100 Thanks 2018

Yesterday my mother sent me a text of some notes she had taken from a class of a priest who was very close to me who passed away unexpectedly earlier this year.  This priest was explaining the reasons why we're happy as Christians: because we're children of God, because we're loved by God, in whom God delights, and where God wants to dwell.  These are not only reasons why we're happy but reasons to be thankful on this Thanksgiving Day.  Once you realize that you are God's beloved child in whom he delights and dwells then you spend your life constantly giving thanks.  This is the reason for this annual Thanksgiving List.  This is the reason why I have given it to my 8th graders for 15 years now.  As children of God, we must always have a grateful heart as we look around and see the MANY blessings he has bestowed on us throughout this year.  Yes, there are always trials that we are not thankful for, but looking back we see how those bumps in the road helped us grow closer to the One who loves us eternally.  So on this Thanksgiving Day, we pause with our family and friends to bow our heads and give thanks to our gracious and loving God for all his blessings and reflect on a few (or a hundred or so) of the things that we are thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The 100 Things I Am Thankful For This Thanksgiving

1.    The Eucharist

2.    My Priesthood

3.    The Immaculate Conception

4.    My family

5.    My cousins

6.    Those who claim to be my cousins

7.    Godchildren

8.    My way too big family

9.    My way too big “family”

10.  My parish

11.  My school

12.  My parishioners

13.  My school children

14.  My students

15.  My former students who will always be “my kids”

16.  Answered prayers

17.  “Youth Group Leaders” (yes, there are a lot of things in quotes this year so just go with it)

18.  Satisfied

19.  Friendsgiving

20.  Cancers in remission

21.  Newborn babies

22.  Peaceful and happy deaths (those exist)

23.  Priests who have been called home who were models of holiness

24.  Father Oscar’s reasons why we’re happy:

a.    Because we’re children of God

b.    Because we’re loved by God

c.    In whom God delights

d.    Where God wants to dwell

25.  The never-ending pursuit to be holy

26.  The challenges of being a pastor of souls because they make me seek out holiness all the more

27.  Prodigal children

28.  Long talks with those prodigal children

29.  Picking up a conversation where you left off that you started many moons ago

30.  The Office

31.  Carrying on a conversation with your best friend using nothing but The Office gifs

32.  The theater! “There’s nothing like a show on Broadway…”

33.  The Overture!

34.  The West Wing Thanksgiving Episode “Shibboleth”: Pilgrim Detectives!

35.  Friends Thanksgiving Episodes: “All right, where’s that turkey?”

36.  “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!” (name the show)

37.  “What’s next?”

38.  El Salvador

39.  Chumpes

40.  Lago de Coatepeque

41.  Jumping into a volcanic lake

42.  Group pictures

43.  Volcanoes

44.  Hawaii

45.  Friends who invite you to go on vacation with them!

46.  The silence of heroes in Pearl Harbor

47.  Kauai

48.  Kauai roosters

49.  Horseback rides on the beach

50.  The Indiana Jones Cave!

51.  The Ne Pali Coast

52.  Helicopter Rides

53.  Water slides

54.  Elevators!

55.  Perfectly fried tater tots at breakfast buffets

56.  Throwing Maui’s stupid hook into the ocean (or wherever we threw it)

57.  Casting a fishing line into the Pacific Ocean

58.  Catching a fish from the Pacific Ocean

59.  Those small, ordinary moments that turn out to become extraordinary

60.  “Los momenticos”

