Not Why, but What

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Sometimes the way that God answers prayers doesn’t appear obvious.  Some people pray for a miraculous cure for their family member or friend and they get a miracle.  Other people say the same prayers and yet their loved one dies.  A natural disaster like a tornado or a hurricane demolishes one church, but another which is in the direct path has only minor damage.  Why?
    Some would like to attribute it to personal holiness.  And certainly being a friend of God, not only in name but also in deed, doesn’t hurt when asking God for a favor.  But that’s not what happened in the first reading.  The prophet Elijah went to Zarephath, which was a pagan town.  The widow he helped during the famine was not Jewish, but worshipped false gods.  Yet God answered her prayer for sustenance through Elijah, though many Jewish widows had to see their children die of starvation.  Jesus also speaks about how “there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”  

    So how does God answer prayers?  Why do the prayers of some get heard, while others seemed to be ignored?  God never ignores prayers, but He doesn’t always answer them as we want.  And, to be honest, we don’t often know why He answers some prayers as people want, but not others as they want.  Why God allows good things to happen to bad people, and bad things to happen to good people is a conundrum we won’t know on this side of eternity.  Sometimes we do see that an answered prayer helps a non-believe believe, or that even a seemingly-unanswered prayer doesn’t shake the faith of one who believes in God, who accepts even a negative outcome gracefully.  But often, we don’t have the answer to why.
    So what do we do?  We ask a different question.  And that question is not “why?”, but “what?”.  What do we know?  We know that God loves us, and that, as St. Paul says, “all things work for the good of those who love God.”  Whatever God wills for us, and even whatever He allows us to undergo, helps us to be the saints that He wants us to be.  Sometimes what God wills and what God allows seems beneficial to us, like an unexpected raise, or recovery from an illness.  Sometimes what God allows does not seem so beneficial.  But He desires that everything we might undergo, even the tragic death of a loved one, would increase or faith, hope, and love in Him.
    We also know, as we hear in the second reading, that Christ is forever interceding for us to our heavenly Father.  Though He is also God, Christ stands in the heavenly Jerusalem, the sanctuary not made with hands, bringing our prayers, made in the power of the Holy Spirit, to God the Father.  Christ offers Himself, not in a bloody way, but in an unbloody way, to the Father, bringing our humanity to God throughout all time.  He offers Himself always so that our sins might be taken away, just as He offered, once for all, the perfect sacrifice on the cross for the salvation of all the world.  And Christ, who shares our human nature, always asks the Father to give us what we need for our sanctification.  
    During this month of November, which we began with the celebration of All Saints, we also know that all the saints plead with God for us and our needs.  They do so, not to change the will of God, but to submit our desires and our prayers to the will of God which is always for our good.  I often ask St. Anthony to help me or others find things that they have lost.  Or maybe you pray to St. Monica to ask God to give your children who have left the faith the openness to the grace to return to His Holy Church.  Or maybe you ask St. Joseph to intercede for a loved one who is terminally ill for the grace of a happy death.  Or whatever other desire you might have.  The saints cannot do anything but that which is in accord with the will of God.  But they always ask God that our desires might be aligned with His so that our faith, hope, and love will find more strength and resiliency.  
    Lastly, we know that God desires that we trust Him.  The poor widow who gave all the money that she had trusted that God would provide.  God doesn’t always ask for money, though we should support the Church financially, but He does always ask for the gift of our entire selves.  He wants all of us, not just parts of us.  He even wants the sinful parts of us, so that He can transform them by the power of his grace and mercy.  Just as Christ offers all of who He is to the Father in the Holy Spirit, so the Father desires that we offer all of who we are, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to Him.  And when we offer all of who we are, God offers all of who He is, which is a treasure beyond imagining, not in the sense the world uses treasure, but in the sense of the deepest longing of our hearts.  
    We don’t always know God’s ways.  We may never fully understand why some prayers are answered the way we want, but others God does not answer the way we want.  But we know that God loves us, that He always acts for our good and salvation, and that the best gift we can give God is the gift of ourselves, trusting in His will and plan for our salvation.  

Saints Among Us

 Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
 

   There’s a beautiful song by the band “Alabama” called “Angels Among Us.”  The song talks about the presence of “angels” at different times in the singer’s life, those who “guide us with the light of love.”  It’s a touching image and song, and mentions people who help out, who are like angels, assisting us in our various times of need.
    But the “angels” among us are not simply kind and loving humans on earth.  As the author of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.”  We often forget these witnesses, because we don’t see them.  But if we truly believe that death is not the end, that it is simply a transition to a new state that, temporarily, does not include the body (except for the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose Assumption we celebrate on Monday), then we should remember that the saints are among us, urging us to “persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith.”  
    Do you have a relationship with the saints?  Do you turn to them each week or each day for help in being a saint yourself?  Or do we turn to saints like St. Anthony only when we have lost our car keys, or on All Saints’ Day in November?  

