A Light Rising From the Darkness

"Let us cast off the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light."  (Romans 13:12)

Last night I was sitting in my hotel room on the Jersey side of the Hudson River saying my first Advent prayers.  Just across the river from our hotel proudly stands One World Trade Center or what some call the Freedom Tower. It was lit up with construction lights as it's in still in the process of being completed, but it was impressive nonetheless. Last year I saw half of the skeletal structure, now it is almost complete.  I couldn't help but draw parallels between the Freedom Tower and the season of Advent that we begin today.  There on that sacred ground, unspeakable darkness overshadowed lower Manhattan and our nation for most of the last decade.  Now the tower stands strong, as a testament to the determination and persistence of New Yorkers and all of us as Americans.  That tower is a reminder that evil deeds cannot define us a nation, and that where evil once triumphed, light now shines.  The World Trade Center now shines with all it's buildings around those two hallowed footprints, and soon a proud city and nation will dedicate One World Trade Center as a beacon of freedom, light and hope

As Christians, we begin this Advent season of light and hope longing for Christ in our lives.  As St. Paul tells the Romans, we must cast off all darkness, the darkness of sin, and clothe ourselves with the armor of light. This light is Christ.  We carry with us the hope of his coming.  We set our sights high, as Isaiah says, on the highest mountain.  And God indeed wants us to set our sights high.  Let us cast off excuses to live lives of holiness.  Let us put aside lives of sin and depravity  (St. Paul goes into great detail of what type of sins we must discard in the second reading) and dare to walk in Christ's marvelous light.  Do not be deceived by the allure of sin or by the need to go back to Christ with the same wounds,

This week, when I began to read Pope Francis' new Apostolic Exhortation "Evangelii Gaudium" (The Joy of the Gospel), he gives a beautiful message in his seond paragraph that in my eyes is tailor made for Advent:

Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace”. How good it feels to come back to him whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. (EG 2)

Do not be afraid to repeat this prayer that the Holy Father gifted us with over and over again during this Advent season.  God doesn't mind how often we seek his forgiveness.  So arise, my brothers and sisters.  Now is the time to return to Christ and set our sights on nothing less than holiness.  Arise, "let us walk in the light of the Lord (Isaiah 2:5)" and leave the ash heap of darkness behind.  Do not be afraid.

100 Thanks (2013)

This is the 10th year that I do this.  As always, great fun.  Happy Thanksgiving.

1.     My family

2.     Genuine silence

3.     Pope Francis

4.     Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

5.     The much needed fruit of patience

6.     That “secret” place I go fishing with my father

7.     My mother's prayers

8.     Running out of the tunnel

9.     Saturday night chocolate chip cookies

10.  “The Joy of the Gospel”

11.  Crowded Masses

12.  Good Friday Processions

13.  Godsons who say yes to God

14.  Giving my godson his First Communion

15.  Saturday morning walks

16.  Phone calls that tell you that your parish's $3 million debt has been paid off

17.  Parish festivals

18.  Bumper cars

19.  Mondays at 6:30pm

20.  Latin Restaurant, aka “El Timbiríchi” or Sweetwater’s version of “Cheers”

21.  Dinner after the last Sunday Mass

22.  Game 6 and Jesus Shuttlesworth

23.  People who get it when I quote “The West Wing” (“Butterball has a hotline? God, I’m sorry, I love my country.”)

24.  People who get it when I quote “Seinfeld” (“The sea was angry that day my friends…”)

25.  “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

26.  “Take this, all of you, and eat of it.”

27.  “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

28.  “Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit” (I got to do that one this year!!)

29.  “By the power vested in me by the State of Florida…” (wait a second, I don’t say that.  The bride and groom say the vows. I only receive them, so…) “You have declared your consent before the Church…what God has joined let no man divide.”

30.  “Through this holy anointing…”

31.  “Father, I’m cancer free.”

32.  “Father, I need to go to confession.”

