The Resurrection: Making All Things New

The old Our Lady of Providence Seminary property 

on Warwick Neck Ave., Warwick, R.I.

(This homily was given on 1 May, 2013 at Ss. John and James Parish in West Warwick, R.I. on an Evening to Honor Mary; See Revelation 21:1-8 and Matthew 28:1-10)

We all want to go back.  When the difficulties and challenges of daily life increase we often tend to nurture that desire to go back to a time or place that was more peaceful, more tranquil.  Webster’s defines “nostalgia” as a longing or yearning for the things of the past.  If we are honest we can admit that we are all a bit nostalgic from time to time.

When I was growing up in the 80s the movie Back to the Future was big at the box office.  You might remember that film in which the main character goes back to the 1950s, and encounters his own parents as they live their experience of high school.  It is easy to imagine ourselves living in the 1950s, to wax nostalgic for a less complicated and simpler life than the one we are living.  If you could go back and return to your high school “glory days” would you do it?

I had the chance to return to my old high school last week.  One of our fine priests here in the Diocese of Providence, Fr. Henry Bodah, agreed to offer our seminarians a tour of the old Our Lady of Providence Seminary on Warwick Neck Avenue, overlooking the breathtaking Narragansett Bay.  Currently our college seminary is located in Providence, close to Providence College and Rhode Island College campuses.  Beginning in 1942, however, both the high school and college seminaries for the Diocese of Providence were located on that beautiful oceanfront property, which is where Fr. Bodah began his journey to the priesthood in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

In the early 1980s, as the seminary was relocated to Mount Pleasant Avenue in Providence, Bishop Hendricken High School had already begun to make use of the old seminary high school property at Warwick Neck for its senior campus, which is where I studied for my final year of high school.

In a sense there were two tours taking place that day: Fr. Bodah was offering a tour of the place where he had begun seminary studies, while I was able to reminisce about my senior year of high school (a decade before I would begin answering my own call to the priesthood). 

It is funny how we tend to only remember the best of the times from the past, or perhaps we simply tend to gloss over the more challenging ones.  Fr. Bodah spoke of the tumultuous time of seminary formation immediately following the Second Vatican Council; they were not always the “glory days” that one tends to associate with high school.  I recalled that high school for me, while filled with many memorable and cherished moments, was nonetheless an unsettling time of uncertainty and not always pleasant or peaceful. 

Sometimes “going back” can be painful.  You may have seen the play Our Town, or perhaps you even read it in high school.  Written by Thornton Wilder, it is the delightful story of the quaint and fictional town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire.

The point that Wilder is making is that it doesn’t matter where we are born, or what period of time we live in.  All of life matters; all of life is beautiful, and we should be able to recognize the powerful, and even painful, beauty of life right where we are.  It could be anywhere, any-town.  It could be Our Town, West Warwick or maybe wherever you went to high school.

There is a haunting scene at the end of that play which takes place in a graveyard.  Many of the characters of Our Town have passed on, and are now at rest there.  Suddenly Emily, one of the main characters, who has just died, comes to join them.  She tries to get acclimated to the place, and at one point asks if they are able to go back and relive some of the more special moments of life.  The characters there try to dissuade her; they tell her that it is far too painful.  She insists anyway, and returns to the time of her twelfth birthday.

As soon as she enters that moment, she is struck by how delightful every little detail is.  She can’t take in everything fast enough.  She comes down the stairs of her house and is overwhelmed by how beautiful and young everyone looks.  She tries to get their attention but everyone is so busy, so occupied.  It becomes more and more frustrating for her, and at one point she calls out to her mother:

“Just look at me one minute as though you really saw me.”

But, of course, her mother is doing all she can to get the family ready for the day.  She tries her father, but again, to no avail.  Finally she turns to the Stage Manager, in desperation, and says, “I can’t go on.  It goes so fast.  We don’t have time to look at one another.”

She asks to go back, once again, to her grave, saddened by the futility of her visit.  As she is leaving she looks back and says, “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”  And then she turns, again, to the Stage Manager, and says, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?”

The Stage Manager tells her no, that most of them do not…but, some of the saints do, and a few poets.  Tonight we gather together in this beautiful Church and listen to the saints, to St. John the Evangelist, to St. Matthew and especially to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who teach us what it means to live every moment of our lives, here and now.

