Angels and Saints

I celebrated Mass today with the Apostleship of Prayer staff.  I wore white instead of green, the color most people going to Mass today would have seen.  Today is what is known as a "ferial day" on which there is no feast, obligatory memorial, or optional memorial.  The presider is free to choose any saint from the calendar or a votive Mass of one king or another.

I could have worn white to celebrate St.
Raymond Nonnatus.  "Nonnatus" is Latin for "not born" and this name was given to Raymond because he came into the world in 1204 via cesarean section after his mother died during labor.  In time Raymond joined the recently founded Mercedarian order, a religious congregation whose mission was to ransom Christian slaves and going so far as to take their place until the ransom could be paid.  This is what Raymond did and while he was in prison he preached the Gospel so convincingly that some of his Muslim captors became Christian.  This so infuriated the governor that, according to tradition, he had a red-hot spike driven through Raymond's lips and a padlock inserted to prevent his preaching.  Eventually Raymond was ransomed, returned to Europe, and was made a cardinal adviser to the pope who had heard about his courageous witness.  He died on this day in 1240.

I could have celebrated Mass in his honor, but instead I chose white as I celebrated a Mass in honor of the Angels.  When Monday is a ferial day, I like to remember the Angels who, from time to time, have certainly remembered me.  The latest such incident occurred a week ago.

I was in the St. Louis airport on my way back to Milwaukee after a retreat for 78 men at White House Jesuit Retreat Center.  I had plenty of time to catch my 8:25 flight to Milwaukee but had misread the gate information.  Settling myself down to wait at Gate E4, I checked email and then began reading a book when suddenly, I heard a name over the loud speaker.  It sounded vaguely familiar and it was repeated a second time announcing the immediate departure of his flight for Milwaukee at Gate E20.  Sometimes people have trouble pronouncing my last name ("Kubicki," which I don't think is that difficult) and such was the case this time.  Realizing I was at the wrong gate, I got up and raced through the terminal, arriving at the correct gate just in time to board my plane before the doors closed.

I'm convinced that my Guardian Angel opened my ears to hear my mispronounced name being paged and then gave my legs some extra wings as I raced through the terminal.

And that is one of the many reasons why I like to honor the Angels in a votive Mass from time to time.

The Priesthood of the Baptized

Today is the feast of St. Peter Chrysologus, a bishop and doctor of the Church whose preaching was so inspired that he was called "Golden Word." He only lived about fifty years, but the 183 sermons of his that we have continue to speak to us over 1500 years after his death. In one of them, he reflects on St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 12: 1: “I urge you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.”  These words are at the heart of what we strive to do in the Apostleship of Prayer: to live a Eucharistic life, a life in which we offer ourselves one day at a time with Jesus who offers himself to the Father for the salvation of the world.  The following is from Homily 108 of St. Peter Chrysologus:

How marvelous is the priesthood of the Christian, for he is both the victim that is offered on his own behalf, and the priest who makes the offering.  He does not need to go beyond himself to seek what he is to immolate to God: with himself and in himself he brings the sacrifice he is to offer God for himself.  The victim remains and the priest remains, always one and the same.  Immolated, the victim still lives: the priest who immolates cannot kill.  Truly it is an amazing sacrifice in which a body is offered without being slain and blood is offered without being shed.

Paul says: “I appeal to you by the mercy of God to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living and holy.”  The prophet said the same thing: “Sacrifices and offering you did not desire, but you have prepared a body for me.”  Each of us is called to be both a sacrifice to God and his priest.  Do not forfeit what divine authority confers on you.  Put on the garment of holiness, gird yourself with the belt of chastity.  Let Christ be your helmet, let the cross on your forehead be your unfailing protection.  Your breastplate should be the knowledge of God that he himself has given you.  Keep burning continually the sweet smelling incense of prayer.  Take up the sword of the Spirit.  Let your heart be an altar.  Then, with full confidence in God, present your body for sacrifice.  God desires not death, but faith; God thirsts not for blood, but for self-surrender; God is appeased not by slaughter, but by the offering of your free will.

