People are usually very surprised that I--57 years old, a Jesuit for 38 years and a priest for 26--have never been to Rome. It's the truth. I've been to South Korea, Guatemala and Mexico, the Philippines, Chile, the Holy Land, Spain and Portugal, and, of course Canada, but I've never been to Rome. Next week that will change. I leave tomorrow and arrive in Rome on Saturday for a week of meetings about the Apostleship of Prayer.
Fr. Claudio Barriga, S.J. is the Director General's Delegate for the Apostleship of Prayer and the Eucharistic Youth Movement. He has formed a group that he calls his International Counselors and we will meet next week with him as well as the Director General, Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, the General Superior of the Jesuits. I'm arriving a bit early in order to get over jet-lag and to see some of Rome. I'm told that the Jesuit community where I'll be staying has computers with internet access for visitors and so I'm hoping to post reports during my week in Rome.
The other Counselors are: Fr. Juan Antonio Medina, S.J., the National Secretary of Uruguay and the Coordinator of the Latin American Apostleship of Prayer; Fr. Fidelis Jayabalan, S.J., the National Secretary of India; Fr. Frederic Fornos, S.J., the National Secretary of France; and Fr. Rigobert Kyungu, S.J., the National Secretary of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Coordinator of the African Apostleship of Prayer. It is a privilege for me, as the National Director or Secretary of the U.S. Apostleship of Prayer to be a part of this group and its discussions.
We begin on Tuesday and go through Saturday. The proposed schedule is as follows:
8:30 AM Work Session
12:15 PM Prayer
12:45 PM Break
1:00 PM Lunch
3:00 PM Work Session
5:45 PM Break
6:00 PM Prayer
6:30 PM Mass
7: 15 PM Supper
8:30 PM Informal Sharing
Fr. Barriga's "General Objective" for us is to "discuss ways that the Apostleship of Prayer can be renewed." I'm eager to talk about how I am seeing such a renewal in the U.S., primarily as a result of old media (radio) and new media (internet, blogs).
I'm looking forward to these meetings, to seeing Rome, and to tasting a lot of what I can honestly say is my favorite food--Italian pasta.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Fatima and the Apostleship of Prayer
I led an afternoon of recollection yesterday for the local St. Gregory VII Chapter of Catholics United for the Faith. My two talks were entitled "Fatima and Lent: the Call to Prayer and Penance."
The story of Fatima begins, I believe, before Our Lady's appearance there in 1917 and before the appearance of the Angel of Peace in 1916. I think it begins in 1909.
Last May Fr. Jaime Rasura, S.J., who is an associate pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in San Diego, sent me a copy of a 1909 leaflet of the Apostleship of Prayer. In those days the Holy Father had only one prayer intention that he gave to the Church through the Apostleship of Prayer. In 1929 he added a monthly Mission Intention. His General Intention for January 1909 was "Catholicity in Portugal." The reflection in the leaflet for this intentions reads: "One of the aims of the Apostleship is the union of Catholics in prayer for the needs of the Church. At the opening of the New Year Our Holy Father, who knows so well the wants of his children, urges us to pray for Portugal, which at present is in great danger...."
What danger? In 1908 King Charles I had been assassinated. The country was in turmoil and Pope St. Pius X asked the world to pray for Portugal. Matters only got worse. In 1910 there was a socialist revolution and an anti-religious party took over the leadership of the country. The papal nuncio was expelled, religious houses were closed, processions were banned, priests and religious were forbidden to wear their clerical garb or habits, priests and bishops who opposed these measures were imprisoned or exiled. Perhaps some people at the time thought that their prayers the previous year were in vain.
A few years later God sent the Angel of Peace and Our Blessed Mother to three children and to the world. Part of Secret that Our Lady gave to the children during her appearance on July 13, 1917 was: "In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will be kept always."
I believe that the events in Fatima and all that has followed are directly related to the prayers of the Faithful who answered Pope St. Pius X's call for prayer in January, 1909. In his note that accompanied the leaflet, Fr. Rasura wrote: "How about this 100 year old leaflet? Pray for peace in Portugal and soon after Our Lady appears to the three children at Fatima. Prayers of the A.P. are powerful."
The story of Fatima begins, I believe, before Our Lady's appearance there in 1917 and before the appearance of the Angel of Peace in 1916. I think it begins in 1909.
Last May Fr. Jaime Rasura, S.J., who is an associate pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in San Diego, sent me a copy of a 1909 leaflet of the Apostleship of Prayer. In those days the Holy Father had only one prayer intention that he gave to the Church through the Apostleship of Prayer. In 1929 he added a monthly Mission Intention. His General Intention for January 1909 was "Catholicity in Portugal." The reflection in the leaflet for this intentions reads: "One of the aims of the Apostleship is the union of Catholics in prayer for the needs of the Church. At the opening of the New Year Our Holy Father, who knows so well the wants of his children, urges us to pray for Portugal, which at present is in great danger...."
