With the Help of St. Paul

Check Out Our New Blog!

2011-01-08T21:42:00.004-05:00

Check out this week's homily:

Of Reindeers and Grudges....

CLICK HERE TO GO TO

MONSIGNOR MORONEY'S NEW BLOG

A New Blog and some New Videos

2011-01-02T09:33:00.004-05:00

My dear brothers and sisters:

In just another couple of weeks, as you read in my last posting, I will be completing my term as Cathedral Rector. For that reason I will be leaving this blog to my successor, Monsignor Johnson. If you would like to continue to follow some of my homilies, talks, and other news, however, I invite you to visit my new blog:

Dignumetiustum.blogspot.com

I will be "double posting" on these blogs for the next two weeks. After that point, I will be posting only on the dignum et iustum blog.

I also wanted to let you know that videos of four of the presentations from the Cathedral Conference for Life are now available as streaming video:

Cathedral Conference for Life Streaming Video

The presentations by Susan Wills (The Measure of Love is to Love Without Measure), Richard Doerflinger (Legislative Issues), Bishop Robert McManus (USCCB Healcare Directives) and Monsignor James Moroney (Praying for Life).

Pax et Bonum,

Monsignor Moroney

A New Year

2011-01-01T06:56:00.002-05:00

My dear brothers and sisters:

If there's one lesson I've come to learn more and more it's that life is always changing around us. The seasons remind us of this, both the seasons of nature and the seasons of the Church's year. The one thing that remains constant is Gods infinite love for us and the sure footed shepherding of his Holy Church. But so much else changes.

Three years ago I was given the grace of being made your rector. It has been an honor and a joy. The perduring faith of the folks who gather around the Cathedral with the help of Saint Paul is one of the things that from generation to generation never seems to change.

But, as I'm sure you have noticed, the Cathedral has not been the only ministry to which the Church has called me. For these past several years I have also taught all of the Liturgy courses to the seminarians at Saint Johns Seminary and served as Executive Secretary of the Vox Clara Committee and responded to the calls of Bishops all over the United States and Canada to teach their priests about the new Roman Missal. It's been a lot.

It is for this reason that I began discussions with Bishop McManus several months ago in order to figure out how best this aging cleric can balance these multiple responsibilities. I am deeply grateful to Bishop McManus, to Bishop Kennedy, and Cardinal Pell for their kind support and guidance in this discernment process.

I am therefore happy to let you know that Bishop McManus will announce this week that, effective January 24th, that he is appointing me to the faculty of Saint John’s Seminary and to service as Executive Secretary of the Vox Clara Committee. While I will dearly miss the wonderful folks who go to make up the Cathedral Parish, my heart will never leave the Cathedral. This is the place I was ordained and the Church of my Bishop, and the Church of you, who will always remain close to my heart.

I am also delighted that Bishop McManus will be appointing Monsignor Johnson as Administrator of the Cathedral. You will be in very good hands, indeed.

Over the next several weeks there will be much more to say and many more opportunities for us both to prepare for this transition. In the meantime, as always, let us keep each other in prayer.

In the Lord,

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

A Light in the Darkness

2011-01-01T06:53:00.000-05:00

Homily

Epiphany 2011

In the very beginning it was dark. So dark that chaos enveloped the earth. But with the breath of God, Fiat Lux, the sun warmed the day and the moon and the stars guided the night.

And each day since, we have been a part of a never-ending struggle between darkness and light. The darkness seeks to vanquish the light...the powers of darkness seek to return us to the primordial chaos from which God has delivered us.

But God’s creative love perdures. As a pillar of light leading us into the promised land.

And in the fullness of time, a star leads wise men to him who is the light of the world, who through the blinding light of his paschal dying and rising vanquishes the darkness of sin, and even of death. So that we never need be afraid of the dark, ever again.

That light found a home deep within each one of us on the day of our Baptism and we will be judged some day on how well we have kept that light burning. He who is light will look deep within our hearts to see if that flame has survived the onslaughts of those dark forces with which we do battle every day and whether our lamps are still burning brightly with his love.

For if they are, our souls will be joined to the lights of heaven to illumine a shining city on a hill for all to see we. If are illumined by his truth and let his mercy shine on all who hate us, then the powers of darkness and death don't stand a chance.

For in the end, when there will be no more need for the sun or the moon or the stars, the Son of God will be our light, as the heavenly Jerusalem, our final home, gleams in his reflected splendor for all eternity.

Light dispelling darkness is our hope, our choice, and our destiny.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

Christmas at the Cathedral

2010-12-24T08:14:00.001-05:00

Before the first star twinkled,
Before the first child giggled and smiled,
Before the ice first froze,
or the first fire crackled with warming light,

Before all that,
HE LOVED US:

He loved us so much he gave us a garden. With every kind of natural beauty within it! And we, with Adam and Eve, sold it for an apple!
When’s the last time you stopped to see the exquisite beauty of the softly falling snow on the evergreens of the Adirondacks? When’s the last time you were thrilled by the sound of the wind through the trees, sounding like God’s voice, still whispering to his world, “I am here…all around you”? How often we ignore his beauty: the beaut of the paradise we are given, refuse the gift and sell the apple.

He loved us so much he gave us people to love. From the side of Adam he carved out another human being, so that man and woman could love each other and children could be born in a sanctuary of love. He created us to love in purity and truth, and we responded with betrayal, abuse, and abortion, and more concern for money and for passing pleasures than for life-long life.

He loved us so much he built us a Peaceable Kingdom. And we abandoned it for selfish violence and hate.
Not just in wars, for those are usually out there…but by the hatred born of callous disregard that does violence to others reputations through gossip or neglect, and the awful violence we do to each other when we refuse to love others and to care and even to listen.

Now if you were God,
and someone had rejected all your gifts,
you’d probably have done with them.
Tell them to go away!

But as we sneered at him,
as we sinned our way to selfishness,
he sent us an even better gift:
his only Son….born for us as a little child,
to lead us back…

Back to the Garden
Where everything is put at the service of God,
Where truth is not invented, but received,
Where we are not the masters, but the caretakers of God’s gifts.

Back to the meaning of love
A love that gives unto death, without thought of taking,
A love that rejoices in suffering for the beloved,
A love that is faithful, and fruitful, and ready to sacrifice,

Back to the Peacable Kingdom
Where the other cheek is turned,
Where when they ask you for your coat, and you give your shirt too,
Where shepherd are king and the poor are blessed.

A garden of joy, people to love, and a world at peace…

These are the gifts we are offered on this Christmas night…paradise restored!

And on the day after Christmas, when the gift wrap is in the dumpster,
what will we do with God’s gift?
Will we use it for his glory?
Will we take joy in all the wonders God has placed around us?
Will we be good stewards of his good creation?

And throughout the coming year, what will we do with God’s gift?
Will we vote for God’s truth or for our convenience?
Will we seek the ways of peace or of power?
Will be build up God’s kingdom or our own?

And in the car on the way back home in the car tonight, what will I do with God’s gift?
Will I forgive that stupid thing that so ticked me off on the way up here?
Will I embrace my little needs or the heart of the one sitting next to me?
Will I be the instrument of peace that begins not with worldwide negotiations?
but with me?

For you see, this story, which began with Adam and Eve and reached its climax in a little manger ‘neath the Bethlehem star, continues in Worcester tonight. It is your story! And tonight, the rest of the story just begins!

Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector

Draw Near, O Lord!

2010-12-14T08:58:00.002-05:00

Fourth Sunday of Advent
Homily

Almost a hundred and fifty years ago, a young student of theology, his father was a Lutheran pastor, began to reflect on the meaning of the new scientific study of the sacred scriptures. Contradictions in details about the life of Jesus among the various Gospel accounts, first attempts to trace the development of the New Testament from oral to written forms in various communities, and a growing skepticism which emerged from post rationalism, all drove young Frederick Wilhelm to begin to doubt that there was a God at all.

He would go on to be a famous philosopher and was the first to use the term Gott ist tott, or God is dead. Of course, what he meant was not that God had lived and died, but that God never was. That he was a figment of our imagination, but a fulfillment of our longings, and an incarnation of our dreams.

Such a view lies, I would suggest, at the heart of most of our society’s problems today. For if there is no God, no creator, there is no sense to it all...no cosmic or physical order, no absolute values, no objective and universal moral laws. There is nothing...nihil....only me and you.

And everything, in such a vast wasteland, is up for grabs. My behavior is determined not by trying to do what is right, but by what is expeditious. My goal is not giving, but taking as much as I can. My purpose in life is to die with the most toys and have the most fun whole accumulating my fortune.

Such a hellish secular wasteland is characterized by alienation, aloneness, and a seething sense of rage....is that all there is? ....cultural referents....

Is there anything more desperate, pathetic, or fearsome than to see myself alone and afraid, the breath sucked out of me by the meaningless of it all, my future filled only with the prospect of fear and trembling and sickness unto death.1

Which is why we so desperately need Christmas. For it precisely into the cold, stark desolation of the darkest nights of our souls that God comes. And not just as a visitor or a stranger. No, he takes on human flesh, he becomes one of us in all things but sin in the ultimate act of love.

Nietzsche was wrong. Dead wrong. For God is as close to us as the breath he created, the heart he makes to pump with blood, and the desires and joys which flood every sinew of our being.

God not only is, but he is Emmanuel. He is God with us. We have seen him and heard him and he has touched us. We eat his body and drink his blood. He forgives our sins and anoints us with healing oil. He joins us in marriage and ordains us as Priests, he baptizes us in the saving waters and saves our lives. He destroys death and sin and sadness and will raise us up on the last day.

Last week I spent some days in a pre Christmas retreat. And one morning, sitting on the hard wooden pew of a Church I've been visiting for the past forty years, I stopped my prayer and I stared at the little red light by the tabernacle. I've been staring at that light for most of my life. As a curious little kid about to make his first Holy Communion, as a rumpled long haired teen, as a searching young adult, as a seminarian in a country far from home, as a young priest, and all through the years. I've changed, the world has changed, everything around me has changed, except for that little red light and he who dwells in the tabernacle beside it. He lives here in this Church and in my heart and in my life. I know his consoling presence and the challenge of his Gospel. He is my life, my hope, my salvation and my joy. I know him and he lives!

He is Emmanuel. As real as a baby in a crib. As real as a man on a cross. As real as the Lord risen from the dead. As real as the Christ who will return on the last day to lead us home.

Which is why this season is such a wonder. In the depths of winter, when darkness and cold and black ice are all around us, threatening us, tempting us to despair, and trying to convince us that Gott ist tott, the sun of justice rises and leads all wise men to a little child in a virgin's arms. And suddenly we see his light at it's rising and we know that we are not alone...that we will never be alone, ever again.

For the last ten years of the nineteenth century, Frederick Nietzsche suffered a series of mental breakdowns, finally dying silently in the care of his sister Elizabeth. While no one will know if his mental state was genetic or related to his philosophical speculations, one of his contemporaries lamented at Nietzsche’s death that a man who makes himself God can only go mad.

May God have mercy on Frederick's soul. And on all the lost souls who continue to believe that God is gone, and we are alone.

For we profess not simply happy holidays in the midst of a cold spell, but Emmanuel, God incarnate, the Christ, the Messiah, the king of the universe, who became flesh for us in Bethlehem, who was deified and rose for us in Jerusalem, that we might know how to live and love and cling to in Worcester all the days of our lives.

Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector

Lights for Saint Lucy

2010-12-12T20:42:00.005-05:00

A Homily for Saint Lucy's Day

Each year, just twelve days before Christmas, we celebrate one of the most ancient feasts of the Church.

The commemoration of the martyrdom of Saint Lucy goes back to Fifth Century, and she is one of the first Saints to be remembered in the Sacred Liturgy.

Her story dates from the early Third Century, when the practice of the faith was still banned in most of the Roman empire. Few dared to profess a belief in Christ, lest they be tortured and killed by Emperors like the cruel Diocletian.

Few, save the martyrs that is, and one of the bravest of them all was Saint Lucy. Lucy, it seems, was forcibly married to a non-believer, who turned her in to the authorities for her belief in Christ. When they came to kill her for refusing to the worship the Roman gods a strange thing happened. While she was but a wisp of a girl, they could not move her. It was like she had been glued to the floor or that she weighed a few tons.

But that did not stop them. They tortured her on the spot with unspeakable torments, even blinding her. But still she did not renounce the Lord she loved. She professed her belief in him even unto death.

So Lucia, whose name means light, had her human sight taken from her, but even without her bodily eyes, she never stopped seeing the light that shines from the face of Jesus. It is the light which God created from the darkness and the chaos at the beginning of time, the light that led the chosen people from slavery into freedom, and the light which will illuminate the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem at the end of time. You remember that from the Book of Revelation: There will be no need for the sun or the moon or the stars, for the Lamb will be the light which will illumine the golden streets.

It was Lucy’s ability to see the light, even once she had lost her physical eyes, which inspired the tradition, observed even to this day by young Scandinavian women, of wearing a wreath of evergreens adorned with lit candles on their heads on Lucy’s day.

It’s not unlike the tradition of placing lights on an evergreen tree, real lights...real candles, as I used to observe when I was a seminarian forty years ago traveling through Germany on Christmas holiday. There was a little bed and breakfast by the train station in Munich where we used to stay...and every morning the daughter of the innkeeper would come down to the breakfast room and light the little white candles on the ends of each branch of the Christmas tree.

The evergreen, of course, was used in the medieval passion plays at which they would tell the story of Adam and Eve. That’s where the ornaments come from...from the red apples which would hang on the tree, ready to serve as the forbidden fruit for those taking the parts of Adam and Eve.

But even after the story of the Fall was over, the tree would remain on stage, as the birth of Jesus was acted out, for which the stage manager would add little lit candles to the branches already adorned with red apples....signs of the light of Christ come into our life under that star-studded sky in the fullness of time.

The evergreen is the only tree to keep its needles all through the winter snows. So then does it become a sign of the life which endures even through the passion and the winters of our lives, awaiting the resurrection on the last day. All because it is covered by the victorious light of him who defeated death by death on a tree...he who is our light, or in the words of the ancient Collect for midnight Mass at Christmas:

O God, who have made this most sacred night
radiant with the splendor of the true light,
grant, we pray,
that we who have known the mysteries of his light on earth
may also feast on his joys in heaven.

So, too, do the girls whose heads are surrounded by evergreens and lit candles in Churches throughout Sweden today anticipate the light of Christ which will soon dispel the longest hours of darkness that the Scandinavian people would have to endure during the entire year.

So, too, Saint Lucy reminds us who dwell in all kinds of darkness (the darkness of sin, the darkness of fear, the darkness of death) that the light of Christ will soon shed its warmth upon us once again. We need only see it with the eyes of faith, and we will know the beauty of his face.

Like the magi, the ones to whom the prophet Balaam today promised a star, may we seek his coming by looking for the star which will rise at his coming, not just in the skies to be seen by these eyes, but which will rise in our hearts and lead us to him who is our Savior and our Lord. Come Lord Jesus!

Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector

Rejoice and Be Glad!

2010-12-11T20:32:00.004-05:00

While I am on retreat this weekend, I offer a copy of last year's homily, in which I lament those who lament and recommend joy!

Homily
Third Sunday of Advent

Scrooge couldn’t stand it. Now, as Dickens told it, there were a lot of things that Scrooge couldn’t stand, but this song in particular drove him crazy. That’s why we read that "...at the first sound of — "God bless you merry, gentlemen! May nothing you dismay!"— Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost."

Scrooge, like the Grinch, hated Christmas, the whole Christmas Season. And while Dr Seuss may not have quite known the reason, I think it’s quite clear. All the Scrooges and the Grinches of the world, indeed the Scrooge and the Grinch in each one of us, is allergic to and offended by the Comfort and Joy.

The problem with comfort and joy is that it’s impossible to feel them…and enjoy being miserable at the same time. One of my favorite recreational activities at various points in my life has been feeling sorry for myself. To put on the poor me sign, sit on my dung heap and pick my sores, all the while lamenting loudly how unfair life is and crowning myself king of the poor sad things.

But lamentation is a solitary art, not fit for those who choose to accept the comfort of the children of God.

• It’s impossible to be sad if I believe that God so loves me that he sent his only Son, in whose image and likeness I was made, to be born in the likeness of me.

• It’s impossible to be sad, if I truly believe that death is but a mirage, evil an empty set of adolescent seductions, and pain a passing trial which fades into insignificance in the face of the joy which awaits the just.

But still I’m tempted to reject God’s comfort and refuse to rejoice. Like a three year old on a bad day, I reject the crosses God sends me, stamp my feet, cry at the top of my lungs and threaten to hold my breath until I turn blue. You unfair God, you who has so unfairly given me all this suffering and subverts my every hope for joy, you gave that other guy over there everything that he wants, and me, what have you given me lately!? It’s not fair!

• You forgive the repentant sinner, but when’s the last time I won the Megabucks?

• You cure even the unbeliever of cancer, but what have you done about my aching back?!

• You let every corrupt politician gain power and abuse his office, but I can’t even get a promotion at work!

• You make other people, even unbelievers, to live in Hawaii or Palm Beach, or the Riviera….do you know how cold it got in my house when the power went out Lord?!

• You set it up so that the selfish and the arrogant get all the breaks, while those of us who go to Church each week have to schlep along by ourselves.

• You even make the sun shine on the good and the bad alike. You just don’t know how to treat your friends!

My child, God replies, you, my beloved child: How have I offended you? How have I let you down?

• Was it when I formed out of the dust of the earth to love in my image?

• Was it when I gave you lungs with which to breathe and arms with which to love, ears to hear, and eyes to see the beauty all around you?

• Was it when I emptied myself and took on human flesh, feeling your pains, knowing your heart, and bearing your sins?

• Was it when I taught you in parables and healed you from the ailments of your body and soul?

• Was it when I stretched out my arms on the cross and taught you how to love and to sacrifice?

• Was it when I rose from the tomb, defeating death, winning for you the promise of eternal life?

Why do you reject my comfort, my beloved child? Why do you refuse to accept the salvation I have bought for you and to rejoice with the joy of the children of God?

Hear the voice of my prophets, says the Lord:

• Rejoice! Break forth, shout joyfully together…For the LORD has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem.

• Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people And will have compassion on His afflicted.

• As a mother comforts her infant, so I will comfort you.

Abandon your petty complaints, your narcissistic preoccupations, and your myopic self-indulgences. For none of it really matters!

All that truly matters is that God loves you more than you can ever know. Rejoice and be glad, for he has looked upon you in your lowliness and waits, again, to be born in your heart!

If that’s not a reason to rejoice, I don’t know what is!

God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas day,
To save us all from Satan's power
When we were gone astray:

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.

Repent and Obey!

2010-12-03T21:01:00.004-05:00

Second Sunday in Advent
Homily

Repent and believe, the Baptist cries, for the Kingdom of God is a hand!

Repent! Not a very good marketing slogan today. Who wants to repent. I'm quite happy the way I've arranged things in my life, already, thank you. Maybe take care of a war or a famine or something else more in your job description, God, and just leave me alone to live my little life the way I choose.

Repent and believe....the Kingdom of God is a hand!

But repentance means I have to obey, and obedience is not exactly one of my favorite things. Yeah, it's true, I knelt down over there and placed my hands between those of the Bishop and promised obedience and respect, but that was a long time ago, And I was still a kid, and It was a part of the rite. And plus, I'm not a bad person...I do a lot more than some of those other people...there are a lot worse than me...why don't you go preach to them for a while.

Repent and believe!

I'm not too thrilled by obedience, and it comes out in the strangest ways sometimes. Ask my best friend, who turned to me one day after a long period of my spouting all knowingly and said, you know James, you're the only one I know who can make me cry with frustration.

Ask your spouse how good you were at obedience to love in the middle of that argument you had over the turkey, or your mother how obedient you were when you wouldn't get out of bed last week, or your daughter how obedient to love you were when you screamed at the top of your lungs because you were so tired and you just couldn't deal with her anymore,

Better still, ask yourself what John the Baptist means today when he says to me and to you...yes you!.....repent and believe, right now! For the Kingdom of God is a hand!

We are made for obedient love, and from the moment we went down into those waters of Baptism with Christ and were joined to his death, it's all we've been about. A constant conversion to life from death, and to purity from sin, and to light from darkness.

Such a continuing conversion is rooted in a sense of self that emerges from a radical humility, an assuredness that I am not God....the Shema Israel, which heralds and caps every act of Jewish worship, says it all: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one."1 It's a takeoff on the first commandment: “I am the Lord your God and you shall have no false Gods before me.”