Called and Chosen

The readings at Mass today (15th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle B) are about vocation. In the first reading (Amos 7: 12-15) we hear about the call of a prophet who never planned on being one. In the Gospel (Mark 6: 7-13) we see how Jesus "summoned" the apostles and sent them out on a mission trip to confront evil and sickness head-on.  But I want to focus on the second reading from the first chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians.

It says that God chose us.  We are called to be children of God, followers of Jesus, members of the Body of Christ.  Or, as Paul puts it, "to be holy and without blemish."  We are made for union with God, to be holy as God is holy.  To be children of God and part of the Body of Christ means to be holy.

When did God call you?  When did God choose you?  Paul's answer may be surprising.  He writes that God chose us "before the foundation of the world."  In other words, before this world was created, God had you in mind. Shortly after his election as pope, Benedict XVI told the cardinals that "each of us is the result of a thought of God." And since those thoughts are eternal, God had you in mind from all eternity.

Why?  Why did God choose to create you and call you?  Pope St. John Paul II said that "each person is unique, precious, and unrepeatable."  There never was, never will, and isn't another "you" among the billions of human beings.  You give God a joy and pleasure that no other human being can.

You were chosen to be holy, like God. For that to happen a transformation is required.  This is where another word that Paul uses comes into play: "In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ."  Through baptism we became adopted children of God. However, when we say that we're speaking of something deeper than human adoption.  Human adoption is beautiful.  Parents give a child their name and their love, food and shelter and education. But parents cannot give an adopted child their own genetic makeup, their blood.  With God it's different. An interior transformation takes place. Through baptism a real change occurs.  God gives us grace to transform us into true children of God.  This is our deepest identity.   A person at baptism is flooded with sanctifying grace and is "holy and without blemish."

Now we are called to live out of our deepest identity: to be and to act what we truly are--children of God, joined to Christ, members of his Body.

All Christians have this most basic vocation and it is within this context that other calls are heard, other vocations arise.

Today is the wedding anniversary of a very special couple. They had nine children, four of whom died early. Four of the surviving children became Discalced Carmelite Sisters and one became a Visitation Sister.  The cause for the beatification of the latter, Leonie, has just been opened.  Of the four other daughters, one has been canonized--St. Therese of Lisieux. And the parents, who celebrate their anniversary today in heaven--Louis and Zelie Martin--will soon become the first married couple in the history of the Church to be canonized together.

You can find out more about this beautiful family at the following websites:

Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway
Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, the Parents of Saint Therese of Lisieux
Leonie Martin, Disciple and Sister of St. Therese of Lisieux

Prayer in the Storms of Life

In the Gospel for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B (Mark 4: 35-41), we see quite a contrast.  The violence of a storm contrasts with the inner calm of Jesus, asleep in the stern of the boat that is being swamped.  The terror of the disciples contrasts with the peace of Jesus.  As Jesus addresses their fear and cry for help, his inner peace calms the storm.

We all experience storms in our lives. Our first response is usually to try to handle them on our own. Only when we feel our helplessness do we turn to God in prayer.

Then we pray and pray and nothing happens. The desired result of our prayers doesn't come.  Last year I prayed and prayed for Fr. Will Prospero, S.J.--a personal friend and strong supporter of the Apostleship of Prayer--and he died of cancer at the age of forty-nine.  (Here is a video tribute that friends of his put together after his death.)

The response to situations like this is often, "God doesn't hear my prayers." No.  God is not hearing impaired.  Or we say, "God doesn't answer my prayers."  No. God answers every prayer, but sometimes the answer is not the one we want. Sometimes the answer is "no."

Behind these responses is the question of the disciples in the Gospel: "Teacher, do you not care...?"

Yes, God cares. Do we believe that? Jesus asked the disciples (and us): "Do you not yet have faith?"

Faith is a virtue.  I like to say that the virtues are spiritual muscles which require exercise in order to grow and remain healthy.  We can pray "Lord, give me faith," or "Lord, increase my faith," but get ready.  Faith won't come out of the blue, just as physical muscles don't.  God answers this prayer with storms and challenges that require us to exercise faith.