61.  Asheville

62.  Casting a fishing line into a pond in the foothills of the Appalachians 

63.  Catching a fish from said pond

64.  Mass in the mountains

65.  When you hit that rare but perfect note in a homily

66.  Direct flights

67.  Ah ha! moments (or moments of epiphany if you will)

68.  33149

69.  Da Boyz

70.  Actually doing Carpool Karaoke (video not available)

71.  “The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

72.  The March for Life

73.  Walking the National Mall in silence at dusk

74.  Any temperature between 55 and 70 degrees

75.  Uber

76.  Dumplings from a Hialeah Chinese Restaurant

77.  Molina’s moros

78.  Trigo’s batido de trigo

79.  Brother priests

80.  Watching parishioners become brother priests

81.  Carnival!

82.  Watching the kids run to the rides on Carnival Friday

83.  A packed Church on Sunday, any Sunday

84.  Holy Week

85.  Holy Week dinners

86.  The washing of the feet

87.  Good Friday processions

88.  My yearly climb to put the white cloth around the church crucifix

89.  Finding that perfect quiet spot on campus to pray

90.  Walking with my parishioners in their joys and in their sorrows

91.  Memories of my ministry with the Dolphins

92.  Opening Day with Dad (no matter how bad the team is)

93.  Sitting on the beach with my father, staring at fishing rods without having to say a word

94.  Rushing to the beach on summer evenings with my mother to catch the sunset

95.  The countless rosaries my mother offers for me

96.  My sister taking over my office because, well, she’s my sister

97.  My smile when I’m talking with my sister on the phone and I know I’m not gonna get a word in

98.  My oldest nephew being so much like my brother

99.  My middle nephew’s inquisitiveness and uncanny similarities to his uncle

100.       My youngest nephew’s imagination and train filled world

101.       “A Million Dreams”

102.       The unwavering faith that God forgives me and that his mercy is everlasting

103.       The unwavering faith that I am loved unconditionally by God

104.       Silence

105.       The things I’ve been meaning to write down all week but forgot

106.       Being able to write this list for a 15^th year and thank God on this Thanksgiving Day

The Real Missionary

Twenty-eight years ago, I met a quiet 11 year old girl named Juana. I was on my first missionary trip to rural Mexico, and Juana was to serve as our guide through the farm lands that we had been assigned to visit. She was the 3rd of 9 children of the family who lived at the foot of the hill of the small church we were staying in for those 18 sweltering July nights as we preached the gospel to the good people of a village called Monte Adentro. Every night we offered a catechesis in the church and every night some would travel as far as 2 or 3 miles by foot, sometimes bare foot, to come and hear the nightly catechesis. When the lessons and liturgy were over, they would return to their homes in the dark of the night hoping that the clouds would dissipate so that the stars would illuminate their way home and they wouldn’t have to waste the battery of their old flashlights. In the morning, Juana would take us out to their farms where we would visit these good people living in the poorest of conditions. She rarely spoke. We would just follow her and when we arrived at a farm she would tell us who lived there...and that’s it. When we returned at midday to the church, Juana would go back home and resume her chores: drawing water from the nearby well, sweeping her house, looking after her many rambunctious little brothers, and helping her pregnant mother with her newborn sister because her 16 year old sister had eloped the night that we had arrived. Juana never spoke of it. She never spoke much of anything except living the gospel with her actions at such a young age.

Juana has to be 39 years old now, and I still remember how she taught me how to be a missionary without uttering a word. Preach the gospel always, St. Francis said, if necessary use words. Juana didn’t need them. She guided us through muddy pastures, under barbed wired fences, across a very dangerous highway, and took us to visit some sick and dying people that no 11 year old should be exposed to. But she carried herself with the quiet dignity that I could only compare to the Virgin Mary who rarely spoke as well. Juana had no aspirations to leave her village even though we all wanted to adopt her and bring her to the States. She just went about her days doing good works. I spent three summers with her family. As she got older she acquired a bit more spunk, and even joined the other missionaries in ribbing me which was a pastime during those high school summers which are probably the happiest summers of my life. 

Juana, her family, and the people of that village taught me the meaning of the words of today’s gospel: “whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.”  Being a missionary and taking the gospel to the poor played such an important part in my discernment to be a priest.  These holy people were certainly not the greatest nor the first in the eyes of the world, but their faith was so tangible, so unwavering, and so alive.  They weren’t very expressive and didn’t show much emotion, but they truly saw any missionary that walked into their village as an emissary from God himself.  There’s a word for that: angels.  And my fellow missionaries and I were far from being angels.  I remember every summer there was a venting session about 10 days into the trip because by that time we were getting on each other’s nerves, but it didn’t detract from our goal of sharing the Good News.  We always said that we would go on missions for selfish reasons because we always received more from these holy, simple people than anything we could possibly give them.

Being a missionary is indeed an essential part of being a Christian.  On this World Mission Sunday, we pray for missionaries throughout the world that sacrifice so much for the sake of the gospel, some even putting their lives at risk to bring Christ to the darkest corners of the earth putting even their own lives in peril.  We may not be called to go off to foreign countries, but we are definitely called to be a missionaries wherever we go.  We should always carry the presence of Christ with us and do so quietly, but powerfully like that little girl Juana who I encountered all those years ago.  Our witness is what allows us to change the world: by being the least among our brothers and sisters.  We definitely did not change Monte Adentro in so much as Monte Adentro changed us.  We experienced a slice of heaven every time we visited, and we’ve been trying to bring that slice back home with us ever since.

