First Mass

Our newest Paulist priest celebrated his First Mass yesterday at St. Paul the Apostle Church. It's always a joy to be back in our community's "Mother Church," to return to the altar where I celebrated and concelebrated so many Masses during my 10 years as associate pastor, but especially to be back for such a joyful occasion as we celebrated there yesterday.

One of the reasons a wedding is such a special and festive event is that it expresses and celebrates the hope that the human race will continue and that the story of this or that particular family is far from over but will, it is hoped, continue as well. I suppose that the First Mass of a newly ordained priest is a bit like that. It celebrates our continued confidence in Christ's promise to be with his Church until the end of the age, and our more particular hope that the Church will continue to flourish here in our own time and place and, even more particularly, our hope that our community story - in this case, the story of the Paulist Fathers, their life together, and their mission to North America - will likewise continue.

Reflecting on the Church and the priesthood while in Egypt in 1873, Servant of God Isaac Hecker wrote: "The great work of the Holy Spirit is the the salvation, the sanctification of mankind upon earth and their glorification hereafter by means of the Church. ... It is the Holy spirit who, through the sacrament of ordination, is in the priest who consecrates the Body and Blood of Christ, who pardons sins, who blesses, teaches the word of God, and dispenses grace."

As we watch Fr. Dat begin his sacred ministry, may we all recommit ourselves, according to our proper calling and vocation, to the continuation of this great story!

An Ordination in NY

This morning I attended the ordination of fellow Paulist Dat Tran to the holy priesthood. It was an occasion of personal joy for me, having known Dat ever he applied to enter the community while a senior at the University of California at Berkeley. I was privileged to be one of his interviewers when he applied and again a few years later served as his summer superviser while he was with us at St. Paul the Apostle parish in New York. More than any of that, however, his ordination is an occasion of great joy for our Paulist community, which has not celebrated an ordination to the priesthood in three long years. Hopefully, that desert experience is over as we look forward, God willing, to three ordinations next year.

This morning's ordination came as the climax of a powerful experience of Paulist community, the 2011 Paulist Retreat at Long Branch, NJ, a Spirit-filled week which will joyfully conclude with Fr. Tran's 1st Mass tomorrow morning. Being together for several days of reflection, retreat, and prayer, hearing each others' stories of adversity and resilience, confirmed us Paulists as a community of joy, gratitude, and hope. The beautiful and relaxing oceanside setting certainly helped, just as the majestic magnificence of St. Paul the Apostle Church contributed to the grandeur of today's ceremony.

When the Church calls a man and ordains him to the priesthood, it does more than set apart one individual, blessing and consecrating him for a holy life in the sacred ministry. In a sense, it recapitulates the character and call of the Church, animated by the presence of the Risen Christ, to be the priestly link, a conduit of grace, between God and the world, the institution within which and through which God's ancient promise to Abraham that, through him all the nations of the earth would find blessing, is literally being fulfilled.

None of this changes the challenges that threaten the Church, religious life, and indeed the world - challenges of which the recent paucity of ordinations is certainly a serious symptom. A week like this is, however, a happy reminder of what we are all about and of who remains present among us.

Regina Coeli

The world did not end yesterday. So, this morning, at the end of the 10:00 Mass, it was time to carry out that wonderful annual traditon - the annual “May crowning” of the Blessed Virgin Mary. While children of the parish carried flowers in procession around the Church, the congregation sang the Litany of Loretto, followed by the traditional “May Crowning” hymn (all 3 verses), with its familiar refrain O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today …

One of the largest collections of vernacular monophonic music from the Middle Ages, Cantigas de Santa Maria, associated with Alfonso X (1221-1284), King of Castile, Leon, and Galicia, supposedly reflects a medieval custom of honoring Mary on particular days in May. Formal “May devotions,” often accompanied by pilgrimages, have been attested to in 16th-century Italy, and from there they spread to other parts of Europe and eventually to America. Often the final devotion on May 31 was accompanied by a solemn procession. The popular custom of a “May Crowning” of statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary towards the end of May is, I suppose, a further development of this.