    Our devotion to saints (but not worship of them) is part of the beauty of our apostolic faith.  We Catholics and the Orthodox are really the two churches that foster great devotion to these heroes and heroines of the faith who have gone before us (some Protestants honor the Biblical saints, but not many or any beyond that).  We, instead, have saints of all kinds from all times.  Yes, we honor the apostles, but we also honor St. Monica, whose tears won her family’s conversion.  We venerate children saints like Maria Goretti, and saints like St. Anthony of the Desert who lived for a hundred years.  There are married saints and celibate saints, monks, nuns, brothers, and sisters.  We have saints who were kings and queens, and saints who gave up everything to serve lepers.  There are saints from every continent.  Some like Dominic and Elizabeth have very common names.  Others like Cundegunde and Polycarp have names that never seem to be in the top one hundred when considering a name for your newborn child.  There are saints who are patrons for just about anything.  Some were holy all their life; others had major conversions.  There’s even a blessed, Bl. Anthony Neyrot, from the 1400s, who was captured as a Dominican friar by Muslim pirates, renounced his faith in Christ after some years in slavery, but then had a vision of his Dominican mentor, St. Antoninus, who had died, and reverted to the Catholic faith, which led to his martyrdom by the muslims among whom he lived.  So there are saints for everyone and every situation.
    There’s a book I have called “Drinking With the Saints,” which provides drink ideas for some of the major or minor saints of our faith.  I’m not encouraging getting drunk, but it’s a great way to learn something about the saints throughout the year, and maybe enjoy a new (or familiar) adult beverage at the same time.
    Our relationship with the saints is one of the great ways that we can persevere in doing our best to live holy lives.  Just last week, I felt a bit overwhelmed by all the things I had to do (I often use the example from the old “Ed Sullivan Show” where a man puts plates on poles and starts them spinning, and then has to run around the stage to keep them spinning so that they don’t fall and break).  So I leaned on two of my best friends to commiserate and to bolster me to keep going.  The saints help us to do the same thing and we should turn to them in any joy or struggle.  The saints can understand the pain we’re going through, but they can also show us how to persevere, no matter what is happening in our life.  And they can be great voices before the throne of God, telling our loving God to ease up a bit when times are tough, or to pour it on when there’s something worth celebrating.  
    Jesus reminds us today that following Him is not always easy.  Following Christ doesn’t always bring peace, but sometimes brings great interior turmoil as the grace of God strengthens us to put the old man to death and live for the new man, Jesus Christ.  It sometimes even causes families to be divided.  The saints are urging us on, like a cross country coach meeting us at different points along the course, or a boxing coach standing in our corner, patching up our cuts and making sure we get re-hydrated.  
    Don’t just stay at a surface level relationship with the saints, where we ask St. Anthony to find things for us, or we put up a statue of St. Francis because we like pets.  Get to know the saints more deeply.  Read about their lives.  Talk to them each week or even each day.  Because there are not only angels, but saints among us “to show us how to live, to teach us how to give, to guide us with the light of love.”

Saints Like Us

 Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
 

St. Teresa of Calcutta

   In 2006 when I was studying in Rome on a study abroad, I was required to work with the Missionaries of Charity, the order that St. Teresa of Calcutta founded, each month at a shelter where they fed the hungry and housed the homeless.  Before we started to work with them, though, a priest from Minnesota, who was our chaplain for the study abroad program, who had worked with Mother Teresa, told us about her.  Most of what I heard was not surprising: her love for the poor, her encounter with Jesus who told her, “I thirst,” and how she was to quench Jesus’ thirst through her care for the poorest of the poor.  But he also mentioned that, for most of her adult life, she didn’t receive any good feelings in prayer, what we call consolations.  This was a huge shock for me!  How could someone so holy not feel good about praying!  Not long after my study abroad, a book came out called Come, Be My Light, which detailed how Mother Teresa, after her encounter with Jesus to found the Missionaries of Charity, rarely had any experience that God was even present, let alone good feelings in prayer.
    When we think of the saints, we often think of the finished product.  We think of the incredible stories that are told of the saints doing marvelous things.  We often gloss over the struggles and the ups and downs that they had in their life, even while trying to be a saint.  But throughout the Scriptures, and throughout the stories of the saints, we see people who were very much like we are, prone to the same temptations, who, the vast majority of the time, chose God over self, but who, nonetheless, sometimes struggled.
    Our Gospel today is the perfect example of the similarity of the saints to us.  We hear St. Mark’s version of the commission of St. Peter to be the first pope.  We have heard the story before: Jesus asks His Apostles who others say that He is, and they give the common understanding at the time.  Some say that Jesus is John the Baptist back from the dead.  Others say that Jesus is Elijah, or another one of the prophets.  But then Jesus puts the question to them, and St. Peter, not on his own, but by the grace of God, proclaims that Jesus is the Christ, in Aramaic he would have said something like messhichah, in English we say Messiah.  Matthew’s account is the one with which we are more familiar, and fills out that, after that proclamation, Jesus tells Peter that Jesus will build His Church on Peter, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, and gives Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.  This is the great moment that we are used to encountering with the saints!  
    But then, Jesus tells the Apostles that He will suffer, be rejected, and be killed, but then rise on the third day.  St. Peter takes Jesus aside to tell him that this is not what should happen.  Jesus gathers all the Apostles, and rebukes Peter in the midst of them, and calls Peter, the one upon whom Jesus had just said He will build His Church, Satan.  This is not the image of our first pope upon which we like to dwell, or that we are used to sharing with others.  But St. Mark (like St. Matthew) does not hide it, or make Peter seem better than he is.  In fact, by ancient tradition, St. Peter helped St. Mark compose this account of the Gospel, so St. Peter doesn’t even hide his failure.
    The saints were people just like ourselves.  It would be easy to think of them as people who had superpowers, like the Avengers, because we do hear many amazing stories of how they witnessed their faith in word and deed.  But superheroes are easy to honor, but easy to write-off, because they are not like us.  I can excuse myself for not doing the things Captain America does because I didn’t get an injection that increased my muscle mass (despite my hopes that the COVID vaccine would do exactly that!).  I don’t worry about not doing what Captain America does because he and I are so different.
    But the saints are not different than we are.  They are exactly the same, except they end up responding to God’s grace, whereas we often reject those same graces.  But still, they don’t have any super-human advantages that we don’t have.  They are exactly like us.  They, though, did what Jesus said: they denied themselves, took up their crosses, and followed Jesus, in a myriad of different ways.  Some, like St. Boniface, were great missionaries.  Some, like St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, taught in schools and founded religious orders.  Some, like Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, quietly helped the poor.  Some, like Sts. Louis and Zelie, the parents of St. Thérèse, became saints as parents.  And the list goes on and on.  They had some different challenges, based upon the times in which they lived, but they had the same kinds of temptations that we have.

Sts. Louis & Zelie

Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati

    

Living as a saint always takes work; it doesn’t happen through osmosis or simply by letting each day pass by as normal.  To be a saint means that we “set [our] face like flint” to the challenges that approach us each day, “knowing that we shall not be put to shame,” as we heard in our first reading.  When we choose to follow God, we choose to take up our cross, our death, but God sustains us, and will always raise us up to new life; He will never abandon us, even if the whole world does.  But it’s possible, and the saints show us, through their ups and downs. that if we follow Christ, even if we do not do it perfectly (as St. Peter didn’t do it perfectly), if we remain faithful to God and do everything we can to follow Him, then we can be the saints that we are all called to be, just like St. Peter and St. Teresa of Calcutta. 

