Day 4 – You’re Not in Control! God is!

Here’s a hint if you ever find yourself working in a church office:  never joyfully say, “Boy, it’s quiet today.”  That’s like opening up a front door on the streets of Pamplona during the running of the bulls.  Something will happen to remind you that there is never an ordinary or “quiet” day when you are doing God’s work.  Well no sooner had I said this when a terrific wrench was thrown into great plans we had in store for our young people.  You can plan and try to control even the most miniscule of details, but God always has a plan that is greater than yours.  I spent most of my afternoon a little miffed that I had to fix a mess that was not of my doing.  When I finally calmed down and realized that I had to play the hand that I had been dealt, I clumsily uttered a phrase that almost immediately made it on to my Twitter feed: “When life throws you curveballs, make lemonade!”  Of course I meant “when life gives you lemons,” but the mixing of metaphors and my sudden and unexpected transformation into Yogi Berra led me to conclude that even when it comes to speech, God is in control.  I was trying to calm our pastoral staff when I said something that made absolutely no sense, but ended up being a funny and teachable moment.  Even when things are spiraling out of control around us, God’s got our back.  And from what seems hopeless, unforeseen blessings will appear. 

Day 3 - What Should I Give Up?

Yesterday, one of my students sat in front of me during lunch and asked me what she should give up during Lent. I couldn't answer because the whole table proceeded to tell me what they were doing. I must say that for 13 & 14 year olds I came away pretty impressed. One was giving up cursing.  Another gave up any drinks that weren't water.  Another was giving up meat for ALL of Lent and the one that took he prize was the girl who was giving up all drinks except water plus texting plus Facebook and Twitter.  I asked her if she thought it was too much.  She paused for a second of thought and simply replied "nope" with a depth that defied her youth.

Young teenagers love a good challenge, and since they haven't yet reached the age where they start questioning everything, they embrace the challenge of Lent with an optimistic innocence that we can all learn from.  I’ve seen that a lot recently in friends my own age who embrace the challenge of a more demanding job or of running a marathon or of doing Cross Fit.  What's the biggest challenge in your spiritual life?  What do we need to embrace or purge from our life this Lent to allow us to look upon Christ with the same eyes as these young people?

Day 2: Why All the Fuss Over Ashes?

Our parish celebrated 9 Masses on Ash Wednesday.  The smallest Mass had 200 people probably because it was at 6am.  The church kept filling up as soon as it had emptied.  Phones wouldn’t stop ringing.  (Funny enough, someone asked why there weren’t any Masses AFTER our last Mass at 8:30pm.)  I often wish I could stand outside and ask people why they receive the ashes.  Obligation?  Superstition?  Catholic guilt?  At the end of the Spanish Mass last night before we imposed the ashes, I reminded the people, many of whom I have never seen before, that the imposition of the ashes was not only a reminder of our need for conversion, but by our very presence there to receive them, the mark of the cross of ashes that we would bear on our foreheads had to be a mark of commitment that we would do everything we could to truly return to the Lord during the next 40 days.  If we go to Mass on Ash Wednesday (and not on Sunday) just to receive the ashes and don’t do anything to change our lives during Lent, then we would be better off staying home.  Like on Palm Sunday, many focus so much on the ashes and palms that they fail to see something far more precious that we give out every single day:  Christ’s Body and Blood!  That is what matters:  rediscovering our love for Christ and his love for us in the Eucharist.  The cross of ashes that many of us displayed proudly on our foreheads yesterday should be the ultimate sign of commitment that we long to get closer to the love that was displayed at the Last Supper and on the cross and that we seek to help others discover the beauty of that love.  May we pray for one another as we begin our Lenten journey.

Day One: Lent: A Gift, Not A Burden

Here we are.  A new beginning.  A fresh start.  “Return to the Lord” the prophet Joel tells us in the first reading of today’s Mass.  What a gift we have in the Lenten season!  An opportunity to make things right with our God.  An opportunity to rediscover how much he loves us and truly how much he forgives.  Last Sunday, I spoke about friendships, and I must admit that there are friendships that have fallen by the wayside or grown stale that I wish I could jump-start or refresh much like pressing the refresh button on a computer.  The beauty of Lent is that we can refresh our relationship with God.  The ashes on our forehead serve as a reminder not only of our sinfulness, but of the love that God has for us in sending his only Son to rescue us from sin.  Think back to that best friend in high school that you wish you were still in touch with and just imagine if you could start anew with that person on this day.  This is the beauty of Lent.  We get to start anew with God.  We are called to return to the Lord because he will restore the joy that has been lost in our lives.  So don’t look upon the season of Lent as a burden because of all the fasting and sacrifices.  It truly is as a gift!

