Let us console one another in faith...

Losing a loved one--a spouse, a child, a parent, a sibling, a friend--is, in most cases, the most difficult thing that any of us will go through in our lives.  It follows, then, that accompanying those we love through the process of mourning a death is one of the most important things that any of us will do in our lives. 

As recent news stories have indicated, helping a friend or loved one cope with death can be very intimidating and many of us struggle determining what is the appropriate thing to say or do.  Sometimes it seems easier simply to avoid death altogether and resist putting ourselves in situations about which we are unsure or uncomfortable.  Our faith, of course, urges us to do the opposite.  Not only do three of the Church's works of mercy (burying the dead, praying for the dead, and comforting the sorrowful) urge us to accompany others on the funeral journey, but scripture tells us of Jesus himself accompanying those who mourn from Mary and Martha to Jairus. 

Perhaps news of the president's interacting with the grieving widow of a soldier can serve as a reminder to all of us of the importance of being present for those in our lives who are mourning.  People aren't looking for us to explain why their loved one has died, they are not looking for us to take away all of their pain, and they are not looking for someone to provide them with all of the answers.  Our loved ones, friends, and acquaintances are, above all looking for the people in their life to accompany them, to be present to them, and to listen.  Even in the short time since I have been ordained a priest I have noticed a decline in the number of people who attend viewings and funerals and I imagine that this is due in part to the level of discomfort and uncertainty people feel around death.  Please, do not allow your discomfort to get the best of you!  It is so critically important that we continue to bury those who have died, to pray for them and their families, and to comfort our brothers and sisters as they mourn.  You don't need to have all the answers, you simply need to be present--it is one of the most important ways we can follow the example of Christ in our lives and be Christ for those in need.

For the victims of the shooting in Las Vegas

May the angels lead you into paradise;
may the martyrs come to welcome you
and take you to the holy city,
the new and eternal Jerusalem.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord

And may perpetual light shine upon them.

May they rest in peace.

May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace.

Amen.

Dominicans in Paris (and Bologna)

On September 22, 1217, 800 years ago today, legend has it that seven Dominican friars entered Paris for the first time, together with their brother friars in Bologna, Italy, to begin teaching at the university there.  The Dominicans were founded by St. Dominic de Guzman the previous year as a mendicant order (support themselves by begging) who would focus on preaching, teaching, and correcting heresy.  The Dominicans have for centuries provided some of the church's most brilliant theologians from St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Catherine of Siena in the middle ages to Yves Congar and Marie-Dominique Chenu at the Second Vatican Council.   

“Sicut enim maius est illuminare quam lucere solum, ita maius est contemplata aliis tradere quam solum contemplari.”

“Just as it is better to illuminate than merely to shine, so to pass on what one has contemplated is better than merely to contemplate”

— St. Thomas Aquinas

The Happy and Quarrelsome Exchange

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross seems like a strange concept.  Why on earth would something like the Cross be exalted.  Would we proclaim the glory of the guillotine or the ecstasy of the electric chair?  Of course as Christians we shouldn't be shocked by paradoxes such as the exaltation of a weapon of execution.  Our Faith holds to notions such as the Incarnation, which states that Christ is both God and human; the Trinity, which tells us that God is both one substance and three persons; and of course Jesus' teaching which proclaims that the last shall be first just to name a few.  Our theology of the Cross is no different.

As we prepare to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in October, I am reminded of the extensive writing of Martin Luther on this very topic.  For Luther all of Christian thought retains this paradoxical structure, and nowhere is it more evident than in his theology of the Cross.  Luther uses the phrase fröhliche Wechsel und Streit, the happy and quarrelsome exchange, to describe what's going on with Jesus' crucifixion.  For Luther the Cross is not simply a sad event from the life of Christ, it is an exchange, an exchange that is at once glorious and sorrowful.  The Cross is about Christ taking on the sin, death, and darkness of humanity and exchanging it for the redemption, life, and glory of God.  It is a trade that at once reminds us of the fallen nature of humanity and the infinite mercy of God.  Thus the Cross becomes our salvation, a glorious exchange, and something worthy of exaltation.

Because Biko

“Material want is bad enough, but coupled with spiritual poverty, it kills.”

— Stephen Bantu Biko

I am not old enough to remember the great anti-Apartheid activist Steve Biko in life.  At the time of his death in a Pretorian prison cell I had not yet been born and my memories of Apartheid South Africa are limited to it's death throes in the late 1980s and early 1990s from my safe home thousands of miles away.  It seems, as we celebrate today the 40th anniversary of his unjust and violent death at the hands of an inherently racist government, his memory, at least in the United States and much of the western world, has been neglected.  In fact, if it weren't for the song Biko written by a personal favorite Peter Gabriel, many of us may have never encountered his legacy at all.

So why, on a blog written by a Catholic priest in northeastern PA, would I want to touch on the life and death of a man who lived in a country that is not my own, in an era that is long past, and who didn't appear inherently religious at all?  It's simple--Biko's legacy touches on something that is as important today as it was in South Africa in the 1970s--dignity. 