We don't like the stress and hard work that this exercise requires.  I once saw a cartoon that showed a jogger running past a park bench. On his T-shirt was the slogan: "No pain, no gain."  On the bench sat an overweight man with a can of beer wearing a T-shirt that said; "No pain, no pain."  We don't like the pain that goes with exercising the virtue of faith in the midst of life's storms.

Blessed Mother Teresa once said: "People say that God will never give you more than you can handle. I just wish God didn't trust me so much."

God trusts us.  God wants more for us than we can imagine.  God trusts that we can handle the storms that can lead us to exercise faith and grow in holiness.

In his Apostolic Exhortation "The Joy of the Gospel" (#275-9), Pope Francis has some challenging and consoling words about faith and the prayers and sacrifices we make:

"Christ, risen and glorified, is the wellspring of our hope and he will not deprive us of the help we need to carry out the mission which he has entrusted to us.  Christ's resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world. ... Often it seems that God does not exist: all around us we see persistent injustice, evil, indifference and cruelty.

"Faith ... means believing in God, believing that he truly loves us, that he is alive, that he is mysteriously capable of intervening, that he does not abandon us and that he brings good out of evil by his power and his infinite creativity. ... Let us believe the Gospel when it tells us that the kingdom of God is already present in this world and is growing, here and there, and in different ways: like the small seed which grows into a big tree.... Christ's resurrection everywhere calls forth seeds of that new world....

"Because we do not always see these seeds growing, we need an interior certainty, a conviction that God is able to act in every situation, even amid apparent setbacks.... We may be sure that none of our acts of love will be lost, nor any of our acts of sincere concern for others. No single act of love for God will be lost, no generous effort is meaningless, no painful endurance is wasted.  All of these encircle our world like a vital force."

A Corpus Christi Homily

At the Last Supper, Jesus faced three dilemmas and offered one solution.  The dilemmas were the result of his love.

The greatest act of love for another is to die for that person.  At the Last Supper Jesus told his apostles, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15: 13). Yet Jesus laid down his life not only for his friends but for his enemies. As St. Paul put it: "For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5: 6-8).

Jesus wanted to prove his love for all people of all time and he wanted everyone to experience that love.  But he could only die once. How could he make that act of sacrificial love present everywhere and always?

He said: "This is my body, which will be given up for you; do this in memory of me" (Luke 22: 19).

He created a New Passover to go with the New Covenant.  This Memorial Meal makes present the very event it commemorates.  Now people of all time, and not just those who stood under the cross at Good Friday, can be present as Jesus offers himself up for their salvation.  He does not die again but he makes his life-giving death and resurrection present through the the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The second dilemma of love is this: when you love someone you want to be always near that person.  But Jesus had to go. He said: "I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16: 7). Jesus must leave this world in order to send the Holy Spirit.  But he wants to stay close to his followers and he even promised that he would not leave them orphans, that he would return (see John 14: 18). He promised "I am with you always, until the end of the age" (Matthew 28: 20). How can he go and also stay?

"This is my body."  He remains close to us in the Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament.

Thirdly, love desires not only to be close but to be one with the beloved. Love desires union.  How can Jesus unite himself to the apostles and then to Christians of all time?

"This is my body. Take and eat."  Jesus comes to us in a form in which we can receive him. He unites himself to us in Holy Communion where the two become one.

That is the gift which we celebrate today.

This has two very practical implications.

First, we who receive the Eucharist are one with Christ and are transformed by our union. In his homily at the closing Mass for World Youth Day 2005, Pope Benedict XVI said: "The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us so that we ourselves will be transformed in our turn. We are to become the Body of Christ, his own Flesh and Blood."  Through a Holy Communion we are parts of the Body of Christ, "his own Flesh and Blood" in the world today.  This confirms Jesus' teaching in a parable about the Last Judgment in Matthew 25. Whatever we do to or for one of his least brothers or sisters, we do to or for Jesus.  Whatever we fail to do for one of his and our least brothers and sisters, we fail to do for Jesus.

