PREPARING FOR H1N1 INFLUENZA

Earlier this year, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the question of sickness while visiting with the sick in Cameroon. (March 19, 2009). The Holy Father noted that in the presence of illness we often “feel powerless and we cannot find the right words.”

Perhaps that is why so many people are so fearful about the coming H1N1 influenza virus. While most reports seem to indicate that the coming flu is no more virulent than typical seasonal strains, the fact that it will affect children more significantly than adults could cause a widespread panic.

That is why we, as Catholics, must be devoted to a prudent and calm reaction to this latest challenge to our health. We must seek to learn the truth and to share it responsibly with others. Right now, the most important fact seems to be that washing our hands on a regular basis is the most effective way to avoid spreading this new strain of influenza!

While we at the Cathedral will be providing many opportunities for education and the development of responsible and reasonable means to avoid the spread of the H1N1 influenza, right now it is best to develop reliable sources of information.

Few sites are more helpful than the Centers for Disease Control at www.cdc.gov/h1n1/

The U.S. Bishops’ Conference also has a great series of questions and answer at: www.usccb.org/liturgy/swineflu.shtml

Finally, we should join the Holy Father in praying for the doctors, nurses, and researchers who are working so hard to prepare us for the H1N1 influenza. In the Pope’s words, we should pray for “all who, in one way or another, work in the service of the suffering” to whom God will give “a just reward...in heaven.”

A UNIQUE NOTE FROM THE PAST...

Among the wonderful historical artifacts in the possession of our Cathedral Church is a note in the original volume of our Baptismal register. It reports the fire which destroyed the original rectory at the corner of Chatham and Main Streets. This is a picture of the original page. (Click on it for a larger image.)

And here is a transcription of Father Power’s note:

NOTICE

On Monday morning December 11, 1882, at about 5 o’c, the Parochial residence at no. 3 Chatham St. was destroyed by fire. This Baptismal Registry was saved, but in its present damaged condition. Two and possibly three unrecorded baptisms performed by Rev. D.H. ONeill, curate of St. Paul’s, were lost. The record of them may et be discovered. These baptisms took place between the dates of November 19th and December 7th 1882..

Mo. J. Power V.G.

Pastor of St. Paul’s

Worcester Mass.

December 16, 1882.

VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE

I was touched by the following article and wanted to share it with you. It is entitled, “Violence Begets Violence,” and was written by Deirdre McQuade, Assistant Director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Go to www.usccb.org/prolife to learn more about the bishops' pro-life activities.

Last week, James Pouillon was shot multiple times and killed while protesting abortion outside a high school in Owosso, Michigan. According to reports, the suspect in custody, Harlan James Drake, admitted to police that he had also killed Mike Fuoss earlier that morning and that he had intended to murder a third man against whom he held a grudge, but was arrested before he reached his last victim.

The violence didn’t end with his arrest. The Associated Press reports that Mr. Drake was hospitalized Saturday night after an attempt on his own life in the county jail. Nor is that the end of it. Some angry people are already calling for the death penalty, yet another act of violence.

Pro-life demonstrators are no strangers to verbal and physical harassment and even death threats, but this is the first publicized case of one’s murder. Police who took the suspect into custody reported that Drake targeted Pouillon because he didn’t like his sign showing the disturbing reality of abortion. On one side, the placard read: “LIFE” accompanied by the lovely image of a smiling baby, while the other had “ABORTION” written above a gruesome photo of the bloody remains of an aborted child.

James Pouillon’s murder is reprehensible. Whatever one thinks of the appropriate public use of such images – and there is a range of opinions even within the pro-life movement – certainly no one deserves to be killed for speaking out against the horror of abortion. The photo on his placard is gruesome because abortion is gruesome, but his brutally honest witness is no cause for such fatal hostility.

The image on his sign is one of violence – a most extreme form of violence against vulnerable, defenseless, innocent children in the womb. That the violent act of abortion – and the seemingly intractable controversy surrounding it – is, at times, associated with more violence is unfortunately not accidental. Indeed, in their Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities (2001), the bishops of the United States note that legalized abortion has made ours “a society increasingly coarsened by toleration and acceptance of acts that purposely destroy human life.” They note the interdependence of all life issues, saying: “a society which destroys human life by abortion under the mantle of law unavoidably undermines respect for life in all other contexts.” With less respect for human life, and a greater coarseness toward killing, the road is paved for more violence.

But the violence of abortion is not necessary. It can be stopped. Hundreds of pregnancy care centers and parish networks are ready to assist families who are tempted to resort to abortion. Those who perform or promote abortions can repent and come to use their gifts in the service of life rather than its destruction. And thanks to God’s grace at work in and through Project Rachel, the ministry of the Church and her compassionate counselors, men and women can receive healing from past abortions. The Catholic bishops’ Conference and scores of other groups that make up the vast pro-life movement in America are working hard toward the day when no abortion will have the sanction of law.