33.  Washing feet

34.  Celebrating the Easter Vigil

35.  Using Pope Francis’ daily homilies as the ultimate homily help

36.  10 minute homilies during daily Mass

37.  People who don’t care when I preach a 10 minute homily during a daily Mass

38.  Friends who build me chapels

39.  No leaks in the roof

40.  Plumbing that works

41.  The bills are all paid (you can tell by the last three that this list belongs to a pastor)

42.  Brother priests who cover for me during away games

43.  Prayers at midfield

44.  A winning locker room

45.  New Orleans with old students

46.  Touring St. Augustine with its bishop (how cool is that?)

47.  Rome and Italy pilgrimage next summer! (Who wants to go?)

48.  New York City

49.  New Yorkers or New Englanders who come home

50.  Silence and solitude on the beach

51.  The view of the Atlantic Ocean from my room during my vacation last summer

52.  The crash of the waves that I could hear from that room

53.  That redfish that keeps eluding me (I need the trifecta!)

54.  October dinners in Jupiter

55.  Visits to certain schools in Broward

56.  Teacher Happy Hours at Duffy’s (one glass of wine…that’s it)

57.  Troops that come home

58.  Phone calls from Fort Collins, Colorado

59.  Trips across the country to rendezvous with said residents of Fort Collins (St. Louis!)

60.  The Cathedral of St. Louis

61.  Students who call me “Father Mans(z)” (Not necessarily my favorite,  kudos to my first students for quoting Austin Powers and using “Fasha” or “Faj”)

62.  Former students who are now teachers

63.  Twitter shout outs

64.  Chumpes Chumpes Chumpes

65.  Wine Rooms!

66.  My yearly week “away” in KB

67.  My mothers on the Key

68.  "My boys" (who don't know how to end a group chat)

69.  "My girls" (are you still wearing your bracelets?)

70.  Bunk Beds for me and the “Bad Priest” (stop calling him that!)

71.  The iBreviary App

72.  Superhero movies (except Man of Steel which I'll pretend never happened)

73.  Seminarians becoming priests (superheroes in their own right)

74.  First Masses and First Blessings

75.  Wisdom of older priests

76.  Not sweating the small stuff (wisdom imparted from #75)

77.  My dedicated staff

78.  Festival volunteers (Total time worked by majority of volunteers: 35 hours over 4 days)

79.  Children Masses

80.  My triplets MTL (who always keep me so very grounded)

81.  My first nephew's mind

82.  My second nephew's delightfully wicked sense of humor

83.  My third nephew's ferocious appetite

84.  My sister's patience

85.  My brother in law's patience (yea, he needs it too)

86.  My brother's charm (he gets it from me)

87.  Friday Family Happy Hours (we've only had one all year!!)

88.  Goonies having babies (Finally! Girls!)

89.  The [blank] Family (Insert your family's name in the blank)

90.  Thanksgiving bags and turkey giveaways

91.  People who feed the hungry before and well after Thanksgiving

92.  Every parish that I have been blessed to serve

93.  Every family that considers me part of their own

94.  Finally witnessing the wedding of a former student (with more to come)

95.  Cool, not cold, weather

96.  Long days doing the Lord's work

97.  The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist

98.  The power of the Rosary

99.  The unwavering faith of the people of God which only strengthens my own

100.                  Romans 8:39

A Merciful King

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  (Luke 23:42)

When we were baptized, we were consecrated into Christ’s ministry as priest, prophet and king.  Priest so that we can offer up prayers as we are doing now in this Eucharist, prophet so that can always proclaim the truth, and king so that can serve others.  Christ was not a king that lorded over people.  He was a servant-king and a merciful king.  We celebrate his kingship today and are reminded that we are called to serve our brothers and sisters as Christ our King did.