A Little Help From My Friends

"They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men."  (Mark 2:3)

I have been blessed throughout my life with incredible friends.  These are the people that love me, keep me grounded, point out my flaws, lift me up, and go through great lengths to demonstrate the depths of their love.  I could begin talking about my best friend who has walked with me for all but the first six months of my life, but I would need an entire chapter of a book to attempt to describe our friendship.  I have one group of friends that I get together with once or twice a year (not nearly enough) and whenever we gather, we lift up our wine glasses and say the following toast:  “I have learned that being with those you love is enough.”  Isn’t that the truth?  Being with friends, family, or even with God himself should be enough for us.  Friendship is a gift that comes from on high to bring us closer to the Source of all love.  I have no doubt that these friends would go through great lengths to do anything for me as I would for them.  Providence brought us together, and time and distance has not been able to keep us apart.

Among the many subplots going on in today’s gospel reading, friendship is one that is key to what transpires.  Four men go through great lengths to place a paralytic man at the feet of the Lord.  They would not be deterred by a crowded house or a blocked entrance.  Rather they enter through the roof to make sure that their friend would be healed.  This should prompt us to ask the question:  do I have friends like that?  Do I have friends that would overcome any obstacle to make sure that I am well?  Or better yet:  do I have friends that would do anything to bring my closer to Jesus and/or do I bring my friends closer to the Lord?  All very good questions and worth examining because we tend to categorize our friends.  We have our work friends, our school friends, our neighborhood friends, our social/party friends, and of course, our church friends.  Do we only speak about Christ with our “church friends?”  Why are we ashamed to bring others to the feet of the Lord?  So many around us are paralyzed by sin, and the Lord is counting on us to bring them to him.  Friendship in Christ is what makes those relationships last because they are firmly rooted in Love Himself.  Friends do come and go, but I have found that those that have been with me the longest are the ones that I met in church where Christ brought us together and continues to strengthen out love.

We begin the season of Lent on Wednesday, and we will no doubt begin our Lenten practices.  Allow me to add one more:  do I bring my friends closer to Christ?  This is key because as members of his Body we called to strengthen our Church by bringing others to him as the four men did in the gospel.  As the first reading said, God wants to make something new, and he wants to start with each of us as we enter this blessed season that calls us to conversion.  Shouldn’t we invite others to come before the Lord to be freed from whatever sin paralyzes them?  So this Lent, bring a friend to Church, invite them to pray with you, and let us strengthen the bonds of friendship that unite us with those we love.  This Lent, may we be the good friends that bring paralyzed souls to the feet of the Master.

Holding Her Hand

“Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him,  "I do will it. Be made clean."  (Mark 1:41)

How do we treat those who are ill?  In the first reading, we learn that under the Mosaic law, lepers would have to present themselves to the priests, and if they were declared lepers they would be condemned to a sub-human existence on the periphery of society.  They couldn’t be near people and would have to yell, “Unclean, unclean” if someone came near them.  This is how it was during Jesus’ time which is what makes this healing so remarkable.  Jesus touches this leper in order to cure him when his word would simply suffice as we say before receiving communion.  Jesus treated the sick with love and compassion.

There are so many who are sick among us including ourselves.  We may not have a physical illness, but we suffer from the ills of this world that cause emotional, mental, and spiritual pain.  Yesterday, we had a healing Mass here at the parish for the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.  Many came looking for healing just as the leper does in today’s gospel.  Many came just seeking to have the Lord touch them in a special way.

A little over a week ago, I visited a woman named Martha who was very, very ill with cancer.  She was at home, in her bed, and being taken care of by her husband who is a physician.  I spent some time at her bedside and gave her the anointing of the sick.  At the time, I didn’t know how grave her condition was.  On Friday night, after a long day, one of her friends asked if I could visit her again because she felt that death was near.  I went again and found the house filled with people including the Martha’s mother who had travelled to be with her daughter.  They led me to the bedroom, and I found a much different scene from a week earlier.  She was now in hospice bed, she was sleeping but laboring for every breath, and her husband sat at her side clutching her hand.  I took a seat on the other side of the bed and sat her mother next to me.  The entire family came into the room as I prayed the prayers of commendation of the dying.  Every now and then, I would look up from my book and see her husband caressing her arm and looking at her with probably the same eyes that he looked upon her when she approached him at the altar on their wedding day.  He was a physician.  He knew very well that death was near, and he was cherishing every second that he had left with his wife holding her hand and brushing back her hair with tender care.  When I was done with the prayers and gave her the final blessing, we all sat there in silence.  I looked around and saw her children and the rest of her family staring at her.  Martha’s mother, with great faith, kept repeating in Spanish, “my little daughter, my little daughter, I give her back to you Lord.”  There was so much peace and so much love in that room.  Her husband kept whispering in her ear that the priest had come to visit in some hope that she would open her eyes, but she was starting to slip away.  One by one, everyone started leaving the room, and when I got up to leave, her husband got up to thank me and shake my hand, and as he did so, he never let go of his wife’s hand.