This fall, consider gathering your family and friends together to pray for an end to abortion and all forms of violence.

THE REAL VOCATION CRISIS IS...

Archbishop TImothy Dolan of New York recently gave an interview in which he listed the first great challenge facing the Church as “the instability of marriage and family.”

The Archbishop continued: “That’s where we have the real vocation crisis,” noting that “only 50% of our Catholic young people are getting married. We have a vocation crisis to life-long, life-giving, loving, faithful marriage. If we take care of that one, we’ll have all the priests and nuns we need for the church,”

There’s great food for thought for us all. Please join me in praying that the Lord will send a special blessing down upon all those whom he calls to the Sacrament of Marriage, that from the Domestic Church there might be born a renewal of all of Catholic family life,

MAY HE REST IN PEACE...

The tragic death of Father Dennis Rocheford a little over a week ago has deeply touched every Priest in the Diocese of Worcester. On Thursday morning the Cathedral was packed with those who came to pray for Father Dennis and to remember his memory.

When, before coming to the Cathedral, I served as temporary administrator of Saint Theresa’s Parish in Blackstone, I experienced first-hand how Father Dennis Rocheford had faithfully shepherded God’s flock and was so beloved by so many of those to whom he brought the Lord. So many have thanked God for the wonderful ways in which God blessed so many people through this good priest.

At the same time, as those at his Funeral heard, Father’s tragic death leaves us, urged on by Christian charity and hope, to pray for his immortal soul.

As we remember him, let us commend his soul to the great High Priest who alone will judge the living and the dead. Let us beg God for mercy and ask him to grant his troubled soul eternal rest in God’s gentle embrace.

PRAYING FOR YOU...

My Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Ever since I was ordained, I have kept a small card in the front of my breviary with the names of people for whom I have promised to pray. Every few weeks I change the card, often changing the prayer of petition to a thanksgiving to God for his mercy.

I often tell the seminarians who I am privileged to teach that praying for the people of God is the Priest’s greatest privilege and most solemn responsibility. When, almost thirty years ago, I stood before Bishop Flanagan at my ordination, he asked me: “Do you resolve to implore with us God's mercy upon the people entrusted to your care by observing the command to pray without ceasing?” I responded, “I do.” Such is the promise and pledge of every Priest: to carry in his heart the people entrusted to his care before the throne of God’s grace.

It’s an easy work and a perfect joy. No one but a Priest witnesses the joys and the sorrows of peoples’ lives from such a privileged and sacred vantage point. Knowing his own weaknesses and his own desperate need for God’s grace, the Priest is chosen from among the people to offer sacrifice on their behalf “for our good and the good of all his Holy Church.”

I still think that the most challenging words ever offered by the Servant of God, John Paul II were spoken to group of Bishops from the Northwestern part of the United States at the conclusion of their visit ad limina apostolorum. In his remarks, the Holy Father insisted that “prayer for the needs of the Church and the individual faithful is so important that serious thought should be given to reorganizing priestly and parish life to ensure that priests have time to devote to this essential task, individually and in common. Liturgical and personal prayer, not the tasks of management, must define the rhythms of a priest’s life, even in the busiest of parishes.”

That’s quite a challenge amidst the many administrative challenges which make demands on a Priest’s time every day. But it is no more of a challenge than those which face a mother or father when they try to find the time to pray for their children, or the challenges of a busy professional or mother with four little ones screaming while they look for the quiet time to read the Bible or pray the Rosary.

Yet despite the demands, my friends, there is no more important work than prayer. To sit at the Master’s feet and seek his will for us, to tell him of the needs which weigh down our hearts, and to thank him for his abundant blessings: this is as close to the purpose of life as we are every likely to get!

May God make your prayer rich and full and beautiful. This is one of my many prayers for you!

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

CARDINALATIAL WORDS OF WISDOM

“Holding everyone and everything together in unity is another way of saying 'Catholic.' Unity with God is sanctity. Unity with believers in Christ is called ecclesial communion, church. Unity among bishops is called collegiality. Unity between husband and wife for the sake of their children is called family. Unity with fellow citizens who love a common homeland is called patriotism. Unity with those with whom we share similar values is called fraternity, friendship.

A Catholic way of life is unified as a way of life when it is based on assent to revealed truth and on obedience to appointed pastors, both of which together create the unity of faith and of community that Jesus himself wishes us to enjoy.

The Church’s unity today is severely strained, as we all know, and alternative Catholicisms are claiming authenticity, even sometimes against the Holy Father and bishops. Even Bishops and priests have sometimes been less than worthy of their calling, and lay groups have sometimes come together to create a Church in their image and likeness rather than Christ’s. Political interference in many countries, including our own, and the hostility of some in the media and entertainment industries, the self-righteousness of some on both the right and the left, various pressure groups with their own agendas, have created a situation full of danger for the Church’s unity, a situation the bishops now want to explicitly address in this country.