Last week, we had a wonderful family festival here at the parish.  Everyone had a great time, and it allowed us the opportunity to get to know each other through our shared work.  It allowed me as a priest to get to know people in a different way in that joyous atmosphere.  People that I would not normally have a chance to talk to after Mass would come up to me and share their hopes and dreams for our parish, and I had some wonderful conversations.  Yet, and I say this as a full confession, for every wonderful encounter I had with a parishioner or a visitor, there were two or three moments where I was pulled aside in the middle of the work of the festival by someone because they saw a priest and decided that the joyful chaos of a festival was as good a place as any to just unload on the priest.  And that’s fine.  That’s why I’m a priest, but there’s been one individual that’s been on my mind all week.  He was one of those two or three that pulled me aside from work outside to talk to me about something.  He did so on Friday for an extended period of time and when we were done I said, “why don’t we table this until next week because this really isn’t the place?”  It wasn’t an urgent problem.  It wasn’t even a problem at all.  It was just a person that wanted to chat, at length, with a priest.  Fair enough.  On Saturday, this gentleman tried to stop me again to continue our conversation even though I was bustling from one end of the fair to the other.  Then came Sunday…I was behind one of our food booths where we had just finished roasting an entire pig.  It looked delicious, and there was a line of people waiting to be served.  One lady, bless her heart, waited all 7 hours for it to finish roasting.  So I was there with the volunteers slicing the meat with the biggest knife you can possibly imagine in my right hand.  I was chopping up the meat with urgency to feed the waiting patrons when the gentleman crossed the rope line and tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Father, I know you’re hungry, but….”  I turned around and faced this poor soul with that big old knife in my right hand and quickly cut him off with a stern and deep, “Not now!”  I went back to work, but briefly peered over my shoulder to see the gentleman leaving the same way he got in.  Never saw him or heard from him again.
 

This is what has been on my mind this entire week especially in light of today’s gospel.  Sure I can excuse this by saying that there is a time and a place for everything, but that just doesn’t cut it with me when it comes to the possibility of losing a soul.  I could not be bothered, whether I was genuinely busy or not was no excuse.  Christ was quite literally dying on the cross, painfully gasping for every breath when the good thief asked for forgiveness and to simply be remembered by the Lord when he came into his kingdom.  Our dying Lord did one better by promising the blessed thief nothing less than paradise that very day.  What is striking about Christ on the cross is that when he seems so very vulnerable is when he is in fact at his most powerful.  There on the cross he is destroying sin and death.  There on the cross he is making Satan tremble.  There on the cross he is redeeming you and me.  There on the cross is where he received his crown.  Not a crown bedecked by jewels and gold, but a crown of thorns.  Unlike the authorities and soldiers below him, the good thief recognizes that Jesus is King, recognizes the love emanating from that cross.  This is what people must see in us if we are indeed followers of Christ the King to say nothing of what people must and should see in their priests. 

So that is what has been on my mind.  We share in Christ’s kingship which means that at all times we should serve one another with love, with mercy, with compassion and, yes, with a tremendous amount of patience.  Imagine the patience our Lord had with the disciples who couldn’t grasp the simple concepts of the Kingdom of God, and yet our Lord entrusted the Church to them.  On this solemnity of Christ the King, we ask the Lord to help us be true sharers in his kingship because we fall short so many times.  We long to hear the same words that the good thief heard.  Those blessed words that brought him paradise.  That is why this day and every day our prayer must be the same as his:  “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

 

A Confident Christian

“Come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” (Luke 19:5)

There I was down on one knee at midfield on top of the Dolphins logo.  We had seemingly just won the game in overtime on a safety of all things.  The team needed the win.  As their chaplain, I wanted nothing more than for them to have some joy after four long weeks.  So as soon as the players ran towards the endzone to celebrate, I ran to midfield to pray with the players from both teams as I do after every game, win or lose.  Except that the play was under review by the referees.  Some players and coaches started retreating a bit to the sidelines thinking the refs may declare that the game was not yet over.  With confident faith, I held my position on one knee in the middle of the field of play looking up at the video screens knowing that the correct call was made, but also knowing that what is correct is not always what comes out of the referee’s mouth.  I just wanted my team to win.  So I held my ground.  Some may call it arrogance, but I prefer to call it confidence and little bit a faith that the victory would be upheld.  Many of the players and coaches were looking towards the referee making the signal for safety which is two hands joined as they would be in prayer except you place them over your head.  As I knelt there, I couldn’t help but smile as I watched all these players making this sign of prayer, even if it meant something else.  I don’t know how long the referee reviewed that play, but it was long enough that the confidence I had began to turn to humility and I slowly got up almost resigned to the fact they were going to rule against us.  So I took some steps towards the bench when the referee came out to the field and signaled that the correct call was made and we had won the game.  In video replays, you can see the players rejoicing and off in the distance, a man dressed in black doing a fist pump and dashing to midfield to make his second attempt at a postgame prayer.  Sometimes the Christian needs to be confident.

