Jesus, The Performance-Enhancing God

(19th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B;This homily was given 12 & 13 August, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read 1 Kings 19:4-8 and John 6:41-51)

Whether you follow professional cycling or not, I am sure many of you are aware of the controversy that has surrounded that sport recently. American cyclist Floyd Landis appeared to have won the most elite of all races, the Tour de France . . . only to have that victory called into question after being tested for performance-enhancing drugs.

Unfortunately, cycling is not the only sport to suffer from that same controversy. The use of steroids in Major League Baseball, track and field, and other sports has caused many to call into question the credibility of some of the most famous athletes.

The sad reality is that the use of performance-enhancing drugs is not only unfair; it’s entirely unnecessary. There are natural means of preparing our bodies to function well and compete well, no matter what sport we play.

As you may already know, I myself am a runner; that is my sport of choice (the Runner’s Club still meets here on Saturday mornings at 6:30 am, if you are thinking about joining up!).

An essential part of any kind of training—for running or anything else—is diet: what we eat and what we drink, not performance enhancing drugs but regular, basic food and water.

One of the great tragedies of any marathon or major race is the sight of those who have not eaten well or drank enough water before the race. They often melt down and collapse on the side of the road, exhausted, dehydrated, unable to finish the race.

That is something like what we find in the first reading this morning. In the 1st Book of Kings, the prophet Elijah collapses on the side of the road, sits under the broom tree, and prays to God for death! It’s not a very encouraging picture, to say the least.

Now, it is important for us to look at this scene in its proper context. Elijah is without a doubt one of the greatest spiritual athletes in the entire Old Testament. Remember, Elijah is the one who went head to head with the King of Israel, Ahab, and his wretched wife, Queen Jezebel, on many different occasions. Time and again he risked his very life by calling them to task for their lack of fidelity (1 Kings 17-21). Elijah went up against the 450 prophets of Baal, challenging them in that famous contest of faith on Mount Carmel, and defeated them (1 Kings 18:16-40).

But even the greatest of all athletes, including the spiritual ones, have limits. This morning Elijah discovers his limits, and he can no longer go on. But when he comes to the end of himself—the end of all his strength, the end of his own resources, the end of his own power—it is then that God enters in and breathes new life into the prophet Elijah.

The angel of the Lord touches him, and orders him: “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” (1 Kings 19:7). Elijah is given a hearth cake (whatever that is!) and a jug of water. After eating and drinking, we are told that, “strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb” (1 Kings 19:8).

Forty days and forty nights! Now that’s much, much longer than any marathon. And that’s the very point of the story: God is able to give us the strength we need to get through any of the difficulties we face in life. When we come to the end of our own strength, our own resources, our own power, it is then that God enters in and gives us supernatural help to get us back into the race. He gives us divine food that restores us and brings us new life.

In the Gospel this morning, Jesus says:

I am the bread of life . . . this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die . . . whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.
—John 6:48-51

The Eucharist is that supernatural help, the bread from heaven, that God gives to us in our deepest need. We do not need to take performance-enhancing drugs to help us in the contest of life. We follow Jesus Christ, the performance-enhancing God! He gives us Himself—body and blood, soul and divinity—in the Holy Eucharist.

For centuries the Church has always taught us that the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life” (Lumen Gentium, #11). Pope John Paul II says that “The Church draws her life from the Eucharist” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, # 1).

One of the sad realities of our times is that many are choosing not to partake of that bread, and not to drink the cup of the blood of Christ. A Gallup Poll taken last April showed that Rhode Island was fourth from the bottom out of all 50 states in church attendance, at 28%. Given that we are the most Catholic state in the country, that is a pretty sad figure.

If the Eucharist is the source of Christian life, then where are those who do not come to Mass receiving their strength? If the Eucharist is the high point of the Christian life, then the majority of Christians in our state are settling for something a whole lot less than the summit and goal that God has offered.

Perhaps the most tragic consequence of all is that so many people today find themselves exhausted, unfulfilled and longing for a better life than the one they’ve got. Like the prophet Elijah, they sit on the side of the road, all but ready to give up. The one thing they lack, the one thing they long for most of all, is the very thing God gives to us this morning: Himself.

This morning we are touched not by an angel; we are not given a hearth cake and a jug of water. We are touched by Christ, and given His body and His blood, to strengthen us on our way home to Him.

Might we grow to appreciate more completely in our lives this precious gift that God offers us in the Holy Eucharist. And might we make it our mission and passion in life to invite others back here to this banquet, where God alone can fill them and give them new hope.

Leftovers

(17th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B;This homily was given 29 & 30 July, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read 2 Kings 4:42-44 and John 6:1-15)

One question that I am frequently asked as a priest is: “Who does the cooking for you at the rectory?” And I never hesitate to tell them that we have a gourmet cook who takes care of the meals at Our Lady of Mercy! He also happens to be the pastor, Fr. John Lolio.

“But what about when he’s not there?” people will often continue. “What do you do then?” Truth be told, I practically live on leftovers, on what is left-over after the meals the pastor has cooked.

Now I know what you’re thinking: Leftovers? How could anyone live on leftovers? But make no mistake about it; the leftovers I eat here are at least as good as your average meal at Capriccio’s, or any restaurant up on Federal Hill.

In our 1st reading this morning, as well as in the Gospel, we hear about leftovers. In the passage we just heard from the 2nd Book of Kings, the prophet Elisha instructs his servant to feed the crowd of 100 people with just a small amount of bread. The servant, of course, is more than a little skeptical. Nonetheless, Elisha says to him:

“Give it to the people to eat. For thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and there shall be some left over’.”
—2 Kings 4:43

And so there was.

In the Gospel we hear of the great miracle of the loaves and fish, how Jesus feeds 5,000 people with only five loaves of bread and just a couple of fish. St. John tells us that:

When they had had their fill, [Jesus] said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.
—John 6:12-13


What do these passages, these miracles tell us about God? They reveal to us that God never works in our lives for our sake only. When God performs miracles and pours out His grace and His mercy, He does so in a super-abundant way. There’s never just enough; there is more than enough. When God acts in our lives, there are leftovers.

I would suggest that there are three things God makes known to us in these miracles, three things God reveals when it comes to His super-abundant love at work in our lives:

Firstly, God is able to perform miracles and do amazing things; but He expects us to bring at least something to the table. Jesus feeds 5,000 people, but not without the five loaves and two fish from that small boy who simply gave to Jesus what he had.

What are we bringing to this Mass this morning? Have we considered what God wants us to bring and place on this altar? What are we bringing to our relationship with God? Are we giving Him the time and space that He needs to accomplish what He wants to in our lives and in the lives of those around us?

Perhaps all we can offer to God this morning is our suffering, our sacrifices. God can do miracles with that gift beyond what we could ever imagine. We need to give God what we can—even if it seems small and as insignificant as a few loaves and a couple of fish—we simply give God what we’ve have, and trust in Him to do the rest.

Secondly, we can see in the Gospel that Christ saves a plate of leftovers for each one of us. There were twelve apostles there that day who witnessed that miracle with Christ. When all was said and done, they collected the fragments and placed them in twelve wicker baskets, one for each of them.

God reserves one wicker basket for each and every one of us here today. As He pours out His super-abundant love in our lives here at this Mass, He wants to strengthen us and transform our lives. But He also wants to make us His instruments well beyond these walls.

He wants us to bring the leftovers to those around us most in need of His love and mercy. Who are the people God wants to feed with the mercy and grace He pours out upon you and I today? Might we be faithful in acting on that grace.

Which brings us to the final truth God makes known to us in this miracle of the loaves and fish: that we need to act on and respond to the grace God gives us, as He gives it. Leftovers are good a day later, maybe even two. But any longer than that, and they go bad, they get spoiled; we have to throw them out.

We must not waste time when it comes to the things of God. Who is that person we need to write a letter to or get into contact with? Where do we need to make a phone call, or offer a kind word of encouragement? How is God calling us to respond to Him today? Don’t let the leftovers get spoiled in your life.

We come to this Eucharistic table this morning, and Christ Himself will perform yet another miracle with bread and wine, transforming it into His very body and His own blood. He feeds us in this place with the gift of Himself. But He expects us to feed others and make His love, His mercy, and His presence known in the world around us.