How to stitch up the Church where her unity is torn, how to use the authority given by Christ to the apostles without wounding the faithful who are already hurting is a project that begins with the bishops’ own submission to Christ and our own self-examination in the light of God’s word that lasts forever.”

--Cardinal Francis George OMI. Archbishop of Chicago, President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops: Address at the Knights of Columbus' States Dinner, Phoenix, 4 August 2009

Thanks to Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia (http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/) for highlighting this wonderful and challenging quote from Cardinal George’s address to the Knights of Columbus last month. Would they we would each take it to heart!

I’m delighted to announce that Cardinal George will be our guest here at the Cathedral at the end of October. We will shortly announce a fundraising “Lunch with Cardinal George” to be held in the Cenacle on October 30th. Stay tuned for details!

STUDYING OUR CATHOLIC FAITH...

We’ve just announced our Fall and Early Winter Adult Education series for the Cathedral Church. As usual, I’ll be leading a series of classes on Tuesday evenings from 7:00pm-8:15pm in the Cenacle on the following dates:

September 15th

The Meaning of Marriage: A Brief History of the Wedding Liturgy

October 27th

The Meaning of Marriage: What Catholics Believe

November 17th

The Meaning of Marriage: Redefinition in an Age of Uncertainty

November 24th

The Meaning of Marriage: From Humanae Vitae to Evangelium Vitae

December 1st

Suffering, Sickness, and Death: What It All Means

December 8th

Life After Death: What Do We Know?

December 15th The Debt We Owe to the Dead: Prayer, Forgiveness, and Redemption

We’re also hoping to stream these sessions live on the Cathedral website if we can just work out all the technical bugs in time. I hope you can join us!

PRO-LIFE = VISITATION HOUSE

If you could save the life of a baby, would you? Then you need to hear about Visitation House. We’ve just finished work on a new commercial to raise funds for Visitation House, a place where homeless pregnant women can find a home for themselves and their babies. A place where pro-life is not just a cause, but a way of life. Read more at the Visitation House website (www.VisitationHouse.org) because the smallest gift from God is our greatest treasure!

CATHEDRAL SIZED GENEROSITY

The parishioners of Saint Paul's Cathedral are an incredible group! Not only did they give the second highest donation to Partners in Charity, but when asked to help the Diocese make it over the top, they dug even deeper and gave an additional $8,738 last weekend. They were instrumental in helping Bishop McManus meet this year’s goal and, in a very tangible way, once again proved themselves worthy of being a Cathedral Parish: so unambiguously joined to the Bishop and his mission in serving the Pastoral, Charitable and Educational ministries of the Church that he knows he can always count on them.

Nor can we forget the extraordinary labors of Monsignor Sullivan, who inspired us all to even greater heights and who day-to-day spends himself for the Church in so many unseen ways. It is, in a very real way, thanks to his tireless efforts that this appeal was, once again, a success. The “Pastor of the 7:15am Mass” should be in each of our grateful prayers.

LEADING ALL TO CHRIST...

As September dawns upon us, with the blessedly cooler weather, education is the by-word. Many are returning to school, some are heading off to College for the first time, and your Cathedral Church is in high-gear to prepare our educational programs for the coming year.

On Tuesday of this week Bishop McManus celebrated a Pontifical Mass with 450 Catholic School teachers and administrators from across the Diocese. What an inspiring sight it was to see these wonderful men and women gathered together to prepare in prayer to share the truth with their students.

The truth, of course, is that what we teach is not a fact or a theory or any “thing.” What we teach is a person, God and man, who first taught us how to live and in his dying and rising saved us from our selfishness and sin. Catholic Education is, therefore, at its root, the work of evangelization: the great proclamation which first echoed off the empty walls of a tomb not far from Calvary: He is Risen! God loved us so much that he sent his only Son to be our hope and our salvation.

Jan and Sister Maria Louisa and Fanny are hard at work making plans for the opening of Religious Education classes at the end of the month. Registration forms and calendars are in this week’s bulletin. This entire program is built upon the generosity and faith of our catechists, to whom we each owe a huge debt of gratitude. Over the next several weeks the Catechists will be blessed and commissioned at Sunday Mass. Please pray for them!

Our Adult Education series will begin again on Tuesday, September 15th. Please check the brochure in this week’s bulletin and plan to join us for an exciting exploration of questions of faith and family which you have suggested would be of interest to our Cathedral family.

My classes at Saint John’s seminary begin this week, as well. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I will be leading our seminarians from across New England through a Practicum in Ars Celebrandi (how to celebrate the Sacred Liturgy as a Priest!) and a class in Sources and Structure of the Homily. Pray for them!

NEW YORK VOCATION VIDEO

Have you seen the great new vocation video from the Archdiocese of New York? Are you discerning a vocation to the Priesthood? Remember to listen to God as he whispers in the depths of your heart.