As a teenager Biko was expelled from all government schools for his involvement in the Black Consciousness Movement and eventually found a home at the Catholic St. Francis College in Natal.  You can still read some of his commentary on his time there, how he learned of the contradictions between the Gospel and the "Christian" society in which he lived and became better able to realize the true call of Christ to the black community of South Africa.  So much of his writing, his speaking, and his impact centers on the idea that what was/is needed above all for the oppressed black majority in his home country was a sense of dignity, of pride in being black, of eliminating the false and dangerous notion that they belonged to an inferior race.  The Black Consciousness Movement was about more than reforming political or economic systems, it was about restoring a sense of dignity to the minds of black South Africans, of allowing his brothers and sisters to feel proud about who they are and be willing to fight for a more just society. 

I do not claim to be an expert on the thought of Steve Biko nor am I qualified to examine or explain his message.  I do, however, think it is worthwhile today, 40 years after his death, to take a chance to examine his legacy.  A quick Google search today will undoubtedly lead you to no shortage of interpretations.  It seems to me, though, that above all he sought to bring dignity back to his black community.  It is the dignity of the human person that lies at the heart of all Catholic social teaching, dignity that is God-given and inalienable--a truth Steve Biko knew and was willing to die for. 

Mother Teresa and Her Missionaries

Today, September 5, 2017 is the feast day of St. Teresa of Calcutta and the 20th anniversary of her death.  I had the opportunity to offer Mass for her order, the Missionaries of Charity, several times while living in Rome and working with them from time to time as they served the poor and I must say, the stories that you may have heard about their selflessness, dedication, and love for all are not exaggerations.  Day begins with Mass at 6 AM and continues, non-stop, from then on.  The Missionaries of Charity follow the example of their foundress by dedicating their entire lives to those in most need. It is inspiring (and tiring) to see them in action.  Whenever I hear criticism of Mother Teresa following the line of the late Christopher Hitchens it is obvious to me that the individuals leveling the critique have never had the privilege of working with these holy sisters.  They are doing work that no one else is willing to do, helping those whom the rest of the world has forgotten. 

Perhaps the most inspiring thing about their work is that they are not simply concerned with providing material relief for the poor, they provide the spiritual and psychological tools necessary for them to endure suffering.  While we can and should try to eliminate poverty and suffering as best we can, we live in a world in which they are often inevitable.  In addition to needing food, water, shelter, and medicine, the poor and suffering of the world need faith, hope, and love.  The Missionaries of Charity, in addition to helping with material needs, provide the spiritual tools necessary to endure suffering in a difficult world.  What a gift, what beautiful work.

I'll leave you with the words of Mother Teresa during her visit to the University of Scranton in 1976- "know poor people in your own home and local neighborhood"--let us learn to know and serve the poor in our midst, offering them material relief, skills, and spiritual assistance in faith, hope, and love.

The Providence of an Eclipse

Today people throughout the United States are traveling and staring at the sky (with proper eye protection, of course) to see either a total or partial solar eclipse.  It is one of the most impressive naturally occurring sights known to man, but it didn't have to be that way...

There are countless variables and constants within physics, biology, and astronomy that, were they just a hair different, would make life on earth impossible.  The laws of gravity, the improbable development of DNA, and the Earth's distance from the Sun, among other things, seem so perfectly fine-tuned that many people have looked at them as proof for the existence of God.  While we can certainly be grateful for the seemingly perfect starting point that God has given us and marvel at the beauty of our intricate universe, it isn't exactly an iron-clad argument--of course the conditions are perfect for the existence of life, if they weren't, there wouldn't be anyone here to notice that they were off! 

The presence of solar eclipses strikes me as a little bit different, though.  There is really no reason why we should even be able to see them, nothing about the variables involved are necessary for the existence of life and it is most likely that there are relatively few places in the universe where something like our total solar eclipse is even possible and few time periods in our planet's history when it would be an impressive sight. 

Consider these facts:

1. The Moon is about 400 times smaller than the Sun--now, our Sun is pretty average-sized for a star at this stage in its sequence and our Moon is a little larger than would be expected for a planet our size, nothing Earth-shattering there.
2. The Sun is about 400 times further away from the Earth than the Moon is--again, we are the right distance from the Sun for a planet to be habitable and our moon is a normal distance from us, so this in itself isn't strange.
3. The Moon's orbit around the Earth isn't constant, it wobbles a little and moves a few centimeters away from us every year--a minuscule amount for the distances we are talking about.

None of these are terribly interesting on their own, but when viewed together they are pretty impressive.  The relationship between the Moon and Sun's sizes and distances from the earth match up almost perfectly...why?  There is no real reason for that to be the case, and yet it is!  The size of both and their distances from each other are perfectly calibrated to allow us to see total solar eclipses, undoubtedly a rare sight in the universe.  What's even more, it hasn't always been that way and won't be that way forever.  Since the Moon is slowly moving away from the Earth that means that millions of years ago the Moon would have completely blocked out the Sun, leaving nothing but darkness, and a few million years from now the Moon will be too small in the sky to block the Sun.  We happened to come along during the brief window in which solar eclipses occur on our planet.  We, Earth's first and only sentient life form, live in a place and during a time in which a solar eclipse is possible.