Such conversion to humility, to the constant conviction that I am little and God is big, that I am child and he is father, results in a radical obedience, not to my self-actualization, but to the plan God has for me and for my life.

Yet is there anything which I fight against more instinctively than the sense that I am not God. I once heard a certain Roman cardinal utter the ultimate sharp comment to a staffer who was heatedly trying to convince him of something: Suppose, Father, just for a moment, that you were not God.

The same could have been said to our first parents, whose sin, ultimately, was not the fruit stolen from the tree, but the disordered conviction that they could be God if the just ate the right kind of fruit.

You see it in every three year old, possessed by the absolute conviction that he is the center of the universe, the ultimate arbiter of meaning, justice, and truth, in other words that he, stamping his feet, screaming, crying, and turning blue, is God.

The follower of Christ is called to the opposite conviction and the opposite way of life. For he is taught by the life of his Lord, by an obedience that does not deem equality with God something to be grasped at...but rather empties itself, taking the form of a slave, and becoming a little child, opening its arms upon a cross in perfect obedience to the Father's will.

We are made for obedient love. It is our dignity. It is our destiny. It is our purpose for being.

And its not just a question of doing God's will so I can go to heaven: obey the rules and win the prize. Its a matter of being so much more in love with God than I am with myself, that I will do his will not because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but because I love God and I want nothing so much as to be his obedient son,

I've always been challenged by Saint Benedict's description of the three ways of loving God. At first, Saint Benedict tells us, we love God because we love ourselves. I don't want to go to hell, so I do what he wants.

At the second stage, I love God because he is lovable. I have no choice. I have so deeply fallen in love within him that I want only to do his will.

And then there's the third stage of loving God, the one which few reach but the only state in which true holiness and purity reside, wherein I love me only because God loves me. Only then does my every waking moment seek the will of God. My next breath has value only if it is part of God's plan. My fondest hopes and my deepest desires are but cinder and ash unless they are a part of his plan. In other words, it is not my will but his, not me, but Christ Jesus in me, it is I, like the John the Baptist, who must decrease and he who must increase.

That's what it means to make straight his paths, to prepare a highway for our God. The highway is me. To repent and believe that kingdom of God is at hand is to radically hand myself to God, even unto death, death even on a cross.

It's like what Saint Augustine once preached, a favorite saying of this preacher, too: God does not want your gifts. God wants you. All of you. Your mind, your heart, your entire being.

For he made you for obedient love. The kind of love that’s less interested in being God, than in being God’s beloved child child. The kind of obedient love which is the reason we are and is what we were made to be.

Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector

First Sunday of Advent - Waiting

2010-11-25T21:07:00.002-05:00

We wait for Jesus

Little children wait for Jesus in the manger. They long for Christmas. They start even now to dream of twinkling lights and brightly colored presents, of the smell of fresh Christmas trees and incense, of the feeling of trying to stay awake at Midnight Mass, of the food and the friends and the Christmas carols.

Children wait for Jesus to be placed in the manger: for him to be born as a little child, just like them.

Years ago, when the son of one of my oldest friends had just turned three years old (he was at that age when we first appropriate the idea of time) his mother made the mistake of telling him: Just imagine, Sean...soon it will be Christmas!

An hour passed, and little Sean returned from his play...Is it Christmas yet? he asked. No, Sarah, told him. Not for another four weeks. It’s not Christmas yet.

Fifteen minutes passed. And Sean was back, tugging at her skirt. Is it Christmas yet? he asked a bit more insistently. No Sean, I told you it’s not for another four weeks. And then she thought for a moment how she would explain four weeks, but soon gave up the hope.

Fifteen minutes later he returned, tugging and whining and almost in tears. Is it Christmas now? he demanded. No, Sarah told him. And then she swooped him up in her arms, dried his tears, and asked softly: You really want it to be Christmas Sean. You want Jesus to come right now, don’t you? Yes...the words shot out of him as from a canon...I want Jesus to come right now! So do I Sarah, said softly. So do I.

But for now we just have to wait. But waiting is so hard. Whether you’re a little kid waiting for Christmas, or even middle aged.

Even adults wait for Jesus. They long for him to be born in their hearts.

They learn to find him in the sacraments and in the poor, in the one who needs mercy, and in the quiet power of prayer. They look for him in all kinds of other places, too, big places with lots of power and money, but they seldom find him there. For they learn that he dwells mainly in little places, like our hearts.

They learn to let him inside, to eat his body and drink his blood. And they learn that as they wait, it is not so much that they are seeking him, as that he is seeking them. Or, as a wise man once wrote:

"It is he, God-who-is has always been searching for me. By his choice, his relationship with me is presence, as a call, as a guide; he is not satisfied with speaking to me, or showing things to me, or asking things of me. He does much more.
Thus, as we wait, that we learn that we are not in control. Life in the middle years has a way of teaching you that, especially when you don’t want to listen." (Carlo, Caretto, The God Who Comes) We learn that only God is God, and waiting befits our state as creatures. We learn, again, as the wise man wrote, that:

"We must assume an attitude of waiting, accepting the fcat that we are creatures and not creator. We must fo this because it is not our right to anything else; the initiative is God’s, not man’s. Man is able to initiate nothing; he is able only to accept. If God does not call, no calling takes place....

"For I am I, and he is he. I am son, and he is Father. I am the one who waits, and he is the one who comes. I am the one who replies, and he is the one who calls." (Carlo, Caretto, The God Who Comes

And then, in the third age of life, we wait as well. Indeed, the further we get into the last half of life, the more we wait for Jesus in a whole other way.

A few weeks after my closest friend’s mother died, I knew it was gnawing at him, and late one night I asked him, what is it that really that drives you crazy the most about burying the last of your parents? It’s the knowledge, he replied, that I’m next.

The older we get, the closer we are to going home. I used to say I was middle aged. But my sister now tells me I have to cut that out unless I’m going to live to be 116 years of age.

The actuarial tables project that I will die in 21.48 years. That’s 7,840 days and 8 hours. Not that I’m counting.

But I am waiting. I’m waiting each time I get a new twinge or something else stops working or I read one more obituary of someone younger than myself.

And how do we wait for him? We wait with patience, with longing and with the clear conviction that what he has planned for us is greater than our wildest dreams, that nothing can surpass the beauty of his face or the wonder of the dwelling he has prepared for us in the eternity of his love.

But I also have no doubt that the waiting will not always be easy. The love God offers us as we age is often in the form of a cross, or of sacrifice, or some other imitation of his love for us. But the great consolation is not that waiting for God gets easier with age, but that we no longer wish to break the appointment.

And so we wait, and we pray. For "to pray means to wait for the God who comes. every prayer-filled day sees a meeting with him; every night which we faithfully put at his disposal is filled with his presence.” (Carlo, Caretto, The God Who Comes

And what more could we ask for, but to be counted worthy to wait in joyful hope, for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Monsignor James P. Moroney
Pastor

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T21:00:00.004-05:00

Thanksgiving
Homily

We come here, on this Thanksgiving Day, to offer the Holy Eucharist... comes from the Latin Eucharistia, which comes from the Greek Eucharistein, which comes from the Hebrew Berakah.

Berakah is a funny word in Hebrew. It means thanksgiving, but it always requires two actions: to remember the great works God has done for us and, second, that we bless him for his goodness to us. Its like the ancient Berkahs which served as a model for the prayers the Bishop will pray in just a few moments at the preparation of the Gfts: Barukh Attah Adonai Eloheinu Melekh ha-Olam = Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe.

So to give thanks we must do two things: remember and bless.

We should, therefore, do everything we can to remember the mercies of God.

Now, it's not that we're really that bad at remembering. In fact we're really quite good at remembering everything that went bad this past year. The promotion you didn't get, the diagnosis you didn't want, the ice storm that caused that accident with the car, and all the manifold ways in which we are sometimes convinced that God sits up like some sadistic patriarch trying to make us miserable. No, we're quite good at remembering.

But we're not so good at remembering his mercies, and his bountiful gifts to us.

I was reminded of this last week, when I saw an old friend who had come to celebrate Confirmation with Bishop McManus last Sunday afternoon. When he entered the sacristy he was carrying a funny looking machine on his back, which processed oxygen and fed it to his weakened lungs through two plastic tubes in his nose. I expressed surprise and concern and he told me matter of factly, Oh, it’s not so bad. I need the machine for half the time now, soon it will be full time.

Counting My Blessings

For the rest of the afternoon, I I never stopped counting my breaths...these airy blessing which God gives me five times a minute. He made the air you breathe and formed the lungs you breathe with. He is the reason your heart beats and how the blood flows through your veins....your feelings and your fears, your joys and each of your hopes. He made it all. And when’s the last time I said "thank you" for that?

When’s the last time I remembered the deepest pleasure of a good nights sleep, or the wonder of the first deep breath of cold fresh air, the overwhelming colors of a maple tree in fall, or the awesome quiet of the new fallen snow, the indescribable beauty of a springtime blossom, or the soothing warmth of a summer’s breeze?

In stubborn foolishness, I refuse to remember his mercies, so how can I ever hope to give thanks?

And to really give thanks I need not only to remember, but to bless God for his infinite mercies! In other words, the only posture from which thanksgiving makes sense is on my knees in front of a cross. Only then do I know that I am little and God is big. Only then do I know that at the end of the day and at the beginning and at every moment in between he is in charge not me.

This is what brings us to this Thanksgiving day, and to this altar, where the great sacrifice of praise, the eucharistia is offered with us and on our behalf.

This is what brings us to join the sacrifices of our lives to the perfect sacrifice Christ, who rose triumphant from the tomb in the perfect Berakah: the perfect sacrifice of remembering and blessing.

A little more than a hundred years ago, not so very far from here, Emily Dickinson wrote a poem about a man who had died a year before: a man who, from the grave, saw for the first time all the blessings of the fields that surrounded him throughout his life. He speaks from the grave:

... I know I heard the Corn,
When I was carried by the Farms--
It had the Tassels on--

I thought how yellow it would look--
When Richard went to mill--
And then, I wanted to get out,
But something held my will.

I thought just how Red--Apples wedged
The Stubble's joints between--
And the Carts stooping round the fields
To take the Pumpkins in--

I wondered which would miss me, least,
And when Thanksgiving, came,
If Father'd multiply the plates--
To make an even Sum--

Need we wait until we’re dead to remember his mercies and to bless his name?

Need we wait? Or can we not bless him for all the myriad ways he has loved us and loves us still?

Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector

Christ the King

2010-11-21T20:01:00.003-05:00

A Homily for the Solemnity of Christ the King

Who is this Christ, who even opponents of monarchy call their King? Who is this Lord, to whom we have given our lives and our devotion? Who is this Jesus at whose name we bend the knee and for whom we long with our every waking breath?

Saint Paul tells us who he is in his letter to the Collosians.

First: He is the image of the invisible God.
No one, as Jesus tells us, has ever seen the Father. But whoever looks upon the Son and believes in him sees God.

He is the image of the invisible God.
Do you remember when Philip says to Jesus, Lord, show us the Father? And do remember Jesus' response. Philip, you have been with me so long and still you do not know me?

He is the image of the invisible God.
He is the word made flesh, the splendor of the Father, Emmanuel, God with us.

He is salvation for the old woman who lives alone with nothing but her fears, and for everyone abandoned by love, life completely out of control. He is the image of the invisible God.

Second: He is the firstborn of all creation.
Before anything is, he was. Through him all things were made. Apart from him, nothing came to be. Which is why his dominion is an everlasting dominion and all creation is subject to him. Do you want to know why God made you? Look to Jesus, for his is the ground of all being and the source of all meaning. Apart from him there is no life or meaning or truth. He is the firstborn of all creation.

He is salvation for the addict who slept on the street last night, and for everyone who is empty, lost, or unsure what you should do. He is the firstborn of all creation.

And third: Through this one who was before all things, all things are held together.

Apart from him there is chaos and dystrophy and death. He is the way, the truth, and the life and nothing holds together except through him. He is the glue that keeps it all from flying apart, the peace which brings joy to men's souls, and the grace which reconciles enemies.

He is salvation for those who are beaten or angry, or frightened or broken. Only he can make them whole.

He is, he was, and he heals. Like he did from the Altar of the Cross. As he opened his arms in a perfect sacrifice of praise, as the blood drained from his body and his consciousness began to fade, he hears the criminals on either side if him begin to scream.

Both were guilty. Both were on their way to hell for murder of fomenting insurrection or worse. And miserable wretches that they were, they appeared to be spending their dying breaths telling others what to do.

The one on his left joins the sneering crowd and reviles Jesus: I thought you were supposed to be the Christ! How ‘out saving yourself, and us too while you're at it!

Notice Jesus never answers to the bad thief. Perhaps he knows this guy who dies cursing God is finally beyond hope. But the other thief does respond, shouting across Jesus: don't you fear God? How can you say such a thing? We're guilty. We deserve what we got! But he's not!

And then he turns to Jesus, and with hi last breath begs him, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And in the next to the last word he would ever speak, Jesus forgives the sins of this lifeline criminal, and assures him: today you will be with me in Paradise.

Jesus forgives the criminal because he knows him. It was through Jesus that he was created and it was to live in the image and likeness of Jesus, the splendor of the image of the invisible God, that he was made.

Jesus forgives the criminal because he loves him, because he desires not the death of the sinner, but that he repent and live, because all it takes to heal a lifetime of sin is a moment of love, for to him who has loved deeply much is forgiven.

And here we are, repentant thieves, the lot of us. Standing before the altar from which our King, who ever was and ever will be, who made us for love and sacrifice and joy, waits for us to have half the faith of the crooks on the cross.

He is a King, he longs to love us, and to lead us home.

Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector

Monsignor Sullivan Reflects on Cardinal Newman

2010-11-11T17:49:00.003-05:00

This address was presented to the Catechists of the Diocese of Worcester by our own Monsignor Sullivan this past week.

First, thanks for what you're doing as educators. It's really important.

I say that as one who began my working career as a high school religion teacher in Worcester and then was a DRE in Colorado Springs. Later, as a priest, I was 5 years in our Diocesan Office of Religious Education.

So, I'm well acquainted with your challenges working with young people and their families, so thanks for your commitment to this ministry.

Today, I've been asked to think about Blessed John Henry 'Cardinal' Newman. He’s certainly a great role model for educators. I'm grateful for the opportunity.

I’ll do 3 things:

I'll share some recent reminiscences of the really interesting experiences I had just a few weeks ago at his beatification and some personal events leading up to that in the late summer.

I have a few thoughts about Pope Benedict XVI in England. It was an extraordinary visit.

But mostly I'll speak about Newman himself.

Certainly, one of the high points of my priesthood was to be able to participate in the Beatification of Cardinal Newman this past September 19th.

I can never remember a time when I hadn’t heard of Newman. The Sisters certainly spoke of him a bit when I was in grade school. My Dad did as well, around the house. But they just touched on him and didn’t know him in great depth.

I've been a fan since my seminary days but confess that even there we didn't really have the time to explore his thought too deeply. New theologians were being thrown at us so fast that it’s hard to concentrate on one.

12 years ago, I took a week-long summer course on Newman from Father Ian Ker, Newman’s greatest living biographer. And that’s where the real fire began.

Subsequently, I've read some of his important works but a fraction of his corpus of 40 books, the massive collections of his sermons, and 32 thick volumes of his letters.

Newman is a towering figure in the life of the Church. Someone even divided the ages of the Church into the age of Augustine, the age of Aquinas, and the age of Newman. He has been given that status. But he was never a remote intellectual. His concerns were always pastoral and therein lay his real greatness.

SO, MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES...

This year I built my two vacation trips around Newman. I was in England in early August and then was able to go back in mid-September.

This past August 9th, while on vacation in England, I celebrated Mass at Newman's private altar, in his room at the Oratory in Birmingham and that was a rare privilege. In doing so, I used his chalice, which always means a lot to a priest.

At the end of Mass they carefully took it out of my hands because that was the appointed day it was sent out to be re-finished for the beatification. The next scheduled user was Pope Benedict a month later.

A few minutes after Mass the priest in charge, Father Richard Duffield, gave me 5 small, gold reliquaries containing locks of Newman's hair and bits of his clothing, and asked me to deliver them to the Sisters of the Family of the Work at Littlemore College, which Newman founded, outside Oxford, since that was my next stop a couple of hours later. The Sisters, who devote their whole lives to the memory and the work of Newman, and who have become good friends since I first went to Littlemore ten years ago, were absolutely thrilled to receive them - just as I was thrilled to be the courier.

In staying with the Sisters for a few days, I stayed in the same bedroom that Blessed Dominic Barberi used when he visited Newman on October 8 & 9, 1845, to hear his confession, which began one day and continued into the next, and receive him into the Catholic Church.

And on the last day of my vacation, August 11th - I was the celebrant and homilist of the Mass at Littlemore on the 120th Anniversary of the Cardinal's death.

A month later I went back to England for the beatification. It was the first beatification I've ever participated in.

It was my first opportunity to see Pope Benedict in person.

So, these were rare and great moments of grace for me.

There were lots of other 'firsts' associated with the beatification.

Newman is first English Catholic, who lived after the Reformation, to be beatified - so that's 500 years. And that goes to the fact that the Catholic Church in England was just decimated after Henry VIII and Elizabeth Tudor, not even a shadow of its former self.

It was the first beatification that Benedict has celebrated at all. The pope's personal protocol is that all beatifications are to be celebrated in holy person's home country - so popes don't go now to those places for these celebrations. But Benedict broke his own rule to come to England and offer the Mass - since he's always been such a fan of Newman and has read so much of what Newman wrote.

It's only the second time in history that a pope had come to England at all. John Paul visited for one day in 1982.

Finally, it was 'an official state visit' - a very rare moment indeed. In this case, Her Majesty's Government hosted a good deal of the trip and the Government welcomed the Holy Father as a head of state and paid for a good deal of the tab. So, on television, you may have seen the Queen and Prince Philip welcoming Benedict in Edinburgh, Scotland, where the 4 days began.

In those 4 days it was fascinating to witness the transformation of the media and the people - from so much open hostility...to acceptance and praise.

On Day 2 - there was the pope standing in Westminster Hall, on the exact spot where St. Thomas More was condemned to death in 1535 - standing there with 4 living Prime Ministers, all the Members of Parliament, the Dukes, Lords, and entire ruling aristocracy - making his address to Civil Society - praising the British for their work in ending slavery and their heroism in World War II's 'Battle of Britain' - and challenging their secular society with vital questions about how we should live. It's hard to imagine a time when you're more proud of your Holy Father than that moment. And, they went crazy for him.

Following the papal visit, some of the British media even apologized for their attacks on the Holy Father. He had clearly won over many English hearts.

There were 3 great public Masses - in Glasgow, at Westminster Cathedral in London, and at Birmingham for the actual beatification.

You really got a sense of how Benedict is a universal pastor.

John Henry Newman was the reason for the visit!

Newman lived from 1801 to 1890 - so essentially the whole century.

Think about it this way. Newman was born just about a year after George Washington died. And he died a few months after Dwight Eisenhower was born. That's a lot of living.

The first half of his life he was an Anglican.

His formation began, really began, when he was 15 years old. He had a very compelling conversion though he was already a practicing Christian.

He became what we would call today an 'evangelical.' (Not that he was living an immoral life before - but he had some doubts.) Now, he was 'born again.' If he were alive today - at 15 - he'd say, "Jesus Christ is my personal savior."

Had a profound interest in the Scripture. Read the Bible cover to cover.

At 15 - he also made a commitment to live his life as a celibate and he was accepted into Oxford University at that age. Unheard of! So, from the beginning we're talking about someone who is really extraordinary.

He went on to become a great student at Trinity College, and professor at Oriel College in Oxford, a 'don' and the preacher at the most distinguished pulpit in country, St. Mary the Virgin Church at Oxford University. And droves of students came to hear his preaching. (600/1000) (Easter, St. Paul's, London, 1800, 6 people at the main service - Newman was bringing in 600.

With others he led 'The Oxford Movement' - an attempt to both revivify and some would say 'Catholicize' the Anglican Church, strengthening its teaching and its sacramental life. Whatever vitality remains in the somewhat fractured Anglican Church in England is probably due to him.

But he couldn't stay as an Anglican.