In the Gospel for this Mass in honor of Our Lady, St. Matthew recalls the resurrection of Jesus Christ and how the angel of God meets the women at the tomb who are looking for the dead Christ.  They were at Calvary when he died, so naturally they could only be thinking of those dark and distressing days of his arrest, trial and crucifixion.  The angel of the Lord challenges them to look in another direction:

Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here; for he has risen as he said…go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead and behold, he is going before you to Galilee.

—Matthew 28:5-7

Jesus Christ is not hiding in some remote past waiting to be conjured up or simply remembered in a nostalgic and passing moment.   No, He is already preparing a future for us filled with hope (see Jeremiah 29:11), and through the power of His resurrection he is already beginning to change and transform our lives even now.  Look ahead!, the angel is encouraging them; Go to Galilee!  He is already waiting for you and preparing a new beginning for your life!

In our first reading from the Book of Revelation, St. John the Evangelist is relating his vision of a new heaven and a new earth.  It is better than any memory of the past, a brilliant time of joy in which God will dwell forever with His people, and he “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

God is not interested in going back to the things of the past!  He is eminently focused on recreating our lives in the power of the resurrection and renewing us in His mercy and grace.  Do we dare to hope that the very best and most joyful moments of our lives are not ones that we have already lived in the past, but are here in the present and also waiting for us in the days to come?  St. John tells us:

He who sat upon the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new!”

—Revelation 21:5

The Good News of the Gospel Message of Jesus Christ is that God, through the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, is already beginning that renewal!  In Jesus Christ, heaven already begins to break into our world, even now.  The power of the resurrection and the glory of God can change and transform our present world and our immediate experience of life, if we let it.  No one teaches us this any better than the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In the Annunciation, the Blessed Virgin Mary is met by the Angel Gabriel who tells her of the redemption of Israel, their salvation through the Messiah who is to be born from her.  He will have the power to save all mankind, to redeem all people, if only she will accept this tremendous grace and invitation.  Mary, overwhelmed but filled with faith, suddenly offers her “Fiat,” to God.  She says, “Yes” to the Most High and allows heaven to break forth into her life and the Son of God take up a place in her own body. 

Once again at the foot of the cross, when Christ was offering His life for the forgiveness of our sins, Mary would have to ratify her “Fiat,” to accept anew the mysterious plan of God and to allow heaven to have its way in her life.   She stood steadfast and allowed the work of God to continue, not apart from her or somehow separate from her desires, but as an outpouring of her own acceptance of God’s design for the hope of eternal life.  

Finally, on the day of Pentecost, we find Mary gathered together with the Apostles and the first believers, praying fervently and ready to accept whatever God has ordained.  She allows the power of the Holy Spirit to fill her soul in a whole new way, letting heaven break forth into her life as the infant Church was being strengthened and prepared to set the world on fire. 

Friends in Christ, are we as willing to allow the power of God to come into our lives this Easter?  In this month of May, as we honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, are we able to experience the power of the resurrection and the glory of God, the power that alone can change the world in which we live?  Let us borrow that one, beautiful word from Mary, that faith-filled and fruitful “Fiat,” so that we can, in the words of Emily from Our Town, truly realize life while we live it, every—every minute.

Spiritual Legacy of Blessed John Paul II-Lenten Mission 2013

The Spiritual Legacy of Blessed John Paul II

Monday, February 18 :    
Salvifici Doloris and the Question "Why Suffering?"

Tuesday, February 19 :   
Mane Nobiscum Domine, Christ "remains with us" in the Eucharist

Wednesday, February 20:  
Duc in Altum!  Put out "into the Deep"! 

This mission will look more deeply at the life and teachings of Blessed John Paul II as we continue to embrace the insights and truths that he shared with us in the remarkable time when we knew him as our Pope.  Come and receive the one whom Blessed John Paul II never ceased to praise, glorify and offer to the world: Jesus Christ!

For audio links to these talks please click below:

Spiritual Legacy of Blessed John Paul II

Glorious, Holy...and Purified

Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome

(Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica-Year B; This homily was given on 9 November, 2012 at the Seminary of Our Lady of Providence, Providence, R.I.  See John 2:13-22)

The Basilica of St. John Lateran adorns herself with the title of “Mother and First of all the Churches in Rome and of the World.”  A rather modest distinction, no?  Of course that title comes to the Lateran Basilica because it was the place of residence for the popes from the early Church right up until the beginning of the 14^th century (only in 1305, when the papacy was temporarily displaced to Avignon did the Lateran cease to be the papal residence).  The pope, of course, being the Vicar of Christ on earth, is the visible head of the Church and is entrusted in a particular way with authority to preserve Her unity and guide Her through Her earthly pilgrimage,  to where She will be joined with Christ for all eternity.  Certainly we celebrate this morning that renowned and glorious union with Christ in which we are all, as His body, exalted.  We thank God for the Holy Father who gives his life in service of that end for us as Catholics.  What a glorious feast day!