Our Prayer Before God

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    In days gone by, some Catholic churches used to have a pew tax.  You would pay money to get a particular pew, or part of a pew, and it was your seat.  The most expensive pews were always the ones up front, closest to the Communion Rail, so that you could see as much as you could.  I think if we instituted a pew tax these days, the most expensive pews would be the ones in the back of the church, which people would pay more for so that they could get out earlier!
    The tax collector in today’s Gospel was at the back of the temple, but not because he wanted to get out earlier.  He chose the back because he didn’t feel worthy to approach God, because he was a sinner.  The Pharisee, on the other hand, is very confident that he is doing just fine, and, in fact, feels like he is doing much better than the tax collector. 
    As we approach November, the month in which we traditionally pray for the dead, we think of our loved ones who have died.  There’s a strange phenomenon that has taken hold in the church over the past 50 or years, and that’s making a funeral into a canonization.  You hear it in Words of Remembrance at the funeral home, and priests are sometimes the ones who perpetuate this practice in the homily: John Doe lived a good life and is in heaven now.  He did good things for the Church, loved his family, and worked hard.  He’s no longer in pain.
    To be clear, we should all hope that everyone who dies is in heaven.  We hope for the resurrection.  But what’s a bit odd is if we look toward those who are canonized saints, those whom the Church acknowledges are in heaven, they had a much different view of themselves.  The canonized saints were the first to say during their life, “I’m a sinner.  I have offended God.  My sins are an offense to God’s goodness, and I rely on His mercy.”  The people who are canonized saints were the first to tell people not to canonize them at their funeral, while those who maybe didn’t live such a heroically virtuous life are the first ones we talk about being in heaven.
    Again, our hope is that all God’s children are in heaven.  But is our attitude that of the Pharisee or the tax collector?  It was the Pharisee who said, “I go to church (temple), I pray often, I work hard, I donate to the church (temple), and I love my family.  I’m not a sinner like those other people!”  It was the tax collector who didn’t think he was worthy of the presence of God, and acknowledged how much he sinned.  Maybe the Pharisee didn’t do that many bad things; they weren’t known for big sins.  The tax collector, on the other hand, was seen as a traitor for collecting taxes for a foreign government.  And yet, the tax collector went home justified–in right relationship with God–whereas the Pharisee did not.
    I loved my grandmothers, now deceased, very much, and I had experienced a lot of love from them over my thirty-odd years of life.  Rarely, if ever, had I heard my grandmothers say a cross word; they lived a good life; they went to church.  But I still pray for them to be in heaven.  I have Masses said for them each year.  I hope that they’re in heaven, but I also know that, as much as I experienced perfection from them, they weren’t perfect, and in case they’re not in heaven, I want to do everything I can to help them to get there.  Do I think they’re in hell?  No.  But might they be in purgatory and in need of my prayers?  That could easily be the case, but even that is good, because the purification of purgatory only leads to heaven; it’s a one-way trip up.  And if they’re already in heaven, which I hope for, then I’m sure they’re sharing my prayers with someone else who needs it. 
    When there’s a tough goal, the temptation is to lower the bar so it’s more accessible.  But the great witness of the saints is that they were just like us, in so many ways, and yet they did live a saintly life; so it’s possible for each of us, we don’t have to lower the bar.  But even in their sanctity, they were acutely aware of their sins.  They didn’t paint over them, but acknowledged them and threw themselves on the mercy of God.  The temptation for us who maybe don’t live that heroically virtuous life is to pretend like we’re not sinners, we’re not that bad, because we’re not “greedy, dishonest, [or] adulterous” as the Pharisee said.  But if we aren’t living like a saint in the daily choices we make, at least we can do penance like a saint, and plead for the mercy of God.
    You already know this, maybe more acutely than others, but I’m not a saint.  I try to be, but I fail often, and often in the same ways.  I’m aiming for heaven, but I know that I don’t regularly hit the mark.  So even when I die, I’ll be buried in a purple vestment, as a way of saying that I need your prayers if I’m going to be welcomed into heaven.  I don’t have to make-up sins when I go to confession.  In my examination of conscience, they’re quite clear before my soul.  And so I try to go to confession every couple of weeks.  And every time I say Mass, in the silence after receiving Holy Communion, I make my own the prayer of the tax collector: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.” 
    As we stand before God today at Mass, what is our prayer?  “God, I’m not that bad, I’m not a big sinner?”  Or “O God, be merciful to me a sinner”?

Seeing the Colosseum Daily

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When I was a junior in college seminary, I had the chance to do a study abroad in Rome for the Fall Semester.  My studies were at the Angelicum, not that far from the Colosseum.  In fact, in one of our classes, if you looked out the window, you could see the Colosseum.  The first time I saw the Colosseum, it was amazing.  The tenth time I saw the Colosseum it was pretty cool.  The twentieth time I saw the Colosseum it was ok.  After seeing it daily, sometimes multiple times in a day, it honestly lost a lot of its charm.  But when my parents and sisters came to visit at Christmas, they were so excited to see the Colosseum, and were in awe of it when I took them there.
    What we experience on a regular basis can become pretty boring because we are so used to it.  There’s that phrase that we hear from time-to-time: familiarity breeds contempt.  It can happen with places, even places like the Colosseum.  It can happen with people; how many times do we take for granted those who are closest to us?  It can happen with the Mass.
    Now, this is the point where some of you are about to turn off your hearing aids or your attention, because it’s another Fr. Anthony homily on the Mass.  Contrary to what the Letter to the Hebrews says, Mass might be better attended if it had “blazing fire and gloomy darkness, and storm and a trumpet blast and a voice speaking words…” from the clouds.  And yet, the author states that it’s not that, and implies that it’s something better.
    In Mass we approach:

Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.