The chief factors:

His study of Church history
His disappointment at what he called 'liberalism in religion' (laxity)
And Anglicanism's 'disconnect' with the papacy led him into the Catholic Church.
In 1845 - at the exact mid-point of his life - he's received.

So, the first half of his life he's Oxford's most famous don and Anglicanism's most famous preacher.

The second half of his life he's England's most prominent Catholic priest.

It's hard to think of someone else like that.

He was also England's greatest prose writer in the Victorian age, a magnificent stylist with thoughts beautifully expressed.

Greatest intellectual in the Catholic Church in England in the second part of the 19th century...yet at his core a parish priest...worked hard at confessions, visiting sick and poor, running an elementary school for poor Irish Catholics that he founded in Birmingham.

His scholarship was a major factor in the establishment of the 2nd Vatican Council roughly 70 years after his death. How that happened is that all of the great European theologians of the first half of the 20th century - particularly the French - were reading Newman.

People like the Jesuit, Henri de Lubac, the Dominicans, Yves Congar and M.D. Chenu. Their work was called 'nouvelle theologie' and they were the ones who laid the immediate groundwork for the Council. So was the young Joseph Ratzinger reading Newman.

But what had Newman read - that they were ingesting? The Fathers - Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom, John Damascene, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa. So he combines his early love for scripture with patristics and the development of dogma in the early Church.

This is why the Documents of the Second Vatican Council have such a foundation in scripture and patristics.

He said, "To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant."

He was a poet, prose writer, founder of the Oratorians in England, violinist (though not an especially good one), novelist, university rector in Dublin, and always the educator par excellence.

I encourage you to read Newman.

2 novels, Callista and Loss & Gain (a very thinly disguised autobiography) might be places to start.

'The Second Spring' Sermon of 1851. (Restoration, Hierarchy, 1850)

'The Biglietto Speech' when he received the cardinal's hat in 1879.

More ambitious is his most celebrated book, 'Apologia Pro Vita Sua,' which is the story of his conversion to Catholicism. One person calls it "the autobiography of a brain."

So as we celebrate Newman today, we could ask ourselves how he might be a model for us, especially since he felt education to be his particular concern.

Motto: 'Heart speaks to Heart'
- Christians are made one by one
- conversion = one person to another
- education = one person to another - relationships, one to another.
His students were important to him as individuals.

And then...
there are 4 themes which you see over and over in his works. They are the keys to his thinking.

I. The first was the importance of Revelation.

Devotion to the cause of revealed religion was what gave Newman’s life its unity. In a late work, Newman himself described revelation as ‘the initial and essential idea of Christianity’ (Via Media). There has been much written about the theology of revelation, but the crucial point to grasp is that what has been revealed is a gift to us. It is not of our making. What we believe is not something that we have somehow managed to construct for ourselves. It's a gift.

II. A second key theme was the Church.

However wonderful the message of revelation is, it may as well not exist if it can't be received. We’ve all had the experience of talking on our cell phone and losing the signal. You're cut off.

Well, for Newman: If there was no reception, there was no revelation. Revelation is received by the community of faith, the Church. And when you consider Newman’s life – from his early evangelical conversion, through his days as an Oxford don, to the Oxford Movement, until he comes to be received into the Catholic Church in 1845 – you can read it as a perpetual search for the Church.

Where the Body of Christ, the community of faith, is to be found most fully is where revelation will be received most perfectly. Love the Church and teach the importance of the Church as the locus of both truth and revelation.

III. His third major theme was with dogma. In the 'Apologia' he called dogma "the fundamental principle of my religion."

He used to say that in a perfect world the Church would simply have received the Scriptures. But the world isn't perfect. Scripture is unsystematic. Disputes in the Church arise. So what has been revealed and received needs to be articulated. This is where his great personal study comes in again. The teaching of the Church, built upon the lessons of the past, really helps us to deal with issues that we're living with today. This is why the Church has always emphasized the importance of both 'Tradition' and 'Scripture.'

IV. His final key theme was with education.

What has been revealed and received and articulated, needs to be communicated. It has to be passed on. It's not a private possession.

He wasn’t just talking about classroom teaching: he wanted people to craft better arguments by engaging with contemporary culture, broadening and maturing their minds. (He read everything!)

What has been revealed, received, and articulated, is passed on and this should happen in a personal way.

When he went as a young curate to the parish of St. Clement’s in Oxford, just beyond Magdalen Bridge, he was still to some extent under the influence of the evangelical conversion that had so affected him as a boy of fifteen. Its dictates declared that most people were damned. Few were saved. But the young Newman, as he met the many good people in his parish, found he could no longer believe that most of them were condemned to hell for all eternity.

Then, as a tutor at Oriel College in Oxford, he was dissatisfied with a system that required him to teach his pupils, but would not allow him to offer them moral and pastoral support. It had to be strictly academic.

Later, as vicar of St. Mary the Virgin Church, he developed a style of preaching in which he spoke to his congregation in a way that he hoped would move them to what he would later come to call ‘real assent.’

He had no interest in moving their minds without touching their hearts.

And then in Dublin, while working in the University he founded there, he said: "An academic system without the personal influence of teachers upon pupils, is an arctic system; it will create an ice-bound, petrified, cast-iron University, and nothing else." It was always the same message: education is never merely a matter of learning; it involves a care for the person as well.

Newman was an active parish priest in Birmingham. He also had, so to speak, a "day job." He had founded and was largely responsible for much of the day-to-day running of the Oratory School. As an old man Newman personally gave a high award to the young Hilaire Belloc. J.R.R. Tolkein went to the same school for a while, about ten years after Newman died.

Newman had set out to establish a school that offered the kind of high quality academic education that was available to those who went to the famous schools like Eton and Harrow. When it came to pastoral care of students, those schools fell short, however.

In so many ways education was Newman’s line. He cared for standards, for academic excellence, but never forgot the person. So, he can be a real inspiration for teachers and educators.

We should think about those who taught us and inspired us and think about how they did. And "Can we do the same?"

Thanks.

Monsignor Thomas Sullivan
Chancellor
Diocese of Worcester

Mass for Public Safety Officials

2010-11-07T11:54:00.002-05:00

Homily

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Whose wife will she be in the resurrection? It's sort of like asking, "Who will Roger Clemens play for in the afterlife?" Will he play in heaven with the Boston Red Sox, or will he play for the Evil Empire in that other place?

Jesus turns a question on marriage, and whose wife will she be, into a further discussion and deeper understanding of heaven. And the fullness of heaven at that.

In our sometimes simplistic way of thinking about the likes of God, heaven, the after life, what's to come ... our belief is that the body separates from the soul, the body returns to the dust from which it came in Genesis, for a grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die, and the soul comes into the presence of God as it continues to live on.

This would be called the halfway point. The soul coming into the. presence of God brings us to the halfway point of the book known as the Bible. But the Old Testament only makes sense and finds its completion when you bring it forward into the New Testament. Into the whole story of Jesus Christ.

Whose wife will she be in heaven is a question posed to Jesus that doesn't address the final condition that will fulfill the wife. If the most important question in heaven is 'Who are you going to be married to?" then us priests better get going in the wife department. Otherwise, we have no chance of sneaking past St. Peter and his Pearly Gates.

Whose wife she will be is only half the story, which is why it's not the most important question in eternity. The story is completed in the words of Jesus that this wife, and those like her, are like angels; they are the children of God because they will rise. Now you're talking. Those words bring in the New Testament.

Those words of Jesus complete the deeper meaning of this wife who married the seven brothers. Those words of Jesus complete the deeper meaning of our own lives, and what God will deliver to us like the birth of a healthy new born baby.

"They will rise." Three words that will fulfill the condition of every human being through the power of the living God. At death, which every one of you public safety officials has seen, the soul separates from the body. The words ''they will rise" reunites the dead body with the living soul into a state of endless peace that is so far beyond our capacity to comprehend.

The point in all this is that the human body is so wonderfully sacred.

So sacred to God that the body most of us probably can't stand to look at in the mirror right now will rise into a condition that would make any top model in this world jealous of its beauty. What God touches, and what God has in store for us, cannot be fully copied in this world.

And this is where you men and women involved in all the avenues of public safety are like angels. When's the last time someone called you an angel? An angel ministers to the will of God. The will of God is a will of goodness, and mercy, and assistance; of the compassionate concern for the well-being of others.

Everyone of you has more than likely witnessed firsthand some of the worst conditions of a human body. Between bums, and accidents, and fights and woundings and shootings and stabbings and suicides, you've seen and attended to bodies that were scarred and mangled in ways no human being should have to witness, no less attend to.

I'm sure every firefighter, police officer, EMT, and every person who answers the public safety call can remember and picture vividly at least one call that you went to, and in responding to the call you saw the worst of what this world can do to the flesh. One of those calls that causes you to think, "Now I've seen it all, and Lord, I don't want to see any more!" It happens to the strongest of us.

Which is why you need to bring your job, especially this part of your job, to the whole story of Jesus. When you attend to the dead and dying, to the sick and the overweight. When you attend to tom up bodies, and when you try to talk someone out of committing suicide, you're living out the truth of what Jesus speaks in this Gospel.

You see, Christians don't stop at "Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?" You don't stop at, "Well, this body is so distorted that there's nothing further to be done. End of story." No, that's not who you are. Even a body that's amputated in an accident deserves reverence, sanctity, and sensitivity. It's a human being. They have a family. And the greater reason made possible by Jesus Christ is that even those bodies will one day shine like stars in the sky.

Jesus raises the ante on the sacredness of the human body. And in Jesus raising the ante to the ultimate condition, the reuniting of the body and soul, the way we address and serve the needs of others in the present is always cloaked in sacredness and holiness.

Whether a Firefighter, a Police Officer, an EMT, or other public safety official, know that God's Church prays for you that you will continue to respond to your calls in the spirit of the Gospel. Of the whole and complete story of Scripture.

Don't ever settle for, "Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?" There's something greater going on right now, and it's deeply connected to what's to come. Settle always for "they are like angels; children of God who will rise." Because God will take even the worst body, reunite it with the soul, and restore it to a condition that is beyond beautiful. May you carry that Christian truth with you at all times, from the easiest calls to the most difficult calls.

Father Walter J. Riley

Pastor

Immaculate Conception Parish

Three Lessons from Three Brothers

2010-11-05T19:50:00.003-04:00

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily

Seven brothers and their mother were arrested, less than two hundred years before the birth of Jesus and were tortured and killed by Antiochus Epiphanes for their faithfulness to the Law of God.

Today we hear of the death of three of those brothers, and each of them teach us something about the mind of the martyr.

Martyrs are always intriguing figures. As a child I can remember marveling at the courage of those who looked literally into the mouth of the beast and still did the right thing. As an adult, my resolve to do the will of God is strengthened by their example and that hope that a human being can act so courageously. I’m simply amazed at the martyr and really want to know what makes him tick.

Well the brothers Maccabee give us three hints today.

The first brother is particularly courageous. He gets right up in the face of his torturer and demands to know why he is doing this, and then at the point of death asks him, What do you think you’re doing?

The first brother represents the naievate of the pure soul, the absolute befuddlement of the innocent that any human being could be as cruel as his tormentor. We see it in the Martyr-deacon Lawrence, who helpfully reminds the ones burning him to death, to turn him over, since he was done on one side. We see it in the beatific smile of the Martyr-Deacon Stephen, who gazes not, as I would, at the stones tumbling in the direction of his head, but on the face of Jesus gazing down from heaven. The heart of the Martyr, it seems, is so set on the glory of the next world, that he can barely recognize the torment and sin that surround him in this one. Such vision gives to the martyr the power to defeat even the mightiest of this world’s powers. So the first virtue of the martyr, then, is purity of vision.

The second brother teaches us something even more difficult to understand, for he willingly gives them his hands to be cut off and his tongue to be ripped out, seemingly oblivious to his sufferings. “It is from heaven that I received these,” he tells his tormenters, “and from heaven that I hope to receive them again.” He is filled with an unassailable faith which refuses to waver, even in the face of pain and death. He is fearless. The second brother teaches us that martyrs willingly, and indeed joyfully, give everything to God.

And then these is the third brother. This one has endured a particularly cruel fate, even worse than the first two, for he has been made to witness his own brothers’ death. But despite enduring the agony of witnessing their demise, he is even more determined than they are. “It is my choice,” he boldly proclaims, “to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up.” He goes to his death with the absolute conviction that this is not the end and that he and his brothers will be raised up to live with God at the end of time. He teaches us the Martyr’s virtue of unwavering faith in the promises of God.

Now while there is no government officials in Worcester ready to torture us to death for our faith, we have plenty of opportunities to exercise the virtues of these martyrs.

Like the first, we are tempted every day to let ourselves be distracted from that which leads us to God, to distort our vision and see the world not as a sanctuary in which can perform the works of God, but a stage made for our glorification and the satisfaction of each of our wants. Yet if we are to follow the example of the first young Maccabee, we will make our vision clear and set our hearts solely on Jesus and God’s will for our lives.

Like the second brother, we will stop counting the cost of loving our enemies, strategizing how to get by with just enough sacrifice to get us to heaven, and rationalizing the many ways in which we avoid giving God everything he first gave to us. If we follow the example of the second young Maccabee, we will joyfully place our hands, our tongues and our hearts at the service of God’s will, oblivious to the suffering it might bring our way.

And finally, like the third brother, we would have faith, that in the end God will make sense of it, will right every wrong, make straighten all that is crooked, and lead the just home to eternal glory in his presence forever. We would have unwavering faith.

So while the Maccabees and the other Martyrs may seem far off, their struggles are as close as our next temptation, fear, or reluctance to believe the incredible good news that Christ has chosen us to be his brothers and sisters and on the last day he will raise us up from the dead.

Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector

KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE PRIZE

2010-10-29T21:30:00.003-04:00

Homily

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

What a pathetic figure he is. How they must have laughed at Zacchaeus as he sought to catch a glimpse of the Lord. Didn’t he realize that he was unworthy of the presence of a Messiah?!

First of all, he was littler than everyone else. The kids probably called him shorty in grammar school, and its hard to imagine that any of them chose him to play on their team. And it must have been rather comical to see him jumping up and down behind the crowd on the road to Jericho, trying to see over all the big people as the Lord passed by.

But that didn’t stop him. No, the little guy shimmied up a Sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus as he passed by.

But how foolish! Didn’t he realize that such a famous rabbi would never associate with a tax collector. The little Zacceaus had, after all, betrayed his own people and his own religion by working for those filthy Romans, who abused the Jews and took the little they had to enrich their coffers. And Zacceaus was a tax collector for these foreigners! Didn’t he realize that the Lord would turn his face from such a sleazy good for nothing?

But that didn’t stop him. No. Nothing stopped him. And that’s why salvation, that’s why Jesus came to his house.

Because Zacchaeus kept his eyes on the prize.

How many times have we seen the fifty-five year old footage of those three hundred peaceful marchers, many of them old people and children, as they attempted to the cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in peaceful protest of the lynching of a man for the color of his skin. They were met with dogs and tear gas, billy clubs and galloping horses and many were left bloodied and stunned.

Did you ever wonder what kept them going in the face of such violence? One old woman, when asked why she did not turn and run, recalled a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King a few weeks before when he has urged them to keep their eyes on the prize. For when you keep your eyes on Jesus, he preached, who will lead you to the promised land, nothing can deter you...no tear gas, no violence, no dog’s pointy teeth....not even the roar of their hate can deter you, when you keep your eyes on the prize.

Dr. King was preaching, that day, on Saint Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (9:24-25) “Do you not know that those who run the race all receive a prize? So run that you might obtain it.” Keep your eyes on the prize.

Like the runner in a marathon, keep your eyes on the prize...on Jesus, your only hope, your only goal, your only God. Keep your eyes on the prize. Not on where you’ve been or what’s around you, not on what somebody’s saying or doing, not on the gossipers and the doomsayers. No. Keep your eyes fixed firmly on Jesus, your hope and your prize. For only then can we win the race.

That’s the lesson of today’s liturgy for each of us who seek to preserve the life of the little baby in its mother’s womb.

Don’t let the darkness distract you, or the politics gets you down: keep your eyes on the prize...on Jesus.

Don’t let the temporary triumphs of the Culture of death distract you from the race: keep your eyes on the prize...on Jesus.

Don’t let sectarian media struggles and idealogical battles frighten you or slow you down: keep your eyes on the prize...on Jesus.

For he is the only way, the only truth, and the source life. He is the light which no darkness can overcome, the truth no lie can destroy, and the life which defeats even death itself!

For, in the end, this is really not our battle our battle. It is the latest chapter in the primordial struggle between light and darkness, goodness and hate, life and death. And each of us, unworthy servants that we are, but play our role.

And the victory of the Gospel of Life, when it comes (and it surely will) will not be ours. It will be his.

The day when our country and our world finally embrace the Gospel of Life, when the lives of the littlest and the weakest are cherished and defended by every person, when the wisdom of the old is cherished as an heirloom and the fragility of the disabled is received as a grace....on that God’s will be the victory and we will give thanks to have a had some small part in helping his Kingdom to come...

And in the meantime, it is ours to pray...without allowing the distractions and discouragements of the world to keep us from falling regularly to our knees...we will pray for life, ever keeping our eyes on the prize, who is Jesus.

in the meantime, we will march and we will declaim and we will stand for the truth...without allowing the sneers of the world to keep us from this most essential task...we will witness for life, ever keeping our eyes on the prize, who is Jesus.

in the meantime, we will preach and we will proclaim the inalienable right to life of every human person from conception to natural death....without allowing the name calling and the stares and the harsh comments to deter us.... we will preach for life, ever keeping our eyes on the prize, who is Jesus.

in the meantime, we will work to make our nation just and promote a government which preserves and cherishes human life in all its stages....without allowing the cold darkness of sin to frighten us away....we will work for life, ever keeping our eyes on the prize, who is Jesus.

We will each do our part, in the public and in the pew, kneeling in our rooms or marching on the street, proudly proclaiming the truth and ever keeping our eyes on Jesus.

For like that short little tax collector, the limitations really don’t matter. All we have to do is keep our eyes on the prize as he passes by. And the one through whom all life was made, will come to our house this day.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us...

2010-10-29T13:20:00.004-04:00

Through the kindness of a friend, I recently came across this lovely reflection on the Blessed Virgin Mary, which I hope you will enjoy.

I never met Mary until I was eleven years old traveling on a crowded train headed for Shanghai in a car so packed with people that my brother and I stood up all night. In the morning someone yielded their seat to me and I fell asleep instantly. I woke two or three hours later to find that I had been sleeping with my head on the shoulder of a young mother next to me. Knowing how tired I was, she had never moved all that time. I had never seen her before and I never saw her again, but years later in remembering this incident I began to have the strangest feeling that this young woman, this stranger, this lender of a shoulder, was actually Mary -the mother of God, the mother of us all, the one on whom we rest when we are too exhausted to go on. This was my introduction to Our Lady.

I met others who had met Mary - two Unitarians, one of whom chose to enter the ministry after a long meditation before her statue. The second was a colleague who worked as a chaplain at a Catholic hospital. Exhausted one night she entered the hospital chapel and dropped into a pew. She then looked up and saw Mary looking down at her from a fresco on the wall. My friend looked at the Lady as if seeing an old friend and thought, “She’s seen it all. She’s seen everything, and there she is - for me.” In describing this she told me, “When you’re as tired as I was, you don’t need an idea. You need a face.”

You know, when soldiers are wounded or dying on the battle field, whatever be their nation, tell me, whom do they call for? Their mother, and Mary is the mother of all mothers.

The gospels describe her as one who listens without question to the the angel Gabriel. And when she has heard the angel’s charge, Mary does not say “Yeah, right.” She says to the angel “Let it be done to me according to thy word.” And thus she says to God, “Thy will be done.”

It’s not surprising that Our Lord who learned to pray from his mother taught his disciples to pray “Thy will be done.” It’s not surprising that in the Garden he prayed, “Not my will but thine be done.”It’s not surprising there that we repeat this petition when we say the Our Father. For who is the Holy Mother but one whose prayer has been and is and always will be, “Thy will be done?”

She who prays this prayer is the one who bears Christ. She carried him in her womb. She carried him in her arms. She carried him in her teaching. And once he left her home she followed him and carried her in her heart.

-preached at All Saints Episcopal Church in Dorchester on the feast of the Assumption, 2010 by Reverend Carl Scovel

HOPE FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

2010-10-28T22:32:00.002-04:00

ON ELECTING OUR CIVIC LEADERS

FROM THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS OF MASSACHUSETTS

One of the greatest blessings of our American democracy is the opportunity it affords to its citizens to step up and share their vision of a better society. Even in these difficult social and economic times, we continue to strive for a community in which all can benefit, and from which no one is excluded.