That is how Christ carried himself.  That is what gave him the authority to tell a sinner like Zaccheus that he would stay at his house that evening.  There was something about Jesus that drew this tax collector to the Lord.  There was something about his persona, his voice, his confidence, in who he was that prompted this sinner to open his house and his heart to Christ.  And once you open your heart to Jesus, things get turned upside down.  Zaccheus receives the Lord into his home and immediately tell Jesus that he would give half his wealth to the poor and repay whomever he extorted 4 times what he stole from them.  That’s conversion!  And part of that conversion was having the confidence to be able to stand up in front of your critics, and there were many in Jericho that day, and tell everyone how much your heart has changed and the actions you’re going to take to demonstrate the love of Christ that now exists in a forgiven sinner’s heart.  Jesus comes to seek the lost souls, prop them up, give them the confidence of the children of God so that they can change the world around them like Zaccheus did that day.  Lost souls are capable of incredible acts of faith and charity when they turn their hearts to Christ.  Today, Jesus is calling you by name asking to abide in your heart so that you may be a confident Christian. 

Because we have been forgiven and because we are children of God, we need to walk with our heads held high and with the confidence of knowing that we have been redeemed and that Christ is always at our side.  People will pick up on this Christian confidence, and they will gravitate towards us as we point them in the direction of our Master, Jesus Christ.  After I said the prayer at midfield, players from both teams graciously thanked me and when I arrived at the victorious locker room, others were thanking me for contributing to the win.  I always tell people that I don’t pray for wins.  I’m just there as a witness of the Church and of Jesus Christ standing confidently on that sideline because we already won: 2000 years ago on the cross.  Which is why I was able to walk off the field last week with my head held high after the crushing defeat in New England because of what a player prayed at midfield:  “Lord, nothing that happened on this field today is greater than what You did for us at Calvary.”  So much depth and truth in that prayer.  Walk confidently my friends, for Christ has redeemed you.

Our Priests

(I'm currently en route from New England back to South Florida, so I wanted to share with you what I wrote this week in our bulletin about Priesthood Sunday)

"The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal (Sirach 35:21)."

This past week, the Catholic Church in Miami lost one of the great priests in the history of the Archdiocese: Monsignor Emilio Vallina, the longtime pastor of St. John Bosco.  He built up the first Hispanic parish in Miami out of a car dealership in 1962.  He opened his arms to his fellow Cuban immigrants, and many years later, kept them open as Nicaraguan, Honduran, Salvadoran and countless others from Latin America in that poor neighborhood in Little Havana.  This humble man was a giant among his brother priests.  On this Priesthood Sunday, I can’t help but recall all “the giants” who have been called home to the Lord over the last several years.

Monsignor Vallina was ordained the same year as the priest who baptized me: Monsignor Luis Perez, the longtime pastor of San Lazaro in Hialeah and the familiar face who fervently led the rosary before every Our Lady of Charity Mass.  Msgr. Perez worked well into his 80s and even at an advanced age took on the arduous task of going to do mission work in Mexico.

In a name that is not familiar down here in Dade County but in Broward is as thunderous as his commanding voice, Father Gabriel O’Reilly was told 40 years ago to go build the parish of St. David in horse country in Davie just west of Fort Lauderdale.  He literally began celebrating Mass in a bar and before you knew it he had built a church, a rectory and school.  He was the only pastor that parish had even known when he died this past summer.

