Fr. JC Maximilian

I would ask the readers of this blog to keep in your prayers two priests of the Diocese of Trenton who died this week.

Fr. Thomas Rittenhouse was the pastor of St. Peter’s Church in Riverside, NJ. I did not know him much at all, just to say hello to at priest gatherings. Fr. Tom was 56 years old. I do know that he had been ill for quite sometime, but as Bishop Smith noted in his homily this morning, Fr. Tom always gave all that he could to serve the People of God.

I also did not know very well Fr. David Adams, parochial vicar at St. Leo the Great Parish in Lincroft, NJ. His death was a bit more shocking because he had not been ill at all before hand, and he was only 47 years old when he died. His funeral will be tomorrow.

In a wierd way, the funeral of a priest highlights the common fraternity of the Ministerial Priesthood. The last several priest funerals that I have attended I did not know the priest well, in the one case I had never met him. However, they are brother priests; all of us certainly have our shortcomings, but each of us have responded to a call from God to serve the Church, to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass, and to reconcile repentant sinners. We are “earthen vessels” to whom Almighty God has entrusted a most precious gift. I honor the service of Frs. Tom and Dave, and pray for their immortal souls, and the consolation of their family, friends and parishioners.

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Last night, the Diocese of Trenton held its annual “Red” Mass. In case you do not know what a Red Mass is, it is a Mass that prays for lawyers, judges, and those who work in public service (i.e., politicians). The Red Mass is sponsored by the St. Thomas More Society; an organization of Catholic lawyers, judges, and public servants. Since the Mass was held at 4 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, I could not attend the Mass. You see, this year’s honoree is a native son of the parish at which I am currently assigned. He was born here in Trenton, attended Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows (before the merger with St. Anthony’s), and was married here. His mother, a wonderful 91 year-old lady, still is a faithful parishioner, although the honoree has since located out of State. Of course I am speaking about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Jr.

I had never met Justice Alito before, and only had a chance to speak with him briefly. He struck me as a very humble and sincere man. I know that he is very committed to his family. He frequently returns to Hamilton to visit his mother, and there is a rather persistent rumor that he does her grocery shopping at a local supermarket. He also looks in regularly on his aunt, his mother’s older sister, who has no other family besides her nephew and niece.

Justice Alito spoke at the dinner after the Mass (which I was able to attend) without notes. And while my poor memory will not allow me to give a detailed summary of his talk, the key point, IMHO, stemmed from two jokes that he told. First he spoke about a doctor, a lawyer and a teacher all arriving in heaven at the same time, and each were assigned their residence. The doctor got a nice house, the teacher a modest cabin, while the lawyer got a palatial mansion. When the doctor and teacher asked why the lawyer got such a palatial mansion, St. Peter replied, “Well, we have never had a lawyer in heaven before.” The second joke was about a lawyer who did not care for his residence in heaven, and being a lawyer, he filed an appeal with God. St. Peter told him it would take at least 3 years before his appeal would be heard. Later Satan came to the lawyer and said, “if you would like to file a change in venue to hell we can have your appeal heard right away.” The lawyer asked why, and Satan said that since all the judges are in hell the docket was very short.

While of course everyone laughed at these jokes, Justice Alito asked if it wasn’t a shame. Why has the legal profession gotten to be the punchline in so many jokes, and a reputation of being amoral at best, and immoral at worse. He pondered what would St. Thomas More, who of course was a lawyer and statesman as well as a devout Catholic, think he came to visit us today. While he was certain that St. Thomas More would applaud our religious tolerance, and independent judiciary, he feared that St. Thomas would be sadden by the lack of moral conviction in many in the legal profession and public service. In this country, while we have much religous liberty, it seems to be a liberty that we are only allowed to exercise privately and not express publically. Justice Alito thought that a key component in what he sees as a decline in the legal profession is that there is a move away for it being a profession, and being more of a business. He noted that while not that long ago most lawyers were generalists and most law professors had been practictioners, today most lawyers seem to want to specialize in a narrow area of the law, and in many law schools legal practitioners are looked down upon with near contempt.

I am not a lawyer, so I will leave it to those who are to comment on whether Justice Alito’s observations of the current trends in law are correct, but I was very impressed that he seems to genuinely reflect on how to integrate his faith into his professional life. He quoted from Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason), from memory mind you. He also related much of what he said to the life of St. Thomas More, clearly someone he tries to emulate. It was a good evening.