I left a little before 10pm and the next morning before I walked out the door for morning Mass, I saw an envelope on the floor that someone had dropped through the mail slot.  The envelope had my name on it, and I opened it to find a thank you note that read. “Father, eternally grateful for your visit last night.  My friend Marta died shortly before Midnight.”  My heart sank with sadness, but as I walked over to church, all I kept thinking about was how this husband never let go of his wife’s hand during her last breaths.  This is love!  So it is with our Lord and each and every one of us.  When we are sick, when we are broken, when we are ravaged by sin, depression, or despair, and when we are lonely, we look to the Lord for comfort and healing because just like this loving husband, Jesus never lets go of our hand.

Women of God

“Jesus approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.”  (Mark 1:31)

This past week, the Church lost two great women who dedicated their lives to serving the Church.  On a personal level, I lost two remarkable women who I looked up to as examples of unflappable faith.  One of these ladies I have known since I entered seminary, for she has prayed for me and for all seminarians and priests every day for the last 36 years.  The other was the heart of my last parish who lived for serving her parish and for taking care of her priests.  Both ladies loved the priesthood and devoted their lives to praying for us and our ministry.  Now they enjoy the just rewards of true servants of God.

I met Delia Berta González in 1993 when I was in my first year of seminary.  She was a small woman with a loud, loud voice—not unlike my own grandmother. In 1976, Bishop Roman and Bishop Estevez, when they were still parish priests, were doing a radio show with her to promote vocations and asked her on the air if she would start up a prayer league of people to pray every day for more vocations and for our seminarians and priests.  She didn’t hesitate and immediately gave her phone number on the air.  From that moment, ladies were calling her up because they wanted to be part of this prayer league.  Thus, the Liga Orante was born, and Delia Berta set up a very simple ministry.  She would assign one person to call ten people to pray for vocations during the week.  It grew exponentially to the point where we once had thousands of people praying for vocations every single day.  The highlight of the Liga Orante’s year was their annual Mass with the Archbishop and the seminarians at St. John Vianney Seminary every January.  Two hours before Mass started, little old ladies would be carefully parking their cars and filling up the seminary chapel.  Delia Berta would always be seated proudly in the first pew.  This was her day with her boys. She hugged and kissed each seminarian as if each was her grandson.  At the end of the Mass, she would present the Archbishop with a check that was scraped together with the coins and dollar bills of her ladies.  The check was usually anywhere between $12,000 and $19,000 for the seminary.  She would then grab the microphone from the Archbishop and would proceed to tell her army of ladies to give more to the seminary and to keep praying.  We would laugh because not even the Archbishop could take that microphone away from her once she got started.  Years later when I became Vocations Director, I also became the chaplain to the Liga Orante.  Delia Berta was thrilled, but her health was beginning to decline.  She would call me up this time of year to remind me of their annual Lenten Retreat, but she was having trouble remembering how many times she called me.  I didn’t mind.  During my last year as Vocations Director, she recognized very few people, but she still kept her seat in the first pew at their annual Mass.  She may not have remembered everything, but when she say her seminarians, her priests, and her bishops walk in, the great smile of pride would return and she was full of life again.  I preached at her husband’s funeral and helped her bury a daughter in a span of a few months.  Her mind may have been failing her but the work of the Liga Orante had to continue.  Her closest friends carried her torch these past few years even as many of these ladies from Delia Berta’s army of prayer began to go home to the Father.  On Saturday, Jesus approached Delia Berta, grasped her hand, and helped her up.

