Cardinal Sean, A Person Of Influence

Last week saw the first concrete move by Pope Francis to begin the reform of the Vatican, which was the first meeting of the advisory council of selected cardinals.  The council, dubbed by the media as the “G-8,” was formed to give the Pope advise and a sense of what issues the cardinals and bishops out in the world felt should be addressed. 

Among the cardinals appointed to this body, is Boston’s own Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM CAP, Archbishop of Boston.  In his own quiet, subtle way, he is, and has been a person of influence in the American church, and now in the global Church.  John Allen, Jr., of the National Catholic Reporter, has written an interesting column about Cardinal Sean, which was posted on the Vatican Insider.

It was reported that Cardinal Sean was definitely in the running at the last Papal Conclave.   And Mr. Allen seems to hint that he is still a viable candidate if a future Conclave needs to held in the next six or so years.

Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi

"I have done what mine to do: may Christ teach you what you are to do."
    (Second Life of St. Francis of Assisi, Thomas of Celano)



The above words were spoken by Saint Francis to his brother friars, as he was on his death bed.  He was encouraging his brothers not to just imitate him, but to learn from him, and the example of his life.  It was a life of being totally open to Jesus Christ, following in the footsteps of Christ, being inspired by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  From that inspiration, they will learn what is the will of God for themselves, how they are to proclaim the Good News, in words and deeds.

The same is true for us.  During this feast day, it is not enough just to visit a Franciscan shrine, or to read a biography of St. Francis.  We must learn from St. Francis, and become open to the power of the Holy Spirit, and live the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Homily For 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time 2013

Exodus 32: 7-11, 13-14

1Timothy 1: 12-17

Luke 15: 1-32

Here is a story of how I got in trouble by reading a story in my Catholic elementary school.  As part of our reading lessons, we were reading a story about frontier settler children being friends with Native American children.  One of the things they did together was to cook potatoes in an open fire.  To me, that sounded neat.  So during a summer day, I convinced some of my siblings and their friends to join me in making a fire, and cooking some potatoes.  Unfortunately, I made this fire under a birch tree, to hide this activity from my parents; a tree with low hanging branches.  Needless to say, we did hear the loud bellow of my father’s voice.  My siblings froze in place; me, I took off for the fields, like I was shot out of a cannon.  I was on a neighborhood street, when I came to realize that I had to face the music.  My father pointed out the errors of my ways, and sent me to my bed with no TV for the rest of the day; which for me was hard time.  But the experience was not as bad as I was afraid it would be.

It is a sad fact of life that all of us continually experience temptation; all of us have a weakness, or flaw in our character; which makes us susceptible to sin.  Even St. Paul, in one of his letters, complained about a weakness he had, that continually plagued him.  We are all prone to selfishness, anger, laziness, and greed.  And we at times may commit sins.  Most of us commit, what the Church calls venial sins, which are minor, but still wounds our relationship with the Father.  Sadly, there are some who commit grave sins, mortal sin, which totally destroys the relationship with God.

In today’s Gospel, we read the parable of the prodigal son, the younger son, whom we could describe as being selfish, greedy and self centered.  He wants his part of his father’s estate now, he wants to leave the farm and go to the big city, and have himself a good old time.  He did not care about his father’s feelings; he just wanted to get the money and then hit the road.   How many of us, on some level can identify with him.  Of course we see what happened to him, he is soon broke, he is destitute; but instead of going home with his tail between his legs, he tries to tough it out, tries to find work.  Perhaps his reason is that he cannot face his father, afraid of facing his father’s scorn.  How many of us have been afraid of going to confession, afraid of the reaction of the confessor when he hears of what we have done.  I think we American Catholics are also affected by the fire and brimstone preachers we may hear and see on the radio and television.  Perhaps we are afraid of facing God the Father; sometimes we wonder, “are we forgiven?” 

Then we hear St. Paul say: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”  We hear Jesus Christ, the Word of God, tell us: “there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  We see in the end of the parable of the prodigal son, the father welcoming his wayward son with love and joy. 