But we’re used to it.  We’ve been coming, hopefully every week, and it’s like the Colosseum; maybe it was awe-inspiring at one point, or maybe it still is at different points in our life.  But generally, it’s mundane.  The homilies don’t always grab me; the music doesn’t always move me; the readings don’t always seem to apply to me. 
    This is much different from the description of the ambassadors of King Vladimir of Russia in the late tenth century, who, upon attending a Divine Liturgy (think Eastern Rites) at the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, said, “We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendor or beauty anywhere upon earth.”  They probably meant the building.  And, truthfully, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome never got old for me like the Colosseum did.  St. Peter’s always inspired awe, even as I became familiar with the ins and outs of the building. 
    But what we have here is much greater than a building.  And maybe I’m not the best messenger, but Bishop Barron certainly did a great job in his series on the Mass.  I know the parishioners who attended that DVD series told me how much it changed their appreciation of what happens at Mass.  At each Mass, we do enter the narthex, as it were, to heaven, to the city of God, and countless angels worship with us, with their eyes veiled to what we humans are allowed to receive: Jesus, the Body and Blood of Christ, which does not cry out to God for vengeance, as did Abel’s blood, but pleads for our forgiveness.  And united with us, worshipping God the Father through Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit are all the saints, including the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, St. Joseph, St. Pius X, Sts. Ambrose, Athanasius, Augustine, and John Chrysostom, your patron saints, and the whole multitude of heaven.  That’s a pretty impressive thing.
    To be honest, I sometimes forget this, so it’s not as if you’re alone in this temptation.  But when I take a minute to sit back and think about it, I remember just what is going on, and I wonder at the great mystery in which I am able to participate.  After all, what we come to is not a what, but a Who, God, who communicates His life through His Word, through the signs, and especially through the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus.  All those things I said earlier may still be true: the homily may not grab you, the music may not move you, and the readings may not seem to apply to you.  But you get to spend time with Jesus, who loves you more deeply than anyone else could, who died for you because He loves you, and can think of no other place better to be than right here with you.
    There are so many places in the world where this simple joy, the joy of coming to Mass, is not possible on a weekly, let alone a daily, basis; where coming to Mass means walking miles, sometimes as many as some of you ran or walked in the Crim; where coming to receive Jesus who shed His Precious Blood for you means you may shed your blood in witness to Him.  Let’s do what we can–preparing for Mass throughout the week; pre-reading the readings before Mass begins; thinking of all the people who need prayers and all the good and bad things that we want to offer with the bread and the wine–to make sure that coming to Mass does not become as routine as seeing the Colosseum every day in Rome.

Our Time to Shine

Second Sunday of Lent

The most recent Marvel movie that debuted is “Captain Marvel.”  The previews didn’t really excite me, but on a Sunday afternoon I had some free time and decided to catch the movie.  I have to say, I was really impressed with the movie, both as something enjoyable, and as a good part of the Marvel universe, especially with the upcoming late-April release of the latest Avengers film.

I don’t want to give away the movie, but like many of the first movies of a superhero (or in this case, superheroine) it explains Carol Danvers’ history and identity, as well as her becoming who she truly is meant to be.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus shows us a glimpse of what we’re supposed to be.  In the midst of the impending Passion of our Lord (in the Gospel according to Luke, the Transfiguration happens after the first prediction of Jesus’ Passion, and right before Jesus sets out for Jerusalem to undergo His Passion), Jesus gives Peter, James, and John a glimpse of what will happen after Jesus’ Passion and Death.  The Gospel describes Jesus as with “dazzling white” clothing and His face changed in appearance.  We often depict Jesus as glowing in His Transfiguration.  But what it comes down to is that Jesus shows His special apostles a prefigurement of His glorified body, and Jesus speaks with Moses and Elijah about “his exodus,” Jesus leading His people from slavery to freedom.

We were created for that glory that Jesus shows us in the Transfiguration.  We were created to communion with the saints in heaven as we make our way on our pilgrimage on earth.  We were made for heaven; that is the goal of every human life.

When we depict saints artistically or for sacred worship, we do so with a glorified body, and with a halo.  Good liturgical depictions of the saints may include the instruments of their life or even their death, but it does so in a way that shows that they are at peace.  We also try to make it look like the eternal light of heaven, that place where there is no night because the Lamb is the light and He is never hidden.  If you look at our icons, we have gold leaf for their halos as a way of reflecting and showing off the light.  And their faces are definitely peaceful, not affected by the passions or by even the external events of the world, but simply living the peace of Christ.

But that reality is not only for those in heaven.  If we are living the life of Christ, if we are putting on Christ and living as He desires, then we, too, can shine here on earth.  About certain holy men and women on earth, some have even mentioned that they seemed to shine.  Moses’ face shone after every encounter with God, as we read in the Old Testament.  

And if we shine more and more as we live the heavenly life, then we become more dull the more we immerse ourselves in our earthly life.  St. Paul speaks about that in our second reading.  He talks about those whose “end is destruction.  Their god is their stomach; their glory is in their ‘shame.’  Their minds are occupied with earthly things.”  The more that we focus, instead, on the heavenly life, the more Jesus “will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body.”  The more that we focus on our earthly life, the more we resist that transformation that Jesus shows us in the Transfiguration.

Now, you might be thinking that you have to focus on our earthly life because you live an earthly life.  You, like I, have to pay bills, buy food, travel back and forth, pay mortgages or rent, etc.  But that’s not what I mean by the earthly life.  Earthly life is when we focus on our fallen and base desires.  When we are lustful; when we are greedy; when we make money or power or fame a god; when we lie; when we gossip.  When we do those things, we say no to the divine light that wants to change us, wants to transfigure us.  When we focus on prayer, on generosity, on helping our neighbors, on the common good, even while we are working or vacationing, then we allow that light to penetrate into the very fabric of our life and make us shine with the light of the eternal sun that never sets in heaven.  When we live the heavenly life, we can truly say that the “Lord is my light.”  

I don’t know about you, but I feel like our world is darker now than it was even not that long ago when I was growing up.  And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that since that time, people’s participation in the faith has decreased greatly.  Our world is darker because it is not illuminated by as many men and women striving for holiness, striving to let the light of the Lord shine through them.  And even some of those who do attend Mass do not have their hearts set on the Lord, but are living a double life where greed and power and lust are the happy focus of their life for six and a half days of the week, and the Lord is the focus for one hour on Sunday.  The light will not shine through those people, either.   Instead, by the grace of God, we need to allow God to change us, to forgive us through the Sacrament of Penance when we fall, and to transfigure us with His light.  

Our identity is not in our base desires.  Perhaps you’re still discovering the “superhero” that God is calling you to be.  Be that superhero of the faith.  Be that saint, even in your daily life.  Let God transfigure you to let His light shine through you.