Might we allow Him to do that by responding well to the graces and the leftovers He gives us here; may the people in your life enjoy those leftovers at least as much as I enjoy the ones Fr. Lolio cooks here each week.

"Let them eat . . . the Body of Christ."

(16th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B;This homily was given 23 July, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read Jeremiah 23:1-6 and Mark 6:30-34)

You might remember from your old history lessons that there were many different reasons for the French Revolution. In addition to the economic problems that plagued France in the 18th century, there was also a tremendous scarcity of food and great unrest among the people.

All of these difficulties were brought before the queen at the time, Marie Antoinette. And history buff or not, all of us are familiar with her famous response to the dire circumstances of her people. To the report that the people had no bread, she replied, “Then let them eat cake.”

That very same callousness, that same lack of care for those in need is what we find in the first reading this morning. The people of Israel were plagued with bad leadership, bad shepherds. God responds to that sorry situation through the words of the prophet Jeremiah:

Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture . . . You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish you for your evil deeds.
—Jeremiah 23:1-2

God comes out very strongly against those shepherds who care not for the flock, but only for themselves. But more than that, He promises that He will give them shepherds who will lead and care for the people; in fact, He himself will be their shepherd. Jeremiah prophesies about the Messiah, the king who is to come:

I will raise up a righteous shoot to David; as king he will reign and govern wisely. He shall do what is right and just in the land.
—Jeremiah 23:5


The Messiah, of course, is Christ Himself, who is the very essence of what a Good Shepherd and King should be. He rules over His people with the care and concern of God Himself; He is the one who will bring them to green pastures and lead them beside the still waters; He is the one who restores their souls (Psalm 23).

And it is Jesus Christ who says to the people not “Let them eat cake,” but “Let them eat my body, and let them drink my blood.” God responds to our hunger and thirst for a better life than this, He responds to the deepest needs of our souls, with the gift of Himself—body and blood, soul and divinity—in the Eucharist.


We can become so familiar with the Eucharist, so used to hearing of the Last Supper and the words we listen to at Mass each week—the bread Christ breaks and gives to the disciples, the cup that will be poured out—that we can sometimes forget what it all really means to begin with.

Christ is referring—at the Last Supper—to the cross. It is His very body that will be broken on the cross in order to make us whole. It is the blood of Christ poured out on Calvary that brings for us the forgiveness of sins.

But the cross and the Last Supper are not the only time these things happened. The entire life of Christ is one that is broken and poured out for others; He is Eucharistic in every aspect of His life and mission. The Messiah is the one who pours Himself out completely for the people.

We see that in the Gospel this morning; Jesus invites the disciples to come away and be at rest. They are exhausted and He leads them to a quiet place away from the crowds . . . only to find that the crowds have arrived there already! Far from sending them away, He embraces them and teaches them about the kingdom of God. As St. Mark says:

His heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.
—Mark 6:34

And so Christ—our Eucharistic Lord—pours Himself out once again to feed the people and meet their every need.

As Christians and those who will one day reign with Christ, we are called—here on this earth—to serve with Him and follow in His steps. As we gather here for this Eucharist, we are given the strength to do that.

On this altar the body of Christ is broken and His blood is poured out as we celebrate anew the sacrifice that set us free and made us whole again; the sacrifice of the Mass is the sacrifice of the cross itself. But our worship and communion cannot end here. We are called to share in the very life of Christ—in His sacrifice and in His life of service.

Might we go forth from this Church this morning and spend ourselves for others as Christ spent Himself for us. May we truly become, this week, bread broken to feed those who hunger for God, and the blood of Christ poured out for the life of the world.

Called

(15th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B;This homily was given 16 July, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I. and Ss. John & Paul, Coventry, R.I.; read Amos 7:12-15, Ephesians 1:3-10 and Mark 6:7-13)

One of the main themes of the readings for this weekend is that of vocation. In our first reading Amos is called by God to prophesy to the people of Israel; in the Gospel Christ calls the 12 Apostles to Himself, gives them His own authority, and sends them out. These were special people who were given a specific vocation, a specific call from God.

But it is St. Paul who points out, in the second reading this morning, that we are all called; all of us have been chosen by God and given a vocation in this world. He says that:

God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.
—Ephesians 1:4


It is the universal call to holiness (CCC, #825). We are called by God to live differently than those around us, to follow Him in holiness of life in the midst of the world we live in. This call—to be holy as God is holy—is at the heart of every vocation. Whether we are priests, religious or married, the call to holiness is one that continues to re-echo throughout our lives and in the midst of our own vocation.

But let’s be honest; it is not easy to hear that call in the world we live in. There are so many distractions, so many things that pull us in a hundred different directions. In a culture so filled with images, voices and distractions, it can be very difficult indeed to hear God’s voice and answer His call to holiness.

A friend of mine is a priest who takes the call of God very serious in his life. Every year he goes to a different Benedictine monastery for retreat; a chance to get away and be alone with God. One year he arrived at the monastery and there was a businessman there on retreat who was—for all intents and purposes—married to his cell phone.

He carried it with him everywhere, and he answered it whenever and wherever it would ring. It went off in the chapel, and he would go outside and talk. It went off in the refectory, and he would stop eating to answer it. He walked up and down the corridors of that monastery, constantly talking on the phone.

Finally, my friend found a small balcony on the second floor. He went out there and realized it was the quietest place in the monastery. Unfortunately, it also had the best reception! Sure enough, out came cell phone man, yapping away! It was at that moment that my friend began to realize that God was trying to speak to him through that man on the cell phone; and it was crystal clear exactly what God was trying to say.

He went back into the monastery, and into the chapel, and he prayed:

“Almighty God, make me that open to Your call in my life. As open as this man, who cannot go 5 minutes without talking to this person on the other end, and listening to what they have to say. Make me that open to Your call and Your voice in my life.”


When is the last time that God called us and spoke to us in the midst of our own vocation? What are the things that keep us from hearing God’s call to live a holy life in Him?

I would suggest three things this morning that can help keep the lines of communication open between God and us, ways that we can focus more completely on that call to holiness as it re-echoes in our own particular vocation each day.

Firstly, we need to be people of prayer. God can reach us on the cell phone, our home computer, or through an ipod if He wants to; but He prefers to talk to us through the spiritual discipline of prayer. Do we set aside a specific time each day in which He can do that? It doesn’t necessarily have to be a long time, but there should at least be some time each day that we are quiet and alone with God.

Secondly, we need the sacramental life of the Church. God wants to sanctify us—to make us holy—through the grace of the sacraments He has given to the Church. We have been given the very Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist to sustain us and help us remain close to God. We have the grace of reconciliation when we are in need of forgiveness; the chance to begin again with Christ in freedom and joy. Might we take God up on these opportunities and draw closer to Him through the sacramental life of the Church.

And finally, we can answer God’s call to holiness most completely when we allow God to do whatever He wants to do in our lives. There is a great story about a bishop who was ordained in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. He was in the procession leading out, and suddenly a little nun came towards him, shaking her finger at him.

Normally you don’t stop in the procession at St. Peter’s; especially not since the Pope is the one at the end of that procession! But this bishop did stop, because the nun shaking her finger at him was Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Suddenly he heard her say to him (finger still shaking): “Give God permission to do what He wants in your life.”

He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about . . . until he went back to his diocese and began his ministry as a bishop, and realized how truly difficult it was to let go of his own desires, his own plan, his own will, and let God do what He wanted to do.

It’s not easy for any of us. But when we are willing to spend time with God each day in prayer, when we remain connected to Him through the sacramental life of the Church, and when we give Him permission to use us however He wants to, then our lives cease to be ordinary or mundane, or just a series of functions we perform or various hats we wear. We recognize instead that our lives truly are a vocation in the fullest sense of that word. We begin to live anew a fruitful vocation in the life of the Church and in the world around us.

The Prophetic Office of Christ

(14th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B;This homily was given 9 July, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read Ezekiel 2:2-5 and Mark 6:1-6)

The Scripture readings for this weekend give us a glimpse of the vocation and the mission of the prophet. Prophets were a major part of the life of the people of Israel. One third of the Old Testament consists in the prophetic works; we hear of the life and ministry of prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, whose call is described in our first reading this morning.

