"When I Am Lifted Up..."

I'm giving a parish mission at St. Alphonsus Liguori Parish in Zionsville, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis but part of the Lafayette Diocese. It's a very active parish and their website is phenomenal. One could make it a home page just for all the resources it has. My mission is based on Pope Benedict's Apostolic Exhortation "Sacramentum Caritatis" and each night I'm covering one of the three ways that the Holy Father describes the Eucharist: a Mystery to be Believed, Celebrated, and Lived. I'm also preaching at the 9 AM Mass each day.

Today I talked about the serpent on the pole and Jesus on the cross. Both are sources of healing but how very different each one is. In the first reading at Mass (Numbers 21: 4-9) Moses took the image of a serpent (which had bitten the complaining Israelites) and mounted it on a pole. "Whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived." The symbol of punishment, sin, evil, and death became the source of healing.

In the Gospel (John 8: 21-30) Jesus declared, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM...." Jesus, the innocent one and author of life, when lifted up on the cross, will become the source of life for all who acknowledge him as God. I couldn't help thinking of the crucifixion scene in an old movie where the centurion next to the cross, played by John Wayne, says "Truly, this was the Son of God!" (Matthew 27: 54). Jesus is "I AM," the name God revealed to Moses (Exodus 3: 13-15).

How is it that these two passages go together and that Jesus Himself used the passage from Numbers to refer to himself: "And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3: 14-15)? Two passages from St. Paul can help us here. First, Galatians 3: 13: "Christ ransomed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, 'Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree.'" And secondly, 2 Corinthians 5: 20: "For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him." In other words, Jesus took sin and death into himself and in that way destroyed them because he, the innocent one and author of life, had the power to do so.

This action of Jesus is given to us anew in every Mass when Jesus is lifted up again. His passion and death are made present every time we celebrate Mass. In his being lifted up at the Consecration, sin and death are overcome and we believe in him. One way that people have traditionally expressed that belief is to silently pray, when the host is lifted up and then when the cup is lifted up, the words of St. Thomas: "My Lord and my God!" (John 20: 28). This is essential to what we believe about the Eucharist. Our belief is not only that bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, but that every Mass makes present the saving action of Jesus on Calvary. Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter announcing the Year of the Eucharist Mane Nobiscum Domine (#15), put it this way:

There is no doubt that the most evident dimension of the Eucharist is that it is a meal. ... Yet it must not be forgotten that the Eucharistic meal also has a profoundly and primarily sacrificial meaning. In the Eucharist, Christ makes present to us anew the sacrifice offered once for all on Golgotha. Present in the Eucharist as the Risen Lord, he nonetheless bears the marks of his passion, of which every Mass is a "memorial"....

Hearts on Fire in South Bend

Last Friday night and Saturday morning I joined Fr. Phil Hurley, the Apostleship of Prayer's youth and young adult director, and three other Jesuits (aka the Jesuit Mission Band which included Michael Rossman and Joseph Simmons, both Jesuit scholastics or seminarians studying at Loyola in Chicago, and Fr. Brian Dunkle, a doctoral student at Notre Dame) for a "Hearts on Fire" event at the Sacred Heart Pastoral Center next to Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. These events for young adults began last summer and we have been able to continue them during the school year at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan and at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York). Next summer Fr. Phil and the Jesuit Mission Band will go to five East Coast Cities before going to World Youth Day where they will team up with the Knights of Columbus, the Sisters of Life, and several other groups at a site called the "Love and Life Center." A recent issue of the Knights of Columbus magazine Columbia had an article about all this. The Jesuit Mission Band will be giving presentations there throughout World Youth Day.

The South Bend event was my first experience of the "Hearts on Fire" retreat which includes talks, prayer, music, and a coffee house setting for socializing on Friday night. I was very impressed with how the retreat combined, in such a short time, key elements of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and the offering and heart-centered spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer. Over 60 young adults came to the South Bend event and it was a blessing for me to be with them for part of their retreat.