Backwards and Forwards

Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Pius X Church

Today we have the great joy of celebrating the Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Pius X Catholic Church.  We have the chance to exclaim with the psalmist, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord God of Hosts.”  This may seem odd that we would take a day to celebrate a building.  But as Catholics, we know that the material world has been redeemed in Christ and sanctified, and what is visible has become a way for the invisible to be communicated.  Bricks and mortar are no longer bricks and mortar, but are elements that remind us that each of us plays a role in building up the kingdom of God.

But how do Catholics view a church building?  While this sense has been lost by many, a church building is not about functionality.  Church buildings do not exist simply so that people can stay protected from the rain and snow, the heat and the cold.  Our church building is a temple for the True God, which points us back to the Temple that King Solomon built (we heard about that in our first reading today, and it was alluded to in the Gospel).  And that temple points us back to the Garden of Eden, the place of paradise where humanity and God could dwell in peace and harmony.  But it also looks forward to the heavenly Jerusalem, the temple not built by hands, eternal with God.

The temple was divided into different parts.  There were different courts, or areas where people could gather to pray.  Then there was the sanctuary, where the priests could go and offer sacrifices, some of which went to God, some of which went to the priest, and some of which were given back to the people.  Then there was the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctuary, where the High Priest could go, once a year on the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, and ask forgiveness for all the sins of the previous year.  

In our own church building, we have different areas.  We have the narthex, sometimes called the gathering space, where people are welcomed to the church each time they come to Mass.  This is the place where we can speak to each other and find out how each other has been since the last time we saw them.  Then we have the nave, the place where the pews and the choir are, the place where we have devotional candles set up.  This is the place of prayer, where our focus changes from talking to our neighbor to talking to God, the best friend of our soul, who rejoices with us in our joys, and comforts us in our sorrows.  Then there is our sanctuary, the raised area where the Word of God is proclaimed and the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross at Calvary is re-presented for us.  This is a place that is proper to the priest, but into which other commissioned extraordinary ministers of the Word and of Holy Communion, and servers are invited in during particular parts of the Mass to assist the priest.  And at the head of our sanctuary is the Tabernacle, the Seat of Mercy of God, which holds our reserve Blessed Sacrament.  Christ remains here with us, always interceding for forgiveness for our sins before God the Father.  

But our church also points back to the Garden of Eden.  No, this doesn’t mean we get to be naked in church; no one wants that!  But it is meant to be a place of peace and harmony with God.  In this building God speaks to us directly, as He spoke to Adam and Eve, helping us to know what His will is for us, both as a Church and as individuals.  God also feeds us, as He gave Adam and Eve every good food for their sustenance.  God gives us the Body and Blood of His Son, the bread of eternal life, which sustains our souls as we try to follow Jesus.  And in the center of this Garden of Eden is the tree of life, the Crucifix, from which we are able to receive eternal life because of the sacrifice of Jesus, the unblemished Lamb, whose Blood speaks more eloquently than that of Abel, the son of our first parents.  That is why the Crucifix plays such an important role in our faith and in our church: because it is the source of immortality for all who believe and unite their lives to it.

But our church also looks forward to heaven.  In fact, in the Mass, the veil that separates heaven and earth is pulled back, and we are able to anticipate here on earth the glory and peace of heaven.  As the Book of Revelation says, those who have been redeemed sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts” to God the Father and to the Lamb who was slain but lives.  We worship with all the angels and saints, of which our few statues, and in the future our icons, will remind us.  We see those here on earth who worship God, but we probably do not see the myriad, the thousands upon thousands of angels and saints who join with us in worshipping God.  In this church we also anticipate heaven we are also called to leave the fallen world behind, and so we are invited to “lift up our hearts” from the fallenness of our world to the perfection of heaven.  

That all sounds nice, but how does it affect us?  How does our understanding of the church building help us follow Jesus?  It changes the way we behave, the reason why we try to keep quiet in the nave, so that everyone can pray to God in the silence of our hearts; the reason why we don’t chew gum or drink coffee as if this were simply an auditorium.  But it also gives us a reason to return each week.  Who here doesn’t need a break from our fallen world?  Who here doesn’t want to have communion with God?  Who here doesn’t need time away from technology and the cacophony of sounds to have time with God in the silence?  I know I do!  And, as we have a chance to be refreshed by God, we can then better respond to our fallen world, and share the love and the truth that Jesus calls us to spread as He calls us His disciples.  

So while we celebrate a building today, we celebrate a place that prepares us for heaven, and allows us in our own time to taste a little of eternity.  And that is certainly good news for us, who need to hear God and be fed by Him.  And for that reason, we can all say, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord God of Hosts.”

Everything is Different

Easter Vigil

What happened was better than anyone could have expected.  Perhaps Mary, our Blessed Mother, alone had some idea of what would happen.  No one expected Jesus to rise from the dead, even though he had foretold it, along with the prophets of the Old Testament.  No one expected life to conquer death.  What happened was inconceivable.

Easter is not about little bunnies, candies, or pastel colors.  Easter is about Jesus rising from the dead.  We all know that, otherwise we’d be either getting ready to go to bed or sleeping right now.  The Resurrection of Jesus changes everything.  We are no longer trapped in a cycle of being born, doing our best to stay alive and not mess things up too much, and then dying.  We are no longer subject to the rich ruling the poor, the powerful controlling and abusing the weak, the educated domineering the uneducated.  Life is totally different.

“But Fr. Anthony,” you might say, “the rich still rule, the powerful still control and abuse, and the educated domineer.  You are living in a different world if you don’t think that happens.”  Certainly, our world is not perfect.  Just four short days ago, another terrorist attack happened in Europe.  No matter which party you belong to, the candidates all have to have sizable bank accounts and donors to become the President, legislators, and judges.  Each month seems to bring with it a new study of how we should change things because we know better now.

All of that doesn’t matter, because Christ has won.  There is still a battle going on, without a doubt, and it seems like the rich, the powerful, and the educated will always win.  But they have lost already.  They simply have not conceded.  To be fair, being rich, powerful, or educated does not make one bad.  Saints have come from the rich, the powerful, and the educated.  But those saints would be the first to say that they would give up everything if Jesus asked them to.  They live in the new life of the Resurrection where what is most important is Jesus, and the rest is all rubbish.