I could fill several pages of this bulletin with the heroic work of the priests that built up this Archdiocese that have gone home these last few years:  Monsignor Armando Balado, a saintly man who I devoutly served as an altar server, Father Florentino Azcoitia who inspired so many families through Encuentros Familiares, Father Amado Llorente, who quite literally led me to say yes to the priesthood through an Ignatian Retreat, Father Jorge Sardiñas, whose holiness taught me that every Mass was a retreat, Father Armando Perez who labored so hard for Hispanics in Broward County, Father Pepito Garcia who could always be found with a smile on his face visiting the sick at the hospital, and of course, the soul of the Miami presbyterate, Bishop Agustín Román, who was a living saint among us and whose legacy will be remembered in this Archdiocese 100 years from now.

I know that I left out many great priests, but I just wanted to share a few who made a profound impact in my priesthood.  Priesthood Sunday is celebrated so that we may appreciate the good work that priests have done in our lives.  I invite you today to think about those men who brought you closer to Christ, initiated you into the life of the Church, gave you First Communion, witnessed your marriage, anointed you, absolved you, buried your loved ones, and lived up to their high calling of acting in persona Christi.  I am blessed to be a priest because of all these holy men that have gone before me and are now, through our prayers, sharing in their Master’s joy.  They are priests forever.  We are indebted to each one of them because they made present for us our Savior Jesus Christ.  Pray for your priests!

 

 

Becoming Persistent Missionaries

“…proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.” (2 Timothy 4:2)

This week’s readings are all about persistence when it comes to prayer.  Jesus wants the disciples to pray, persevere, and not grow weary like Moses did during the battle against Amalek where he held his arms on high so that Israel would defeat its enemies.  Persistence is the key to prayer as we see in the parable that Jesus offers of the widow who keeps asking the judge for justice.  Our God is a God of justice who will give us so much more than what the judge gave the widow because we cry out to him and more importantly because we are his chosen ones.

Today the Church celebrates World Mission Sunday and we are called to be persistent in our prayers for all missionaries throughout the world.  Here we turn to the co-patroness of the missions who despite her young age, despite never leaving the convent, and despite ailments that afflicted her until her untimely death at 24, always prayed unceasingly and offered up her suffering for the missions and for the spread of the gospel.  Of course, I am talking about St. Therese of Lisieux who longed to be a missionary.  We look to her as a model of how fervent our prayers should be for all those brothers and sisters throughout the world who sacrifice so much to bring the message of Jesus Christ and the compassion and work of his Church to people that desperately need it. 

Today we pray for the Salesian Sisters in Chennai, India who dedicate their lives to rescuing girls from child trafficking and modern day slavery (yes it still very much exists in the 21^st century, sadly).  There in Chennai little girls are sold off and have to work in households from 5:00am to Midnight every day cooking, cleaning, and looking after babies despite being only 9 or 10 years old.  The Sisters rescue these girls and give them a loving home where they give them an education and restore their dignity.  (You can see more about the good work of these Sisters and the plight of these girls by watching this short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jk5GGHdoS3w)  There is so much good that the Church does throughout the world that we don’t even know about it.  It’s not as simple as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and caring for the sick anymore.  Missionaries around the world risk their lives every single day to do the work of Christ and proclaim his glorious Name even in countries where it is illegal to do so just so that their brothers and sisters could have a better life.  That is what the Salesian Sisters do in Chennai, India, and that is why all these missionaries need our constant prayers.  A missionary has to be as persistent as the widow in the gospel and as bold as St. Paul tells Timothy to be in the second reading. 

I’ll end with this story about our dear Bishop Román who spent years and years going out to visit the Miccosukee Indians to celebrate Mass for them even though no one there was Catholic.  Yet, he persisted.  He would go again and again without a hint of discouragement, and many years into his ministry there, he finally got one person who embraced the Catholic faith.  Bishop Román would tell this story with so much joy.  So many would have given up after a year or two and so many would have thought one conversion over so many years a failure, but the good bishop kept pressing on and he rejoiced when all that hard work paid off because one heart now belonged to Jesus Christ.  This holy man reminds us that we too are all called to be missionaries by virtue of our baptism, and that we are called to invite others to share in the joy that we experience every Sunday here at the Eucharistic feast.  There are so many people out there that need to experience the love, mercy, and peace of Jesus Christ.  Today, I’m not asking you to go off to India to help the Salesian sisters.  I’m not asking you to go off to any distant lands.  Today, I just have one simple missionary request: invite someone to Mass who doesn’t usually go.  They may and probably will say no at first, but keep at it.  Maybe your persistence will cause them to finally give in to your request like the judge in the gospel.  And when they do come to Mass and open themselves to the outpouring of grace that takes place here at this altar, the sky’s the limit to what God has in store for them.  May we always be persistent in our prayers for missionaries around the world, and may we embrace our baptismal call to be missionaries on this World Mission Sunday and every Sunday by inviting one, just one, person to come to Mass with you next week.  St. Therese of Lisieux, pray for us.