What danger? In 1908 King Charles I had been assassinated. The country was in turmoil and Pope St. Pius X asked the world to pray for Portugal. Matters only got worse. In 1910 there was a socialist revolution and an anti-religious party took over the leadership of the country. The papal nuncio was expelled, religious houses were closed, processions were banned, priests and religious were forbidden to wear their clerical garb or habits, priests and bishops who opposed these measures were imprisoned or exiled. Perhaps some people at the time thought that their prayers the previous year were in vain.
A few years later God sent the Angel of Peace and Our Blessed Mother to three children and to the world. Part of Secret that Our Lady gave to the children during her appearance on July 13, 1917 was: "In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will be kept always."
I believe that the events in Fatima and all that has followed are directly related to the prayers of the Faithful who answered Pope St. Pius X's call for prayer in January, 1909. In his note that accompanied the leaflet, Fr. Rasura wrote: "How about this 100 year old leaflet? Pray for peace in Portugal and soon after Our Lady appears to the three children at Fatima. Prayers of the A.P. are powerful."
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Vocation to Consecrated Life
I celebrated Mass this morning with the Sisters of St. Francis at Clare Hall. The following is the homily that I gave.
In today's readings we have three vocation stories. All of us have a vocation. At baptism we were called to follow Christ; we became Christians or members of His Body. But within this basic baptismal vocation or call there are other calls. There is a call within a call that most of here have heard--the call to consecrated life.
In the first reading we have the Prophet Isaiah's call (Chapter 6). He had a profound experience of God's presence and sensed his own sinfulness. After the fire of God's love purified him he heard the Lord call "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" Having experienced God's love he responded "Here I am, send me!"
In the second reading we have St. Paul's call (1 Corinthians 15: 1-11). Paul talks about the death and resurrection of Jesus and how after He rose He appeared to the apostles and many others. Then he says, "Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me." Actually Paul wasn't so much the "last" as the "first." Those other appearances of the Risen Lord were before His Ascension into heaven. Paul is the first recorded apparition of Jesus after He ascended. He is the first in a line that includes St. Margaret Mary, St. Faustina, and St. Francis of Assisi. From this profound experience of God's love that started his conversion, Paul responded.
Finally, in the Gospel we have the call of St. Peter and some other fishermen. Jesus tells Peter, who has been fishing all night with no results, to go out again and cast his net. Peter knows in his head that Jesus is wrong. No doubt he thought, "I'm the fisherman. What does this carpenter know about fishing?" But in his heart Peter responded to Jesus' challenge. Peter followed his heart, not his head.
Isn't that so often the case? When we think about the call to religious life all sorts of questions and doubts come up in our minds. If we listened to our heads we would never have responded to Jesus' call. So we, like Peter, have listened to our hearts. The result is a profound experience of God. In the face of this Peter tells Jesus to get away because he is a sinner. That may be our response as well, but Jesus doesn't take "no" for an answer, then or now. Jesus tells Peter and us, "Do not be afraid." Then He tells Peter that from that moment he will be "catching" people and not fish.
I'm not a fisherman. My brother-in-law Joe is. He's such a fisherman that he even had "Muskie" as part of his email address. I'm not a fisherman, but I know enough about it to know that it requires three things. First, you have to have patience. Fishing involves a lot of waiting. Second, you have to be quiet. You can't yell at the fish to get into the boat. Third, you have to have the right bait or lure. That's one of the things that Joe spends time on, creating various lures and perfecting them so that the fish will be attracted to his line.
I think Jesus chose fishermen because they would naturally know something about evangelization. You have to be patient and gentle, and you have to use the right bait or lure. What's the bait that we use? Ourselves, the witness of our lives. We are the way in which Jesus will lure or attract people to Himself. Notice: we don't attract people to ourselves but to Jesus.
Today would be a good day to spend a little time reflecting on your own vocation story. What drew you to consecrated life? What attracted you to this community?
For me, it was a camping trip the summer before my senior year of high school. A Jesuit priest named Fr. John Eagan invited me to go with him and five classmates on a camping trip around Lake Superior. That was the "bait" for me. But what was it about that "lure" that attracted me to the Jesuits?