Luke’s Gospel identifies Jesus, even before his birth, with the messianic significance of David’s kingship over Israel (Luke 1:32-33). Christian tradition and liturgy have long honored Jesus as King - and by extension Mary as queen - with all the symbolic splendor and resonance that those royal titles convey. In his 1954 encyclical letter Ad Coeli Reginam, Pope Pius XII, established a feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, convinced, he claimed, “that great good will accrue to the Church if this solidly established truth shines forth more clearly to all, like a luminous lamp raised aloft.” The date Pius picked for his new feast was May 31, which certainly seemed to put a papal stamp-of-approval on the popular custom of May Crownings. In the current calendar, Pius XII’s feast (downgraded to a “memorial”) has been moved to August 22, the octave Day of the Assumption, thus fittingly connecting the concept of Mary’s queenship with her present post-Assumption position in heaven – and in the Church.

However “May Crowning” may have originally developed, it remains a very popular Catholic custom. By its nature, a coronation highlights the special significance of the person being crowned. At the same time, the traditional use of a floral crown in the customary “May Crowning” gives it a somewhat folksy character, which perhaps has even further endeared it to people and added to its persistent popularity from generation to generation.

Show Us the Father!

“Master,” the Apostle Philip said to Jesus in the Gospel we just heard [John 14:1-12], “show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Now, most of us were brought up to be respectful to our teachers. So we instinctively peg Philip as a bit bold. Jesus’ response would seem to confirm our instinctive sense that what Philip was asking was really rather over-the-top. “Have I been with you for so long,” Jesus said to Philip, “and you still do not know me?” Ouch!

On the other hand, if we’re really honest, isn’t that what we all want? Don’t we all want a direct line to God? Or at least some tangible sign of his reality and activity – some tangible signs that God cares about us and acts in our best interest?

Thirty years ago this summer, I entered the Paulist novitiate – then located on 1100 acres of rocks and trees in northern New Jersey. It was, on balance, a great year, a fantastic experience. But it was hard at times. And it was made harder for me in the early months by the fact that I kept comparing myself with others, who had a more charismatic style of spirituality and so, in my estimation, a higher quality relationship with God. Eventually, I set myself a deadline – December 8 – by which date I was to receive the gift of tongues. Exactly what would happen after December 8, if I didn’t get what I was asking for, was left unsaid – and unsettled. Maybe I was smart enough – or just cynical enough – to suspect it wouldn’t happen, and that I would then still have to figure out what I was doing there. Needless to say, December 8 came and went. Shortly thereafter, when I described the whole episode to my Novice Master, he responded with what were probably some of the wisest words of advice he ever gave me (and he gave me many). “God answered your prayer,” he said to me, “by showing you that you didn’t need what you were asking for.”

God had in fact answered my prayer precisely by getting me to understand that he was already present and active in my life. Responding to Philip, Jesus said something similar. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus is our direct line to God, and we experience God’s presence and activity in our lives most effectively in our experience of Jesus.

(There is an added irony in this Gospel story. A few days earlier, some Greeks had asked to see Jesus, and Philip had served as their liaison, their conduit, to Jesus [John 12:21-22]. Already, Philip was evangelizing. Often, in fact, we may be evangelizing without fully knowing that we’re doing it! )

Now the normal way we meet Jesus – and also the normal way we share him with others – is in the Church, where we do so not as isolated individuals, but as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own,” as St. Peter proclaimed in today’s 2nd reading [1 Peter 2:4-9], quoting God’s words at Mount Sinai to the people of Israel [Exodus 19:5-6]. What God told Israel and (according to Peter) applies now to the Church is to be the liaison, the conduit, between God and the world, which we are because, like Philip, we too experience Jesus, the Risen Christ, living among us, always present in his Church.

As our unique and indispensable connection with Christ, the Church continues Christ’s mission in us and in our world, proclaiming the uniqueness and centrality of Christ for all the people of the world, thereby echoing Jesus’ words in today’s gospel: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father.”

It was precisely the apostles’ confidence in the Risen Christ’s continued, living presence – as Lord – in his Church, that enabled them to take the bold step we just heard described in today’s 1st reading, from the Acts of the Apostles [Acts 6:1-7]. If nothing else that story reminds us once again of the perennial problem of factional conflict, of cultural and ethnic divisiveness, of ideological division and polarization, that can so easily undermine the unity and universality of the Church and get in the way of its mission – not just in 1st-century Jerusalem but in every time and place. Certainly, one of the unfortunate features of the decades after the Second Vatican Council was how its call for a greater engagement in the Church’s mission to the world so often became instead an occasion for conflict and division between different groups in the Church.