The prophet, essentially, is one who speaks for another. The prophet of Israel is one who speaks for God; he doesn’t give his own message, but carries God’s message, God’s word. In Ezekiel, God says to the prophet:

You shall say to them: ‘Thus says the Lord God!’
Ezekiel 2:4

That phrase—Thus says the Lord God—echoes throughout the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. Over and over again he repeats the message of God to the people of Israel.

And the message of Ezekiel is the same message we find in all of the prophets. They are constantly calling the people back to fidelity with God, and faithfulness to the covenant He had made with them. But more than that, they also carried the message of God’s love and His plan for the future of Israel; they brought to the people a message of hope.

It has been said that the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel begins with doom and ends with consolation and hope. He addresses the people during one of the darkest times in the history of their nation, but the book ends with a restored Israel, and a New Jerusalem.

That is the message of the prophets; and it is the background for the Gospel we heard this morning. Christ enters the synagogue at Nazareth with that message of fidelity to God and a vision of hope. And it is precisely as prophet that He is rejected. He says as much in the Gospel:

A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.
—Mark 6:4

Christ as prophet is not something we usually recognize ourselves. We see Him as the Son of God, for that is who He is; or as the second person of the Blessed Trinity, and so He is. But Christ is the quintessential Prophet, as well. Not only does He carry God’s message and God’s word; He is that message, He is the Word itself (John 1:1,14).

St. John of the Cross says that in Christ, the Word made flesh, God has already told us everything we could possibly need to know:

In giving us His Son, His only Word (for He possesses no other), He spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word—and he has no more to say.
—Ascent of Mount Carmel, II, Ch. 22, #3

Everything that God wants to say to us about faithfulness and truth is found in Christ. Everything that God wants to say about grace and mercy and forgiveness is found in Christ. Everything that we need to know about hope and eternal life is found in Christ.

That is why He is the quintessential prophet; there will never be a prophet on this earth greater than He. But we believe that there will be prophets as effective and as powerful as Christ. In fact, we believe that God has called us to be those prophets!

Does that sound a little over the top to you? Nonetheless, the teachings of our faith and the Second Vatican Council speak about how we—as baptized members of the Body of Christ—are called to share in the prophetic mission of Christ. We are called to be witnesses speaking for God in this world.

The same Christ who spoke in the synagogues and in the streets of Jerusalem still desires to speak to the people of our own day and age, and He wants to use us to do it. We are called to be the voice of Christ in the world we live in.

But you are probably asking yourself: How could I ever be an Ezekiel? How could I possibly be a Jeremiah or an Isaiah? Without God’s help it is impossible. But God gives us the grace and strength we need to make His message heard.

The Second Vatican Council spoke of two ways that happens. The first is something all of us are quite familiar with: The Christian Family. The family focused on Christ is—in and of itself—prophetic. Marriage and family life is the place where Christianity can flourish. It is where forgiveness and the will to overlook faults and failures is practiced. It is where Christians find the strength to push forward through the difficult times, holding onto a life of faith and trust in God. The Council Fathers go on to say:

In such a home husbands and wives find their proper vocation in being witnesses of the faith and love of Christ to one another and to their children. The Christian family loudly proclaims both the present virtues of the Kingdom of God and the hope of a blessed life to come. Thus by its example and its witness it accuses the world of sin and enlightens those who seek the truth.
Lumen Gentium, #35


And secondly, we are called to be prophets in this world not only through the Christian family but also by bearing witness to Christ in the ordinary circumstances of life.

God wants to reach out and touch the people all around us who never come to this Church. He wants to reach those with whom we work, those we see in the market or at the mall, men and women we encounter on a daily basis who have never heard or truly understood the Gospel message.

God wants to tell them about His mercy and forgiveness, His message of hope for them to spend all eternity with Him. And He wants us to be the ones that bring them that message by the way we live (our example) and through the words we use. St. Francis of Assisi was known to say: “Preach the Gospel always, and use words when necessary.”

Let us be faithful in that prophetic mission this week, and not be concerned with acceptance or rejection; failure or success. We are simply called to be the messengers, and the results belong to God.

As we heard in the Gospel this morning, Christ was rejected in that synagogue in Nazareth. Ezekiel and most all the other prophets were rejected at one point or another. We are not called to gauge our own success as prophets. We are simply called to be faithful.


But in our lives this week, might it be said about us what God says about the prophet Ezekiel in our first reading:

“Whether they heed or resist . . . they shall know
that a prophet has been among them.”
—Ezekiel 2:5

Pathos and Sym-pathy

(13th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B;This homily was given 2 July, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read Mark 5:21-43)

One of the most universal of all human experiences—something all of us encounter in our lives—is that of suffering. Whether it be the physical suffering of a disease or illness, or perhaps mental suffering, or even the spiritual suffering, that pain of the soul we feel at times, none of us goes untouched in this life by suffering.

In particular, as followers of Christ, we are called to have compassion on those who suffer, to help them carry their burdens; or to allow others to help and assist us when we are suffering in our own lives.

The Greek word for suffering is pathos, and it is where we get the word sym-pathy; to sympathize with another person is to enter—in a certain sense—into their pathos, into their suffering. It means that we are drawn “out” of ourselves in order to help others by our prayers, our sacrifices, and our love.

In the Gospel this morning, Christ teaches us the meaning of pathos and sympathy in the most dramatic of ways. We are introduced to a man named Jairus, a synagogue official whose daughter is at the point of death. Who among us could not sympathize with this man? In a moment of desperation, he pleads with Christ to come heal his little girl and Jesus quickly responds to that request.

But along the way a very strange thing happens. Jesus suddenly stops right in His tracks and begins to ask the crowd who it was that touched Him. It is a question that the disciples are somewhat puzzled by; but what could Jairus have been thinking at that moment? He could be thinking only one thing, over and over again:

My daughter. My daughter. Who cares who touched you? We need to get back home to my daughter.

And suddenly Christ turns to the woman in the crowd who has just been healed, and says to her the one thing that would have left Jairus, that synagogue official, speechless. He looks upon that woman with great love and He says to her: Daughter!

“Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
—Mark 5:34


It is one of the only times in all four Gospels that Jesus uses that word: daughter. He speaks it now to a woman who is at least His own age. And it is a word that Jairus would never forget for the rest of his life. Because on that day two daughters were healed: this stranger who had only been an interruption and a distraction a moment ago, and his own daughter whom Christ would literally raise from the dead.

Jesus often reaches right into our own suffering—into our own pathos—and opens us up to the suffering taking place all around us. In a world of pathos, it is Christ who teaches us the true meaning of sympathy, what it means to have compassion.

When I was in my first year of seminary studies, one of my classmates came to my room and shared with me the tragic news that had just come over the TV station. It was April 20, 1999, and he told me that there had been a terrible shooting at a high school in Colorado. The name of the school, of course, was Columbine High School.

My classmate asked me if I would like to join some of the other seminarians in the chapel; they were going to pray the rosary for the people involved in the Columbine tragedy. At the time I was very busy, and so I thanked him for the invitation and told him I would say a prayer on my own. It was sad news, but not something that really effected me; it seemed like just another tragic event, another tragic story for the evening news.

It wasn’t until several days later, as I was reading a newspaper article about the high school students who were killed, that I began to see something more than just another tragic headline.

That article included pictures of all the students who had died that day, and a small biography describing each one. One of them, Rachel Scott, for whatever reason, seemed to stand out among all the others. There were just a few small sentences about her, some basic information: that she was a devout Christian who was a part of a prayer group in town, that she loved her red sports car, that she enjoyed being in the school play.

Suddenly, as I read that article, I felt the most profound, almost overwhelming, sense of sorrow. I began to realize that this was more than just another story or news event. This was a seventeen-year-old girl whose life had been taken away from her. This was somebody’s daughter, somebody’s whole life. It caught me completely by surprise, and I began to pray daily for her family, that God would help them through this terrible loss.

About one year later, I was in Barnes & Noble and I came across a book with a young girl on the cover who seemed to look familiar. The book was called “Rachel’s Tears,” and it was about Rachel Scott from Columbine High School. Her parents had written that book in the months following her death.