My dear Elect, in just a few moments, you will become part of that new life.  In the waters of baptism Jesus will give you His new life, which can save you from eternal death.  He will give you grace to reject Satan and all those who ally with him, who will lose.  He will give you His life so that you can re-evaluate everything you have in your life, and weigh it against Jesus Christ.  He will help you to know that the life you lead is no longer about you, but about Him, and loving Him by what you say and what you do to others.  Your life, after Baptism, will be different.

And in the Sacrament of Confirmation, you will receive strength to spread that good news of new life to those you meet.  Why do things in the world seem so dark right now?  Because we have forgotten what it means to be Christian.  We have forgotten to spread the new life and the new way of life to which Jesus invites us.  Even those who have been baptized have decided that they would rather do things their own way than follow Jesus.  And when we wander away from Jesus, we wander from new life and to death.

And in the Eucharist, your initiation into the Catholic Church will be complete.  You will have union with Jesus.  He will be with you, closer than you can be to any other person.  And in that heavenly food, you will find strength to live in the new life of Jesus.  

We, for our part, as your parish family, promise to help you live in that new life.  But we also ask you to help us.  It is too easy, and we see it all too often, for those who were baptized as infants to lose our love for Jesus, and to become complacent.  Your new energy from becoming Catholic reminds us of what we are called to do and be in Christ Jesus.

What happened on that first Easter night, so many years and decades and centuries ago, was better than we could have ever expected.  We received new life in Jesus, who invited us to be His followers and live in relationship with Him according to His new way.  It will not always be easy.  The powers of darkness will seek to have you forget.  But new life has won, and you have us, as well as almost 2,000 years of saints to help you and show you what it means to live this new life.  Christ has risen from the dead, alleluia!

What God Said at Your Baptism

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

What happened on the day of your baptism?  For those of you who were baptized as babies, you may think it’s an impossible question to answer, as you were too young to remember.  Maybe some of you who were baptized as adults remember.  Even if you don’t remember, you can at least get the gist of things from the baptisms you’ve seen celebrated here or elsewhere: your parents asked to have you baptized, they professed their faith, and water was poured upon your heads or you were immersed in water, and then you were given the Sacred Chrism anointing, the white garment, and the baptismal candle.  But there’s something else that happened, something very big: when you were baptized, God the Father said, “‘You are my beloved Son; in you I am well pleased.’”

Now, if you’re a female, you might think this is a bit odd.  Did God not know which sex you are?  Of course He did!  But, when you were baptized, the very life of Jesus was given to you, so that, when the Father looks upon you, yes, He sees you, but He also sees the image of His Beloved Son, Jesus, in whom He is well pleased.  When you were baptized, you were made to be like Jesus.

Now, this isn’t like a costume that you put on.  It’s more like painting a portrait.  You, as a human person, are the canvas, and the artist cooperating with God.  You are the one who receives the image and craft the image that you display.  It’s part of who you are, not an added on extra.  When you were baptized, God traced the pattern of His Son in pencil, hoping that, with His help, you will color it in within the lines.  

Baptism is not a ritual we’ve come up with to celebrate new human life; it is not a ceremony to pass on a cultural identity.  Baptism is a remaking of ourselves, at the very core of our being, by God, so that we can live Jesus’ life.  Not that we ape Jesus; otherwise we’d all go to Israel and Palestine , wear sandals, and dress in tunics.  But we receive strength to live as Jesus did: in total obedience to the Father.  That, of course, is a tall order.  But God Himself makes it possible, and gives us assistance along the way.

Baptism is also not something that we did long ago that has no bearing on our life.  It is a life-long commitment to follow Jesus.  As infants, we don’t have a choice: our parents make the loving choice to have us baptized, because they want God to assist that child in living like Jesus.  Sometimes people will say, “Well, I never got to choose to be baptized; my parents forced it on me.”  Yes, it was forced upon many Catholics as infants.  So was food, clean diapers, love, and all that other “horrible” stuff.  Sometimes parents making choices for us as babies isn’t all bad.  True, as we grow older, we have to also claim it for ourselves and live it out, but we’re set on the right path when our parents have us baptized as infants.

The call that all of us receive in baptism, the outline that is given to us by God, is the call to be a saint.  When the life of Jesus is given to us in Baptism, we are set apart to be a holy man or woman of God.  We can do so as a husband or wife, priest or consecrated person, child or adult, CEO or McDonald’s worker.  No matter what our vocation, no matter what our job, it is possible for us to be saints (and I don’t mean that we all need to go to Siena Heights).  In every circumstance of life, if we are obedient to God the Father’s will, then we will be saints.  Maybe we won’t be canonized, but it will not go unnoticed by God, and His is the only measurement that truly counts.  

Today, celebrate your baptism.  Celebrate that you were called when you were baptized to be a holy man or woman of God.  Celebrate that God the Father looked upon you in love and said, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  May our lives reflect that life of Jesus in all that we do and in all that we say.

The Saints–The Heroes of our Catholic Family

Solemnity of All Saints

A few weeks ago I visited my maternal grandmother.  Her sister, my great-aunt Hilda, just moved from a house she had lived in with my great-grandfather since the 80s.  Of course, there were a lot of things that had to be sorted through when my Aunt Hilda was moving.  One of the things she found was mementos from some of my grandmother’s uncles from when the family was still in Belgium.  When I visited, my grandmother showed me the holy card that was made for her uncle Jules who died in World War I, shortly before the fighting stopped.

When older families members move or die, and we start cleaning out old houses, we can often find family treasures that we might not have even known existed.  Stories are told from one generation to the next about the heroes in our family who did, at least in our family’s estimation, great things.

Today we remember all of the heroes of our Catholic family.  Some of them have been canonized and are celebrated in Catholic churches at Mass around the world.  Others are saints who are in heaven, which is known only to God.  This is so often the case with family members, or particularly holy people we know: we know people who lived holy lives, but whom the church does not canonize because there’s no widespread devotion to them by others.  Today, on the Solemnity of All Saints, we celebrate the people who lived as disciples of Jesus, making Jesus their number one priority, even when it meant giving up other good things.