Several things. First, the sense of freedom and fun, being away from my parents and doing something I'd never done before--the adventure. Second, the beauty of nature. In that beauty I experienced the beauty of the Creator. Third, the friendship and sense of community that developed among the seven of us. And lastly, the prayer. Not that we were praying all the time, but in the midst of God's beautiful creation and by sharing that experience with others, I had a profound experience of God. I especially remember celebrating the Eucharist on rocks overlooking Lake Superior as the sun began to set in the west.
A seed was planted. I began to think about doing for other young people what Fr. Eagan had done for me. I was drawn to God and to mediating an experience of God for others.
Last Tuesday, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, was also World Day of Consecrated Life. I want to share with you some things that Pope Benedict said in his homily that day because they contain these same themes.
First, he said: "Consecrated life witnesses and expresses in a 'powerful' way the reciprocal seeking of God and humanity, the love that attracts them to one another. The consecrated person, by the very fact of his or her being, represents something like a 'bridge' to God for all those he or she meets...."
While every human person has a hunger for God and seeks God, God also hungers for our love and seeks us. There is a mutual attraction. Nothing in the world ultimately satisfies our hunger. As consecrated persons we are called to show the world this reality by what we say and, more importantly, by what we do. We are to be a "bridge" for God to enter the world with His love and for people to experience God and His love.
Secondly, he told the consecrated people he was with: "Each one of you has approached Him as the source of pure and faithful love, a love so great and beautiful as to merit all, in fact, more than our all, because a whole life is not enough to return what Christ is and what He has done for us."
Ultimately each of us entered religious life because we had an encounter with God and experienced His profound and intimate love. Our call to consecrated life was a desire to respond to the love of God which led us to give all of ourselves to Him.
Thirdly, Pope Benedict said: "Finally, dear friends, we wish to raise to the Lord a hymn of thanksgiving and praise for consecrated life itself. If it did not exist, how much poorer the world would be! Beyond the superficial valuations of functionality, consecrated life is important precisely for its being a sign of gratuitousness and of love, and all the more so in a society that risks being suffocated in the vortex of the ephemeral and the useful. Consecrated life, instead, witnesses to the superabundance of the Lord's love, who first 'lost' His life for us. At this moment I am thinking of the consecrated persons who feel the weight of the daily effort lacking in human gratification; I am thinking of elderly men and women religious, the sick, of all those who feel difficulties in their apostolate. Not one of these is futile, because the Lord associates them to the 'throne of grace.' Instead, they are a precious gift for the Church and the world, thirsty for God and His Word."
Our world focuses on production and wealth. A person is valuable in so far as he or she produces. You stand against this tendency of our culture. You witness to the reality that everyone is important because God calls everyone to an intimate relationship with Himself. You may feel now that you have very little to give to the Lord. You're not able to do what you had been doing for so many years, what you entered consecrated life to do. You may, like Isaiah and Peter, feel very little or very weak and sinful. But Jesus says to you, "Don't be afraid!" Continue to follow your heart. Give Jesus the little you feel you have and like Peter you will receive a lot. By continuing to give all, you will receive all, not the things of the world which can never truly satisfy, but the One for whom we were made, the One who gave us His all.
In today's readings we have three vocation stories. All of us have a vocation. At baptism we were called to follow Christ; we became Christians or members of His Body. But within this basic baptismal vocation or call there are other calls. There is a call within a call that most of here have heard--the call to consecrated life.
In the first reading we have the Prophet Isaiah's call (Chapter 6). He had a profound experience of God's presence and sensed his own sinfulness. After the fire of God's love purified him he heard the Lord call "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" Having experienced God's love he responded "Here I am, send me!"
In the second reading we have St. Paul's call (1 Corinthians 15: 1-11). Paul talks about the death and resurrection of Jesus and how after He rose He appeared to the apostles and many others. Then he says, "Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me." Actually Paul wasn't so much the "last" as the "first." Those other appearances of the Risen Lord were before His Ascension into heaven. Paul is the first recorded apparition of Jesus after He ascended. He is the first in a line that includes St. Margaret Mary, St. Faustina, and St. Francis of Assisi. From this profound experience of God's love that started his conversion, Paul responded.
Finally, in the Gospel we have the call of St. Peter and some other fishermen. Jesus tells Peter, who has been fishing all night with no results, to go out again and cast his net. Peter knows in his head that Jesus is wrong. No doubt he thought, "I'm the fisherman. What does this carpenter know about fishing?" But in his heart Peter responded to Jesus' challenge. Peter followed his heart, not his head.
Isn't that so often the case? When we think about the call to religious life all sorts of questions and doubts come up in our minds. If we listened to our heads we would never have responded to Jesus' call. So we, like Peter, have listened to our hearts. The result is a profound experience of God. In the face of this Peter tells Jesus to get away because he is a sinner. That may be our response as well, but Jesus doesn't take "no" for an answer, then or now. Jesus tells Peter and us, "Do not be afraid." Then He tells Peter that from that moment he will be "catching" people and not fish.