I wondered how many other people, like me, had felt called to pray for Rachel Scott’s parents as they struggled through that loss; how many people had been offering prayers and sacrifices for them as they wrote that book about their daughter and her tremendous faith and love for God; the way she had changed the world she lived in and continued to change it even after her death.

God calls us to recognize the suffering that we see so often in the world around us. But more importantly, He allows us to do something about it. Who are the people we need to sympathize with in our lives and in our world today? Where can our prayers, our sacrifices, and our love make a difference for those who need it most at this time?

Might we freely offer to God all that we can to support those who are suffering, and take great consolation knowing that countless people—perhaps even at this moment—are already sympathizing with us and supporting us in the crosses that we carry each day.

Amicitia Dei-Friendship with God

(12th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B;This homily was given 24 & 25 June, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read Mark 4:35-41)

When you think of heaven, what kind of images usually come to mind? I think the general impression most people have when they think of heaven is of a place of happiness, a place of eternal rest and peace; at the very least the absence of pain.

The Christian faith, however, is much more specific than that when it comes to heaven and eternal life. Certainly we believe in a place of eternal happiness, a place where there will be no more pain, where “every tear will be wiped away” (see Revelation 21:4).

But more than that, heaven for the Christian is above all a relationship. St. Thomas Aquinas defines that relationship as one of friendship: He says heaven is amicitia Dei, friendship with God.

If we think about that for just a minute, it really is quite remarkable. The living God, the God of the Universe, wants to live in friendship with us: in a relationship of love, trust, faithfulness, intimacy. That relationship is one that begins here in this life and continues into eternal life. Friendship with God. That is the call of every baptized Christian.

Our Gospel this weekend gives us the opportunity to reflect on that relationship and to see more clearly Jesus Christ, the one who establishes that friendship with us. It begins, in this morning’s Gospel, with an invitation. St. Mark describes it this way:

On that day, as evening drew on, Jesus said to his disciples:

“Let us cross to the other side.”

Leaving the crowd, they took Jesus with them in the boat just as he was.

—Mark 4:35-36


From the earliest days of Christianity, the Church has often been described as a ship or a boat that carries the souls of the faithful to salvation. The main part of any church building is called the nave; it is the place where the congregation sits. We get that name from the Latin word for boat: navis.

The disciples in the Gospel are invited by Christ to leave the crowd behind and to get into the navis, into the boat with Him.

It is Christ who takes the initiative; He is the one who invites them to accompany Him on that journey “to the other side.” But they are the ones who must make a choice. They can remain on the shore with the crowd or they can get into the boat with Christ. But they cannot do both.

Friendship with God, that relationship we share with Christ, is also God’s initiative. He is the one who calls us into that friendship. But we, too, must make a choice. Like those first disciples, we must choose to remain with the crowd or to get into the boat with Christ.

We can have friendship with God or we can have friendship with this world. But we cannot have both. The New Testament Letter of James speaks of this in the strongest of terms. St. James says:

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
—James 4:4

The way God calls us to live is very different from—and often completely opposed to—the crowd mentality we find in the world around us. The teachings of our faith on morality, marriage and the family, the sanctity of every human life, born and unborn, and so many other aspects of life, is radically different from the way the world sees these things. We cannot live in friendship with both worlds at the same time. It is impossible.


God has established the Church as the place where He teaches us “how to live in this passing world with our heart set on the world that will never end” (Preface II of Lent).

The Church is the navis, the ship that God has built to bring us home to heaven. And so, True friendship with God is first and foremost a friendship rooted and grounded in the Church.

But more than that, it is also a friendship that is nurtured in conversation with God, a friendship nurtured in prayer. We see the great need for this ongoing conversation with God in the lives of the disciples this morning.

Their boat is being tossed around in the midst of a violent storm, and all the while Jesus is asleep on a cushion! Suddenly they wake Him and ask: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38).

It is a very good question. Who among us has not asked that same question, when Jesus seems to be asleep in our lives? Haven’t we all experienced times when God seems to be “asleep at the wheel” and we feel very much alone.

But the question isn’t whether or not Jesus cares. Of course He cares for the disciples in that boat. He cares for them infinitely so. The question we need to ask is: What took them so long to finally wake Him up in the first place?!

Jesus is not asleep because He doesn’t want to be bothered by their trials and difficulties. He is asleep because they have not woken Him up and made Him more completely a part of their lives.

The disciples could have woken Him up while the sun was still setting, and He would have gladly shared that moment with them. They could have expressed their concern about the storm clouds way off in the distance; they could have spoken with Him about the winds that seemed to be picking up. But they didn’t do that. This morning we need to ask: Why not?

Jesus wants to be bothered. He wants us to grow in that conversation with Him. Yes, we should go to Him when the major storms come into our lives. By all means we should go to Him then. But we should also seek to grow in friendship and intimacy with Him all throughout our day, and all throughout our lives. Friendship with God is a friendship that is nurtured in prayer.

This morning, as we reflect on this Gospel passage, we can ask ourselves: how is our friendship with God at this time? Is it a friendship rooted and grounded in the Church? Are we in the boat with Christ or do we have one foot in the boat and one foot on the shore? We cannot live in friendship with God and in friendship with the world. Ultimately we must make a choice.

And finally, is our friendship with God being nurtured in that daily conversation with Him? Do we find ourselves conversing with God throughout the day or is Jesus asleep in our lives, asleep in our boat, as we attempt to battle the storms of life alone?

Christ comes to us this morning in word and sacrament, to strengthen our faith and deepen our friendship with Him. Might we find that friendship growing and blossoming into something truly beautiful and life giving in the days ahead, as Christ continues to prepare us—even now—for that eternal life of friendship with God in heaven.

Corpus et Sanguis Christi

(Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ-Year B;This homily was given 18 June, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read Exodus 24:3-8, Hebrews 9:11-15 & Mark 14:22-26)

Are you squeamish when it comes to the sight or even the mention of blood? Hopefully not, because blood is one of the main themes of the feast we celebrate this morning. It is in every one of our readings. There is blood in the prayers we offer for this Mass, and before our celebration is through there will be blood in the chalice on the altar.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. Not just Corpus Christi—the Body of Christ—but Corpus et Sanguis Christi, the Body and the Blood of Christ.

One common thread we find running throughout the Old Testament is that of blood. To shed the blood of another carried the most severe of penalties; and the offering of blood as a sacrifice became a regular part of worship and faith of Israel. For the Jewish people especially, blood was considered to be a sacred sign of life itself (Leviticus 17:11,14; CCC, #2260). We find that powerful sign in the first reading this morning.

God makes a covenant with the people of Israel, the Ten Commandments. The people agree, not once but twice, to follow that covenant, to obey the commandments of God.

And as an outward sign of this covenant between them, Moses pours blood first over the altar (since it was God who initiated that covenant), and then he sprinkles the rest on the people (literally, he pours blood over them), saying: This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you (Exodus 24:8).


Sacrifice and the shedding of blood was a sign that would be repeated over and over again as the people of Israel renewed the covenant God had made with them. They would offer the sacrifice of bulls, of goats, and of lambs, as an outward sign of their fidelity to God.

But why so much sacrifice? Why the shedding of so much blood? It is only with the coming of Jesus Christ that we begin to see that the entire Old Covenant (and all of the sacrifices and shedding of blood that took place for the renewal of that covenant) was really just a preparation for the one sacrifice of Christ and for the shedding of His blood on the cross.

We hear in the second reading this morning:

When Christ came as high priest . . . he entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
—Hebrews 9:11-12

It is the blood of Christ and His sacrifice that renews us and gives us new life. It is the blood of Christ freely offered on our behalf that obtains for us the forgiveness of sins. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen puts it,

“The higher the life, the more precious the blood. When you come to the life of Christ, who sheds His blood, you get the total remission of sin.”


That is what God was preparing the people of Israel for. That is what He was preparing each of us for: the New Covenant written in the blood of Christ. Today, and at every Mass, we renew that covenant as we hear again the words of Christ from the Gospel, when takes bread and says:

“This is my body”


Then he takes the cup and says:

“This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.”


We are here today to offer the one eternal sacrifice of Christ to the Father; then here from this altar we will receive the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Do you believe that? Do you ever doubt that the body and blood of Christ are truly made present here in this Church at every Mass? It is not an easy thing to grasp. In fact, without faith, it is impossible.