It was the same yearning for a better life for everyone that brought many of our ancestors to this country. So it is a deeply-rooted concern for the common good that has moved us throughout our history to participate in the election process. Our convictions about the importance of voting are bolstered by the innate sense of hope that has endowed this nation with such promise in good times and in bad. We go to the polls no matter the direction of the social and economic trends at the time.

As Catholics we also are a people of hope. Hope is the Christian virtue that confirms our belief that we are never abandoned, and that we are always loved by God. We express these truths every time we extend our love to others as part of one human family. This same hope guides our civic involvement.

Because the common good is at stake, it is imperative that we exercise our right and duty to vote. As recognized by Pope Benedict XVI, the laity should “participate in political life, in a manner consistently in accordance with the Church’s teaching, bringing their well-founded reasons and high ideals into the democratic debate[.]” Papal Address to the Pontifical Council for the Laity (May 21, 2010).

Particularly for us as Catholics, voting is an exercise of reason inspired by faith. The Holy Father has thus observed: “Just as every economic decision has a moral consequence, so too in the political field, the ethical dimension of policy has far-reaching consequences that no government can afford to ignore[.]” “This is why,” he continued, “the world of reason and the world of faith—the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief—need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.” Papal Address at Westminster Hall, England, Sept. 17, 2010.

Our participation as citizens in the electoral process allows us to propose our vision for this country and about our future as a democracy. Thus voting is above all an opportunity—an occasion for contributing our insights as Catholics to the civic discussion nationally and locally, thereby inspiring social change consistent with our country’s foundational values.

Deciding which candidate in any particular race offers the best opportunity to take us in the right direction is not an easy task. Yet there is a measuring rod by which all electoral choices must be evaluated: will my vote enhance human dignity?

Certain moral and social issues are fundamentally important, since human rights are at stake and must be protected to help democracy to flourish in a way that benefits every citizen. These include the defense of the sanctity of life, the family based on marriage between a man and a woman, religious freedom, and the well-being of the poor. As shifts in societal challenges are inevitable, it is also vital to determine from election to election which human rights face the greatest threat at the time of voting.

The opportunity to vote is a blessing. Taking advantage of this opportunity is an expression of hope. Go to the polls on Election Day and, through your choices at the ballot, act on your vision of a better society.

+ Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, O.F.M. Cap. Archbishop of Boston

+ Bishop Robert J. McManus, Bishop of Worcester

+ Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell, Bishop of Springfield

+ Bishop George W. Coleman, Bishop of Fall River

MASSACHUSETTS CATHOLIC CONFERENCE, October 25, 2010

Comparisons

2010-10-24T09:48:00.002-04:00

A very interesting thing is how many times in his stories Jesus makes comparisons.

He contrasts a man and a woman, a disciple and a soldier, a Jew and a Gentile, an individual and a crowd. We see how different they are and learn something vitally important about ourselves - something meant to save us.

And so, a leading holy man hosts a dinner for Jesus - but fails to welcome him with the usual hospitality. Also present is a sinful woman who washes the guest's feet and dries them with her hair. That night we learned who was really holy!

Or we see 3 men walking - the first two: a priest and a Levite - both respected - then a third, from Samaria, wherever that is. Who helps the fourth, the one lying half dead on the side of the road? You remember. The third, the foreigner.

There are wise and foolish virgins - five with oil in hand, waiting in vigil. Five distracted and shut out.

We hear of men with places of honor at banquets, now brought low - and of those sitting way back suddenly called up.

I think of a father with two sons - one dutiful, the other wasteful. The younger one wises up and becomes the father's joy. The older can't bear it and maybe never gets over it.

Comparisons - so often with a twist or a hook you don't see coming - all meant to teach holiness - the work of a Master Teacher.

Today, we hear another. On center stage at the Temple: a Pharisee and a tax collector. Both come to pray.

Now, we're probably so conditioned to think of the Pharisees as bad people that we think this one bad. He may not have been that bad! Let's not forget his goodness. That's a point Jesus makes.

On the other hand, we may be conditioned to think every tax collector convertible - like Matthew the tax collector. Don't be fooled. Tax collectors were terrible. Jesus knows that.

The Pharisee begins by thanking God. That's not a bad way to start your prayer, by thanking God. He thanks God for not being greedy, dishonest, or adulterous.

We have to take him at his word. He's telling the truth. Almost certainly he was generous, honest and monogamous.

He's probably done a lot of good. If we'd known him, we might even like him.

His problem was attitude. The wrong attitude.

Yes, he was generous, honest and monogamous. The Law dictates this.

But the whole the point of The Law is to draw him - and everyone else - closer to God - closer to others It provides the structure we need to get closer to God.

The good actions of the Pharisee, formed in The Law - should have tied him to others and especially to God.

You know, the word 'religion' comes from Latin, religere. It means "to tie back to." We have religion to tie us back to God and one another.

The Pharisee rejoices that it separates him from the other man. He's thinks he's better.

This is the key, the crux of the matter, the point Jesus is making. The Pharisee's slavish pursuit of law separates him from others.

He revels in the comparison between himself and the other. He's not tying himself to the other. And, his prayer is an act of self-love - not God-love.

That's a real problem.

The tax collector, on the other hand, is not a good man. Objectively, we'd say he was bad. He hurts people.

He's worked for the oppressive Romans against his own people. He's bilked everyone - probably even his own flesh and blood. They hate him.

It was only appropriate that he stand at a distance in the Temple, beat his breast and not look up to heaven. He's despicable - the worst gangster imaginable.

But his prayer is so good - so sincere - we use it as an act of contrition in that confessional box. "O God, be merciful to me a sinner."

He's not there to compare himself to anyone. He goes face to face with God; desperately seeks to tie himself to God, see God, and be moved by God - all in the spirit of true religion.

Jesus shines the spotlight on him.

What's the Lord teaching us?

The Law is good, very good. After all, he said he didn't come to abolish the rules.

Our religious practice is meant to form us - help us turn to God - never to make us feel superior. Its supposed to draw us together - draw us to God.

We who have fallen away from God and we alienated from one another need to be tied back.

Draw in The Law and draw in divine life.

Go face to face with God and say, humbly, "be merciful to me a sinner."

Monsignor Thomas J. Sullivan

Chancellor

People Will Always Have Need of God

2010-10-23T20:40:00.002-04:00

Just a few days ago, Pope Benedict XVI wrote to the seminarians of the world, reflecting in a very personal way on the importance of their vocation. I hope you enjoy his reflections.

When in December 1944 I was drafted for military service, the company commander asked each of us what we planned to do in the future. I answered that I wanted to become a Catholic priest. The lieutenant replied: "Then you ought to look for something else. In the new Germany priests are no longer needed". I knew that this "new Germany" was already coming to an end, and that, after the enormous devastation which that madness had brought upon the country, priests would be needed more than ever.

Today the situation is completely changed. In different ways, though, many people nowadays also think that the Catholic priesthood is not a "job" for the future, but one that belongs more to the past. You, dear friends, have decided to enter the seminary and to prepare for priestly ministry in the Catholic Church in spite of such opinions and objections. You have done a good thing. Because people will always have need of God, even in an age marked by technical mastery of the world and globalization: they will always need the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, the God who gathers us together in the

universal Church in order to learn with him and through him life’s true meaning and in order to uphold and apply the standards of true humanity.

Where people no longer perceive God, life grows empty; nothing is ever enough. People then seek escape in euphoria and violence; these are the very things that increasingly threaten young people. God is alive. He has created every one of us and he knows us all. He is so great that he has time for the little things in our lives: "Every hair of your head is numbered". God is alive, and he needs people to serve him and bring him to others. It does makes sense to become a priest: the world needs priests, pastors, today, tomorrow and always, until the end of time.

The seminary is a community journeying towards priestly ministry. I have said something very important here: one does not become a priest on one’s own. The "community of disciples" is essential, the fellowship of those who desire to serve the greater Church. In this letter I would like to point out – thinking back to my own time in the seminary – several elements which I consider important for these years of your journeying....

I have wanted to let you know how often I think of you, especially in these difficult times, and how close I am to you in prayer. Please pray for me, that I may exercise my ministry

well, as long as the Lord may wish. I entrust your journey of preparation for priesthood to the maternal protection of Mary Most Holy, whose home was a school of goodness and of grace. May Almighty God bless you all, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

From the Vatican, 18 October 2010, the Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist.

Yours devotedly in the Lord,

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

Cathedral Conference for Life

2010-10-15T20:08:00.001-04:00

My dear brothers and sisters:

Did you happen to read the article in last week’s Time Magazine about the developing research in “fetal origins”? It tells the fascinating story of how many aspects of our lives seem to be greatly influenced by our first nine months of life in our mothers’ wombs.

I was particularly struck, however, by the author’s concluding paragraph:

As for me, the baby in my belly for these last nine months is now a sandy-haired toddler named Gus. Where did his particular qualities come from? Will he be strong or sickly, excitable or calm? What will his future hold? These are the questions parents have long pondered about their children. More and more, it looks as if many of the answers will be found in the womb.

I was struck by this paragraph because, when I read it, I had just come from chatting and praying with the folks who several days each week stand in front of the Planned Parenthood building on Pleasant Street, seeking to save the babies in the bellies of scores of mothers from being aborted.

It is hard for me to imagine how a woman can abort her child. But, then again, perhaps that is not altogether fair. For I do not know the pain, the anxiety and even the blind panic which can set in when a child has been conceived unexpectedly. Maybe the woman is young, or single, or lives on the street. Maybe the woman has emotional or psychological or even financial problems which cause extraordinary distress.

But no matter how tragic the pain the new mother may experience, it is never sufficient cause to take the life of the baby in her belly. Which is why we need to do everything we can to love each mother to the truth, to save her from a system which often forces people into a life of regret, and to bring about laws which protect the life and liberty of every human being from conception to natural death.

That’s why, with the great help of the Diocesan Pro-Life Office, the Cathedral is sponsoring a Conference for Life on October 30th. The brochure describing this day is included in this week’s bulletin. We will be privileged to have two of the best staffers from the Bishops’ Conference with us: Susan Wills, who directs all educational efforts on pro-life for the USCCB, and Richard Dorflinger, who is the USCCB expert on stem cell and end of life issues. Susan and Richard will present the keynotes, and Bishop McManus and another half-dozen advocates for life from across our community will lead workshops on a variety of life-related topics. The day will conclude with the regular 4:00pm Mass, celebrated by Bishop Reilly, at which I will preach.

Please consider joining us for this day. Details on registration are found in the enclosed brochure. It’s the least we can do for all the babies in the bellies of mothers everywhere.

In the Lord,

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rectorsaintpauls@aol.com

Who's Plan is it Anyway?

2010-10-15T18:32:00.002-04:00

Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily

It was an ordinary August morning in the Atacama desert when Omar Reygadas said goodbye to his wife Marcella and headed for work. As he left the house, he and his wife were talking about their fourth great-grandchild, who was expected any day now. Marcella had been talking to her son, Omar, Jr., and her daughters, Claudia, Marcella, and Humana, about the party they were going to have at their house after the Baptism.

When Omar arrived at work, he entered the San Esteban mine, as he always did, on a rail car, which descended 1,300 feet into the earth. It was then that he and his 32 co-workers heard a low rumble, like an earthquake. Then the mine lights went out and even the beams on their helmets were obscured by a suffocating cloud of dust. Three hours later, the dust settled and Omar realized the roof of the mine had collapsed on top of them.

The party, his expectant daughter, and everything he had planned...all had been momentarily shaken. He was not, it now appeared, really in control.

It was an ordinary August day and Dr. Mehmet Oz had decided to highlight the importance of colonoscopies on his TV show. So he decided to undergo the procedure with the cameras rolling in order to show that this life saving-test, while uncomfortable in s several ways, was really not as bad as most people imagined. He was in excellent health, exercised and ate a consistently healthy diet, and had no family history of colon cancer. Seemed like a piece of cake.

But then, in the middle of the procedure, with camera rolling, he was told they had found a polyp and then a second. And a few days later he was told that while the polyps were no longer dangerous, they were the type would most definitely turn to cancer....the kind that kills. And for the first time, this successful TV doctor, the picture of health, found out he could get cancer and die. The cameras caught the shocked look on his usually confident face, and the audio picked up the quake in his voice as he called his wife with the news, followed by a quick "we'll talk about this when I get home.” His plans of fame, health and perfect control...all his plans, had been momentarily shaken. He was not, it seemed, really in control.

It was an ordinary June day in the town of Stuart, although it could have been Worcester just as easily. Tim and Beth were waiting for Sarah, who at fourteen was coming home from the movies with her two friends. Her best friend’s uncle Ted went to pick them up in his Cadillac and they piled into the back seat and chatted and screamed and laughed as only fourteen year old friends can do. That is until Stephen, drunk and sixteen years old, ran that stop sign and Jennifer died.

I cannot imagine what that night did to Tim and Beth. Their dreams of seeing Jennifer graduate, walk down the aisle, hold their grandchild in her arms, and take care of them in their old age...all these dreams disappeared in a moment in the middle of the night. Just like that, it all changed.

It all changed. And it all changes. In the unfathomable will of God.

A God whose wisdom is unknowable, at the same time we know he is all wise. A God whose plan is but gradually unfolded, though always conceived in love. A God whom our little hearts sometimes see as cruel, remote, or even uncaring, but whose unbelievable love for me is the definition of what it means to love.

Which is so hard for me to take. For like a three year old, unwilling to obey, I do my darnedest to see that my will be done, to amass possessions and power as a tribute to my glory, to become all that I want to be and to to fill my life with all I need to have, ever striving to build a life which is a monument to my narcissism.

But then, over and over again, God reminds me, in harsh and sometimes gentle ways, that he is the author, the creator, who made me in love, to be love, to become each day conformed to his cross, to obliterate hate, to rejoice in littleness, and to conquer even death with sacrifice.

Pray

Which is why we pray. To beg God to give us understanding. Of why he put us here and what he wants us to do.

Our is the insistent prayer of Christ in the Garden before his Blessed Passion, sweating blood and crying tears, so often mixed with fear and pain. Father, we beg, take this cup of suffering away from me. But, in the end, not my will, but yours be done.

In the good days, the summers of our lives, when the sun seems so bright, the world so beautiful and we’re just much in control: your will be done...

And in the fearsome and wintry days, when nothing seems too certain, and each choice fills us with dread: your will be done...

For make no mistake about it, in good times and in bad, God is ever with us. He who died for us, and who will raise up on the last day is ever with us. He who ascended to the Father and sent us out to love others as he loved us is ever with us, even until the end.

Trust in him, then. Pray to him. Confide in him, in tears and in suffering, in joy and in hope. In good times and in bad, pray for his help, the discernment of his will, and a full measure of his love.

For we never know what tomorrow will bring. We only know, that when we are startled by what God has in store, that he who made us in love, will be with us to the end. And in his unfathomable wisdom, will lead us to eternal joy.

Cathedral For Life Conference on October 30th

2010-10-12T16:10:00.002-04:00

Only One Returned to Give Thanks...

2010-10-07T21:21:00.002-04:00

Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily

Timothy Dexter is one of the most colorful characters to walk the fields of Massachusetts in the decades following the American Revolution. Born in Malden, he made his first fortune by speculating in Continental currency. His continuing success was due to a combination of audacity and incredible luck.

Against all odds, he exported wool mittens to the West Indies, at just the time an exporter in that tropical climate began shipping to Siberia. Next, he literally sent coals to Newcastle, at just the moment a British coal miner’s strike made him a fortune there. He exported Bibles to the Muslim East Indies, stray cats to the Caribbean, and having hoarded a warehouse full of whalebone, by necessity invented the whalebone corset, which became all the rage in nineteenth century New England.

He was eccentric, but wise beyond his capacity, and never ceased to attribute his multiple successes to those who helped him along the way. Indeed, gratitude was, in his view, the most important of virtues.

“An ungrateful man,” he would frequently say, ‘is like a hog under a tree eating acorns, who never looks up to see where they came from.’

Nine of the ten lepers in today’s Gospel are just such narcissistic hogs. Cleansed of their disease, cured of their disability, they are now set on getting on with their life, with not a smidgen of gratitude and not a word of thanks to the Lord who cured them.

And we are not so different. Sadly, ingratitude is so rampant in our day and age that we often become surprised by folks who are habitually grateful.

On the day I received my last postgraduate degree I practically sprained my wrist patting myself on the back. But did I think of Miss Lucasak who first taught me cursive in third grade, or Miss Morin who encouraged us to write those one page essays with the pictures two years later. Did I think of the Priest who first inspired me with a love for the Liturgy, or my parents who put me through College, or the inspiring professors I had come to know along the way. Did I think of the scholars who had constructed that world of knowledge in which I had gained some proficiency, or those who built the institutions which had led me through those mysteries.

No, I thought of none of them, I never gave them a thought or a prayer. I never said thank-you. Just like the ungrateful lepers, I got on with my life and I never looked back.

I was like the cancer patient, who through the chemo and radiation begs God for just a few more years to see her daughter married or her grandchild graduate. Who prays with fervor, begging God in the early morning darkness to hear her prayers, bargaining and promising that God will be all that really matters in whatever years he might graciously give her...and when she’s cancer free, things get back to normal...minus the fervent prayer, the desperate search for God, and the repeated pledges to do his will. She gets back to living HER life, and gives God the hour on Sunday, as long as she doesn’t have something more important to do. She gets on with her life and never looks back.

It’s like the anger of the spouse who stands by the grave of the woman he has loved for sixty years and with bitterness blames God for taking her from him. His God at that moment is a cruel puppet master, who pulls the strings and makes us dance, and causes the dark evil of death and suffering in fulfillment of some perverse scheme of manipulation. And as he stands there he forgets the day that God brought together two young teens as the light of their lives in the dark days of the depression, skating at Elm Park and knowing that nothing could ever be this beautiful. He forgets the first time they wept with perfect joy, cradling their newborn baby in their arms, convinced no God could ever be this good, and no thing could ever be so beautiful. He forgets the infinite number of sacrifices, acts of mercy: tiny expressions of exquisite love all made possible by that same God’s unbelievably gracious love for him.

But right now, he is blinded by the pain, and all he can do is cling to the darkness...he has to get on with it and he can’t look back.

It’s like those who were Baptized in that font who seldom go to Church, say a prayer, feed the poor, forgive, or even seek to love others as they were loved. They go about living their lives, happy enough, but never full satisfied, getting along, but still uncertain about what it really means.

Sure they know joy, for a moment, in the money, in the power, in the successful career, in all the thousands of little reflections of God’s goodness which this wonderful world contains. But all they see are glimmers and reflections. Never the full face of him who waits for them, never the splendrous glory of his care for them, never the beauty of listening to him, never the strength of receiving him, never the joy of giving thanks.

For they have things to do, and they will continue to take, without looking back, and never say thank you.

And then there’s you and me. Fickle, self-absorbed, and sinful as we are, we still try to crane our necks to at least look back. To break the bread, to tell the story, and to give thanks as best we able.

For that is what this is called, what we do in this place: Eucharist, thanksgiving: a memorial of recollection and gratitude, in which we remember all that he has done for us, from our first breath to our last, the love, the mercy, the sacrifice....the faith which makes sense of the darkest days and the mystery which defeats the deadly with eternal joy and eternal life.

Which is why in just a few moments, speaking in the person of Christ himself, I call out to you: Lift up your hearts. And you will lift them up to the Lord.

And unlike ungrateful lepers or hogs, we will give thanks to the Lord our God. For it is right to give him thanks and praise.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

Cain, the King and the Pharoah

2010-10-02T08:20:00.002-04:00

Homily

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord," Habbakuk laments. 'But you, O Lord, do nothing to stop it...why must I gaze at this misery!?'

How often we make the lament of Habakuk our own! Violence and misery, wars and murders, suicides and betrayals, people stripped of their dignity and even their humanity...Its never been so bad, and it's as if God doesn't care!

Well it has been this bad, and it probably will be until the day we depart this valley of tears, but the reason for the violence, dear Habakuk is not the will of God, but the deeds of men, for as Pogo used to say, I have met the enemy, and he is us!

Whether we're Cain, the King or the Pharaoh, it is our sin which is the author of violence and our hardened hearts which incubate our own misery.