And that is one of the reasons why the Sacrament of Reconciliation, of Penance is so important.  Besides having the wound of sin healed, we experience in absolution the love, the joy, the forgiveness of God the Father.  The experience is real.

In downtown Boston, there is St. Anthony Shrine, which is manned by the Franciscan Friars.  In one of the Shrine’s chapels is a row of confessionals.  On the wall where the confessionals are, is a print of Rembrandt’s painting, showing the encounter of the prodigal son with his father.  The son is on his knees, being embraced by his father.  God the Father is waiting for us to come to him, and his arms are wide open, ready to embrace us.  Let us go to him.

Gifts From The Father

“Moreover they should respect all creatures, animate and inanimate, which bear the imprint of the Most High, and they should strive to move from the temptation of exploiting creation to the Franciscan concept of universal kinship.”  (Art. 18, Secular Franciscan Order Rule)

During one of those beautiful summer days we had recently, I was walking through the Boston Common.  In an open space, I was looking around and looked at the green tress of the Common with the skyline of downtown Boston in background.  Looking at this scene, the above article of the Rule came to mind.  We all know that Francis had a special love for all living creatures; it is one of those characteristics that make him so attractive to so many people.  We forget sometimes though, that he felt a kinship will all creation.  He showed respect for fire, water, the earth, because these things were all created by God. 

We all need to remember that everything we have in this life comes to us gifts from a loving God.  And so we need to treat these things with respect and care.  I remember reading that in the monasteries, when a monk is given tools to perform his work for the monastery, he was to treat those tools with care and was accountable to the community if anything happened to the tools.  And so it should be with us, treating the items we use in our daily lives, the places we live and work in with care. We should do this because of our love for the Creator.

New Biography on Saint Francis of Assisi

For a Jesuit periodical, America magazine seems to frequently call peoples attention to the latest books on St. Francis of Assisi.  The latest book is biography written by Andre Vauchez, a French scholar.  The work was translated by Father Michael Cusato, OFM, a noted Franciscan historian.  America magazine posted a review of the book on their website, as well as a podcast interview with Father Cusato on the book.

Homily For The 20th Sunday In Ordinary Time - 2013

Jeremiah 38: 4-6, 8-10

Hebrews 12: 1-4

Luke 12: 49-53

“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”

“Do you think that I have come to establish peace on earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division.”

It is a little jarring to hear these words coming from the mouth of Jesus Christ.  Where is the gentle Shepherd? The one who welcomed little children? The one who talked about turning the other cheek?  Where did this rabble rouser come from?  But should we be surprised by this?  After all, early in the Gospel of Luke, we see John the Baptist, speaking of the coming Messiah, declaring; “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

I think that we sometimes forget that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Christ the King, Christ the ultimate Priest, is also Christ the Prophet.  He is coming from a long line of Jewish prophets.  And these prophets did not just predict the future; their main role was to speak the word of God, the word of Yahweh.  They spent most of their lives calling the people of Israel back into a loving relationship with God.  Among these prophets was Jeremiah.  He lived during a time when the empire King David and Solomon built up had been shattered, the northern tribes of Israel had been dispersed and exiled.  Only the southern kingdom of Judah was left.  The king of Judah, to insure his kingdom’s survival entered into an alliance with a powerful and ancient Egypt.  Now the price of this alliance was to allow the worship of the Egyptian gods in Judah, which also allowed the resurgence of the worship of the ancient Canaanite gods.  The king of Judah was no longer turning to Yahweh for help and protection.  Along comes Jeremiah, telling the people that salvation lies not in earthly alliances, but in remaining faithful to the covenant with God. He is trying to shake the people up, to bring them back to God.  Reading the signs of the times, he predicted that this alliance would ultimately lead to the destruction of the nation.  The king and his advisers do not want this kind of talk getting around, so they initially try to silence Jeremiah …permanently.  God inspired a court official to convince the king to save Jeremiah; but we see that being a prophet, especially one with an uncomfortable message, has its consequences.  But Jeremiah was committed to reigniting the fire in the hearts of his people, the love for God, to call them to conversion.