There is a story about a very devout and holy priest in the 13th century named Peter of Prague. His greatest struggle as a priest was that he could not believe Christ was truly present in the consecrated host.

He even decided to make a pilgrimage to Rome, asking for the grace of God to help him with his constant doubts about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. On his way to Rome he stopped in the small Italian City of Bolsena, where he celebrated Mass in the Church of St. Christina.

In the middle of that Mass, immediately after he had spoken the words of consecration (This is my body . . . this is the cup of my blood . . .), blood began to seep from the consecrated host and trickled down his hands and onto the altar. Obviously, he was a bit shaken up by that experience. He interrupted the Mass and asked those present what he should do.

Pope Urban IV, the pope at that time, was only one city away, in Orvieto. And so they brought Fr. Peter to that city, where the pope listened to him and began to investigate all that had happened.

One year after that event, Pope Urban IV instituted a feast honoring the Sacred Body and Blood of Christ. He called it Corpus Christi, and it is the feast we are celebrating today.

Miracles happen. We know and believe that as people of faith. Some of us, in our own lifetime, may witness events like the Eucharistic Miracle at Bolsena. I have been there three times myself for the feast of Corpus Christi, and participated in Mass celebrated at that very altar; I have seen the relics: the corporal stained with blood and the marble from the floor that was touched by the blood of Christ. Miracles happen.

But the greatest miracle that has ever happened in the history of the world occurred when God became a man, and suffered and died on the cross to bring us home to heaven. Nothing greater than that has ever happened in this world, and nothing greater ever will happen this side of heaven.

And to make sure we would never forget it, in order to remain with us always, even until the end of the world (Matthew 28:20), He gave us Himself as an everlasting memorial of His suffering and death. He gave us Himself—body and blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist—so that we might renew this covenant of love He has made with us.

That miracle is about to take place once again on this altar. Let us bring before Him now all our doubts and fears, our joys and hopes, our prayers and intentions, and place them here on this altar; and then let us receive from this altar all that God longs to give to us: nothing less than the sacred body and blood of Christ.

It's the City that makes the Saints

(Feast of St. Anthony of Padua-Year B;This homily was given 13 June, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read Matthew 5:13-16)

The feast of St. Anthony of Padua is unique not only in the saint himself, but in his very name, as well. Usually when a saint is referenced by a city it is because he or she originated from that City. We refer to St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine of Siena because they were born and raised in those cities.

Not so with St. Anthony of Padua. St. Anthony was not born in the Italian city of Padua. In fact, he was not born in Italy at all. St. Anthony is from Portugal, and the city of Lisbon. Yet we do not refer to him as St. Anthony of Portugal or St. Anthony of Lisbon.

The reason for that has everything to do with the response of the people of Padua to the Gospel message. St. Anthony, a Franciscan missionary priest, brought the Good News to the people of Padua, and they were wide open to God’s word and the call to repentance.

It is said that, in response to the preaching and ministry of St. Anthony, people who had long been at odds with each other were soon reconciled and lived in peace. Those who owed large sums of money, which they had no intention of repaying, suddenly brought their debts before St. Anthony and acknowledged their need to set things right.

The whole city was transformed. Padua became a city very much like the one described by Christ in the Gospel this morning:

A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.
—Mathew 5:14-16

Today’s feast and the Gospel remind us that it is not the saint that makes the city; it’s the city that makes the saints. It is not St. Francis and St. Claire that give us Assisi. It is Assisi that gives them to us. And it is the City of Padua that gives us St. Anthony for today’s feast.

How is God calling us to be that "city on a mountain?" We are called to respond with a radical love to the remarkable message of grace and forgiveness given to us by God. Who do we need to be reconciled with? How are we called to live more completely for Christ, to pray more fervently, to love more intensely in this city, our town, our parish community?

It’s the city that makes the saints. Might our response to the Gospel become the rich seedbed of the saints here in this "city on a mountain," as we respond to Christ’s call to be the light of the world, and the salt of the earth.

The Family, Image of the Most Holy Trinity

(Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity -Year B;This homily was given 11 June, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read Matthew 28:16-20, Romans 8:14-17 and CCC #232-237)

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, the most central mystery of the Christian faith. At the very heart of that mystery we come to understand two things: who God is, and what God does.

In fact, our faith teaches that we can only know who God is through what He does, through the way He makes Himself known in the world around us (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #237). We often hear it said that “God is love,” but how do we know that? We know because that is how He has revealed Himself to us.

God first creates the universe we live in and then literally loves us into being. St. Augustine says, “God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love.” And to show us the extent of that love, God the Son enters into the world He created and sacrifices Himself on the cross to reconcile us to the Father.

Then, as we celebrated last week, at Pentecost, the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit into the hearts of all who believe and are baptized, making us sons and daughters of God. As we hear in St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans:

You received a Spirit of adoption,
through whom we cry, “Abba, Father!”
—Romans 8:15

That is how we know who the Trinity is, this God who is love; because He has made Himself known in the creative love that brought us into being, and the sacrificial love that made us His own children.

And of all the images that have been used to describe the Holy Trinity—the shamrock used by St. Patrick, and many others—of all those different images, the most appropriate and most beautiful one is the image of the Christian family.

The family is a communion of persons in love, just as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are a communion of persons in love. That same creative love of the Holy Trinity can be seen everywhere in our lives and in our own families. We are here today as the fruit of our parents’ creative love.

And who among us has not experienced that sacrificial love revealed by Christ at the cross? How many times have you made sacrifices for the ones you love? What are those sacrifices our families have made for us time and time again? The family, in its creative love (that brings new life into being) and its sacrificial love, is the very image of the Trinitarian love of God.

But the family today—I think all of us would admit—is under more intense pressure and threatened by more challenges than ever before. There was a headline in the Providence Journal this past week that read: “Vatican Says Family Structure is Under Attack.” No argument there.

The article in the Journal was referring to the new document published by the Pontifical Council for the Family. That document names two very specific attacks that all of us are familiar with.

The first is same sex marriage and same-sex unions. How many times have we seen this issue in the newspaper in the last year (or the last few days)? We hear the same arguments over and over:

That it’s all about equal rights.

But it isn’t.

That those who oppose such unions are motivated by hatred or discrimination.

But we are not.

Or, as one Senator from R.I., a Roman Catholic, said in a statement recently:

“This is a state issue.”

But it is not a state issue. Nor is it a Church issue. Marriage is not a Catholic issue or a Vatican issue. Marriage is a Trinitarian issue. It’s an institution created by God and given to the human family long before the Church or the state ever existed.

As Christ Himself tells us in the Gospel:

From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one.’
—Mark 10:6


That is Jesus’ response to the marriage “issue.” Marriage comes to us from God Himself, and because of that, neither the Church nor the state has the right to change it in any way. It is a gift from God in which a man and a woman give themselves to each other completely—as man and as woman—and cooperate with God in bringing new life into the world.

The love of a husband and a wife so closely resembles the creative love of the Trinity, in fact, that in 9 months they could be holding that love in their arms! That is the powerful and beautiful reality of the family as God sees it, and as God created it.

And so marriage is the first aspect of the family which is under attack in our culture today. The second aspect mentioned by that recent document is just as serious, yet much more hidden. It talks about the great “lengths people go to avoid having children, including contraception as well as abortion.”

How could these practices not have a destructive impact on the family as the image of the Most Holy Trinity? They go in the complete opposite direction of the creative and life giving love that God reveals to us in Himself. These practices exclude God the Creator from the act of love between persons; or worse, they destroy life before it even has a chance to begin.

The family structure is indeed under attack in the world we live in. So how are we called to respond, as Christians and people of faith, to these tremendous challenges?

We respond, first of all, by living out our call to family life and love. That speaks very loudly to the culture we live in. I can tell you that in 2 years in this parish, my life and ministry as a priest has been profoundly influenced and transformed by the families I have know here at Our Lady of Mercy.

Your family, your marriage, your witness to Christ in this world has more of an impact than you could possibly imagine. Please continue to offer that witness.

Secondly, vote. Or, perhaps better put, don’t vote; please do not vote for those politicians—Catholic or otherwise—who do not support the family or that gift of life that God has entrusted us with.