 

Picking Up Your Cross

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (Mark 8:34)

About 6 years ago when I was assigned to St. Gregory, we had a big hospital a couple of blocks away which we were charged to visit when someone called for a priest. It was always a toll to be responsible for a hospital and knowing your day could be thrown for a loop if the hospital cell phone went off, but I have beautiful memories of ministering there.  On one particularly day in the late afternoon I was walking over from our parochial school to the rectory.  I was tired.  It had been a long day, and it wasn’t remotely over.  To this day sometime between the time school ends and the evening work of the parish begins, I like to squeeze in some quiet time in the late afternoon to gear up for that night’s ministry.  On that particular day, it was not meant to be.  I was exhausted, and I was headed into our residence to disconnect for a short while from the parish but our receptionist handed me a message.  Someone had died over at the hospital and the nurse called asking for a priest.  At that moment, I must confess, two very selfish thoughts crossed my mind, “why didn’t they call before the person died,” and “why were you giving me the message if I’m not on call?”  The priest who was on call had already left on another sick call, so I was on deck.  It never ceases to amaze me that when the Lord calls me at the most inopportune moments (i.e. when I selfishly don’t want to do things) the more grace he sends my way and the more grace I witness through no particular action of my own.  It’s all Him.  I got in the car and drove over to the hospital not knowing the details of the situation that I was going to confront.  I walked into the ICU and the nurse introduced me to the mother of the patient.  The mother?  Yes, the mother of a 27-year-old young man who had died. (The particulars of his death are not important; the fact that a mother lost her son unexpectedly is.)  Through her tears, this mother explained to me what had happened and she could barely get her words out.  It was a heart-breaking scene and even though she didn’t know me and even though she wasn’t even Catholic, as I would discover, she grabbed me, embraced me, and just starting sobbing.  She asked me to go in and say a prayer for her son.  I offered the prayers as this mother caressed her child much like Mary did hers.  I’ve been in many hospital rooms, ICU’s and ER’s, but this particular scene is still raw, still unnatural, and yet in some odd way filled with the Lord’s presence despite the tragic circumstance. I don’t remember what I said.  I do remember that they thanked me, the nurse who called thanked me, and as I was walking out of the hospital I started kicking myself because at first I did not want to go.  My selfishness almost deprived me of such a most grace-filled moment.:  “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (Mark 8:34)

Yes, out of necessity I was pressed into action that day, but to truly follow Christ and be Christ for others, we must constantly deny ourselves to allow him to do his good work in us.  To profess faith in Jesus, like Peter did, means that we have to back that faith up with action.  St. James makes that quite clear in the second reading.  Faith without works is dead.  We cannot proclaim Christ as Lord if we don’t deny ourselves DAILY and carry our crosses.  This is not an either/or proposition.  We cannot have one without the other.  Faith and works go hand in hand.  I couldn’t have been a minster of grace to that mother if I wouldn’t have taken a deep breath, offered my exhaustion to God, and carried the cross that was handed to me.  And here’s the kicker:  that tragic scene at the hospital would’ve brought down anyone without faith.  It gave me a second wind for the day.  When you see the hand of God tangibly working through the good works you do, you just want to do more.  When you see what a graced filled life you can live when you deny yourself and start putting God and the other first, you start looking for crosses to pick up.  Today our Lord is calling you to put the needs of others before yours.  There are poor people in the streets.  Pick them up.  There are sick people that need visiting.  Pick them up.  There are brothers and sisters who mourn.  Pick them up.  There are women that are contemplating an abortion.  Pick them up.  There’s a young person who may feel lost.  Pick them up.  There are many Catholics who are questioning their faith or the Church because of the scandals.  Pick them up. There are so many crosses around us that need picking up.  But there’s one cross that the Lord has given to you.  One cross that is only for you.  Only you can carry it (with His help of course) and only you can identify the purpose of this cross.  And when you find that cross that is particularly your own which may seem too heavy to carry, just know that His grace will suffice, the rewards will be heavenly, so do not be afraid:  deny yourself, approach that cross, and pick it up! 

Are You Listening To Me?