Cain

The primordial act of violence in the scriptures is raised in the heart of Cain. The scriptures tell us that Cain raised wheat, while his younger brother Abel raised sheep, one a cattleman, the other a farmer. And when they went to offer sacrifice to God, Abel's offering was seen as more pleasing. At which Cain grew jealous and killed his brother in a jealous rage!

Jealousy was and is is the green-eyed monster, ever longing for the greener grasses in the other fellow's yard. Jealousy is never satisfied and almost always leads to a violent rejection of the will of God. Uh, excuse me God, I think you must have made a mistake. This is the life you chose for me? But where's the yacht, or the private plane, or the awards for my stunning beauty, or the perfect children, or the Nobel prize, or the bit about being smarter or more powerful than everybody else? Where indeed, is al that stuff I know will make me happy? Well if you won't give it, I guess Ill just have to take it!

And so we make believe we know best, or at least better than God what's best for us, and so we plot and plan our destinies. And despite the fact that our schemes must be very amusing to God, we plug right on, for ours is the kingdom and the power and the glory...by hook or by crook. Jealousy is a miserable little wretch.

The King

And then there's the King, and his murderous lust for Bathsheba, which leads the great David to the deceitful slaughter of her husband Uriah. There were really two murders committed by King David that day...one of the virtue of Bathsheba, whom David turned from a person to a thing, and then the brutal killing of one of his most loyal soldiers. All out of a desire to possess the one who did not belong to him and his childish willingness to treat human persons like toy soldiers for the fulfillment of his own fantasies.

It's the same violence we embrace each time we seek to defraud another of their human dignity, to dehumanize the one God made in his image and likeness, ignoring who he made them to be.

It's the sin that drove a young freshman to the George Washington bridge this past week....it's the sin of every kind of pornography...whether the Internet kind that turns vulnerable young people into things we use for our selfish amusement or the political kind that turns all public servants and personalities into objects of ridicule and derision.

Such sins refuse to accord respect to anyone. Everyone is subject to our use and abuse, twisted and destroyed for our entertainment. Policemen or parents, jurists or presidents, priests or physicians, each are but another titillating opportunity to turn real people into jokes, to deride embarrass, and destroy...oh, how the mighty have fallen! So we revel in their misery! What fun for the giggling crowd!...the worst kind of character assassination, worthy neither of the fifth grade school yard, of twitter, TV or the blog. For if I have not love, I am nothing. And if I have not respect, I cannot love.

The Pharoah

And then there;s the genocide of Pharaoh. It started with the death of Joseph and his brothers, the last of the sons of Jacob. Exodus tells us why the genocide begins: “the Israelites were fruitful and prolific. They became so numerous and strong that the land was filled with them.” (Exodus 1:7).

It’s the fear of the stranger, then, that moves Pharaoh to enslave the people whom he knew not! So he does two things: First, he makes all the Israelites slaves, appointing cruel taskmasters over them. And then he calls in the Jewish midwives and commands them to kill every newborn Hebrew child.

Such hatred is as timeless as fear itself: fear of the unknown, fear of the stranger that grows into a desire to make those people just disappear. And while the fear has been the same in every human heart, the identity of those people changes with each generation in every land. For the Hutus, those people are the Tutsis, for the Nazis, they are the Jews....for the Jews they are the Palestinians....and even here in Worcester, for the Yankees they were the Irish, for the Irish they were the French, for the French, they were the Italians, for the Italians they were the Puerto Ricans, for the Puerto Ricans, they were the columbians, and on and on and on, in never ending cycles of suspicion of the next one down on the ladder, breading hate, discrimination, and even violence.

The antidote to such fear, of course, is the confidence of the children of God, who welcome the alien as a brother, treat the stranger as they treat their Lord, and even seek to love their enemies as they love themselves.

So what's the remedy? Is it our good reason, our common sense, or our ability to figure it all out. Hardly! For left to our own devices, we only succeed in digging ourselves deeper and thickening the web of our sins and deceptions.

Our only hope is to be redeemed by Christ, with absolute faith in him, and an absolute surrender to his will, that the hardening of our hearts might be redeemed by the blood which flows from his side. For at the end of the day, 'We are nothing but unprofitable servants, who if they had faith but the size of a mustard seed, would never know violence or misery, ever again.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

The Pope in England

2010-09-17T14:56:00.004-04:00

"...the Christian message has been an integral part of the language, thought and culture of the peoples of these islands for more than a thousand years." -Pope Benedict XVI at Holyroodhouse on Thursday

Two great links for your consideration: Zenit has all the talks being given by the Holy Father, while the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales is providing a live stream of Papal events.

Ordinary Holiness

2010-09-17T11:50:00.002-04:00

Homily
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Tomorrow morning in Crofton Park, not far from the airport in Birmingham, England, Pope Benedict XVI will beatify John Henry Cardinal Newman in the presence of 100,000 people, including Monsignor Sullivan. And in his homily, the Pope will recall Newman’s heroic accomplishments as a “champion of English spirituality,” a ‘synthesizer of faith and reason,’ and one of the finest theologians ever born on the British isles.

We’ll hear of how Leo XIII named him a Cardinal, how15,000 people stood in the rain at his Funeral, and how even the secular press hailed him as “a man of singular purity and beauty of character...”

Quite a man, and quite a saint.

Almost makes you wonder, though: if it took over a hundred years to beatify someone like that, what chance do we have?

What chance indeed? Especially if what made him holy were those mighty deeds and vast accomplishments! But the truth is, that holiness comes neither from mighty deeds, nor from vast accomplishments, but from the infinite number of little moments of sacrifice and love which conform us to Christ, bit by bit. It’s like the Lord tells his disciples in the Gospel today: Who’s the one whom God can trust in great thing? “The person who is trustworthy in very small matters...”

Saints get to heaven when, as Mary declared, God looks upon them in their littleness, and accepts the thousand little ways, the seemingly insignificant sacrifices of a person’s life.

Listen to what one nun once wrote in her journal:

“There's one sister in the community who has the knack of rubbing me the wrong way at every turn; her...manner, her...speech, her character, [all] just strike me as unlovable. But, then...God must love her dearly; so I wasn't going to let this natural antipathy get the better of me. So I determined to treat this sister as if she were the person I loved best in the world. Every time I met her, I used to pray for her, offering to God all her virtues and her merits...But I didn't confine myself to saying a lot of prayers for her, this sister who made life such a tug-of-war for me; I tried to do her every good turn I possibly could. When I felt tempted to take her down with an unkind retort, I would put on my best smile instead, and try to change the subject. Once at recreation she actually said, beaming, ..."...Sister, what it is about me...? You've always got a smile for me whenever I see you."...I could only say that the sight of her always made me smile with pleasure--naturally I didn't explain that the pleasure was entirely spiritual.”

That’s how Sister Theresa of the Child Jesus became Saint Theresa of Lisieux.... by choosing to love the most unlovable person in her house through a thousand daily sacrifices...and doing it so convincingly that until her death everyone around her, including her two sisters, were convinced that this nun (the one who really drove her so crazy all the time) had been her dearest friend!

And it’s the same with us. We do not find real holiness in the great, the dramatic and the spectacular, but in the every day moments of life.

For “This is how we go on:,” a modern writer reminds us, “one day at a time, one meal at a time, one pain at a time, one breath at a time. Dentists go on one root canal at a time; boat builders go on one hull at a time. If you write books, you go on one page at a time...and turn our attention to the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, the next page. This is how we go on.”

And this, is how we get holy.

After thirty years of being a priest, I am absolutely clear on what moment I witnessed the greatest act of holiness. It was in the hospital in Leominster, late one night.

Helen and John has been married for over fifty years and Helen was at the end of a long and painful struggle with cancer. While she was conscious, she was barely able to whisper and it was clear that she was very much near the end. I said the litany and the prayers for the commendation of the dying amidst many tears and hugs and gestures of good bye, all the while with my right hand in Helen’s and my left arm around old John...until Helen, at one point, pulled her hand from mine and gestured for me to come closer.

“Father,” she softly whispered, “ I need you to do me a favor.” “Anything,” I told her. “Anything you want, Helen...” “When I die,” she whispered weakly in my ear, I want you to go to our house...and in the bedroom closet, up on the shelf there’s a white box. Open the box. And inside you will fine a new white shirt. Make sure John wears it to the funeral, because I don’t want them saying I didn’t make sure he had a clean white shirt.”

She smiled weakly as I stood up and they all looked at me, anxious to hear her dying wish. I just smiled back, and watched as John held Helen and Helen held John with an affection they had shown in a billion little ways for ten thousand days...And only at the funeral, did I reveal her secret request, and after they all stopped laughing, including John in the clean white shirt, there was silence, as they all realized that Helen and John had taught us all the way to holiness...through the little things....the “ordinary contact with God..the daily encounter with Christ...

[A life]...lived without fuss, with simplicity, with truthfulness.

So you wanna be holy, you wanna be a like Blessed John, or Saint Theresa, or even Helen?

There’s only one way: "be faithful, very faithful, in all the little things."

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

The Shepherd, the Housekeeper, and the Father

2010-09-15T19:32:00.000-04:00

Homily

Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Pharisees accuse Jesus of hanging around with sinners and eating with them, and he responds with three questions: Did you ever meet a sheepless shepherd, a coinless housekeeper, or a sonless father?

You shepherds! Which of you would not leave you ninety nine sheep all alone in search of the one who had wandered away? Well the honest answer is that no shepherd worth his crook would leave ninety nine sheep unprotected as potential wolf chow in the hope of finding one dumb sheep that was hopelessly lost. Maybe you'd wait for a backup shepherd, but you certainly wouldn't leave the whole flock in search of one percent of your whole investment!

And what housekeeper, upon losing one penny out of the ten in her pocket book would get up in the middle of the night and scour the house with a broom and a flashlight searching for the lost pittance? Probably only the same crazy lady who would call her neighbors at four in the morning to come to an "I just found a penny under the couch" party. No one I know!

And what Father would give his youngest son a third of everything he has in the bank, and when the kid returns, having spent the whole kit and kaboodle, kills the fatted calf and rejoices with unmitigated joy? No Father I know.

No father I know, no housekeeper I know, no shepherd I know would ever act like that. For Jesus is not talking about earthly shepherd, housekeepers and father.

This shepherd is the good shepherd. And this housekeeper is the God who never gives up on us. And this father is the one who waits for us in all our prodigality.

The good shepherd knows his sheep and they know him. He lays down his life for them and protects them from the wolf. But today we hear what happens when just one wanders away. Just one. For just one sheep he leaves the flock and goes in search, so much does he love the stray.

I've had a favorite print of this scene hanging in my room since I was first ordained. Just over the edge of a cliff, a lost lamb is entangled in the brambles, having lost it's footing. As a vulture circles overhead the lamb is literally petrified, its joints locked with fear. While with one hand precariously grasping a tree branch, the good shepherd reaches over the cliff to save the lamb, whom he will soon carry home on his shoulders, to the safety of the other ninety nine.

The lost sheep is the young person who, flush with the newfound freedom of early adulthood, wanders away from the Church in search of pleasure and soon falls off the cliff of his own desires, entangled in the selfishness of opportunism, while the vultures of greed circle around his head. But don't worry. For the Good Shepherd is out there seeking him along with his Blessed Mother and every angel and saint. Pray to them for him. For when things look the most precarious, when life appears to have finally fallen hopelessly apart, the goos shepherd will be there to grasp his hand, to pick him up, and to carry him home.

We can never stray so far that God cannot find us. And the Good Shepherd never gives up on the lost sheep.

As the Good Housekeeper values each one of her coins, even when she loses just one penny in the middle of the night. It doesn't matter that its just a penny. She still gets up out of bed, lights the lights, and sweeps every possible corner until she finds it.

She loves even the littlest penny the way that God loves the lowliest sinner. The penny is the addict, who has robbed, cheated and stolen his way through life. His wife gave up on him. The kids, from all three women, gave up on him. Even his mother and father and brothers gave up on him. And he sits in a cell, bloated with emptiness and bitter regret. He is the least of men, and no one will even notice when he dies.

No one but the God who made him, and who has been searching for him through the darkness of each night of his life, sweeping the alleys, looking among the broken dreams that define his horizons. He seeks him

And when this lost penny is found, there will be more rejoicing in heaven than over a whole Cathedral full of righteous ones. And he will call in the angels and saints to celebrate...for this lost little penny of mine is found....let the celebration begin.

As the Father of the prodigal Son, your father and mine, gives us everything....more than our share of the estate...he gives us the cool Fall breezes, the giggling and smile of a little child, the blueness of the sky and the beauty of the flowers, the sound of the voice of the person who loves you, and the whole world, for as far as you can see. It’s all for you.

And what do we do with this grand inheritance? We abuse his creation for our entertainment, we use people for our pleasure, and head off for distant countries, far from his love, where we squander our inheritance on a life of dissipation.

And when we have spent everything....our purity, our innocence, and even our love...when we have sold it all to the highest bidder, we come running back to him, seeking to strike one more bargain....seeking to treat him like just one more merchant to be bought and sold.

And what does he do? Does he scream at us, “You did what?” Do the corners of his mouth inflict a scowl of disappointment and remind us of our sin? Does he turn his back on us in justice and deserved derision?

No, he runs out to meet us, throws his arms around us, interrupts our silly bargaining, and throws a banquet in our honor, never ending, in his Heavenly Kingdom. All because we were sorry, and all because we came home.

And when we complain about how merciful he is being to our brothers when we’ve been working our hands off and he doesn't care when when we whine that he should have thrown the little runt out on his head. When we return bitterness for love and ambition for kindness.

He patiently reminds us of his love, and how he’s made all this for us, of how we will be with him forever, of how we have to celebrate and rejoice, for the one who was dead has come back to life and the one who was lost is found.

That’s what he does, this friend of sinners, this seeker of the lost, this lover of the prodigal, who has mercy on Pharisees and on us.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

From Slave to Friend to Brother

2010-09-04T11:16:00.002-04:00

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily

Onesimus was a slave, sent by Philemon to take care of Saint Paul in prison. Now the idea of sending a servant to someone in prison makes little sense in our own day, but in Paul's prison, the residents were expected to provide for their own needs, and the elderly Paul was not quite up to the task. Remember, by this point in this life he had been imprisoned several times, arrested on four occasions, and once stoned and left for dead.

So Philemon sends his slave Onesimus to the old Paul in order to help him to get by. But, it appears from Saint Paul's words, that Onesimus did not remain a slave for long. Indeed, he becomes a dear friend to the old Apostle, one whom he refers to as "of my own heart."

And then, in a curious turn of phrase, Saint Paul suggests that Onesimus is something even more than a friend...he is, in Pauls own words, a man and a brother.

From slave to beloved to brother. What does this all mean?

From Slaves to Friends

In the beginning, we are all duloi,or slaves. Slaves to our passions, slaves to our needs, slave to selfishness and sin. And then, starting with those fights with our younger sisters and older brothers and by the competitions of the schoolyard, we turn from slaves to free men and women, liberated from our narcissism, we become beloved friends.

Do you remember your first friends? I do. We'd ride bikes together and take the bus to Worcester on Saturdays to buy Superman comic books at the old Bus station (see how old I am?) and visit the old Science Museum behind the chancery, the library and the Cathedral. It's almost fifty years ago, but I can still remember the joy and the trials of first being called a friend.

And since then, each friendship has been more of the same. Best friends, spouses, colleagues and acquaintances. Each beloved not for what they can do for you, but for who they are. In the image of Christ Jesus, who commands us to love one another as he has loved us, we learn the meaning of passion and sacrifice, of self-emptying and letting go, of dying and rising in loving those whom we call beloved in our lives.

Such love is never easy, but it is the treasure beyond all price, for in true love we see a true reflection of the face of Christ upon the cross. Such love, Saint Paul tells us, is patient, kind, does not put on airs...and most of all, is merciful.

Perhaps mercy is the acid test of love, for it is given at the moment when we have precisely nothing to gain and all to give. Father forgive them, Christ prays from the altar of the cross, for they know not what they do.

I remember one day several years ago flying out of Washington DC with an old friend of mine. It was a cross country flight and one for which we had planned for many months. Upon leaving the house he went to drive to BWI, the airport about a half hour up the Baltimore Washington Parkway. What are you doing, I practically shrieked...we're flying out of DCA, a half hour in the other direction. I don't think so, James, he calmly came back. Im sure the itinerary said BWI. Well you're just not as used to traveling as I am, Im sure it was DCA. And when he suggested we get out and look at the packed itinerary, I stubbornly insisted: Trust me, it's DCA.

Well, as we left DCA a half hour later, having discovered he was right all along, with the fear that we would now miss our flight due to my insufferable self-assuredness, I was very quiet, until I sheepishly looked up at him, expecting, at the very least, to be berated for my mistake.

But to my surprise, he smiled, laughed softly, and mercifully reminded me, we can

always get get the next flight. I make mistakes like that all the time.

Love is patient. Love is kind. And most of all, it is merciful.

Brothers

But the story of Onesimus brings us one step further in relationship. Further than a best friend, further than a spouse. For Onesimus goes from slave to beloved to brother.

Brothers or adelphoi in Greek, is one of Saint Pauls favorite words, but he uses it advisedly. Adelphoi is a non-gendered word in Greek...it means brothers and sisters alike...like the Italian fratelli or the Spanish hermanos.

We become brothers and sisters by virtue of our relationship to Jesus, who no longer calls us slaves, but friends, brothers and sisters. And because we have become his adelphoi, we have become adopted sons of his Father in heaven. And that's the whole point! We are Gods children, the siblings of the Son of God and the children of God.

That changes everything. Because if God is our Father, we can pray to him, trust in his mercy and are heirs to his heavenly kingdom.

It changes everything, because if God is our Father and Jesus is our brother, we can learn from the first born Son how to live and to love, trust that when we get lost, he will go out to look for us and will carry us home and rest assured that our judge on the last day is also our intercessor, the one who desires not the death of his brother, but that he repent and live!

This is why Saint Paul so often begins his letters to the various churches he has founded with the vocative Adelphoi: Brothers and sisters, Church, sons and daughter of the one Father. For this is our essential identity, and the very reason for our being. Why did God make me? To be a brother to you in Christ: a part if this holy people, this royal priesthood, no longer a stranger in a strange land, but your brother, joined to you in an intimate union of sacrificial life and love.

For, we do not get to heaven alone, Saint Paul and Onesimus teach us, but as God's holy people, joined in a bond of sacrificial love as his Church...no longer a slaves...but more than a slave, as brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

Hell

2010-08-23T09:08:00.003-04:00

Homily

Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Hell”

I buried one of my dearest friends about ten years ago. She was one of the kindest people you would ever meet. A hairdresser by trade, after her retirement she spent the hours between doctors’ appointments visiting the sick and leading the rosary at the Nursing Home three times a week.

She was a good and faithful Catholic and loved the Lord and his Church and longed for the grace God gave her through the Sacraments. But, like many people, Loretta had an awful time believing in hell. “I just cant believe that God would send anyone to hell,” she used to lament. “Jesus died for us, and I cant believe he wouldn’t let everybody go to heaven.”

Well today’s Gospel presents a particular challenge to those who, like my dear departed friend, have a hard time believing in hell. For Jesus responds to the question, Will only a few people be saved? by a moral exhortation and a parable, both of which are instructive in the matter at hand.

First Jesus exhorts us “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” The Greek verb which we translate as strive is agonizomai and its where we get our word agony from. Its used to refer to what a competitor in a sporting event does...giving it all he’s got to win. It implies sacrifice and suffering.

And in the context of the rest of these discourses in Luke, given by Jesus as he goes up to Jerusalem for the final time to offer his life on the cross, it clearly implies our participation in his passion, a loving and self-emptying unto death by joining our lives to the sacrifice of Christ, he who is the way, the truth, and the life.

But then comes the parable. It’s not unlike the one in Matthew about the wise and foolish bridesmaids. Here the Master of the House (a figure Jesus often used to describe himself) locks the door and there are a bunch of folks standing outside, knocking and yelling: ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ And he replies, just as in the story of the wise and foolish virgins: “I do not know you.”

They are undeterred, arguing their case that he should remember them because they ate and drank with him and he taught in their streets.” Notice, by the way, that they don’t say they learned from him, but that he happened to be teaching in the same town they were living in.

And he responds with the same words he uses for Satan when he was tempted in the desert at the beginning of his ministry: ?Depart from me, you evildoers!” At which these cast aways go off to the “wailing and grinding of teeth.”