Sadly, they are not interested in God’s plan for the family; nor are they interested in the gift of life in its most fragile of forms. Please vote, instead, for those who will support the family and the gift of human life. And if we do not find candidates who will support this way of life handed down to us by God, then we must pray that God will raise them up here among us, perhaps from this very parish.

Which brings us to the ultimate and most important response of all: the response of prayer. As St. Paul reminds us, we are not engaged in a struggle with flesh and blood, but with spiritual powers, spiritual forces (Ephesians 6:12). We need the supernatural help that only God can give us.

We need prayer; we need to pray the rosary for families. Especially we need to entrust our lives and families to Mary, Queen of Families, that she who guided and cared for Christ so well on earth may continue to guide all of us, her children, on our journey home to heaven.

We pray, today and always:

Mary, Queen of families, pray for us.

Pentecost and the Fruits of the Spirit

(Pentecost Sunday-Year B;This homily was given 4 June, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read Acts 2:1-11 and Galatians 5:16-25)

If you read the letters of the Apostle Paul, one of his trademark characteristics is that he often creates lists. Paul makes lists of injuries he has suffered (2 Corinthians 11:23-33) and places he has been (Galatians 1:17-2:1). He lists the various spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:4-11, 27-31;13).

Perhaps the best-known lists of St. Paul are the ones we read in his Letter to the Galatians. In that letter St. Paul names the works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit. We would be hard pressed to find two ways of life more diverse than these. He says:

The works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, lust, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies and the like.
—Galatians 5:19-21

It is quite a list, to be sure. And St. Paul could not be more clear about the fate of those who follow that way of life. He says:

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
—Galatians 5:21


In contrast, Paul goes on to list the fruits of the Spirit:

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.
—Galatians 5:22-23


This morning we can ask ourselves: which list best describes where we are in the spiritual life? Do we recognize some of the works of the flesh in our own lives? Or do we see, instead, those fruits of the Spirit that all of us long for at the very core of our being.

Today we celebrate the feast of Pentecost, that day when the Holy Spirit first came upon the Church and enabled the disciples to experience those fruits of the Spirit in a radical and remarkable way. The Holy Spirit set their hearts on fire with the love of God, and then sent them out to transform the world they lived in.

The very same men and women who hid behind closed doors, cowering for fear of the Jews, are now enlivened with the Gift of the Holy Spirit and boldly proclaim to the world around them that Jesus Christ is Lord!

They began that day a revolution that changed the world forever. Their witness to Christ, begun in that small city some 2000 years ago, would eventually spread like wildfire across time and space, eventually making its way to even our own towns, our own churches and into our own lives this day.

And what started that fire on that amazing day of Pentecost was not an ideology, or simply a message, or just some new way of life. What began that fire was a person: the Holy Spirit.

He is the one—promised by Christ—that transforms each of us, as well as the world we live in. He is the one responsible for those fruits that St. Paul refers to in that list from Galatians: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

If we want to see our lives, our families and our Church transformed, if we want to see those fruits in our lives and in the world we live in, then we have to first realize that it will only take place when we have invited Him to be a part of our lives and allowed Him to do all that He desires in us.


Today, on the feast of Pentecost, we pray:

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful
and enkindle in them the fire of your love.

Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created.
And you shall renew the face of the earth.

O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant us in that same Spirit to be truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

(Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary-Year B;This homily was given 31 May, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read Luke 1:39-56)

The scene of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is one that is often beautifully depicted in Christian art. Yet sometimes, if we are not careful, we can reduce Mary to only a painting, picture or statue. We risk placing her so outside our own experience that she becomes some distant figure not entirely involved in the everyday world around us.

Fortunately, the Feast of the Visitation does not allow us to do that. Far from being statuesque or stationary, Mary in the Gospel for this feast is moving.

St. Luke tells us that she “set out and traveled to the hill country in haste” (Luke 1:39) to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Mary wastes no time manifesting the love of God in the world around her.

The love that Mary carries in her body, and the loved that wells up in her soul, does not allow her to stand still. She goes in haste to assist her cousin in need, and in that act of charity she sets in motion a whole chain of events that perpetuates the love she carries within.

Immediately upon arriving at the house of Zechariah, Mary’s voice sets the heart of St. John the Baptist in motion. Like one captive within the womb of St. Elizabeth, he cannot wait to get out and make Christ known in the world around him.

St. Elizabeth, for her part, cannot keep silent and sings out the praises of the Lord, blessing Mary and the God who works such wonders among His people.


In a very practical way, we can ask ourselves:

What lies dormant in our world today?

Where are the St. John the Baptists and the St. Elizabeths in our lives, waiting for the love of God to set their hearts in motion?

Where is the love of Christ waiting for a place to happen in our lives today.

Let us move in haste, following the example of Our Lady. May the Visitation become more than just a painting, more than just a picture in our lives. Like Mary, might we make the love of Christ real in the world around us.

The Problem of Evil

(7th Sunday of Easter-Year B;This homily was given 27 & 28 May, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read John 17:11-19)

For The past several years one of the most popular Broadway shows has been a play called “Wicked”. It’s based upon a novel by Gregory Maguire under the same title. Basically it’s a story about the Wicked Witch of the West, only before we come to know her in “The Wizard of Oz.”

Towards the beginning of that book, the Wicked Witch is away at boarding school, and has a conversation with her roommate Galinda (the one who will later become Glinda, the Good Witch, in “The Wizard of Oz”). They are talking about the reality of evil: Does it exist? Where does it come from?

At one point Galinda makes the observation that, while belief in God has become rather passé (people of Oz at the time could take it or leave it), the reality and the implications of evil are obvious and unavoidable.

In our own culture things are not really all that different. We do not have to be convinced of the reality of evil. We can simply open the morning newspaper or turn on the evening news. Evil exists in the world we live in.

That is the reality Christ is speaking of in the gospel, on the night before He dies, when He prays to the Father for the Apostles and for us. He prays:

Father, I do not ask that you take them out of the world
but that you keep them from the evil one.
—John 17:15


Following Christ does not necessarily remove us from the world and the experience of evil. Jesus, nonetheless, prays for us so that we can live in this world and serve Him, but all the while kept from the evil one. We are called to follow God’s plan, and God’s will, not the evil we see taking place around us.

Essentially, this is the same thing we ask for each time we pray the Our Father. We pray:

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

But with all that said, and after Jesus’ prayer and our own have been offered, much of what we know about evil remains a mystery. Down through the centuries, in the history of our tradition, some of the saints and theologians of the Church have helped us to shed at least some light on that mystery.

St. Thomas Aquinas says that evil is an absence of the good; it is a lack of some legitimate good which ought to be there. We can think of injustice, when someone’s legitimate rights are taken away or violated. That is an experience of evil. Or when one’s health or life is taken away seemingly without any sense of reason or purpose.

I recently learned that a young man with whom I had studied for the priesthood died this past Wednesday in tragic accident while vacationing with his family. He was 36 years old and had been a priest for only three years. That is what St. Thomas Aquinas means by an absence of the good; it is often how we experience evil in the world we live in.

St. Augustine describes evil in much more personal terms. In addition to an absence of the good, he also calls it “id quod nocet (that which harms).” Think about a time when something or someone harmed you our caused harm in the lives of those around you. That can happen in any number of ways. There are natural disasters or unexplained phenomena that cause damage and harm in the world around us.

Yet very often harm is caused by our own decisions and actions, by our misuse of freedom and the reality of sin. Our sins themselves are id quod nocet, that which harms. When we sin we harm our relationship with God, with one another, and ultimately we cause harm to ourselves.

But perhaps the most perplexing and often painful problem that we face with regard to evil is not the harm that we cause in the world, or the harm caused to us by others. The most challenging obstacle is often the suffering of those who are innocent. How are we to make sense of that?

In Dostoevsky’s great classic, The Brothers Karamazov, one of the main characters named Ivan brings up this very dilemma with his brother who is a monk. He tells him that he can accept his own suffering and the suffering of others if that is what God requires. As he puts it, “if all must suffer to pay for the eternal harmony.” But then what does that say for the suffering of the innocent, of children that have done nothing to harm anyone?

Ivan tells his brother that if that is part of the equation, that if God is going to require the innocent to suffer to restore “the eternal harmony,” then when he gets to heaven he will return his ticket for admission! He will not go to a heaven like that.