"And immediately the man's ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed..." (Mark 7:35) 

Let's get this out of the way right at the top: women think that men don't listen. You hear this a lot when couples are arguing, but priests aren't immune from this either. I come from a family of very talkative women, and all you have to do is ask any of them the simple question, "How are you?" and you will get a very lengthy response which is inevitably followed up by the question, "Are you listening to me?" Cause you see, since they have monopolized the conversation and haven't allowed you to utter a word, they don't think you're listening to them. Ok, maybe I'm trivializing communication between men and women just a tad, but it is extremely important in any relationship. The question of whether or not we're listening, as annoying as it may be, is actually a valid one because if we aren't listening we cannot respond. Such is the case with our relationship with the Lord, he has so much to tell us, so much to for us to do, but we turn a deaf ear and only listen to the parts that will not cause us to drastically alter our lives.

 
In the gospel today, the people bring a deaf mute to Jesus. The Lord places his fingers in the poor man's ears and touches his tongue and says, "Be opened!" The man's ears are opened, and he begins to speak as well. Upon hearing the Word of God, the former deaf mute is compelled to respond to that Word. The question the gospel presents to us today is: do we listen and consequently respond to God's Word? The problem is that like in any relationship, we turn a deaf ear when we don't want to listen. We think that when we come to mass we've heard it all before especially when it's a gospel we've heard countless times. During homilies, we smile and laugh when the priest says something we agree with, but play deaf and dumb whenever he challenges us with something radical or life changing. Here's the thing, the Word of God is not static. It is very much alive and has something new for us every single time we hear it. We cannot block out those things we do not want to hear or do not want to deal with. Christ is telling us to be open to whatever he has in store for us. Be open to the promptings of his Spirit. Be open to embrace the challenge of his Divine Word. Once we listen, we are able to respond. The Word applies to every aspect of our lives and applies equally to every one. Today we must admit that we are at times deaf to what the Lord wants to tell us and ask him to open our ears, our minds, and our hearts to joyously accept his will in our lives. 

Back to Basics

It occurs to me that the times we are currently experiencing in the universal Church demand a so-called “back to basics” approach.  I have yet to encounter a person who has told me that they are leaving the Catholic Church because of the current scandals.  Quite the contrary, I’ve seen people who have put out into the deep waters that Christ calls us to in search of that elusive holy life.  I’ve seen and read about people who want to get more involved in their Church and rediscover the beauty of their faith.  They are finding the religion that St. James speaks of in today’s second reading.  And this is where the back to basics approach comes in.  St. James tells us: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world (James 1:27).”

Even if we haven’t left our religion during this summer, we have no doubt questioned it, its precepts and its leaders.  St. James defines pure religion as caring for the other, in this case, those most vulnerable during the time of the first Christians: the orphan and the widow.  Then James sums it up by beautifully stating something that I and so many preachers have been hammering home the last few weeks: our call to be holy.  We are to keep ourselves “unstained by the world.”  And this is key particularly after a week in which we have seen such a fractured Church:  a Church that has been divided into left and right as if political parties ran it.  It calls to mind Don McLean's musical lyric: “I saw Satan laughing with delight.”  The devil is rejoicing seeing a splintered Church, a Church that is doubting its leaders, dabbling in conspiracy theories as if we were living in an Oliver Stone film, and running from the very reason Christ brought the Church into existence: to love those who need to be loved with the love of God that has been poured out into our hearts and to be a light for all nations.

Satan can laugh all he wants but the music has not died.  Despite our best efforts to destroy the Church from within (and I’m talking about bishops and priests here), the work of the Church continues.  Mass is still being celebrated.  The poor are still being fed.  Our children are still being educated to be disciples. The sick and the widows are still being visited, and the orphans, well, we can do much better in that department if only our government would let us, but I digress.  Faith in Christ is growing stronger in the face of adversity and we are being transformed from being mere hearers of the words to being actual “doers of the word.”

This is why I said last week in my homily that the future of the Church is found in the pews.  You must take leadership of the Church because you ARE the Church.  We priests and our bishops need to be taken down a few pegs and start washing feet again. Clericalism is a diabolical sin that has plagued the Church for way too long and it only serves to separate us the clergy from being true servants to the people of God.  There was a brilliant essay penned yesterday by George Weigel who is a magnificent Catholic writer in which he concludes “that the Church is being called to a great purification through far more radical fidelity to Christ, to Catholic teaching and to Catholic mission. Bishops who have failed in their responsibilities as teachers, shepherds and stewards have typically done so because they put institutional maintenance ahead of evangelical mission. Keeping the institutional Catholic machinery ticking as smoothly as possible, by compromises with truth and discipline if necessary, was deemed more important than offering others friendship with Jesus Christ and the sometimes hard truths the Church learns from Christ.” 