Three points on Hell: The Ticket, the Destination, and the Alternative

The Ticket

First, notice (and this would please Loretta) that Christ does not buy the ticket for people to go to hell. People choose to go to hell and pay the fare with the way they live their lives. Angels with flaming swords do not drive sinners from the gates of heaven, rather it is the selfishness and sin of peoples’ lives that exile them from paradise. People place themselves on the outside of that locked door by the choices they make. They know about Jesus teaching in their streets, but they choose not to listen to his words.

The Destination

Second, the destination: hell is the other side of a locked door--eternal separation from God, eternal alienation from love, the eternal torment of being alone forever. Images of brim-stony fire and devils with horns, red suits and pointy tails, along with graphic depictions of grim torments and tortures have long occupied the imagination of artists and preachers. But the real torture, the real hell of hell, is that we can’t see God from there. And where there is no God there is no love. And where there is no love there is but selfishness, sin, death, and the never-ending dark frigidity of our alienation.

And how can we deny it? We sons and daughters of Adam and Eve...we children of a century in which more than a hundred million people were slaughtered in cruel wars and genocides, in which we first invented a weapon which could destroy the entire human race, and in which we legalized the abortion of babies and the euthanizing of old people. How can we deny there is a hell, chosen freely and justly deserved?

The Alternative

And finally, the alternative. Each of us have the ability at every moment of our lives to turn away from selfishness and sin, to reject Satan and all his works and all his empty promises, to pick up our cross and follow Christ through the narrow gate. The mercy of God is ever patient and like the father of the prodigal Son, Christ the merciful judge waits for us in that confessional to turn away from sin and give our lives back to him.

Conclusion

Such a little meditation on hell is not a bad tonic for the soul, and one which we modern men and women should perhaps partake of more often than we do. Saint Alphonsus Liguori used to recommend a daily meditation on the four last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell.

It is a meditation which is so easy for me each time I look down from this sanctuary at a coffin lying before the Paschal Candle as mourners week and the smell of incense fills the Cathedral. For as I beg God’s mercy on the soul of the deceased, I cannot help but think of my own soul, and those last and most important things.

Do I really love or am I selfish? Do I believe the truth or do I spend my life foolishly on myself? Do I forgive those who hurt me or do I seek vengeance? Do I grab for all the stuff I can get or do I spend myself and my goods on those who need them more than me? Do I seek to keep pure the precious gifts God had given me, or do I cast his pearls before swine? Do I strive to be holy, or do I seek after my interests, my pleasures, and me?

Do I want to go to heaven or do I choose to go to hell?

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

Love and Marriage

2010-08-16T15:00:00.002-04:00

Nineteenth Sunday of the Year

Homily

Two couples stood before this altar yesterday afternoon and promised to be faithful to one another until death and to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the teaching of Christ and his Church.

Many in this world think they’re crazy.

Where did they get all this from? they ask: That marriage is supposed to last a lifetime? Well, at least when they come to their senses there's an app for that. All you have to do is download it to your iphone or ipad, punch in your financial information and divorce apps.com will estimate how much it will cost to abandon your latest spouse.

Where did they get all this from? they ask: That marriage requires lifelong fidelity? But what about all those nightly stories about the divorces of Sandra Bullock or Ivana Trump or Larry King? And what’s with those adds on Craigslist?

Where did they get all this from? they ask: That marriage entails a commitment to having and caring for children? Why do you suppose that the Federal Government provides a substantial tax break for married people? Is it because marriages used to produce the next generation of children who will become citizens and so the state felt it had an interest in fostering their well being? But now we have sperm banks, and professional couples with no time for children, and we're able to make lifestyle choices which opt for a second car over a second child. Children and marriage you say? How quaint!

Where did they get all this from? they ask: That marriage is between a man and a woman? Whose business is it anyway who I marry? Marriage is a choice and I get to choose who I marry and what it means and no one but a bigot can tell me otherwise. Just as we get to define the signage on South Main and the Racino in Ranham, the state has a right to define the meaning of marriage.

Where does the Church get these ideas from, the world asks? She gets them from God. For it is the will of God as revealed through his Church down through the centuries that 'marriage is a faithful, exclusive, and lifelong union between one man and one woman, joined as husband and wife in an intimate partnership of life and love, a union established by God with its own proper laws. That marriage exists equally and inseparably for the mutual love and support of the spouses and for the procreation and education of children. Such a vision of marriage makes the human person whole and contributes to the dignity, stability, peace, and prosperity of the family and of society.'

And other definitions, by someone other than God, just aren't the same.

The California Ruling

This past week, a district court in California overturned the ban on same sex marriage in that state. The airwaves and the internet are replete with commentary, much of it generating more heat than light. But the Church remains committed to the light and the truth. And the truth is that marriage is not something open to anyone's redefinition, not even the Church's. Ours is a revealed religion, and we believe that God has ordained that marriage is for a man and a woman for life in fidelity, lived in co creation with God of life and of love.

Gay Marriage

So what of two gay people who want to be married? What does the Church have to say to them?

Many people are gay, indeed, probably many of those sitting before me right now have probably felt strong impulses of same sex attraction. The Church does not teach that you are bad, or defective, or broken, or sick. The Church teaches that all men and women are created in the image and likeness of God

At the same time, the Church teaches that the purpose of sex is love and procreation and that any and all all sexual activity outside the bond of marriage is sinful. Masturbation is sinful; and sex with someone to whom I am not married, of the same or the opposite sex, is sinful.

Celibacy

So what is a gay person to do? To live a life devoid of love? Never!...for the purpose of life, the reason for which each one of us were made, is to learn to love and serve God and my neighbor, and thus be happy with God forever in heaven.

Christ calls the gay Christian to love. He calls him or her to a heroic love, a sacrificial love, which draws them all the closer to his cross, to participate in his perfect sacrifice,...for the gay Christian is called to a lifelong faithful celibacy, shish to this world seems absurd, but to the one who accepts the cross is an incredible grace.

Celibacy? The world snickers and scoffs: it's not possible. But it's the same people who snicker at faithful celibacy who snicker at faithful married love. Ask the five priests who live across the street or the religious who teach in our schools, and care for our elderly, and feed the poor. Is celibacy possible? Ask me.

As a priest, I have been called to lifelong celibacy, and I am convinced that such is the will of God for me. And it is because of this celibacy that I have lived a life filled with love, given and received, far beyond my wildest imaginings. And to the degree that I have committed myself myself to a life of true chastity and authentic celibacy, to that extent have I been overwhelmed with the love of God showered upon me in my unworthiness through friends and family and fellow travelers in God's holy Church.

Will I ever know the joy of holding my own child in my arms or of hearing the voice of a wife who has pledged faithful love to me unto death? No, but real love, whether married or celibate, entails sacrifice, for sacrifice leads us to the cross, which is the only place where love is really learned.

A Final Word

So to all who are gay, I tell you this morning. God loves you, your Church loves you, and you are invited to a great adventure of lifelong celibate love.

And to you who are not gay, married or single, you too, each in the unique life experiences God has given you, in good times and in bad, are invited to love in the image of God.

For in the end, it is not a question of labeling people straight or queer, of condemning people to a hidden life of shame, or of casting anathemas over walls of hate, built of our own fears.

Rather, let us love one another in kindness and truth, as a great Bishop's motto and life once reminded us, and let us never fear to love as Christ has called us to, faithfully, for the rest of our lives.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

Stuff

2010-08-16T14:59:00.002-04:00

Homily

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Stuff”

Today the Church puts before us the question of greed. The pursuit of stuff.

You hardly need a degree in behavioral economics to understand that we're all in love with stuff...with shopping, buying and possessing lots of stuff. When we’re depressed, we buy stuff. When we're happy, we buy stuff.

And as a famous product of our Catholic schools once noted, buying the stuff is just the beginning, for then we need a place to put it, so we drive to the Container Store, where we buy something to put our stuff in. In fact that's what our houses have become: big containers for all our stuff, where we can lock it up and keep other people from stealing it and putting it with their stuff. Even when we travel we carry little bags of our stuff, which we keep with us wherever we go.

And then there's the updating of my stuff, for last years stuff is never as good as thus year's stuff.....and after purchasing this years stuff I need to do something with last years stuff, so it's off to the Container Store once again.

And before you know it, taking care of my stuff is a full time job. And all my time, my affections, and my life are given over to the getting and keeping of stuff...to the point where I’m not sure whether I own them, or they own me. Indeed, there are days, I fear, when we treat our possessions like little Gods, while we treat God and the people he sends us to love, like just another collection of things.

Which is precisely the problem the man at the beginning of today's Gospel is grappling with. He has apparently been cheated out of his a bunch of stuff by his equally greedy brother, and so he demands of Jesus: "Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” He wants what he has coming.

The tone of his demand is remarkably like the complaint of Mary against her sister Martha a couple of weeks ago. And once again, the Lord is not overly enthused about quelling a sibling rivalry, but rather chooses to teach a lesson, whose moral is right up front: "Take care to guard against all greed (the lust for stuff), for though one may be rich (with stuff), one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

What's wrong with spending my life seeking possessions? Three things: Time, Happiness, and Truth.

Time

Time. None of my stuff lasts forever. Ultimately, it all rots, rusts, and turns to dust. For as “leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.”

None of my stuff, none of it lasts forever.

Prospero understood this in Shakespeare’s Tempest when, interrupting his short play he suggests that like this performance, all we see and touch is but “the stuff as dreams are made on," stuff that "shall dissolve, and, like this insubstantial pageant faded....be melted into air, into thin air."

2. What's wrong with spending my life for possessions? Happiness. You’ve heard it said before, money can’t buy happiness. By the way, there's a friend of mine who likes to challenge that old truism, by suggesting that money may not buy happiness, but you can use it to rent it for a short time.

But what about real happiness. That kind that that makes you sleep like a baby and giggle like a little child? In a recent survey of 114 countries, respondents were asked to tell whether they were very happy, happy, unhappy, or very unhappy. You know which country in the world was the happiest? Nigeria, with an average annual wage of $300 per person. The United States came in fourteenth in happiness with an annual wage of over $40,000 per year.

3. What's wrong with spending my life for possessions? Truth.

For what does it really gain a man to purchase the whole world, pack it all up in a nice new barn, and be called to heaven the next day. Rather, Jesus warns us, ‘store up treasure for yourselves in heaven, and seek the higher things, the things the only things that last forever, faith in God, hope in his promise, and love in the image of Jesus, his Son.

All the rest if vanity, as Qoheleth reminds us...all the rest distracts us from finding our lives hidden with Christ in God.

The obsession with stuff, and its care and feeding, is our primary distraction from the real purpose of life: loving God and my neighbor, seeking after holiness and building up of the kingdom of God.

So what do w do? Do we give all our stuff to God and to his Church. Well, while that might make Monsignor Moroney happy, I have to admit that its not quite that simple. For God, St Augustine reminds us, does not want your gifts. God wants you.

He wants all of you.

He want you to be detached from the things of this earth, not because they are bad in themselves, but because they distract you from him.

He wants you, in the image of his only-begotten Son, to spend yourself, not for the goods of this earth, but for the good of those who need to be loved.

He wants you to shower mercy on everyone who hurts you, not because it is deserved, but because it is just.

He wants you to run out to find everyone who is lost or afraid or alone, not because there is anything in it for you, but because the lost sheep needs someone to cary him home.

He wants you to pray and to praise him, not because you will thereby gain heaven, but because he is worthy of all praise.

He wants you to feed the poor and clothe the naked, not so you can feel good about yourself, but because they need you.

He wants you to be like Jesus upon the cross, freed from the grasping fear that makes us hoard all that stuff for ourselves. He wants you to so open your arms, to so let go, to be so emptied, as to be filled only with his love.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

You are the Christ

2010-08-16T14:58:00.001-04:00

Homily

Mission Sunday 2010

“You are the Christ”

Jesus turns to his disciples and to us and utters those stark words: Who do you say I am? To which Peter boldly responds: You are the Christ of God.

Such a dangerous profession commits each one us to believe...

To believe that the purpose of life is to so cling to his cross that we die to our sinful selves and rise with him in glory.

To believe that we are obliged to preach him by the manner of our lives to the ends of the earth.

To believe that we will be judged on whether we have loved unto death the little ones whom everyone else has forgotten.

That is why I am honored to welcome Alicia Butkiewicz, the Director of Missions for Maryknoll Lay Missioners, who will speak to us after Communion in order that we might take up a collection for the Society of the Propagation of the Faith. I urge you to listen carefully to her witness, to be generous to her cause, and to seek to live by her example, as together we seek to live as those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God!

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

Martha and Mary

2010-08-16T14:56:00.002-04:00

Homily

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Martha and Mary”

Over the past two weeks I've been teaching a graduate course in inculturation. Just a few days ago I finished writing the final exam, which will be administered at the end if next week.

I am certain that as my students prepare for this exam the one thing they would most like to see would be the answer key. Because if you know the answers to the exam, it's easy to prepare for it.

Well we have the answers to our final exam. Not the one which Msgr Moroney will give to his students, but the one which Christ will give to Msgr Moroney and to each one of us. Christ gave us the answers when he told us that we would go to heaven or hell based upon how we treated the least of our brothers and sisters:

I was sick....did you care for me?

I was hungry....did you feed me?

I was in prison.....did you visit me?

I was naked....did you clothe me?

We've got the answers to the final exam. Shouldn't be too hard to prepare for it, then!

And remember when the Lord told about the rich man who failed the test. Remember Lazarus, the poor wretch who used to beg for food on the front steps of the rich man's house, and how the dogs used to come and lick the sores on Lazarus' body, while the rich man turned his head the other way and stepped over the beggar on his front stoop.

And you remember how Lazarus went to heaven and e rich man went to hell.

Why did the rich man go to he'll? Because he was rich? No...there's no sin there. He went to tell he'll because he failed to love his brother. And who is his brother. Well, that was last week's parable.

Hospitality, love for the stranger and the alien, the poor wretch and the one whom everyone else forgets is the only correct answer to get into the Kingdom of Heaven.

That's what Abraham and Sarah teach us today when the three strangers go walking by their tent on a stinking hot day. They could have ignored this trinity of strangers, but they did not. They invited them in, bathed their feet, gave them something cool to drink and cared for them. Why? Because they knew they were divine messengers? No. They invited them in because God would have wanted them to. And because they did, God fulfilled his covenant with the elderly and childless couple, promising them a son, Isaac, the son of laughter in their old age.

The first path to heaven, then, is hospitality, for hospitality's sake.

And the second is like unto it. Today we hear the story of another Lazarus, Jesus's dear friend, and the one he would raise from the dead. Lazarus is there along with his sisters Martha and Mary. Martha understands hospitality. She's cooking the meal, running around the kitchen, setting the table, seating the guests and breathlessly exhausting herself in order that everyone might be at home.

But then she looks over at Mary, who, we are told, is sitting at the Lord's feet, listening to him, deep in conversation with Jesus. The sweaty and exhausted Martha is enraged....so enraged that she goes right up to Jesus, and in words that could only have come from a friend says to him: tell that sister of mine to help me rather than sitting on her....chair chatting with you all day.

And then Jesus tells us something extraordinary. He tells us that there is an even more excellent way, a better part than hospitality. The better part which Mary has chosen, is to spend time alone with the Lord, and that better part shall not be taken from her.

So, hospitality, feeding the poor, forgiving and embracing the stranger, welcoming those rejected by everyone else...are indispensable to those who seek to walk the path to the Kingdom of God. But one thing more is required, to pray, to listen and to dwell with the Lord.

I have a lot of friends who are great social workers, selfless advocates for the poor and the downtrodden. Indeed, for many years, I used to do spiritual direction with a lot of Catholic Workers and Jesuit volunteers and the like. And you know what one thing they struggle with more than anything else. Its not the getting up in the middle of the night to drive someone to detox, or having the patience to put up with all the stresses of working with the poor...it's shutting up long enough to pray, and stopping “doing stuff” long enough to sit at the feet of the Lord and listen to him. The Martha in them would keep them going, twenty-four hours a day, like the energizer bunny, running in circles. But what they need is contemplation, and quiet and peace with the Lord, if it's all ever going to make sense.

I also have friends in monasteries, like the Trappists in Gethsemane Abbey in Tennessee, where I preached their retreat a couple years back. They are wonderful monks, who pray five times a day with an intensity and a joy which is a marvel to behold. But you know what their struggles are? Forgiving that monk who gave them a dirty look, or putting up with that guy who entered with them thirty years ago whom they've never been able to stand, or seeking out and caring for the monk who is struggling and alone.

A true story: A few years ago the Abbot of Gethsemane hired a P.R. firm to make a video about the monks which would be shown in the gift shop. It portrayed the monks as devout and caring, always at peace with God and one another, and devoted whole-heartedly to the Christian life. The night they showed it to the monks, asking them what they thought, one of the oldest members of the community raised his hand and said,

"Father Abbot, I’ve been a monk here for 52 years and I am now going to say something I thought I would never say.”

“What is it, Chrysogonus,” the Abbot inquired. “Didn't you like the video?”

“Oh, I liked it all right,” he responded. “But I liked it so much that I’ve decided to leave this crazy monastery and join the perfect one depicted in that film!”

Two paths get us to heaven: hospitality and prayer, Martha and Mary.

And not really two paths at all, but the one path which leads to the cross of Jesus, to the perfect sacrifice of love and devotion, which is our hope, our salvation and the only way to heaven.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

Priesthood

2010-08-16T14:53:00.003-04:00

Homily

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Priesthood”

Thirty years ago I knelt before Bishop Flanagan and he laid his hands on my head and made me a Priest of Jesus Christ. Thirty hours ago, Father Nicholas Desimone, who concelebrates this morning’s Mass, knelt before Bishop McManus, who laid his hands on his head and ordained him to that same Priesthood.

I am honored by your presence, Father Desimone, for you are a sacrament for us...you remind us of Christ’s presence and action in his Church in every age, in every place...And you remind me of me, just thirty short years ago. Little did I suspect what God had in store for me. And here I stand, surrounded by as many memories as you have dreams...

....of Christ healing sinners and drying tears, of Christ offering his perfect sacrifice through your hands, of Christ proclaiming his good news through your lips, of Christ Baptizing into his death and resurrection, of Christ burying the dead...

And all through our hands. Simple, human hands, still moist (in your case) with Holy Chrism. It is a wonder, a miracle, and a perfect joy.

Accipe

Yesterday, following his ordination by the laying on of hands and the Prayer of Ordination, Father Desimone was vested, anointed, and finally knelt before the bishop, who, for the first time, handed him a chalice filled with wine mixed with water and a paten with the bread for the Eucharist. As he received these gifts, the Bishop said to him:

Accept from the holy people of God the gifts to be offered to him.

Know what you are doing, and imitate the mystery you celebrate:

model your life on the mystery of the Lord's cross.

Notice that as these ancient words were spoken, it is the gifts of the holy people of God, your gifts, that were placed into Father’s hands. For in a just a few minutes, a few of you will bring forward gifts of bread and wine for the celebration of the Eucharist. Mixed in with those pieces of bread are the sacrifices of your lives. And with the wine in that cruet are mixed the joys and sorrows, the longings and holy desires of each member of this gathered assembly. At this presentation you are like the Magi bringing gifts to the Christ child. But your gifts are of an even greater value than gold, frankincense and myrrh, for these are the gift of our very lives. For “your prayers, and your faith, and your blood, [are mixed]with His in the chalice. These, like the water and wine, form the matter of his sacrifice.”

The Priest receives those gifts in the person of Christ. He places them upon the altar in the same way that Christ placed his body upon the altar of the cross in a perfect sacrifice of praise. And these gifts are transformed by the great Eucharistic prayer into the very Body and Blood of Christ, and then returned to us as our nourishment that we might have the strength to continue to join ourselves with Christ’s sacrifice every day of our lives.

That is why the Bishop first tells the Priest to know what you are doing: to know that you take into your hands the sacrifices, the souls, and the very lives of the people of God to be joined to his perfect sacrifice of Praise and to be transformed into his own Body and Blood. He carries them in their victories and in their defeats, in their joys and in their sorrows, in their strength an in their brokenness. He kneels down and begs God’s mercy on them with his whole heart and soul.

Two years ago, Bishop McManus called me to serve this good Cathedral Church and the seminarians of Saint John’s; A dozen or so years before that, Bishop Reilly sent me to Washington to serve the Bishops’ Conference; Five years before that Bishop Harrington made me pastor of the newly formed parish in Spencer, before which, on the tenth anniversary of my ordination, he had sent me back to school.