Of course, this isn't an iron-clad proof of the existence of God, either, but for the believer it sure seems providential.  It makes you stop and think about the beauty of our universe and the intricate details that are necessary for us not only to exist, but to see such incredible things.  Thank God for our magnificent cosmos and for putting us in a time and a place to see His wonders all around us!

Brother Sun and Sister Moon

St. Clare of Assisi, in what has to be one of the most hilarious papal pronouncements of all time, was named the patron saint of television by Pope Pius XII in 1958 even though she lived seven centuries before its invention.  The oft-provided rationale is that when Clare was ill in her convent and was unable to attend Mass, she received a vision on her wall of the Mass taking place, I guess making her the first to watch closed-circuit TV. 

The deeper meaning behind Pope Pius' designation, I have to think, lies in the fact that Clare's entire ethos is a near perfect refutation of the flaws of modern society.  Where, in the age of television, we seek instant gratification, Clare sought virtue.  Where we seek control over every aspect of our lives and others' lives, Clare sought abandonment to the Divine Will.  Where we seek comfort, Clare sought poverty.  Where we fill our days with a thousand little worries and concerns, Clare sought perfect simplicity.  Where we seek power, Clare sought the silence of the monastery.  Where we seek self-fulfillment, Clare sought God and God alone.

Enjoy a little clip of St. Clare and St. Francis together from Franco Zefirelli's film Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel

Today at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church we celebrate the Solemnity of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, our patroness.

• Remember, like the prophet Elijah on Mt. Carmel, to spend some time in silence to listen for the voice of God.
• Remember, like St. John the Baptist, to gain strength from your prayer so that you can go out into the world and announce the coming of Christ.
• Remember, like the great Carmelite saints, to never stop striving to grow in your relationship with God.

We pray today for the guidance, protection, and example of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel as we find the quiet and prayerful Mt. Carmel in our own lives.  May God bless you on this special day.

The Benedict Mandate

Perhaps no Christian since the days of the Apostles has had more of in impact on the development and future of the Church and western culture as a whole as St. Benedict of Nursia.  As the author of the Rule of St. Benedict and the founder of modern religious life, his family tree would include such monumental figures as St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and St. Teresa of Calcutta.  His monastic system would eventually give birth to modern schools, hospitals, orphanages, wineries, and universities.  Benedictine monks helped develop modern agriculture, metallurgy, and genetics.  Their numerous inventions range from Parmesan cheese to the mechanical clock.  The monasteries of late antiquity and the early middle ages preserved and advanced upon the literary, scientific, and cultural achievements of the ancient world to the benefit of generations to come.

As impressive as these achievements are, however, St. Benedict certainly did not live and teach the life that he did in order to facilitate any of them.  St. Benedict's primary mission, like all saints, was to serve as the salt and light of the world.  Over 100 years before Benedict's birth in 480 AD the situation Christians found themselves in within the bounds of the Roman Empire was quite different from the one their ancestors had faced.  With crucifixion or beheading no longer a real possibility, the new threat to the Christian was complacency.  Gone were the days of the heroic martyrs and in their place was a world were Christianity was not only not persecuted, but favored.  It was in this setting that early ascetics like St. Anthony of the Desert decided to voluntarily live a life of extreme poverty and prayer, the martyrs of the new society.  It was into this tradition that St. Benedict of Nursia stepped.  He realized that this extreme and solitary life of a holy hermit was certainly not the best option for a novice looking to grow in holiness and could easily lead a person down the wrong path.  His solution was to develop and teach a rule of life that set guidelines for groups of Christians living together in community and voluntarily adopting lives of poverty, chastity, obedience, and prayer.  These new monasteries quickly became centers of prayer, education, and vitality for their surrounding communities and immeasurably improved the quality of life and holiness of those in their vicinity.  The tradition that Benedict began continues to this day in the Order of St. Benedict, but has also given birth to all modern western religious orders such as the Franciscans, Jesuits, and Dominicans.

With this back story in mind it is absurd to posit, as some people have, that Benedict's Rule promotes a full retreat from the world and the establishment of separate and isolated Catholic communities.  In fact quite the opposite is true.  By bringing men or women together to live in intentional communities of faith, to themselves grow in holiness, Benedict from the beginning saw the evangelization of his culture as his primary mission.  It wasn't so much a desire to form a pure and undefiled remnant of the Church that motivated Benedict as it was to form the best possible means of engaging and inspiring the Church around him.  Benedictine monasteries were set apart from their communities, but they were also established in the midst of wider communities to teach and preach to those around them.

As we celebrate the feast of St. Benedict today we remember that he did not call on followers of Jesus to abandon the world, but to engage it, to gently help it grow (Benedictines have been working on this for 1500 years!), to be salt and light for the world.

The Rule of St. Benedict (if you're interested in taking a look)