Jesus gives us the blueprint for how to do that in the Gospel today.  In teaching us the Beatitudes, Jesus teaches us how to be blessed, how to be holy.  We are called to be poor in spirit–to depend on God; to mourn for the sin that still exists in the world; to be meek and not seek after power and glory on earth; to work with all of who we are for justice; to show mercy and forgive; to dedicate our minds and our bodies to the Lord in living a chaste life; to work for peace by living in justice; and even to be persecuted for Jesus and His truth.  But I think that we hear this Gospel so often, that we can forget exactly what that looks like.  So I want to share with you two stories of our Catholic family heroes that hopefully will show you what that can look like.  Having said that, holiness looks a little different for everybody, because how we follow God is as unique as we.  But it always means living according to God’s plan for our life, and living as a disciple of Jesus, following His way, His truth, so as to receive His life.

The first heroes of our Catholic family that I will highlight today are Sts. Louis and Marie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.  They were canonized on October 18, just 2 weeks ago, and were the first married couple canonized on the same day.  Louis and Marie were a middle-class, French couple, who had nine children, though four died at an early age.  They went to daily Mass, made frequent confessions, and lived the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.  They tried to share their financial resources for the spreading of the faith, including donating money to build a seminary in Canada, though they lived in France.  They liked to go on walks, go fishing, and travel, when possible.  In 1877, at about the age of 45, Marie died from breast cancer, and left Louis with five daughters, the youngest of whom, Thérèse, was four and a half years old.  Louis later suffered his own illnesses, and died in 1894, at the age of 70.  In many ways, Louis and Marie lived out what St. Thérèse described as doing little things for God with great love.  There was very little extraordinary in their lives, but they lived it for God.

Another hero of our Catholic Family is Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati.  He was born in Turin, Italy in 1901.  His mother was a painter, and his father was the founder and director of the Italian newspaper, La Stampa, who also became an Italian Senator and Ambassador to Germany.  Pier Giorgio went to Mass frequently, and had a strong devotion to the Eucharist and to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  He joined the St. Vincent de Paul society at the age of 17, and spent much of his time serving the sick and the needy, orphans, and injured soldiers from World War I.  While his family was quite wealthy, he spent his money for the poor, without his parents’ knowledge.  He loved mountain climbing, art, and music.  He was a Third Order Dominican, and worked ardently against Fascism in the political sphere.  Pier Giorgio contracted polio (probably from the sick with whom he spent so much time), and died at the age of 24 in 1925.  The night before he died, he wrote a note, asking his friend to take medicine to a poor, sick man he had been visiting.  At his funeral, the streets of the city were lined with many mourners who were unknown to his family–the poor and needy with whom Pier Giorgio spent so much of his time.  The poor and needy had no idea that Pier Giorgio was the heir of a wealthy, famous family.

Those are just two stories of our saints.  Yes, we have a lot of saints who are priests and consecrated men and women (nuns, monks, sisters, and brothers), but here are two who are lay people, like yourselves.  They didn’t do grandiose things, but did small things they could for God.  Their spiritual lives were not overly complicated: go to Mass, confess their sins, and serve the poor.  God is inviting each one of us to be saints right here, right now, in Adrian.  It’s not complicated: love God with all of who you are and love your neighbor as yourself.  God wants you to be a saint so that you can be truly happy.  Will you deny His desire for your life?

"Rebuild My Church"

Solemnity of the Dedication of St. Joseph Church

While praying at the Church of San Damiano, Francis of Assisi heard Christ speak to him from a crucifix, saying, “Francis, rebuild my church, which you can see is falling into ruin.”  Francis though that Jesus was speaking to him of the physical structure of the little church, and so he started to rebuild it, stone by stone.  But, gradually, Francis realized that Jesus meant that Francis was to rebuild not a physical structure, but the Church, the living stones of God’s temple.  

I tell that story, not because last week was the day which celebrates St. Francis on 4 October; not because our current supreme pontiff is named Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi.  I tell that story because, on this day on which we celebrate the dedication of this beautiful church, Jesus is asking us to do the same.  

Today, Jesus invites us to be rebuilt into the living stones of God’s temple in heaven.  To be honest, that’s a life-long process.  As Bishop Mengeling so often says, we’re not done yet.  We are not done being formed into those living stones until the day we die, and even then, many of us will likely still be shaped through the purification of Purgatory.  And although today is a day of rejoicing, as we look at the status of the Church, we could easily become depressed.  

While the Diocese of Lansing is doing ok, more priests are retiring or are at retirement age, than we are ordaining.  We need more men to respond to God’s call to follow Jesus as a priest and serve His people, especially through providing the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance, which, without priests, we do not have.  More and more families are not putting God as their first priority.  We see this through fewer couples getting married in the Church; fewer baptisms; fewer people attending Mass or practicing their faith in any way, shape, or form.  It leads so many parents and pastors to ask, “What did I do wrong?  What more was I supposed to do?”  Fewer and fewer people understand their faith and what the Church teaches.  There is confusion about marriage, about the Eucharist, about sin, even about who Jesus is and the necessity of Jesus and His Mystical Body, the Church, for salvation.  The Church, in so many ways, is in disrepair.  Before this vast undertaking, we can easily ask ourselves a question that St. Francis perhaps asked himself: what I can, an individual, do, to rebuild the Church?  The task is so great!

But Our God is a God of hope, not despair.  And so there is a way to respond to Jesus’ call to each of us to rebuild His Church.  And this divine renovation cannot happen by money; we cannot throw dollars at this problem.  The rebuilding happens with us being shaped into the living stone that God wants us to be.  The plan is the same as it was for St. Francis: become a saint.  That’s all it takes.  We tend to think of the saints as those who did extraordinary things.  And certainly there are some canonized saints who did amazing things.  But as St. Thérèse teaches us, we don’t have to do great things.  God does want us to do little things with great love.  Some God might call to do great things, but let’s all start where we can, by doing little things with great love.