Abundant Water

Today's first reading from the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapter 47, paints a picture of a tiny trickle of water that flows "from the right side of the temple" and becomes a river so high that it cannot "be crossed except by swimming." This water freshens and heals everything that comes into contact with it. Since this was the vision of a prophet, it's fair to ask, when was this prophetic vision fulfilled?

On Good Friday.

In John's Gospel, at what is called "The Cleansing of the Temple," Jesus said: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up" (2: 19). Verse 21 explains: "he was speaking about the temple of his body." It was from this body, this temple, that the water which Ezekiel saw came forth. After His death, when the side of Jesus was pierced by a soldier's spear, "immediately blood and water flowed out" (John 19: 34). The Heart of Jesus is the source of the abundant water that freshens and heals. From His Heart, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to renew the face of the earth by transforming all who are baptized, all who are "born of water and Spirit" (John 3: 5).


Praise the Sacred and life-giving Heart of Jesus!

How Does God Delight in You?

At 6 AM the storms rolled through Fenton, MO where I'm giving a parish mission, but no tornado. I preached at the 8 AM Mass and here's the gist of what I said. The readings of the day are Isaiah 65: 17-21 and John 4: 43-54.

When I was about four years old I was at my grandparents' house and was chasing my cousin Ronny around the dining room table. My father said, "Cut it out," and after a minute or so of obedience I started chasing Ronny again. I tripped on the rug, hit my head on the table, and started crying. My father said, "See. God punished you." This experience formed the way I saw God. I thought of God watching me, just waiting to catch me in some misbehavior and when He caught me, He would judge me and then punish me. God was policeman, judge, and executioner all rolled into one.

Our readings today give us a different image. Isaiah predicts that God's people will "be a delight," that God will rejoice and exult over them. One of the Sunday Prefaces during Ordinary Time says that the Father sees and loves in us what He sees and loves in Christ, His Son. That is because through baptism we have been joined to Christ. Yes, we are not perfect. Yes, we need mercy and healing. But in Jesus we receive that mercy and healing.

God made us for love, for union with Himself. He sent Jesus who performed "signs" like the healing of a servant in today's Gospel. John called this the "second sign" of Jesus. A sign points to something. The signs of Jesus point to two things: that He has divine power and that He has come to use that power for love, for healing. While physical healing is good, it is actually temporary because in the end we will all die. That's why Jesus enjoys healing people spiritually even more than healing them physically. He loves to touch the immortal part of ourselves and to bring mercy to our ailing spirits.

Most of us are "Half Empty People." You know the image: when you look at a glass, do you see that it's half empty or half full? Most of us tend to focus on what is missing, what is wrong. Today, why not take a moment to focus on the other part? Focus on the good that is there. Imagine God delighting in that good. Think for a moment: what are you doing that gives God delight? What is it about you that gives God delight? Savor that thought for a bit and be inspired to give delight to Him, always.

St. Paul's in Fenton

I'm at St. Paul's Church in Fenton, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, where I preached at five Masses this weekend in order to drum up interest in the parish mission which will begin tomorrow evening and go through Thursday evening. On Monday night I'll be talking about "The Transforming Power of Baptism" and then on each of the successive evenings I'll talk about the Baptismal call to be prophets, priests, and kings or royal people.

It's providential that the pastor, Msgr. Michael Dieckmann, asked for this topic when I presented him some options a year ago. Baptism was the focus of Pope Benedict's message for Lent this year. In the first part of his message, the Holy Father wrote: "Baptism is not a rite from the past, but the encounter with Christ, which informs the entire existence of the baptized, imparting divine life...." We don't reflect on this enough. We tend, like Samuel in the first reading at Mass today, to judge by appearances. Like the Pharisees we focus on externals and do not appreciate the truth of Jesus and the truth of ourselves whose deepest identity is that of children adopted into God's family. Divine life is at work within us. In the conclusion of his message, Pope Benedict called Lent "the journey of conversion towards Easter [that] leads us to rediscover our Baptism." He continued: "This Lent, let us renew our acceptance of the Grace that God bestowed upon us at that moment, so that it may illuminate and guide all our actions."