Before that I had been sent by Bishop Flanagan to Saint Leo’s in Leominster, and before that to my first parish, Sacred Heart in Webster, and even before that, to my first temporary assignment in West Boylston, where the beloved Father John Burke, once of this great Church, was recuperating.

Father Desimone has just been sent by Bishop McManus to one of the new parishes in Fitchburg and then he will return to studies in ecclesiology at the Greg. Only God knows the wonders which will await him in the years to come. But one thing is certain. God has called us both to a great adventure, filled with more joy and peace than a human heart can contain. And each day for the past three decades, God has looked on this lowly servant and shown a mercy of which I am totally undeserving. And all I pray is that for the next thirty or sixty years, Nick, God does the same for you.

When I think of this Priesthood which we share, I think of a simple scene I witnessed during my sabbatical several years ago. As I sat at my desk in Assisi looking out across the piazza in front of the Cathedral, there were a dozen kids playing soccer. The twelfth century stone lions served as goal posts and the door of the Church was the goal.

The Pastor walked by the kids on his way to Mass and stopped. He puzzled over whether he should yell at them about possibly doing damage with their games. And then he smiled and went into Church.

They looked on with amazement at Father, this little incarnation of mercy. They wondered about him and about who he was. And as they played their games, they trusted that he was inside praying for them; that that when they would get lost in the coming years, that he would help them get home; and that when the pain would get like the cross he would help them to understand.

They need him to be their Priest, and to lead them to Jesus. And, with the grace of God, he will try.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

Pharisees

2010-08-16T14:50:00.002-04:00

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily

“Pharisees”

Opening

Sin is all around us. It’s insidious. You find it oozing into the strangest places, like some out-of-control oil spill, fowling everything it touches and smothering the life out of it.

Whether it’s the strangling in that hotel room in Peru or the shooting of that poor girl on Esther Street, or the unnumbered moments in our own houses of impatience, judgment, and selfishness, none of us can escape the fact that we are each a sinner before God and man.

Even David, the anointed of the Lord, the King of Israel can’t escape it. Oh, he thinks he can. In fact, having arranged the death of Uriah the Hittite to cover up his affair with Bathsheba, David’s pretty sure he’s gotten away with it.

Until the Prophet Nathan uncovers his crime and converts the King into a weeping penitent, whose sin will be told down through the ages. Even in the genealogy of Saint Matthew’s Gospel David is identified as “the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife.” The genealogy of the Son of God is replete with such characters. For there’s a strange appropriateness that the incarnation of him who became man to free us from sin should be descended from such a tainted ancestry.

Modern Day Pharisees

And so too with you and me. I fear I am too often one of those modern day Pharisees who are as convinced of their immaculate conception as they are of their ability to save themselves. But despite Pelagius, no one has ever really been able to save anyone, except for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Only Jesus saves. And only he and his Blessed Mother have lived lives entirely free from sin.

I can save no one, including myself, without the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, when I make my nightly examination of conscience kneeling down by my bed, I can only rely on the unwarranted mercy of a gracious God, who looks upon me in my sinfulness and gives me the grace to live another day in his service.

The confession of my sins and the destructive patterns of sin which are woven into the very fabric of my life, is the second greatest truth I can profess; while the greatest truth is God’s undefeated mercy. Thus, with the Psalmist I can sing: “I confess my faults to the LORD, and you took away the guilt of my sin.”

Our Frailty, God’s Grace

It’s like the Collect, in the forthcoming translation, for this Sunday, which asks God to “graciously hear our pleas,” for “without you, mortal frailty can do nothing...”

Mortal frailty can do nothing.

Did you do good works this week?

Thank God, for he gave you the grace and the strength to accomplish them.

Did you manage to forgive that person who hurt you?

Thank God, for he taught you to look down from the cross they built for you with mercy and even love.

Yet, I sometimes strain the muscles in my right arm by my repeated attempts to pat myself on the back for just how wonderful I have been. I fed the hungry, I clothed the naked, I listened patiently to those who were a pain, I forgave someone who slighted me, I prayed for an extra five minutes. Open the cause for my canonization. God is just so lucky to have me as his servant.

Such self-congratulatory pablum was unknown to Blessed Theresa when she first experienced her calling to serve the poorest of the poor, and wrote this to the Archbishop of Calcutta:

“The thoughts of my unworthiness for all God’s gifts to me and to my children gets deeper and clearer. In my meditations and prayers, which are full of distractions nowadays, there stands one thing very clear: my weakness and his greatness. I fear all things from my weakness...I I trust blindly in his greatness.”

At Simon’s House

That’s what’s going on at the house of Simon the Pharisee when Jesus arrives in today’s Gospel. They eat, they talk, they have a good time. Simon’s the good guy, the friend of the Lord.

Then, in comes this woman, a sinner, who crawls up behind Jesus and clings to his feet, literally washing them with a flood of tears, begging for his mercy.

Meanwhile, Simon the Pharisee is furious. How can Jesus let this happen? Doesn’t he know who she is? This filthy woman disrupting his important supper and groping the Lord’s feet just as Simon is making his reputation as a friend of Jesus?

But Jesus does know who she is. And that’s why he lets her cling to him and weep. But Jesus also knows who Simon is. He knows his ambition, he knows his high self-regard, and his knows his sin of presumption. Simon’s just as sinful as that woman. The only difference between the two is that she accepted the grace to confess what a mess she was with her tears.

So Jesus says to Simon, you did not welcome me to your home with an embrace, but she cannot stop kissing me. You did not offer to wash my feet with water, but she has cleansed them with her tears.

Jesus has turned Simon’s house on its head and reminded Simon and me and you that our solitary boast is in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Without the grave which flowed with blood and water from his side, we can do nothing.

Conclusion

Psalm 22 is a Psalm that may, ionically, have been penned by King David himself. And in the sixth verse we find the truest words ever spoken: I am a worm and no man...I am nothing but a worm without his redeeming love.

Monsgnor James P. Moroney

Rector

Stewardship

2010-08-16T14:48:00.000-04:00

Homily

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Stewardship

God’s greatest gift to us is love. And all he asks for in return is trust.

Trust in his care for us and for all of his creation.

Trust in his Holy Will, and the plan he has laid out for each one of us.

Trust that his promises to us will be fulfilled.

But trust is never easy, for it requires belief in what is unseen, hope in what others cannot readily discern, and belief that what is most real is known only by the heart that chooses to believe.

I think of the old trust game they used to use in Outward Bound: Close your eyes, fold your hands over your chest, and fall back into the secure arms of another. Trust that he will be there. Trust that he is strong enough to keep you from falling to the ground. Trust in his presence and in his care.

From our first breath to our last, life is but a series of exercises in trusting God. Do I so believe in his wisdom that I place my life in his hands more quickly than I will in my own? Do I so believe in his love that I let go of everything that does not lead me to or come from him? Is my faith so sure that I will let myself fall into his arms alone and trust that I will be safer than before I even started to fall?

But I am so tempted, with Jeremiah, to trust more in the flesh than in an invisible God!

To seek to be rich, over-stuffed, laughing, vengeful and victorious! To grab for all the gusto I can get in this life.

But then Jesus comes along and asks me to trust:

to trust enough to be poor, that he might enrich me with his grace

to trust enough to be hungry, that he alone might satisfy me

to trust enough to weep, that he might show me perfect joy

to trust enough to forgive, that he might shower me with mercy

to trust enough to take the last place, that he might lead me to glory with him forever.

On each dollar bill we carry in our pockets and pocket books appears the words In God We Trust. As a country, as a cathedral, and a Catholic may we live those words with all our hearts.

On Suffering

2010-08-16T14:44:00.002-04:00

Homily

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Suffering”

They had run out of wine. Now that may not seem very serious, but just stop and think about the last wedding reception you went to, and imagine if they had run out of wine, and scotch and gin and absolute vodka.

And imagine that you were the mother of the bride or the father of the groom...what would you do? You'd probably throw a fit with the bar tender or fire the wedding planner or demand to speak with the cater.

But at the banquet hall in Cana, something else happens: two things happen. First, someone goes to Mary, and asks her to go to Jesus.

And then, they follow her explicit command: do whatever he tells you. They take simple, ordinary tap water (not San Pellegrino or Evian or even Vos), simple, ordinary tap water to him, and he turns it into the finest of wines.

They felt forsaken. But they did two things: they went to Mary and then did what he told them, and Jesus took whatever they had and changed it into something better than they had ever dreamed of.

So when you feel forsaken, do two things. First, pray to Mary and second, do what her Son tell you. Prayer is essential, but so is action.

It is said that when Moses sought to lead the chosen people through the Red Sea, he lifted his staff, but for a moment, nothing happened, until the first brave Israelite stuck a trembling toe into the water, at which the waters parted and the chosen people fled Pharaohs deadly wrath.

Ora et labora, as Saint Benedict used to say. When you feel forsaken, Ora et labora.

The Girl Under the Slab

Did you see the 14 year old girl in Haiti whose school collapsed on top of her? It was the first CNN video that ever made me cry. Here was this huge concrete slab above which five men with one shovel dug desperately. They had been attracted to the slab by a whimper, followed by a strange thudding sound. At least they thought at first that they were whimpers, until, after eight hours they pulled her out. Once they has dusted her off she was in remarkably good shape as they asked her what she had seen and heard and said.

She had seen nothing in the pitch blackness and heard only the weeping of an old woman somewhere down below her, who, with fading cries just kept saying, I'm going to die, I'm going to die.

It was then that the little girl under the concrete slab started to pray. I just kept saying the Hail Mary, she grinned, and I could see the mother Mary and I knew she'd get Jesus to help me. And after she prayed each Ave, she worked up the courage to bang on the roof of her concrete prison. Now and at the hour of my death. BANG. Now and at the hour of my death. BANG Now and at the hour of my death. BANG. And that’s the whimper and the thud which caught the attention of the rescuers above.

She had felt forsaken. And she went to Mary, who went to Jesus, and he changed the little she had into more than she could have imagined!

The People in Haiti

There is much we can do for our brothers and sisters in Haiti. To the world it looks hopeless...a third of the country homeless, tens of thousands of dead bodies decaying in the streets, roads so damaged that not even water can get through. Not even water.

They seem forsaken, but rest assured that He who made heaven and earth can recreate the darkest chaos with a new springtime of hope and of beauty and of light. And we can help.

By going to Mary and beging her to ask her son to take what little they have and transform it into more than they could have ever gave hoped for. We can get down on our knees, rosaries in hand, and go to her who brought to birth the one who made the heavens and the earth.

And to our prayer we can add our deeds. We can be a part of his recreating lives by our generosity to Catholic Relief Services in the second collection for Haiti today. We can urge our government and all relief agencies to do whatever they can to come to the aid of those who have suffered unimaginably in this island nation.

And while our hearts go out in a special way to those who suffer in Haiti, we should not forget all the others who need our prayers, as well.

Like the 69 year old man in Spencer this week, who shot and killed his wife and then set the house on fire and took his own life. His wife had been dying of pituitary cancer and the house was about to be auctioned following foreclosure. He felt forsaken, Blessed Mother, pray to Jesus for him. And teach us how to reach out to and support all who labor under the ravages of disease or financial ruin.

Or like the nine people were left homeless on Friday night after a fire destroyed their three-decker on Vernon hill. Those nine folks must feel so forsaken. Blessed Mother, pray for them to Jesus. And give us the will to find and help all who are homeless or alone or afraid.

This coming Thursday is the anniversary of Roe versus Wade. On this day, and on every day, we should pray to the Mother of all Christians for the littlest victims among us. But let us do what he tells us, as well, like the busload of Cathedral marchers who will sleep on the bus all night in order to march all day in D.C. Let us recommit ourselves to work for life through our support of Visitation House, and Project Rachel, and by teaching all young men and women about the dignity of life from conception to natural death by the way we treat the weakest and the most vulnerable among us.

For all who suffer or who feel forsaken, let us pray to the Mother of God, and then, let us do whatever her Son tells us to do.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

OF KNIGHTS AND SISTERS AND SUMMERTIME...

2010-07-14T13:50:00.002-04:00

Next weekend we say good bye to some old and dear friends. The Franciscan Sisters Minor have been a part of the Cathedral Parish since just a short time before I arrived as your rector. Through your generous support, they have lived a life of contemplation and evangelization on behalf of the Church in downtown Worcester.

During the past year, however, the sisters have been engaged in a time of discernment, as the Franciscan Brothers Minor have moved to the Diocese of South Bend in Indiana. After much prayer, the sisters made the decision to move to South bend, where they will be welcomed by Bishop Kevin Rhoades.

They will be dearly missed, but will never be far from our prayers here at Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Please join me next weekend after the 10:15am Mass in bidding the sisters farewell in the Cenacle with coffee and donuts and aching hearts! You, our dear sisters, will never be far from our hearts!

Also next weekend at the 10:15am mass we will be commemorating the installation of the new officers of our Cathedral Chapter of the Knights of Columbus. I strongly encourage all of the men of our parish to consider becoming a Knight. As a Knight for the past thirty years, I can tell you that the fraternity, good works, and devotion to the mission of the Church exhibited by the Knights of Columbus is second to none!

So, during the coming week (may God grant us a relief from the heat!) let us remember Sisters and Knights, and all God’s manifold gifts!

In the Lord,

Monsignor James P. Moroney

rectorsaintpauls@aol.com

JOIN US FOR MASS!

2010-07-01T00:43:00.003-04:00

Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Paul is televised Daily and Sundays thanks to the TV Ministry of the Diocese of Worcester and can be viewed by clicking below:

DAILY MASS AT THE CATHEDRAL

SUNDAY MASS AT THE CATHEDRAL

Thirty Years and Thirty Hours

2010-06-30T23:48:00.003-04:00

And all through our hands. Simple, human hands, still moist (in your case) with Holy Chrism. It is a wonder, a miracle, and a perfect joy.

Accipe

Accept from the holy people of God the gifts to be offered to him.

Know what you are doing, and imitate the mystery you celebrate:

model your life on the mystery of the Lord's cross.

The Pastor walked by the kids on his way to Mass and stopped. He puzzled over whether he should yell at them about possibly doing damage with their games. And then he smiled and went into Church.

They need him to be their Priest, and to lead them to Jesus. And, with the grace of God, he will try.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

Father DeSimone’s First Mass Homily

2010-06-30T23:41:00.002-04:00

As an older brother whom you have called Father, I have been particularly touched by the wondrous ways in which Christ has conformed you to his own image. The words spoken by the Bishop as he placed the chalice and paten into your hands a mere 30 hours ago have been lived by you since that your mother first carried you in her arms. Through all the years, on all the many roads, you have sought to know what you were doing, to imitate the mysteries you have celebrated and to conform yourself to the mystery of the Lord’s Cross.

I am also touched by the appropriateness of the wonderful Gospel which the Church has chosen for this day on which, for the first time, the sacrifice is offered at your hands for our good and the good of all his holy Church.

Anointed yesterday

For after thirty years of Priesthood, I can understand Elijah, to whom God gave the grace to know Elisha, the one who would succeed him.

Notice it was not Elijah who chose Elisha, it was God. Like Bishop McManus calling Father Desimone to the Priesthood yesterday morning, Elijah chose this young disciple because God had told him to.

And just as Elijah threw his cloak on the new prophet’s shoulders, so did Father Rose place a chasuble over his head. And as Elijah anointed the prophet Elisha, so did Bishop McManus smear Father Desimone’s hands with the holy Chrism.

For just as Elisha responded to the call of the Lord and followed Elijah, so does Nick

Follow me

You are not unlike the mysterious figure in today’s Gospel, whom Saint Luke only refers to only as someone. This unknown figure goes up to Jesus on the road and says with all your enthusiasm: “I will follow you wherever you go” (Lk 9:57).

The figure is a sort of type, a foreshadowing of the Priest who yesterday knelt before his Bishop and folded his hands between the Bishop’s palms, as if between the hands of Christ, and promised obedience for the rest of his life.

It’s an act which the world finds laughable and totally beyond belief. To give up your own will, for the will of another? Can’t you think for yourself?You’re bright. Don’t you want to be success? Didn’t you hear Jesus when he says follow me to a life with no place to rest your head? Didn’t you hear Jesus when he promised that they would revile and persecute his followers as they reviled and persecuted him? Follow me? Follow him to what? To poverty? To pain? To sacrifice? To the cross?

No wonder there’s a vocation shortage. Sounds like we’re lacking a very good marketing strategy.

And if we were selling a commercial product, that would be ever so true. But what Father Desimone has given up his life for is not a product, but a person. A man who hangs upon a cross.

And when, as a little kid, that man first started whispering in your heart: follow me...And when on Mount Saint James, at the strangest times, you would hear him whisper: follow me...and when even on the Janiculum Hill he would smile down at you and whisper, follow me....he was calling you to a life of perfect joy...a sacrifice of praise...which leads to the heart of the meaning of life.

To the cross. To the place where there is no control nor desire for control, no decisions to be made, no problems to figure out or programs to plan, but only you and Christ and the cross and the people to whom he sends you.

The disciple tells the Lord to whom he has promised obedience that he wants to go bury his father, and say good bye to him family, and the Lord says no. “Let the dead bury their dead. You...you do what I tell you, and go out and proclaim the Kingdom of God.

Only God’s will matters, no matter what your head or your heart or your gut tell you. It is God’s will and the will of his Church to which you totally give your life.

The last thing Maximilian Kolbe wanted to do was to starve to death at the bottom of a pit. But it was God’s will. The last thing Damian of Molakai wanted to do was to go work with lepers on an island half way across the world. But it was God’s will.

Of all the promises a Priest takes, perhaps the most counter-cultural is the promise of obedience. But perhaps it is also the most important. For it says there is something greater than me here...a mystery of God’s love in which dying is more important than living, letting go more important than clinging on, surrender more important than control, and obedience more important than being right. As the Lord Jesus hung upon the cross, in perfect obedience to the Father, he let go of everything, to his last breath in perfect fulfillment of God’s will. Conformed to that perfect obedience, the Priest is called to do the same.

So when the world looks at that man in black with the funny white collar who has given up striving for success, career, and family and even his own will in the name of God they will see not Nick Desimone or Jim Moroney, or Charlie Armey, or Mike Rose. They will see Christ.

For in the end, that’s what it’s all about.

We’re here today because we love you, Father. We love you as a son, as a brother, as a friend, and now, as a Priest.

You will take up the cup of salvation and call upon the Lord for us, you will offer his perfect sacrifice for us, joining us to him and making sense of our lives. You will baptize us into his death and resurrection, feed us with his Body and Blood, seal our covenants, heal our sick, forgive our sins and bury our dead. You will be Christ for us.

Not because we chose you, but because he chose you, and sent you to be our shepherd and our Priest.

Saint Francis of Assisi used to say that if he met a saint and a priest on the road he would be nice to the saint, but he would kiss the hands of the Priest. We venerate those hands which you have placed into the hands of Christ and which will touch us with the mysteries of his love for many many years to come.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

MORE PICTURES FROM VOX CLARA

2010-04-30T09:46:00.002-04:00

VOX CLARA MEETING IN ROME

2010-04-30T09:35:00.003-04:00

VOX CLARA COMMITTEE
PRESS RELEASE
April 28-29, 2010

The Vox Clara Committee met at the Pontifical North American College in Rome from April 28-29, 2010. This was the nineteenth meeting of this Committee of senior Bishops from Episcopal Conferences throughout the English-speaking world. The Vox Clara Committee was formed by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on July 19, 2001 in order to provide advice to the Holy See concerning English-language liturgical books and to strengthen effective cooperation with the Conferences of Bishops in this regard.

The Vox Clara Committee is chaired by Cardinal George Pell, Sydney (Australia). The participants in the meeting were Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb, Emeritus Mobile (USA), who serves as First Vice-Chairman; Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, Emeritus Westminster (England), who serves as Secretary, Cardinal Francis George, O.M.I., Chicago (USA), Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Bombay (India), who serves as Second Vice-Chairman; Archbishop Alfred Hughes, Emeritus New Orleans (USA); Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., Ottawa (Canada); Archbishop Peter Kwasi Sarpong, Emeritus Kumasi (Ghana); Archbishop Kelvin Felix, Emeritus Castries (Saint Lucia), and Bishop Philip Boyce, O.C.D., Raphoe (Ireland). Cardinal Justin Rigali, Philadelphia (USA), who serves as Treasurer, is also a member of the Committee, but was not present for the meeting.