Jesus’ coming has changed the world, the old ways of humanity, the old ways of relating which each other, of relating to God the Father, were to be wiped away, and a new heaven and a new earth was to come into being.  His message was not popular with many people, especially those who had a lot invested in the old ways of doing things, in the old structures of power.  They put Jesus to death, hoping to silence the message, but the Father raised Him from the dead, and his message blazed out throughout the world, carried by his followers.  The Gospel of Christ was, and still is controversial, because it threatens the way many see the world and their comfortable relationship with it.  We have seen the negative reactions that many people expressed about Pope Francis’ comments about capitalism, the world economy, and the needs of the poor.  And, yes, when the Gospel is authentically lived; it has the potential to cause divisions among family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.  Anyone who is so comfortable with the way society is, the way the world is, the way their lives are, they do not want to change.  Even though the society, the world is so full of injustice, pain and suffering; even though their lives may be empty and at times full of pain; they feel threatened by the Gospel, the call for conversion.  So they try to make the Gospel irrelevant, they try to keep the Word of God in a box. 

And we need to ask ourselves, where are we in all of this?  Has the fire gone out of our faith communities, has it been extinguished in our hearts?  A scholar of the Christian religion, Martin Marty, has called Europe and North America the “Ice Belt,” because he sees the fire of Christianity dying out.  Are we willing stand by and just let this happen.  Our Church, our Holy Father, our Archbishop says no, and they are challenging themselves and us to rekindle that fire which first disciples experienced with Christ, and let it burn anew in our hearts. Let us recommit ourselves to, with the help of the Father’s grace, the inspiration of the Word of God, and the light of the Holy Spirit; to live, really live the Good News.  Let us, as St. Paul wrote, “Persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus.”  Let us set the world ablaze!

August 11th - Feast of St. Clare Of Assisi

“Trusting in the Father, Christ chose for himself and his mother a poor and humble life, even though he valued created things attentively and lovingly.  Let the Secular Franciscans seek a proper spirit of detachment from temporal goods by simplifying their own material needs.  Let them be mindful that according to the gospel they are stewards of the goods received for the benefit of God’s children.

Thus, in the spirit of the Beatitudes, and as pilgrims and strangers on their way to the Father, they should strive to purify their hearts from every tendency and yearning for possession and power.”  (Art. 11, Secular Franciscan Order Rule)

If August 11, 2013, had not fallen on a Sunday, we would have been celebrating  the memory of Saint Clare of Assisi, co-founder with Saint Francis of the Second Order, then known as the Poor Ladies of San Damiano, and today known as the Poor Clares.  We sometimes think of her and her sisters as the contemplative branch of the Franciscan family, but I would like to share a reflection on another aspect of Clare’s life and spirituality.

When the Poor Ladies were established at San Damiano, Clare requested a special privilege from the Pope and the Bishop of Assisi, the privilege of poverty.  Her monastery would depend only on the income from the work of their hands, or from alms given to them.  At a time when the established monasteries had huge incomes from the rents on lands gifted to them, and the dowries of the women who entered the monasteries, this was unheard of.  The Popes of Clare’s time continually refused this request, believing that the Poor Ladies needed income and sustenance that only lands and endowments could provide.  Now Clare was not an ascetic masochist, nor did she see poverty as an end.  She saw evangelical poverty as a means to an end.  As she and her sisters gazed on the San Damiano cross, they saw Christ, though He was the Son of God, willing to empty Himself for all humanity.  And Clare realized that to follow Christ meant emptying oneself of all possessions, of the need to possess and control, and be dependent on the love of God.  Thus, she held out against the Pope, until finally he relented and gave Clare and her sisters the privilege of poverty.  She received the written permission shortly before her death.

We are also called to empty ourselves so that we can be open and receptive to the love of God.  We, too, are called to empty ourselves and share the gifts of that love with everyone.  Let us ask for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, let us be inspired by the lives of Francis and Clare.  Let us have the courage to open our arms and share all that we have for the sake of the kingdom of God.