A new bishop for Washington

How would you speak to a new diocese to which you have been assigned? How about like Archbishop Donald Wuerl did here? I think there is great wisdom in this statement.

"Of the faithful of the Church of Washington I would like to ask your support and most particularly your prayers. Undertaking an assignment of this magnitude can be daunting. Yet I recognize the power of prayer and what faith and God’s grace can accomplish in each of us."

CNN - Commentary?

I try to read CNN.com on a fairly regular basis because it keeps me in touch with what is going on in the world. I feel a little betrayed, though, today. I've never seen them have an opinion piece on the website. The first one that I saw was called Commentary: Kay Warren: Christianity and AIDS. The content is blythe and pointed but more suited for a blog posting than a news source. So, why is CNN starting a commentary piece as part of its news reporting? And, why is the first commentary one that, basically, is an internal christian statement on our need to care for the poor? Is Fox News more correct than we want to admit that CNN is biased? Does this happen more often than I'm aware and, for some reason, I've just missed them all?

Pentecost

This morning at Sts. Peter and Paul church in Gilbert, I celebrated what could be the best liturgy that I have celebrated as a priest. It wasn't because of a great homily...it actually was kind of pathetic. It wasn't because of the extraordinary holiness of the priest (or the people). It was just a solemn mass celebrated the way the church wants us to do so. Incense...altar bells...chanted prayers...all the good stuff was there for this celebration. And, to top it all off, it was an extraordinarilly beautiful day! The windows were open letting in the incredible breeze so that the smoke of the incense went wafting out the windows while the scent traveled througout the church. The sun was so bright that we could have turned off the lights and had the same effect. And, after mass, we had breakfast and conversation. These are the days that make me so grateful to God for letting me be a priest.

Being excited when you have no reason to do so

I get excited by getting things through the mail. It's like my birthday or Christmas, though it's totally a surprise.

Yesterday I got the DVD of the miniseries "God or the Girl", and today I got my weekly newspaper from the Vatican, L'Osservatore Romano. I fully espected both but, in both cases, I was really excited when I received them. I'm so excited, in fact, that I'm going to sit and read instead of organizing my email inbox.

Spiritual Direction

There are those who say that the greatest disservice the church has ever done for christian society was diminishing the importance of reconciliation. I think that's a bit of a overstatement, in the end. But, the point they offer is that there was a sense of humility when reconciliation was more the norm than it is today. There was less counseling, fewer divorces, and a whole host of other societal problems that weren't as chronic. And, even though I hesitate to make a strict causal connection, I am just as hesitant to deny it totally. I don't know how to change the problem, though historically, things have a way of fixing themselves.

One of the things that may help us to realize the importance of confession is spiritual direction. I spend one full hour talking to one of my brother priests about my spiritual life and it is so incredibly helpful when I approach the sacrament of reconciliation. I've usually worked through my difficulties and problems with my spiritual director and am prepared to be reconciled with God and "Go and sin no more". If I were to offer an analogy, I'd say sin is like an injury, spiritual direction is the physical therapy and confession the orders to leave. Now, if only I could get to the point in life where I wouldn't walk right out and do the same darn things all over again.

In Defense of JC Superstar

I checked out the movie "Jesus Christ Superstar" from the library the other day. I had heard constant comparisions between it and Duh Vinci Code recenly so I had to remind myself of its content. And, while I can understand the relationship with Mary Magdalene being highlighted to the detriment of other, more important, relationships (ex. Peter's only role in the movie is to deny Jesus), I disagree in a strict one-for-one citique.

First of all, there is no evidence in JC Superstar that Jesus struggles with his feelings for Mary Magdalene. She does in her feelings for him, which, I imagine, would be true of any prostitute turned disciple. I'll leave aside the fact that Mary is not a prostitute in the Bible and that later tradition conflagrated her with a nameless anointing woman. If Mary was a prostitute, her understanding of love would be warped. A man who had no intention of using her for a sexual object would be very unusual.

Plus, she is just as confused as everyone else about his trial and conviction. This is not a woman who knows full well that this is a ruse in order for him to exit the spotlight and marry her.

Lastly, she is the one who is singing "could we start again, please" with the disciples. She misunderstands his ministry and is just as lost at the crucifixion as the others are.

So, even though I'm not advising people to watch it, I don't think it's fair to equate these two movies. At very least, I think it's safe to say that JC Superstar is not as evil as Duh Vinci Code.