I'm not a fisherman. My brother-in-law Joe is. He's such a fisherman that he even had "Muskie" as part of his email address. I'm not a fisherman, but I know enough about it to know that it requires three things. First, you have to have patience. Fishing involves a lot of waiting. Second, you have to be quiet. You can't yell at the fish to get into the boat. Third, you have to have the right bait or lure. That's one of the things that Joe spends time on, creating various lures and perfecting them so that the fish will be attracted to his line.
I think Jesus chose fishermen because they would naturally know something about evangelization. You have to be patient and gentle, and you have to use the right bait or lure. What's the bait that we use? Ourselves, the witness of our lives. We are the way in which Jesus will lure or attract people to Himself. Notice: we don't attract people to ourselves but to Jesus.
Today would be a good day to spend a little time reflecting on your own vocation story. What drew you to consecrated life? What attracted you to this community?
For me, it was a camping trip the summer before my senior year of high school. A Jesuit priest named Fr. John Eagan invited me to go with him and five classmates on a camping trip around Lake Superior. That was the "bait" for me. But what was it about that "lure" that attracted me to the Jesuits?
Several things. First, the sense of freedom and fun, being away from my parents and doing something I'd never done before--the adventure. Second, the beauty of nature. In that beauty I experienced the beauty of the Creator. Third, the friendship and sense of community that developed among the seven of us. And lastly, the prayer. Not that we were praying all the time, but in the midst of God's beautiful creation and by sharing that experience with others, I had a profound experience of God. I especially remember celebrating the Eucharist on rocks overlooking Lake Superior as the sun began to set in the west.
A seed was planted. I began to think about doing for other young people what Fr. Eagan had done for me. I was drawn to God and to mediating an experience of God for others.
Last Tuesday, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, was also World Day of Consecrated Life. I want to share with you some things that Pope Benedict said in his homily that day because they contain these same themes.
First, he said: "Consecrated life witnesses and expresses in a 'powerful' way the reciprocal seeking of God and humanity, the love that attracts them to one another. The consecrated person, by the very fact of his or her being, represents something like a 'bridge' to God for all those he or she meets...."
While every human person has a hunger for God and seeks God, God also hungers for our love and seeks us. There is a mutual attraction. Nothing in the world ultimately satisfies our hunger. As consecrated persons we are called to show the world this reality by what we say and, more importantly, by what we do. We are to be a "bridge" for God to enter the world with His love and for people to experience God and His love.
Secondly, he told the consecrated people he was with: "Each one of you has approached Him as the source of pure and faithful love, a love so great and beautiful as to merit all, in fact, more than our all, because a whole life is not enough to return what Christ is and what He has done for us."
Ultimately each of us entered religious life because we had an encounter with God and experienced His profound and intimate love. Our call to consecrated life was a desire to respond to the love of God which led us to give all of ourselves to Him.
Thirdly, Pope Benedict said: "Finally, dear friends, we wish to raise to the Lord a hymn of thanksgiving and praise for consecrated life itself. If it did not exist, how much poorer the world would be! Beyond the superficial valuations of functionality, consecrated life is important precisely for its being a sign of gratuitousness and of love, and all the more so in a society that risks being suffocated in the vortex of the ephemeral and the useful. Consecrated life, instead, witnesses to the superabundance of the Lord's love, who first 'lost' His life for us. At this moment I am thinking of the consecrated persons who feel the weight of the daily effort lacking in human gratification; I am thinking of elderly men and women religious, the sick, of all those who feel difficulties in their apostolate. Not one of these is futile, because the Lord associates them to the 'throne of grace.' Instead, they are a precious gift for the Church and the world, thirsty for God and His Word."
Our world focuses on production and wealth. A person is valuable in so far as he or she produces. You stand against this tendency of our culture. You witness to the reality that everyone is important because God calls everyone to an intimate relationship with Himself. You may feel now that you have very little to give to the Lord. You're not able to do what you had been doing for so many years, what you entered consecrated life to do. You may, like Isaiah and Peter, feel very little or very weak and sinful. But Jesus says to you, "Don't be afraid!" Continue to follow your heart. Give Jesus the little you feel you have and like Peter you will receive a lot. By continuing to give all, you will receive all, not the things of the world which can never truly satisfy, but the One for whom we were made, the One who gave us His all.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
A Prayer
Today was a busy day in our national office here in Milwaukee. It's the first Wednesday of the month, a day when about a dozen volunteers show up to help get out the mailing of the monthly leaflets. We began with Mass at 8:30, which today included the St. Blase Blessing of Throats. Then they went to work. Before breaking for lunch at noon we paused to pray the Angelus together. We added another prayer today, one that was printed in the latest issue of the Wisconsin Province of the Jesuits' periodical entitled "Jesuit Journeys." The reason we chose to pray this prayer is because it was written by one of our volunteers, Roland Starszak, who composed it after he and his wife went on a retreat at the Jesuit Retreat House in Oshkosh. Since we are the Apostleship of Prayer and it's a beautiful prayer, I thought I'd share it with everyone. Here it is:
God bless my spouse for being God's great blessing to me.