It truly is time to get back to basics and pursue a religion that is pure and undefiled.  It is a time to return to the basic evangelical love and mercy of Christ which made us fall in love with this extraordinary faith.  It is time for the laity to take up the mantle of leadership within our Church and help us restore the beauty of Catholicism.

Message to Parishioners in Wake of Church Scandals

No, your eyes are not deceiving you, after much prayer and some nudging from very important people in my life, I have decided to start writing and sending out my homilies again.  I will slowly start easing back into it (don't be surprised if I miss a week or two here and there), but I firmly believe that in the times that we are living in and with the scandals that are besieging the Church, I cannot remain silent...at least online.  I have preached about the scandals head on over the last two Sundays and on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 15 which was the day after the Pennsylvania Grand Jury released their report.  On August 15, I called what is going on in our Church by name: this is quite simply the work of the Evil One who is delighting at seeing our beloved Church in crisis.  How else to explain the horrific details outlined in that report, or the massive cover up around former-Cardinal McCarrick, or the details outlined Archbishop's Viganó's swown testimony?  Bishop Robert Barron probably put it best when he called all of these tragic events "a demonic masterpiece."  There has been a lot infighting in the Church, which also delights Satan, when we must be united in penance and prayer, and this infighting is making us lose sight of what is most important: we must never lose sight of the innocent victims of these violent crimes who must always be first in our prayers.  We cannot possibly imagine what they have suffered and are still suffering: the loss of innocence, the lose of faith.  So like St. Peter trying to walk on the sea during the storm, we must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.  Spend time before the Blessed Sacrament.  Go to Mass more often.  Go to Confession more often.  Offer penance and fasting for the sins committed.  We are ONE Church.  We are a Holy Church.  Yes, we are a Church made up of sinners, but as I describe in the letter to my parishioners below, Christ will purify us during this time so that we might be holy in his sight.  Let us commend the victims, the holiness of God's people and the holiness of our priests and bishops to the maternal care of our Blessed Mother.  May she protect us as we journey through this valley of tears.

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Message to the Parishioners of Immaculate Conception Parish (9-2-2018)

 

My dear friends,

 

The last few weeks have brought a lot of sadness, anger, and confusion when it comes to the scandals that are currently plaguing the Catholic Church. If you are angry, you have every right to be. If you feel betrayed, you certainly have been. As a parish, we have experienced this before, and once again we will overcome it because our faith in Jesus Christ must be unwavering during these perilous times.

 

There was a wonderful collection of verses in last week’s second reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians that really stood out: “...Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Eph 5:25-27)”

 

We are no doubt going through a period of extreme cleansing as a Church, and we must pray that the Lord make us holy and without blemish. Holiness is our universal call as baptized Christians, but in these moments it must be more than a calling. Holiness can no longer be a goal that we must strive for as Christians but rather a necessity that we must embrace in the face of the storms that are besieging Holy Mother Church. We have no choice anymore but to be holy as our Lord is holy.

 

The sins committed by a few have affected so many; especially God’s little ones, those he favors, those he calls us to imitate if we wish to enter the kingdom. These sins cry out to God and because we are one Church, we pray for the victims of these heinous crimes and pray for those who covered them up that they may do just penance.

 

This is a time of penance for us as a Church. Think of it as a summertime Lent. One thing that has not gone unnoticed are the long lines at our confessionals the last few weeks. There is a genuine desire among us to seek what is good, what is holy, and to rid ourselves of the filth of sin. And we must also rededicate ourselves to prayer at Mass and before the Blessed Sacrament. This week we will have that opportunity.

 

This Thursday, September 6th, we have been invited as a parish to celebrate one of the Novena Masses for Our Lady of Charity at La Ermita de la Caridad. Our school children have been invited to sing to the Blessed Mother and the priests of our parish have been invited to celebrate the Mass. There is no better time for us as a community to go to the feet of our Blessed Mother to ask her to protect her Son’s Church. We are calling on all our parishioners to do a pilgrimage this Thursday to La Ermita to celebrate this special Mass at 8pm. Prayer moves mountains and we need the Lord’s help to move the mountainous obstacles that are preventing us as a Church from being holy and without blemish.

 

God bless you all,

Father Manny