Second, the sacrificial offering of Jesus replaced all the animal and grain offerings that preceded him. His was the one perfect sacrifice that took away the sins of the world and reconciled humanity with God and one another.  Now we, as members of his Body, join him in making that perfect offering as we celebrate Mass.  Then we go forth from Mass to live the offering we have made with Christ.  In the words of St. Paul, we offer our bodies "as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God" (Romans 12: 1).

We thank God for the gift of the Body and Blood of his Son Jesus. We adore Jesus present in the Eucharist. We open ourselves to the grace of the loving union in which the two become one flesh. And we return love for love by offering ourselves every day as we pray the Daily Offering.

The Daily Offering, prayed and lived, is the best response to Jesus' gift of himself to and for us.

Post-Pentecost

When I was growing up before the Second Vatican Council, the Sundays after Pentecost were known as the Third or Fourth or Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost. That gave the feast of Pentecost an importance that I fear has been lost as we return now to Ordinary Time, which really means Ordered or Numbered Time.  The time after Pentecost, both the first one centuries ago and our celebration last Sunday, is the time in which the Church carries on the mission of preaching the Gospel and reconciling.  This two-fold mission was made clear in the readings for Pentecost.

The first reading (Acts 2: 1-11) tells the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit at the first Pentecost Sunday. The power of the Holy Spirit was expressed in two ways--wind and fire.  Jesus compared the Spirit to wind in John 3: 8: "The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."  We get the word "respiration" from the word "spirit" and the Hebrew word for "spirit" is "ruah" or "breath."  The Holy Spirit is the Breath of God.

On the first Sunday after Pentecost we celebrate a feast in honor of the Most Holy Trinity. God the Father, the Creator, reveals the divine nature of love by creating. In doing so we see that God is "for us."  The Second Person of the Trinity is "Emmanuel, which means 'God is with us'" (Matthew 1: 23).  The Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is the breath that shows us God is "within us."  We are temples of the Holy Spirit.  God is as close to us, and as essential, as our breath.

Fire gives light and warmth. It also purifies and unites.  Precious metals like gold are placed in a furnace to melt and be purified of dross or impurities.  The Holy Spirit comes to give the light of truth, to warm and heal hearts, and to purify us so that we may be one.

Sin divides and separates.  Early in history (see Genesis 11: 1-9), human beings rejected God's call to fill the earth. In fear, they clung together and tried to attain the glory and power of God on their own.  To fulfill the plan for human beings to fill the earth, God confused their language and scattered them.  But this scattering and confusion of language led to sinful divisions.  Diversity became the source of conflict rather than richness in unity.  The coming of the Spirit at Pentecost began the process of reconciliation and unity.  The tongues or languages remained diverse but there was an amazing and miraculous understanding.

Before the Spirit came at Pentecost, the Son of God had to suffer, die, rise, and ascend.  Jesus prepared the Church to carry on his work when he met the apostles in the upper room, gave them his peace, sent them as the Father had sent him, and empowered them to carry on his work of reconciliation by breathing on them (John 20: 19-23).  He said: "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."  Forgiveness requires two parties--one who extends forgiveness and the other who receives it. God is always ready to forgive, but people may reject that forgiveness. People may not recognize that they have done anything wrong that requires forgiveness and so they do not ask for it nor receive it.  These are the sins that are "retained."

In the Sacrament of Reconciliation Jesus, through the priest, sends the Holy Spirit upon those who ask for mercy. The Spirit comes to purify and heal.  There is no individual sin.  As St. Paul wrote in the second reading (1 Corinthians 12: 3b-7, 12-13), there is one body that consists of many parts.  Each of us is a cell within the Body of Christ.  The health of one cell affects the entire Body, just as one cancer cell affects a person's physical health.  Human beings are made in the image and likeness of God who is a Trinity of Persons.  God is not an amalgam of individuals but a communion of Persons. Made in God's image and likeness we are made for communion.  Theologians have said that the Holy Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son.  The Spirit is the love that brings the Body of Christ together into one.

One of the invocations in the Litany of the Sacred Heart is "Heart of Jesus, burning furnace of charity."  The fire that burns in the Heart of Jesus is the Holy Spirit who purifies, heals, and unites all who come to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  In that Heart and through the power of the Holy Spirit, all human beings can truly be one, one with God and one as God's family.