But there was something else to that story. Confident in the Risen Christ’s continued, living presence – as Lord – in his Church, the apostles appreciated how the challenge they were faced with could become an opportunity instead of a threat. Thus, the apostles paved the way for their little sectarian community to expand linguistically and eventually to become the world-wide, multi-cultural Church it now is.

Today we continue to be challenged to be that same liaison, that same conduit, Christ intended his Church to be between him and all types of people – to be as alert as were the apostles to the challenges and equally as ready to respond to the opportunities this complicated and diverse world offers.

Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, May 21-22, 2011.

What Shall We Do?

To repeat the same news over and over - to oneself or to others – can help it be accepted and become part of the things that matter most in one’s life. To hear the proclamation of the resurrection, over and over, during these Easter Sundays strengthens our faith by the witness of others’ faith - in particular the faith of the apostles. So one of the most noticeable features that distinguishes Easter from other seasons of our Catholic liturgical year is the daily reading from the New Testament book known as The Acts of the Apostles. Through our journey with the original apostles through the book of Acts, we identify ourselves with that first generation of Christians in their experience of the Risen Christ, becoming like them a community of disciples which witnesses to the presence and action of the Risen Lord in his Church a community expresses its new life in its liturgy.

In today’s 1st reading from Peter’s preaching to the people that first Pentecost Sunday [Acts 2:14a, 36-41], Peter wanted his hearers to feel personally impacted by his message – not simply hearing some new bit of information about which one might or might not care, as we do all day long in our “information age.” According to the Acts of the Apostles, Peter was apparently quite successful. The people, we are told, were cut to the heart, and they asked Peter and the other apostles, “What are we to do, my brothers?” (Some 35 years ago, in a grad school paper on the change in world-view which the “global resource crisis” - as it was then called - might require, I took that verse for my title, using an older translation, “Brethren, what shall we do?”)

Now one response to Peter’s message might have been a certain feeling of guilt. In the process of conversion, guilt is often a first step. Guilt alone, however, can get stuck in a focus on oneself. We avoid getting stuck, absorbed in ourselves, when guilt goes forward to true conversion, which resolves guilt with forgiveness and the freedom which comes from forgiveness.

The proclamation of the good news – whether in 1st-century Jerusalem or 21st century Tennessee - ought always to lead to that call to conversion. As Peter told the people, the promise is made to all those. Whomever the Lord our God will call. The apostles’ message of the call to conversion was, in the first instance of course, an invitation to identification with Christ in baptism. But, once we have been baptized, we are repeatedly exhorted, as Peter exhorted his hearers in today’s 2nd reading [1 Peter 2:20b-25], to follow in Christ’s footsteps, living the new life made accessible to us by Christ’s death and resurrection, remaining united with him no matter what.

We hear this message repeated, Sunday after Sunday, during this Easter season, inviting us to see something not just for the 1st century, but for ourselves here and now already one decade into the 21st century.

In particular, on this 48th Annual World Day of Prayer for Vocations, the Church challenges us to focus in a special way on what is required for the message to continue to get out, to continue to get transmitted, from this generation to the next, in the life of Christ’s Body, the Church. With confidence in the Risen Lord’s promise to be with his Church forever and never to abandon it, we must like those first Christians nevertheless take seriously our responsibility to do our part in making the mission of the Church actually happen among the people of our day.

As Pope Benedict has written in his message for this Day of Prayer for Vocations:

“Particularly in these times, when the voice of the Lord seems to be drowned out by “other voices” and his invitation to follow him by the gift of one’s own life may seem too difficult, every Christian community, every member of the Church, needs consciously to feel responsibility for promoting vocations. It is important to encourage and support those who show clear signs of a call to priestly life and religious consecration, and to enable hem to feel the warmth of the whole community as they respond “yes” to God and the Church.”

“‘Proposing Vocations in the Local Church’,” the Pope continues, “means having the courage, through an attentive and suitable concern for vocations, to point out this challenging way of following Christ which, because it is so rich in meaning, is capable of engaging the whole of one’s life.”

Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter (48th Annual World Day of Prayer for Vocations), Immaculate Conception church, Knoxville, TN, May 15, 2011.