The members were assisted in their work by the following advisors: Reverend Jeremy Driscoll, O.S.B. (USA), Reverend Dennis McManus (USA), Monsignor Gerard McKay, Abbot Cuthbert Johnson, O.S.B. (England), and Monsignor James P. Moroney (USA), Executive Secretary. The customary assistance of officials of the Congregation, led by Reverend Anthony Ward, S.M., Undersecretary, was also appreciated.

The meeting opened with the happy announcement that the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments had completed its work of reviewing the English language edition of the Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia. Following careful consideration of the advice provided over the past eight years by the members of the Vox Clara Committee, a final text was arrived at by the Congregation, confirmed by a decree dated 25 March, 2010 (Prot. 269/10/L) and signed by Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Prefect, and Archbishop J. Augustine DiNoia, O.P., Secretary to the Congregation.

The Committee celebrated the occasion by hosting a luncheon with His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, on the first day of the meeting. On this happy occasion, the Holy Father addressed the group:

Dear Cardinals,
Dear Brother Bishops and Priests,
Members and Consultors of the Vox Clara Committee,

I thank you for the work that Vox Clara has done over the last eight years, assisting and advising the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in fulfilling its responsibilities with regard to the English translations of liturgical texts. This has been a truly collegial enterprise. Not only are all five continents represented in the membership of the Committee, but you have been assiduous in drawing together contributions from Bishops’ Conferences in English-speaking territories all over the world. I thank you for the great labour you have expended in your study of the translations and in processing the results of the many consultations that have been conducted. I thank the expert assistants for offering the fruits of their scholarship in order to render a service to the universal Church. And I thank the Superiors and Officials of the Congregation for their daily, painstaking work of overseeing the preparation and translation of texts that proclaim the truth of our redemption in Christ, the Incarnate Word of God.
Saint Augustine spoke beautifully of the relation between John the Baptist, the vox clara that resounded on the banks of the Jordan, and the Word that he spoke. A voice, he said, serves to share with the listener the message that is already in the speaker’s heart. Once the word has been spoken, it is present in the hearts of both, and so the voice, its task having been completed, can fade away (cf. Sermon 293). I welcome the news that the English translation of the Roman Missal will soon be ready for publication, so that the texts you have worked so hard to prepare may be proclaimed in the liturgy that is celebrated across the anglophone world. Through these sacred texts and the actions that accompany them, Christ will be made present and active in the midst of his people. The voice that helped bring these words to birth will have completed its task.
A new task will then present itself, one which falls outside the direct competence of Vox Clara, but which in one way or another will involve all of you – the task of preparing for the reception of the new translation by clergy and lay faithful. Many will find it hard to adjust to unfamiliar texts after nearly forty years of continuous use of the previous translation. The change will need to be introduced with due sensitivity, and the opportunity for catechesis that it presents will need to be firmly grasped. I pray that in this way any risk of confusion or bewilderment will be averted, and the change will serve instead as a springboard for a renewal and a deepening of Eucharistic devotion all over the English-speaking world.
Dear Brother Bishops, Reverend Fathers, Friends, I want you to know how much I appreciate the great collaborative endeavor to which you have contributed. Soon the fruits of your labors will be made available to English-speaking congregations everywhere. As the prayers of God’s people rise before him like incense (cf. Psalm 140:2), may the Lord’s blessing come down upon all who have contributed their time and expertise to crafting the texts in which those prayers are expressed. Thank you, and may you be abundantly rewarded for your generous service to God’s people.
The second day of the meeting was spent in a study of issues which had emerged in the course of the development of the confirmed text of the Roman Missal, including a review of efforts to assure internal consistency in the translation of deprecatory language and other specialized terms, the poetic and musical dimensions of the text, and its suitability for proclamation. An extended review of various programs developed throughout the English speaking world for the effective implementation of the new translation was also undertaken.

At its closing session, commemorative medals were presented by the Cardinal Prefect on behalf of the Holy See to each of the members and advisors of the Committee. He expressed the thanks of the Congregation for the work of the members and advisors over the past nine years.

Cardinal Cañizares also announced the intention of the Congregation to continue the work of the Vox Clara Committee in advising the Holy See on matters pertaining to the English language translation of liturgical books. The Prefect also expressed his gratitude to Cardinal George Pell, chairman of the Committee, for his willingness to continue as Chairman of the Committee.

On behalf of the members and advisors, Cardinal Pell expressed his appreciation for the Prefect’s words and reiterated the gratitude of the Committee to the Cardinal Prefect and his predecessors for their continuing encouragement of the project. He also thanked the Executive Secretary, Monsignor James Moroney, for his outstanding contribution over the many years since the Committee began its work. The Chairman also expressed his gratitude for the participation of other officials and Superiors of the Congregation throughout the years, most especially Father Anthony Ward, S.M., Undersecretary to the Congregation, who has played an indispensable role in facilitating the work of the Vox Clara Committee.

The meeting closed with the Collect “For the Church” from the new Roman Missal:

O God, who in your wonderful providence
decreed that Christ’s Kingdom
should be extended throughout the earth
and that all should become partakers
of his saving redemption;
grant, we pray, that your Church
may be the universal sacrament of salvation,
and that Christ may be revealed to all
as the hope of the nations and their Savior.
Who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

CHILD AND YOUTH PROTECTION

2010-04-18T07:37:00.002-04:00

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Since the publication of the Murphy Report in Ireland last fall, several Conferences of Bishops in Europe have sought ways to understand what has happened, provide care of those who were abused, and assure the protection of children. Reading about the analysis and debate in Europe over the past few months has reminded us all of the agony experienced in this country almost ten years ago.

As the Church in Europe begins to learn the truth and to make those changes which will keep children safe, it might be helpful for us to look back and to see what has changed in regard to Child Protection and Safety in the Church in the United States over the past decade.

Safe Environment training is taking place in 193 dioceses of the country.

Background checks are conducted on Church personnel who have contact with children. Over two million volunteers and employees: 52,000 clerics, 6,500 candidates for ordination and had their backgrounds evaluated.

All dioceses have Codes of Conduct spelling out what is acceptable behavior.

All dioceses have Victim Assistance Coordinators who assure the ongoing compliance to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

There is a Zero Tolerance policy on abuses since 2002. If a credible accusation is made against a cleric, they are permanently removed from ministry regardless of how long ago the offense occurred.

Dioceses require intensive background screening as well as psychological testing for those wishing to enter the seminary.

The Catholic Church has worked hard to protect children. Much has been done but more needs to be done. Until child sexual abuse is no longer a part of society, the Church will continue its efforts to stop it.

Partners in Charity
We are now at 84% of our goal of $92,000, having collected $77,314 in gifts and pledges to Partners in Charity. We are still expecting several gifts and I encourage you to help us to meet our goal. Only $14,686 to go!

Know of my prayers for a great Third Week of Easter, filled with good weather and lots of sunshine!

In the Lord,
Monsignor Moroney

PASTORAL LETTER OF THE HOLY FATHER POPE BENEDICT XVI TO THE CATHOLICS OF IRELAND
19 March 2010
(Excerpts)

In recent decades, however, the Church in your country has had to confront new and serious challenges to the faith arising from the rapid transformation and secularization of Irish society. Fast-paced social change has occurred, often adversely affecting people’s traditional adherence to Catholic teaching and values. All too often, the sacramental and devotional practices that sustain faith and enable it to grow, such as frequent confession, daily prayer and annual retreats, were neglected. Significant too was the tendency during this period, also on the part of priests and religious, to adopt ways of thinking and assessing secular realities without sufficient reference to the Gospel. The program of renewal proposed by the Second Vatican Council was sometimes misinterpreted and indeed, in the light of the profound social changes that were taking place, it was far from easy to know how best to implement it. In particular, there was a well-intentioned but misguided tendency to avoid penal approaches to canonically irregular situations. It is in this overall context that we must try to understand the disturbing problem of child sexual abuse, which has contributed in no small measure to the weakening of faith and the loss of respect for the Church and her teachings.

Only by examining carefully the many elements that gave rise to the present crisis can a clear-sighted diagnosis of its causes be undertaken and effective remedies be found. Certainly, among the contributing factors we can include: inadequate procedures for determining the suitability of candidates for the priesthood and the religious life; insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formation in seminaries and novitiates; a tendency in society to favour the clergy and other authority figures; and a misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church and the avoidance of scandal, resulting in failure to apply existing canonical penalties and to safeguard the dignity of every person. Urgent action is needed to address these factors, which have had such tragic consequences in the lives of victims and their families, and have obscured the light of the Gospel to a degree that not even centuries of persecution succeeded in doing.

On several occasions since my election to the See of Peter, I have met with victims of sexual abuse, as indeed I am ready to do in the future. I have sat with them, I have listened to their stories, I have acknowledged their suffering, and I have prayed with them and for them. Earlier in my pontificate, in my concern to address this matter, I asked the bishops of Ireland, “to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected, and above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes”1

With this Letter, I wish to exhort all of you, as God’s people in Ireland, to reflect on the wounds inflicted on Christ’s body, the sometimes painful remedies needed to bind and heal them, and the need for unity, charity and mutual support in the long-term process of restoration and ecclesial renewal. I now turn to you with words that come from my heart, and I wish to speak to each of you individually and to all of you as brothers and sisters in the Lord.

To the victims of abuse and their families
You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated. Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen. Those of you who were abused in residential institutions must have felt that there was no escape from your sufferings. It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the Church. In her name, I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel. At the same time, I ask you not to lose hope. It is in the communion of the Church that we encounter the person of Jesus Christ, who was himself a victim of injustice and sin. Like you, he still bears the wounds of his own unjust suffering. He understands the depths of your pain and its enduring effect upon your lives and your relationships, including your relationship with the Church. I know some of you find it difficult even to enter the doors of a church after all that has occurred. Yet Christ’s own wounds, transformed by his redemptive sufferings, are the very means by which the power of evil is broken and we are reborn to life and hope. I believe deeply in the healing power of his self-sacrificing love – even in the darkest and most hopeless situations – to bring liberation and the promise of a new beginning.

Speaking to you as a pastor concerned for the good of all God’s children, I humbly ask you to consider what I have said. I pray that, by drawing nearer to Christ and by participating in the life of his Church – a Church purified by penance and renewed in pastoral charity – you will come to rediscover Christ’s infinite love for each one of you. I am confident that in this way you will be able to find reconciliation, deep inner healing and peace.

To priests and religious who have abused children
You betrayed the trust that was placed in you by innocent young people and their parents, and you must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals. You have forfeited the esteem of the people of Ireland and brought shame and dishonor upon your confreres. Those of you who are priests violated the sanctity of the sacrament of Holy Orders in which Christ makes himself present in us and in our actions. Together with the immense harm done to victims, great damage has been done to the Church and to the public perception of the priesthood and religious life. I urge you to examine your conscience, take responsibility for the sins you have committed, and humbly express your sorrow. Sincere repentance opens the door to God’s forgiveness and the grace of true amendment. By offering prayers and penances for those you have wronged, you should seek to atone personally for your actions. Christ’s redeeming sacrifice has the power to forgive even the gravest of sins, and to bring forth good from even the most terrible evil. At the same time, God’s justice summons us to give an account of our actions and to conceal nothing. Openly acknowledge your guilt, submit yourselves to the demands of justice, but do not despair of God’s mercy.

To parents
You have been deeply shocked to learn of the terrible things that took place in what ought to be the safest and most secure environment of all. In today’s world it is not easy to build a home and to bring up children. They deserve to grow up in security, loved and cherished, with a strong sense of their identity and worth. They have a right to be educated in authentic moral values rooted in the dignity of the human person, to be inspired by the truth of our Catholic faith and to learn ways of behaving and acting that lead to healthy self-esteem and lasting happiness. This noble but demanding task is entrusted in the first place to you, their parents. I urge you to play your part in ensuring the best possible care of children, both at home and in society as a whole, while the Church, for her part, continues to implement the measures adopted in recent years to protect young people in parish and school environments. As you carry out your vital responsibilities, be assured that I remain close to you and I offer you the support of my prayers.

To the children and young people of Ireland
I wish to offer you a particular word of encouragement. Your experience of the Church is very different from that of your parents and grandparents. The world has changed greatly since they were your age. Yet all people, in every generation, are called to travel the same path through life, whatever their circumstances may be. We are all scandalized by the sins and failures of some of the Church's members, particularly those who were chosen especially to guide and serve young people. But it is in the Church that you will find Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and for ever.2 He loves you and he has offered himself on the cross for you. Seek a personal relationship with him within the communion of his Church, for he will never betray your trust! He alone can satisfy your deepest longings and give your lives their fullest meaning by directing them to the service of others. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and his goodness, and shelter the flame of faith in your heart. Together with your fellow Catholics in Ireland, I look to you to be faithful disciples of our Lord and to bring your much-needed enthusiasm and idealism to the rebuilding and renewal of our beloved Church.

To all the faithful of Ireland
A young person’s experience of the Church should always bear fruit in a personal and life-giving encounter with Jesus Christ within a loving, nourishing community. In this environment, young people should be encouraged to grow to their full human and spiritual stature, to aspire to high ideals of holiness, charity and truth, and to draw inspiration from the riches of a great religious and cultural tradition. In our increasingly secularized society, where even we Christians often find it difficult to speak of the transcendent dimension of our existence, we need to find new ways to pass on to young people the beauty and richness of friendship with Jesus Christ in the communion of his Church. In confronting the present crisis, measures to deal justly with individual crimes are essential, yet on their own they are not enough: a new vision is needed, to inspire present and future generations to treasure the gift of our common faith. By treading the path marked out by the Gospel, by observing the commandments and by conforming your lives ever more closely to the figure of Jesus Christ, you will surely experience the profound renewal that is so urgently needed at this time. I invite you all to persevere along this path.

HOLY WEEK AT THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PAUL

2010-03-26T14:42:00.004-04:00

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For More Information on Visitation House

2010-03-24T14:49:00.002-04:00

Click Here for Visitation House Website

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Cardinal Rigali Addresses Visitation House Dinner

2010-03-24T13:38:00.002-04:00

Visitation House

Annual Fund Raising Dinner

March 24, 2010

Remarks by His Eminence

Cardinal Justin Rigali

I wish to express my gratitude to Bishop McManus for his kind invitation to be with you this evening. I am delighted to support the important work of Visitation House.

Five years ago, the vision of a small community of disciples of the Gospel of Life to establish a home for homeless mothers was realized with the foundation of Visitation House. Last year, sixteen babies were born into a safe and loving environment thanks to your efforts, and this evening eight expectant mothers are in a warm and safe house, and not on the street, because of your help.

Two of the greatest scourges which our country endures are the killing of unborn children and homelessness. The first is an unimaginable holocaust which compromises the moral fabric of our country. The second grows from our failure to meet even the most basic needs of families, especially in urban minority settings. When a homeless woman is so desperate as to consider the termination of her pregnancy these two horrors merge into one.

Such horrors touch not just the life of the mother, but threaten the innocent child whom she carries in her womb as well. If Visitation House did not exist, how many more children would have been taken from us? If Visitation House did not exist, how many more mothers would have carried the stain of guilt in their hearts? If Visitation House did not exist, how many more women living on the Streets of Worcester would have been pressured to abort their child?

This is precisely what our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, was talking about when he insisted that “the protection of unborn human life likewise requires attention: care must be taken that pregnant women in difficult conditions do not lack material help...” (Pope Benedict XVI to Members of the Regional Board of Lazio, January 12, 2006.)

The Visitation

Your work for Visitation House can only be understood, however, by meditating on the mystery of the Visitation of our Blessed Mother to her Cousin Elizabeth.

The story of the visitation is the story of an encounter of four persons: two mothers and the two infants they carried in their wombs. The unborn infants were, of course, our Blessed Lord and his cousin, Saint John, soon to be known as the Baptizer. And the mothers were our Blessed Lady and Saint Elizabeth.

The Visitation is introduced by the Annunciation, as the Angel Gabriel declares to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she is to bear a Son and name him Jesus and that her older cousin Elizabeth is already in the sixth month of her pregnancy.

As Saint Luke tells us, the Blessed Virgin’s first reaction to this great good news is to proclaim her acceptance of the will of God, despite her fear. Then, no sooner does the angel leave her presence than the Blessed Virgin sets out “in haste” for the hill country where her cousin Elizabeth lives.

Why does Mary so quickly set out on such a laborious journey? Precisely because, as our Holy Father has reflected, she is moved “by the mystery of love that she had just welcomed within herself, [and so] she set out "in haste" to go to offer Elizabeth her help. This is the simple and sublime greatness of Mary!” (Pope Benedict XVI, homily for the Marian Vigil Concluding the Month of May, May 31, 2008.)

What happens when Mary reaches Elizabeth’s house is an interaction more beautiful than any artist could depict.

Moved by the love of the child she carries in her womb, the Blessed Virgin runs to greet her cousin, who exclaims: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Meanwhile, John the Baptist welcomes the Christ and the Blessed Mother by leaping for joy within his Elizabeth’s womb.

It is good that your house bears the name of so beautiful a mystery as the Visitation, the only time in all the scriptures when the actions of two unborn children play such an important role.

Likewise, the deep and mutual love and concern of both pregnant mothers for each other prefigures the care and concern which you demonstrate every day for the unborn and homeless child and the mother. Truly it is of such little ones that Christ spoke when he said whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me. (Matthew 25:40)

You carry on the tradition of the Visitation in your support of homeless mothers and their unborn children. It has, truthfully, been a while since I have spoken at a Pot Luck Supper. But I could not resist being among you this evening as you seek to promote and sustain such an important work.

Pope John Paul II on Lent

In one of the first Lenten messages of his Pontificate, the servant of God, Pope John Paul II, reflected on how this Holy Season can foster “a spirit of recollection, prayer and attentiveness to the Word of God [and] encourage us to respond generously to the Lord’s call as expressed in the words of the Prophet: Is not this the fast that I choose… to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house? … Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say: ‘Here I am’” (Cf. Isaiah 58:6,7,9)

In calling us to a deeper concern for the poor, the Holy Father reminded us that the first victims of poverty and homelessness are often the children. It is for this reason that we must “recall with what determination our Lord Jesus demonstrated his solidarity with children: he called a small child to himself, set him in their midst and declared: Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and he commanded: Let the children come to me.” (Matthew 18:2, 5; 19:4)

The Holy Father continued: “I strongly urge you, in this liturgical period of Lent, to allow the Spirit of God to take hold of you, to break the chains of selfishness and sin. In a spirit of solidarity, share with those who have fewer resources than yourselves. Give, not only the things you can spare, but the things you may perhaps need, in order to lend your generous support to the actions and projects of your local Church, especially to ensure a just future for children who are least protected.”

This is the work of Visitation house, a work which is at the front lines of the struggle to protect the life of every human being from conception to natural death.

I will pray for the success of this good work and I thank God for the ways in which the miracle of the Visitation is lived out today on Vernon Hill in Worcester.

Vespers at the Cathedral

2010-03-22T21:18:00.008-04:00

CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PAUL

The service of Vespers or Evening Prayer is part of the Church's Liturgy of the Hours. As the evening approaches and the day is about to end, we, the Church, pause to remember the blessings that the Lord has bestowed on each of us during the day and pray for our redemption. It is a time when we raise our hands as praise and sacrifice. We affirm our faith in the light that knows no setting. We offered Vespers together at the Cathedral on March 20 as the sun was setting on the first day of Spring.

Before we did, many of us joined together in the Cenacle to share a simple meal of soup and bread as sisters and brothers in Christ. To read more about the Liturgy of the Hours, Google Books has portions of the USCB's Liturgy of the Hours available at this site. There are many other places online where you can find information about the daily prayers of the Church but the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains it this way:

The mystery of Christ, his Incarnation and Passover, which we celebrate in the Eucharist especially at the Sunday assembly, permeates and transfigures the time of each day, through the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, "the divine office."46 This celebration, faithful to the apostolic exhortations to "pray constantly," is "so devised that the whole course of the day and night is made holy by the praise of God."47 In this "public prayer of the Church,"48 the faithful (clergy, religious, and lay people) exercise the royal priesthood of the baptized. Celebrated in "the form approved" by the Church, the Liturgy of the Hours "is truly the voice of the Bride herself addressed to her Bridegroom. It is the very prayer which Christ himself together with his Body addresses to the Father.49

See further here #1174.