Update

I'm sure you all think that I've had a minor meltdown because of the "success" of the Duh Vinci Code and that's why I haven't posted. No, I've actually had a reasonably atypical week. I've been driving all over the place and haven't had a chance to post. Sorry. I have to admit that I've been out of the loop on a lot of stuff because I haven't been able to read stuff. I'll work to catch up tonight and have more of a profound post tomorrow. But, for now, I feel really relaxed because of the last few days. These are the times when I'm convinced I should have been a semi-truck driver.

Evangelization as experiencing the love of God

If you’ve ever spent in a foreign country, you know that one of the more interesting experiences deal with cultural differences. When I was in Israel, I remember seeing two older gentlemen walking down the street holding hands and talking very close, so close in fact that my German sensibilities wanted to move them apart. I thought to myself, “Gosh, you don’t see that very often in the US.” I thought that maybe they were just old Palestinians that had difficulties keeping balance. Then, a few moments later, I saw two young boys in the same posture and proximity and I realized this is a cultural phenomenon. This is the way that middle easterners show love for one another. Do you think we would call that expressing love for one another?

I ask that questions because, as some of you may remember, a similar situation played out in this country with different consequences. A few months ago, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia visited President Bush on his ranch in Crawford. Reporters caught them strolling around the ranch holding hands with one another in the way that I described above. What I found fascinating was the reaction the media had to this scene. The most juvenile was one news commentator who put inappropriate music behind the scene and seemed to indicate that there was a romantic relationship going on. What makes us automatically assume that, in that situation, there must be an erotic component?

Part of the problem deals with our language. As some of you know, the English language has one word that many other languages had several for. If we look to ancient Greek, we hear of something called filios, or the love of siblings for one another. That’s the love that families strive to offer each other. This is the love that soldiers have for one another in battle. This is the love the roommates have for one another. Filial love is a moment of trust that is, usually, built over years.

A different love and one that, in many ways, our culture is obsessed with, is called eros, or erotic love. Now, it deserves to be said that there is nothing wrong with eros between husband and wife. In fact, it is a noble love in that context. In the old Testament, this type of love is used to describe God’s love for his people Israel. This shows the dignity that we, as church, should have for the love of husband and wife: that it is an image of the love that God has for us. Yet, my fear is that, in our contemporary American culture, we are fixated on eros and don’t put it in it’s appropriate context. This is, I believe, what is driving movies like Da Vinci Code. Our culture needs to believe that Jesus experienced eros in order to believe that he’s human. This is why I think there is an unhealthy understanding of love that permeates American culture.

The New Testament abandons the image of eros for a more inclusive form of love called agape. This is the love that John was talking about in the second reading when he said, “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.” We have been loved by God and we are called, in turn, to love one another. This is the type of love the philosopher will spent countless hours writing tracts about. This is the love that popes write encyclicals on. This is the love that a parent has for a newborn child. That child can, in no way, give thanks to her or his mother or father. You don’t expect a two day old to take out the garbage, wash the floor, and clean the sink by the time that you get home from work. You expect that you are going to have to give up a lot of things that you used to hold dear in order to love for this child. This is agape love.

In the gospel, we are reminded that, when we show this love to one another, we are not merely being kind, nor are we fulfilling our Christian duty. We are showing to this world the love that is God. When we love one another with that selfless love, we are offering more proof for the existence of God than any piece of writing ever could. So, this is what God wants of us: to love and not count the cost, to be his love in this world and, in the process, to show the world how much God loves it.

The lie is winning...

I just learned on CNN.com that the worst movie made in our lifetime has made $29 million dollars. Here's all that I'm going to say; if you support them when they hate us, don't be suprised when they keep hating us. This movie is nothing but lies masquerading as truth and now Catholics have proved that we will not only financially support a book that, in the worst tradition or plagarism and prejudice, condemns our historical foundations but now we are going to financially support a movie that does the exact same thing.

If there is a market, Hollywood will whore itself out to make money. In the next few years, it will find new and more explosive ways to "reveal" the truth of Christianity and we will probably all be surprised what they do. But, if you are holding a ticket stub for Ron Howard's house of lies, you have no right to be angered!

God is love

I was/am struck by an amazing coincidence. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column about the pope's encyclical called "Deus Caritas Est" or God is love. It appeared in the bulletin this weekend. In the meantime, since the readings for this weekend are saturated with love language, I wrote my homily on the same topic.