So many of the popes down through the centuries, and especially the popes that we have witnessed personally—Pope Benedict XVI, Blessed John Paul the Great before him, others for some of us who have been on this earthly pilgrimage a little longer—have reminded us by their very lives that power, glory and the great dignity of our call are translated in this world into humility, service and the gift of self.  We seek an ever more intimate union with Christ who “came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).  The Church is called to be like Christ, to be holy, even though we are all too aware of each one’s limitations and failings.  And so it is that the Church comes to understand herself, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, as “at the same time holy and always in need of being purified” (Lumen Gentium, #8).

Therefore it is fitting that, on this glorious feast day in which we celebrate the dignity of our Divine filiation, we reflect in the Gospel on the purification of the Temple (John 2:13-22).  Traditionally the Fathers of the Church will come to understand this cleansing of the Jerusalem Temple as Jesus’ preparation for the one acceptable sacrifice, not bulls and goats and sheep but Himself.  The Lamb of God is the one sacrifice that takes away the sins of the world, and He will replace all animal sacrifices, Himself the fulfillment of God’s plan for our forgiveness and salvation.

But St. Paul reminds us, in our second reading this morning, that we are the temple of the living God, who dwells in us.  The temple, though holy, is in constant need of purification.  There are three aspects of this purification that are important for us to reflect on this morning.

Firstly, we recall that it is Christ who allowed Himself to be purified and scourged for us.  Christ, who is without sin and perfect in every way, nonetheless went through the pain and humiliation of being scourged at the pillar and endured the agony of the crucifixion well before His body the Church suffered.  He asks nothing of us that He Himself has not already endured.  When we experience purification or cleansing in this world it is not the punishment of God or His wrath vented against us.  It is the love that unites us more intimately with our Divine Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.  The cleansing and purification of this temple is good because it is from God.

Secondly, we acknowledge that we are all in need, as individual members of His body, of that purification.  We are all mindful of those times that we have taken the focus off Christ as the center of our lives and placed something, or someone, else in His place.  Through the idolatry of technology, or imprudent relationships or perhaps coming to realize that we have placed ourselves at the center of our lives, we stand in need of purification and cleansing so that this temple of the living God begins once again to be about Christ and the work of the Gospel and not about us. 

Finally, we are aware, perhaps now more than ever, of the need for us as a Church to be purified of all the ways we have failed to transform the world around us and have, instead, allowed the secular world to transform us.  How many members of the body of Christ, through neglect or apathy, have turned a blind eye to the needs of the unborn and the sin of abortion so prevalent in our culture today?   How many support abortion in the name of “choice”?  How many members of the Body of Christ in America have supported same-sex marriage and rejected God’s plan for the human family as a covenant of love between one man and one woman, bearing fruit in this world in the same way that Christ desires to unite Himself to His Bride the Church for that fruitfulness in spiritual life?  How many Catholics in our very region of the country have accepted the lie that physician-assisted suicide is a viable solution when it comes to our loved ones facing terminal illness?  There are consequences to these sins against human dignity and the gift of life.  These errors and moral failures are in need of cleansing and purification. 

Furthermore, the silence of priests—all of us, at one time or another—on these vital issues is also something which we must bear responsibility for. 

And yet how very many faithful Catholic men and women, laity, priests and religious, have sacrificed so much to be faithful and to witness to the dignity of human life, the sanctity of marriage, the dignity of the human person.  Our defense of those essential qualities and dimensions of life come at a cost and there is a tremendous struggle, to be constantly defending and fighting for what others consider to be an option at best or, at worst, a nuisance.

This struggle, this challenge, is what is known as purification.  The challenge that some must face—in this life or the next—of taking accountability for those times when opinions and decisions have not been consistent with the values and teachings of our Catholic faith is cleansing, purifying.  The acknowledgment of the need for forgiveness and God’s mercy is something that strikes at the heart of God’s work of purifying His temple. 