Blessed Are Those Who Give Thanks

“…and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.” (Luke 17:16)

We are so blessed.  We are so undeservedly blessed.  Every Sunday we gather in this Church to celebrate the great gift that Jesus left us in the Eucharist.  We celebrate his presence.  We celebrate his love for us.  We celebrate that he became “true food and true drink” (cf. Jn 6:55) for us.  Yes, we take it for granted at times, even priests, but every now and then we need to stop and give thanks for the great gift that we have in the Eucharist.  Giving thanks is at the core of today’s gospel where the leper who was cured returned to Jesus in gratitude.  If you read this gospel passage in Greek, you will notice that the word for “giving thanks” in Greek is ευχαριστία (eucharistía) which we translate as eucharist.  So what the leper does is what we do every time we approach the altar of the Lord.  We approach to give thanks.

This past week I went on my yearly retreat, and I, along with twenty of my brother priests, was blessed to have as my retreat master the retired archbishop of New York, Cardinal Edward Egan.  All week long, Cardinal Egan tried to impress upon us the importance about emphasizing to all of you how blessed we are to celebrate the Eucharist, to receive such a gift, to be able to take part in this great sacrifice of the Mass.  Each day he would begin Mass by reminding us that “Mass is Calvary here with us.  Jesus Christ is our Priest and our Victim.  We are priests with him in renewing and making sacramentally present again the sacrifice and the wonder of Calvary.”  He reminded us that as his priests we take part in bringing Christ to you and the importance of instilling in our faithful a great love for the Eucharist.  I have said it time and again that there is no greater act that we do all week that is greater than this divine act of love that we mutually exchange with our God here on this altar.  This is why we are blessed because we get to take part in “the wonder of Calvary” which is made present in the Mass.  Jesus told his disciples that “many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it (Luke 10:24).”  Jesus could have very well been talking to us.  We get to hear his Living Word and get to eat this life giving food, his very flesh, every time we gather in this church.  This is why we must constantly give thanks.  Despite the hardships that we endure out there, we have a place of refuge in here where our Lord becomes present for us, and we have the opportunity, like the leper, to throw ourselves at his feet to give thanks.

Imagine how our world would be if we said “thank you” more often.  Imagine if we took this “eucharistic spirit” with us when we left.  This morning, as Pope Francis consecrated the Church to the heart of Mary, he talked about the importance of these two simple words:  “Saying “thank you” is such an easy thing, and yet so hard! How often do we say “thank you” to one another in our families? These are essential words for our life in common. “Sorry”, “excuse me”, “thank you”. If families can say these three things, they will be fine. “Sorry”, “excuse me”, “thank you”. How often do we say “thank you” in our families? How often do we say “thank you” to those who help us, those close to us, those at our side throughout life? All too often we take everything for granted! This happens with God too. It is easy to approach the Lord to ask for something, but to go and thank him: “Well, I don’t need to”. 

Yes, all too often we come to the Lord with a list of grievances, which he is all too happy to attend to, when we should be approaching him first with a spirit of thanksgiving.  We should also go out of our way to thank those who help us on the journey as well.  I remember in seminary that one of my spiritual directors taught me the importance of the lost art of a hand written thank you note.  Not a text, not an email, not a letter, but a hand written note.  It’s more personal.  It makes us go deeper into our heart to show our gratitude.  This is what we must do when we approach the table of the Lord: go deep into our hearts and realize how blessed we are to simply abide in his presence to give him thanks.  How blessed our world would be if we approached God and each other more often with those two simple words: thank you.