Here's what I emphasize in my homilty. God's love is a full understanding of love...a self-less love. We love God because God loved us and sent us his son. We, in turn, love each other with that same kind of love that God first loved us with. I highlight that our culture is fixated on erotic love, or eros, but that God's love is more than just eros and moves in the direction of what is called agape.

I was going to make my point even more explicit by stating, "That's why we shouldn't need to believe that Jesus had sex and fathered children in order to believe that he is human. Any animal can have sex and breed. Jesus' accomplishment was that he taught us the meaning of selfless love and, in the process, gave us a goal of what it means to be fully human." But I didn't. I'm still struggling with how to respond to DaVinci evil.

Meet Bishop Martino

A good bishop of the diocese of Scranton teacing gospel teachings.

Fast for DaVinci

The first showing the of DaVinci code in Ames, Iowa will be at 11:30 this Friday. I will fast for one full day and pray that people just avoid evil. Anyone want to join me?

My students love me

On the last student-planned Thursday Night mass of the semester, a group of students with whom I routinely worked presented me with a gift of a year's subscription to L'Osservator Romano, the Official Vatican Newspaper. The first issue came today and I couldn't be any happier!!!

The Pope with arms in "orans" (prayer) position next to the headline "The Resurrection and rediscovering Mary in our lives".

I started shaking because I was so happy.

Bishop Paul S. Loverde's wisdom

I kind-of wish more bishops would communicate like this. I especially enjoyed hearing about "A chance to share the vision" in which the bishop met with parish leaders to build a common vision. My archbiship did this five years and is discussing ways that we may do this again.

Jubilarians of the world...unite!!!

We had our yearly priests' Holy Hour and celebration of those celebrating anniversaries. Usually, these celebrations are just awful. The speakers talk for too long and turn the evening into a rousing celebration of lament. This year was different, however. The speakers got to the point and sat down. They let us know what it means to be a priest and didn't tell all kinds of stories about the priests that weren't in that room - those that left priesthood. I left Dubuque feeling inspired and honored to be a priest.

All are Priests. Some are Priests. None are Priests

A few years ago, pastoral leaders in this diocese; priests, deacons, and lay pastoral staff, were invited to come together to reflect upon the relationship of priestly leadership to lay pastoral leadership. We heard a very complex theological explanation by a professor from St. John’s University in Minnesota named Susan Wood which I found fascinating and thought provoking but almost everyone else found to be boring and wordy. Then we heard from another speaker named Zeni Fox who everyone else seemed to find enlightening but I felt like she reduced ministry to a hug, used lots of meaningless jargon, and generally oversimplified a complex issue. I had hoped the conversation at my table would help us understand the complexities at hand and come to some common ground but, instead, I found myself assigned to a table with a group of embittered priests and laity who complained about the declining number or priests and admitted to me that they didn’t try to work with the young men in their parish to nourish vocations to the priesthood because they want to “solve” all the church’s problems by forcing the Pope to allow women and married men to be priests. I walked away from the whole day feeling frustrated, angry, and concerned for the future of the church – and no closer to understanding the relationship of lay leaders to the ordained.

So you can imagine my surprise as I was reading over a commentary on today’s scriptures and heard the phrase that seemed to answer this very question. It said, “All are priests, some are priests, none are priests.” Let me repeat that in case you think that I left out a note or two. I said, “All are priests, some are priests, none are priests.” Now, let me explain. The Second Vatican Council rightly emphasized that, through the imposition of the Holy Spirit at baptism, we have all come to share in the priesthood of all believers. By being initiated into the Church of Christ, we are called upon by Christ to lay down our lives to lead a life of holiness. This vocation to holiness was described well in our second reading today. It said we are children of God just like Jesus was a child of God. This childhood is a sharing in the priesthood of Christ in the faith, hope, and love that was given to us in Christ’s triumph over sin and death on the cross. We, in turn, must live lives of faith hope and love in the way we steward our lives. Parents play a special role in this by training their children in the faith. Next week we will remember our mothers who, oftentimes, laid down their lives to raise their children. It’s only appropriate that we thank them for that sacrifice, so don’t forget!