Right before Christmas 2008, as I was saying goodbye to Delia Berta and my work with Vocations, I called my soon to be new parish, Mary Help of Christians, and a booming voice answered, “Good morning, this is Marge!”  I asked to speak to the pastor, but that voice stayed with me.  I would meet Marge Hickey three weeks later.  She was our sacristan, our receptionist, our go-to volunteer, the only one our pastor would allow to cook for the priests and spoil us.  She did all of this as she was about to turn 80 years old.  Every morning, she would open the church at 6:30 a.m. and prepared the altar for Mass before the priest arrived. Everything had to be just right for God and his priests.  I would walk in around 6:50 a.m. and find her sitting at the edge of the fourth row praying from her book of novenas and I’d whisper good morning to her.  Marge didn’t know how to whisper.  She would always break the silence of the morning with a hearty “Good morning, Father!”  Many a day I would sit with Marge at the reception desk, and she would tell me stories about her family growing up in Long Island during the Depression.  Marge was always independent.  Her father died at a young age, and she took care of her mother and sister when they were dying.  During Lent, she fondly recalled the times her mother went to Long Island Sound on Fridays to fish for small halibut that she would prepare for dinner.  Marge always said that she never tasted a better piece of fish.  Marge was also an excellent cook in her own right.  She would spoil the priests with incredible rib dinners and big fried gulf shrimp.  She never made a bad meal, but she was never satisfied with what she made. Nothing was too good for her priests.  Every Sunday morning she had to bring us our bagels: a honey bagel for Father Jerry, an oatmeal raisin bagel for me, and a plain bagel for Father Tom.  And many a parishioner almost had their hands cut off if they even attempted to go near our food.  Her health started failing during my last months at Mary Help, yet she continued to show up at the office even if she couldn’t show up to daily Mass anymore.  She continued to cook for us and answer the phones and supervise the decorating of the church during Christmas and Easter.  Even as her incredibly generous heart began to fail, she continued to worry about letting our pastor down.  On Wednesday, Jesus approached Marge, grasped her hand, and helped her up.

If you read the Greek translation of St. Mark’s gospel, the word “help” in Greek literally means “raise up.”  St. Mark uses this word in today’s Gospel to “raise up” Simon’s mother in law and again when Jesus “raised up” the little girl who had died and finally to describe Jesus’ own resurrection.  What did Simon’s mother in law do to thank Jesus after being “raised up”?  She began to serve them.  How else could she thank the Lord.?  These two extraordinary women were pillars of the Church.  Even through great pain and physical hardship, they would constantly rise up to serve the Lord each day.  Like St. Paul in today’s second reading, they both believed that the preaching and the spreading of the Gospel was an obligation that had been imposed on them, and woe to them if they didn’t accomplish their mission.  But they did accomplish it, and they leave behind a legacy of service and fidelity to the Church that should serve as an example for all of us as Jesus calls us to rise up as a Church during these trying times.  God called two good and holy women home to himself this week.  It is up to us to continue their work.

“Well done, my good and faithful servant…come, share your master’s joy.” (Matthew 25:23)

How To Offend a Catholic

Offending Catholics is very easy.  All you have to do is preach the truth on a topic that the secular world considers “hot button issues” and half of them are probably offended.  Catholics like to be left alone, and they like to take the easy path when it comes to "practicing their faith":  come to Mass, put their dollar bill in the collection, listen to a homily that makes them feel good, and then go home because they have fulfilled their Sunday obligation.  But don’t you dare challenge them or ask them to go above and beyond that hour on Sunday!  This is the story of a homily that I delivered three times today about a fundamental truth that managed to offend some of my people (some even walked out of church), and in full disclosure, as a priest/homilist I wanted to offend them.  Here goes:

“The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority…” (Mark 1:22)

When I was in the seminary, I had professors who would command a room when they taught.  As someone aspiring to be a priest and a teacher of the faith, I would be in awe at how they taught with such passion and authority.  This is no doubt a gift.  We all had teachers and professors who overwhelmed us with their knowledge and, of course, we had some teachers that underwhelmed us with the way they imparted knowledge.  To their students they sounded like the teacher in Charlie Brown cartoons.  The latter is where we find the Jewish people in today’s gospel.  For too long they had been underwhelmed by the scribes who were very knowledgeable but did not get their message across because they did not teach “with authority.”  Enter Jesus who probably commanded that room simply by his presence.  He teaches them with divine authority and expels unclean spirits with the same authority.

Believe it or not, Jesus passes on this same authority to each and every one of us through the Holy Spirit.  We have been baptized and confirmed in this Spirit to teach and spread our faith, this Good News, with the same authority that Jesus had.  We must be bold like our Lord and proclaim our beliefs with conviction. But unfortunately we have been so timid in using this authority that the Lord has passed on to us, that our Catholic faith is being threatened and we aren’t standing up as a people to protest.