Today is Still Respect Life Sunday

"Increase our faith.” (Luke 17:6)

“For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice…” (2 Timothy 1:7)

The first two readings today tell us about so much hardship.  The prophet Habakkuk is crying to out to God because he does not see his provident hand at work in his life.  We sometimes may feel the same way.  We are besieged by stress in our work and in our homes, sickness in our families, and loss of loved ones.  We see all around us the violence the prophet talks about, and we are left asking the same question: “How long will this endure?”  Both the first and second readings come to the same conclusion:  we must have faith to persevere in this world.  This is why the apostles asked the Lord to increase their faith in the gospel.

This past Friday, a driver came to pick me up to go do a television interview.  He was a very nice man, yet for some reason he kept talking about all the bad things happening on the news.  Full disclosure: I try to keep up with national and international news, but I never watch the 11pm local news.  At the end of my day, I like to relax, say my night prayers, and fall asleep in a good mood watching SportsCenter.   But this gentleman caught me up to speed on every accident, every shooting, and every piece of bad news that had taken place in the last week.  However, after reeling off all of these negative events, without me saying a word, he came to the following conclusion:  “You see Father, that’s why with all these bad things happening in the world…we gotta have faith now more than ever.”  Immediately I thought about today’s gospel.  How else can we confront all the craziness in the world if it isn’t through faith?

Today the Church celebrates Respect Life Sunday.  Contrary to popular secular opinion or what the New York Times may have to say, the moral tenets that we uphold and pray are defended on this day are the same as they were before Pope Francis was elected.  Through his actions, Pope Francis has proven to be a great pope that defends life.  And through his words, the Pope had this to say on the day after that famous interview was released where the secular world thought he was softening the Church’s stance on abortion (Surprise! he actually strengthened our resolve):   “Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world's rejection. And every elderly person – I spoke of children: let us move to the elderly, another point! And every elderly person, even if he is ill or at the end of his days, bears the face of Christ. They cannot be discarded, as the “culture of waste” suggests! They cannot be thrown away!” (Pope Francis to Doctors on 9/20/13)

We do live in a society that likes to discard rather violently.  On this day, we look around us and see that we are indeed surrounded by what Blessed John Paul II called a culture of death.  It is up to us to change it into a culture of life.  St. Paul tells Timothy in today’s second reading that God did not give us a spirit of cowardice.  If this is so, and forgive me for sounding like a broken record, then why are most Catholics such cowards when it comes to standing up for human life?  Why do we let this culture of death pervade when we can drown out the screams of death with our prayers?  God always listens to the prayers of his children.  Just one caveat:  WE HAVE TO PRAY!  Respect Life Sunday isn’t limited to just one day, but it lasts the entire month just like we celebrate the month of the rosary during October.  We have such a beautiful instrument of prayer in the holy rosary where we can ask our Blessed Mother to protect those who are unborn, those who are elderly, those who are immigrants or undocumented, those who defend marriage, those who defend and work for the poor.  God did not make us cowards.  He sent us the spirit of courage to change the world and to stand up for all human life and of life’s divine values.

Yes, we may get discouraged like the prophet in the first reading when we see the state of our world,  but I’ve been saying it all year during this Year of Faith, our prayer must be those of the apostles:  “Increase our faith!”  With faith we can indeed move mountains and remind the world that Life has a name:  Jesus Christ.  When the world discovers this Jesus through us, they will abide in His truth and his love and all these evils will slowly start to disappear if we live up to the name of Christians.  This is our calling.  We are called to be a people filled with faith who spreads that faith to slowly eradicate this culture of death that is killing our children, marginalizing the poor and the migrant, diluting our marriages and our families, and discarding our elderly.  As the Pope said last month quite emphatically:  “They cannot be discarded!”  My friends, let us work to build up a true culture of life.  Then filled with great peace we will be able to say the closing words of today’s gospel when God calls us home:  “We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do (Luke 17:10).”