Yet, amidst this general priesthood to which all people are called, there are a group of people that are called to a special priesthood. These priests, to which I have been called, model Christ for the community in a radical way – in their gender and in their undivided devotion to God. This is the priesthood in which Peter was participating in the first reading. He has been filled with the Spirit and is called forth by Jesus himself to be a leader in the Christian community. He was to put a holy order to things so that it was possible for the gospel to spread. His ordering of the holy community tells us that priests are not meant to do everything in a parish, nor are they confined to doing only the sacraments. They are to model Christ by laying down their lives so that they can be the shepherds of a community. That’s why we can’t be like the people at my table at that meeting hoping to coerce a change in the church. We need to pray that God continue to call forth good, holy leaders from among his people and always encourage our young men to be priests.

So, all are called to the priesthood of the faithful in baptism and some are called to priesthood by ordination. But what was I talking about by saying none are priests? The truth of the matter is that Jesus Christ is the only shepherd of his Church, the only priest. It said so in our Gospel today when Jesus said that there will be one flock and one shepherd. If any of us, lay or ordained, begin to believe that we have the authority to make decisions about faith or morals outside of the teaching of the Church of Christ then we have in effect strayed from the fold in an attempt to make ourselves the shepherd. The only true everlasting priesthood is that of Jesus Christ, the good Shepherd. He is the one who appoints certain men to be priests and he is the one who calls us all to the priesthood of all believers. Truly all are priests, some are priests, none are priests.

Blindness

The first reading for today's mass was from Acts 9 and told the story of the conversion of St. Paul. I was struck with the parallel between Luke's story of the man born blind and the story of St. Paul. The man born blind has faith, he can see interiorly, but cannot see exteriorly. Saul can see many things exteriorly but cannot see with the eyes of faith. This causes him to persecute the body of Christ, the church. We are called to be the culture of life in a society that persecutes the body of Christ. We are called to see when others are blind and to try to help them see.

Diocese of Juneau has a good shepherd

You can go to this site to find this great Easter message.


The highlight of the year for Christians is Easter! At Easter we celebrate that Christ has overcome sin and the power of death once and for all. Those who have been baptized and have died in Christ have the promise of eternal life in Christ. So we proclaim, “Christ is risen! Indeed, he is truly risen! Alleluia!”

The celebration of this great Christian feast, however, has an essential connection to the preceding days. Thus, the core celebration of our faith (if I can call it that) actually takes place over three days.

Beginning on the eve of Holy Thursday, we begin the celebration of the Holy Triduum with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion and the Easter Vigil. Over these three days, we remember Christ’s passion and death and his rising to new life.

It is vital to recall that “to remember” means more than re-enact as if it were solely a past historical event. As we celebrate it liturgically, we participate in a saving mystery at work in us now. A word used by some theologians to describe what is taking place is “actualized.”

Christ’s dying and rising is an event that we experience in our own time and place because it is an experience that transcends time and place. It has as much bearing on our lives today as it did for anyone in the past or anyone in the future.

Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead for all people of all time. Because of it, we allow our lives to be transformed into a likeness that bears the stamp of God, striving always to live as daughters of the Lord and sons of God.

As we celebrate Easter this year, may we remember that Easter is not and never has been a past event. It is always a present reality that we try to embody with our lives and celebrate through our liturgy.

We proclaim over these 50 days of the Easter season, that Christ has died for us, that Christ is risen for us, and that Christ will come again in the fullness of time for us.

Alleluia
Alleluia
Alleluia

Vatican asks for Duh Vinci Code boycott

How strong do I push this? Any publicity is good publicity. If I say, "please don't go see the movie, 'Da Vinci Code'" people will hear ...go see the movie 'Da Vinci Code'". My friends simultaneously say they are disappointed at how distorted the story is and, yet, they will see the movie because of Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg.

These are the struggles of a parish priest. In some ways, I feel like I have made my message heard and, now, all I can do is hope that people will actually listen. If I continue to push, it's just going to make me look like the albino Opus Dei member.

Once again, the socialists in China are attempting to subvert Christ's authority and set up a parallel church that they can control. Think of the number of people who are led astray by these false shepherds and how tragic this is for the one true church! My personal favorite statement from this article is this one;

"A big stumbling block remains the Vatican's official recognition of Taiwan, branded by China as a renegade province."

Actually, an even bigger stumbling block is the absolute failure of the Chinese government to acknowledge the existence of the Vatican or the Pope and/or to allow the church to operate outside of it's tentacles. If you are not a mouthpiece of the government then you are not allowed to operate in China. Pray for the true church in China which, like the early church, is forced underground and often persecuted for no other reason than fidelity to Christ.