How are we called today, and especially in the days ahead, to embrace that purification?  How is God inviting us to be more completely united to Jesus Christ here in this world by being purified of all that is not from Him and worse, has taken us away from Him in any way?  Because a purified and cleansed Church alone will have the power necessary to accomplish what this world needs more than anything else: the transformation into what Blessed John Paul the Great called a “Civilization of Love.”  A purified Church will have the power to announce with the boldness of humility and charity the Gospel message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, the only path to mercy and human fulfillment.

Catholic Voters and Formation of Conscience

(29th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was preached at all the Masses on the weekend of October 20-21 2012 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I.  See Mark 10:35-45)

Audio Link to Homily

Quia Malum Est, Deus Est.

(23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 8 and 9 September at St. Thomas More Church, Narragansett, R.I. See Mark 7:31-37)

For Gospel and homily, scroll to about 12:00-ff

 

Wisdom: It's Personal

(20th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 18 August at Our Lady of Loreto Church, East Providence, R.I., and on 19 August at St. Brigid Church, Johnston, R.I. and Holy Apostles Church, Cranston, R.I.  See Proverbs 9:1-6 and John 6:51-58)

If you had the choice to possess all the information that you would ever need to know, about everything, or to be a man or woman of great wisdom, which would you choose?  In other words, if you could be the person on Jeopardy who always answers every question correctly all the time, or instead to be a person recognized by others as filled with the wisdom of God, which would you want to be?  There is a difference, we discover in our first reading this weekend, between those two realities.

Our first reading for this weekend is a beautiful and poetic excerpt from the Book of Proverbs which speaks rather eloquently to us about wisdom. The intriguing figure of Lady Wisdom is the very personification of the way of life God calls us to. We are told, “She has built her house, she has set up her seven columns” (Proverbs 9:1).  In that well-established place, in fact, Lady Wisdom has prepared a banquet of choice foods and delicious wine!  Then she invites you and me to join her in that intimate meal:



Let whoever is simple turn in here; to the one who lacks understanding…Come, eat of my food and drink of the wine I have mixed!


—Proverbs 9:5



This delectable passage from the Book of Proverbs reveals to us that the wisdom of God, like God Himself, is not merely informational.  It is, instead, relational. It is personal. God does not give us an instruction manual or a series of checkpoints to guide us through life. He invites us into a personal relationship with Himself, in which we grow in virtue, knowledge and holiness because the God who calls us is Himself filled with all of these things, and more.



I do not learn to be a person of love and generosity by reading many books about those subjects; it is not by memorizing definitions of the virtues—like temperance, prudence, justice and courage—that I suddenly acquire them.   No, it is when I fall in love with God, the One who is love, who exudes humility and gentleness, kindness and all virtue, that I suddenly thirst and hunger for these very things in my own life.  It is only when we encounter and embrace a real and growing relationship with the living God that we begin to embody the wisdom of God and suddenly find our lives transformed.

Is this not what Christ has been proclaiming to us in the Gospel for these past four weeks?  For the last month, and also including next weekend, we hear from the same chapter of St. John’s Gospel, Chapter 6 or the Bread of Life Discourse.  Over and over again Christ has announced that He is the Bread of Life come down from heaven; He has invited us to receive Him, become united to Him, draw closer to Him in His body and blood.  This weekend He proclaims boldly:

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in Him.

—John 6:56

Receiving Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is not merely a fleeting moment experienced at Mass each week. It is a personal encounter with the Savior who offers His body and blood on the cross to redeem us; the Eucharist is the second person of the Blessed Trinity who calls us into a personal relationship with God.  When we come to Mass each week do we recognize and acknowledge that?

In her book The Way of Perfection, the great mystic and Doctor of the Church, St. Teresa of Avila, is instructing her sisters in prayer and she teaches them how to avoid obstacles that keep them from recognizing the personal relationship that is at the center of the Christian life. She says that, in prayer, they should not merely try to picture Jesus and imagine what He would look like in a given situation or scene. No, instead she says they should also look at Him (see The Way of Perfection, Chapter 26, #3). She reminds them how Christ never takes His eyes off them! When they pray, they should look right back! They should look at the One who is already looking at them and allow that intimate and personal connection to grow even deeper.

In the Eucharist we do well to do the same. How captivating, to suddenly recognize that the God who suffers and dies for us out of an abyss of Divine mercy, is actually looking at us with that same love, even here, even now. 

When we look at the tabernacle we are looking at Him.

When the priest raises the Host at Mass and proclaims, “Behold, the lamb of God…Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world,” we are looking at Him.

When the body of Christ is offered to us at communion each week, we are looking at Him.