The two priests at St. Paul's are in the process of moving back into the rectory which was extensively damaged by a tornado that landed on Fenton last New Year's Eve. I'm staying in a house that they rented less than a block from the church. Today the temperature reached 85 and storms are predicted tonight as a front approaches that will drop the temperatures back down into the 40's. Such drastic changes can only mean one thing: the possibility of severe weather. What are the chances that a tornado will hit here again just three months after the last one? Stayed tuned....

Magis Reflections

Yesterday I was doing my monthly interview with KWKY, the Catholic radio station in Des Moines, Iowa, when Eileen, one of the interviewers, mentioned that she had read my reflection the other day. The reflection to which she was referring was part of a series of daily reflections that the Magis Center for Catholic Spirituality provides to those who sign up for an email subscription. These short daily reflections on the Mass readings or saint of the day are written by several Jesuits from their perspective of the "Spiritual Exercises" of St. Ignatius. From time to time, when one of them has a conflict and is unable to write, I am asked to "pinch write," as it were. Here are the reflections I wrote for the next three days:

Thursday, March 31, 2011

In today’s first reading (Jeremiah 7:23-28), God challenges His people through the prophet to listen to His voice and walk in His ways. He offers this challenge because, “This is the nation that does not listen to the voice of the Lord…; the word itself is banished from their speech.” The statistics on Bible reading by Catholics are not very good. While 87% of those polled said they had a Bible in their home, only 8% said they read it every day. 32% said they never read it. Another survey says that the average Christian spends more time in one evening watching television than the entire rest of the week reading the Bible. Though the word of God may not be “banished,” it is certainly being ignored.

Lent is a time for greater prayer and if you haven’t made daily Scripture reading part of your prayer routine this Lent, it’s not too late. At a time when books were an expensive novelty, St. Ignatius made the Gospel the focus of most of his “Spiritual Exercises.” Moreover Pope Benedict, met in 2009 with bishops from around the world to discuss the role of the Word of God in the life of the Church. Last fall he issued his exhortation “Verbum Domini” which pulled together their discussions and encouraged us in the practice of “lectio divina,” the prayerful reading of Scripture.

In the Scriptures we meet the living Word, Jesus, who speaks to us today. We need not only to not ignore Him but to listen with an open heart. The hearts of the Pharisees who thought Jesus was in league with the devil were hard. They had preconceived ideas about the Messiah and judged that Jesus did not fit those ideas. Thus they rejected Him. Are you giving Jesus extra time this Lent to speak to your heart and to form it to be more like His own?

Friday, April 1, 2011

We are made for union with God. This is why the first of all God’s commandments, as Jesus told us in today’s Gospel, is: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” St. Augustine once wrote that we were made for God and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him. It’s as though in each of our hearts there is a hole that only God can fill. We often try to take away the hunger pains, thinking we’ll be satisfied and find peace in the world—in possessions or in human relationships or in prestige and power. But ultimately nothing satisfies. In time we are always left empty and searching.

The question might arise, if we turn to God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, what about other people? Aren’t we supposed to love our neighbor? Yes, Jesus said that the second great commandment is to “love your neighbor as yourself.” So if we are to love God totally, how can there be any love left over for the people God places in our lives?

The answer is simple. If we love God totally we will love what God loves, and what God loves is His human creatures. He loved them so totally that He became one with them and suffered and died for them. He gave Himself totally on the Cross and continues to give Himself totally in the Eucharist. To truly love God is to love our neighbor, but not in such a way that we try to fill up the God-shaped hole in our hearts with them or with any finite creature. We love them in the Lord. God blesses us with them so that we in turn may be a blessing that leads them to God. Saturday,

April 2, 2011

If we’re honest, at one time or another we would all like to be like the Pharisee in today’s Gospel (Luke 18: 9-14). We would like to be able to tell God, “I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous.” We would like to be so perfect that we wouldn’t need to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. But, as with most of His parables, Jesus turns things around and says that this man did not leave his prayer “justified.” Rather, the poor sinner who “beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner,’” did.

Doesn’t God want us to be perfect? Yes, but God’s ways are not our ways and sometimes, just when we think we’ve got things together and have been pretty good of late, we slip into the great sin of pride. We congratulate ourselves and become complacent.

