of Faith, the Holy Father spoke of these themes:  "a profound crisis of faith" in the world; the necessity of the "profession of the truth faith and its correct interpretation;" "authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord;" and the need "to rediscover the joy of believing and the enthusiasm for communicating the faith."  It's no accident that Pope Benedict chose this date for the beginning of the Year of Faith because those are themes that appeared in Blessed Pope John XXIII's address at the opening of the Council on October 11, 1962.  Here are some brief excerpts from that address which are as timely today as they were 50 years ago.

Pope John XXIII's reason for calling the Council

"And now the Church must once more reaffirm that teaching authority of hers which never fails, but will endure until the end of time.  For that was Our reason for calling this most authoritative assembly...."

"The major interest of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred heritage of Christian truth be safeguarded and expounded with greater efficacy.  That doctrine embraces the whole man, body and soul. It bids us live as pilgrims here on earth as we journey onwards towards our heavenly homeland. It demonstrates how we must conduct this mortal life of ours.  If we are to achieve God's purpose in our regard we have a twofold obligation: as citizens of earth, and as citizens of heaven.  That is to say, all men without exception, both individually and in society, have a life-long obligation to strive after heavenly values through the right use of things of this earth.  These temporal good must be used in such a way as not to jeopardize eternal happiness." 

"And our duty is not just to guard this treasure [of the truth of the Church's doctrine], as though it were some museum-piece and we the curators, but earnestly and fearlessly to dedicate ourselves to the work that needs to be done in this modern age of ours, pursuing the path which the Church has followed for almost twenty centuries." 

What is needed is to turn to Christ and to share the faith with enthusiasm

"Certain it is that the critical issues, the thorny problems that wait upon men's solution, have remained the same for almost twenty centuries. And why? Because the whole of history and of life hinges on the person of Jesus Christ. Either men anchor themselves on Him and His Church, and thus enjoy the blessings of light and joy, right order and peace; or they live their lives apart from Him; many positively oppose Him, and deliberately exclude themselves from the Church. The result can only be confusion in their lives, bitterness in their relations with one another, and the savage threat of war."

"What is needed at the present time is a new enthusiasm, a new joy and serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire Christian faith, without forfeiting that accuracy and precision in its presentation which characterized the proceedings of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council. What is needed, and what everyone imbued with a truly Christian, Catholic and apostolic spirit craves today, is that this doctrine shall be more widely known, more deeply understood, and more penetrating in its effects on men's moral lives. What is needed is that this certain and immutable doctrine, to which the faithful owe obedience, be studied afresh and reformulated in contemporary terms. For this deposit of faith, or truths which are contained in our time-honored teaching is one thing; the manner in which these truths are set forth (with their meaning preserved intact) is something else."


In these words of Blessed John XXIII there are clear echoes of what has come to be known as the "New Evangelization."  Christ is not new.  The contents of the faith are not new.  What is new is the enthusiasm with which the faithful ought to believe and to share their faith.  What is new is the method with which the Church communicates its knowledge to a world in desperate need of the faith that leads to love of God and neighbor.  May this anniversary and the Year of Faith inspire us all!

Saint Joseph

This is one of my favorite pictures of St. Joseph. The artist is Christopher Santer and some of his works, including 75 drawings of various saints, can be found at Pacem Studio. I've used this painting on retreats when I talk about the Hidden Life of Jesus and His relationship with St. Joseph. Very often retreatants look at this image and feel deep sadness and pain because they didn't have the warm relationship with their fathers that is depicted here. Their fathers worked hard to support the family but were both physically and emotionally absent from them. Or else they say that the obvious pride on the face of Joseph is just the opposite of what they experienced from their fathers whom they never seemed able to please. In these situations I tell people that they can turn to St. Joseph for healing. He was the foster-father of Jesus and he can be our foster-father as well. We can turn to him and ask him to fill the emptiness left by an absent father and foster the healing of the pain of a difficult childhood.

St. Joseph is certainly one of our most popular saints. We talked about him on Relevant Radio's Inner Life show today and asked people to call in with their stories about how St. Joseph had helped them or their families. There were calls throughout the one hour show and even the following Facebook post that was written before the show:

"Wish I could tune in! My family has claimed St. Joseph as our patron saint ever since we were drawn to him when my husband lost his job a few years ago. St. Joseph helped to ease our anxieties and showed us how to trust in God in all things, just like he was told by the angel to not leave Mary's side after he found out she would have a baby. Sometimes you just have to let go of the reins and put all your trust in God! Not "sometimes." All the time. After we began daily prayers to St. Joseph, it was only a few weeks before the interviews started pouring in, and two months later my husband started his new job! Praise God and thank you St. Joseph for your mighty intercession."

In preparing for the show and celebrating St. Joseph's feast today, I learned that Blessed Pope John XXIII, the same pope who in 1962 inserted the name of St. Joseph into Eucharist Prayer I, the Roman Canon, chose St. Joseph to be the protector of the Second Vatican Council in an apostolic letter he wrote on March 19, 1961.

St. Joseph is known as the "just man" and the "man of faith." I can't help thinking that Pope Benedict, whose baptismal name is "Joseph," will ask his patron saint to play a special role in the upcoming Year of Faith which will begin on October 11, the 50th anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council.

I enjoy "word play" and so was interested to see Pope Benedict engage in it in a homily he gave during the Vespers celebration for the feast of St. Joseph when he visited Africa in 2009. He said: "In Joseph, faith is not separated from action. His faith had a decisive effect on his actions. Paradoxically, it was by acting, by carrying out his responsibilities, that he stepped aside and left God free to act, placing no obstacles in his way. Joseph is a 'just man' (Mt 1: 19) because his existence is 'ad-justed' to the word of God."

May St. Joseph help us all "ad-just" to the word of God so that we may become truly just and righteous people!