What is the best way to prepare for such a personal encounter? What is the best way to savor such an experience even long after the Mass is over? I would suggest we take the counsel of St. Teresa of Avila and spend as much time as possible—before, during and after the Eucharistic sacrifice—watching in prayer and looking at Christ who never takes His eyes off us.  For the more we fall in love with Him, the more we are lost in His gaze and swept up in His love, the more we will ourselves become men and women who embody the love of God, and the wisdom of God.

Interruption & Pastores Dabo Vobis

(16th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 21 & 22 July, 2012 at St. Joseph's Church in Woonsocket, R.I.  and on 22 July, 2012 at St. Peter's Church in Warwick, R.I.  See Jeremiah 23:1-6 and Mark 6:30-34)

How well do you handle interruptions?  When you are at home, relaxing and reading a good book; or when you are watching your favorite TV show; or maybe when you are at work and your labor is positively productive…and then suddenly the phone rings, or someone arrives unexpected…How well do you handle that?

I ask that question because Christ in our Gospel this weekend is interrupted.  He is doing one of the most essential and important things in His work with the twelve Apostles: teaching them how to rest, how to be still. 

These men are about to be sent out by Christ to spread the Gospel message to the ends of the earth.  In their apostolic ministry they will be active to the point of exhaustion.  Therefore Jesus longs to teach them how to be at peace and to pray, because it is there that they will find a source of strength for untiring service, a wellspring for pastoral zeal.  But just as Christ begins to teach them these vital lessons in the spiritual life, he is suddenly interrupted!

While Christ and the twelve Apostles “went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place” (Mark 6:32), a veritable throng of people, anticipating the direction in which He was heading, arrived at the place before Him.

Jesus’ response to that interruption is amazing.  He was not bothered by them.  He was not even disappointed at the lost opportunity to spend some quiet time with the Twelve.  No, St. Mark tells us in fact that He was overwhelmed with love:

When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.

—Mark 6:34

He saw those people and sensed deep within Himself that they were hungry, but not for bread; He intuited that they were thirsty, but not for water.  They were hungering and thirsting for the living God, and so He fed them.  As St. Mark tells us, “He began to teach them many things” (Mark 6: 34).  They were being fed by God, shepherded by Christ, the Good Shepherd.  In a word, they were being loved.

This beautiful outpouring of compassionate love we find in the Gospel this weekend is a fulfillment of the prophesy we listened to in the first reading this morning, from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah.  Noting the widespread suffering and hopeless sorrow of the time, Jeremiah attributes the afflictions of his people to bad leadership, bad shepherds. 

Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord.

—Jeremiah 23:1

God will come out against these shepherds!  He will not tolerate bad shepherds who scatter the sheep and feed themselves on His people.  But nor will He leave His people alone to be scattered and lost.   “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have driven them and bring them back to their meadow” (Jeremiah 23:3). 

God Himself will walk among His sheep, feeding them, pasturing them.  Jesus Christ is that Good Shepherd, leading His sheep to the restful waters of everlasting life.  He will pour Himself out on the altar of the cross to redeem and save the lost and the weary.

But God continues, through the Prophet Jeremiah, “I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear and tremble” (Jeremiah 23:4).   “I will give you shepherds” (Jeremiah 3:15), God assures them.

Those words in Latin—Pastores dabo vobis, I will give you shepherds—are the opening words of a document written by our late beloved Holy Father, Blessed John Paul II, back in 1992.     Reflecting on the vital work of forming men for the priesthood of Jesus Christ, Blessed John Paul II reminds us that our hopes rest on nothing less than the faithfulness of God!   

God has promised that the Church will never be without shepherds to guide and guard Her in the faith. 

§  The ineffable gift of the body and blood of Christ that comes to us in the Holy Eucharist is a gift from God, a gift from Heaven…but it comes to us only through the hands and voice of the priest. 

§  The overwhelming consolation of sacramental absolution, when we confess our sins with true sorrow in the Sacrament of Reconciliation entrusted to the Church by Christ Himself for the forgiveness of sins, those words of mercy and new life which come to us from Christ come to us through the priest. 

We will never be without these gifts, we will never be without shepherds called by God and appointed to feed His flock.  But Blessed John Paul II reminds us that such a promise, such remarkable fidelity, calls for our own response in kind:

The total trust in God’s unconditional faithfulness to his promise is accompanied in the Church by the grave responsibility to cooperate in the action of God who calls.