What Ivan fails to mention is the one thing his brother brings up immediately: it is not our own suffering that returns the universe to “eternal harmony,” and it’s not the suffering of the innocent that accomplishes that either. It is the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that restores harmony and order to the world we live in. That’s where we receive our admission ticket to heaven.


And that is God’s response to the problem of evil. As St. John says in his gospel:

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
—John 3:16

God’s response to the problem of evil, to all the harm that we see in the world, to all suffering, is the response of love. It is the sacrifice of Christ Himself on the cross, for our forgiveness and our redemption. Now, that is not a response that answers all of our questions about evil and suffering. But it is a response that gives us hope in this life and in the life to come.

We can live in this world, finding consolation in Jesus’ prayer to “keep us from the evil one.” But ultimately, we can now participate in God’s plan to overcome that evil once and for all.

That is the Good News. Our sufferings and our struggles in this world are not meaningless. We can now unite them to the very sufferings of Christ, participating in the life of Christ and becoming a part of that same response of love that has changed, and continues to change, the world we live in.

Might we continue to see, in our lives, a greater participation in the life of Christ, the life He came to share with us; and may we continue to recognize more completely that Christ is our hope and strength, the one who prays for us throughout our time on this earth, and is ultimately our ticket of admission into the eternal life to come.

The Ascension of the Lord

(Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord-Year B;This homily was given 24 & 25 May, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read Acts 1:1-11, Ephesians 4:1-13, and Mark 16:15-20)

One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes is one I have used many times, but it is well worth repeating. He said:

“The men and women who did the most for this world

were those who thought mostly of the world to come.

Aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in.

Aim at earth, and you will get neither.”

In many ways it summarizes our way of life as Christians: to be heavenly minded as we continue our lives here on earth. In today’s feast—the Ascension—that way of life is accentuated gloriously in the person of Christ, our Lord.

Jesus, when He comes to take on our humanity, does so much more than we could have ever hoped for. He not only forgives our sins, and redeems our humanity. In the ascension, Christ takes our humanity and glorifies it! The one who came from heaven to earth to become like us, has now returned to heaven and taken our human nature with Him, so that we can become like Him.

That fact alone should inspire us as we continue our earthly journey home to Him. Christ bids us to come follow Him, and we recognize that everything here on this earth matters; everything takes on eternal significance since it effects our relationship with God, with whom we will share all eternity.

But there is a second important reality we come to understand through the ascension, which is essential to our life here on earth. When Jesus ascends to the father, He does not become any less present here on earth. While He has taken His place at the right hand of the Father in heaven, Jesus remains on the earth through His body, the Church.

The same Christ who healed the sick, performed miracles and proclaimed the Good News to the poor continues to make His power and presence felt through the Church. That is the only way we could possibly understand the commission that He gives to the disciples in the Gospel. He says to them, as He prepares to ascend to the Father:

Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.
—Mark 16:15-16

Now that’s quite a tall order, wouldn’t you say? Essentially, what Christ has commissioned them—and us—to do is invite everyone in the world into a personal relationship with Christ; to baptize all who believe in Him, helping to bring them to eternal life.

Obviously, that is not something that we can set out to accomplish on our own. We do not have the gifts, the talents, or the resources that are necessary to complete a task that lofty . . . but Christ does! Jesus ascends to the Father and then gives us everything we need to accomplish His will. It is a supernatural commission that we have been given, and He gives us supernatural help to complete it.

That is the significance of those interesting signs that Christ mentions immediately after He gives us this commission:

These signs will accompany those who believe:in my name they will drive out demons,they will speak new languages.They will pick up serpents with their hands,and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.
—Mark 16:17-18

Jesus is not saying we should go out and pick up rattlesnakes! He does not want us to drink poison and see if we can stomach it. No, He wants us, and the entire world, to understand that this is His work, and He has equipped His Body, the Church, with grace and the supernatural means to carry it out.

As people of faith and followers of Christ, might we take inventory this day and come to realize more completely the gifts that we have been given to spread the gospel message in the world around us. We live in a world desperately in need of that saving and hope-filled message. It is no small task, but the one who calls us to it is able to do more than we could ever ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).

Today we continue our work here on earth with our hearts and minds always focused on Christ, and we never lose sight of the fact that:

“The men and women who did the most for this world

were those who thought mostly of the world to come.

Aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in.

Aim at earth, and you will get neither.”

Deus Caritas Est

(6th Sunday of Easter-Year B;This homily was given 21 May, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read 1 John 4:7-10 and John 15:9-17)

Deus Caritas Est. God is love. These are the opening words of the first encyclical letter from our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. As he says in that letter, these words, God is love, “express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith.” They speak of the very image of God, and of our own destiny as persons made in that image (Deus Caritas Est, #1).

Those words—God is love—are taken directly from our Second Reading this morning, the First Letter from the Apostle, St. John. We know that John was the only apostle not to suffer the fate of martyrdom. He was exiled, instead, to the small island of Patmos.

There is a legend that—while John was of course not able to leave that Island—Christians nonetheless were allowed to come to see him. Week after week, according to that legend, crowds would come to hear him preach the Gospel, and the message he preached, week in and week out, was that message of love.

Finally, one day, someone said to him:

“Why do you always preach about the same thing, the same message of love? You spent years with Jesus Himself. Surely you must have something else to share with us.”

And John’s reply was:

“I have many things to share, but I continue to give that same message because people still have not responded to it.”

We have to wonder, if St. John were alive today, would he still be preaching that same message?

In St. John’s Gospel this morning, we hear the words of Christ given to the Church on the night before He died. He says: “This I command you: love one another.”

Now, if we are honest, we can admit that the command to love is not always an easy one to follow. We live in a world that is often cold and indifferent. We can all think of people we have encountered in our lives that we find very difficult to love. How are we able to obey this command that Jesus gives us in the Gospel this morning?

The answer, I believe, is found in St. John himself. He says, in that Second Reading:

In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
—1 John 4:10

That’s the answer:
Not that we have loved God, but that He has loved us.

St. John—who gives us that insight—was a man who experienced the love of God completely. All throughout his Gospel, he never refers to himself by name. Over and over again John refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” John was a man loved by God; he never really got over that fact. It was something that never left his mind.

In the very beginning of St. John’s Gospel, in the first chapter, he describes how Andrew and “another disciple” came to know Jesus. The “other disciple,” of course, is John himself. He says that Jesus invited them both to follow Him. John puts it this way:

They went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon.
—John 1:39


Now, that is a very odd description. Who cares that it was four in the afternoon? But it mattered to St. John because, on that day, at four o’clock in the afternoon, everything in his life changed. He was seized by Christ, loved by Love, and nothing was ever the same again.

Think about your own life. If you have children, you can probably remember the very hour that they were born. Or perhaps you remember exactly what time it was when you married the person you fell in love with. That’s what St. John is talking about. He was seized by the love of Christ, and it was four o’clock in the afternoon.

In the encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Benedict XVI describes this very same response we are to have to Jesus’ commandment in the Gospel. He says:

The “commandment” of love is only possible because it is more than a requirement. Love can be commanded because it has first been given.
—DCE, #14


In other words, God can command us to love because, in Christ, He has come right into our very lives and loved us first.

The Holy Father goes on to describe the Bible as the story of God’s love, a story in which Christ comes to us, seeking “to win our hearts”: at the Last Supper, when He gives Himself to us in the Eucharist; at the cross, when He gives Himself over for the forgiveness of our sins; and everywhere else in those first days of the early Church (DCE, #17).

All throughout history, if we look at all the greatest saints in the Church, we see this same Gift of God Himself in love; we see this same response from those whose lives were changed forever by that personal encounter with the God who is love. Their entire lives proclaimed that message: Deus Caritas Est; God is love.

We, too, are called to proclaim that same message; to witness to the God of love with our words and actions in this world. But that will never happen, it will never take place, until we have first been seized by Christ and loved by Him.

God calls us—just as He called St. John, and countless others—to know Him and be loved by Him; to know His forgiveness, His mercy, and His love in the deepest possible way.

Today we ask for that grace to open our hearts more completely to the God who is love, so that we may be faithful in responding to that command of Christ: to love one another, as God has loved us.