The first way to respond to God’s invitation is to develop a relationship with Him.  Many of us know, at least a little, about Jesus.  But how many of us know Jesus?  You can know a lot about a person without knowing that person  The way that we start to get to know Jesus is not complicated.  Two practices suffice: daily prayer and going to Mass at least every Sunday and Holyday.  Mass is where we encounter God in a most intimate way through the Body and Blood of Jesus.  We receive God into us.  Why do we go to Mass?  Is it because of an obligation?  Is it because we want to hear good music?  Is it because we’re convinced that one of these Sundays Father Anthony is actually going to give a good homily?  Those are all things that might get us into the door, but those reasons won’t keep many of us going to Mass each Sunday and Holyday.  We go to Mass to worship God and to receive God into us.  Going to Mass for any other reason is like going to a football game for the band.  Bands are great!  I love the MSU Marching Band.  But you don’t drop the kind of money you would for a football game just for the band (though some band parents might).  The reason for going to a football game is to watch football.  All the other stuff is extra.  You have received season tickets, worth more money than all the gold in Fort Knox, to a preview of heaven and an encounter with God through sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.  Going to Mass at least every Sunday and Holyday is a great way to start to become a saint.  Now I know that I’m preaching to the choir.  But we all know someone, maybe a friend, maybe a family member, who hasn’t been to Mass in a while.  Invite them to come back home.  Invite them to come to Mass with you.  

Daily prayer is another way to begin to become the saint that God wants us to be.  It is supposed to be the growth from our experience at Mass.  How often do you talk to your colleagues at work?  How often do you talk to your friends?  How often do you talk to your spouse or your children?  If you talk to God less than any of these people, or any others, there’s room for improvement.  The less you think you need to pray, the more you actually do.  And don’t forget to listen.  Conversations are two-way streets.

Those are two simple ways to start becoming the saint that God called each of you to be in baptism.  There are more.  But let’s start with the basics.  Then we can talk about reading Scripture regularly, sharing faith in small groups, going on yearly retreats or to the Women’s or Men’s Conferences.  There’s a lot of disrepair in the church right now.  We can easily despair.  But, if we become saints, in God’s way for us as an individual, just like St. Francis responded to God’s way for him to become a saint as an individual, then God’s church will be rebuilt.  There will be more good news.  And, most importantly, we’ll prepare ourselves to be ready to spend eternity in heaven with God, enveloped by His love with all the other people who were saints and helped to rebuild God’s church.  God is inviting you today: rebuild his Church!

Saintly Instructors

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            Catholics are not generally known for their knowledge of Scripture.  This is particularly sad because the entire New Testament was written by Catholics, guided by the Holy Spirit.  But still, Catholics do not do well in Bible memorization compared with our Protestant brothers and sisters. 

Still, if there’s one passage from Scripture that every Catholic knows, it is certainly the passage from today’s Gospel: “‘You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind…[and] you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”  Not a bad quote to have memorized, as “‘the whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.’”

But, we have to admit, the Law of Love, as it has come to be known, is pretty broad.  It lacks a certain amount of details.  What if I think that it’s perfectly fine, even if I’m not sick or homebound, to sit in my back yard all day Sunday, admiring God’s beautiful creation, but never going to Mass?  Is that loving God with my whole heart, soul, and mind?  Some would certainly say so, though probably not those who are here, because they’re probably outside, in their back yards, admiring God’s creation instead of coming to Mass.  But who’s to say?  Or what if I think that it’s quite loving to steal a little bit of money on an irregular basis, because I need the money more, and my large company won’t really miss it; they have enough profit without this little bit of cash?  Is that loving my neighbor as myself? 

Certainly, if this were the only thing Jesus had said, then we could rightfully critique his vagueness.  But, of course, we have the rest of Scripture which helps us to know exactly what is the loving thing.  We hear a little bit about that in the Book of Exodus, as God tells us that loving our neighbor means not oppressing the foreigners, widows, or orphans, because their cries to God are precious and are always heard, and God will repay.  We certainly also have the Church, the Body of Christ, which teaches with Jesus’ authority on earth as to what we should or should not be doing, believing, etc.  It is the Church’s particular mission to guide Her children, that is, us, into a life of truth and holiness.  And in order to do this effectively and without error in matters of faith and morals, Christ gives a special charism, a special gift, to His Church, so that she never errs in faith or morals so that we can have a true compass to help us to know what exactly it means to love God and love our neighbor.

But another guide comes from our second reading.  St. Paul states that the Thessalonians became imitators of him and of the Lord.  St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians also said, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”  St. Paul puts himself out there as a model to be followed, because he is modeling his life on Jesus.

We have tons of options for role models today.  We have American Idols, athletes, actors and actresses, musicians, family members, and many others.  And while I would certainly encourage us to learn follow the example of our secular role models when they are worth following (when they are living according to the Gospel), as Catholics we have family members, long since dead in many cases, who say to us by their deeds, if not by their words, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”

St. Monica & St. Augustine

These role models that we should have, these Catholic ancestors of ours, are the saints.  They are the true role models, the people that we should truly be following.  Many years ago it was “Christian cool” to have a bracelet that said WWJD—What Would Jesus Do?  But, as Catholics, we could have just as easily had bracelets that said WWMD—What Would Mary Do? or WWPD—What Would Peter Do? and those are only two saints.  Each day of the year the Church puts before us a saint: some we celebrate at Mass, others are more local saints and never get big celebrations.  But all of them help us to know what it means to love God and love our neighbor. 

St. Thérèse

      Are you a mother or grandmother whose children have fallen away from the faith and lived not such a holy life?  Look to St. Monica, who won the conversion of her son, St. Augustine, by her tears after Augustine had wondered into just about every main heresy, had a child or two out of wedlock, and was far away from home for a while.  Are you a young man who loves adventure and the outdoors?  Look to Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, who was secretly very generous to the poor, and who loved to explore God’s beautiful creation (while still attending Mass on Sundays), and whose famous phrase “Verso l’alto” means to climb towards the top, to be the best not only in competition, but especially in love of God and of neighbor.  Are you daddy’s little princess?  Look to St. Thérèse, who was her dad’s princess, and knew that, although she could never do big things in her life, she still wanted to do small things with great love.

Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati

The Church is full of the example of saints who show us in their own circumstances how to love God and love our neighbor, according to their state in life: whether priest, deacon, wife, husband, king, queen, poor person, wild person, religious, child, you name it.  They are models to us of a life of holiness, sometimes after very sinful parts of their life.  The more we read about the lives of the saints, the more we will understand in any given situation what it means to truly love God and truly love our neighbor as ourselves because we will have learned how saints have loved in similar circumstances.  And then, if we love God and love our neighbor, then maybe others, centuries from now, will look to us for help from heaven, to show them what it means to love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  All holy men and women of God, pray for us!!