God bless my children with a true path to holiness.
God bless my grandchildren with a yearning to know Him.
God bless all my relatives with a life-long grace of happy relationships.
God bless all my friends, new and old. May they know the friendship of Christ.
God bless our civil and Church leaders to always aid in spreading the Kingdom.
God bless the world. May all peoples seek the reign of true peace.
God bless all my ancestors who in some way have affected my personhood.
God bless my parents who truly mirrored the relationship of the Father to His Son.
God bless me that I may know His will and always strive to accomplish it.
God bless my spouse for being God's great blessing to me.
God bless my children with a true path to holiness.
God bless my grandchildren with a yearning to know Him.
God bless all my relatives with a life-long grace of happy relationships.
God bless all my friends, new and old. May they know the friendship of Christ.
God bless our civil and Church leaders to always aid in spreading the Kingdom.
God bless the world. May all peoples seek the reign of true peace.
God bless all my ancestors who in some way have affected my personhood.
God bless my parents who truly mirrored the relationship of the Father to His Son.
God bless me that I may know His will and always strive to accomplish it.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Retreat for Chicago Deacon Couples
Over the weekend I gave a retreat at the Cardinal Strich Retreat House in Mundelein, IL to about 40 deacons and their wives. In the past few years I'd given retreats there to priests from the Gary Diocese and the Chicago Archdiocese, and last summer Deacon Richard Hudzik, the director of the retreat house, asked me to come and give a retreat to deacon couples from Chicago. He has been interested in the spirituality of the Sacred Heart and wanted me to give a retreat with that theme. In fact, he blogged about the Sacred Heart last July and expressed some of the mixed feelings that many Catholics have about this devotion.The retreat consisted of five talks. In the first, on Friday evening, we entered into the quiet space of the retreat by hearing the invitation, "Draw Near to His Heart." On Saturday morning I told what I like to call "The True Love Story," talking about how devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus begins with God's devotion to humanity, His love for each and for all. Our devotion or love is always a response to God who loved us first, creating us and redeeming us. Then in the afternoon and evening I gave two talks in which I shared much of what I recently said in Cleveland: that we can grow in our devotion to the Heart of Jesus by entering more deeply into the thoughts and feelings of His Heart as we imaginatively pray with the Gospels; that we are given the Heart of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist to transform our hearts. On Sunday morning I spoke about "Living the Eucharist" by praying the daily offering that the Apostleship of Prayer promotes.
It was a blessed time for me. I found an old saying about giving retreats true: "In giving a retreat you also make the retreat." Besides praying with a wonderful group of deacon couples, one of whom was in the first class ordained in Chicago (1972) after the Second Vatican Council and some of whom were ordained as recently as 2003, I enjoyed the hospitality and community that I've always found when deacon couples gather. The other blessing was that they were clearly inspired to share the Eucharistic spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer with their parish communities.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Cleveland
I am in Cleveland, Ohio for a couple events. Yesterday I met with local members of the Ignatian Volunteer Corps. According to their mission statement, IVC "is a national community service organization of volunteers and for volunteers, and is affiliated with the Society of Jesus. IVC works to meet the most urgent needs of people who are poor through the experienced service of mature men and women--Ignatian Volunteers." While the Jesuit Volunteer Corps consists of young people who have recently graduated from college, IVC consists of people over 50 who, as they say in their brochure, share "their skills, talents, and life experiences with organizations that directly assist people who are poor, or address issues related to poverty." Their slogan is: "Your most important work may begin after you retire." There are 16 such groups scattered around the country.
Realizing that being active isn't enough, the IVC encourages its members to "grow deeper in Christian faith by reflecting and praying in the Ignatian tradition." This is what brought me to meet with the group in Cleveland. I led their "Winter's Day of Reflection," and the theme was "Thirsting for a More Compassionate Heart."
