Worried About His Church?

During the early days of May, we are continuing to read about the first days of the Church. In my studies, I’ve come to enjoy the Acts of the Apostles and the stories of building up the Body of Christ which is His Church. In a recent Mass, there is the Scripture story about addressing conflict or issues in the early Church. There was the issue of circumcision. When they arrived in Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabus were welcomed by the Church, as well as by the Apostles and the presbyters, and they reported what God had done with them.

The Council of Jerusalem (or Apostolic Conference) is a name applied by historians and theologians to this early Christian council dated around the year 50. It is considered by Catholics and Orthodox to be a prototype and forerunner of the later Councils. This council in the year 50 decided that Gentile converts to Christianity were not obligated to keep most of the Mosaic law, especially concerning circumcision of males.

This idea of going back to the seat of the Catholic Church has been continued from those earliest days till now. Our Tucson Bishop Kicanas recently was in Rome, sometime after submitting a report on the conditions, the accomplishments and the challenges in this Tucson Diocese. I also read of the Ad Limina visit by the bishops from my old territory back in Colorado. I want to share some words from that meeting because of how much time many of us spend shaking our heads about all the problems and about what’s wrong with the Church.

Denver Bishop Conley said that the numbers of vocations were going up in the United States. He shared with the Pope that there is now a year-on-year increase in the numbers of young men opting for the priesthood across many US dioceses. Conley reported “I told Pope Benedict that in the Archdiocese of Denver both of our seminaries, St John Vianney Theological Seminary and Redemptoris Mater Neo-catechumenal seminary, are full. In fact we have more applicants than we have space so for the first time in many years we have to create a waiting list which is a good problem to have.” Holy Father Benedict was delighted to receive this information and had a great smile on his face. A recent study by the CARA Apostolate at Georgetown University estimated that U. S. seminary intake was up 4 percent over the previous year, and that it had reached its highest figure in 20 years.

About Denver — this success story reminds me to dig into my homily notes files and pull up some material to preach on graces. We may have little or no notion of what graces really are. Our knowledge may be wispy puffs of something which is here for an instant and then gone. Listen to these words of Archbishop Chaput, as he commented in one of his diocesan columns.

One of the staffers at the diocese had just moved to Colorado from a much larger and higher crime city on the West Coast.  The man was driving his family home late one evening, when the street— four lanes wide—was suddenly blocked by a huge mob of teens swarming out of the dark.  As urban panic kicked in, and he threw the car in reverse, his wife helpfully pointed out that the kids were singing a Marian hymn. The “mob” turned out to be hundreds of French World Youth Day pilgrims walking back to their parish sleeping quarters.  It was a moment of grace—unexpected, implausible and beautiful—and similar moments of grace happened again and again all over the city during those extraordinary days. Chaput said, “I was the bishop of Rapid City during Denver’s World Youth Day.  I remember it not just for its scope—more than 500,000 people from all over the world crowded into Cherry Creek State Park for the final Mass with John Paul II; nor for its almost total lack of crime and strife; nor for its astonishing success in the face of so much skepticism—nobody really thought Denver could manage an event this big.” The graces — the powerful results of that one significant event in Colorado have been a part of setting that diocese on fire.

Are we to worry and pray about the worldwide Church? Of course, because the forces of evil have not yet been permanently vanquished. But can we have hope and optimism and internal joy? You bet your Miraculous Medal we can.

Please God, give us the grace of fruitful optimism fueled by a necessary dose of reality. Help us to see the picture of your Church. Ever beautiful. Always, your gift to mankind until you come again. Amen.

Blessings.

Deacon Tom

www.catholicvitamins.com

Easter Hope

Even if we don’t know with any degree of certainty that there is an after-life… even if this ‘religion stuff’ seems pretty much man-made … even though the world seems to pay more lip-service to Christianity than to living it — the one thing that the Easter Christian is gifted with is HOPE. There is so much historical data and martyred lives and witness to help support our hope. 

As the early Church Father St. John Chrysostom aptly stated, “In every business or action, the hope of a future result is the motive which actuates us; for he who plows, does so that he may reap; and he who fights, that he may conquer. Take from man the hope of resurrection, and there is no longer piety or virtue.”

And now — we’ve completed the forty days journey through a Lenten desert. The large stone has been rolled back and we are alive with Christ. We are called to start a pilgrimage as to Emmaus. We are called once again to begin a pilgrimage to go and share the good news. That’s what the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is about – men on a journey and who were gifted with a meeting with the Dispenser of Hope.

If you read much of my writing or have heard my homilies or our Catholic Vitamins podcasts, I’ve often talked about Catherine Doherty of Madonna House. For dozens of years she used to come to visit Winslow, Arizona, some 90 miles north of where I now live. She is being considered by the Church for sainthood. She wrote many books and articles. Some tell of Russians who set out on holy pilgrimages.

These pilgrims leave home with no little or no money. They leave home with only one day’s food and drink. A destination can be hundreds of miles away. The pilgrims bring Christ with them. And often, these pilgrims experience Christ in the homes they are invited to stay in. So for you and me, when we set our on our own journey to Emmaus, we need not worry how well educated we are or how equipped to lead others we are. All we need to do is to pray, and to ask Christ to send His Spirit to guide us…. and to stay within the practices of the 2,000 year old Catholic Church.

When we face the meaning of Easter we are at the crossroads of life and belief. With HOPE, we eventually must choose one way or the other. Am I a casual tourist with rose colored sunglasses sort of meandering through this Christ-is-alive stuff? Or am I am real pilgrim for Christ? What do I believe? No matter what my parents or my friends believe. It is a question I can only answer for myself. Have I come to this point in my life… this repeat of the celebration of Easter because I really believe in the resurrected and glorified person of Jesus? Is he real to me? Do I have a relationship with him? Does Easter express reality? Do I believe that death is not a period – that it is a comma in our existence?