Remain in Me

(5th Sunday of Easter-Year B;This homily was given 14 May, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read John 15:1-10)

The image of the vine and the branches in this morning’s Gospel gives us a clear picture of just how radically dependent we are upon Christ for even the most basic necessities of the spiritual life. Like a mantra throughout that passage, Christ repeats those words, “Remain in me; remain on the vine; whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit. Remain.”

This weekend is a timely opportunity to reflect on what it truly means to remain in Jesus. Just yesterday we celebrated the anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady to three small children in Fatima, Portugal back in 1917. Today, of course, is also Mother’s Day, and the month of May. What better time to reflect on our Mother, Mary, as the perfect model for what it means to truly remain in Christ.

First and foremost, to remain in Christ is to remain in His word. As He says to the disciples in the Gospel this morning:

You are already pruned [made clean] because of the word that I spoke to you (John 15:3).

And then He goes on to encourage them, once again, to remain in that word.

Mary, above all the other disciples, was a woman of the word. From the beginning, at the annunciation, she was attentive to the word of God as it was given to her through the message of the angel. Her willingness to hear that word, her receptivity to the word of salvation, helped her to conceive the Lord in her heart even before she conceived Him physically in her body. All throughout her life she remained open and available to that life giving word of God and the words of her own Son. Mary was a woman of the word.

Are we that receptive to the word of God? As we listen to the gospel proclaimed here each week, are we open and available to what God is saying to us? Do we take time to read the Bible? St. Jerome, in his reflection on the word of God, says that “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” The Scriptures help us to see as God sees, to think as He thinks. Might we be men and women of the word, remaining in Jesus by remaining in His word.

Secondly, Mary was a woman of the Eucharist (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, #53-58). She would have been present at all the first Eucharistic feasts, those first Masses of the early Church. But long before that, she received the body and the blood of Christ when she welcomed Him into her body and gave Him life.

John Paul II says that at the incarnation—when God became man in Christ—at that mystery, Mary “anticipated . . . the Church’s Eucharistic faith” (EE, # 55). He calls her the “first ‘tabernacle’,” the first place in which the body of Christ was reposed. To remain in Jesus and to have life in Him is to remain with Him in the Eucharist.

The Main Chapel at the North American College, where I studied for the priesthood, has a unique floor design. The floor itself is made of white marble, but around the main altar where the Eucharist is celebrated each day, the marble tiles are all dark green and they flow out towards the pews and branch off to either side of that chapel. The significance is found in the very image that Christ shares with us this morning, that of the vine and the branches.

Separated from the vine—the very source of our life—we can do nothing. Separated from Christ in the Eucharist, we are like a branch that withers and is good for nothing, only to be thrown out into the fire. Like Mary, we are called to be people intimately united to Christ in the Eucharist. To remain in Christ is to remain with Him, and He with us, in the Eucharist.

Finally, Mary was a woman of prayer. Time and time again, when she encounters the great mysteries of her son’s life, we are told that Mary “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart” (Luke 2:19; 51). Mary remained in Jesus by keeping the mysteries of His life alive in her heart. She was a woman of great prayer.

Do we keep the mysteries of Christ present in our own lives through prayer? Do we take the time each day to be alone with God, the One who is the very source of our life and strength? To remain in Christ we must remain in prayer, able to recognize that in Him we have everything we need to live fruitful lives as people of faith.

This Mother’s Day, let us continue to look to Mary—woman of the word, woman of the Eucharist, and woman of prayer—as that perfect model of what it means to remain in Christ.

And may God continue to bless all mothers, all who have given us life and love, and most especially those who have taught us what it truly means to remain in Christ and to bear great fruit in Him.

Good Shepherd Sunday: God and the Bride

(4th Sunday of Easter-Year B;This homily was given 7 May, 2006, at Our Lady of Mercy, East Greenwich, R.I.; read John 10:11-18)

This Sunday in the Church universal we celebrate the annual World Day of Prayer for Vocations. The reason we pray and focus our attention on this aspect of the life of the Church is simple: we are in need of religious vocations, and especially vocations to the priesthood. Pope Benedict XVI, in his message for this weekend, put it this way:

The mission of the priest in the Church is irreplaceable. Therefore, even if in some regions there is a scarcity of clergy, it should never be doubted that Christ continues to raise up men who . . . dedicate themselves completely to the celebration of the sacred mysteries, to the preaching of the gospel and to pastoral ministry.

Now, it shouldn’t surprise us that Pope Benedict is interested in vocations, or that this homily is about vocations. But what does come as a surprise, I think, is that thousands of Americans—Catholic and non-Catholic alike—are also interested in vocations to the priesthood.

I am referring, of course, to the “reality TV” series that recently aired on A&E called “God or the Girl.” You may have seen this program that follows four young men over the course of several months, as they must decide whether or not to enter a celibate life as a seminarian or remain in the world where they can date and continue their lives as single Catholic men. Again, as the title of the show suggests, they must make a choice: between either God or the girl.

Now, I have to admit, when I first heard about this show I was more than a bit skeptical. I could picture the cameras rolling as these four young men are being dropped off on an island with Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton! But having talked to people who have seen the show, and after reading much about “God or the Girl,” the overall message that comes through is really quite encouraging. It seems that even in the midst of our secular culture, people are generally interested—and even impressed—with the decision that many young men make to enter the seminary and embrace a call to celibate priesthood.

But with all that said, I still think there is something missing when it comes to that decision: “God or the Girl.” To say that a seminarian or a priest makes a choice not date or not to marry is really only part of the picture. Priesthood, like any vocation, is not a choice against something. It is ultimately a choice for something (or, to be more specific, a choice for someone).


Many times as a priest I am able to meet with young couples who are preparing for the sacrament of marriage. Whenever they talk about their life together, they never say:

“Father, we are so excited about our upcoming wedding, and about celebrating our decision to not see other people.”

No, they never say that! They say:

“I am looking forward to this wedding and my marriage to this person; I want to spend my life and give my love to this man or this woman.”

Marriage is not a choice against bachelorhood or a rejection of the single life. It is a choice for another; a choice for the beloved . . . and so is priesthood.

We need look no further than Jesus Christ, the great High Priest Himself, in the Gospel this morning, to see that love expressed in the most basic and compelling of terms.

Jesus refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd, who “lays down his life for the sheep.” At the very heart of Jesus’ identity and ministry, at the very core of who He is, we find this total gift of self, a gift of His very life for the sheep. Jesus goes to the cross out of love for His Bride, the Church.

In his document on the formation of priests, Pope John Paul II reflects on this very gift of self that Christ makes as the Good Shepherd. He says,

Christ’s gift of himself to his Church, the fruit of his love, is described in terms of that unique gift of self made by the bridegroom to the bride . . .Jesus is the true bridegroom who offers to the Church the wine of salvation (John 2:11).
—Pastores Dabo Vobis, #22.


He goes on to describe how the priest is called to share in that same spousal relationship, to make that same gift of self for love of the Church. So it’s not merely a choice between God or the girl. At its deepest level, the choice to follow Christ in the Catholic priesthood is a decision for God and the Bride, not God or the girl.

Now all of that sounds very theological and abstract. But it’s really not. In fact, in my own life, it is something that is very personal. For several years I struggled with the decision of whether or not to enter the seminary. If only I had waited a little longer, perhaps I, too, could have been on A&E’s reality TV show!

But my biggest challenge was trying to make that decision to give up the possibility of a rewarding married life, with a wife, children and all the things that most young men my age were considering.

The one thing that I could not see at the time, was that God was calling me to love every bit as much as any husband in the Church today, but that He was calling me to love in a very different way; He was calling me to share in that same love that Christ has for His Bride the Church. That reality, that truth, changed things for me. I began to look at the Church, the priesthood, and God’s call in my life in an entirely new way.

That is really what we pray for today, on this World Day of Prayer for Vocations: that all those who God is calling to love completely, and to give themselves fully to Christ in love for His bride the Church, may be able to hear that call and see that love in a whole new light.

Let us join with the Church throughout the world this day, in asking God for an increase in vocations to the priesthood and religious life. And may all those called to serve God as priests and religious today, reflect that love that Christ, the Good Shepherd, has for His Bride, the Church.