In my first talk I went through the three key words of the theme. "Compassion" is more than giving help; it involves a sharing and actual identification with the suffering of another. The "Heart" is more than a sentimental symbol that inundates card shops and candy stores every winter in preparation for Valentine's Day. In the Scriptures the heart symbolized the deepest center of a person; it is the place of wisdom. "Thirsting" describes our relationship with God. The Psalms often speak of the human person longing and thirsting for God. This is because we are made in God's image and likeness; we are made by Love Himself, and for love. We are made for union with God and nothing earthly can satisfy this thirst. As St. Augustine put it: "You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You."
Ultimately the "More Compassionate Heart" for which we are "Thirsting" is the Heart of Jesus. Only His love, symbolized in the Sacred Heart all on fire with love for humanity and for each individual, can fill the thirst with which we are created. As the love of this Heart fills us and our emptiness, it flows through us to others. Like the Jordan River which begins in the mountains of Syria and flows into the Sea of Galilee and then into the Dead Sea where it ends and stagnates, so the love of God must flow through us. When it does, we are fresh and beautiful like the Sea of Galilee. When love does not flow through us but when we grasp at it and try to possess it for ourselves, then we become like the Dead Sea.
How do we grow in union with this "Compassionate Heart" of Jesus? The Mass, with its two parts, gives us the answer.
The Liturgy of the Word puts us in touch with Jesus, the Living Word who speaks to us in the proclamation of the Gospel. The Church has traditionally taught a way of praying with the Gospel called "Lectio Divina." Employing this method, we prayerfully read the Gospel passage, noting which words or phrases strike us or move us. We ask ourselves, "what is God telling me through this passage?"
St. Ignatius Loyola took "Lection Divina" a step further by inviting the person praying to enter into the scene by means of the imagination. By becoming one of the characters in the scene, and imagining what the people are saying and doing, and even fantasizing our own involvement in the scene, we enter more deeply into the Gospel. Jesus, the Living Word, speaks to us on a deeper level.
But we can go even deeper. We can try to imagine what was going on in the mind and heart of Jesus. What was He thinking and feeling? What was He experiencing in His interior? How was He being moved? In this way we can begin to enter more deeply into Jesus' Heart and take on His attitudes and values, His thoughts and feelings. We can feel, with Him, the compassion He felt for all the crowds and individuals who came to Him. Our own hearts can become more compassionate, like the Heart of Jesus. In the words of the U-2 song, our "Two Hearts Beat as One."
That's the Liturgy of the Word, entering more deeply into the Heart of Jesus by praying with His thoughts and feelings as they come to us through the Gospel. But what about the second part of Mass, the Liturgy of the Eucharist?
This is where our "Thirsting for a More Compassionate Heart" is really satisfied. We believe that Jesus is truly present, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Eucharist. When we receive Holy Communion we receive Him. He unites Himself to us, even giving us His Heart to transform our hearts. In the Eucharist the great prophecy of Ezekiel is fulfilled: "I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts" (36: 26). The Heart of Jesus, present in the Holy Eucharist, transforms our hearts, making them more and more like His own.
In this way our hearts become more compassionate. We don't just feel sorry for others, but we are willing, as Jesus did, to share their burdens and sufferings with them.
That's a summary of the two talks I gave and our Day of Reflection ended with the celebration of the Mass on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. This was a good reminder for us that "conversion" is not a once-and-for-all event. Conversion is ongoing. Though Paul had a life-changing encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, this conversion didn't make him perfect. He still struggled, as evidenced in his Letter to the Romans, Chapter 7: "What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate. ... The willing is ready at hand, but the doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. ... Miserable one that I am! Who will deliever me...? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The transformation of our hearts isn't complete. We are still on the way and, one day at a time, Jesus who is present in Word and Sacrament is changing us.
Tonight I will be speaking at Gesu, the Jesuit parish next to John Carroll University. As part of their Adult Enrichment program, I'll be saying more about the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Realizing that being active isn't enough, the IVC encourages its members to "grow deeper in Christian faith by reflecting and praying in the Ignatian tradition." This is what brought me to meet with the group in Cleveland. I led their "Winter's Day of Reflection," and the theme was "Thirsting for a More Compassionate Heart."
In my first talk I went through the three key words of the theme. "Compassion" is more than giving help; it involves a sharing and actual identification with the suffering of another. The "Heart" is more than a sentimental symbol that inundates card shops and candy stores every winter in preparation for Valentine's Day. In the Scriptures the heart symbolized the deepest center of a person; it is the place of wisdom. "Thirsting" describes our relationship with God. The Psalms often speak of the human person longing and thirsting for God. This is because we are made in God's image and likeness; we are made by Love Himself, and for love. We are made for union with God and nothing earthly can satisfy this thirst. As St. Augustine put it: "You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You."