Father Lou Guntzelman was a priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. He said that in the early years of the Christian era, some were asked whether they thought there own resurrection was outlandish and foolish. The reply from those early days was, “Which is a greater miracle for God to do? Create me from absolutely nothing, or once he has created me, to complete and keep me alive forever? Creation from nothingness is a greater miracle than continuation!” It’s been said, “To the person who dies, the great day of death does not merely arrive, like a date on a calendar: it explodes like an event which Faith has been keeping for us as an awesome surprise.” 

I have HOPE — with capital letters. I don’t know what it will be like. I once heard an 80-something year old priest who was giving one of his last sermons and it was about heaven. He said that when we are in heaven, we will all have seats on the fifty yard line — with no obstructed views. We’ll all be in immediate proximity to the Lord Jesus. And we’ll be able to talk with him as much as we want. And Mary will be there, and Peter and the two disciples from the road to Emmaus. And all our faithful family members.

I don’t know about you — but in the words of the popular Christian song of recent years… I can only imagine.

Blessings.

Deacon Tom

www.catholicvitamins.com

The Catholic Faith Is Only LENT To You

Hello friends of The Catholic Family. It is Ash Wednesday as I write this reflection. I’m late getting my monthly column in to the “Sweeney-works.” Life has a way of catching up with and speeding past good intentions and plans.

I have what others in the world see as a ‘smudge’ on my forehead. The pastor applied ashes to me before the two of us stepped down to the floor of the sanctuary and applied ashes to the faithful gathered for the non-obigatory Mass. It is often that we see people who aren’t familiar to us on Ash Wednesdays. Some folks treat this as a high-holy-day of obligation; it isn’t. 

In my homily at Mass this morning (and again at the Mass I will assist in this evening), I spoke about a project initiated by our Knights of Columbus. We purchased something like 250 copies of Matthew Kelly’s wonderful book, REDISCOVERING CATHOLICISM. Sometime earlier, I had introduced this book during weekend homilies, but the Knights wisely recognized that we might see some folks on Ash Wednesday whom we don’t see at regular weekend Masses.

I had been told that Bishop Thomas Olmsted of the Phoenix Diocese had given 1,000’s of copies of this book away to help awaken people in his diocese to the gift of the Catholic Faith. And up in Cottonwood, Arizona, a pastor gave 100’s of copies away, one to each parish family.

I told those attending this Ash Wednesday Mass that the beginning of this book is the prologue. It starts on page 13 and ends on page 16. Four pages. “Those pages will hook you, I promise. And then as you read more and more you will come to REDISCOVER CATHOLICISM – which is God’s plan and gift for us.”

Now on this kickoff for Lent, many come to get ashes, and if our hearts are properly oriented, our focus is on growing in holiness through prayer, fasting and almsgiving. That is the call of Lent: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. One aspect of prayer includes reading spiritual writings… spending time with Scripture or the saints.

When you and I were baptized, we were marked with the sign of the cross. There was an outward marking done by the priest or deacon. There was also an inner marking — a sign placed on your soul that you are marked as belonging to Christ… you were marked as a member of the mystical body of believers.

But being marked isn’t enough by itself. We know this because many who are baptized, even if they receive confirmation, they don’t go on to live lives of on-fire Christians. No, it isn’t enough just to be marked, we need to accept the marking we have received. And then we have to move forward and demonstrate what it means to be active, on-fire members of this mystical body. The faith we have been given is truly only LENT to us. We need to live it. We need to pass it on.

And so the Church gives us this season of Lent. Lent means “springtime.” It is the springtime of our life in the Spirit. Lent is a special gift of God to His people. Lent is a season of growing, spiritually.

It is an opportunity to imitate Jesus as He fasted forty days in the desert. Pope John Paul II shared this thought: “It is no exaggeration to say that the entire existence of the lay faithful has as its purpose to lead a person to a knowledge of the radical newness of the Christian life that comes from Baptism.” In other words — John Paul is teaching us to REDISCOVER CATHOLICISM, lent to us to be shared with others.

Ashes are applied to you and me in the shape of the sign of the cross. Ashes remind us that our goal doesn’t end in this life. Our goal lies in the afterlife. The goal of Christianity isn’t the marking we receive, it’s the living out… the actions we take to activate the markings we received in Baptism.

There is an old saying that faith isn’t taught – it’s shared. And in Lent, share some of your money – give alms. Pray in new and additional ways. Fast from foods or TV or gossip or self-satisfying activities. Spend time with Scripture and the lives of the saints. Let the Lord know that what you are doing this Lent is so you can draw closer to the Father, as Jesus did when he went into the desert.The renewal of our baptismal promises is the goal of Lent.

And renewing our baptismal promises means that we will again become Lent-active in what we are marked with externally.  All our Lenten goals should move us in this direction.

Friend, blogger and now author Sarah Reinhard has written a family-oriented book WELCOME RISEN JESUS — Lent and Easter Reflections for Families. We have a young mother in our parish who has six children. She bought copies of Sarah’s book and she started using it today, Ash Wednesday. She said the first day reading and activities brought tears to her eyes. It’s perfect for helping to make her family Lent-active.

You and are are marked. We’re marked internally as member of the Mystical Body. Today, we’re marked externally. At Mass, I challenged those who would come forward for ashes that before they washed the outside marking off, to look into the mirror and say to themselves: “I recognize my faith is a gift. I want to REDISCOVER CATHOLICISM. I want to be an on-fire member of Christ’s Church. I know that my Catholic Faith is only LENT to me. I want to pass it on.

I’ll meet you all in the desert.

Blessings.

Deacon Tom

www.catholicvitamins.com