On Friday, the Archbishop sent each of his priests a letter that he wanted to be read this Sunday from all pulpits.  I want to share this letter with you now.

(At this point in the homily, I read the Archbishop’s letter on the HHS mandate that all health insurers, including Catholic ones, had one year to comply with a mandate and start offering contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs as part of our health plans even if it violated our beliefs.  If you have not read the letter, you can read it here: http://www.miamiarch.org/ip.asp?op=Article_1212794952367.  As I read the letter I could tell the people, for the most part, were bored out of their minds.  So when I finished, I continued with one simple question:)

How many of you were aware of the mandate that the Archbishop mentions in the letter? (At all three Masses, only about a dozen or so people raised their hands and I preached to well over 1500 people today.)  You see that’s the problem!  As Catholics, we don’t take the time to notice that our faith quite literally is under attack.  Even the Pope who lives thousands of miles away has noticed this from afar.  On January 19^th, when speaking to bishops from our country he said:  “it is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness...”  The Pope is in Rome and he sees what is happening to our country:  our religious liberties are being trampled upon, as Catholics we are being pushed around:  and we’re letting people do this to us.  Catholics make up a quarter of this nation’s population.  Don’t you think that if we rose up as one Church, with one voice, we can defeat this mandate?  Of course we can.  But no.  This is not what Catholics do.  Most Catholics live the shadows and don’t raise their voices when they confront someone who may disagree with our beliefs because quite simply, we don’t want to offend someone.  Well my friends, I’m here to tell you today, that that kind of Catholicism just won’t cut it anymore, so I have two words for you:  OFFEND SOMEBODY!  If we cannot uphold the faith of our Church and the truth passed on to us by our Lord then we don’t deserve to be called Christians.  Everywhere I look in the media, I hear about Evangelicals doing this and the Evangelical vote swaying elections and the Evangelical movement making noise.  Why aren’t Catholics making noise?  Why aren’t we allowing our voices to be heard?  Why are we so ashamed of this beautiful, rich, and living faith that we claim to profess every Sunday at Mass? 

Let’s put it in very simple terms:  our Catholic faith and what we do for others as a Catholic people is under attack.  If this mandate were to be enacted, we would not be able to provide insurance to our teachers in our Catholic schools, our doctors and nurses in our Catholic hospitals would go uninsured as well along with all the employees of Catholic Charities.  Catholic hospitals comprise of 1/5 of all the hospital in the U.S., and the biggest charitable organization in this country is Catholic Charities.  The only, tiny exception that the government gave us to prevent us from having to comply with this mandate is if we only hired Catholic workers and only ministered to Catholic people.  My friends, not even Jesus Christ would be able to comply with this because he ministered to all.  When someone hungry shows up to a Catholic Charities soup kitchen, we don’t ask for a Catholic ID.  We give them food.  No questions asked.

So as you can see, how we serve the people around us, not just Catholics, is being threatened.   We must use the authority that Jesus gave us through baptism and confirmation to let our voices be heard.  Let me put it another way that may be simpler to understand:  WE HAVE TO STOP BEING SUCH WIMPS WHEN IT COMES TO OUR FAITH!!!!!!!  It’s time for a new generation of Catholics to rise up and turn the tide in this country towards a culture of life.  I’m tired of 1-hour a week Catholics.  I’m tired of feeling like the only person shouting the truth from the mountaintop without anyone behind me.  We have reached a critical crossroads when it comes to Catholicism in America, and we must rise up!  Doing what you are currently doing now is not good enough.  Our Lord deserves better.  Our holy Church deserves better.  And if I offended anybody during the preaching of this homily….GOOD!  At least it struck a nerve.  At least I made you think.  Jesus did not spend his public life preaching wondering who he was pleasing and who he was offending.  He preached the Good News of the Kingdom of God with divine authority, and he ended up on a cross.  It’s time for a new breed of Catholics.  The Holy Father also emphasized this to the U.S. bishops:  “Here once more we see the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed…with the courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society.”  There you have it.  If you don’t like the way I presented it, here it is straight from the mouth of the Successor of Saint Peter.  We need to pray for unity among us.  We need to pray for this assault on our religious liberty to subside.  We need to pray for a conversion of hearts in our nation so that all people of all faiths and creeds may be respected.  But more importantly, we need to pray that we as a Catholic people may finally grow a backbone and become a force to be reckoned with in America!