Ultimately the "More Compassionate Heart" for which we are "Thirsting" is the Heart of Jesus. Only His love, symbolized in the Sacred Heart all on fire with love for humanity and for each individual, can fill the thirst with which we are created. As the love of this Heart fills us and our emptiness, it flows through us to others. Like the Jordan River which begins in the mountains of Syria and flows into the Sea of Galilee and then into the Dead Sea where it ends and stagnates, so the love of God must flow through us. When it does, we are fresh and beautiful like the Sea of Galilee. When love does not flow through us but when we grasp at it and try to possess it for ourselves, then we become like the Dead Sea.
How do we grow in union with this "Compassionate Heart" of Jesus? The Mass, with its two parts, gives us the answer.
The Liturgy of the Word puts us in touch with Jesus, the Living Word who speaks to us in the proclamation of the Gospel. The Church has traditionally taught a way of praying with the Gospel called "Lectio Divina." Employing this method, we prayerfully read the Gospel passage, noting which words or phrases strike us or move us. We ask ourselves, "what is God telling me through this passage?"
St. Ignatius Loyola took "Lection Divina" a step further by inviting the person praying to enter into the scene by means of the imagination. By becoming one of the characters in the scene, and imagining what the people are saying and doing, and even fantasizing our own involvement in the scene, we enter more deeply into the Gospel. Jesus, the Living Word, speaks to us on a deeper level.
But we can go even deeper. We can try to imagine what was going on in the mind and heart of Jesus. What was He thinking and feeling? What was He experiencing in His interior? How was He being moved? In this way we can begin to enter more deeply into Jesus' Heart and take on His attitudes and values, His thoughts and feelings. We can feel, with Him, the compassion He felt for all the crowds and individuals who came to Him. Our own hearts can become more compassionate, like the Heart of Jesus. In the words of the U-2 song, our "Two Hearts Beat as One."
That's the Liturgy of the Word, entering more deeply into the Heart of Jesus by praying with His thoughts and feelings as they come to us through the Gospel. But what about the second part of Mass, the Liturgy of the Eucharist?
This is where our "Thirsting for a More Compassionate Heart" is really satisfied. We believe that Jesus is truly present, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Eucharist. When we receive Holy Communion we receive Him. He unites Himself to us, even giving us His Heart to transform our hearts. In the Eucharist the great prophecy of Ezekiel is fulfilled: "I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts" (36: 26). The Heart of Jesus, present in the Holy Eucharist, transforms our hearts, making them more and more like His own.
In this way our hearts become more compassionate. We don't just feel sorry for others, but we are willing, as Jesus did, to share their burdens and sufferings with them.
That's a summary of the two talks I gave and our Day of Reflection ended with the celebration of the Mass on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. This was a good reminder for us that "conversion" is not a once-and-for-all event. Conversion is ongoing. Though Paul had a life-changing encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, this conversion didn't make him perfect. He still struggled, as evidenced in his Letter to the Romans, Chapter 7: "What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate. ... The willing is ready at hand, but the doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. ... Miserable one that I am! Who will deliever me...? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The transformation of our hearts isn't complete. We are still on the way and, one day at a time, Jesus who is present in Word and Sacrament is changing us.
Tonight I will be speaking at Gesu, the Jesuit parish next to John Carroll University. As part of their Adult Enrichment program, I'll be saying more about the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Dead Sea Squirrels
I celebrated Mass today at Clare Hall, a convent of the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, in whose former high school building the Apostleship of Prayer has its offices. The readings were from Nehemiah, Chapter 8; Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 12; and Luke's Gospel, the first four verses and then Chapter 4, verses 14 to 21. Here is basically what I said in my homily.
On Fridays a woman named Leanne comes in to clean our Apostleship of Prayer offices. Last Friday she told me about her daughter who is in grade school and who got very excited when Leanne asked her if she wanted to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit that just opened at the Milwaukee Public Museum. Leanne was happy to know that her young daughter was interested in going; she even started telling her classmates about the upcoming trip to the museum. Then one day this week Leanne saw her daughter drawing something and asked her what it was. "Dead Sea Squirrels!" was the reply. Leanne then explained that they were going to see "scrolls" not "squirrels." She explained what "scrolls" and at this her daughter's excitement turned to disappointment.
I think our Mass readings today show a similar dynamic: misunderstanding and disappointment. Our tendency is to not really understand who we are and the result is disappointment.
We tend to think of ourselves as isolated individuals and the reality is that we are members of a body, the Body of Christ. We think of the Church as an institution and the reality is that it is a communion, the Body of Christ consisting of many parts who are connected to one another. As Paul makes it clear in our second reading, "you are Christ's body, and individually parts of it." The implications are clear: "If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy."