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“Do you not yet have faith?” This is not only a question that Jesus asks His apostles after calming the sea in today’s Gospel reading, but it is the question that frames all the Sunday liturgies for the rest of the liturgical year as we return to what the Church calls “Ordinary Time.” In the coming weeks and months, the readings at Mass will have us journey with Jesus and His disciples, reliving their experiences of Jesus’ words and deeds as they lived with Him, and through these experiences we are called to come to know and believe in Jesus as they did.

Today’s readings present us with a common literary structure. First, we have a dangerous situation, in this case the storm while at sea. Then there is the confident calling to God for help, followed by God’s miraculous intervention. This should then lead to thanksgiving, and awe and wonder by those who have witnessed God’s power. Today’s Gospel reading seems to be a good example of this; the Apostles become frightened by the storm while they are at sea, they call on Jesus to help them, Jesus tells the sea to “Be Still!” And the Apostles are filled with awe and ask themselves, “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?” Seems pretty simple right? Well let’s look at things a bit more closely.

For the Jewish people at the time of the Apostles, the sea was something to be feared. Yet, many of the Apostles were fishermen, they were used to the sea. They probably had gotten pretty good at reading the “signs” that a storm was approaching, and they certainly appreciated the danger that a storm posed to a boat at sea. Yet, despite their skill and experience, they have gotten caught in a storm on the open sea. They fear that they are going to be drowned. So what do they do? They turn to the carpenter who is sleeping in the boat.

We might be tempted to say, “See, the Apostles knew that Jesus could help them. They were demonstrating their faith in Him.” Well, let’s look a little closer at what the Apostles say. The Apostles do not ask Jesus for help directly. In fact they are a bit sarcastic, saying, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Of course God cares for us! He sent His only begotten Son to suffer and die for us, so that we could be set free from sin and death, and have eternal life with Him in Heaven. Jesus tells us in the Gospel that He has come so that we might have life, life to the full. He promises that not even a hair on our heads will be forgotten. God’s love for each and every one of us is overwhelming.

However, God is not just the divine problem-solver. This is why Jesus chastises the Apostles, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” Jesus wants all of His disciples to totally abandon themselves to Him, for this is true faith. It is an abandonment to God that excludes all fear. Either we accept God as our all-good, loving Father who only wants the best for us, or we don’t. If we accept God as our loving Father, if we truly believe and have really abandoned ourselves to His hands and will, then we know that nothing can truly harm us.

Sadly, this is not the faith of too many Christians. Many do not attend Mass regularly. They seek only to do the bare minimum, if that. But when they are experiencing a crisis, when a storm arises for them, they cry out to God to save them. Then when God does not give them exactly what they want, they say, “See, God does not care! He doesn’t really love us.”

Because faith is a gift and requires the submission of our mind and will, it must be nourished and protected with prudence and vigilance if it is to grow strong. Otherwise our faith will weaken, and perhaps even be lost. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say that only a faith in action deepens. By a faith in action she meant a faith that is nourished by daily prayers, Sunday Mass, reception of the sacraments, and acts of charity.

Certainly God wants us to bring our needs to Him, and to ask for the graces we need to live the situations in our lives. However, one we ask, we should then just live with the total confidence that God has already given us what we need; even if it might not be what we want. The storms in our lives are there so that we can exercise our faith in God.

“Everything is in God’s hands; if we could only convince ourselves of this! It is all in His hands, since He has conquered the world – even death. Knowing this should lead us to a habitual attitude of praise and thanksgiving” (Ermatinger, “Sacerdos Homilies, Cylce B: June-July 2006” p. 15).

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OK, it does not look as if there has been anyone but me visiting this blog in a while, so this might not be the most effective “plug” for something, but I am going to make a plug for ProLifeSearch

I am sure that all of you have heard about the mega Internet search engine called Google; you want to find the website for something, you just “google it.” Well, a few months ago I found out about ProLifeSearch from “Priests for Life.” It is a search engine, powered by Google, that was created by two Catholic, married men. You use it just like the regular Google to search for whatever you are looking for. So why use it? Well there are two very big reasons:

1. They give at least 50% of their profit to Pro Life groups to continue their fight against the Culture of Death. That, in and of itself, is a great reason. How they make their profit, well, I only have a vague idea. I do know that it does not cost me anything to use it, not even when you register. I guess advertisers look at how many “hits” they get and use that informaton. But it is effortless money for the Pro Life movement. If you use the Net, you undoubtably search for stuff on the Net, so you might as well use ProLifeSearch to help you search.

2. It is a “safer” search engine for those of us who try to live our Catholic/Christian faith. Have you ever searched for something on the Internet, and in addition to getting the listing for what you are looking for, you also get so-called “adult” sites? Well, ProLifeSearch has a built in filter so when you search for something, it will block out anything that would be immoral (OK, it probably does not block the “adult” sites, they can be wilely, but it does its best to block them all).