—Blessed John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, #2

God will never cease to call men to the priesthood, will never cease to appoint shepherds for His people; yet we must never cease to open our hearts to whatever He is asking of us for the fulfillment of that promise.   In short, we must be as willing as Christ is in the Gospel this weekend, to be interrupted.   We must be willing to allow God to interrupt our Church and our personal lives, to do whatever He wants us to do so that His promise will take root and flourish in our midst.

 I can attest to this personally in my life.  In my early twenties I had my own plan for my life; I wanted to be married, to have a family.  I wanted to be successful in a career that would allow me to be fulfilled and happy.   All good things.  But then suddenly that plan was completely interrupted!

For the first time in my life I felt that God was calling out to me, and that He was calling me to the priesthood.  I did not hear a voice audibly from Heaven.  I did not see an angel or experience any supernatural visions.  But I was certain that God was speaking to my heart, calling me to follow Him.  More and more each day I felt that He was calling me to the priesthood.

About that same time, people from Saints John and Paul Parish where I had grown up, where I was baptized and received my First Communion; in the place where I received the Sacrament of Confirmation; people in that parish began to approach me and ask if I might be called to serve the Church as a priest.  Sometimes even people I did not know or recognize would approach and ask me that question: “Have you ever thought about the priesthood?”  Finally in 1998 I entered the Seminary of Our Lady of Providence. 

Now, in 1997 there were only two seminarians in that place.  One of them left, and some people even suggested that the seminary should be closed down.  Nonetheless, in 1998 seven of us began studies there for the priesthood.  The next year there were ten of us.  I continued my formation for four more years in the North American College in Rome and was ordained to the priesthood on June 26, 2004.  By that time the Seminary of Our Lady of Providence began to receive men from nearby dioceses around New England and even as far as Baltimore.  The number of college-age men studying for the priesthood grew to around two dozen.  For the last two years we have had 27 seminarians in formation for the priesthood at Our Lady of Providence from seven separate dioceses.   We have a full house with no empty rooms, because God is faithful.

Pastores dabo vobis.  I will give you shepherds.  The Lord has consistently fulfilled His promise down through the centuries, and He calls each one of us to be faithful and to respond to His abundant grace in our lives and in His Church.  But to do so will involve interruption!  Are we willing to be interrupted by God so that His work will continue to flourish?  I would suggest that there are three ways God is challenging us to be interrupted as we respond to His fidelity in providing shepherds for the Church.

Firstly, we allow God to interrupt our spiritual lives, our prayer lives, as we ask Him fervently for an increase of vocations to the priesthood in the Diocese of Providence.  Prayer was the only instruction Christ gave us with regard to increasing vocations (Luke 10:2).  Perhaps we do not always have vocations in the Church because we do not always ask for vocations in the Church.  The people of Ss. John and Paul Parish were asking God for vocations, and within a five-year period three of us from that parish were ordained to the priesthood.  If you ask God for an increase in vocations, He will listen to you.  Allow God to interrupt your prayer life as you “ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2).   

Secondly, we must be willing to allow God to interrupt our families and the plans that we have for the people we love.  My parents have been overwhelmingly supportive from the very beginning of my discernment of a priestly vocation.  Such is not always the case, unfortunately, in the Church today.  Having spent six years as a seminarian, and having worked in seminary formation for an additional four years, I can share with you that it is not at all uncommon for the mother or father of a seminarian to be unsupportive as he begins to respond to God’s call in his life. 

Truth be told, these situations seldom discourage me.  What discourages me is when I think of all the young men who I may never meet, who I may never encounter in the seminary, because their mothers or fathers did not support them in answering a call to the priesthood.

Often it is the case that parents want good things for their sons: a successful career, a family, happiness; all good things.  But they are unable to consider that God desires to give them even greater gifts, and fruitfulness that will endure for an eternity beyond this world.  Are we willing to allow God to interrupt our families so that this fruitfulness may continue in the Church?

Finally, I would suggest we allow God to interrupt our lives through a willingness to approach those who we think He might be calling to the priesthood and to share courageously the gift of God that we have come to recognize in them.  Is it possible that God is calling someone from your parish or your family to the priesthood?  Is it possible that you are called to pray for that person and even to approach him on some personal level and offer your support and encouragement? 

Pastores dabo vobis.  I will give you shepherds.  God is so very faithful in His promise and provision of shepherds for His Church.  How is He challenging us this week, and every week, to cooperate in that promise and to allow vocations to the priesthood to flourish in our time?