This is the reality that we so often misunderstand and forget. At the 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne Pope Benedict spoke in his closing homily about this reality in words that make clear how we are to understand the Church and ourselves. He 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." Have you ever thought of yourself as Jesus' very flesh and blood? The reality is that you are. We truly are the Body of Christ, His presence in the world today.
The English author C. S. Lewis wrote about this in his essay "The Weight of Glory": "There are no ordinary people. You have never seen a mere mortal." The implications of this are challenging. Lewis goes on: "And our charity must be real and costly love.... Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses."
This is the reason behind what could be called "Jesus' Inaugual Address" in the Gospel. Jesus stands up to preach and uses words from a scroll of the Prophet Isaiah. He says that He is anointed for a purpose. The Holy Spirit fills Him so that He can free people and give them hope. We too were anointed at our Baptism and we have been given the Holy Spirit to empower us to do what Jesus did. We are called to reverence the image of God in ourselves and in one another. When we do this, we give true worship to God. We give glory to God.
But we so often forget and misunderstand this. It's really a question of focus. In the First Reading Ezra told the people to shift their focus. They had just heard a reading of the Word of God, the Law of God, and they broke into weeping because they realized how they had not been following it. They were filled with disappointment and discouragement. Ezra told them not to look backwards, not to focus on their sins and failures. He told them to focus on the present not the past. He said: "Today is holy to the Lord your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep.... Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!"
So too for us. Don't look to the past. Focus on the present and understand the reality of who you are. Don't live in misunderstanding and disappointment. Today's Gospel ends with these words of Jesus: "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." Today God's Word about who we truly are--the Body of Christ--is fulfilled. Don't look to the past, but to the present, and live out the reality of who you really are, one day at a time.
On Fridays a woman named Leanne comes in to clean our Apostleship of Prayer offices. Last Friday she told me about her daughter who is in grade school and who got very excited when Leanne asked her if she wanted to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit that just opened at the Milwaukee Public Museum. Leanne was happy to know that her young daughter was interested in going; she even started telling her classmates about the upcoming trip to the museum. Then one day this week Leanne saw her daughter drawing something and asked her what it was. "Dead Sea Squirrels!" was the reply. Leanne then explained that they were going to see "scrolls" not "squirrels." She explained what "scrolls" and at this her daughter's excitement turned to disappointment.
I think our Mass readings today show a similar dynamic: misunderstanding and disappointment. Our tendency is to not really understand who we are and the result is disappointment.
We tend to think of ourselves as isolated individuals and the reality is that we are members of a body, the Body of Christ. We think of the Church as an institution and the reality is that it is a communion, the Body of Christ consisting of many parts who are connected to one another. As Paul makes it clear in our second reading, "you are Christ's body, and individually parts of it." The implications are clear: "If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy."
This is the reality that we so often misunderstand and forget. At the 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne Pope Benedict spoke in his closing homily about this reality in words that make clear how we are to understand the Church and ourselves. He 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." Have you ever thought of yourself as Jesus' very flesh and blood? The reality is that you are. We truly are the Body of Christ, His presence in the world today.
The English author C. S. Lewis wrote about this in his essay "The Weight of Glory": "There are no ordinary people. You have never seen a mere mortal." The implications of this are challenging. Lewis goes on: "And our charity must be real and costly love.... Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses."
This is the reason behind what could be called "Jesus' Inaugual Address" in the Gospel. Jesus stands up to preach and uses words from a scroll of the Prophet Isaiah. He says that He is anointed for a purpose. The Holy Spirit fills Him so that He can free people and give them hope. We too were anointed at our Baptism and we have been given the Holy Spirit to empower us to do what Jesus did. We are called to reverence the image of God in ourselves and in one another. When we do this, we give true worship to God. We give glory to God.
But we so often forget and misunderstand this. It's really a question of focus. In the First Reading Ezra told the people to shift their focus. They had just heard a reading of the Word of God, the Law of God, and they broke into weeping because they realized how they had not been following it. They were filled with disappointment and discouragement. Ezra told them not to look backwards, not to focus on their sins and failures. He told them to focus on the present not the past. He said: "Today is holy to the Lord your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep.... Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!"
So too for us. Don't look to the past. Focus on the present and understand the reality of who you are. Don't live in misunderstanding and disappointment. Today's Gospel ends with these words of Jesus: "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." Today God's Word about who we truly are--the Body of Christ--is fulfilled. Don't look to the past, but to the present, and live out the reality of who you really are, one day at a time.
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