May the coming month of June, dedicated as it traditionally is to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the following Post-Pentecost months until Advent, make us one in the Heart of Jesus.

[The icon in this post is from the hand of Brother Christopher, a Carmelite Hermit. His God-inspired work can be found at the website for the Carmelite Hermitage of the Blessed Virgin Mary.]

The Importance of Fatima

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Fatima.  We remember how on May 13, 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children--Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta--and gave them an important message for the world. It wasn't a new message but as old as the Gospel where we read in Mark that the first recorded words of Jesus after his baptism and the temptations in the desert were: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel" (1: 15).

On May 13, 1982,  one year after the attempt on his life, St. John Paul II visited Fatima and offered the Blessed Mother the bullet that had struck him and which he was convinced did not kill him because her finger guided it away from doing mortal harm. (I wrote here about this bullet which was affixed to the crown that is placed on the statue of Our Lady on special occasions.)

 Pope John Paul II said:

"These are the first words of the Messiah addressed to humanity. The message of Fatima is, in its basic nucleus, a call to conversion and repentance, as in the Gospel. This call was uttered at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it was addressed particularly to this present century.  ... The call to repentance is a motherly one, and at the same time it is strong and decisive."

The call of  Jesus and Our Lady of Fatima has not lost its urgency.

Pope Francis has a special devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. In his first Angelus Address after being elected pope, he mentioned a statue of Our Lady of Fatima that came to Buenos Aires on pilgrimage shortly after he became a bishop there in 1992. Then, in 2013, two months after his election, Pope Francis asked the Patriarch of Lisbon to consecrate his papacy to Our Lady of Fatima.  Cardinal Policarpo did so on May 13, 2013 with these words: “O Blessed Virgin, we are at your feet to carry out the request clearly expressed by Pope Francis to consecrate to you, O Virgin of Fatima, his ministry as Bishop of Rome and universal pastor.” 

On the anniversary of the last Fatima apparition, October 13, 2013, during the Marian Day of the Year of Faith, Pope Francis entrusted the world to Our Lady of Fatima with these words:

Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima,
with renewed gratitude for your motherly presence
we join in the voice of all generations that call you blessed.

We celebrate in you the great works of God,
who never tires of lowering himself in mercy over humanity,
afflicted by evil and wounded by sin,
to heal and to save it.

Accept with the benevolence of a Mother
this act of entrustment that we make in faith today,
before this your image, beloved to us.

We are certain that each one of us is precious in your eyes
and that nothing in our hearts has estranged you.

May we allow your sweet gaze
to reach us and the perpetual warmth of your smile.

Guard our life with your embrace: 

bless and strengthen every desire for good;
give new life and nourishment to faith;
sustain and enlighten hope;
awaken and animate charity;
guide us all on the path to holiness.

Teach us your own special love for the little and the poor,
for the excluded and the suffering,
for sinners and the wounded of heart:
gather all people under your protection
and give us all to your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus.

Amen.

In two years, Pope Francis hopes to go to Fatima for the centenary of the apparitions.  

Clearly Our Lady of Fatima important to Pope Francis.  Her message is as important as ever. Sister Lucia, who lived for almost eighty-eight years after Mary appeared to her, wrote in a book published in 2000 ("Calls" from the Message of Fatima):

"We all desire and long for peaceful days, to be able to live in peace. But this peace will not be achieved until we use the Law of God as the norm and guide of our steps. Now the entire Message of Fatima is a call to pay attention to this divine Law. ...

"God does not wish sinners to perish but rather that they be converted and live. This is the reason why Our Lady urged us so insistently to pray and make sacrifices for the conversion of sinners: Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners. Many souls go to hell because there is none to make sacrifices and to pray for them (Fatima, 19th August, 1917). Hence, by our union with Christ and with his Church, we must offer ourselves as victims of expiation and petition for the conversion of our brothers and sisters. Herein lies the essence of our charity: to love those who perhaps do harm to us, contradict or persecute us. Our forgiveness, offered to them in the light of faith, hope and charity, will draw them back into the arms of God."