I use Firefox for my web browser, and I quickly figured out how to change the default for my search window (which is to the right of the address line) from regular Google to ProLifeSearch. I could not figure out how to make the change in Safari, but I only tried for less than 5 minutes because I do not use Safari much. I cannot help you if you use Internet Explorer or Netscape or whatever they use on Windows machines because I am very happy to be a Mac user. Please take a look at ProLifeSearch.

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Since I did not get to preach this weekend, I thought I would share just a few reflections that occurred to me as I prayed about today’s Solemnity this past week.

I love the liturgy. I cannot say it any plainer than that. I love the liturgy; so much so that it truly pains me to see liturgical abuse. I am not talking about mistakes or carelessness (although needless carelessness in the liturgy bothers me too). Rather, I am talking about the self-centered, “I’ll do it my way”-attitude that is way too common. One of the principle reasons for the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council was to remove the various things that had been added to the Mass over the centuries. There was a desire to get back to the simple Roman Rite (too often there was a failure to keep the “noble” with the simplicity which has been characteristic of the Roman Rite). Many of the more “vertical” or Divine oriented actions were scaled back. However, in just 40 some years we seem to have added so much that the liturgy does not call for, almost exclusively of the “horizontal” or human level. There are few places where the GIRM says that a priest can “say this or in similar words” (and there is no place where the deacon can “in similar words”) to modify the text of the Mass. The Mass is not about the priest or deacon or the laity. It is for us; it is our entering into the work of salvation accomplished by the Trinity. The liturgy does not belong to us, but rather to the Church, and that is why no one is suppose to just alter the Mass on their own. Obedience to the “rubrics” is a way of living out what Jesus lived, as He says so often in the Gospel, “I only do the work my Father gives me to do” or “I only say the things my Father tells me to say.”

In my prayer this week I came to realized why a poorly prayed Mass (which for me means is more people doing it their own way) is so upsetting for me. What husband would not get upset to see others treat his wife abusively? Being ordained “in persona Christi capitas” when I celebrate Mass it is Christ working through me, and the Church is His Bride. Liturgical abuse is like watching a person abuse my wife. And to see the neglect and lack of respect that I often witness to the most Blessed Sacrament is the worse of the abuse.

How great a gift is the Eucharist, yet so many come to receive with a lackisdasical attitude. I cannot tell you how often people come with filthy hands to receive our Lord. Of course there are many, and probably the majority of regular Mass goers, who are very reverent, and they give me joy to see. The deacon who preached at the Masses I celebrated this weekend, captured that well when in his hommily he talked about the joyful eagerness that the sick he visits often have when he brings them the Eucharist. All of us should tremble in awe of “so Great a Gift.”

I am hopeful, however. As you may know, this week the US Bishops voted on a new translation of the Roman Missal. In the past I was no fan of the International Committee for English in the Liturgy (ICEL), because the translations they did in the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s were, IMHO, mundane and lacking in sacredness. We should bring our best to Mass (remember when we dressed in “our Sunday best” for Mass? If you can buy your kids an iPod or Gameboy, you can get them something better to wear at Mass than a tee shirt and jeans). And that should include our language. Well, in the late 1990s ICEL was given a facelift, and the new translation that they developed for the Missal is much more faithful to the Latin text and much more noble and beautiful. It will take some getting used to, but as Archbishop Chaput noted, it will provide us priests and deacons an opportunity to teach people about the liturgy, so that they can fall in love with it all over again. As another bishop put it, “we will learn to speak Bible.”

There were other things I was going to say in this post, but between being called away to help jumpstart someone’s car, and some other interruptions, I have forgotten. If I remember I’ll write some more.

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If you ask most priests and deacons, they will tell you that probably the most difficult solemnity of the liturgical year to preach about is today’s celebration of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. How can anyone summarize the Trinity in a few minutes? Even if I were to preach for an hour – now don’t start to stress out, I am not going to give an hour-long homily, but even if I did, I would only be able to scratch the surface of this most profound mystery of our Faith.

The Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman once noted that the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity was unlike any of the other major feasts that we celebrate during the Church year. While the Annunciation, Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, the Ascension and Pentecost are all profound mysteries, Newman noted that we do not celebrate them simply because they are mysteries, rather we celebrate them for the blessings which we gain from them. However, “to-day we celebrate, not an act of God’s mercy toward us, but, forgetting ourselves, and looking only upon Him, we reverently and awfully, yet joyfully, extol the wonders, not of His works, but of His own Nature” (J.H. Newman, “Sermon 23: Faith without Demonstration,” Parochial and Plain Sermons, Ignatius Press, p. 1390). It is truly good to spend time in prayerful contemplation of the Most Holy Trinity, yet we cannot spend the whole homily just in silent contemplation. So I had to pick one aspect of the Trinity, ideally based on the Scripture readings from today’s Mass, to reflect on.