St. Paul experienced this. In 2 Corinthians 12 he tells about some wonderful spiritual experiences he had and yet how he had a “thorn in the flesh,” “an angel of Satan,” that afflicted him. We don’t know if this was a physical ailment or a particular temptation or moral struggle. We do know that Paul thought he would be a much better apostle without it so he begged the Lord three times to take it away. God said “no.” God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul’s particular struggle humbled him and brought him to his knees. It kept him from becoming proud. It brought him close to Jesus. This is the sacrifice that God wants of us: “a humble contrite heart” that knows it depends upon God for everything, including any good that it does.

I'm in St. Paul, Minnesota these days. Actually, Woodbury, a suburb of St. Paul. I'm giving an 8 day retreat based on the "Spiritual Exercises" of St. Ignatius to a group of 12 Sisters who are members of an international congregation called the Missionary Sisters of St. Peter Claver. Each day I give three half hour talks, meet with individual Sisters over a 4 to 5 hour period, celebrate Mass, and participate in a nightly holy hour. It's like being on retreat myself. I always find that in preaching the "Spiritual Exercises" the various reflections, especially on the life of Jesus, become deeper for me.

It's always a blessing for me to meet groups of consecrated persons whom I've never met or known and to find out more about their founders and their charism. The Missionary Sisters of St. Peter Claver were founded in 1894 by Blessed Mary Theresa Ledochowska (1863-1922). She came from a prominent Polish family, the niece of a brave archbishop who opposed the unjust laws of the German Chancellor Bismarck, who was detained for three years as a result and, when freed, went to Rome where he became the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, the Vatican office that organized the Church's missionary work.

Mary Theresa heard stories of cruelty and slavery in Africa and was particularly moved by a speech by Cardinal Lavigerie, the founder of the Missionaries of Africa (the "White Fathers"), who was traveling around Europe denouncing slavery. Here is part of it:

"Christian women of Europe! It is up to you to make these abominations known everywhere and to stir up against them the indignation of all civilized people. Do not leave your husbands, brothers and fathers in peace until they have used their authority, their eloquence and their goods to prevent further bloodshed. If God has given you a writer's talent, put it at the service of this cause: you will find none holier. Do not forget that it was a woman's book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, translated now into all languages, that helped bring about the emancipation of slaves in America."

Galvanized by these words, Mary Theresa set to work doing everything she could to bring an end to slavery in Africa and to help the missionaries there. She wrote a play called Zaida, after its heroine, which became a box office success. It was the beginning of her vocation. She wrote to her uncle, Cardinal Ledochowski, in 1889, asking him to find out if the Pope would support her efforts to end slavery by founding a new religious congregation named after the Jesuit saint who called himself "the slave of the slaves forever." He wrote back:

"My dear niece, I hasten to reply to your letter ... in order to dispel any doubts or uncertainty you may have concerning Cardinal Lavigerie's work against slavery, which has the full backing of the Holy Father. Could you imagine any work more worthy of interest or support? ... Do not be afraid then, dear niece, that you could possibly be taking a false step in joining, with so many others, the struggle against the slave trade, especially among the blacks."

With this encouragement, she began her life work of working and praying for the missions, especially in Africa. Her desire was not to go to the missions herself but rather, with the help of other Sisters, to publicize the situation and work of the missionaries and to collect funds to help them. She thought of herself and her congregation as the hidden root that fed the tree which bore the fruit. Everyone could see the tree and its fruit, but these were only possible because of the hidden life that came from the Sisters' prayers, sacrifices, and work to raise funds for the missions. It's a work that continues today through this small congregation of less than 300 Sisters and their magazine Echo (from Africa and other continents).

In her Easter letter of 1916, Blessed Mary Theresa Ledochowska, who was beatified in 1975, wrote about the joy of offering up all in order to bring souls to God:

"I wish you all the riches of peace and the joy of Easter and thinking especially of the beautiful Feast of Easter which, we hope, we will celebrate one day, all united in heaven, united also to the many souls which we will have the grace to save for Heaven by means of our work."