Let me ask you all a question, what did you do when entered the church today? Hopefully we dipped our right hand in the Holy Water fount at the door of the church and then made the Sign of the Cross. OK, maybe some of you forgot to do so, but we really should bless ourselves with Holy Water as we enter a church. Why? What is the Holy Water and Sign of the Cross suppose to remind us of? All of you who said “Baptism” get a gold star. In fact, I was taught as a child, that when I enter a church I should dip my hand in the Holy Water, and as I make the Sign of the Cross say, “I remember my baptism in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

In today’s Gospel reading we hear Jesus, just before He ascends into Heaven, tell the Apostles to, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” The Church still uses these words of Christ in the Sacrament of Baptism.

If I was to ask you what was the best day of your life, I would probably get a variety of answers like, “the day I got married,” or “the day my child was born.” How many of us would say, “The best day of my life was the day I was baptized?” Probably not many of us. Now, to be fair, one reason for that might be because many of us do not remember our baptism because we were little babies. However, we should have learned about the sacrament of Baptism, so we should know just how important it is. What could be more important than receiving the sacrament that Jesus said was necessary for salvation? What could be more momentous than the day we were “born again” as sons and daughters of God? “Yet sadly, many of us have been baptized without ever coming to understand its reality and meaning, and we, in turn, baptize our children with our eyes still veiled to the eternal significance of this sacred ritual” (Judith Landrieu Klein, MTS, Living Water: Understanding the Gift of New Life through Baptism, Catholic Faith Explorers, p. 1).

There are so many effects of baptism that I could talk about, but since it is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, let me focus on just one. Through our baptism we are brought into the life of the Blessed Trinity. Jesus commanded the Apostles, and their successors, to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit because He desires that we bear His family name. Yes, the name of the Holy Trinity is God’s family name.

As we know, the One, eternal God consists of three Divine Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and receiving the Sign of the Cross signifies our belief in their existence and union. The Sign of the Cross also expresses our understanding that we are born into God’s extended family by our Baptism. “The innermost mystery of the Divine Family is precisely the familial love shared among them – a love exchange between the Eternal Father and his only begotten Son that is so great that it literally overflows into a Third Person, the Holy Spirit. When we are baptized, we are granted more than a ‘name only’ association with the Trinity; we are impregnated with the Spirit of their love, who comes to live within us to enable us to behave as God’s family members. That means that we can now put our unwavering faith in God’s promises, hope in heaven as our true home, and most importantly, love with the very love of God” (Judith Landrieu Klein, MTS, Living Water: Understanding the Gift of New Life through Baptism, Catholic Faith Explorers, p. 7).

Pretty awesome don’t you think? To quote Moses, from today’s first reading, “Did anything so great ever happen before?”

Yet, too many Christians fail to live up to their Baptismal promises, which can be summarized by two Scripture passages; “Go, and do not sin again” (John 8:11), and “Be holy because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). Promises are important. Not to keep a promise, especially one made to God, is immoral.

Since we are here, at Mass today, I think it is fair to say that most of us here are at least trying to live out our Baptismal promises. Sure, each of us fail at times to do so, but we are coming to Mass each week to be instructed by the Word of God and strengthened by the Body and Blood of Christ. However, I am sure that each of us knows someone who is not making any effort to live the Faith they were baptized into. Maybe some of you parents have children who are no longer practicing their Faith, and not raising their children in the Faith. Maybe we were asked to be godparents to someone, and they no longer practice the Faith. What are we to do? We might be tempted to shrug our shoulders and say, “its their own choice, they are adults now.” Maybe we ask, with Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Well the simple answer is YES! As God is a community of Divine Persons, we are baptized into the community of the Church, and yes, we share responsibility for each other. That means asking our children, godchildren, brothers, sisters, cousins, parents and friends why they have become slack in the practice of the faith. Don’t let them off the hook easy. Don’t let them make excuses like, “well, I’m too busy. Besides, I don’t need to pray in church to be a good Catholic.” That is wrong, and it is endangering their immortal soul. Don’t yell, don’t scream, don’t threaten them. Invite them back to Church. Share with the joy of the Lord that you have from practicing the Faith, the consolation and strength you receive from it in times of trials. Let the love of the Trinity shine through you.

We cannot be silent. Jesus commands us to spread the Good News of our salvation, making disciples of all the nations. This greatest charity must begin in our own homes, families and neighborhoods.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

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